HANNAH PADDLED hard through the water, hopped up on her board as the wave lifted her, and coasted toward the shore with ease. I rested my elbows on the board, floating in the water and watching her with a smile.
The day was already warm and there were a few advanced surfers behind the break, out in the bigger waves, but just Hannah and me closer to shore, the way I preferred it.
Just her and me.
It was Wednesday morning, and tonight, Hannah would go out with Beck. Something weird and grouchy simmered in my stomach. At the farmer’s market on Saturday, she wasn’t as relaxed and talkative with him as she was with me. The knot in my chest loosened. She was at ease around me.
Or she was so attracted to Beck that he made her nervous.
The tension was back.
“I still can’t believe how fast I go once I catch a wave,” she said as she paddled back to me. Her cheeks were flushed and her eyes were bright in the morning sun and I could do this all day, watch her when I should be training.
Right. Training.
I still went out every morning after Hannah and I were done, and then again in the evenings. If everything at the shop was taken care of, I’d go in the afternoons as well. Mornings were for Hannah and me, though.
I paddled out after her and surfed a small wave.
“You make it look so easy,” she called over.
I shrugged and gave her my cockiest smile. It was easy. The next wave, though, I hopped up and wobbled back and forth, pretending to be unbalanced, before pitching over into the water. I resurfaced, shook the water out of my hair, and opened my eyes to see her flat look.
“Is that supposed to be me?” Her chest shook with laughter, and her eyes shone.
“I’m trying to show you that even advanced surfers can fall.” I flicked some water over at her and she splashed me back. “Let’s call it quits for today.”
“One more.” She paddled past me, further out before the break, faster than before, and I pictured the muscles in her back moving as she swam.
And then I was picturing other parts of her under the wetsuit. Desire lurched in me and I frowned.
Things didn’t seem to be awkward after admitting I was jealous a couple days ago at the gallery. She wasn’t pleased, but she wasn’t angry either.
It was like it never happened.
I had always thought Hannah had a crush on me growing up, even up until recently. The blushing, the way she couldn’t make eye contact, how she’d disappear before she had to make any conversation.
But now? She splashed me, made fun of me, and didn’t think twice about stripping down to her swimsuit in front of me. Something competitive and unsatisfied pinged in my chest. I should have been relieved that the bookworm didn’t have a crush on me. It made things easier. Romantic feelings complicated everything.
I raked my hand through my wet hair, blew out a breath, and my gaze returned to Hannah as she paddled with the wave, hopped up, and glided over the surface of the water.
“Okay, now we can call it quits.” She swam over to me with her torso on the board. “I forgot to tell you. I booked an artist. She’s going to fix up the mural.”
“That’s great, bookworm. What changed your mind?”
She pulled her bottom lip between her teeth and the motion stirred me. Her mouth looked so soft.
“I was talking with my dad on the phone and…” Her nose wrinkled. “He’s so stubborn. He’s never going to change his mind and he doesn’t have a freaking clue about business.” She made a frustrated noise in her throat.
I grinned and raised my eyebrows at her. I liked the fire she was spitting.
Her eyebrows pinched together in a frown. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to get mad.”
“I like it when you get mad. You should get mad more often.”
Our gazes locked and my chest squeezed. A drop of water rolled down the column of her neck, into her wetsuit. She frowned at me. “What?” She smoothed a hand over her wet hair. “Did the seaweed get me again?”
“No, you look beautiful like this.” The words flew out of my mouth.
She raised an eyebrow and laughed. “Like a drowned rat? Okay, weirdo. Did you hit your head on the rocks or something? Come on.” She swam past me and paddled to our cove.
My mouth dropped and I watched her swim away. That was it? She brushed me off so easily. I called her beautiful and she called me a weirdo.
Well, there was my answer. She definitely didn’t have a crush on me.
That’s where I should have left it. I should have dropped it, continued helping Hannah become a hot girl or whatever, and kept things platonic. Friends. That’s what we were. I should have left it all there.
That spark of competitiveness flared in my chest, the same one I felt every morning surfing. The same one I felt at competitions. I swam hard to catch up with her.
“When’s your date with Beck?” I called over as I approached even though I knew the answer.
“Seven o’clock.”
We drifted into the calm cove. She slid a hair tie off her wrist and pulled her hair off her neck before tying it up into a ponytail. I watched the movements, captivated, and I had the urge to run my finger down the back of her neck to see if she’d shiver. My throat worked.
“Are you going to kiss him?”
She blanched, and pink appeared on her cheeks. “I don’t know.” She blinked.
I should have shut up, but I couldn’t. “When was the last time you kissed someone?”
She huffed, and the pink tinge spread. She was cute like this, all embarrassed. “None of your business.”
