Page 49 of Shy Girl
Even more times I had wondered if Hernandez just wouldn’t come back to school one day because they’d taken things too far. My fragile heart with spun-sugar-strength hadn’t been able to take it then, and it seemed even scarier now. Like the stakes had increased, and though he wasn’t mine, there was suddenly more to lose.
Which is why my heart nearly stopped when he put a hand under my chin and quietly asked, “What are you thinking so hard about, Dagny?”
The ocean waves rolled around us, warm at my waist like a hug before it slipped away. When had we gotten so close to shore? I forced my mind back to his question. I didn't want to answer it. I couldn’t have lied to him if I wanted to, and my voice slipped into the melodic timber on its own.
“I’m thinking about you.”
Water dotted his thick eyelashes. His arm found my waist, hooked it, and pulled me closer. I slipped into him without resistance.
“What about me?” he asked, voice husky and low.
There was no space to answer. I didn’t know who moved first, but all of a sudden his lips crashed to mine. The surf must have slammed into my back, but I felt only the pressure of his hand on my neck as he stabilized us in the waves. The slant of his lips competed with mine. The grit of sand beneath my palm as I braced myself against his gentle, loving attack. Awareness came back into me all at once when he pulled away. Only a breath apart, we stared at each other.
He looked at my lips, then back to my eyes. His chest rose and fell. My mind couldn’t get around the insecure high school girl in my mind.
Jayson. Hernandez. Just. Kissed. Me.
“Was that okay?” he whispered.
I nodded.
He came back.
This time, he pushed me back until my body crashed onto the sand. Water slipped by with a gentle hiss. The kiss was hungry, his lips hot as the sun. All my resistance to what would happen when we returned to Pineville faded as I wrapped my arms around his neck and closed all space between us. His skin, slippery from the salty ocean, burned on top of mine.
Words tied up in my throat until I couldn’t have spoken if I wanted to. They didn’t need to be said. Jayson was like a tidal wave with power of his own. His lips kept mine, gentle as the breeze. I grabbed his shoulders to cling to him as the water rushed around us. The warmth of the sun was nothing compared to his body over me. Nothing to the heat that boiled under my fingertips on his skin. The electric feeling of his lipsfinallyon mine.
The sense of this being a dream, a vivid recollection of what I’d always wanted but never believed would happen, washed through me. It swept me into the moment and I let go.
My hands threaded into his hair with all the pent-up ferocity I’d held back since high school. A subdued cry followed from somewhere deep in my chest. I kissed him harder, and he responded. I held him tighter, and he clutched me to him. The waves and the water and the ocean ceased to exist as I melted into Jayson Hernandez.
I gasped when he finally broke us apart. He leaned to the side, his forehead pressed to my shoulder, as I gathered my brain back together. Water glided past again, gentle this time. A subtle reminder of our tie to the world. My heart slammed in my chest. The sea had begun to calm, the sun to sparkle as the storm passed fully through.
“Wow,” he whispered.
I held myself against him because my heart had crumbled into pieces, and his power was about to sweep them away.
Just like the tide.
14
Jayson
We didn’t speak for an hour.
After I held her in the waves while my body calmed down and my mind spun, we walked slowly back to the bungalow. Silently, she released the hand I’d forgotten she was holding and faded into her room with a hesitant smile and no eye contact. I stared out at the ocean, water pooling on the wooden floor beneath me.
My mind had broken.
Kisses were nothing new, and something I’d always taken for granted. A quick fix, maybe. A way to have the thrill, make a claim, something. They certainly weren’t startling. They weren’t powerful. They weren’t . . . connecting.
Until Dagny.
I stood at the window, my teeth sinking into my bottom lip. Although I looked right at the sparkling ocean, I didn’t see it. My mind shifted back to the salt water taste on her lips. The feeling of her hair in my hands. Her body pressed against mine.
What had I done?
All those years, Dagny lived under my nose like a shadow, never stirring anything up, never really known. We’d lived around each other, but never really spoken to one another. Now, she stood like a startling beacon of everything I could have ever wanted in my life.
