Page 9 of Fishing for Keeps

"There's no dance floor."

"Rookie, this porch has seen fifty years of dancing. Gus and your grandma used to dance out here every Friday. My dad told me."

I didn't know that. It undoes me a little, that this man carries pieces of my own family I've never held.

I take his hand.

We sway on the worn boards, barely moving, my cheek against his chest. His heart is going hard under my ear—not steady at all, hammering—and that's what does it. That this man who jokes about everything is nervous. That I matter enough to make his heart race.

"Trent," I say against his shirt.

"Yeah?"

I lift my head and look at him. The porch light catches his face, and for once he's not performing, not narrating, just looking back at me like I'm the only thing on the lake worth looking at.

"Stay," I say.

His breath goes ragged. "Josie. If I stay—" He stops, tries again, honest as I've ever heard him. "I'm not good at casual. I know what I said at the pizzeria, that I accept that you’re leaving, but I need you to know what you're getting. If I stay, it's not gonna be casual for me."

"I know," I whisper. "Stay anyway."

He kisses me, and there's nothing careful about it this time.

We make it inside in a laughing, stumbling tangle, his hands at my waist, my fingers working the buttons of his shirt. In the little bedroom under the eaves, moonlight comes silver through the window, and he pulls back to look at me as I tug my sundress over my head.

"You're so beautiful," he says, hoarse. "I mean it. I make a lot of jokes, but I have never been more serious about anything in my life."

"Then show me."

He does.

He lays me back on the quilt and takes his time, mouth mapping my throat, my collarbone, the curve of my shoulder, until I'm arching up against him and saying his name. He unhooks my bra, dropping it to the floor, before worshipping each breast in turn, teasing my nipples into stiff peaks while I sink my fingers into his hair and hold on.

"Trent," I gasp. "You're wearing too many clothes."

"See, this is why we're a good team. Great communication."

I laugh, and then his clothes are gone, and the laugh dies in my throat, because the man is all warm skin and hard muscle and he's looking at me like I hung the moon over this lake personally.

His hand slides down my body and finds the slick heat between my thighs, stroking slow and sure, and the sound I make isn't a word in any language. He learns exactly what makes me tick—patient, thorough, endlessly encouraging—working me with his fingers until I come apart against his hand, gasping his name into the dark.

"That's my girl," he murmurs, rough and pleased.

"I want you," I manage. "Now, Trent. Please."

He reaches for his jeans on the floor and comes back tearing a condom open with hands that aren't quite steady. I help him roll it on, and then he settles between my thighs, braced above me, and goes still.

"Hi," he whispers.

"Hi," I whisper back.

He sinks into me slowly, inch by inch, and we both groan at the feel of it, his forehead dropping to mine. Then we move, and it's slow at first, and then it isn't. I wrap my legs around him and pull him deeper, and he whispers my name like it's the only word he knows, and the old bed creaks and the crickets sing and the whole summer condenses down to this—his heartbeat, his hands, the lake air through the window on our naked skin, and the feel of his hard cock inside me.

"Josie," he groans. "I'm not gonna last if you keep—"

"Don't stop. Don't you dare stop."

When I fall apart the second time, he follows me over the edge, my name breaking in his throat, and he holds me through every shuddering second of it like he has no intention of ever letting go.