The water at night is still warm, like a bath. I don’t let
myself worry about things like sharks (Jonah swears he’s never seen one around
the house once) or the lack of bathing suits. I’ll admit I was a bit nervous
jumping buck-naked from the deck, but I figured, sometimes life is too short to
worry so much. And goodness knows, I do my fair share of worrying.
“I love this place,” I tell him, and he chuckles. Thankfully,
over the last day, with much teasing and kissing on my end, Jonah is acting a
bit more like his old self.
“You say that about every place.”
“I guess that’s true. It’s the toddler traveler in me; every new place is
exciting and interesting.”
His lips curve in a smirk. “Toddler traveler?”
I splash water at him. “You know what I mean.”
“Okay, toddler traveler—tell me the place you want to see the most.”
I think about this a moment, allowing myself to bob with the gentle waves that
crash against the house’s pillars. “Rome.”
“You realize we’ve been to Rome, right?”
“I know. But you asked. As for places
I’ve never been, maybe Paris. I used to imagine going there with you when we
were . . . maybe thirteen? I thought you could be a prince, and I’d be a
commoner that you fell in love with and we’d live in Versailles.”
He bursts out laughing. And then, gently as one of his feet stokes my leg, “If
anything, you’re the princess and I’m the commoner.”
Yeah, right. “Your turn.” I nudge him with my foot. “Where do you want to go?”
“Nepal.”
“Why Nepal?”
“Why not?”
“It’s not very romantic,” I offer.
“Travel isn’t always about romance,” he says, brushing aside a wet strand of my
hair. “Sometimes it’s about growth.”
“And in Nepal you think you’d find growth?”
“I do.”
“We should go then.”
His dimple deepens and my limbs go weak. “Alright,” he says. “We’ll go to
Nepal.”
“And Paris.”
He grins. “And Paris.”
“And Rome.”
He pulls me closer until our bodies are flush against one
another. “Oh, most certainly Rome.” Our lips brush lightly. “And every other
single place we want to go. We’ll have almost two hundred years to hit them
all.”
I want him so much right now it’s painful.
“So you like this place,” he murmurs in my ear before our lips meet again. He
holds us up, strong swimmer he is.
“No,” I sigh against his mouth. “I love it.”
His lips travel to my neck. “Because it’s beautiful?”
I can feel how much he wants me, too. I reach down and graze my fingers against
the length of him; he gasps, and I can’t help but thrill that my touch can do
that to him. “Because I’m here with you.”
Our mouths come together, over and over; his fingers slide across my belly,
lower and lower, until I’m the one to gasp into his mouth. I’m having trouble
staying afloat, but this time, it’s not because I’m drowning in sorrow, it’s
because I’m literally so weak in the knees I can’t keep kicking and thinking at
the same time. We need to get up on the deck. Now.
“Uh, yeah. Excuse me?”
ARE YOU KIDDING ME?
We break apart and find a guy standing on the deck, leaning over the railing.
He’s holding a pizza box, practically leering. I can’t believe we forgot we
ordered pizza earlier.
“I tried knocking; when nobody answered, I came around the side. You two look
like you’ve worked up an appetite, huh?
Dying. Absolutely dying of mortification
right now. Also, why is the universe so conspired against me seducing Jonah?
Jonah laughs under his breath and presses his forehead against mine for a brief
second. “Yeah. Just. Can you wait for us at the front of the house?”
I’m uneasy with the guy’s blatant staring, but Jonah makes it so he loses
interest and wanders away. But our magical moment has already slipped through
our fingers.
