Kiss Me

“I’m sorry if he hurt you. I know how that feels. But still, I’m excited and can’t wait to see you. It’ll probably take you, what, at least a couple of hours with the weekend traffic?”

I smile thinking about the helicopter. “I might be there a little sooner than that.”

I just gave you goosebumps.

2pm

He’s waiting for me outside a huge, rambling colonial mansion.

A different driver drops my bags. Dawson grabs them and leads me into the gorgeous house.

“So um, lots of people showed up, so, um . . .”

He’s acting fu

“What? Why are you all nervous? Do you have an old girlfriend here or something? Oh, no. Is Whitney here?!”

“No. Hell, no.” He shakes his head at me. “What I was go

“So I’ll be sleeping with you?” I tease.

“Yeah, but, I mean, there's a couch in there. I can sleep on it if it’s okay with you. It’d sure be more comfortable than the floor.”

I smile at him. He’s seriously so sweet.

“Okay.”

I follow him into the master bedroom. I've stayed at some incredible five-star resorts, on yachts, and our Malibu house was photographed for Architectural Digest, but this room is stu

“Wow. This room is beautiful. I may never leave.”

He gives me a sexy smile, drops my bags onto the floor, takes my purse off my shoulder, then peels off my gauzy white shirt.

He drops it on the bed and stands back, scrutinizing every inch of my bikini clad body.

All he manages to mutter before he kisses me is, “Damn.”

We kiss for a bit and then he says, “Come on. I’ll show you the rest of the house.”

The rest of the house, the view, the grounds, are almost as breathtaking as the bedroom. As we walk through the big white kitchen, he says, “Ready for the Kool-Aid?”

He pours me a glass and I take a drink.

“This is just Kool-Aid. I thought you said it was special? Like had alcohol in it. Or is it too early?”

“On the beach, it’s never to early. And you’re not supposed to taste the alcohol. It takes skill to mix it properly. My older brother, Cam, and I invented it last summer and perfected it this summer. Our parents have tasted it and don’t know it’s loaded with alcohol. Well, they do now, cuz we got them drunk on it one night.”

We walk out to the pool, drinks in hand, and he introduces me to everyone I don't know, and I say hey to the ones I do. Riley, Dallas, Tyrese, and Ace. The rest are a combination of their cousins, school friends, and old friends.

“I didn’t sign up for a sausage fest,” Tyrese says. “Let's hit the beach.”

Besides me, there are only two girls in the group.

 Ace agrees. “We need to take a bunch of that get-drunk-and-screw punch with us.”

“Naw,” Riley says, “that's not how it’s done. You bring them back here and then let them drink the Kool-Aid. But we can take some for ourselves.”

Dawson gives me a piggyback ride down to the beach.

And wow. He's so tall and strong. Cush used to give me piggyback rides, but I sometimes felt like I was as big as him. I feel small compared to Dawson, and I love that. I throw my arms around him and snuggle into his neck.

Dawson is lying on his side in the sand next to me. I just finished telling him all about my failed reunion with Brooklyn. Although I did leave out the part about Vincent being there. About being scared to death. About getting chewed out by Garrett. And I must be a pretty good actress because I’ve been able to make him think I’m just mad at Brooklyn and that’s all that has me upset.

“Wow, that's pretty low,” he says. “Especially since he wanted you to spend the weekend. It’s, like, fucked up.”

“Sounds like something your brother would do.” I watch Riley out by the water talking to three very pretty girls. “Does he know those girls?”

“Heck, I don't know.”

“Wait! This is your whoredom, isn't it? Wow, do all the girls know you?”

He looks embarrassed. Actually blushes.

“Some. Honestly, most of the times I hooked up this summer I was pretty drunk. The whole summer’s sorta a blur.”

“So did your brother, Cam, participate in the whoredom?”

“Ha. Yeah. He’s just like Riley. I’m shocked he’s not here, but he’s got some party at school he didn’t want to miss. Which means he’s hot for some chick and hasn’t gotten her yet. He always told me I shouldn’t have a girlfriend unless I was having sex all the time. Which, well, I wasn’t.” He’s quiet for a minute then grins at me. “Did I tell you how much I like this bikini?” He plays with one of the strings.

“Um, no, I don't think you did.”

He runs a single sandy finger down my arm and even in the blazing sun, my body does a little shiver.

He notices and grins.

“I just gave you goosebumps. It’s hot out.”

“I got a chill—ocean breeze, you know.” I roll my eyes, bite my lip, and try not to smile.

“You’re lying.” He grazes his thumb across my bottom lip. Stares at me with those adorable brown eyes. “I think you look ridiculously hot in your dance uniform, so I don’t know why I was so surprised by how amazing you look in a bikini. It took all my willpower not to undo these strings,” he touches the string on one side of my bikini bottoms, “in the bedroom, not come out for days.”

I giggle. “I thought you had to take me back to the house and feed me some Kool-Aid first?” I take a drink of punch and smirk at him.

He squints his eyes at me.

“I have to give you some shit. I can’t help it.”

His face gets serious. “That's not how I want it to be with you.”

“What do you mean?”

“It’s kind of embarrassing, but for most of the sex I've had, at least one of us, and usually both of us, have been drunk. Even Whitney, she never really wanted me unless she was messed up.” He lazily plays with a strand of my hair. “When we do it, if we do it, whenever that is, I don’t want us to be drunk.”

“Dawson.”

“Yeah.”

“I wanted you to take off my bikini in the bedroom, and I hadn't had a single drink.”

He stares at me for a couple beats then rolls on top of me and pushes his mouth onto mine. I part my lips in surprise, mostly at the force of his kiss. Up until now our kisses have been sweet, safe kisses. Friendly kisses.

This is not a friendly kiss. This kiss is full of desire. He grabs my tongue with his, sucking it into his mouth forcefully. He sucks on it greedily. Like it’s his to own.

He slides a hand into my hair and pulls my head closer to his. As close as I can get.

I wrestle my tongue away from him and slowly tease his lips with it. Then I grab the back of his head, sucking his tongue into my mouth with equal force.

I can't stop a little moan from escaping.

I rake my other hand down his back, settling on the back of his board shorts and kneading my fingers into them.

“Ahhh!” we both scream out when cold water splashes down across Dawson’s back.

He rolls off me saying, “What the f—” and sees Riley standing there, holding an empty sand bucket.

Riley says, “Jeez, Dawes, you’re go

Dawson gets up and chases Riley down the beach and into the water, where they have a shoving match. Dawson gets Riley in a headlock and dunks him. Then Riley kicks Dawson’s feet out from under him and they both go down into the water.

They’re laughing as they run up the beach.

“Wish me luck,” I tell Dawson as I jog by him with a surfboard.