Page 36

At the dock, Ender leaves our towels on the bench, and we jump in the water and swim out to the boat.
I reach for the ladder, but Ender stops me.
“Come over here.” He brings me around the side and traps me against it, using one arm to hang on to the side.
Oh shit. I think I know what he’s about to do.
He smiles, breathing quicker than before. “Wrap your legs around my waist so you don’t go under.”
I do as he says, without question. I search his eyes but there’s something different about them. They’re wild and alive like the day I met him. Gone is the typical sadness and I’m left with a boy who’s looking for trouble. “What are you doing?”
“Are you going to let me kiss you sometime soon?” he asks, moving my wet hair to the side with his nose, and kissing down my neck. It’s the first time his lips have ever touched my skin and I’m not saying whatever reaction my body has is a good one, because it’s rather embarrassing. I suck in a breath that sounds like a snort, and my freaking thighs shake. Taking a hold of my waist, Ender secures me to his body, his other one still gripping the side of the boat to keep our heads above water.
“Do you want to?” With heated cheeks and my heart beating in competition with my breathing, Ender watches me. I sound like he wants me to sound. Young. Naïve. A child, really. Exactly what I am to him. I’m safe for him. When the seasons change, there’s no more obligations for him. And even though I know that, it doesn’t stop me from wanting more from him. His attention makes me feel like I’m flying and I’m beginning to crave it.
He holds me tighter against his body. “I’ve wanted to kiss you since the first day I met you,” he whispers, breathing heavily against my neck. His tongue darts out and licks the shell of my ear. “Do you want to kiss me?”
I let out some kind of breath. Let’s be honest here, it’s a moan. It’s definitely a moan. But in the process of doing this, Ender pushes me harder against the side of the boat and his hand that’s on my waist under the water slips lower, underneath my bikini bottoms to my bare ass. I don’t think he does this on purpose, but I don’t tell him to move it. Nope. Never. Not with the look in his eyes that follows.
He growls out a breath and squeezes my ass, yanking my hips into his and two things happen next. One, I think Ender’s hard, and two, his mouth connects with mine for the first time.
Holy.
Freaking.
Crap.
I jump at the feeling. Our lips fuse with one another. His tongue glides along my bottom lip, and I open my mouth to accommodate, even though I don’t know what the hell I’m doing.
Ender does though. God, does he know. He kisses me deeper, giving me his tongue.
And there, in the waters of Lake Lanier, my first kiss happens, and I think about sticking my hand down the front of Ender’s shorts. I don’t know what I’d do with my hand once it’s there, but God, do I want to do it. I think the only thing that stops me is that fact that I don’t know what to do.
Closing my eyes, I let the sensation soak over me like rain, coating everything dry, and encouraging me into believing it might happen, that he’d never let me down. With my heart against his, this kiss, it’s beautiful and everything it should be for my first time. Perfect in my fourteen-year-old eyes, and I can’t, don’t want to imagine it ending. I want to lose myself in him, never surfacing again.
Unwilling to let go, I tighten my legs around his waist and that’s when Ender pulls back, panting, and drops his hand from the boat. I dip down in the water, and he glides back, going under and then resurfacing. Treading water, I think maybe he sticks his hand down the front of his shorts, because his hand brushes my thigh in the process.
“What are you doing?” I look down between my legs but can’t see anything.
He laughs, splashing me in the face. “I don’t want everyone knowing Hads makes me hard.”
Um, he said that, right? I did that?
There’s that heaviness in my chest again, not to mention an insane amount of heat between my legs. Swimming away from him, I make my way over to the ladder on the side of the boat. “Gross.”
I don’t get up the ladder before Ender grabs me by the waist and we fall backward into the water again. His mouth is at my ear, arms wrapped around my chest as he treads water. “You can’t tell me you’re not wet.”
“I don’t even know what that means,” I say honestly, trying to get away from him, but my head dips under the water.
“Yeah, okay.” He laughs. “How was that for your first kiss?” There’s a certain amount of pride in his words as he eyes the other side of the boat and the laughter approaching.
“Who says it’s my first kiss?” I tease, scrunching my nose up at him.
His jaw tightens and his breath blows over my face. “Tell me I’m your first.”
Suddenly he’s closer, his face losing all amusement it’d once had when I whisper, “You were my first.”
He moves closer again so our chests are touching. Water drips off his nose when he kisses me once more. “I’ll be your first everything, Hads.”