Dark Wild Night (Wild Seasons #3)(101)
Author: Christina Lauren

He’s warm in my hand, wet and slippery, urging me with a tiny retreat of his hips to not move my fingers anymore. But I don’t want to let go; I like the way it feels to share these languid kisses, hold the satisfied weight of him in my hand, cocooned in his circle of body heat with the enormous ocean crashing beside us.

Finally, I move my hand away as he buttons his pants back up, laughing at the mess. Once he’s situated, he kisses my nose, unwilling to let me out of the shelter of his jacket. And with the water lapping near our feet, it feels like Oliver and I have been together for years; the quiet between us is simply too easy for this to be a fickle fling.

When I look up at him, he’s staring out at the water but feels my eyes on him and turns to gaze at me, smiling. “I like it out here,” he says.

“I do, too.”

“I was thinking . . . you shouldn’t buy a house,” he says. “I’ve got a good one.”

Excitement and unease boil together in my stomach. “I was thinking the same thing while I worked up the nerve to come to your door. But then I figured . . . one thing at a time.”

His eyes smile first and it spreads down to his mouth. “One thing at a time,” he repeats. “But just don’t buy a house. It’ll be a huge waste of money.”

Stretching to kiss his chin, I suppose now is as good a time as any to tell him I honestly don’t know if I ever want to be married again, I don’t know how to do any of this and am pretty sure I’m going to fail . . . a lot. “But I don’t—”

His fingertips come over my lips and he covers them with a small kiss. “Shh. We are not our friends. We have our own path, okay? I’m just being optimistic here.”

With a smile, I pull him down with me onto the sand and we sit and watch the moonlit foam of the curling surf. Oliver tells me stories about his first year in the States. I tell him stories about the year my mother left. We grow quiet and nearly fall asleep on the beach before we wrestle each other awake and halfheartedly argue over what to get for dinner.

I’m so lucky.

I’m so lucky.

The panel shows the girl, and her boy, raised hands dusted in sand as they try to count the stars.