I could lift my hand and touch him.

He could touch me.

I’m caged in between him and the wooden pier. There’s nowhere to go unless I want to push him off, and I don’t. I would never tell him no if only he’d ask.

Impatience gnaws at me as I curl my fingers, my nails biting into the wood.

He holds perfectly still, taking me in with such astute eyes that I feel like he’s seeing it all, down to the marrow in my bones.

Another drop of water falls just below my mouth, and I arch up instinctively, yearning for something he seems unwilling to give me. I crave him with a vengeance that feels so consuming I shake with the exhaustion of trying to fend it off. My chin tilts up, and, trying to save myself from the overwhelming need and the embarrassment licking at my skin, I let my eyes flutter closed.

But without that sense, everything only grows headier: the sweet scent of the night on him, the warmth radiating from his body, the sound of his steady breaths as he lowers himself down further, his exhale passing over my lips like a soft caress.

I almost say his name. I almost beg him with a throaty moan.

But he knows. Emmett waits for me to gather courage, and when I finally open my eyes again, he bends down, tilts his head…hovers there for a brief agonizing moment…and then rewards me with a kiss.

I’m arrested in place as his mouth slants over mine, a chaste peck quickly dissolving into more. I’m mostly to blame. I respond to his kiss with a hunger I don’t recognize. My hand slides up and around his neck, and I take it deeper. I peel my back up off the pier to press our bodies together. For a brief moment, I’m the one dragging us further past the point of no return. But then his bare chest meets mine and he pushes me back down as his mouth presses possessively into mine.

He kisses with a skill I’ve never experienced, but then, he knows that.

I divulged to him just yesterday that I’ve never kissed someone passionately and now he seems intent on fixing that, on giving me a kiss that will ruin me from this day forward. If I’m ever asked about my first kiss, my first real kiss, it will be this moment on the pier that I’ll remember. What an arrogant bastard to brand himself on my memory like that, to ensure that he’ll always linger in the periphery of my fantasies.

He props his elbows on either side of my head and his wet body pins me down. A moan escapes me, but I’m too lost to care about restraining my need. He obviously feels the same. The weight of his desire presses against my thigh, impossible to ignore as he shifts over me, pressing onto one arm. Our kiss deepens, our lips parting in unison, his tongue sweeping across mine. Fire builds inside me, taking my oxygen and my good sense.