Surf & Surrender

by Riley Edgewood

  I take it and the moment my fingers wrap around the board, the meaning of what he's giving me sinks in. "You stole her surfboard?"

  "It's not as bad as her car." He drops his gaze to his feet, ashamed. "We were just…messing with her. I'll get her wakeboard back, too."

  "You stole all those things? Not just her car, but before that. Her spare tire?" I wait for him to look up, but he doesn't. And everything sinks in even further. "Jesus Christ, Jess. That's why you were such a little shit about me being with her, isn't it? You were ashamed. You didn't want to get caught stealing her stuff?"

  He lifts a shoulder, lets it drop.

  "You made her feel like shit. You broke her heart, kid, and you made me do the same damn thing. You made me walk away from her. You—" I cut myself off because I'm afraid of what will come through my mouth, and the kid has enough to deal with as it is.

  So I leave. Before the door closes behind me, though, I hear my dad tell Jess that he's grounded. That it's time they had a come to Jesus discussion about reality. And I hear the start of my brother beginning to sob.

  It helps to dull the sharp edge of fury running through me as I drive to Quinn's, knowing that maybe he's finally, finally breaking down. It's been a long time needed. By the time I get to her apartment, I've calmed considerably. Where my brother's concerned, anyway.

  I raise my fist to knock, but Quinn opens the door before I have a chance. Her eyes are red and she's clutching an ice cream container. The air blasting from her place is frosty.

  "Sawyer?" She tugs at her oversized T-shirt. It's so big on her it falls from one shoulder, and my mouth goes dry. Which it has no right to do, considering how much begging she deserves from me before I even come close to noticing that soft, lickable shoulder.

  "Quinn." Shit. What do I say? How do I make up for all I've put her through, including everything today?

  How do I keep myself together when all I can think about is sliding those hole-riddled sweatpants down her hips?

  How do I find the words to explain to her that I love her so goddamn much, all I want to do for the rest of my life is breathe in the same air she does.

  "I…was just going out for more ice cream," she says, blinking. And then, "That's my surfboard."

  "Jess had it."

  "Oh. Yeah. I figured." Her shoulders droop. "That's why you're here, then. To give it back. Thanks."

  I lean the board carefully against the wall outside her door. Then, praying she'll forgive me for acting before explaining, I take her face in my hands. Her chin feels so delicate against my palms. I run a thumb over her cheek, and I watch her eyes widen, her pupils swell. I hear her intake of breath and I take one of my own, inhaling her salty, ocean-water scent.

  I kiss her.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE

  QUINN

  SAWYER IS KISSING me. Softly. Skimming his lips over mine, dipping his tongue gently through my mouth. There's a delirious happiness struggling to force its way through my veins.

  But I can't let it in.

  Because I don't know why he's here. I mean, I do. To give me my surfboard.

  But why is he kissing me?

  I should stop. I should ask. I should…do something.

  What I end up doing is dancing my tongue with his and pressing my mouth harder against him.

  Because Sawyer.

  Sawyer.

  His name is a breeze through my mind, silky and sweet, and I don't care why he's kissing me, just that he is.

  I drop the empty ice cream tub, and it splatters cold leftover chocolate on my feet.

  He nudges me backward and, without breaking the kiss, we walk into my apartment. He reaches behind him to shut the door, and when it closes with a click it's like a gunshot jerking me away from him, backing me up until I hit the arm of my couch. "What are you doing?"

  "I'm done," he says, stepping toward me. "I'm done walking away from you."

  A teeny, tiny bit of that crazy happiness slips into my bloodstream, making my breath come a little faster.

  But still, I'm skittish. Nervous. Because my heart can't take this if it's not real. Not that Sawyer's lying, but things happen. Things that take him from me that are out of his control. And I can't do it again. "What about Jess?"

  "What about you?" he says. "Why can't I just think about you?"

  "Because it's not who you are. Because half your soul belongs to your family—as it should."