I splashed her as she pulled herself up to seated on her board. “Tell me.”
She laughed. “No. When was the last time you kissed someone?”
“A couple days before you held me down and blackmailed me.”
She rolled her eyes and tried not to grin. “I didn’t hold you down.”
An image of us in bed flashed into my head. My bed. Hannah on top of me, holding my wrists down with a shy smile. Me pretending to be at her mercy.
Blood rushed to my groin. Thank fuck my lower half was under water.
This didn’t happen. I didn’t get hard-ons from chatting with a woman, both of us clothed, neither of us touching.
“University. Give me your leash.” She held her hand out and I unwrapped it from my ankle before tossing it to her.
“Wait, university? Bookworm, that was years ago.”
Now she really looked embarrassed, and I mentally slapped myself. Asshole.
My heart sank in my chest. “Bookworm.”
She shrugged, studying the beach. “I know, okay? I could say that I haven’t found anyone I liked but we both know I haven’t tried. I tried a dating app a couple years ago but everyone on there was either a tourist looking for a threesome or someone I went to high school with.” Her mouth pulled into a wince and she shuddered. “It wasn’t for me.” She grimaced, glanced at me, and chewed her lip.
“You look like you want to say something.”
She pressed her mouth into a line before she took a deep breath. “Do you think Beck’s going to want to…” She made a noise in her throat.
“Do I think he’s going to want to what?”
“Have sex tonight?” Her voice was high and squeaky, like when we were on the sidewalk in front of her store and she was asking people out.
My brain skidded to a halt.
Beck. Trying to sleep with Hannah. With his hands on her. Touching her hair. Pulling the hair tie from her ponytail.
My skin was too tight. Frustration rolled through me with nowhere to go. I studied a scratch on my board. “I don’t know.”
Her chest rose and fell with another deep breath. “I don’t like it.”
“Sex?” My voice was hoarse. Keep it together, I warned myself. I had the bizarre urge to make Hannah feel safe, like she could tell me anything. I didn’t want her to be embarrassed for asking me these questions.
She nodded. Her face burned red.
Well, that answered my virgin question. “There’s a lot to unpack there.”
“Ugh.” She lay down on her board. “This is so embarrassing. Let’s not talk about it.”
“No,” I said, too quick before catching myself and toning it down. “Let’s talk about it.” I cleared my throat. “Why do you not like sex?”
She shifted on the board, floating away, and I grabbed the edge to pull her back to me, despite the leash attaching my board to her ankle.
Her fingers dipped in the water. “Um. When I hooked up with that guy back in school, it—” She made a noise, a mix of anguish and frustration. “It didn’t hurt, exactly—”
Rage. Yep. That was what this feeling was. Pure, white-hot rage rattled through my veins. Someone touched Hannah and they—
“It wasn’t the magical experience that I always read about in books.” She covered her face with her hands. “Okay, I’m going to go die now. My funeral is next week. Please bring flowers.”
I was going to ask this guy’s name, find him, and then beat the shit out of him.
Whoa. No. What the fuck? I wasn’t the guy who got into fights. Deep breaths. Breathing. Calm. Safe space for Hannah.
“You didn’t have an orgasm.” I kept my voice steady and light, like we were talking about what we were going to eat for breakfast. Something neutral. Something that didn’t make me want to fucking kill someone.
She gave a laugh of disbelief. “Not even close.”
I didn’t know where to start. “What did he do wrong?”
“I can’t believe we’re talking about this. I don’t talk about this with anyone. Not Avery, not Liya, no one.”
Pride washed over me. Pride and pleasure. She trusted me enough to talk about this stuff.
“We just didn’t connect.” One hand rested on her stomach, the other still dipped in the water, fingertips skimming the surface. The end of her ponytail had fallen into the water and fanned out, floating and following the motions of her board.
“Did you tell him what you wanted?” My gaze was glued to her face, watching for clues while she stared up at the blue sky.
“No.”
“Why not?” Same casual tone. Just me trying not to picture Hannah in bed with another guy, that’s all. Doing great. Not filled with a confusing horny rage.
“Um.” She stretched a foot out.
I tried not to stare at the curve of her tits under the wetsuit. I failed.
“I guess I didn’t know what I liked either? He—” She broke off with a noise of disgust. “It was like he watched too much porn.”
A thousand images flooded my head and I felt sick. I hated this. “Explain.” My tone was rougher than I meant.
She covered her face again. “Oh my god. Okay, he did this thing where he put his hands on me and like, pulled my, um, lady parts apart and it hurt.”
I wanted to murder this guy. This fucking guy who didn’t know what he was doing put his grubby little hands all over my Hannah and made her uncomfortable. He ruined an experience for her that should have been amazing. He should have rocked her world and instead, he made her not like sex.
