Chapter 16 #2
“Too late,” I called back, raising my fork. “Adam, if you ever get tired of working out at the resort, I’ve got a spot for you in my kitchen!”
“My baking skills are not as good as my cooking ones,” he said in his thick French accent.
The banter flowed as easily as the wine. We ate with our plates in our laps, bracing our feet against the deck as the boat rocked lightly. There’s a specific kind of intimacy that happens on a boat. The physical closeness, the shared rhythm of the ocean clears away the polite small talk.
After lunch, the wind and the waves died down to a whisper as the sun rose higher. Everyone grew warmer and the water turned from a choppy sapphire to a still, translucent turquoise. We were in a sheltered cove with high rock walls shielding us from the current.
Within minutes, Ben and Cal had jumped off the stern, their splashes sending a spray of cool water over the rest of us.
“Are you going in?” Cade asked. He had shed his tank top, revealing the hard-earned muscles of his broad shoulders.
I tried not to stare, but the way the sunlight played over them made it difficult.
I admired all of the tattoos he’d gotten, despite his parents’ complaints.
Actually, I was even thinking of getting a few myself.
How was it I’d never thought him sexy before? I mean, I had, but not like this. God, I’d been so blind.
“In a minute,” I said, my voice a little breathy. “I’m just… soaking this in.”
He lingered, looking down at me with an expression that was softer than his usual rugged exterior. He reached out, his hand hovering for a second before he tucked a stray, salt-crusted hair behind my ear.
“This suits you,” he murmured.
“What does?”
“The peace. You’ve been wearing the weight of the world since you moved here. It’s nice to see you put it down for a few hours.”
I smiled. He didn’t wait for an answer. He just gave my shoulder a lingering squeeze before turning and diving cleanly over the railing. I watched the spot where he broke the surface, the ripples expanding outward until they hit the side of the hull.
I looked around at my friends, my people, and felt a sudden, sharp pang of gratitude. I stood up, peeled off my cover-up, and walked toward the edge, ready to jump in.
The water was a shock, a sharp, bracing cold that slapped the lingering heat from my skin and forced a gasp from my lungs as I broke the surface. I shook my head, spraying droplets everywhere, and blinked the salt from my eyes.
“See? Not so bad!” Cade shouted from a few feet away. He was treading water with an effortless power that made me envious. I felt like I was peddling madly just to keep my head above water.
I laughed though, kicking my legs and feeling the weightlessness. “It’s freezing!”
“You’re just a delicate kitchen flower,” he teased, cutting through the water toward me with a few lazy strokes.
Nearby, the rest of the group was in a state of controlled chaos.
Ben was trying, and failing, to pull Sarah onto a giant inflatable flamingo, while Max and Cora were engaged in a surprisingly competitive splashing war near the back of the sailboat.
Their voices echoed off the rock walls of the cove, sounding bright and distant.
I swam away from the commotion, heading toward the mouth of the cove, where the water turned a deeper, darker indigo. The silence hit me first. The world always hushes when your ears are level with the tide.
A moment later, the steady rhythm of water breaking behind me told me I wasn’t alone. Cade pulled up beside me, his hair slicked back, making his features look even more rugged, more defined. Out here, away from the boat, the air felt private.
“I’d forgotten that you’re a very good swimmer,” he said, his voice lower now, dampened by the surrounding cliffs.
“How many swimming pools, lakes, and oceans have we been in?” I joked, treading water just inches from him. Our legs brushed beneath the surface, a ghostly, tangled contact that sent a different kind of shiver through me.
He reached out and grabbed a nearby rock and offered me his other hand. I took it, grounding myself against his strength.
“You okay?” he asked. His eyes looked into mine, searching for the part of me who was always worrying about the next disaster ahead.
“I’m more than okay,” I admitted, and for the first time, I didn’t have to force the words.
“I think I’m actually starting to breathe again.
Really breathe.” I shifted closer to him.
“We haven’t heard from Levi or either of our families for almost a full week.
I suppose I was waiting for the trouble to kick in at any moment.
” I took a deep breath. “Now I feel as if I can handle anything they throw our way. I suppose I needed the reset.”
His grip on my hand tightened slightly. He pulled me just a fraction closer, the space between us filled with the gentle lap of the waves against our chests. For a long second, I thought he might kiss me right there, mid-ocean, with the sun as our only witness.
“Good,” he whispered. “Because I can tell that you’ve been holding your breath for a long time. Besides, whatever they throw at us, we’ll handle it together.”
Then he leaned in and kissed me until I was breathless.
We heard several in the group throw cheers our way and pulled apart laughing. Someone yelled, “Finally,” while someone else yelled, “Get a room.”
“I guess there’s not a lot of privacy around here.
” He leaned his forehead against mine. Then he let go of my hand and dove under the water.
A second later, I felt his hands catch my waist beneath the water, hoisting me upward just as a small swell rolled in.
I surfaced, laughing, reaching for his shoulders as he came up grinning like a schoolboy.
“Race you back?” he challenged, already turning.
“You’re on!”
I dug into the water, my muscles burning in the best possible way. By the time we reached the ladder of the sailboat, my lungs were heaving and my heart was thumping a frantic, happy rhythm against my ribs.
As we climbed back on deck, Adam was handing out thick, sun-warmed towels. The afternoon was beginning to lean into evening, the light turning a honeyed gold that made the evergreen trees on the shore look like they were glowing from within.
It was the most perfect day I’d had in years.