Page 36 of Surfer's Paradise

“Do what?”

“Say some wise, deep shit that makes me feel like a fucking child.”

Rosie smirked against the pillow. “Well, one of us has to be the adult.”

Isaac chuckled, shaking his head. “God help us if it’s you.”

She laughed, and for a second, it felt like home again.

Like they weren’t standing on the edge of something dangerous.

Like nothing between them had changed.

But it had.

And they both knew it.

Isaac sighed, rubbing slow circles against her hip, grounding himself.

“That kiss,” he muttered.

Rosie inhaled sharply, going still.

Then, carefully, “Yeah?”

He swallowed, voice quieter now. “We’re putting it behind us.”

A pause.

Rosie shifted, then nodded. “Yeah. We won’t ruin our friendship with that stuff.”

Isaac’s grip on her hip tightened for just a second, before he forced himself to let go.

“Good,” he said, but it didn’t feel good at all.

And as they lay there, in the dark, wrapped around each other, pretending this wasn’t the biggest lie they’d ever told—Isaac knew one thing for sure. There was something he knew now that he couldn’t just un-know.

Isaac sank into sleep wrapped around her, his face buried in her hair, the scent of her soft, familiar, intoxicating. The night blurred into warmth, into the slow, steady rise and fall of Rosie’s breathing against him, falling asleep.

Somewhere in the haze of dreams, the world shifted.

He was floating, weightless and reckless, drifting through the echoes of a thousand indulgences. Whiskey burning down his throat. Blunt smoke curling from his lips. A woman beneath him, moaning, writhing, tight and wet and willing.

And then—

It wasn’t just any woman. It was Rosie.

Her body pressed back against him, soft curves molding into the hard length of his arousal. His fingers slid over her hip, skin so smooth, so warm, dipping to the soft give of her stomach, the firm, toned lines of her thighs.

His cock pulsed, thick and aching, grinding into the bare, perfect curve of her ass.

And fuck—

She moved against him. A slow, lazy press. Her breath hitched, just barely. The softest sound, but it shot straight to his dick.

Isaac’s grip tightened on her tiny waist, hips rolling forward on instinct, dragging against her so slow, so unbearably good.

She let out a little sigh, a half-sleepy moan.

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