I threw my hair over one shoulder and reached back to pull the strings of my sundress, sending the yellow paisley print to the sand, revealing the bikini underneath. “Come on,” I said, already moving. My feet kicked up sand, generating a blizzard. The sand changed as I got closer to the shore. Dry to wet. Loose to dense. “Follow me!”

I ran into the water, letting the sea tug me out into its cold embrace. Salt water invaded my senses, crashing against my body. I turned, kicking my feet in the water. Levi stood as if rooted to the spot. I kept my eyes steady, silently willing him to join me.

Behind him, the sand looked taupe. The town, plunged into blue-black, windows and doors glowing with streetlight. The sea itself appeared like black glass and my arms skimmed the surface as I turned left, then right, creating small waves. The only sound was the soft whispering of the sea and the sand. If I tried to focus on the whispers, tried to make sense of them, I could have sworn I heard our names. Oar’s Rest could be seductive like that, stealing away slivers of us and occasionally returning the favor with tricks of the wind.

My lips parted. I waited for him to make his move.

He was already wearing swim trunks for his sandcastle crash course. All he had to do was yank the shirt over his head and walk to the water. He did so, keeping his eyes steadily on me.

My uncertainty drifted away, replaced by want and need. The moment felt charged with a sensual undercurrent. Feet treaded water, hands extended in front of me, reaching for the boy I liked, for the town I loved, for the moon I would never reach.

His fingertips touched mine. “Hi,” he said, and I was lost.

I kissed him and the whole world fell away. It felt like the sea was just for us, lapping at our backs, sending cool shivers down our spines when the night breeze touched us.

His mouth was hot, and he kissed me back with the kind of desperation that mirrored my own. Levi’s lips clung to mine, kissing the seam of my mouth, coaxing entry with his tongue. He tasted rich and velvety, like the black coffee he drank, and his skin was salt-stroked.

“Levi,” I whispered against his lips. His name was a benediction. A curse.

“Babe.” His voice had lowered several octaves, guttural to my ear.

I felt his hands on my waist and tingles went through me, the happy, inexplicable kind that I hadn’t felt since Elodie. I laid my forehead against the curve of his shoulder. “I wasn’t sure you’d join me,” I said, my lips grazing his warm skin. I pressed a kiss against the freckle on his collarbone, and I felt his body shiver.

“I wasn’t sure I would, either,” he admitted.

“What changed your mind?”