6. Chapter Six
Chapter Six
Aileen
He picks me up at the launch at dusk, and this time I'm not carrying a single piece of equipment.
I've got a blanket and a bottle of wine and a summer dress I didn't know I still owned, buried at the bottom of the one duffel that's followed me across six states.
My hair's down. Forrest looks at me coming down the dock and goes completely still, and something about that stillness makes me feel more wanted than any amount of flirting ever has.
"You clean up nice," he says, his voice gruff, and offers me his hand into the boat.
"So do you." Understatement. No man has ever looked better.
He’s wearing a button-up shirt, he’s clean shaven, and it looks like he’s had a fresh haircut, too. The boat's got cushions laid out across the back bench and a cooler and a little battery lantern, and it's so thoughtful, so prepared, that my throat goes tight.
He runs us away from the crowded coves and tucks the boat into a small pocket behind a wooded point.
Nobody on the main lake can see us, but the sky is wide open above the trees, and the noise of the party is only a warm hum in the distance.
He cuts the motor and drops the anchor, and then it's just us and the water and the first stars coming out.
"They'll start soon," he says, settling onto the bench beside me.
"Forrest."
"Yeah?"
I turn to face him. My heart is beating so hard and so fast that I'm sure he can hear it.
"I need to explain something," I say. "Nearly a decade ago, I gave up my career for a man. We were planning to marry, so I moved everything I owned into his house, fully expecting my happily ever after, y’know?”
He listens patiently, the way he always does, waiting for me to continue.
“Barely six months later, it was over. I couldn’t afford a moving truck, so I packed a single duffel bag and left everything else behind. Now, I keep my nose to the grindstone, and I’ve built a career I love.”
He nods. “It’s the perfect career for you.”
“Yes,” I agree impatiently. “But do you hear what I’m saying? I’m only here for the summer. Then I’ll move on to the next lake.”
His gaze drops to my mouth and comes back up. "I hear you. But I still want to kiss you.”
He hears me… and he still wants to kiss me. So, who am I to deny him what he wants?
I close the distance and kiss him.
He goes still for half a heartbeat, and then his hand comes up to cradle my jaw, and he kisses me back, slow and deep and thorough, like he intends to remember it, like there's nowhere else on earth he has to be.
He tastes like summer. It’s a ridiculous thought, but it’s true. He’s sunshine and water and everything good.
His thumb strokes along my cheekbone. When I make a small sound against his mouth, something in him lets go, and he pulls me closer, one arm wrapping around my waist to draw me across his lap.
The first fireworks go up.
They burst gold above us, then red, then white, and the light washes across his face, and I catch him watching me instead of the sky.
"You're missing it," I whisper.
"No," he says. "I'm not."
He kisses me again, and this time there's nothing careful about it. His hands slide down my back, learning the shape of me, and I press against the solid warmth of his chest and feel his heart pounding as hard and fast as mine. For a man so steady, he comes apart so beautifully.
"Tell me if you want to stop," he murmurs against my throat.
I fist my hand in his shirt. "Don't you dare stop."
The fireworks bloom overhead, one after another, and under that falling light he lays me back against the cushions and takes his time with me—the same patient, present, deliberate attention he gives to everything he does.
He slides the straps of my dress down slowly, his mouth following, and every kiss is a considered thing, every touch a decision.
When his hand finds the bare skin of my thigh I hear my own breath catch, sharp in the dark.
"Forrest," I breathe.
"I've got you," he says. "I've got you, Doc."
And I believe him. That's the terrifying part. For the first time in eight years, out on a black lake under a sky full of light, I stop planning the exit.
He undresses me like he's handling a precious treasure, and then his own shirt is gone, and I get my hands on all that warm muscle I've been pretending not to stare at for three weeks.
He gathers me against him, skin to skin, and settles his mouth over my breast until I'm arching up into him and saying his name in a voice I don't recognize as my own.
His fingers find the heat between my thighs, stroking slow and sure, and I come apart against his hand embarrassingly fast, gasping, while the fireworks paint us silver.
"That's one," he says, low and rough and pleased, and does it again before I've caught my breath.
When I finally reach for him, desperate, he groans against my throat.
He reaches into the zippered pouch beneath the bench and tears open a condom with hands that are not quite as steady as the rest of him.
I help roll it on, climb into his lap, and let him guide me down.
We both go still, foreheads pressed together, breathing each other's air, the boat rocking gently beneath us and the whole sky on fire above.
Then we move.
It's slow at first, and then it isn't. He whispers my name like it's the only word he knows, and I ride him under the fireworks with his hands anchoring my hips and his mouth on my skin, and when I fall apart again he comes with me, holding me so tight I can feel his heart hammering against mine.
Afterward we lie tangled on the cushions, my cheek over his heart, his arm wrapped around me like he has no intention of ever letting go.
The last of the fireworks have faded. The smoke drifts across the clouds.
The lake goes quiet and dark, and it feels like we’re the only two people in the whole world.
"You okay?" he asks, voice rumbling under my ear.
I smile against his skin. "Never better.”
His arm tightens. "Good."
I close my eyes and let myself have one more minute of it. Then another. Then another.
I don't want the night to end.
I'm starting to think I may never want to leave.