Page 29 of This Could be Love

“But without them as examples it probably wouldn’t have been a thought.”

“Probably not.” I looked at him quizzically. “What else did you find out about me?”

He hesitated.

“Come on!”

He gave himself time. Either he really had to think about it or he enjoyed making me squirm.

“Your middle name is Charlotte.”

“Char-LOT-te,” I corrected him. “I’m named after my two grandmothers. Louisa was my dad’s mother, and Charlotte my mom’s.”

“You’re a Virgo.”

I raised my eyebrows.

“I’m a Virgo too. That’s why I paid attention.” He grinned. “Umm…you primarily listen to German music. Some band whose name I can’t pronounce.”

“AnnenMayKantereit.”

He made an attempt to repeat it, and failed miserably, which made me laugh.

“And when you laugh, the left corner of your mouth is always a little bit higher than your right.”

“You googled that?”

“No,” he whispered, looking right into my eyes.

I drew my lower lip in between my teeth.

“And when you’re nervous, you do that.”

“What?” I croaked.

He carefully lifted his hand and touched my lower lip with his index finger. Gently slid his fingertip between my incisors and lip. “That.” The tip of my tongue met the tip of his index finger, and I tasted salt. He groaned when, ever so slightly, I moved my tongue. Maybe he had said my name. The noise in my ears was so loud that I couldn’t hear it. He pulled his finger out of my mouth and let it glide across my lower lip. My chin, my neck, my breasts. I felt a mix of goose bumps, palpitations, and tingling in my stomach. My nipples began to grow hard. My abdomen tightened. Feeling restricted, I began to impatiently slide back and forth on the board. I wanted to wrap my legs around his hips. He let me, before lifting me off the surfboard almost effortlessly. I draped my arms around his neck and pulled myself against him, pressing against his warm, aroused body. His hands gripped my buttocks tighter, pulling me in even closer. More friction. He tilted his head, and I thought he was finally going to kiss me. But no, instead he let his lips wander across my neck, my collarbone, my shoulders. I moaned his name and pressed myself even tighter against him…until all of a sudden I felt a terrible pain in my calf.

“Ow!” I groaned, opened my eyes, and shot up from the treatment table.

“Good morning,” Gabe said amusedly.

Stuck somewhere between dream and reality, I looked around.Disoriented, sleepy and…excited. A telltale throbbing between my legs. Heat shot into my cheeks as I realized what I had just been dreaming about.WhoI had just been dreaming about.

“Took you pretty hard today, huh?”

I stared at Gabe in shock as he continued to massage my calf.

“I saw the two of you earlier. That girl is really good.”

Only now did I realize he was talking about Malia.

“Yeah.”

My feeling of relief was mixed with embarrassment.

“Kay’s sure got a nose for these things.”

“What do you mean?”