Page 52 of The Ripple Effect

I’ve wanted to not want him this way. I’ve tried to ignorehim, dismiss him, feel anything but this yearning that won’t stay down no matter how I try to defeat it.

But maybe I was wrong. Maybe we have something we can grip with both hands. Something solid, that wants to be held.

The gentle current ripples at my back, floating me into his lap. His body tenses, his eyes casting downward to my lips, droplets glistening like diamonds in the rose-gold bands of his lashes.

Nothing has to happen.

But when my vision clears and my eyes meet his, I want it to.

“You don’t have to give everything to everybody all the time. You could keep something for yourself.” I bring my thighs to either side of his, wrap my arms around his neck, and inhale chocolate and spice from his lips. It’s another of those lingering, breathless touches I’ve never shared with anyone but him. I don’t want them from anyone but him.

“Stellar,” he says, and the thing about Lyle is that when his voice goes low, it goes all the way down to the center of the earth. It’s a tectonic plate shifting, groaning under the heat and strain, forecasting the big one. More than ripples—a tsunami. For my body.

For my heart.

“I’m afraid we won’t be able to hold on,” I whisper, my lips so close to his, there’s hardly a point in keeping them apart. “But I want us to try. If all we have is you and me, then I want us to promise we won’t walk away from this. Or from each other. Anyone can get in a boat and talk about love, but they can’t be the Love Boat, because they aren’t us. No one can beat us as long as neither of us walks away.”

“I wouldn’t walk away. Not ever,” he says, a little breathless.Every movement of his chest moves mine. Every piece of our clothing is wet and clinging, needing to be stripped off.

His back burns underneath my hands; below the water, my skin sings with cold, the ache between my legs promising to wake up in a burst of sparks if he gives it some heat. I’ve never wanted anyone the way I want him, here, now. I want hours of his skin underneath my lips. Days of watching his mouth fall open and his eyes drift shut. Weeks of him whispering my name and me screaming his. His body and mine, everywhere, forever.

“Let’s get out of the river. Go… warm up.” It’s clear what I’m asking for.

I’m not sure why that was the wrong thing to say, but he tenses underneath me, pulling his face away with an indrawn breath.

“You’re right. We should get warm.” He sets me aside, then stands in a single smooth motion. I take the hand he extends downward, flying to my feet when he pulls. The loss of his touch is a wretched, bone-deep chill.

“You want the shower, or the sauna? Pick one and I’ll take the other.” He sloshes to shore.

I scramble after him, embarrassed and confused. “Um, I thought…”

His hands clench. “Yes. I know. But we’ve gotten cold and impulsively fallen into bed once already. We can’t go through that aftermath again. Not here. The guestshaveto be our first priority.”

I wipe hot shame from my face with the cold, wet collar of my shirt. “Yeah. You’re right. I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have… I shouldn’t have.”

“I’m not judging you for wanting what you want. And I’m not asking for forever.”

We both look at his ring, then at each other, the jolt of the empty symbol passing between us.

“But I’m at a place in my life where I need sex to mean something. Somethinggood. For everyone involved. Is that what you want from me?”

I used to think I didn’t want meaningful sex with anyone. Then I thought I wanted it with Jen. Then I tried not to have it with Lyle. Now…

Now it’s been fewer than two weeks since I sat in Liz’s nursery, not trusting myself to make decent decisions about one-night stands, much less sex that came with a future and not just a present. It might feel like we’ve known each other forever, but there’s plenty we don’t know about each other.

I want him, but he’s right. You can’t apply the same fix over and over and expect a problem to solve itself. That’s not how it works.

The only solution I can try is honesty. He deserves to have that from me.

“You probably guessed I’ve been… struggling. For a while. I haven’t been able to think about what I want in a lot of ways. Including sexual ways. It hasn’t been an issue since… for the last year, honestly.” I watch his body shift as he does the math from the night of the concert to now: one year.

“That’s fair,” he says, his voice threaded with compassion. Oh, god, here comes the rejection. “I’m glad you told me. And I think it makes even more sense to stick with the boundaries until you know what you want.”

Untilyouknow, he said. Notuntilweknow.

I nod, my insides jumbled up and aching. “Okay. I’m sorry that got out of hand. I’ll take the shower.” I shiver, but it’s his body I’m imagining under the gloriously warm water, not mine.

“It wasn’t just you. I was there when it got out of hand, too,” he says, striding away. “I’ll see you in the morning.”

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