Page 107 of The Virgin Romance Novelist Chronicles
“You’re up, love. Don’t let me distract you.”
Evil bastard, he was going for the win. Well, two could play at that game.
Puffing my chest and adjusting the straps on my dress, I grabbed my dice and shook them up. From the corner of my eye, I could see Henry perusing my body, and even though it was making it that much more difficult to concentrate, I enjoyed hearing him clear his throat and shift in his seat.
The rest of the game was spent flirting shamelessly with Henry, trying to throw him off by bending to the side to pick up one of my dice that fell on the ground, showing off a great deal of thigh from my dress as well as leaning over, and showing off my cleavage to him every chance I got.
By the end of the game, we both had scores that were sadly unmentionable, and my parents took the win, blowing us both out of the water.
“Boy, what a good game, but I’m a little thirsty. Dave, come help me in the kitchen? Rosie, why don’t you take Henry down to the beach? It’s only a block away, and I’m sure he’d enjoy it.”
“That sounds great,” Henry answered for both of us as he stood up.
My mom winked at me as I got up too, making me roll my eyes from her matchmaker attempts. Once we were out of eyesight, Henry grabbed my hand and walked with me toward the beach. There was a little walkway that granted people in the neighborhood access, which was nice since beach access was quite hard to find.
“Did you go to the beach often when you were young?” Henry asked as we took off our sandals so we could walk in the sand.
“Not much, but during the summer I took my books down here and read on occasion.”
“God, that image is so adorable. Of course you would bring your books down here. Did you have a spot?”
“Not really, just anywhere I felt like sitting at the time.”
“Do you want to sit and watch the waves with me?” he asked, pressing his hand on the small of my back and guiding me to a little private alcove.
“I guess I don’t have a choice.” I laughed as we sat, gaining privacy from everyone else on the beach.
We sat in silence as we watched the waves crash against the beach. It wasn’t the white sands of the Virgin Islands but it was still pretty, even if there was trash here and there, thanks to the locals with no sense of protecting Mother Nature.
The sun peeked through the partly cloudy skies, warming us against the rocks we were sitting on and shining on the waves rolling in. It was picturesque. I just wished I knew what was going through Henry’s mind.
The way he’d treated me all day was weird; the way he’d touched me, talked to me . . . kissed me. We’d never been kissers before, so what did I do with that? Don’t get me wrong, I would kiss him again—because how could I resist him now he’d broken thatwe’re just friendsseal? There was no going back from there. I knew what he tasted like now, what it felt like to have my hands on his body, to have his lips pressed against mine. I couldn’t back away from that, but I also couldn’t seem to gain the courage to move forward.
“I wish I’d grown up out here.” Henry broke the silence. “It would have been nice to have the beach in my backyard.”
“But you got to have the concrete jungle as your playground,” I joked.
Henry grew up in the city, born and raised, so to him, he didn’t really get to escape away from his childhood home. But, he did know where all the good and cheap places were to eat while we were in college. Growing up in New York City was also a reason he landed such a great job right out of college. He’d made connections early; he did internships in high school, and so he was set.
Me? I didn’t have those opportunities, but who didn’t like working with cats, eating cat hair every day, and writing about the different clumping formulas on the market?
“It would have been nice to have a backyard, but I guess I can’t complain,” Henry said. “How’s the book coming, Rosie?”
I shrugged my shoulders. “All right, I guess. I still have yet to touch on any kind of sex scene. I feel like I could write one, after all the books I’ve been reading and the research I’ve been doing, but I feel like there will be a lack of energy, or spark, you know? I feel like in order to do my writing justice, I have to experience the real thing. I want there to be emotion, passion, and right now, the closest I’ve gotten to an orgasm is a fart on a face and a vibrator stuck in the vagina.”
Chuckling softly, Henry nodded his head. “I can understand that.”
Feeling a little uncomfortable, I shifted on the rock and continued to stare out at the water, waiting for Henry to say something else, because I was a loss for words.
My insides were all jumbled, my mind felt frazzled, and I wasn’t the same person I normally was around Henry. Henry literally flipped my world upside down the minute he kissed me, and even though I was sitting next to my best friend, someone I could tell anything to, I was speechless. I felt tongue-tied, nervous, sweaty, like I was on a first date.
“Let’s get out of here,” Henry said after what felt like half an hour of just sitting. He stood and grabbed my hand, leading me to my parents’ in silence.
Was he feeling the same way? Was he feeling as anxious as me? As confused?
When we made it to my parents’ house, they were both sitting out on the deck, enjoying a glass of lemonade. Typical Blooms.
“Oh, there you two are. How was the beach?”
