Chapter Twenty-Two
Joanna couldn’t believe that Liam had passed even one summer in Halikarnassus without visiting the lake.
In the weeks that followed that last walk with Starr, Liam did call, and often. He didn’t crowd her or insist they spend time together. He didn’t try to get in her pants every time they did meet up (much to her chagrin). He seemed to just genuinely like spending time with her. He was gentle with her. She didn’t know what to make of it.
She still was not entirely convinced he wasn’t using her for her cooking.
But the man appreciated a good meal, and she appreciated being appreciated. She didn’t question it too hard; she’d be gone soon.
But when she found out that he’d never been to the lake—
The lake was a massive reservoir formed when some river was dammed up some time way before Joanna was born. When she thought of her misspent youth—which was often, now that she was in Halikarnassus—she couldn’t not think about the lake.
Getting to the lake involved a pain-in-the-ass hike through the woods that made the water seem all that much sweeter when you finally jumped in. That was the easiest way in—climb out onto the diving board (aka a tree that grew sideways over the water) and jump in. It was the only way in unless you wanted to hike clear across to the other side to the small but much flatter beach. Of course, that involved risking the wrath of Mr. Shaughnessey, and he liked guns.
So even though it was autumn and probably too cold to swim, she was leading Liam on a hike through the woods to the lake.
Well, she had been leading him. He overtook her pretty quickly.
It was those stupid legs. They were longer than hers. That was why she could barely keep up as they hiked up yet another hill.
“Remind me again why I like you?” she asked his back.
“Because I’m so cute?” he suggested.
He was right. He was cute.
She must be experiencing some kind of belated hometown regression, coming back home and experiencing the stupid teenage stuff she’d never experienced when she was a teenager here. Well, she’d experienced some of it—that old feeling that the world was against her and everyone around her was dumb and judgmental and Hal Klomberg was a completely useless human being.
Except she felt different when she was with Liam. She didn’t feel like a screwup. She felt like walking away from Bunny Slippers was the right thing to do. She felt like, yeah, she knew a lot about music and about the kind of music she wanted to make, and not compromising on that was not the same thing as failure. And she felt smart when she was with him. She didn’t think she’d ever felt smart before.
She stopped to tie her hair back. Not at all because she was completely out of breath and maybe they were lost. She didn’t remember the hike to the lake taking this long. Of course, it had been a while since she’d done it. And she didn’t think she’d ever done it completely sober.
Meanwhile, Liam took to the trail like he owned it. Him and his shorts. What was it with this guy and shorts? These were nothing like the running shorts, though. These were cargo-style hiking shorts, with lots of pockets for survival tools, she guessed. God, he was such a Boy Scout.
He put his hand in his pocket, which had the pleasant effect of pulling his shorts tight across his butt, which she appreciated because this Boy Scout had an amazing butt. A butt made for squeezing. A butt made for holding onto while he . . .
“You coming?”
She shook her head. No time for shenanigans. She had to figure out how to get to the . . . oh. There it was.
“How do you get down there?”
She peered over the steep hill into the lake.
“There used to be a tree here,” she said, pointing to the gnarled pile of roots at the bottom of the hill. “That was the way in.” All that was left was a steep slope that ended in a bed of rocks.
Liam kicked a rock into the pond, where it landed with a plop.
“It’s hot.” Liam squinted up at the sun, and Joanna watched, fascinated, as a bead of sweat dripped down his neck. Her mouth felt suddenly dry.
“Yeah,” she agreed. It was damn hot.
“You used to swim here?”
“All the time.”
“God, a swim would feel great right now.”
“Hmm,” Joanna said, but she wasn’t really listening. She was mostly sweating. Well, sweating on the outside and melting on the inside.
“There’s probably an easier place to get in, right?”
“There’s a beach, sort of.” More like a tiny bed of mostly smooth rocks, but, hey, it was flat.
“Where’s that?”
She pointed across the lake.
“That far?”
“Mm-hmm.”
“Psh. Too hot to go that far.”
Joanna agreed, but she was very hot and sweaty and melty, so when Liam took a step over the edge, she didn’t really register what he was doing until he was sliding down the hill.
