Page 54 of A Summer Scandal

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

‘I can’t believe I let you talk me into this,’ Violet whispered. She’d been so startled by his out-of-the-blue suggestion that she hadn’t said no, and he’d taken her nervous laugh as a yes, tugging her down the stairs after shoving a couple of clean towels under his arm. They were on the beach now, in the midnight shadows of the pier, the sand cool beneath their feet.

‘Ah, give over,’ he said, dropping the towels down in the sand. ‘Aren’t you a little bit excited?’

He pulled his T-shirt over his head and grinned, his eyes and his teeth bright against the tan of his face in the darkness. The beach was deserted; Violet knew from watching it from her bedroom window that Swallow Beach was always silent in the small hours.

Was she a little bit excited, she asked herself? Or was she totally terrified? A heady mix of both, in truth.

Cal stepped out of his jeans and dropped his clothes in a heap on the sand. ‘You don’t have to if you’ve changed your mind,’ he said. ‘We can just go back, no harm done.’

She looked into his open expression and knew he meant it, but she couldn’t help but think he’d be a bit disappointed in her if she bottled it. And more to the point, she’d be disappointed with herself. This, this was what she’d come here for. Excitement, adrenalin, self-discovery. Was she going to discover that she really was a church mouse, that scurrying on home to her parents and Simon was actually the right path for her in the end? The thought was enough to make her pull her PJ top over her head, then gasp a little as the cool summer-evening sea air touched her skin. She’d chosen her underwear with more care than strictly necessary for a slumber party; dove-grey and nude silk, pretty but not in your face. Cal held her gaze, not looking down.

‘How brave are you, mermaid girl?’ he whispered, and then he stepped closer and slid his hand into her hair, kissing her; the briefest heat, the suggestion of his tongue. And then he stepped away, laughing, turned his back, dropped his shorts and made a naked dash for the sea.

Violet made a snap decision. She threw her clothes off in a hot panic, not stopping to think about the fact that she was naked as she lowered her knickers to the pile of clothes next to Cal’s, and ran for the cover of the water as if her life depended on it. There was no moon, just ink darkness and ice-cold water and then Cal’s hand in hers tugging her deeper in.

‘Oh my God!’ she gasped, her teeth chattering. She was up to waist-height already, her other arm clamped across her boobs.

‘It shelves really gradually,’ he said, facing her, covered from his hipbones down. Violet’s eyes were adjusted enough to the darkness to be able to see the lean lines of his body, the dark hairs on his chest tapering down. She wondered if he did this often and who with.

‘I grew up here, Violet,’ he said, as if he’d read her mind. ‘I’ve been in and out of this water since I was barely old enough to walk.’

She was glad of the cover of night. All of her senses were screaming,It’s cold, I’m naked, he’s sexy, I’m freezing, I’m turned on, I can’t believe we’re doing this.

‘I don’t think I want to go any deeper,’ she said, hanging back when he backed out a little more.

‘I won’t let anything happen to you,’ he said, and out of nowhere a flood of emotion filled her chest. He really shouldn’t say things like that if he didn’t want women to get overly attached to him.

He held his other hand out, and she had a choice to make – if she took his hand, she bared her breasts. She’d come this far; she was naked in the sea with him, and the truth was that a part of her wanted him to look at her. So, holding his gaze, she lowered her arm and put her hand in his. It felt like more than a simple physical act – symbolic, as if she was stepping out of her own shadow, finally becoming the woman she wanted to be instead of the woman everyone had always expected her to be.

‘Ready to dip down?’ Cal whispered.

‘After three,’ she murmured.

He nodded. ‘One. Two. Three.’

They submersed themselves fully, and then broke back up through the surface, gasping.

‘It’s so cold,’ Violet said, letting go of Cal’s hands to wipe the seawater from her eyes. He did the same, rivulets of water coursing down his body.

‘You look like Poseidon,’ she said, hot on the inside even though her skin was ice-cold.

He traced his hands down from her shoulders to her fingertips. ‘My beautiful mermaid,’ he said, swallowing hard, his eyes on her face, her body, her breasts.

Violet couldn’t say for sure if she stepped nearer or if Cal pulled her closer, but his arm slipped around her waist and he lowered his head, kissing her sea-salt lips slowly, deliberately, his mouth a shock of hot on cold.

Pure lust slithered through Violet’s bones. She wasn’t cold any more. She was burning up, and when Cal’s warm, sure hand covered her breast she wound her arms around his damp shoulders and pressed herself against him, loving the answering appreciative moan low in his throat. She felt unearthly, as if they were outside of usual human rules, just the two of them and the sea.

Cal’s hand tracked the line of her spine, sweeping down over the fullness of her backside, and without conscious thought Violet let the buoyancy of the water lift her, catching her leg around his thigh until he held her against him. He kissed her again, harder then, his chest rising and falling heavily under hers, his hands underneath her, cupping her.

‘Oh God,’ she said, breaking off their kiss to bury her face in his neck because he was exploring between her legs, tender fingers, kissing her hair, saying her name as she moved over him, wrapped herself around him. She was his mermaid, and he was her man of the sea, strong, her rock to anchor herself to. And she did; her arms around his shoulders and her legs around his waist, knowing there was only one way this was going to go and wanting it to happen.

‘Violet,’ he said, his lips roving her hair, her eyelids, her jawline. She kissed his shoulders, tasting the salt on his skin, and then he lifted her high enough to kiss her breasts, his tongue a hot shock over her cold, hard nipples.

When he lowered her slowly down his body again, she clung closer still, her mouth on his ear.

‘Don’t stop now, Cal. Please don’t stop.’

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