CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

HARPER POLSEN

I follow Zane into the water and let out a little shriek that I quickly try to muffle as the cold swirls around me, sapping my body of its heat. I hadn’t even thought I was that warm.

“See? This is totally different from going swimming in the raw by yourself,” Zane tells me, and I feel myself blushing even as I roll my eyes.

“It’s not that different at all,” I say, wading out deeper into the water.

I remember that Zane is actually a really good swimmer. He was a lifeguard at one point when we’d been in high school and I’m sure the army has only improved his skills further.

I’m grateful for the fact that the light isn’t very strong away from the shore, and I can at least pretend like Zane hasn’t seen that much of me naked and not for that long. I did catch sight of his cock starting to harden right before he ran for the water, and that sight gave me the strangest thrill.

“Come on, you have to admit that you’re at least a little intrigued,” Zane says, and he’s only a few feet away from me. Even if I can’t see him below about his chest I can only imagine that he’s probably still sporting the half-erection. That the water, cool as it is, couldn’t have possibly done much to shut down the reflex.

Is it because he saw me naked and liked what he saw? Or is it just being naked at the lake with a girl?

“It’s interesting,” I admit, almost against my will.

“Oh God, skinny dipping is interesting?” Zane laughs.

“Stop making fun of me,” I say, splashing water in his direction.

“I will, once you stop being such a cute little nerd,” Zane counters.

My cheeks burn at the sound of the word cute. He thinks I’m cute? There have been hints of it since the first party, but nothing I could ever really make a move on, nothing I could trust to not just be typical Zane Lewis flirting.

“That’s not going to work on me, Zane,” I tell him.

“What’s not going to work, Harper?”

Somehow he’s even closer to me in the water, so close I can almost feel the heat of his body, and I find myself looking down through the darkness obscuring us from each other from the chest down, trying to see if I can see his cock, trying to discover if, as I suspect, he’s still sporting a semi-erection.

“That whole charm thing,” I reply.

“If I were charming you, I would tell you that the only reason I wanted to come here was to try to talk you into skinny dipping with me,” Zane says.

I laugh. “I pretty much guessed that,” I say.

“See? Cute and smart. Cute nerd,” Zane insists.

I shake my head, and at the same time I find myself moving closer to Zane in the water.

We’re floating there, treading water, just inches away from each other like some kind of bizarre game of chicken. I think each of us is waiting for the other one to pull back, or at least do something about the situation. As close as we are, I can see more of Zane’s body in the clear water. A few nights before, when I watched him masturbating, I’d never imagined that I might actually see him up close like this. See his naked body, covered in lean muscle and his tattoos, within a hand’s reach of me.

For a few seconds we stay like that, staring at each other, neither of us talking. Then Zane closes the last little bit of distance between us. He puts his hands on my waist and pulls me up against him through the water, and his lips brush against mine.

“If you want me to stop, just say so,” he murmurs against my lips.

Even before I can say anything, though I don’t really have the brains to speak, he kisses me again, more deeply than the first time.

I put my arms around his shoulders without even thinking, opening my mouth when I feel Zane’s tongue sweep along my lips. I press my body against his and all at once the only thing I can think of is how good he feels, how hot, how much smoother his skin is than I would have imagined.

His hands go all over me and I moan against his mouth, sliding my fingertips along his shoulders, down his back. We move a little closer to shore, and Zane plunges his tongue into my mouth, probing and tasting me, while I counter with my own tongue, battling him, both of us trying to dominate, just like in the video game earlier that day.

I shiver as the cold, and the feeling of Zane’s hands all over me overwhelms every nerve in my body. I break away from his lips for a moment. Zane ducks down to kiss and nibble along my throat, down almost to my chest, and I let my hands wander all over him, barely missing his erection. I can feel it pressing against my hip, and I have to admit that there’s a very, very big part of me that wants to feel that thickness, that heat, deep inside me.

We’re barely in the water anymore, tangled up in each other in the shallows, tumbling around and kissing each other over and over again.

All at once I’m pulling away, panting a little bit from how turned on I am. I can feel how wet my pussy is, far beyond anything the water could have done, slick and hot and tight.

“We… should stop,” I say, even though it’s the last thing in the world I really want. What I want is for Zane to pull me out of the water and pin me down on the grass and take me.

“You’re right,” Zane says, breathing heavily. It’s like agony, hearing him say it.

“It would just be too weird, going any farther than that,” I say, because I know I have to say it, because it’s the right thing to say. Every nerve in my body is screaming at me to take it back.

“Way too weird,” Zane agrees, and I have to resist the urge to tell him to stop agreeing with me, to argue with me like he always seems to. Why isn’t he arguing with me now? I can feel how hard his cock is. I know he wants me as much as I want him.

But instead I pull myself off him and take a second to steady myself in the shallows before climbing up onto the shore to the grass.

“We should head back home. Our parents are probably starting to worry a bit,” I say.

I don’t even bother to dry off, but just pull my clothes onto my wet body.

Zane follows suit.

The cold water sobered me up, and the one beer I did finish was hours ago, so I drive us back to my parents’ house.

Neither of us talks the whole way back home.

I’m sure that tomorrow night at the party, it’s just going to be so incredibly awkward.

***

Mom is still up when I get into the house, but she’s in her pajamas, watching something on TV. She gives me a look when I come into the room, and I’m suddenly aware that my hair’s still damp, my clothes are sticking to me, and my make-up’s probably a mess.

“What’s happened?” she asks.

I shrug. “Nothing,” I say, probably too quickly.

“Either of you find dates for tomorrow’s party?”

I shake my head. “Nah, no luck there,” I say.

“Nothing is going on with you and him?”

“Mom, please,” I say, rolling my eyes. “Nothing is different between us.”

Before she can try to get any more questions in, I tell her I need to check my email, and that I need to get some sleep if I’m going to help Bev set up and then enjoy the party the next night.

I rush off to my room and close the door behind me and every inch of my body still tingles from what Zane and I did.