Page 134 of Between Never and Forever
I don’t feel a single ounce of remorse. I’d do it again in a heartbeat.
When we stop for gas, I snag a candy bar before paying. Sav used to steal this same candy bar from the small grocery store in our hometown. Always two of them. One for me, and one for her, but she’d usually end up eating half of mine.
She’s standing next to the passenger side scrolling on her phone as I head back to my truck.
“Rockstar.”
When she looks up at me, I underhand her the candy bar, and she catches it with one hand. She looks at it, then at me with a raised brow. I can almost see the rest of the ice thawing. She wants to laugh, but she’s working so hard to keep her face blank. The corner of my mouth twitches with the need to smile, so I do. Just a little. I wink at her before climbing into the driver’s side.
I spend the last hour of the drive watching from the corner of my eye as she picks at the candy bar, eating it slowly. Her delicate jaw muscles working as she chews. Her fragile, soft throat contracting as she swallows. Her perfect pink tongue licking chocolate and caramel off her lips.
Dakota and Sav chat. Red joins in when addressed. I stay quiet, keeping my eyes on the road and my attention on Savannah. When she puts her thumb in her mouth, sucking off chocolate, my hands tighten on the steering wheel. I stop breathing long enough to hear her quiet giggle, and when I glance at her, she’s smirking at me.
It’s so unexpected that I don’t catch myself smiling until it’s too late. She bounces her eyebrows, and I shake my head slowly.
Brat, I mouth, and she shrugs with a grin before looking back out the window.
This trip might have been a bad idea.
We drop two of the vehicles downriver where we’ll end the float trip, and everyone piles into the other two vehicles for the drive back upriver to where we’ll begin.
We already unloaded our tubes and coolers, so there’s plenty of room for people in the bed of my truck. When I park, everyone climbs out, and Savannah snatches her swimsuit out of the grocery bag at her feet.
She looks at it and purses her lips.
“You can change in the truck,” I tell her. “I’ll stand guard.”
She side-eyes me and pops a brow.
“And if you peek, perv?”
I shrug and tap my temple.
“Don’t need to see it again. I’ve got it all up here in perfect detail.”
Her eyes widen, and I can tell she’s once again fighting a laugh. I am too. I didn’t lie, though. I see her body on the backs of my eyelids, permanently tattooed there for life. Every dip and curve and freckle. Technicolor and lifelike. Absolute torture.
“Hurry up, Rockstar. We don’t want to keep everyone waiting.”
I hop out and round the corner, standing with my back to the passenger side door. I’m parked on the edge of the gravel lot next to the bank of the river, so the other side of my truck faces nothing but trees. I stare down everyone who even glances in my direction, including Red. My neck heats as I feel the truck move slightly behind me as she shuffles out of her clothes and into her suit.
When she knocks softly on the passenger window, I step out of the way so she can climb out. I keep my eyes on hers. I don’t let them dip lower, but I can still see her subtle cleavage tempting me from the outskirts of my vision. She smiles and slaps a tube of sunscreen against my chest.
“Rub me down, would you?”
She’s trying to unsettle me in that way she does. Trying to get me off balance, tease me. Taunt me. It’s working.
I laugh softly, then grab her shoulders and turn her around so I’m looking at her back. I’ve been dying for a close look at this tattoo, anyway. This bathing suit is open to just above her ass, exposing the entire art piece to me, and as I squeeze sunscreen onto my hands, I can’t take my eyes off it.
Dahlia flowers, one red, one white, and one purple, decorate the middle of her back down her spine, and at the base, just above the slope of her ass, is a black dahlia. It’s stunning in the way they almost leap off her skin, appearing real and fresh. The photos I’d seen of this tattoo didn’t do it justice. I want to run my fingers over each petal, each stem.
I rub my palms together briefly, warming the sunscreen, and then I slowly smooth it down her back, right over each perfectly inked flower. She sucks in a breath as I use my thumbs to massage around her spine, my fingers pressing gently into the tight, tense muscles.
"Relax,” I say quietly. “Just relax.”
I feel her exhale slowly, and her body grows loose as I use my palms to rub up and down her back, gliding with the sunscreen, while working every muscle gently. I let my fingers slip just barely into the sides of her suit, grazing the covered skin with my fingertips. It’s 85 degrees out today, but she still gets goosebumps on her arms from my touch.
I move to her shoulders, massaging as I apply more sunscreen, and she hums in approval as my thumbs press firmly into the muscles of her neck.
