Chapter 30 Arthur, Before
Arthur,
Before
Truth or dare?”
Eva lay face down on the sun-warmed dock in a bikini top and shorts, her hair spread loose over the slats of wood. She turned her head and considered. “Dare.”
I grinned. “You sure?”
“What, do you finally have a good one?”
I guffawed. “Awful lot of talk from a girl who never picks dare.”
She rolled onto her side to face me. “You never pick anything exciting.”
My eyes cheated past her to the blue-green ripples of water slapping the side of the dock. I nodded to the pond. “I dare you to jump in.”
Eva groaned. “Wait, no. I changed my mind.”
I tsked. “No take-backs, bee girl.”
“I am a lizard! I deserve to sun myself on a rock!”
“You mean dock.”
She stuck out her tongue. “Tomato, potato.”
I leaned over where my camera sat between us, close enough to let my breath heat the shell of her ear. “Eva Moreau,” I murmured, “I dare you to skinny-dip with me.”
Her lips rounded. “You don’t skinny-dip.”
“I don’t?”
“You’re too shy!” she said, gesturing with a hand.
I snorted. “Just what part of me are you pointing to?” Pushing to my feet, I peeled off my shirt and shorts, leaving me in nothing but my boxers. “I’m going to beat you into that water.”
I needed a distraction anyway. It had been nearly six weeks since that farmers’ market afternoon, and I hadn’t relaxed for a second, worried I’d done the wrong thing by promising to keep what Lenny had tried to do in the Honey Shoppe a secret.
But the bee girl was in a good mood today, and I didn’t want to ruin that.
Eva’s cheeks pinked as her eyes slowly dragged up my body. Instead of shrinking, I arched a brow.
“I like this new you,” the monster hummed. “She’s been very good for your confidence, hasn’t she?”
Maybe she had. I’d never given much thought to my appearance, too consumed with the monster beneath it, though I supposed I liked my eyes and the shade of my hair.
I wasn’t overly tall or brawny like the lords and dukes in her books—yes, I was a snoop, and I had no shame in peeking at her novels—but the way Eva looked at me now made me shiver pleasantly.
With her arms crossed under her chest like that, she gave me a rather stirring view herself.
“Fine.” Eva popped to her feet and wriggled out of her shorts. Her swimsuit was the same deep cobalt as the sky above. I couldn’t help the spread of my grin. “Why are you smiling?”
“You are very pale.”
She swatted my arm. “I freckle.”
“I know.”
The monster snorted.
It wasn’t lost on me what a gift it was that Eva trusted me enough to let her guard down like this.
“Well?” she asked. “What are you waiting for?”
I tore off my ball cap and tossed it aside with as much dramatic flair as I could muster.
Eva gave her belly laugh to the sky. It was pretty and honest and sexy as hell.
I didn’t stop to think then—I scooped her up and bolted down the dock.
She screamed as we flew off the edge and plunged together into cold water.
Together, we sank until our toes stirred mud.
She scrambled for purchase, kicking hard and climbing me like a monkey until we broke free again.
“How dare you!” she coughed.
I cut her off with a splash to the face. Eva shrieked and splashed me back. Soon she was giggling, holding on to the edge of the dock for balance as she tried and failed to splash more than she laughed. She was so lovely I couldn’t stand it; my cheeks hurt from smiling.
When her laugh dropped into the low spread of a hum in her chest, Eva reached behind herself and fiddled with the drawstrings of her swimsuit until the bikini popped free. Then she sank lower.
My mouth went dry. She’d turned the tables on whatever game I’d thought I was winning before.
Her hands dipped below the water again, surfacing with a pair of bright blue swim bottoms. She flung the swimsuit onto the dock.
“Dare,” she chirped, a task complete, then twirled a finger in my direction. “Now, then. Boxers. Off.”
I hitched a laugh.
Eva pushed off the dock toward me, both of us kicking our legs to tread water as she gently set her hands on my shoulders.
I’d promised myself I wouldn’t touch her, but I hadn’t prepared myself for what I would do if she touched me. At the graze of her fingertips, my stomach pebbled with goose bumps.
Eva moved closer. The blissful glide of her skin against mine was a sweet, delicious shock. We hadn’t done this yet, not even close. Despite the cold water, my body hardened as she tugged the waistband down, tossed the boxers onto the dock and wound her legs around my waist.
“Hi,” she whispered.
“Hey, bee girl.”
She was so soft, the feeling of her breasts flattened against my chest the most erotic sensation I had ever experienced. Swallowing hard, I reminded myself to go slow.
I wanted her thighs in my hands. I wanted to kiss down her throat and taste the freckles on her skin. But even more, I wanted her to feel safe.
