Page 72 of Those Summer Nights (Sweet Cravings 2)

“No problem,” he said. “It ended up working out for both of us.” He pulled Kristen into his side. Her smile was so big it was contagious.

“You guys ready to play?” one of J.J.’s other friends called over to us.

“We’re in!” J.J. called before turning back to Reggie. “And just because I’m thankful, it doesn’t mean you two aren’t going down,” he said with a laugh.

“Oh, it’s on,” Reggie said.

J.J. went under water, maneuvering himself underneath my thighs. I laughed when he stood back up. He was so tall that in the shallow end I wasn’t anywhere close to touching the water anymore. I leaned forward to try to keep my balance. He turned his head and kissed my inner thigh. “You ready?” he asked me.

I wasn’t. I was super distracted by his mouth. And his wet hair that was dripping onto my legs in a way that I never knew would be so erotic. Yeah…this was not going to go well.

***

&nb

sp; It turns out that I wasn’t the best at chicken fighting even when I tried really hard to focus on the game instead of J.J. But I really did have a great night. To my delight, I don’t think J.J. even looked at Jenn once. He was as smitten as me. And I wouldn’t be able to get the smile off my face even if I wanted to.

“Ah, it’s freezing!” I yelled when we finally got out of the pool. The breeze from the ocean was always chillier at night.

J.J. grabbed a towel and wrapped it around me. There was something sweet about that, especially because it left him shivering for longer when he had to go get another one.

“Do you want some pizza?” he asked. His friends had ordered Grottos and it had just arrived steaming hot from the boardwalk. It was late, but never too late for cheesy goodness.

“Is all you eat pizza?” I wasn’t complaining, I was just curious. I picked up a slice before he even responded and took a bite. Delicious.

“And ice cream.” He winked at me. “I really do need to learn how to make something other than cereal though.”

I laughed. “I can teach you…if you want. I love cooking. Although the last time I made pizza, it didn’t turn out so well. I still can’t believe rentals don’t have....”

“Rolling pins,” he said, finishing my sentence. “Yeah, you mentioned that before. Was that one of the many nights that I was being dense and you were mad at me?”

“No…just disappointed.”

He laughed. “Well, here’s to not disappointing you anymore.” He tapped his slice of pizza against mine.

I smiled.

“Here, you gotta see this view.” He used his hand that wasn’t holding a slice of pizza to guide me to the edge of the roof.

“This view is amazing. I wish we could stay here forever.” But I didn’t really mean at the beach. I glanced at J.J. out of the corner of my eye. I meant with him.

Time felt like it was frozen still as he turned to look at me. “Me too.”

Why did it already feel like goodbye when our summer together had only just started? I cleared my throat. “What do you want to do this weekend?” Even though the weekend was still far away, it was just far enough away that he might not already have plans like this with his friends. I was hoping we could do something just us.

He wrapped his arm more securely around me as we stared down at the crashing waves. “How about something just the two of us?”

I leaned my head against his shoulder. It was like he could read my mind. “That sounds perfect. Oh.” I looked up at him. “How about we go to Salt Air? I won that gift card. It can be my treat.”

“Are you that sick of pizza?” he said with a laugh.

“No, but I think a night out would be fun. We can eat and drink and dance.”

“You won’t turn me down like you did yesterday when I asked you to dance?”

I laughed. “I wanted you to ask me because you really wanted to…not because you were being protective.”

“You say protective like it’s a bad thing.”

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