When We Kiss

One

Tabby

August, last year…

The air is electric when you’re being bad.

Little currents zip through your veins like lightning bugs grazing the tips of tall grass, and your stomach is tight. You’re right on the edge, holding your breath…

Or maybe it’s just me.

“Climb through.” Blade squints up at me, the devil in his blue eyes.

He’s holding the corner of a chain-length fence, and it makes a metallic screech as he lifts it higher.

Eleven thirty, and the night air is hot and humid—a warm washcloth on my bare skin. I duck through the opening, putting my hands up to protect my hair, my ears.

The space is just big enough for me to fit, hidden behind the tool shed. A rustling and a BANG! lets me know we’re both through the breach. My naughty escort stands grinning in the moonlight. His hair is dark, his skin pale, and shadows deepen his eyes, nose, and mouth. He’s like one of those scary-sexy vampires.

Or maybe I’m a little high.

“Let’s do this!” He lets out a whoop and jerks off his black leather jacket.

His white tee is next, revealing a coiled serpent tattooed on his upper back. Jeans off, I catch a glimpse of his tight ass as he runs straight to the pool and breaks the glassy surface with a loud splash.

I shimmy out of my calf-length jeans and unbutton my short-sleeved shirt. I’m buzzing from the pot we just smoked at my small house, the old parsonage in town near the church, before we got the idea to break into the Plucky Duck Motel pool.

The Plucky Duck is off the Interstate, too far from the beach to be a tourist attraction. It’s a million years old and completely deserted.

“Nobody ever stays here.” I walk slowly down the steps into the shallow end.

The water is warm as it rises up my calves, to my knees, to my panties, to my waist. Blade is under the diving board watching me, his mouth submerged like a shark or a crocodile. His eyebrows rise as the water reaches my waist.

Through a haze of pot smoke, he demanded we do something I’ve never done before. I said there isn’t much in Oceanside I haven’t done. Until I thought of this old place.

Skinny dipping with Mayor Rhodes’s tattooed bad-boy nephew is the perfectly spontaneous, irresponsible way to kick the last memories of Travis Walker from my heart.

Acid burns in my stomach. Tattooed Travis blew into town three months ago on a Harley, kissed me, and said I was the prettiest girl he’d ever seen. We screwed around for six weeks, until I caught him sneaking out of Daisy Sales’s bedroom window.

He didn’t even deny sleeping with her. He said Oceanside was getting “too restrictive,” then he hopped on that Harley, lit up a cigarette, and drove away.

Asshole.

Serves me right for letting my guard down.

Pushing off the bottom, I keep my head above water as I glide to where Blade waits at the deep end. It’s darker under the diving board.

“How long you planning to stay in Oceanside?” I don’t really care. Blade’s a fling I’m going into with my eyes wide open.

“Not sure.” He reaches for my waist, his palms hot against my bare skin. “Ma said Uncle John needs to straighten me out.”

He grins, and a dimple pierces his cheek. That bit of information makes me laugh, and I rest my elbows on his shoulders.

“I’ve been told something like that before.” I give the field where we came in a longing glance. I wish we had more pot or at least a six-pack.

“Who’s trying to straighten you out?” he asks, running his fingers up and down my sides.

My eyes return to his, and I do a little shrug. “My uncle’s Pastor Green.”

“No shit!”

The way he says it with a laugh makes him seem young, like a kid. I don’t like the way it makes me feel, especially with the iron rod of his erection pressing against my stomach.

Twisting my lips, I reach up to hold the sides of the diving board, moving out of his arms. “I lived under his roof, his rules, until I was old enough to get out.”

“I hear that.” Blade reaches up to hold the diving board, mirroring my behavior.

We’re facing each other, and I admire the lines of his lean muscles. Another snake is tattooed around his upper arm, but it looks amateurish, almost like he did it himself.

“So you’re staying?” My red velvet lips purse, and he winks.

“That’s what they tell me.”

His muscles flex as he walks his hands forward, bringing our bodies closer together.

“Future’s a lot brighter now that you’re here.”

I don’t know if I’m sobering up or if his enthusiasm is killing the mood.