“What are you—?” she asked as he took the last few feet at an unsteady trot and landed inches from the water.
“Come on!” He waved her down, then sat on a rock and started taking his boots off.
“What are you—?” she asked again, but then he tore his shirt over his head and she took a step, then another step, then her feet slid out from under her and she took the hillside down on her butt.
“Are you okay?” Liam asked, helping her up.
“Yup,” she might have said, but she wasn’t sure, so distracted was she by the magnificence of his chest. And really, it was magnificent. Lean and tan with a sprinkling of light hair across his pecs.
“Race you,” he said, and before she could say “Stop and let me lick your neck” he dove into the lake.
“You know,” she said when he surfaced like some mythical mer-creature, “you had an unfair head start.”
“Sore loser,” he shouted at her, and started to swim away from shore.
“I hope you get eaten by a shark!” she shouted back at him. But he didn’t turn around, so she toed off her sneakers and socks, and taking one cursory look around to make sure no one was watching—not that it would have stopped her—she tore off her shirt and shorts and ran into the water after him.
She’d forgotten how cold the lake was.
Well, the lake reminded her.
“Bah!” she said when she came up for air. Liam was a few feet from her, floating in circles on his back, completely immune to her feminine distress.
God, she hadn’t been swimming in forever. She forgot how good it felt, to feel weightless and cocooned, the languid movements she needed to keep herself afloat. She ducked underwater and pushed off the murky bottom of the lake. She wasn’t sure which direction she was going, but it felt good so she kept swimming. When she came up for air, she was closer to the middle of the lake, past where Liam was floating. She treaded water for a minute, watching him, then flipped over to do the same. She leaned her head back and tilted her head slowly, letting the water flow through her hair while it held the rest of her up.
She felt drops of water on her stomach and opened her eyes to see Liam smiling at her, his hands cupped just above the water. He squeezed them together and she got splashed again.
“Ha ha,” she said, and flicked her foot, splashing water on him.
She heard him go under, felt the water underneath her move; then he resurfaced on her other side. She looked out of the corner of her eye to see him tilt and float on his back.
She moved her hands lightly, spinning herself in lazy circles, watching the clouds move across the sky.
Her hand bumped something, and it was Liam’s hand, which was so much better than a fish. They continued to float in their independent circles, but when they bumped again, he hooked his pinkie with hers, holding them together, a floating island. She smiled, too relaxed to make a joke or move away. She didn’t want to move away. She wanted to float here with Liam, connected by their fingers, spinning slowly as the clouds.
He tugged her, gently, and her body floated closer, close enough that he could lace all of their fingers together. Another minute of floating, her mind drawn to where their hands were connected, drifting toward the idea of other body parts being connected, of feeling his arms around her, of her body being held up by the water and by him. She lifted her free hand and ran cool water across her face. Liam tugged again, hard enough to dislodge her, and when she turned to him, he was treading water, his eyes dark, and he pulled her toward him, his hand going around her waist. Hers instinctively went to his shoulder, cupping water and rolling it down the muscles there. They treaded water together for a minute, their legs tangling, heat radiating from their bodies, so much she couldn’t believe the lake didn’t just evaporate around them. His eyes roamed, and so she let hers, over his shoulders, his jaw . . .
She couldn’t resist anymore, so she leaned in and ran her tongue along the side of his neck. He shivered, so she grazed her teeth along the pulse there.
“Shit,” he muttered, but he meant it in a good way because he pulled her closer, his hands tight on her ass, and kissed her.
Yup, he could still kiss. He tasted like sunscreen and lake water and summer, and she straightened her body, aligning her chest with his, clutching his shoulders, his hair, as he growled and plundered and devoured her. She wrapped her legs around his waist, and the kiss deepened. He pulled her even closer and she moaned into his mouth. He kicked his legs to keep them afloat, and every movement of his thighs shifted her and she could feel him through his shorts and holy shit, she wanted him, so she clutched him closer and bit his shoulder. He cursed, and coughed as he swallowed some lake water.
“You gotta keep swimming,” she teased him. “Or we’re both gonna drown.”
“Then quit biting me,” he said.
