Page 91 of Dream On, Ramona Riley

“I wanted you to kiss me,” Ramona said. Her heart felt huge, thrumming at every pulse point.

“This is better though,” Dylan said. She lifted their hands, pressed them to her mouth. “To kiss here, in our cove.”

“Our cove.” Even closer now. Impossibly, defying physics. Ramona wanted to be closer still, crawl inside Dylan and set up a home, which was wild and terrifying and silly.

“Ours,” Dylan whispered, right before she closed that gap between them and brushed her lips over Ramona’s.

Soft.

Gentle.

So terrifying and so, so not silly at all.

Ramona kissed her back, just as soft and gentle, opening her mouth only a little to capture Dylan’s upper lip between hers. Dylan sucked in a breath, a tiny moan making its way out of her mouth and into Ramona’s.

And Ramona felt it everywhere. Soft and gentle wasn’t enough,not by a long shot, and the slow pulse spiraling through her body turned electric with that one little sound, a firework blasting into the sky.

She untangled their hands, a barrier between them, and then slid her fingers into Dylan’s hair, pulling her closer. Dylan was only a little taller than she was, her arms fitting perfectly around Ramona’s waist.

They obliterated any space left between them. Ramona tilted Dylan’s head just so, needing to kiss her deeper, harder. Ramona teased Dylan’s mouth open, swept her tongue over her top lip. Dylan gasped and responded, pulling Ramona tighter, letting her tongue meet hers, soft and wet and perfect. Her arms tightened around Ramona, but then her hands slipped under her blouse, fingertips soft on the bare skin of Ramona’s back. That touch—skin on skin—made Ramona feel wild. She wanted that feeling everywhere.

“Hello, Dolly,” Dylan whispered against her mouth.

Ramona laughed, pulled her even closer, framing Dylan’s face and angling her head so she could kiss down her neck.

Dylan groaned, and the sound shot straight to between Ramona’s legs.

“You’re…fuck…you’re really good at that,” Dylan said as Ramona kissed her neck, making her way to a sensitive spot just below her ear. Still not too wild. Not as wild as Ramona suddenly felt, as wild as she wanted to be.

But then Dylan whispered “Cherry,” and Ramona went feral. She made herself pause, pulled back to look at Dylan, her lips already kiss-swollen, her pupils blown wide.

“We’re on a beach,” Ramona said.

Dylan frowned. “Yeah. A cove.”

“Our cove.”

Dylan trailed her fingers up Ramona’s bare back, stopped at her bra strap, then drifted back down. “Our cove.”

“It’s stupid.”

Dylan froze. “Stupid?”

“God, sorry.” Ramona shook her head, rested her hands on Dylan’s shoulders. “Not stupid.”

“I thought it was kind of romantic.”

“It is.” Ramona pressed her forehead to Dylan’s. “It is so romantic. Or it was until I kissed you and now all I want to do is…”

She trailed off, suddenly shy.

Because what if Dylan didn’t want to…well, do what Ramona wanted to do? What if she wanted to go slower? Which was fine, god, of course it was fine, and it had been so long since Ramona had mixed feelings and sex. Logan was…not a mixture. He was a very simple solution, and everyone before him was only a fling, a summer romance, a—

Ramona blinked down at their feet in the sand, her forehead still against Dylan’s.

Just casual. You know…fun. Not so different from what we’ve been doing, really…

That’s what Dylan had said when she’d asked Ramona out.