“This okay?” I whispered, keenly aware of the new territory we were approaching.
Eva nodded. “More than okay.” She smoothed a drop of water off my cheek.
“I like this.” And then her lips moved sweetly against mine again, the slip of her tongue like a promise.
I made a little sound and drew her hungrily against me.
Eva’s fingers combed back my hair as I deepened the kiss, a new desperation unfurling inside me.
I like this, too.
The words I wanted to say to her stuck like molasses in my throat—heady and dark, but oh, so sweet.
I like you.
When Eva flexed her thighs around my middle, we bobbed a little lower in the water, too distracted to tread properly.
The bank exploded with bright green reeds. Something slippery brushed my calf before it shrank back from my skin, dying beneath the water’s surface. Nearby, green pads popped to the surface, pale pink and white lilies opening into full bloom.
When Eva saw them, she broke away. “Sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry,” I rasped. “I like what you can do.”
“Really?”
I nodded. Her tickling reeds wove through my toes before shriveling back at my touch. The slippery cold made me shiver, but so would any brush of a fish.
“You’re not scared?” Eva asked in a too-small voice.
“No.” Her gift was raw and wild. Sometimes it made me doubt that she was even real. But it didn’t scare me.
I drew her arms back around my neck and gently pinched her stomach between my fingers. Eva’s round lips puckered, and she squeezed her legs around my waist. “Touch me.”
My thumb skimmed up her ribs, daring to brush the underside of her breast. “Where?”
I tracked the barest contraction of a swallow in her throat. “There,” she whispered.
I was obscenely hard between her thighs.
It should have been embarrassing how obviously I wanted her, but I couldn’t find it in me to care.
When we kissed again, I tasted the pond: silt, sunscreen, and her.
My hand slipped higher, my thumb drawing a line up her sternum as I hesitantly cupped her breast in my hand.
The pitiful sound Eva made resonated in every crook of my body.
“Yeah?”
She felt so good, and I was high on the rush of her reactions.
Eva nodded, her nails digging into my skin. “Let’s go to the bank.”
I kicked to the dock and used the edge to haul us in until the water grew shallow, a slurry of mud squishing between our toes. We fell into a patch of grass, dripping and naked. A flood of green moss withered under my palm, but I didn’t care. I only saw her.
“What now?” Eva said with a laugh.
My heart pounded. “What do you want now?”
A pretty blush stained Eva’s cheeks as she bit her lip. “I don’t know. I’ve never…”
“Me neither.”
I drank in the sight of her sprawled beneath me, sun-rosed, freckled, and full of trust.
The grass had no idea what to do. At my touch, the plants withered and died, but Eva renewed them without a thought. The way the world transformed for her was art. She was art. My eyes followed the sparkling trail of a water droplet down her chest. She was a fucking masterpiece.
“Maybe we could… keep going where we left off?” Eva tentatively asked, drawing my hand back to her breast.
I squeezed on reflex. Nodded hard. “All right.”
Sometimes I had a difficult time seeing myself as a good person.
Good people, after all, didn’t have death swirling inside them.
But when my touch drew a gasp out of Eva, I didn’t feel wicked.
I felt alive. My death-touch ripped the life from the microgreens Eva’s gift had coaxed to the surface, and for once I couldn’t bring myself to care.
For once, I loved it.
The sun had touched her everywhere, constellating her skin in honey-colored freckles. I wanted to map her stars with my mouth the way a cartographer charts the heavens.
Eva’s head fell back into the grass as she let out a sigh.
It was a breathless game, discovering what she liked. “Show me where else you want to be kissed, bee girl.”
After a moment’s pause, Eva’s eyes fluttered shut, and she drew a little circle in the hollow of her throat.
I was a good student. Brushing a lock of hair off her neck, I lowered my weight onto her and gently kissed the spot.
Eva’s chest erupted in goose bumps. When she drew a line down the valley between her breasts, I followed, planting little kisses like seeds in soil.
Maybe a garden would bloom from her skin, an Eden I couldn’t destroy.
When I ran my tongue over her nipple, Eva let out a shocked, breathy laugh.
Pride swelled in my chest. I’d done that.
I crawled down her body, eager to touch and taste more of her. I kissed the soft, pale flesh of her stomach. Kissed the little mole beside her belly button. But when I found her hips, Eva stiffened. “Wait.”
I pulled back immediately. “Sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry.” Eva’s eyes were glazed, her pupils wide and dark as she wove her fingers into my hair, keeping me still. Keeping me there.
“We can stop, Ev.”
“No.” Her voice cracked a little. “I don’t want to stop.”