Page 68 of Backslide
I gasp.How dare he!
“One thing has nothing to do with the other.”
“Right,” he says, his mouth ticking up at one corner like he’s suppressing a smile. “Except for the part where you’re a lightweight. In all the ways.”
He’s having a good ole time now that he’s roasting me, and I’m not having it.
Outraged, I stomp out of the hot tub and over to the cold plunge. Then, glaring at him, I wade in, quickly at first, and then slower as the reality of the temperature takes over. “Oh my God!” I squeal. “This is freezing!”
“Get your shoulders under!” he calls. “It doesn’t count without the shoulders!”
As quickly as humanly possible, I dip my shoulders under the water and then rush out of the cold, hurrying back around to the hot tub and splashing in, out of breath.
“That’s psychotic!” I say. And it’s only then that I realize I have sat directly next to Noah—inches from him—instead of all the way across the tub as I planned.
The jets hit me from all directions, pushing my buttons.
I try to act like it’s all normal.
He looks down at me, his eyes twinkling. “Just look at that lymphatic system pumping at full force.”
I bring my hands to my face, sure it’s flushed. “Is that even really a thing?”
His lips quirk again—too amused. “It got you in the ice water.”
I shoot him a dirty look and then he starts to laugh. It’s a snicker and then a full-throated thing I haven’t heard in decades, but it takes me instantly back.
To a time when I was less mature.
So, I splash him in the face.
His mouth drops open in mock shock. “Oh, you do not want to mess with me.”
So, I splash him again. Which starts us roughhousing. And lands us, somehow, with his back to the edge of the tub and me pinning him in place, our faces inches apart.
Our laughter stops dead.
I lick my lips. Watch him watch me. I am all wet in all the ways. Maybe fantasy should become reality.
“Is this weird?” I ask.
But I kiss him before he can answer.
14NOAHTODAY
Nell kisses me and it’s all the things at once.
Because it’s like we’ve done this a million times, but also never before.
And it’s zero to sixty. Like I’m starved.
She isn’t careful with me, either. She presses her lips against mine, at once pillowy and rough. My hands migrate to her thick hair, threading in where it’s damp at the nape of her neck. I trace her flushed cheek, her jaw, her smooth back, as we go deeper. My palms flex around her hips as she starts moving against me.
Holy fuck.
I groan. Or maybe she does. I can’t even tell. I’m lost in the fog of her body drenched and flush against mine again, the hot water churning around us, chaotic and fevered.
I flash to Nell at cocktails that first night in that teasing lowcut top. To the sundress catching on her thighs in the town square yesterday. To how hot and rosy she looked lying in the steamy sauna, her towel threatening to drop from her chest.
