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“Do I have to go first again?” I ask.
Parker smiles, slow and wide, and lowers his head. “No,” he says, and then he kisses me. It’s salty and warm and water drips from his hair onto my temple, cold against my flushed skin.
My eyes are still closed when he pulls away. “There,” he murmurs. “Not too little, not too much. We did it right this time.”
“Don’t Goldilocks this, Marchand.”
He chuckles hoarsely and then doesn’t make another sound, not as I reach up on my tiptoes and kiss him again. It’s intoxicating being this close to him.
And just like last time, he becomes a stranger under my lips. Familiar and yet novel, an entirely new landscape to explore. Parker and yet not Parker.
“Jamie,” he murmurs, his hands finding my waist beneath the towel.
My hands settle against his chest. His bare chest. He’s warm and hard under my hands, skin deceptively soft over the firm muscle beneath.
“Jamie,” he murmurs again, moving his lips to my ear. He laughs softly. “We’re in the middle of the boardwalk.”
“Oh,” I whisper against his chest.
“I don’t mind, but I have a feeling you might. You know how this town talks.”
“Yes.” I turn my head and peek past his shoulder. An SUV drives by us on Ocean Drive. “What do we do?”
He rubs a large hand up and down my arms, as if to warm me. It sends a shiver down my back. “We’ll go home,” he says, “and start our days, and do this again. When we’re alone.”
“I like that plan,” I say. My voice doesn’t sound like my own.
He smiles. “Come on, James. You’re getting cold, and I’m in danger of overheating.”
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