She was driving my truck in that sexy-ass dress, and every single time she pressed the accelerator, her skirt rode up more. Fuck. Fuck.

“We better be going somewhere close because I’m like six seconds from turning on the hazard lights, yanking the emergency brake, and taking you outside to bend you over the fender.”

“Oooh! Sex in public! There’s another secret. I had no idea that was your jam.”

“Anything you want can be my jam,” I said, and I ran my finger up the edge of her panties, right on the soft edge of her pussy lips.

But she swatted my hand away. “Max! Be good. For two seconds. You can have your way with me however you want, but first…” She took a crazy sharp left, making the tires peal on the asphalt, and then a quick right. Then she skidded to a stop and threw the Chevy into park. She looked like heaven and always drove like she was driving getaway after a bank robbery. Goddamn it, how I love her.

Rosie held out her hands. “So?” I looked around. On the right side was a burger joint, on the left a liquor store. “I’ll get the burgers,” she said, taking the keys from the ignition. “You get the beer.”

This woman. Seriously. But it got even more ballbusting, more crazy-making, more dream-come-true. As she slid out of my truck, she showed me so much thigh that I felt myself starting to get hard. She gave me a coy look over the shoulder and pointed at the liquor store. “Don’t dawdle!”

“Just dealing with the aftermath of that dress,” I told her.

Which she answered with a shake of her hair, a pouting blown kiss, and a huge smile, before disappearing into the burger joint.

And after a few minutes, I was able to get out of the truck and hold up my end of the bargain, too.

* * *

Half an hour later, we were sitting on the hood of my truck, under the stars, drinking IPA, and finishing our cheeseburgers. She’d kicked off her heels, and they lay together on the sand below. Out in front of us was Smuggler’s Cove, a small, clear lagoon cut off from the world.

“This is heaven.” She lay back on the hood of the cab and ate some fries. She was even cute when she did that—not graceful, just adorable. Jammed them in there like it was going to be her very last meal.

I put the bag of fries and our beers between us. Better than heaven, really. Heaven on earth. I sat up and swallowed half my beer. I looked her up and down, and as my eyes slid up her thighs, I let my finger draw her skirt up, up, up until I could see the tattoo, which tonight had a lace strip from a bright pink thong over it. I hooked my finger over the lace and snapped it. And then started to unbutton my shirt.

She froze with her hand halfway to the fries. “Are you going to take me on the hood of your truck? Because that sounds amazing.”

“Not yet,” I said. My voice was deeper than usual, all that fucking desire making me sound like I’d just woken up. I tipped my head toward the still, quiet, pristine cove.

Rosie’s lips parted. “Please tell me you’re thinking what I’m thinking.” She pushed herself up onto her elbows. “Pleeeeeeease.”

I unbuttoned another button, and then another. She took hold of the tiny zipper on the side of her dress and revealed the fucking perfect curve of her hips and the side of her bra underneath.

“Starts with skinny and ends with dip?” she asked.

“Bingo.”

But before I could get one more button undone, before I could pin her down on the hood and kiss her like I wanted to, she’d slid off my truck. She shimmied out of that dress and sprinted for the lagoon in her lingerie, with sand spraying behind her.

I took off after her. I pulled my half-unbuttoned shirt over my head and stripped off everything else. She cannonballed off the edge of the lagoon, and I did the same right beside her. The bubbles off her skin shimmered in the moonlight. I had my eyes wide open, and the salt water stung, but I never took my eyes off of her, not once.

* * *

She played hard to get for a while, because she was a more graceful and faster swimmer than I’d ever be, but I caught her eventually. I laid her back in the water, supporting her ass with my hand so she was floating, like she was about to do the backstroke. Her left arm, she let drift out to her side. Her right, she used to hold on to my shoulders. I went for her left nipple first. The fucking salt water kicked the whole thing into overdrive—the sweetness of Rosie, the salt of the ocean. Totally one of those salted caramels she loved so much. Her fingers moved through my wet hair, and I watched her extend her toes in pleasure, right below the waterline.

“Please get inside me,” she said. “Please.”

I was deep into the nipple play, but I’d seen it coming. I shook my head into her left breast and pinched the right nipple between thumb and forefinger.

She gasped like she was outraged. “Max. Please.”

“Fuck, I love to hear you beg.” I put my hand gently to her sternum and pushed her down so the water lapped at the edges of her nipples. I watched the waterline creep up her cheeks, past her ears, and I knew the feeling of that—that sensory deprivation. When suddenly everything goes quiet and everything starts to make sense.

“Why not?” she said. She turned her head slightly so she could hear me.

“Because there is no way in hell I am going to do anything to hurt that pussy of yours, beautiful,” I told her. I held my breath and slipped underneath her, emerging on the other side, careful to be silent, not to make a single sound or splash. She was still facing away from me when I reemerged, and for a second, I got to take her in without her knowing I could see her. It was like what I’d done in Marshalls—and that fateful day on the roof.

I gave her a flat-handed splash, and she turned to face me, splashing me back. I scooped her up into my arms, newlywed-style at first, but then her legs wrapped around me automatically.

“But it would be so easy.” She slid her tongue up the curve of my ear, and she was damned dirty about it. “Just one little move of my hips.”

Tempting. So fucking tempting. But what I said, I meant. “I’m all for nature, but that pussy is sacred.” I gave her a thrust, but I didn’t enter her. “Got it?”

She snagged her top lip with her bottom teeth. “I love when you talk like that. All possessive.” She slipped her arms off of me and lay back into the water without unwrapping her legs from my hips. When she came back up, her hair was away from her face, and she had her bra in her hand.

In that moment, every fucking thing on earth was perfect. It was her, and it was me, and nothing else mattered. Nothing else would ever matter. So I took my chance, and I bit the bullet, and I said the words I never thought I’d say to anybody. It was heavy, and it was what I needed her to know. “I think you know this already, but I love you. So fucking much.”

She ran the backs of her fingertips down my cheek and brought her forehead to mine. She didn’t giggle, she didn’t smile. She didn’t tease. She kissed me, slow and sweet, and then whispered, “I love you, too.”

If my words had weight, hers had the power to fill a hole inside me that I never fucking knew was there.

I wasn’t sure how long we stayed tangled together like that. Whatever it was, it wasn’t long enough. But I needed her. I needed to be inside her, I needed her to feel just how much I meant what I’d said, and so slowly, I brought her back to the shore and carried her like a brand-new bride up the sand.

“You wanna go home?” I asked her.

She shook her head and smiled. She looked as sweet and innocent as I’d ever seen her. But innocent she most definitely was not. “I think we should stay here a little while longer.”