  "My entire soul belongs to you, actually." He takes another step, his eyes bright and steady on mine. "If you'll have it, I mean. After all the shit I've put you through."

  It's like my brain's on a spin cycle and I can't make sense of anything enough to hold onto. But when I try to slow it down, it just freezes completely. So I still can't make sense of anything. "But Jess… And you're leaving town…and—"

  "Jess is a bonehead. Jess stole your damn car. Jess is probably in the middle of a complete breakdown with my dad right now, which I actually think is a good thing. But Jess doesn't get to dictate my life anymore." Another step. "And I'm not going anywhere. Unless it's with you."

  I look at his mouth on accident. And his tongue slides through his lips to wet them. And I gnaw on my own lower lip because it's starting to throb to connect with his. I meet his gaze again. "What about the Bahamas?"

  "You'll come with me."

  "I'll be in school in October."

  He shrugs, unconcerned. "We'll go over Christmas. Through the New Year. Or we won't go at all. I don't care what I'm doing or where I'm going unless, like I said, it's with you."

  Spending Christmas with Sawyer.

  Suddenly, there's a lump in my throat.

  I'm imagining a future with him. One that includes holidays.

  For the first time in four years.

  It's too much.

  My heart thumps against my rib cage so frantically it almost hurts. "Are you serious, Sawyer? Like, for real serious? Because… I'm not doing this if you're not all in—no matter what else life throws at you, at either of us."

  "Honey." Another step and now he's close enough that I could reach out and touch his chest. My fingers start to itch to do exactly that. "I'm all in."

  Another, more substantial dose of happiness slides through me. I try to smile, to show him, but the problem with being this close to Sawyer, close enough to breathe in that never-forgotten musky sage scent, is that lust comes rushing right behind the happiness, combining to overpower it until I can't tell one from the other and all I'm left with is a beautiful sort of longing. The need to feel his hands on my skin.

  "Do you trust me?" he asks, sober.

  I nod.

  "Will you let me touch you?"

  I swallow.

  And I nod. "If you don't do it soon, Sawyer, I might beg."

  He cups my face and I breathe very, very deeply. He watches me, his eyes focused on mine.

  He shapes his hands down my neck, running them over my shoulders and then back to the center of my collarbone.

  All the oxygen's replaced with a sweet, tangy tension and I can't find my breath. Can't look away. Can't stop swallowing.

  The warmth of his palms seeps through my shirt and into my skin. And when he slowly, slowly drags them down over my breasts, using his thumbs to circle my nipples, the breath I was missing only a moment ago comes flying out in waves. Rough, rough, jagged and choppy waves.

  Then his hands are under my shirt and against my skin and my belly's jumping under his touch. The hopping in my blood slides lower, lower when he hooks his thumbs through the waistband of my sweats and slides them over my thighs until they're puddled on the floor around my feet.

  "Is this real?" I ask. "I have you now? For real?"

  "For as long as you'll have me," he says. And then he kisses me again and my soul begins to sing.

  Softly, sweetly, beautifully.

  He grabs my hips and lifts me so I'm sitting on the arm of the couch. I wrap my legs around him, pulling him closer until his erection, so rigid through hi
s pants, is pressing against me in the most delicious way, and I drag his shirt over his head.

  "I love your chest," I say, sliding my fingers across it. Dipping my head to trail kisses across the same path.

  "I love you," he says simply, his voice husky. "So much it might be all I need to live anymore. Fuck food. Fuck water. You're all I've ever wanted. All I'll ever need."

  "I love you, Sawyer." God, it thrills me to say it. To watch the smile quirk across his mouth, the gladness in his eyes. "And if you're in this for as long as I'll have you, you can count on forever."

  "Good," he says. "Add a couple days to that. A week, a year, a decade."

  The pleasure running through me at his words is enough to keep me smiling for…well, forever.

  Plus some.

