Chapter 18 #2
“Maybe,” I said, a little overwhelmed to have him so close. “You’ve been ignoring me today, so I don’t know.”
“Funny, because earlier, when we were stripping down for the river, I could’ve sworn you caught me not ignoring you when I was not ignoring you.”
I chuckled. Seb chuckled. And just like that, all my anxieties from the afternoon floated away. I liked seeing Seb happy.
The dimples, the white teeth of his big smile. Slits for eyes. His blond hair glittering in the sun. Miles and miles of bronzed
skin.
“So,” he said, as his legs floated against mine. “I’ve been thinking about your indecent proposal.”
“Staying at the cottage? It wasn’t indecent, and—” And I take it back! Why was he torturing me? I had a moment of weakness last night, and that’s all there was to it.
“You mentioned the possibility of house rules. What kind of rules?”
Oh wow. Okay, so he was actually considering moving in?
“Um, not sure,” I hadn’t thought it through. “I guess I was thinking about rules to ensure we’re both satisfied with the arrangement.
Division of labor, that kind of thing.”
“Sleeping arrangements.”
“And that.” My pulse picked up speed.
He shifted his arm above my head, leaning on it for support while his other hand reached out to touch the chain around my neck, shifting my vintage Blackbeard decoder ring around. “You still have it,” he said softly.
“So do you. I saw it on your keys.”
“Nana Malone said they were magic. Who am I to disagree?” He bit his bottom lip, staring at my ring for a moment longer before
he glanced at the top dock. “So, this division of labor in the cottage . . . what did you have in mind? You need me to give
you like twenty orgasms a day or you’ll find another roommate?”
Hearing the word “orgasm” come from Seb’s mouth threw my brain off-balance, but I recovered quickly, laughing. “I doubt I’d
find any roommate who could keep that up. Obviously we need to address this . . . topic. I mean, if you were really considering
my offer. Probably easiest for us to just to say no and avoid it altogether.”
“No sex,” he said, a dark, teasing humor behind his eyes.
“No sex,” I agreed.
“Is that rule just for me, or did you have it with your roomie back at Harvard?”
“It was pretty much understood,” I said, smiling up at him.
He sighed, smiling back at me as he let his head drop next to mine. “So, no sex. I take out the garbage, and neither of us
bring home hookups,” he said near my ear.
“It’ll be a struggle, but sure.”
“The no-sex, or the no-bringing-home-hookups?” he asked.
“The garbage part.”
His laugh reverberated through me. I looked up at the dock again. Still safe.
“What else do I need to know about this potential living situation?” he asked, nuzzling the column of my neck under my ear.
I shivered. He definitely noticed. The weight of his hips slowly sank against mine. “Do I need to pay rent? Cover half the utilities?”
It was hard to think when he was basically lying on top of me. I gave up trying to hold myself away from him and dared to
slide my hand around his back, feeling his warm, wet skin. “No rent. Yes to utilities. Pitch in for food.”
“Seems fair,” he said, opening his mouth like a vampire on my neck. But he didn’t bite me. He just breathed me in deeply and
sighed against me. “You smell so good.”
“SPF sixty sunblock.”
He chuckled. “I don’t think that’s it . . .” His hips slipped into the valley between my legs, and his erection was shockingly
warm in the water. I was unable to stop my legs from winding around his.
That’s when he bit my neck.
Not hard. Just enough that my hips rose against him in answer. I couldn’t control my body. It was doing its own thing, and
not listening to the panicky thoughts in my head about being caught. We shouldn’t have been doing this out in the open, in
front of all the mansions lining the riverbanks and the occasional boat. It was lewd. Obscenity laws were probably being broken.
I was hot all over, molten between my legs . . .
Jesus. He hadn’t even kissed me.
I wrapped him in my arms. Water rose around us as we both fully sank into the hammock. He pulled back from my neck and lifted
his face out of the water, droplets falling over my face. I wanted him. Badly. I don’t think I’d ever been so turned on. Not
in public, that’s for sure.
“What are we doing, Paige?” he whispered. “You think we can really be . . . just roommates?”
Just roommates? Whose dumb idea was that? I didn’t even know if I could make it off this hammock without tearing off my swimsuit and begging
him to give me those twenty orgasms.
I glanced up one last time at the dock. Lulu was standing on the top deck, peering down over the rail at us with the strangest
look on her face . . .
“Oh shit!” I said, shoving Seb off me.
Lulu’s face disappeared. I had no idea how long she was up there, but she definitely saw us messing around—I mean, if that’s what we were even doing. Much like Seb, I had no idea.
I had less of an idea after we scrambled off the hammock and swam to the dock ladder. But it felt like I was the only one
freaking out when Seb held the ladder and encouraged me to go first.
“Gonna need a second,” he said.
I was too freaked out to even respond to that. I just whispered, “I don’t trust Lulu! She’s going to tell everyone.”
“It’s fine. I’ll take care of it,” he assured me.
How?
Dread awaited me at the top of the ladder. Music thumped as I crested the top and wrung out my wet hair, glancing around.
Punkin was asleep on a chaise longue. The guy from down the block who was visiting was gone. Benny and Jazmine were playing
paper football on a lounge table, flicking a triangle of folded paper through a series of empty beer bottles. Lulu was trying
to get their attention.
Dammit!
Seb emerged from behind me, shaking himself off like a dog. Before I could think of what to do—what to say—he grabbed a beach
towel off a table and began drying his hair as he walked toward the other Wags.
“Hey,” he called out.
Lulu froze. Jazmine and Benny both looked up from their tabletop game.
“There you are,” Jazmine said. “We were about to go looking for you. Benny and I have news . . .”
“Me first,” Seb said, scrubbing his hair with the towel. “Just so everyone knows, I’m going to be moving in with Paige for
a while. She’s got an extra room, and there was that break-in when she first got back in town. You know. Safety in numbers.”
“And you’re offering . . . what? Your protection services . . . ?” Benny asked, skeptical.
I honestly wouldn’t mind another person in the cottage for that very reason, but Seb and I had never discussed it. Obviously
he’d been thinking about it.
Seb shrugged. “Besides, I’m a third wheel here. It will give you guys more space.”
Holy shit. I couldn’t believe he’d just announced that, like we’d been considering it for weeks and finally come to a decision.
We hadn’t agreed on anything! We were just joking around down there in the hammock. Weren’t we?
“Paige?” Jazmine said, face concerned. “Is this for real? You’re moving in together?”
“Just roommates!” I added a little too quickly. “Totally platonic.”
Everyone squinted at us like they didn’t believe a word out of our mouths.
That was fair. I wasn’t sure if I believed us, either.
“So anyway,” Seb said, as if it were business as usual, nothing to see here. “That’s our news. What’s yours?”
Jazmine held a paper football between two fingers and leaned back in her chair, looking pleased with herself. “Benny and I may have just figured out how we can dig up the time capsule.”
“How?” Seb and I both asked.
A slow smile grew across Benny’s face as he turned his phone around to show us a screen with a poster that advertised the
upcoming Cherry Festival. “Like Mabel’s other clue said—right under their noses.”