Page 35 of One-Star Romance

“You don’t have to keep thanking me for being a decent human being.”

“It’s out of surprise. I didn’t know you had it in you.”

He rolled his eyes. “Okay.” Then he sent a great wave of water her way. She yelped in surprise and went to smack his shoulder in retaliation, but he grabbed her wrist (thankfully her good one) before she could.

They froze in that position, the lake thrumming around them, his fingers firm and strong and warm as they encircled her skin, her pulse beating against his thumb.

“Reflexes,” she said, her voice faint.

“What?” His dark eyes were clouded, his pupils huge.

“You have good reflexes.”

“Thank you.”

A moment more, in which the only sound was the quiet push and pull of the water, the shiver of wind through the trees, Natalie’s heartbeat in her ears, Rob’s ragged exhale. His thumb traced the soft, thin skin of her wrist, then moved, so slow it made her ache, up her palm, pressing the tender center of it. Her fingers curled onto his, doing so of their own volition, traitorous. Her whole body was being a traitor to her now, humming and buzzing and full of want.

“I should let you go,” he said, his voice strained.

She swallowed. “Don’t.”

Later, she couldn’t identify which one of them leaned forward and closed that final sliver of distance between their bodies. Maybe it was both of them at the same time, racing to press their mouths against each other before they remembered themselves. His hands were in her hair, rough in the best way, her arms around his neck. Every part of her that was touching him burned, and every part that wasn’t pressed against him felt cold, too cold, wanted to be touching him too. She was dizzy, unsteady, maybe from the current around her (but she didn’t think that was it), and so she clung to him, because if she let go, she might just slip under the surface and never reemerge.

Her first kisses with people before had been sweet and shy, or drunk and messy, awkward or nice. This, though, was entirely different. There should be a new word for something so fiery, voracious, so full of need and feeling. He was the linguist. She could ask him: How did one go about inventing a new word? But to ask would involve removing her mouth from his, something she did not want to do.

His bare chest was separated from her only by her thin white sundress, now completely see-through. His hands slid down her back, pulling her even closer, until she could barely breathe. She grasped him harder too, an unspoken competition between them even now to hold more tightly, kiss more fiercely, destroy the other more completely. Hatred and passion shared such a fine line. And she hated him, this man who had made her doubt herself and had never apologized for it, who still thought that he was in the right.

With that, she remembered all the reasons she should not keep pushing into him and turned her head away, gasping. He loosened his hold on her. They untangled themselves and stared at each other in disbelief. He seemed to be having trouble catching his breath, looking at her with such ferocious intensity that she knew she should look away.

“Dammit,” he muttered under his breath, and moved forward again. In the second before he could take her in his arms, she realized this man was dangerous to her. Somehow, he saw her more fully than the other men she’d known and wasn’t afraid to let her know what he thought. He’d already judged her once and found her lacking. Could she bear to let that happen again?

“I’m starting to date someone,” she blurted right before their bodies collided.

“I…” Before he could control himself, his face fell, and she felt a spark of triumph. Then he stepped back and ran his fingers through his hair, leaving it sticking up. When he spoke again, his voice was professional. “I am too. I think it’s going to get serious.”

“Same. So we can write this off as a moment of weakness. Or…or like we had to let that out, and now we can stop being so weird and just be civil to each other.”

“Yes,” he said, angling his lower body toward the dock so that she wouldn’t notice what was happening down there. (But it was too late. She had noticed, all right.) “This will definitely stop everything from being weird.”

“Your sarcasm is not appreciated right now!” She tossed her head, then winced from the sudden movement. The kiss had erased, momentarily, the crick in her neck from the previous night. It was like being drunk, the way you’d go around bumping into things and hurting your feet in high heels, and not feeling it until the next morning. Kissing him had intoxicated her. But now the pain was setting back in.

He registered the expression on her face. “The kiss was that bad, huh?”

“No, it’s just…”

“What?”

“My neck…from the couch.”

“Mine too,” he said, and slowly, they both started laughing.

“You were right. It is a torture device.”

“Vindication,” he said. “I am not a delicate flower.”

Not delicate at all, she thought, an aftershock rippling through her at the way his body had felt against hers, so lean and strong.

“I’ll take the couch again tonight,” he said.

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