“Sure.”
He grabs two bottles of Budweiser, opens them and hands me one. I take it.
I’ve never drunk beer before but I don’t tell him this. New life, new rules. I take a sip. It’s bitter and cold. I’m so thirsty I drink about a third of it in one long sip. Then I drink a little more. Travis smiles.
“Did you play the piano?” he asks me.
“Not yet. I was just about to.”
“So, let me get this straight. The one thing I asked you to do … you didn’t even do.” He seems more amused by this than riled.
“I dusted it.”
“I want you to play it. That’s our deal. You play your songs and write more.”
God, he’s bossy. “I will. I promise.”
“We’ve got time. We’ve got all summer, right?”
“Yeah.” The day’s hot and the beer’s cold so I drink some more. It tastes good and the world’s taken on a sparkly edge. We’re watching each other’s eyes.
A current of heat seems to fizzle in the air between us.
No doubt about it: hell, here I come.
He smiles again, as though he’s reading my mind. “Come on.” He flicks his head sideways as a light command to follow him. “Let’s go for that swim.”
“It’s a scorcher,” he says, as we walk towards the pond.
“Yeah, it’s hot.”
This is it. We’re really going swimming together.
“Where did you move from?” I don’t know a thing about him. And I’m sort of craving more information beyond the fact that he possesses the ability to practically set me on fire with one flick of his green glance. I’m riveted by the way his thick hair falls across his forehead. The graceful, gilded shape of his broad shoulders and the color of his skin. “Where did you live before you moved here?”
“I’ve got a couple of houses.”
“Oh.” He seems almost cagey about telling me too much. “What made you want to move all the way out here?”
He grins down at me from his six feet something of muscled, hair-dusted brawn. “I wanted some privacy. I needed a place to get away from it all. Where nobody knows me and where I can hear myself think.”
“You can’t think at your other houses?”
His smile lingers. “No. Not really.”
I wait for him to elaborate but he doesn’t. “What kind of work do you do?”
We’re at the water’s edge. There are layers to both his silence and his amusement I don’t fully understand. I don’t want to pry but I’m wondering where he got all his money.
Travis walks straight into the pond and dives under. He swims out and flicks the water from his hair in that way hot guys do. He waits for me.
I don’t immediately strip down to my bikini. I’m wishing it wasn’t quite as non-existent as it is. I mean, sure, he’s seen me already but I wasn’t aware of that at the time until after the fact.
I wade in to my ankles and splash the water lightly with my feet.
He crooks a finger at me, signaling for me to come in.
Maybe it’s the whiskey or the beer talking but to hell with it. I can’t swim with my shorts on anyway. So I unbutton them and slide them down my legs, stepping out of them. I peel off my tank top, tossing it aside, and pull out my hair-tie, letting my hair spill over my shoulders. It hangs all the way down my back in loose coils.
As he watches me, Travis’s jaw literally drops.
It’s the first time in my life I’ve felt a feminine kind of … power that’s new to me. I don’t know why but I like that he’s riveted and speechless. There’s something empowering about holding this big, brawny male in my invisible grasp just with the flick of a curl and the feminine shape of my body. I want to … connect. And explore. I know he can enlighten me about things I’ve wondered about. I know he is going to enlighten me. I’m ready. In my mind and my body, I’m choosing him. I’m choosing to be as adventurous as I dare.
I make a half-hearted attempt to adjust my bikini into place but it’s a lost cause. There’s nothing to adjust. The little triangles of the top cover my nipples but not much else. My breasts are way too full for it. I can feel his gaze like the hot sun on my skin.
I shouldn’t be doing any of this, of course. Like I shouldn’t listen to rock ‘n roll or pursue my passion even though I’m good at it because it’s not the proper, straight and narrow thing to do. Sister Louise would have a conniption if she could see me right now.
Good thing she can’t.
I always knew I wasn’t straight and narrow. Or proper. They tried to train my gentle rebellion out of me. Maybe they partly did, for a while. But not anymore. A fire’s been lit under my rebellion. It’s a fire called life itself. I refuse to back away from it any longer.
I’m already damned, maybe, and so be it. Might as well savor the hell out of my fall. Travis and I are under each other’s spell, just me and him here alone under the sun, writing our own song.
He swims towards me. He walks out of the water and towers over me, standing close enough for the tiny stinging droplets to drip onto my skin. I laugh and try to move away but he grabs my wrist in his strong grip. “Don’t run.”
He’s touching me.
“You’re so fucking beautiful.” His voice is low with a hushed awe.
I’m a little taken aback by it. Not just by the crass suddenness of the delivery, but that … he thinks I’m beautiful. I could sort of tell by the way he’s looking at me, but still. I don’t get a lot of compliments from the nuns. Or my sisters, aside from Gi. I also don’t hear a lot of swearing. But I like the way it sounds when Travis does it. Sort of … aggressive.
He smiles, noticing the mild shock on my face. “Let me hear you say it,” he says.
“Say what?”
“A swear word. Have you ever said one?”
“Sure. I say them all the time,” I laugh, but it’s a lie and he knows it. The nuns make you pray for forgiveness.
“Let me hear it.”
“No.” I can feel myself blush. Is it that obvious? That I’m a prim, inexperienced hick?
“You’re wilder than you let on,” he says.
He’s right. I feel bold and luck-drunk. And maybe even drunk-drunk.
You’re my wild, wild girl and I know what you like. Let’s go for a ride on a hot summer night.
At his touch, my inhibitions fade back, like mist on an August morning. I let him pull me into deeper water. I let go of his hand to swim, keeping a safe distance. He circles me like a shark and I can feel the current of his movement swirling around me, caressing me in sultry ripples. His smile is playful and gorgeous.
We reach the low edge of the flat rock. I climb up onto it and he follows.
Knowing he’s coming after me … so close to me … it starts the warm, humming heat, which builds and centers. I feel the slickness gather, the light, aching throb. He’s right behind me. The huge, hot bulk of him is almost touching me.
God.
It’s so clear now why they kept the boys away from us, when their effect is this potent. He’s like a living magnet, melting away all my defenses and hesitations, stoking all my animal urges until I can feel them pulsing intimately.