Page 17

“Don’t fall.” Holt holds me tightly. “Unless you’re falling for me.”

With that, Holt and Tate charge through the water. My scream ribbons into an ether of stars alongside Raven’s as our outstretched hands collide. We battle, hands slipping over wet skin as screams flirt with giggles. She hooks me just right, and I teeter on Holt’s shoulders, catching myself just before I go down.

“Good girl,” Holt praises me, the words unlocking something new and feral inside me. Something hot and wild. Something older.

I feel—I think I’m turned on.

Big hands find my hips, fingers dipping into my flesh in a way that burns me even hotter. My heart riots inside my chest as breaths race from my lungs into humid mountain air. Tate takes a step, bringing Raven closer. She’s overconfident now that she’s made me teeter, and when she leans over Tate to try and grip me with both hands, I lean in to meet her, gripping her by the shoulders and shoving with everything I can as I pin my heels into Holt’s chest for purchase. He digs his feet, not moving at all as I give another final shove, and Raven tumbles back with a screech and a splash.

I let loose a cry of victory as my fists pump high into the sky. Holt’s roar of triumph hums from his body, into mine, making me feel over-sensitive everywhere. My nerve endings come alive, fire blazing in my veins as Holt lowers in the water to allow me to climb off him. As soon as my feet are touching the soft, sandy bed, he twists, still lowered.

I can’t look anywhere else, caught in the prison of his dark brown eyes framed in the thickest, blackest lashes. Water droplets cling to his lashes, and there is something hard about the set of his jaw as he looks up at me, bobbing low in the water that hovers around my waist, covering his shoulders.

His hands connect with my legs, warm in the cool water as they slide around to the back of my knees, gliding slowly up my thighs as he rises. His eyes never leave mine as he moves, his hands drifting higher up my legs, over the curve of my butt, to grip the small of my waist.

I’ve been kicked into sensation overload. Breath tumbles unsteadily from my lungs as the world falls away around us until there’s only him and me. He tugs me into his chest as he dips his face into the crook of my neck, his words escaping on a strangled fall of knotted need, drawing a shiver through the whole of me. “You have no idea what you do to me, Faye.”

He doesn’t know what he does to me.

As though he can’t help himself, he drops his lips to my throat. The touch is burning hot, and I nearly whimper. But it’s not long lasting before his grip around my waist tightens, and he lifts me into his arms against him.

I wrap my legs round his waist, and he starts to walk in the opposite direction of everyone else, carrying me deeper into the water.

“Where are you going?” Micha calls, but Holt ignores him.

His eyes hold mine as he continues to walk, not stopping until the water laps at the underside of my breasts, level with his collarbone. The way he’s looking up at me is unlike anything I’ve ever imagined. The last bands of a purple sunset color his warm skin and dark eyes with a captivating glow. Beyond him, there is a spackling of stars making their shining appearance in a darkening sky.

He lets a sigh escape his lips. “Do you know how beautiful you are, Faye?”

Heat colors my face, and his eyes drink it in as I protest breathlessly. “Holt.”

“I’m serious. You hooked me from the first moment I saw you stepping out of your mom’s awful PT Cruiser.”

I laugh, because the car is awful. It really, really is.

“You didn’t even look over at my house. At me. You just turned to your new house, and I watched your shoulders fall. I wanted to go to you then. I wanted to take your hand in mine and promise that you’d love it here—because you’d fall in love with me.”

I’m speechless for a long moment as this beautiful boy looks up at me with eyes that are open to expose a hopeful, youthful soul. Heart in my throat, I can’t help but ask, “Why me?”

His eyes search mine as though he’s searching for the answer in them. “I don’t know. I just—I feel like you’re meant for me. Meant to be mine. It’s everything about you, Faye. I want everything.”

When his arms tighten around me, a pulse of emotion flowing a current of affection from him into me, I can’t help but want to be even closer to him. I want to feel all of him stretched out against all of me.

Unwrapping my legs from his waist, I let my body slide down his. My breath catches, snagging in my chest and stalling the wild race of my heart when I feel the hard length of his arousal.

I am suddenly aware of him in a way that I’ve never been aware of a boy before, as I cling to him with my arms wrapped around his shoulders, bobbing on my tiptoes in the deep water that touches the underside of my jaw.

“Sorry about that,” he says roughly. His roguish grin says he’s not sorry at all.

I giggle quietly, a nervous sound that is wrapped up in nervous excitement. “It’s okay.”

His hands hold me around the waist, his thumbs drifting over my skin gently. A loud cheer draws our attention to the beach, where most everyone has abandoned the lake for the fire that now rages high into the sky.

I feel Holt’s eyes on my face before I let my own gaze drift back to his. “Do you want to go back?”

Pulling my bottom lip into my mouth, I suck it as I slowly shake my head.

His eyes drop and his hands around my waist pulse once before he drags me against him again. A hitched sound falls sharply from my lips into the space between us, drawing a strangled groan from the depths of him.