Sweet Water(44)

“It’s Elizabeth. Sarah Elizabeth, but that’s okay,” I whisper.

I can feel his body sliding closer to mine.

“Joshua Michael.” His lips are inches from mine.

This is so happening.

Joshua leans in again slowly; I hear his breath. My body surges, pure fireworks. His top lip sucks on my lower one just long enough to drive me completely insane. I slide closer to him on the bench, swinging my leg over one side, so I’m flush with his body.

He’s so much taller than I am. I’m leaning against him, and I’d do anything to have him lay me down flat. His kisses are hungry, his tongue curious as it roams from my lips to my neck. I hear the breath fall out of me as he pushes my hair back, then breaks away to take me in with his eyes.

No one’s looked at me like that before. Ever.

“Do you want to go somewhere more comfortable?” he asks. His hand flexes on the cement bench, and he’s the best at talking in subliminal phrases and turning them into much bigger statements. It’s like we have our own language already, and I think he’s asking me if I’d be comfortable screwing on a cement bench, and maybe if I’d tried it before (screwing, that is), I’d say yes. But first times are painful, so I hear, and cement benches can’t possibly make that process any better.

I’m ready to knock this Never off the list.

“Sure,” I say, still a little breathless from his kisses.

He takes my hand and stands up. His jeans are baggy, and I can see the ribbing of his boxer briefs, and I don’t know what to do with myself, but I hope he shows me. He leads us back to the house, our breath ragged, our footsteps eager.

We enter the basement of Stonehenge from a bottom-floor door, and the lights are dim in the pool area, an amber glow that reminds me of school halls after closing time. I let out a deep breath. I feel like I’m breaking and entering, having reimagined this place so many times in my mind. I can’t tell him I know what’s down here, that I was in his house on a tour on the same day his parents put in their offer, and that I know he’s taking me to the downstairs pool.

“We can cool off in here.” Josh takes off his shirt, and he’s thin, but his shoulders are broad, his stomach perfectly muscled. I restrain myself from running my fingers over his taut belly.

“Nice pool.”

“Could be bigger,” he jokes.

Then I do something I’ve never done before. I lift my red polo over my head and chuck it to the side, revealing my little white bra with pink flowers at the center. I’m glad the pool room is poorly lit, but when his eyes roam my body in one quick swoop, I freeze and let him take me in.

“You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to,” he says, but his voice is hungry for me to do everything. And I want to.

“Okay,” I say.

He beckons me to follow him to the pool, his eyes glinting with dare and desire. “Come in, the water’s fine,” they say. I kick off my stretchy black pants without a thought and slip into the warm water. His arms find me and wrap around my waist, pulling me into the heat of his flesh. His lips find mine, and he tastes like everything I’ve been waiting for.

He’s the boy in my dreams I haven’t kissed, but the one I imagined, the one who belongs to those chords and those words I’ve listened to so many times. He’s the boy with the guitar whose parents ended up buying Stonehenge, the one I’d envied long before we ever met.

He’s one of them, one of the lucky ones.

I want to be one of the lucky ones too.

His lips ease back just enough to murmur my name. “Do you want this?” I nod and push my mouth onto his, closing the space between us.

I don’t want to talk.

Josh unhooks my bra, and I imagine it sinking to the bottom of the pool with all my inhibitions. He slides my underwear down my thighs, and I use my foot to snag them all the way down. He takes off his briefs as well, grabs all the articles, and tosses them over our heads onto the side of the pool. There’s nothing between our bodies now. Just skin on skin and—need.

“I want you, Sarah.” He breathes the words into my ear, and goose bumps rise all along my neck and shoulders. “Can I have you?”

“Yes,” I say. “But I’ve never done this before.”

“I’ll go slow,” he promises.

I nod, and he sucks on my bottom lip some more and lowers himself until he’s almost entirely underwater and I’m standing up straight. He positions his body beneath me. He uses his fingers to play me like a guitar. I gasp, his touch alone almost enough to make me come undone. Joshua backs me up against the wall and grinds his hips into mine, until our bodies are so close that they can’t be separated. I close my eyes and let him rock me into the greatest pleasure I’ve ever known.

Afterward, we lie on lawn chairs in robes left on hooks in the adjoining his-and-hers changing rooms. He holds my hand and shuts his eyes, and I do the same. It’s probably getting late, and I’m sure my dad is wondering where I am, but my body is so lax, I can’t leave just yet. This is too perfect. Mandy, my work friend, lost her virginity in the back of a Buick, and I always wanted mine to be different. It was. It was amazing.

“What do you want to be when you grow up?” Josh’s hair is too long and matted over his closed eyes. I want to brush it off his face, but I’m exhausted and content, so I leave him alone.