  "But…" I run one hand up his neck to hold his face, and the other down his chest and stomach, tracing the ridges of his stomach muscles and pushing under the waist of his pants to wrap my fingers around him, squeezing lightly until he moans. "If you're going to be fucking all those things… Maybe you should start with me."

  He has my shirt peeled off and my panties flung across the room before I can blink. And then he's on his knees in front of me and he's sliding my feet over his shoulders and telling me to hold on.

  So I do. One hand on the couch and the other weaving through his hair. At first, he doesn't move an inch, just watches my face. Then he slides his hands up my inner thighs, pushing them farther apart and tracing lines along the creases with his thumbs.

  And he blows air over me, softly, coolly, until my back begins to arch.

  I want him so bad, need to feel him inside me so much, I nearly beg him just to stand and skip this part and for God's sake, freaking have me already. But before I can, he leans in and he licks me.

  In one slow, slow motion.

  Leading with his nose and following with his tongue.

  Slowly.

  Slowly.

  Oh, Jesus.

  Parting me.

  Curling through me, around me.

  Still.

  So.

  Slowly.

  Up to my most sensitive spots.

  Folding around me.

  Sucking.

  Gently biting.

  And then he does it again. Dipping his tongue into me, deeper this time. More thoroughly.

  And again. And again.

  Until my toes are curling hard behind his back and I can't keep from pressing myself more strongly against his mouth.

  Until I'm pulling so hard through his hair that he slides his teeth across me, tugging at me, and he growls against me.

  That guttural vibration of his voice, thrumming across me, through me… It does me in.

  Lightly, at first, my belly flutters and then explodes into fireworks of thrills; they throb and burn through me, sizzling lower, lower, lower, until I'm pulsing around his tongue and he's using his fingers to intensify every. Single. Feeling. Pressing against me. Rolling me side to side. I have to release his hair to push his hands away, because in a moment it's too much for me to bear. Who knew tingling could feel so…deliciously violent?

  I'm breathing like I've never had oxygen and when the sensations finally begin to wane, he trails his tongue up my stomach, over one nipple and across to the other, up my neck, over my chin, and finally, finally to my mouth.

  When he stands, his pants stay on the floor and he pulls me to him, lifting me from the couch, his erection pressing flat between my legs. I slide my hips so slightly back and forth, back and forth. His own hips jerk, involuntarily by his sharp inhale, and then he very, very purposefully tips into me in one piercing thrust.

  I say his name.

  I think I do.

  I think I say it.

  But I don't know because his mouth's still on mine, his tongue's still twisting through my lips and I'm still quivering all over, inside my skin and out.

  And in one fluid motion I'm on my back on the couch and he's driving into me and one of us moans or maybe both of us and I've never, ever felt so complete.

  I grip the sleek, tight skin of his back and I tug with my fingernails, lightly—but the harder he slams into me, the deeper I dig.

  He slows the rhythm, but I know what he's doing and I wrap my legs more tightly around him, pulling him deeper into me, rocking my hips faster and faster.

  "Fuck," he hisses into my ear. "I'm not… I can't hold it much longer."

  And I smile because he's still so new to this and I love the way I make him lose control.

  So I whisper naughty little things to him, words like "fuck me harder, Sawyer," and "can't wait to feel you come," until he's bucking his hips so furiously against me I feel my skin flush from the pounding and soon he's rubbing me raw.

  He comes before I do this time, but when his own trembling subsides a bit, he slides a hand between us and uses his fingers again to drive me to the edge of an orgasm, capturing my mouth with his when I tip over, swallowing my long, breathy moan.

  Later, he slides out of me, rolling to the side, and pulling me with him against the back of the couch. "Next time," he says, his heart hammering under my hands, placed against his chest. "Next time, I'll have better control."

  "We'll see about that," I say, a grin in my voice.

  "Oh, that's how you want to play it?" he asks, nuzzling my neck. "Because we both know you like a challenge, but honey, this is one I'm going to win."

