The Summer We Fell (The Summer, #1)(65)

Luke is careful. Agonizingly slow. Checking on me to make sure I’m okay. He stills for a moment, flinching, when he finally bottoms out, then captures my mouth, his tongue tangling with mine. I’m stretched tight but it’s perfect at the same time.

And the perfection of it is such a relief.

I don’t need to let my mind wander, the way I did with Justin and Danny. I’m not counting the seconds until it’s over. I want it to go on and on forever, just like this.

He grunts as he bottoms out again. “Jules. Fuck.”

He moves faster, his breath rasping, his kisses desperate and savage as he tries not to come. And then, at last, he does, with three violent thrusts and a quiet gasp against my neck.

He collapses against me, and I never want him to pull out. I never want this to end but… oh my God, what am I going to do?

How do I face Danny in the morning after this?

Luke’s eyes open slowly. “Don’t.” He holds my chin, forcing me to meet his gaze. “Don’t ruin this.”

I nod through my tears. I don’t want to ruin it either, I really don’t. But I’m not sure how we move on from here.

He rolls off me, and I sit up, still drunk…but also sober at the same time.

“I should go,” I whisper.

He sits up beside me and winds his fingers through mine. “Jules, you’ve got to end it with him.

This thing with us has been there since the beginning, and it’s never going away. You know that.”

Except the pastor is sick and Donna needs me, and I’ve spent almost every penny I have, so even if I was willing to abandon the Allens, I’m not sure how I’d do it.

He kisses me and I try to let my answering kiss respond in kind. I try to let my kiss say, “Luke, I love you so much I’m sick from it, so much that you’ve ruined my happiness, because no matter how good my life is I will always want you. And I will always want you more than all the rest. But



walking away isn’t nearly as easy as you think.”

We walk back to the house in silence, my body light and heavy at the same time. When I reach the bedroom, I crawl onto the air mattress and look at Danny’s face in the moonlight. He’s so peaceful, so innocent. He trusts me, and I’m not sure what makes me feel worse: the fact that I cheated or that I might be the person who destroys that innocence.

I believed I loved him, I really did. And I guess I do love him, but not in the right way. I love him like a brother or a best friend. I just didn’t know, until Luke, that I was supposed to feel more.

Is it better or worse to pretend it didn’t happen and keep it all to myself? Am I even capable of pretending now? Luke is in my blood. I can still taste the saltwater on his lips, hear his exhale in my ear, his body slick with sweat and gritty with sand. I can still feel the way something inside me unfurled when I was beneath him, some hungry prisoner who’d kept quiet a little too long.

I don’t know how I can live without it anymore.

I WAKE TOO EARLY in the morning. It’s just past dawn and the guys are already making a racket, getting ready to surf.

Luke’s in the kitchen, the ubiquitous wet suit hanging off his hips. I take in his lean body, the hollows in his broad shoulders, his firm stomach, and all I can think of is my hands in those hollows, my body arching into that stomach, and the way he looked at me, as if nothing in the world mattered more.

My hair’s a rat’s nest, my mouth kiss-swollen, my eyes half-asleep, but when he turns, he looks at me like he’s never seen anything better. And like he’d very much like to repeat what happened last night.

Danny’s hand lands on my shoulder like a bucket of ice. I have to stifle my desire to shudder in response, but Luke stifles nothing. His eyes drop to that hand and his mouth flattens. Don’t do this, Luke. Please don’t.

“You not surfing today, Dan?” asks Ryan, wandering through the swirl of tension in the room without a clue.

“I’ll come out later. I’m going to hang here with Juliet for a while.”

Luke’s eyes flicker over me again, possession in his gaze. “She should be surfing too.”

“I can’t surf.”

“I think you could do anything you set your mind to,” he replies.

I’m pretty sure he’s not talking about surfing. My heart gallops in my chest as I look away.

When Danny finally leaves, after breakfast, I gather my stuff to shower. The bathroom is disgusting, with three days of hair and filth that no one has touched, so I walk to the neighbors’ house, the one whose pool they used last night. I unlatch the child lock at the top of the tall wooden gate as



Caleb’s girlfriend instructed me and discover a clear rectangular pool gleaming in the sun. Above me, the house has multiple decks overlooking the ocean, but I ignore them in favor of the enclosed shower around the corner from the pool.

I linger under the heated spray, soaping myself, shampooing twice, shaving carefully. Everything feels sensual today, reminding me of Luke’s hands on my skin, his weight above me. To Danny, I’ve long represented something bad, something he needs to keep at a distance, covered from view. Luke made me feel priceless, seductive, and desirable in the best possible way.

After I dry off, I climb into the rich family’s hammock on the second floor, swaying in the breeze.

Caleb’s girlfriend showed me the family’s Instagram—the beautiful wife, her adoring husband, and their two little girls grinning in front of Parisian landmarks.