Chapter 23 Rest Of The Night
I dive deeper into the water, enjoying the cool water on my skin. He swims up behind me, following closely, almost protectively. I giggle, swimming faster and deeper away from him. I feel his hand encircle my leg, pulling me back closer to him. I squeal, leaning on my back, trying to pull my leg from his hand, but he’s far stronger than me.
He pulls me back into him, our bodies colliding. He lets go of my leg, putting his arms around my waist to hold me close. I smirk at him, putting my arms around his neck, pulling him closely to me as well. His splay at the top of my back then runs them softly down it before loosely resting on my butt. He’s watching me face intently, reading every microexpression I make on purpose or by accident. But I don’t give him any hint to stop. I bring my legs up and wrap them tightly around his waist. Somehow, he’s tall enough to stand in this water, making him hold me securely to him.
“I love you, Alec.” My voice is barely above a whisper, blowing air onto his face with how close we are.
He’s shocked, although he recovers a look of pure love, and happiness takes over.
“I love you too, Anneliese.”
My heart feels full, and I can’t help but think nothing in the world will ever compare to this time with him. I close the space between us, his soft lips mashing with mine perfectly. My hand runs up through his short hair, tugging softly, making him groan. The noise is like an affirmation, making my body grind into him automatically. His hand moves from my butt to my hips, seemingly to hold me in place.
I break from the kiss, needing breath in my lungs. If we didn’t have to breath I would never stop kissing him. He seems to agree, continuing the kiss onto my jaw, then moving down my neck, his tongue and lips working their magic on my wet skin. I try to hold back a moan, but it comes out into the quiet night.
His grip on my hip tightened at the noise. And then he stops all movement. He rested his head on my shoulder, breathing in and out quickly. I don’t know what to do, so I stay still, only moving my hand in his hair, softly trying to calm him down.
“I’m sorry if I don’t stop now, I don’t think I’ll be able to stop at all.”
“What if I don’t want you to stop?” My voice is hoarse, filled with need.
He chuckles softly, “I know I don’t want to stop either, believe me, but our first time is not going to be in a pond.”
He lifts his head from my neck. I lean back from him, taking in how he looks. His eyes are hooded as they look at me with so much need I can’t handle it. I run my hand on his skin from his head to his cheek savoring the feeling of his warmth against me. I lean in, kissing him softly once.
“I don’t want the date to end,” I admit.
“It doens’t have to. Come home with me?”
I’m never going to turn him down. “Yes, please.” I try not to sound too eager.
“Let’s get out of here, then we’re going to get pruney.” I unwrap myself from his body, swimming with him back to land.
We get out of the water, and I don’t even attempt to hide my oogling. His rippled abdomen glistens with water droplets running down his skin. His muscles bulge as he moves, grabbing the towels from the ground, throwing one at me.
“I can feel you staring.” He teases very obviously, enjoying the attention.
“I can’t help that my boyfriend is so insanely hot right now.”
“Let’s go home.” I put on my clothes again.
“I didn’t bring a change of clothes, though.”
“Don’t worry about it, you can just borrow some of mine.” He holds his towel and shirt over his arm as he walks beside me.
I won’t say it out loud, but I can guess that he intended for me to end up in his clothes tonight. I can’t stop looking at his body; it makes me feel like a teenage boy.
“Do you have food that I could eat?”
“Of course, anything you want, and if we don’t have it, I’ll make Noah go buy it.”
I laugh at that. “Poor Noah, you’re gonna abuse him like that?”
He gives me a half look. “He abuses me if anything. You don’t know what he’s like when you’re not around. He’s always on his best behavior, trying to impress you.” “Why does he want to impress me? If anything, I should be trying to impress him.”
“I don’t know, he’s already planned our wedding, and he wants to be best friends with the, and I quote, the only woman I’ll ever have in my life.” He makes quotation marks with his fingers, mocking him.
Has he already planned our wedding? I know we love each other, and obviously, he feels as insanely close with me as I do with him, but a wedding is a bit of a jump.
“Wow, he really likes to jump the gun.” He chuckles, but it sounds a little forced.
“Oh, by the way, I promised Beth I would ask if Noah is single?”
“Tell Beth she can knock herself out. Noah is very single, but even though he doesn’t seem much like it, he goes through girls so much that we’ve had to come up with a secret code.”
He’s right, I wouldn’t have guessed Noah was a Playboy considering how nice he seems, but you never really know.
“A secret code?”
“Yeah, if he has a girl over, he has to leave a sandal in front of the front door and back door. It’s not perfect, but at least I’m prepared when I walk in.”
“And you’ve never had to use this secret code?” I ask the question that we both know has a double meaning.
He shakes his head. “No, I don’t see the point in his lifestyle.” The answer is the perfect one.
The house comes into view, making me excited for what the rest of the night has to offer.