together, feeling the same breeze, hearing the same rustling of the grass in the dunes, watching the same waves breaking in front of them, the same foamy water licking at their toes.
Carter nabbed a stick and flicked it into the water.
Jules poked at a bubbling hole in the wet sand where a crab was digging below the surface.
They gazed out at the sea. The lights of Miami glowed red to the north. The dark outlines of the keys loomed in the distance to the south.
They were both separately, silently thinking the same thoughts. That it was nice being out here under the stars. Peaceful. There was no one else on earth but them. Like all their problems were far, far away.
“You cold?” Carter asked.
Jules shook her head. She smiled.
“You gonna go in?” Jules said.
“Are you?”
She made a face. “I will if you do.”
“I don’t have my trunks,” he said.
She laughed—one sharp haw—and then she said, “Silly boy. There’s no one here. You don’t need trunks.”
“Ha,” Carter said. Then he saw she was serious, and he couldn’t help grinning. “Really?”
“Swimsuits just get in the way,” she said. “Isn’t it better to be unconstricted? To feel the water sliding on your skin?”
Behind them, the deck of Jeff’s house seemed far away, and with it all Carter’s worries about Lilah. It was dark now, abandoned. The party had dwindled. The only light came from the window of the rec room, and this was dim—probably Jeff and one or two of the guys watching Anchorman for the three hundredth time on the large-screen plasma mounted on the wall in there.
“I dare you,” she said.
Carter grinned. “Well, if you dare me, then—”
“I double dare you.”
Screw it. Carter dropped his shoes and stripped off his shorts and T-shirt. He hopped out of his boxers. He ran into the waves and dove under. He felt like he was at the top of a roller coaster. The car he was in had just tipped and it was about to race down the ramp toward the loop-di-loop, and his heart was leaping up into his throat.
Crouching to keep himself hidden in the water, he turned back and waved. Jules was laughing so hard that she’d doubled over. Her long, dark hair dangled almost to the ground. When she flipped herself back upright and pulled the hair away, he saw that she had an expression of absolute joy on her face.
He watched as she stepped out of her skirt and pulled her tank top over her head, folding each article of clothing carefully and placing it all in a neat pile.
God, she was beautiful.
When she went to unhook her bikini top, Carter politely looked away. He pretended to be suddenly fascinated by something floating in the water. When he heard her splashing toward him, he glanced up at her and caught a glimpse of her tan lines before she dove under.
She resurfaced in front of him, still giggling. “See?” she said. “Don’t you feel free?”
“Free as a bird,” he said. “Absolutely.”
They grinned at each other. They floated on their backs, staring up at the stars. They each in their own way were surprised by what was happening. And though they didn’t speak of it, they both maintained the illusion that what they were doing now was entirely innocent, that it could stay that way, if they were careful, and they’d get through this night having done nothing more than take a swim together.
There was something so liberating about it, though. Carter had almost forgotten it was possible to feel like this.
Suddenly, out of nowhere, he splashed water at Jules and ducked under and swam away.
When he resurfaced, he saw that she had an expression of mock shock on her face. “You know that means war,” she said.
They danced around each other, edging gradually closer and closer to each other, and then she sent a wallop of water in his direction. He slapped one back at her. Splash, splash, splash. They created a tsunami between them.
And then, the game got riskier. It accelerated. Someone had to win. Carter dove under and took her legs out from under her, flipping her. She spun and grabbed at his arm. They were, all of a sudden, grappling with each other, wrestling in the water. Touching. For the first time they were touching.
He felt like he was melting inside. Every time he went to push her under one more time, he lingered a little bit longer by her side, soaking in the slippery warmth of her skin. And he sensed she was doing the same thing when she went to take him down.
She bopped up right in front of him and somehow, he had his arms wrapped around her. He didn’t even realize how it had happened. He was holding her now. He could feel the dimples at the base of her back. She had her arms around him, too, her finger tracing lightly up and down his spine.
And then it was too late. Neither of them was quite sure who started it—maybe both of them did, maybe it just happened, but they were kissing now. Grazing lips. Playfully rubbing their noses against each other.
It felt so good. Their hands slipping around on each other’s soft skin. Something wild and beautiful was passing between them. Neither of them wanted to be the one to tame it.
Jules forced herself to pull back.
“If I let you keep kissing me, you’re going to end up hating me,” she said.
“I won’t.”
“You will. You’ll blame me for whatever happens with Lilah. I don’t want to be that girl.”
“You won’t be,” he said. “I promise.”
He kissed her again, this time harder, more deeply. He wanted to feel every inch of her skin, to get inside her skin, to shrink the distance between them until they melded into one person. He couldn’t stop. He couldn’t remember ever desiring Lilah like he desired Jules right now, right here.
They stared into each other’s eyes for a moment, each searching for an explanation to the mysterious emotions that had been unleashed in them.
And when they kissed again, whatever lines they’d been worried about crossing had been washed away by the tide. They couldn’t ignore what their bodies were telling them. She could feel his excitement pressing against her abdomen. Cupping the backs of Jules’s thighs with both of his hands, Carter lifted her halfway out of the water and pulled her tight to him. She wrapped her legs around his waist and they drank each other in.
The next morning, when the sun came streaming in through the ocean-facing glass wall of Jeff’s pool house, Carter woke up in a sweat. It was six a.m. The wind chime mounted above the sliding door was tinkling, and he was lying under a pale green sheet on the pool house’s futon, which had been pulled flat into bed mode.
He was naked, and next to him, Jules was naked, too—beautifully, lusciously naked. Seeing her there, her lips slightly open, her breasts rising and falling with each breath, a hook of tenderness tugged at his heart.
For a while he watched her sleep. He studied the way that the light played on her skin. She had a small tattoo of a dove on her shoulder. He hadn’t noticed it before. He lightly caressed her arm with his knuckle.
“Mmm.” She stirred. She turned onto her side and smiled at him without opening her eyes. “Hi.”
When she finally opened her eyes, she didn’t say anything. She just gazed at him, a pure, simple tenderness softening her face.
He leaned in to kiss her,