Every Summer After(62)

He looked down at where he gripped my leg and back to me. His eyes were a question mark.

“Calf muscle?” I said. “Good to know . . . I’ll be sure to try to use it one day. I’ve heard of this thing called running.” I laughed, and he moved his hand away.

We sat with our books open for several minutes, neither of us turning a page. I felt the promise of something more between us slipping, to be tucked away like the old box of embroidery floss in my desk drawer. So I tried to hold on.

I pushed my toes under his thigh.

“Learn anything else from that book of yours?” I asked. His eyes snapped to mine. He nodded slowly.

“Want to enlighten me, genius?” I made my best attempt to sound playful, but my voice was shaky.

“Percy . . .” It took every ounce of confidence I had to not break eye contact.

“I guess I’ll just have to get some other future doctor to educate me,” I teased, and he blinked rapidly. And then I knew. I knew that this was his weak spot. He hated the idea of someone else touching me. When he moved his hand back to my calf, I wanted to scream in triumph.

He didn’t grip it this time. Instead, he ran his fingers back and forth over the muscle, shooting electricity through my body, every nerve ending sparking to life. Sam’s lips were set in a serious, straight line, his face a mask of concentration. We both watched his hand moving over my calf and then slowly down my leg. He grasped it at the bottom. He looked up at me with a grin.

“Ankle,” he said.

I let out a sound that was somewhere between a laugh and a gasp. He shifted so that he knelt at my feet and took my other ankle in his right hand so that he was holding on to both my legs. He looked into my eyes for one, two, three seconds. I swallowed. And then, watching my reaction, he skimmed a finger slowly up my leg.

“Shin.”

I had plotted, dreamed, obsessed about Sam touching me. I had lain on my bed with my hand between my legs fantasizing about his hands and his shoulders and the crease in his bottom lip. I wanted so badly to touch him, to move my fingers along the faint line of hair that led from his belly button and into his bathing suit. And now I was frozen. I was terrified of ruining the moment, of shaking Sam out of whatever magic had come over him.

He cupped his palm around my knee following with his other hand on the opposite knee. He pushed them apart and crept slightly up the bed so he was between them, then grabbed my ankles and pulled my legs flat against the bed. He leaned over me, and my arms shook from holding myself upright. I could feel his breath on my face. Without moving his eyes from mine, he whispered, “Lie back, Percy.”

I did what he told me to, my heart pounding in my chest, and he knelt between my legs, looking down at me, his eyes dark. His long torso blocked the breeze from the fan, and suddenly I was overheating. I could feel sweat forming on my upper lip. Not taking his eyes off mine, he put his hand back on my knee.

“Knee,” he whispered. I blinked up at him. The air felt heavy.

“Knee, huh? What grade level is that book at?” I teased.

A small smile played at his lips. “Vastus medialis, vastus lateralis, tensor fasciae latae,” he said softly, moving his fingers higher. It felt like all my nerve endings concentrated underneath his fingers. He grazed the soft flesh on the inside of my thigh. “Adductor longus,” he murmured, and I sucked in a breath. He trailed his index finger from the sensitive part of my inner thigh, following the crease between the top of my leg and my pelvis, under the hem of the T-shirt. He flattened his hand over the protrusion of my hip bone, then wrapped it around my hip, over the ties of my bikini. He held it there, watching me, the smile gone from his face. I wanted to pull him down on top of me and feel his weight pressing me into the bed. I wanted to tug at the waves in his hair and put my mouth on his warm neck, but I kept still, my chest rising and falling.

He pushed the shirt up over my stomach, and slowly he untied the bow at one side of my bathing suit. When he had it loosened, he pulled the strings apart and ran his hand up and down the curve of my waist and hip. “Gluteus medius.” He moved his hand around to the back. “Gluteus maximus.” I let out a nervous laugh.

“Done with anatomy lessons for today?” he asked, his voice hoarse and deep. I swallowed and shook my head. His eyes flashed with victory, and he shimmied the shirt up higher. I lifted my upper back off the bed and he pulled the T-shirt off over my head. I lay back and the sudden exposure of air on my damp suit made me shiver. His eyes dropped to the pieces of triangular fabric that covered my chest, where my breasts spilled from the sides, my nipples tight peaks against the cool material. His gaze lingered, and when he looked back at me, his eyes were the deepest shade of blue I’d ever seen them.

He moved his body down the bed slightly, then leaned down, pressing his mouth to the skin below my belly button, whispering the names of muscles as he moved his mouth across my stomach, leaving a trail of kisses on my body. He ran his tongue over the crevice of my belly button and then moved it in a hot, wet line up the middle of my stomach, pausing to deliver kisses to different parts of my abdominals. My hips jerked, and I gripped the sheets in my fists. He passed the space between my breasts, and when he pressed his tongue to the hollow between my collarbones, a guttural moan sounded in my throat. I flattened my hands against his back, where his skin was hot and smooth, and he sucked on my neck just below my jaw, then ran his tongue to my ear, nipping at it slightly.