Page 24 of The Only Goal

We touch each other all the time, but it’s always just a friendly hug or playful tussle.

Although, this summer has been a bit more… I don’t know… flirty?

Our hugs have lasted a beat longer than they used to. Our excuses to bump into each other or brush hands seem to be more frequent. Or am I just imagining it?

Sucking in a breath, I try to still my racing heartbeat.

“What time do you have to go?”

“Not sure.” I shrug. “I don’t even know what the time is… and I don’t care.”

She giggles, popping her eyes open and looking at me. “Doesn’t it feel like we’re the only two people on Earth right now?”

“Imagine if we were.” I lie back, gazing up at the trees above us. The leaves are rustling in the wind. It’s a gentle music—a lullaby that could rock me to sleep. The sun is a lazy drug heating my skin, but there’s no way I’ll fall asleep. Not with Tammy beside me in that blue bikini. Not with my pulse racing and my senses heightened to her softest breath and smallest movement.

“Well…” Tammy wriggles her butt down so she can lie next to me. “I guess we’d eventually have to find ourselves some food.”

“I brought snacks,” I murmur.

She laughs, nudging me with her hand. “Where’s the fun in that? I think we should make ourselves a bow and arrow and go hunting.”

“A bow and arrow?” I give her a skeptical frown. “Okay, let me just whip one of those up for you.”

“Thanks.” She giggles again. “And I’d like deer for dinner.”

“You don’t even like red meat.” I snort and nudge her back. “I’d have to hunt this forest for some kind of chicken.”

“Or we could go fishing.”

“Or catch you a frog or lizard.”

“Ew!” She sticks out her tongue. It’s perfect and pink, and I want to suck it between my lips.

The image makes me flush. I dart my eyes away from her.

“I know they eat that stuff in France, but can you imagine how slimy and gross they are to prepare?”

“Fish can be slimy.”

“That’s why you’d be catching it, deboning it, and cooking it for me. I’m not touching raw fish.”

“Oh, really? And what are you going to do?” I sit up on my elbow and mock-glare down at her. “Work me like some slave while you sit there getting a tan?” Without thinking, I rest my hand on her flat belly, then give it a very light slap.

She gasps, sitting up with a jerk and trying to slap me back. I laugh and catch her wrists, and so begins one of our standard wrestling matches.

She tries to knee me, so I roll over her, parting her legs so those lethal knees don’t get me in the gonads. She wriggles beneath me with a little grunt and fights a giggle while I loosen my grip and let her push me back over. Before I know it, she’s straddling me, and then I’m staring up at her body, my mouth hanging open when I notice that her bikini top has shifted and I can see her right nipple.

I should tell her, but won’t that be awkward?

I swallow, wondering if she can feel me growing hard beneath her.

If she does, she doesn’t say anything.

In fact, I don’t know what the hell is going on right now, because she’s still holding my wrists and giving me this weird look.

Breaths are punching out of both of us, like all we’re capable of doing is breathing. Her brown eyes dart across my face, her eyebrows dipping together.

What? The word is on the tip of my tongue, but I can’t seem to say it.

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