Say You Still Love Me(56)

He only lets go after my body is fully submerged.

“I hate you!” I sputter through my laughter, though I’m quickly warming to the temperature of the water.

“No you don’t,” he teases, lingering a few feet away, immersed to his neck.

My fingers itch to touch his bare skin. I glide toward him and he begins moving backward, just out of reach, drawing me out deeper and off to the right, away from Eric and Ashley and the others. He only stops when the water level sits at my shoulders and we’re alone. The sand feels weird out here. I scrunch my toes against the lake’s silky bottom.

“Hey.” He stoops in the water to meet me at eye level. His strong hands find my waist and he pulls me closer to him, fitting me in between his parted thighs.

“Hey.” My voice is a whisper as my fingers curl around his biceps, reveling in their shape and strength. My heart hammers inside my chest, memories of his pliable lips against mine last night flooding my mind, exploding my anticipation of a repeat.

“Did you like the movie tonight?” I ask.

“What movie?” He bows his head to settle his forehead against my temple, the tip of his slender nose grazing my cheek. “I wasn’t watching any movie.”

“It almost put me to sleep.” Lie. As if I could ever drift off with Kyle in the vicinity.

“You weren’t paying attention, either.” I hear a smirk in his voice.

“How would you know?”

His hand curls around to skate up my spine, stalling at the fastening of my bikini top, one finger casually slipping beneath it. “Because I was watching you.”

“That doesn’t sound creepy at all,” I tease.

He chuckles. “The way you look in this . . .” He slides one strap of my bikini top down and replaces it with his mouth, leaving a trail along my skin, hot against the cool air. I can’t tell if it’s the metal of his lip ring or just him that sends shivers through my body. “No wonder they don’t let counselors wear bikinis. My entire cabin would be hiding their hard-ons in the lake.”

“Oh my God! They’re like, twelve!” I cringe through my laugh.

“Exactly. Trust me. You wouldn’t believe the stuff they talk about.” He swallows hard and then, sliding the strap back in place, shifts away. “Sorry.”

“For what?”

He sighs. “I just don’t ever want you to think I’m pressuring you.”

Because of what I said about that pig Trevor the first night here.

I can’t help but laugh. If Kyle were Trevor, he’d have his tongue shoved down my throat and my top unfastened by now.

“What’s so funny?” he asks, a touch of wariness in his voice.

“Nothing. Just . . .” Kyle may have figured out that I’m a virgin, but I’m beginning to think he also assumes I’m entirely inexperienced. Beneath the water, I smooth my hands first over his chest, and then downward, admiring the cut of his lean torso. “I’m okay with this. With whatever.”

“With whatever?” I can’t see his face in the dark, but I can imagine his thick eyebrows arched with amusement.

I let my hand drift farther down, my palm flat as I slide it over the front of his shorts, enjoying the hard form against my palm a moment, letting him know that I’m not that delicate or inexperienced.

Kyle’s breathing wavers, and the sound of his swallow catches my ear. “Got it.” He cups my chin with his palm and leans in to kiss me—not as fervently as last night—before letting his hand slide down over my throat, across my collarbone, and farther, slipping beneath the water to skate over my breast. His touch is tentative at first, but it quickly turns confident as the pad of his thumb draws circles over the soft fabric of my bikini, over my pebbled nipple.

I grip his waist and wait for him to push the material aside, to slip his hand beneath, to feel his touch against my bare skin. Just the thought of it has heat pooling in my lower belly.

“All right, counselors! You’ve had your little bit of fun,” Darian’s voice suddenly calls out from the shoreline.

“Shit,” Kyle mutters, his hand stalling, his breathing ragged.

A round of groans carries through the night.

“Oh, I know. You guys need to learn to be more quiet if you want to get away with this. Come on, get to your cabins now!”

Kyle sighs.

“Tomorrow?” I murmur against his lips, letting my hand drift down over him once again.

The strangled sound coming from his throat makes me smile.




“Darian is going to murder you two!” Ashley whisper-squeals as Eric and Kyle coast up the pathway, one after another, in the camp’s golf carts. It’s after eleven at night, and the ground is still soggy following an afternoon of heavy rain that kept the campers cooped up in the rec center and under the pavilion. Despite the two-hour-long dance and camper awards ceremony tonight, it still took almost an hour to get them settled—their last night at Wawa—too much unspent energy coursing through their little limbs.

Much like the counselors, it would seem.

“Nah, her lights are off. All those cheesy dance moves tired her out.” Eric eases off the path and pulls up next to Kyle’s golf cart. “First one to the badminton course wins. Whichever route you want, but grass only.”