“Was that too much information?” She lifted her head, shot me a tentative glance, and I quickly cleared my throat and shook my head.
“Nope. He sounds like a dumbass.”
She laid her head back down on her board and snorted. “Yeah. He was.”
We were quiet a moment. I had the urge to pull her board closer and put my mouth on hers. To race her back to shore, throw her over my shoulder, and take her back to my bed, where I’d give her a do-over of every sexual experience she had ever had.
With me, it would be better. Hotter. I’d make her writhe under me. I’d go down on her until she pulled my hair and gasped my name and couldn’t handle how good it felt. I was desperate to see how she looked while she came, all hazy and flustered and breathless.
A twinge hit me in the gut. She wanted long-term. True love. If I did well next month, I’d be on a plane, and she’d still be here.
Beck, though. Beck would stay in Queen’s Cove, same as Hannah. Despite wanting to smack the look off his face every time he smiled at her, he was a decent guy.
I wanted Hannah to be happy.
The thought of him touching Hannah made my fists clench, though.
“Wyatt?”
“Mmm?” My gaze snapped back to hers.
She lifted her eyebrows. “Is the third date rule real? Where you should sleep with someone on the third date?”
My stomach twisted and I could feel it all over my face, this anguish. This torn feeling.
“Bookworm, if you’re worried about things with Beck, just do what feels right.”
She frowned at me. The wheels turned in her head.
I shrugged, hoisting myself up onto my board so I could lie beside her. “Even if he does buy you dinner, you don’t owe him anything. You don’t have to sleep with him or even kiss him. The third date rule is bullshit. You can sleep with him on the first date or the tenth date or never, if that’s what you want.” We locked eyes. “You’re the boss. Understand?”
She gave me a tiny nod.
“Beck is a good guy and he’ll be patient with you. He better be.”
She made a humming, thinking noise and let out a breath, lying back on her board and gazing up at the sky. She relaxed and we floated, listening to seagulls, waves hitting the shore, and the occasional laugh of someone on the beach or whoop of one of the other surfers.
Later, as we padded across the sand back to the surf shop, Hannah grinned at me.
“I always feel so much better after being out on the water in the mornings with you.”
My heart squeezed. “The water will do that.”
She shook her head. “It’s not just the water. I like hanging out with you. You always make me feel better about things I’m worried about.”
Heart, meet sledgehammer. I had the urge to pull her in for a hug but I held back. Instead, I shrugged. Casual, like always. Noncommittal. “You can talk to me about this stuff. Hope you know that.”
She nodded. “I know.” She reached out and gave my arm a quick squeeze. The contact of her cold hand against my skin sent a jolt through me. “So, what’s my homework, professor?”
“Professor?” I lifted an eyebrow and ignored the way my cock stirred when she called me that.
“You have a nickname for me.” She shrugged, a cute little smile on her face.
I beamed at her, so hard my face hurt. “I like it.”
“So, homework.”
“Right. Uhhh…” I thought, narrowing my eyes. “Easy one today. When you go on the date tonight—” Even saying the words made me sick, “—only do what you want. Don’t do anything you don’t want to. Wear whatever you want. Drink champagne, not beer.” I took a step closer to her and her mouth parted. “And if you don’t want to kiss him, don’t.”
She nodded. “Okay.”
I held her gaze for a moment. Her blue-green eyes were so pretty. “Okay.”
There. Knowing her, she’d stick to her homework, even if it was difficult. Even if he pressured her. The tension in my chest settled a fraction.
But what if she wanted to push things further with Beck? I remembered the way she laughed at the farmer’s market, when he talked easily with her. The way she looked up at him, starstruck.
The tension in my chest was back.
I THOUGHT about Hannah’s date with Beck all day. I thought about it as I taught surf lessons, as I helped a customer buy a wetsuit, as I ordered replacement surf boards, as I surfed that evening.
She was probably out on his boat now, I realized as I checked the time on my phone. Was he putting his arm around her, doing that cheesy yawn-and-stretch thing? No. No way. Beck didn’t play games like that; he’d just ask her if he could put his arm around her.
And she might say yes.
Hmm. Didn’t like that idea. Not one bit.
I thought about her when I scarfed down a late dinner in my kitchen. I thought about her as I finished Pride and Prejudice, setting the book on my night table and staring at it for a few minutes. I glanced at the time again.
I should go to sleep if I wanted to be up the next morning bright and early for our surf lesson. Antsy energy bounced around inside my head and through my limbs. I pulled a t-shirt over my head, slipped my shoes on, and headed out the door.
I was going to pay the bookworm a visit.