“Okay,” she replied, and started to pull away.
He tightened his grip on her, reached down and wrapped her legs back around his waist. “I didn’t really mean that. Hold on.”
She did, and he started kicking his legs, propelling them closer to shore. She felt his abs flex against her, his shoulders flex under her hands, and she couldn’t handle all this hotness so she surged up and kissed him again, nearly taking both of them under.
He straightened, and she felt his legs stop moving as his feet touched the bottom of the lake. “Tiger,” he murmured into her lips, then kissed her again. This time she had the best of both worlds, the floaty of the water and the leverage of his legs planted firmly on the ground, so she took advantage of it and climbed so her head was above his. She looked down, her wet hair forming a curtain around their faces, and watched his eyes get even darker, his face more serious. His hands moved from her thighs up her sides, then they were cupping her breasts through her soaking bra, his mouth sucking on the fabric, tugging on her skin. His hands moved to her back and she felt him fumble with the wet clasp but he did it, his crafty hands pulling the bra off her shoulders, his mouth not even hesitating, and she gasped and leaned back farther, her scalp hitting the cool water, her man licking his way across her breasts.
Everything felt amazing. The sun, Liam’s arms, Liam’s mouth . . . she wanted to stay in this lake forever.
She shifted to sit up—that boy deserved a kiss—but she must have thrown off his footing, because before she could reach his mouth, she had a mouthful of lake water.
They both came up sputtering. “Are you okay?” he croaked and she had to nod because she couldn’t stop coughing and laughing, which made her cough even more.
It was very attractive, she was sure.
He ducked underwater, then came up again and shook his hair out. “Holy crap.”
“Yeah.”
“We should . . . do you want to, uh, do that on dry land?”
“Hell yes. Wait. Where’s my bra?”
“Oh. Shit.”
Well, it was a crappy old sports bra anyway. She put her hands over her breasts and waded to the shore. Liam, with his strong, long legs, beat her there and handed her her shirt. She pulled it on, then thought about her wet underwear and putting her shorts on over it.
She was already braless. Why not?
She pulled down her panties, fast so they wouldn’t stick to her legs, then stepped into her shorts.
She looked up to find Liam, his head half in his own shirt, staring at her.
“What?”
“Nothing,” he said. “Nothing. That’s just, uh. That’s gonna be distracting.”
She smiled at him, the big goof. She smiled a lot around him. What was this magic power he had over her? It made her feel all warm and . . . she didn’t know, appreciated. She didn’t usually go out with guys who told her what they liked about her.
* * *
It was hard to hike holding hands. But Liam was determined. Even though Joanna was laughing at him.
“I don’t see what the big deal is,” he told her.
“It’s just . . . it’s lame!”
“It’s lame that I want to touch you?” And that if I don’t hold your hand I’ll grab you and rip your clothes off because I know you’re not wearing underwear.
Fortunately, their argument was ended by the sudden appearance of his car. This was good because the sun was going down and he was starting to get cold. It had been a pretty dumb idea to jump into the lake in his shorts.
Although it worked out okay in the end.
He hustled Joanna into the car, since she was wearing even fewer clothes than he was.
“I should get you home so you can change.”
“I don’t want to change,” she said softly.
“I should get you home so . . .” But he couldn’t come up with another excuse because Joanna bit his lower lip.
“Don’t you want to make out in the backseat?” she asked, climbing over the center console and onto his lap. The horn honked. She leaned down and found the seat lever.
“Oof,” Liam said as his seat back dropped, and Joanna dropped with it.
“Better?” she asked, kissing his neck.
He loved it when she kissed his neck. But her knee was digging into his hip and it was seriously distracting. He nudged her leg a little, but that threw her off balance, so the whole thing ended with her elbow in his chest and the windshield wipers on.
“Sorry!” she shouted, scrambling off him. “Sorry. Here. Come back here. Backseat.”
He looked at her in the rearview mirror, looking all disheveled and kissed and not wearing a bra and he really, really wanted to climb in the backseat with her.
He let his head drop to the steering wheel. “I don’t have any condoms.”
He heard her sigh. “Worst Boy Scout ever.”