Page 11 of College Boy

Chapter Seven

Emma

“Jesus.”

Emma stood, bare feet in the warm sand, body bared in ways it hadn’t been in years. So very,verymany years. Since high school, probably. “I was right,” she added, feeling Mitch’s cool gaze upon her miles and miles of raw, pale, bare skin. “I looksoridiculous right now.”

“Nonsense.” Mitch stood from the blue and green striped towel spread beneath him, unfolding like a beach chair, all arms and legs and a warm, soft, gooey middle that seemed to stretch out for days on end.

Jesus, Emma,she thought idly, admiring the smooth layer of soft, pale skin that covered his gently defined abs.What in the actual hell are you doing?

“You look ... beautiful.”

She snorted and harumphed and pshawed and made a dozen other grandmotherly sounds, all while struggling to drink in every half-naked inch of her flawless young host as she cowered in his shadow, hands covering her naughty bits in the midday sun. “When’s the last time you saw a girl in a bikini, bud?”

“Okay, you got me there, but still...” They stood, bare toes in the sand, face to face and all but bare. Emma felt energized in ways she hadn’t in years, if ever, her emotions swirling like the fine strands of hair around her cheeks from her post-work ponytail. She slid the rolled up work clothes she’d just changed out of onto the beach towel and hoisted her hands upon her bare hips, marveling at how brave she was to stand before him with her itty-bitty breasts and womanly hips and sagging, no doubt, 34-year-old derriere. To say nothing of her soft, fleshy tummy.

“So,” she offered, unsure how to proceed. “What now?”

“Come on,” he snorted, leading the way as she hung gently back to admire the way his own clearly new swim trunks (price tag still dangling from the hip, anyone?) hugged his narrow waist, sagging gently beneath his bony hips as he swished and swayed his way down the beach. “It’s hot out here.”

“You can say that again,” Emma muttered to herself as the first sizzling surge of beach froth covered her bare toes, making her look down only to note her chipped nail polish with abject horror. Jesus, what had she been thinking? Squeezing into a size-too-small bikini in some public restroom before prancing around, barefooted and chip-nailed and big as you please in the middle of the day just to be an inch closer to some sexy piece of jailbait arm candy?

“Mm.” Mitch reveled in the ocean waves like a little kid on vacation and, Emma supposed, he was exactly just that. Only, judging from the way the banana shaped bulge danced from left to right and back again beneath his thin, clingy baggies, perhaps not so little after all? “Feels good, right?”

They inched further into the waves, Emma nodding as the cool ocean water embraced her like a long lost friend. “Not sure why I don’t do this more often,” she enthused as they stood, waist deep in the water as gentle waves caressed them one by one.

“I’d be here every day if I lived in Flamingo Shores,” Mitch insisted, reminding her why they were there in the first place.

She nudged his hip, feeling bone against bone as the tasseled ties of her skimpy bikini bottom brushed against his damp baggies. “So how’s it feel, Mitch?” she purred, so unlike herself she had to glance around to see if anyone else was around to hear how ridiculous she sounded. “Your first trip to the beach?”

“Just as awesome as I’d imagined it,” he oozed, daring her to drift deeper into the gentle, lapping surf as he trudged a few steps toward the next wave. “But even better thanks to you.”

Emma’s sigh was as deep as the ocean far beyond their reach. “Mitch, you can’t keep saying things like that.”

“What? Why not?” Mitch seemed amused by her sudden theatrics, sinking down to his shoulders to hover in place with his feet in the sand. Feeling naked and exposed as she stood above him, she followed suit until she was nearly submerged, soothed by the waters and entranced by her young suitor’s sea green eyes.

“Because this is just ... friendship here,” she insisted, even as her heart leapt when their knees brushed gently together beneath the surface. The ocean water caressed her, smooth and insistent, like an unseen hand. Emma struggled to deny how much she wished it was his instead.

“Who said it was anything else?” Mitch murmured, even as his eyes drank hers in and his full, ripe lips curled into a semi-serious smile.

“You do,” she insisted, voice low as if they were sitting across from each other at some cozy café booth. “With your eyes, with your dubiously phrased comebacks, with every pore of your young, spring break body.”

“And?” Mitch murmured, inching closer so that more of his long, endless thigh slid against her own, warmer even than the spring ocean tides. “You’re still here, aren’t you?”

“I promised you a trip to the beach, big guy,” she insisted, as if trying to convince herself as well as her ardent young suitor. “Nothing more.”

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