Swap Out (25 page)

“I’m not sneaking off.” I tighten my arm around her shoulders, leaning down to whisper, “I’m avoiding the snoring.”

She gasps and smacks my stomach. “I do not snore!”

“Do too,” I singsong, starting to tickle her side. “And it’s really cute, just really loud.”

“I do
not
snore,” she says again, but she can barely get the words out between her giggles as she tries to twist away. I pull her back against my chest and she doubles over laughing, batting at my hands as I tickle her more, the light from the flashlight bouncing around everywhere except for the dark path in front of us as we keep walking towards the river.

At least the moon is out so we’re not completely blind.

I finally let her go to catch her breath, but keep my arms hugged around her and press a kiss into her hair. Her arms cover mine, and I swear I can
feel
her smile.

“You’re a total jerk and I should leave you here to freeze to death,” she says, out of breath from laughing, but still leans her head back so it’s settled against my shoulder. “Not that it would take more than two seconds since you’re rivaling the body mass of an Olsen twin, but still.”

I grin. “Too bad I have the car keys.”

She barely nudges her elbow back into my ribs, but it’s the weakest thing I’ve ever felt. Real convincing. I laugh and then hug her tighter, laying my cheek to her temple.

“You win,” I whisper. “I’m a total jerk and you don’t snore. Name your prize.”

“You couldn’t afford it.”

“Oh God,” I groan. “You’re going to want jewelry for this, aren’t you?”

She huffs and I squeeze her once, then let her go to tug off my shirt, dropping it on top of my towel and the one I steal from her hands, along with her car keys and the flashlight. It’s a short three-step walk into the water, but instead of sinking into the creek with a relieved sigh that always cascades through my veins when I’m back in my second favorite element, I’m instantly cursing at the cold when it laps up my legs and settles around my waist, my dick and balls shrieking in protest.

God, I’m stupid sometimes. It’s hot as hell during the day, but the temperature has no problem dropping at night and I can never seem to remember that when I’m antsy and restless and desperate to feel water rushing over my skin.

“Little chilly?” Zoe teases, and I splash water up to where she’s standing on the bank with her arms crossed. “Luca!”

“Take off your clothes and get in here.”

“My, oh my, how romantic,” she deadpans. “Is that the pickup line you used when you were in your bar hopping prime?”

“Didn’t need pickup lines,” I reply, and she rolls her eyes but still steps out of her jean shorts and lays them next to my shirt before walking towards me.

“If I get pneumonia, you’re fired.”

“Um…” I say and gesture to her, and she arches an eyebrow at me. “Lose the t-shirt.”

“No.”

I sigh, my head falling back as the moonlight dances and plays through my closed eyelids. I hold my breath, then drop deeper into the water and grit my teeth when I fully submerge. Icy tingles poke and scrape my scalp, but it’s the fastest way to get acclimated and there’s no point being a whiny bitch about it.

I come back up and shake out my hair, scrubbing a hand over my face to find Zoe still on the bank, baggy t-shirt still on and the bottom hem tickling the tops of her thighs. I splash her again, but she dodges and then shakes her head no.

“Zoe, what is the deal? A: you’re wearing a bathing suit. And B: I’ve seen you naked enough times that I could give a description to one of those police sketch artists and it would come out perfectly.”

She sucks in a breath, then narrows her eyes at me. “Your description would be wrong.”

“Because you’re hiding the fact that you got a tattoo of Scott’s name in large letters across your stomach and failed to mention it?”

“No! And if I’m branded with anyone’s name, it’s
yours
, you ass!”

I hold my hands up in surrender at her switch from calm banter to suddenly shouting, my eyes widening as I try to hold in my chuckle. “Can we dial back the crazy? Not even all the way, but maybe just a little?”

She huffs and then pulls off her shirt, and my eyes widen.

That’s…

Um…whoa.

As in
holy shit
.

“Zoe…” I say calmly, and she steps back away from me as I get out of the water.

“Don’t,” she whispers. “I’m…
fat
.”

It takes everything I have not to laugh.

Cautiously, I stop in front of her. Even slower are my hands when they settle on her hips, my eyes looking her over and drinking in the evidence before I release a long, deep breath and then lock my eyes with hers.

“Sweetheart,” I say quietly, because she’s not one for terms of endearment. But I know she needs to hear it,
feel
it, now. “You’re not fat. You’re…
showing
.”

“I know,” she whimpers and covers her face with her hands, and she startles when I wrap my arms around her, hugging her securely. “You’re wet,” she mutters in complaint, and I nod as I tuck her tighter into my chest.

