“Greg?” Amanda says.
“Mm?”
“I think you’re my best friend.”
My next breath is strained, chest burning with an unfamiliar emotion I can’t even begin to untangle. I cover her hand with mine, rest my chin on her head, and hope she can feel how much she means to me without a single word being spoken.
I don’t have time to dwell on that longing, though, because in the next breath, a big, fat raindrop hits me on the forehead.
I blink at the contact, reaching up to touch the wet spot. “Uh-oh.”
Amanda sits up, her worried eyes finding mine. “What?”
I don’t have to answer, because the distant sound of rain falling through the trees hits us first, and then we hear it on the pavement, the pond, and before we can even stand, it starts falling on us.
“Shit!” Amanda hops up, clamoring for her bike while I rush up behind her and do the same.
“Come on, I think we can cut through this way!” I holler over the rain, and then I mount my bike and take off toward a small street behind the garages of a dozen houses.
The rain goes from a light shower to a full-on downpour in a matter of moments, and the thunder getting louder and louder tells me we’re not too far from lightning. I pedal faster, turning around to check on Amanda and make sure she’s right behind me.
“Greg!” she screams, and she stops pedaling, her bike gliding along and slowing down as she stares up at the rain.
I slow down, too, and turn back to get her, ready to ditch her bike and have her climb on the back of mine if necessary.
But then...
She laughs.
In the middle of the pouring rain, she stops her bike, kicks one foot down to hold herself steady, stretches her arms up overhead, and she laughs.
I pause, marveling at the sight, at the sound of the joyful, free laughter echoing in the empty street. The rain is blasting sideways, highlighted by the streetlights above, and it casts her in a wet, orange glow like she’s the center of a universe, a golden source of light and heat and energy.
The knot in my throat makes me realize that’s exactly what she is to me.
With her arms outstretched and eyes closed, her hair getting drenched and falling out of the loose braid, she’s a goddess. A wild child. A free spirit. A charge so fierce it could never be tamed.
She laughs and laughs, shaking her head and squealing with joy at the water she makes dance off the ends of her hair. Then, her eyes lock on mine, her chest heaving, and she sighs, happy and content.
“I love the rain,” she says, climbing back onto her bike. “It washes everything away.”
And then she takes off.
Faster and faster, she pedals toward the house, and every now and then, she’ll throw her hands up overhead and laugh and soak in the rain just like she had in the middle of the street.
I can’t help but laugh, too, as I follow her, making sure she doesn’t wipe out during her celebration.
We finally reach her house just as a bright crack of lightning streaks the sky above us, and the resulting thunder shakes the earth, making Amanda scream. She ditches her bike first, leaving it on its side in the yard and sprinting up the stairs of her front porch as I do the same. Then, we barrel inside, shutting the door behind us.
We’re a mess.
A sopping wet, dirty mess.
With the storm shut out, it’s suddenly quiet, nothing but our shoes squeaking on the tile floor and the sound of our haggard breathing.
“Oh, my God. I’m disgusting,” Amanda says on a laugh, surveying the dirt and mud on her sneakers, her legs, the way every piece of clothing is sticking to her.
“Worth it,” I joke.
“Oh, so worth it,” she agrees. “That was amazing!”
I chuckle. “We’re lucky we didn’t get struck by lightning.”
Amanda laughs a little, too, hanging her hands on her hips and looking out the window like she’s tempted to run back out into the rain. She stares for a long while, her breath evening out, and then, her eyes flick to me.
There’s a longing in that gaze, a blazing hot fire just like the one I’ve felt so many times when she looks at me. But there’s something else, too. Something deeper.
Gratitude.
Disbelief.
Awe.
Her brows pinch together, water dripping off her nose, her lashes, her hair. She rolls her lips together, licking the rain there.
And then she launches herself into my arms.
I catch her easily, wrapping my arms around her waist as she clutches my neck, burying her face in my chest.
“Thank you, Greg,” she whispers.
I just hold her tighter.
For a long moment, we stand there, soaking wet and dripping on the floor in a crushing hug. But as our breaths steady, I notice how her hands tremble where they hold me, how she shivers in my grasp. Every inch where our bodies touch warms and zings to life, and suddenly, I’m aware of how her shirt sticks to her skin, how her nipples are pebbled and peaked against my abdomen.
She pulls back, just enough to peek up at me through her wet lashes, those honey eyes searching mine. Her hands slide down from my neck, over my arms, and down my chest.
I suck in a breath as those warm hands dive lower, running along the length of my abdomen. Amanda’s eyes follow the movement, her fingertips soft and hesitant as she trails them lower, lower, lower.
She stops just above the hem of my shorts, drawing a line from hip to hip, and I don’t have control over the way my lower half responds. I ache for her — like I ache for a breath after being underwater for longer than my lungs can stand. And I know she sees it, the way my length strains against my shorts, growing and pressing into her core.
Amanda swallows, and dips just the tip of her finger under the band of my shorts.
My cock twitches in response, and she bites her lip, slowly trailing her eyes up my abdomen, my chest, and finally locking her gaze on mine.
The next breath leaves me in a fiery wave, my nostrils flaring with the effort.
“What do you want, Amanda?” I ask, my voice a pained whisper, my hands already gripping her waist like I’ll die if she moves even a centimeter away.
“You.”
The word barely leaves her lips before I claim them, mercilessly, our teeth smashing together as I push her back, one hand blindly feeling for the wall, and the other hiking her up just in time to shove her into it.
She gasps at the impact, and I swallow the sound, lifting her easily and pinning her in place as she wraps her legs around my waist.
“If you didn’t mean that,” I warn, biting her lip hard enough to earn me a whimper. “Tell me to stop now.” I swallow, pressing my forehead to hers and using every bit of willpower I have left to pause. “If you kiss me again, I—”
“Don’t stop,” is all she manages before her hands thread in my hair, pulling my mouth back to hers at the same time she rolls her hips, running her heat along my hard shaft.
I groan, returning the demand of her kiss with a punishing one of my own. I hold her hips with one hand, the other sliding up the front of her to palm one weighted breast. Amanda arches into the touch, a desperate mewl leaving her lips, and I moan at the feel of her, at the way it makes me feel to unravel her.
My heart pounds like a jackhammer, vision going black as we kiss in a hateful, passionate chaos, like we’re the worst and best thing that ever happened to one another, like we’re marching to our deaths in a field of the most powerful pleasure.