Hold My Breath(32)

“You’re the only thing that doesn’t make me want to drown,” Will says, and my hands fall softly into his hair. My lungs fill at the touch. “I think I came here knowing that you were my only shot at peace.”

My fingers thread through the wet strands, and Will twists his head in my lap, his rough jawline scratching my leg, his lips opening enough to catch on my skin, pausing until he pulls them closed in a kiss. His head rolls more, and his mouth brushes against my thigh again. I feel the chills all the way up to the back of my neck.

“Maddy,” he breathes my name against my skin.

My hands fall deeper into his hair, my hold stronger. Will’s hands move around me more, one sliding under my legs, bringing them toward him, outside the car, while his other hand holds the center of my back as he crawls closer to me, his body rising between my legs. His mouth kisses along the fringe of my denim shorts, then up to the waist band, until his teeth grip the bottom of my T-shirt and his hands slide to my hips, his thumbs hooking underneath the fabric and lifting my shirt up and over my body, tossing it to the passenger seat behind me.

Will rests his knee between my thighs, and I arch back over the center console while he moves over me, his mouth now pressing a kiss into my swimsuit-covered ribs, then the center of my chest. My fingers glide into his hair more, then down his chest as he rises above me, his forehead falling against mine as his eyes close. He shakes his head and parts his lips, almost as if he wants to say more, but before he can stop himself, before I can resist, his mouth covers mine completely, and the weight of his body falls into mine, every curve of my body scorching with the heat from the hardness of his.

Will’s lips caress, and he pulls my bottom lip between his teeth, applying sweet pressure that bends me against him and makes me want more. My hands circle to his back, and Will leans into me, pressing his hard erection between my legs while his right hand drags up my body, his thumb grazing along my breast and nipple on its way to the taut, wet strap digging into my right shoulder. Will’s fingers wrap around it, and I press into him, wanting him to keep going, the only way I can give him a sign because I’m too much of a coward to use my words. I don’t want to hear myself say I want Will Hollister. I don’t want to know what that means, what it says about me and the kind of girl I am. But I don’t want him to stop touching me, either.

Will begins to drag my strap over my shoulder, and our eyes meet just as fate steps in to stop us from something irreversible. Something we’d both probably regret, even though his eyes right now are telling me otherwise.

I bite my lip, and Will lays his head flat against my chest, and we remain motionless—soundless—until we hear my father’s car door slam closed—our bodies hidden by Will’s car parked between us. My dad’s steps slow, and I take a sharp breath through my nose, the sound of my heartbeat deafening in my ears. Neither of us breathes again until we hear the main door for the club open and close.

We lay still for another full minute. Will is the first to move, his arms lifting his body, his head falling heavy against me, like a magnet pulling—not wanting to let go.

“I’m so sorry,” he whispers.

My hands slide away from his hair, and he backs out from my car, from me.

I let him go.





Chapter Seven





Maddy





“See, now this is precisely why I didn’t ask you to write my paper. Look at me—spent the night out, still got up at a decent hour and bam…wrote that f*cker in a single day,” Holly says. She turns the shopping cart down the next aisle and sweeps six bags of chips from the edge of the shelf into our cart.

“I cannot fathom how you are a healthcare professional,” I say, putting two of the bags back.

“What? They’re baked?” she says, reaching for them behind my back and putting them back into the cart.

“Baked flavored,” I correct.

Holly left her phone at my parents’ house, something we discovered when I sent her half a dozen texts after the lake with Will, only to have my mom carry my friend’s phone up to my room and hand it to me. Luckily, I didn’t say anything incriminating in text, because now that I’m an adult, my mom has no qualms about blatantly sticking her nose in my business.

I also seem to have lost the desire—or perhaps the courage—to share what happened with Holly. Talking about it, even with her, makes it a thing. And I have to see Will for five more weeks of training, and things make getting my work done in the pool hard. Things also make sleeping hard. And…well…functioning gets hard, too.

“You know, the fact that it was so easy for you to bounce back from, what was it, seven shots of tequila? That sorta points to a bigger problem…perhaps,” I say, sucking my bottom lip in and holding my breath, waiting for her reaction.

“First of all, it was eight. And second of all, it means I have a very high tolerance, like a super power. And it also means that you’re a *,” she says, the grocery clerk at the line we just entered shooting his head up the second that word leaves her lips. Holly just winks at him, her lips puckering a hint, which makes the old man reach up to loosen his collar.

“That’s, like, the second time you’ve called me a * in a week,” I say, my cheeks a little hot from the stares my friend has earned us. I’m feeling it, too, old man, though for different reasons.