It’s not even that significant, and nobody but us would ever notice, but there is a definitive, small curve in her lower stomach that was not there a week ago. It’s…it’s unreal. I nuzzle my nose in her hair and breathe her in, and my chest is bursting with that same warm flutter spasm thing I always get whenever the secret we don’t discuss pokes its little head out into the open, whether it’s from her incessant need to eat jalapenos with every meal or even just the fact that she can smell
everything
. But to see it, really see it for the first time, there are no words. I could lift a Mack truck and punch through a brick wall and not feel a thing because I am twelve feet tall and infinitely bullet proof.

I am man, and I made this.

But my woman is soft and her skin warm as she hides her face in my neck because she’s a human heat-blanket, a slender frame that fits into mine perfectly and a heart smaller than my own, but beats faster. And slightly pressing against my stomach, there is a bump in hers: the endless reminder that she is capable of more than I will ever understand, stronger than I give her credit for.

Everything inside of her is rushing and calculating and creating, even as she stands still against me, her hands gripping my shoulders from behind as though she’d fall if I weren’t here. And there’s a part of me I don’t want to admit to owning, the part that almost wishes it were true; that she
needs
me. But I know that’s wrong and isn’t the reality of the situation, because in a lot of ways, she’s tougher than I’ve ever been.

I honestly don’t know how she does it, how she can be so brave when she’s not in control because her body doesn’t belong to her right now. The corners of my mouth tug down, and I lift my chin and settle it on top of her hair so she won’t feel it. I can’t even begin to imagine how scary that must be. My body has always been my own, even when broken, and I’m always its first priority. But she’s been bumped down to number two within her own skin and my mind is spinning, stricken with a need to make sure she knows how incredible she is, how insanely beautiful and that she always takes precedence in my book.

There is no belly bump without a Zoe to precede it, and even bump-less, she’d still be my first priority.

I sweep my thumb over her skin, my fingers long enough to wrap around her hip from front to back and I squeeze lightly as I drop a kiss to her bare shoulder.

“This is what you’ve been hiding from me?” I ask softly, and she nods. “Why?”

“Because you think it’s gross and it freaks you out.”

I shake my head, smoothing my hands over her back and sides and when I pull her a little closer, her tummy nudges mine and a smile curves my lips. Because when that happened blood swelled south and I’m absolutely starving for her.

I shift and press my hips against hers so she can feel how wrong she is, and she sucks in a breath.

“Do you hear the things you’re saying? Because I don’t think you do,” I tease huskily, a low growl pulling from my throat when my palm slides down over the white bottom half of her bikini.

First time we went swimming and she came out in this, I almost lost it in my swim trunks. In front of Scott. Swimming is now a private activity thanks to my issues with possessiveness, and an overall lack of concealment afforded by the flimsy material of my swim shorts. I now make her come here with me as often as possible, which usually doesn’t go over too well because she would rather watch a movie and go to bed at the end of a long day, but I’m the master of flirty persuasion. Works like gangbusters.

“Stop trying to make me feel better,” she mutters. “It won’t work.”

“Well, in that case,” I say and turn away, hooking a finger into the strings tied over her hips and pulling her along behind me, “we might as well go swimming.”

“Luca…” she whines, and I turn to face her.

“What? It’s freezing and you’re always ten degrees warmer than I am.” I smile casually, and when she scowls, I nod once. “Yep, I totally just called you hot.”

She cracks half a grin and when I tap my lips, she gives me a full blushing smile before rolling her eyes. She then sighs and steps forward like it’s the last thing she wants to do, but there’s no hesitation in her movements when she stretches up and kisses me.

“Overdramatic,” I tease. “Was that so awful?”

“Maybe.”

“You’re not kidding,” I say and shudder. “You’re skeeving me out.”

She gasps and I return it mockingly, then step back into the water.

I hold out my hand, and she waits for a moment before setting her palm in mine. But quicker than she can protest I lace my fingers with hers and drape her arm around my neck, winding my other around her waist and drawing against me as I fall back and let the water rush up and support us.

She shrieks at the cold, wrapping her arms around my neck and legs around my body, and this was brilliant. Although the water really is freezing and Zoe is shivering, goosebumps racing all over her skin.

“You’re…gonna…pay for this,” she says, teeth chattering like crazy, and I can’t help but chuckle as I hold her tighter.

“You’ll get warm in a minute,” I tell her, letting my temple rest against hers and eyes falling shut as I sink into the feeling of her skin and how unbelievably soft she is.

