Total pages in book: 103
Estimated words: 98048 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 490(@200wpm)___ 392(@250wpm)___ 327(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 98048 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 490(@200wpm)___ 392(@250wpm)___ 327(@300wpm)
She gives a quiet laugh. “God, that thing was a death trap.”
It really was, that decrepit wooden pier half sunken into the waves and falling apart. Victim of a hurricane years prior, infested with rusty nails and splinters. At some point, high school kids had hauled a metal ladder out to the part of the pier that was still standing and tied it to a pylon with bungee cords. It was a sort of rite of passage to swim out through the crashing waves, climb the rickety thing, and leap off the top railing. Then all you had to do was not let the waves throw you back against the pylons covered in barnacles that would tear the flesh off your bones.
“There was that ninth-grader—Jared or Jackson or somebody. He’d been flirting with you all afternoon, doing flips off the pier like he was so damn cool. And being all obnoxious about it too. Like, hey, look at me, I’m such a badass. So you dared him to jump to one of the pylons from the pier. It was maybe a ten-foot leap to a one-foot target, and right below were all sorts of torn-up, jagged pieces sticking up out of the water. With the waves just absolutely thrashing below us.” I grin. “Suddenly he wasn’t so loud anymore. Starts making excuses and shit. And while everyone’s ragging on him for chickening out, you take a running start and go flying through the air. I was looking at Cooper for the split second like, oh fuck, we’re gonna have to jump in after you and drag you back to shore when you break your neck or get impaled on something. But then you nailed it. Perfect landing. Coolest thing I’d ever seen.”
She laughs to herself, remembering. “I got stung by a jellyfish after I jumped down. But I had to be chill about it, you know. Didn’t want to look like a dumbass for jumping out there in the first place.”
“Yeah, probably a good idea. You would’ve had ten pervert boys whipping their tiny dicks out to pee on your leg.” We both shudder in disgust at that dodged bullet.
“You didn’t kiss me that day, though,” she points out. “Why not?”
“Because you’re fucking scary.”
“Oh.” She laughs, elbowing my arm good-naturedly.
“I mean, I know we’d been friends for years by then, but when you figure out you have a crush on someone, it’s like you’re starting from scratch. I didn’t know how to approach you.”
“You figured it out.”
She shifts beside me, and I sense the change in the air between us. Something happens. Without her saying a word, I feel her decide to not be mad at me anymore.
“Didn’t have a choice,” I admit. “I was going to claw out of my skin if I didn’t find out what your lips felt like.”
“Maybe you should have.” The blanket drops from around her shoulders. She turns to look at me. “Eaten yourself alive. Spared us both the trouble.”
“Believe me, there’s no version of this”—I gesture between us—“where we don’t get together, Fred. One way or another. I can tell you that for certain.”
“And to hell with the collateral damage.”
“Yes.” Without hesitation.
“While it all burns around us.”
“I like it that way.” Because nothing else matters when she’s mine. Nothing. She’s everything and all of it.
“There’s something wrong with us,” she murmurs, closing the space between us until I feel her arm brush mine and her hair sweep across my shoulder in the breeze. “It shouldn’t feel like this.”
“How should it feel?” I haven’t the slightest idea what that means, but I wouldn’t change the way I feel about her for anything.
“I don’t know. But not this intense.”
I can’t resist the urge any longer. I reach out to tentatively brush her hair behind her ear, then thread my fingers through the long, soft strands at the back of her neck when she tilts her head into my touch.
“Do you want me to leave?” I ask hoarsely.
“I want you to kiss me.”
“You know what’ll happen if I do, Gen.”
Heat flares in her eyes, those vivid blue depths that never fail to draw me in. “Yeah? What’ll happen?” she asks, the slight curve of her lips telling me she already knows the answer but wants to hear me say it.
“I’ll kiss you.” I drag my thumb along the nape of her neck. “And then … then you’ll ask me to fuck you.”
Her breath hitches. “And then what?” Her voice is shaky.
“You know what.” I gulp through the sudden onslaught of pure, carnal lust. “I can never say no to you.”
“I know the feeling,” she says, and then her lips touch mine and from there I’m no longer in control. We become this autonomous thing with a mind of its own. Like blacking out. She bites my lip with a soft moan, grabbing a fistful of my T-shirt. I’m rock hard and ready to be inside her, but I don’t want this to end.