Slow Twitch - Реинхардт Лиз. Страница 76

“We planned all kinds of crazy shit. We were gonna build a clubhouse or a fort here, you know? Camp out all the time. We did actually sleep here once in a while, but I haven’t been here in five or six years probably. It’s still exactly the same.”

Brenna linked her arms so tight around me, I could feel the pulse of her heart right through my skin. “Isn’t that weird?”

“What?” I dragged my lips over the impossibly smooth skin on her neck.

“That five years can change so much. It can change anything, everything, for us. And then there are these places that feel like time doesn’t even affect them.” She rubbed her head on my chest. “In five years, I’ll be almost twenty-two and you’ll be almost twenty-three. We’ll be adults. We’ll be ready to have jobs and apartments and all that stuff. I wonder if this place will still be here.”

“This place will always be here. And we’ll come back. In five years.” For a second everything magnified; the creek roared, the water stung like ice, the wind groaned through the trees, the incredible, intoxicating smell of Brenna’s hair, like a flowers in the rain, all crashed over me. Then every single thing fell away, and it felt like the entire world was just me and Bren, just the two of us in this forever place.

“Five years from today, we’ll come back here.” She ran her hands along my back. “Right here to this place that never changes.”

“Deal.” I kissed her.

“But, Jake, what if this place--”

I put a finger over her lips and shook my head. “Don’t even think it.”

She talked around my finger. “But what if we…” Her voice trailed off and I dropped my finger form her lips. She craned her neck and took in everything. “Never mind. Come with me.”

We walked back through the creek water, and she sat on the soft sleeping bag, patting a place next to her.

I sat next to her and she tugged at the bottom of my shirt, pulling it slowly over my head. She pulled a hand over my shoulder and down to the center of my chest, where my heart was drumming so hard, I felt like I might be having a heart attack.

Brenna kept her eyes on my face as she slid her tank top over her head, flipped the button and slid the zipper down on her jeans, and gave me an expectant look.

“This is happening? Now?” My voice grated out, harsh with nerves.

“That’s why we’re here.” She said it like this whole romantic adventure had been her idea instead of mine. She held her hands out in the air between our bodies, and we looked down at them. “They’re shaking.” Her voice barely registered over a whisper.

“They shouldn’t be. You don’t have to feel nervous. I’m here.” I pressed her back gently and pulled her jeans down her hips, then off her long, perfect legs. I breathed slowly and consistently to keep from passing out.

She held her arms out to me, and I lay next to her, letting her body and mine rub and meet at all the right places.

I knew why I took her to this place that never changed. I knew exactly why. I wanted us to change, right here, and then I wanted to lock that change up so it could never undo itself. Like black magic. Like stupid hope. Like a wish you’d never unwish, no matter how much people warned you that you’d live to regret it. Like a chance, a risk, a leap, an undivided love too gorgeous to let a little thing like the reality of gravity’s hard knocks stop you from just diving, headfirst, right in.

  Chapter Sixteen

Brenna

There was no going back. This place might not change in five years or fifty or five hundred, but I would and so would Jake. We had come to this strange, almost-magic place one way, and we would leave completely different. Different because we’d be truly together.

I was ready.

Ready, and so scared I couldn’t stop the shivers that ran over my body.

Jake kissed me softly, only the barest brush of his lips on my lips and mouth and neck, over and over until he calmed my skin and it stopped jumping erratically at every slight touch to its surface. I pulled my hands up and down over his back, so strong and smooth. Even though Jake was young, his back felt like a man’s back, bunchy with muscles from doing too much work for too long a time so many days a year. He was propped on his elbows, and his arms tensed solidly next to me, walling me in and making me feel protected.

I tried to squirm out of my bra, but Jake reached around my back and unclasped it calmly. I wiggled out of my underwear, and was completely naked, outside in the cool, sweet summer wind, under Jake Kelly, who I loved so much and so hard, my heart punched with the severity of it.

“I don’t think I’ve ever been naked outside before. I mean, not since I was little.” I ran my hands over his hair as he smiled that sweet, shy smile I couldn’t ever see enough and kissed up and down my arms. “I wish we could skinny-dip in the creek.”

“We could.” His voice brushed against my ears with a rough slide. “If you want to die from hypothermia.”

“Can’t you think of any way to warm me up before I die?” I pulled my legs up and wrapped them around his waist.

“Yep. But we better swim now if you want to, because I’m just about to get to the warming up part.” His words made me shiver and he chuckled softly. “See? You need to get warm. It’s my duty as your boyfriend to protect you from the elements.” He rubbed his big, calloused hands up and down my arms, his skin scratching against mine. “You have the world’s softest skin.”

“I think it’s just because you have the world’s roughest hands.” I bit my lip as he rubbed in from my arms, his hands on my breasts and down my stomach, then lower.

And then we stopped talking and joking. His fingers rubbed low until he slid inside me and worked a steady, gentle rhythm that made me grab at his shoulders and bury my face in his neck until I shook against his hand. I hugged his neck tight, my eyes closed against his skin, and felt completely safe and treasured in his hold.

“Bren?”

I took one last deep lungful to savor the smell of him and looked at his face, so handsome, his gray eyes soft and serious in the darkening light. “You’re so beautiful,” I whispered.

His smile was half embarrassed, half completely pleased. “I’m glad you like what you see.” He kissed me, his mouth sweet and slow over mine, while his arms wrapped me tight. “I’ve never loved anyone in my life the way I love you, Brenna. And if you want to stop right now, I’ll stop, no problem. But if you want more…if you’re ready to do this, I’m ready to…I’m happy to…do this with you.”

“I do. I want to.” My voice shook, but I focused on Jake: the warm, sharp mint-and-autumn-leaves smell of him, the heat of his skin, the love that bloomed out of his eyes and twined my heart in a sure, sweet comfort I knew I would never have to doubt.

And then the pace changed. We didn’t glide soft and slow anymore. I nipped at his bottom lip and he squeezed my butt hard. His mouth dragged down my neck and he sucked lower, then back up, teasing my skin with his tongue and mouth. I rained kisses all over his ears, his jaw, forehead, his soft, sun-warmed hair. My hands pulled and rubbed down his arms, his back, around to his chest and stomach, then even lower. We rolled over, so I lay on top of him, my hand sliding down between our bodies so I could find the zipper and button of his jeans and somehow yank them down. Our hands twisted together in our excited, nervous grope and his laughter hit my ears in a soft wave.

“You’re always so eager to get me out of my pants,” he joked as he got his zipper down and slid the pants below his hips.

When he lay so close next to me, I felt a whirring wonder at the still-new feel of our bodies so close and so exposed.

“You can’t possibly appreciate how cute your butt is out of your pants.” I smiled at him, but my attempt at keeping it light stuck in my throat, because this was real.