  "You sure?" I reach down between us, finding him still halfway hard and pressing against my thigh. I run my fingers lightly over him until his abs tighten and he lets out a short, forced laugh.

  "I'm very, very sure." He unwraps his arm from around my back and slides his hand over my arm, along my skin until he reaches my breasts, dragging his palm across them and tugging at my nipples until they're tightening into his fingers.

  And I'm turned on all over again, but I release my grip around him and push myself out of his grasp, laughing, because I need a freaking break or my body's going to rebel.

  I slide off the couch, standing and turning to face him. "Want some water?"

  He rolls onto his back, his eyes trailing my body and his erection forming completely. He shakes his head. "Christ, Quinn. If we have forever, I'm pretty sure we'll be spending at least half of it naked, because I need all the time in the world to make up for what we missed the past four years."

  "Only half?" I ask, a pout playing across my mouth, making him laugh. "Well, I need about half an hour, Sawy, because you pretty much just slayed me and I'm not sure I could handle you touching me again right now."

  He sits up to watch me walk around to the kitchen. "I have something for you."

  "Yeah?"

  When he stands and drags his pants on and heads toward my door, I try to suppress the sudden panic at the base of my belly. I still can't help but ask, "You're leaving?"

  I try to keep my tone light, calm. He pauses. "I don't even have my shirt on—promise, I'll be back before you can count to ten."

  Still, my heart tightens when my apartment door closes behind him. Because it's getting too used to this, I think. Him leaving.

  But he's back a minute later, holding something behind him, and when he sees the tension across my face he crosses to me, where I've draped myself in a blanket on the couch, dropping to his knees before me. "I swear to you, Quinn. I won't ever walk away from you again."

  I close my eyes, breathing deeply, letting the truth I hear in his words wash over me.

  Then I say, "But what about when you have to go to the bathroom?"

  He smiles. "I won't ever leave you with any sort of permanence, I mean."

  "But what if you have to take a really big—"

  "Here." He interrupts me, laughing. And he pulls his free hand from behind his back and hands me a frame. Silver, this time, and circular.

  I stare at it for a long, hard second before I take it, and I blink back sudden tears. "It was you leaving these for me."

  He nods.

  "Why
didn't you tell me?"

  "Because I didn't want you to smash them into pieces if you knew they were from me. Because if you kept them, something of me would always be with you even if I couldn't."

  "Sawyer, I'd never smash something you made. No matter where you were." I lean down to kiss him, lightly. "Even before I understood why you disappeared, I never got rid of anything that was ever yours."

  "Are you saying you still have my garage sale Guns 'n Roses T-shirt circa the mid-90s?" The hope in his eyes is adorable.

  I nod. "I slept in it occasionally over the years, when I missed you the most. You want it back?"

  He thinks about it, and for a moment I think he's going to say yes and I'm going to have to take back my offer, because no way am I actually going to return it to him. Then he shakes his head. "Makes me hot thinking about you wearing it. Probably barely covers your ass anymore, does it?"

  I lift a brow. "Wanna see?"

  "Hell yeah."

  I find it and put it on, and…he has it off of me in less than a minute. And I end up not getting the half hour break I thought I needed, because I really, really didn't need it after all. We spend the rest of the day and night in nothing but our skin.

  * Places We Spend Our Time in Nothing But Our Skin *

  1. Under my covers

  2. Over my covers

  3. Against the wall

  4. Back to my couch

  * * * * * *

  Looking at that list, it might seem like I'd be the most sore in one very particular area the next morning. But the place I actually ache the most?

  My cheekbones.

  From all the grinning.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR

  QUINN

  WE HIT THE circuit a few days later, when the bonfire's in Kitty Hawk for the night.

  When we've managed to leave his place.

  After multiple rounds of…making up for lost time.

  We kick off our flip-flops and he grabs my hand, smiling down at me as we walk through the sand toward the party.