She rubs her cheek against mine, something like a purr vibrating through her chest because she’s a sucker for the stubble that creeps up at the end of the day, and I have half a mind to stop shaving altogether. I never do on the weekends, and more than once I’ve caught her just staring at me, her eyes hazy with desire and her bottom lip caught between her teeth. My razors also keep mysteriously disappearing circa Monday morning, and when I ask her about it she claims she either has no idea where it is or that she “accidentally” may have thrown it away. She thinks she’s so sly.

She nuzzles her cheek against mine once more with a shiver, her back slightly arching so her pebbled nipples tease my chest, and the corner of my mouth ticks up. “You know, you’d get warmer even faster if you were naked.”

She lightly pinches me. “I think that couch fell on your head and not your shoulder.”

I lean back to smile at her, my knuckles exploring the line of her jaw and brushing over her cheek. Moonlight sparkles off the drops of water I leave behind, and I have the craziest urge to lay her out on a towel and paint diamond droplets on her skin with my fingertips. One tiny bead of water at a time, letting it shine before I steal it back under a tender touch of my tongue and swallow it down so I can keep her for always.

And as though she can read my mind, she laces her hands behind my neck and lets her head fall back, closing her eyes peacefully, and something soft and warm loosens in my stomach as I take her in: gorgeous and glittery in summer stars and our favorite stream, happy and relaxed and with me. This strong, smart and uncatchable prize who by all means is worlds out of my league, and who never does anything except for what she wants and always gets her way, is with
me
. Chose
me
.

Pride expands in my chest and bounds through my muscles, and I ease her forward so I can lift a long, slow kiss from her lips because I’m lucky enough to know what she likes; which half of the bed she prefers and how she likes to be woken in the morning, which side she wants me to walk on so she can hold my hand without it feeling backwards. She wrinkles her nose at dirty jokes in the day, but giggles at them until she can’t breathe once it’s dark, and she blushes at roses, but it’s white carnations encircled by baby’s breath that really lights her up. That way she can drop dye in the vase water and watch them change color. Pink, blue, green, purple, orange and red and yellow, she controls the depth of the hue and the combination within the arrangement, and she always gets exactly what she wants.

I smile at the thought of the bouquet back at the house, transforming into something unknown because she never tells me what color they’ll end up. It takes twenty-four hours for the color to seep in, and only then do I get to witness how she took something plain and ordinary and made it uniquely special. But that’s Zoe, making everything better, one small detail at a time.

She arches a suspicious eyebrow, the corner of her lips pulling up.

“What?” she asks, and I shrug.

She laughs quietly and shakes her head, winding her arms closer around my neck as we drift without rhyme or reason, but we don’t need one. We have the summer moon, cold water and fresh air, red rocks and this. Us.

My hand cups the back of her neck as my other supports her waist, and quietly, she says, “You keep looking at me like that…”

“Like what?”

My hands slide over her, my lips greeting her cheek as I forget the sensation of water against my skin in favor of drowning in everything Zoe. I boost her a little higher up my body and she blows out a breath that sounded halfway between and moan and a sigh, her cheek rubbing against mine before she leans her forehead against my own.

One, two, three small kisses that end too soon and I want indefinitely more of, then she timidly whispers, “Like you love me.”

“Hmm.” I smile, then tilt my face up to hers and breathe into her lips, “What’s wrong with that?”

“Everything,” she answers, and I can’t help but to chuckle at her teasing tone. She flashes a beaming grin at me before her body sinks down, her mouth connecting smoothly with my own, and when she kisses me it is bashful joy, hope and truth and trust and every nerve in my body explodes with need for her.

I kiss her deeper, pulling her closer into me and she sucks in a heated breath when I brush against her. My fingertips trail up her thigh as her palm settles on my neck, feeling for a chain I haven’t worn since she took it off me. And that thought, the knowledge how she accepts the worst parts of me and wants me anyway, that she loves me no matter who I used to be or who I am now, blocks out everything else.

A raw moan I’ve never heard myself make before comes barreling out of my entire existence and pours from my throat, shaking me to my core because I have never, will never, love someone as much as I love Zoe. I don’t even know when frustration and hurt got swapped out for reverence, for a sense of devotion that fills me as much as she used to scare me, but the thing is…it doesn’t matter when it happened. As long as she stays exactly where she is, and that’s close enough to feel that she’s real.

And real she is, my hands gripping her fiercely as she wraps me up in her long legs and slender arms, my mouth tasting every inch of her jaw and neck as she rolls her hips against mine. My thumb traces circles on the inside of her thigh, soft and silky skin that I want to touch and kiss every inch of, and desire blinds me against our surroundings, from the chill of the water and the breeze in the air, from the moon and the stars and I pull loose the strings tied over her left hip.

“Luca…” she breathes, and I growl into her skin as I push the white fabric away, the current opening a path to everywhere I need to be.

Her breaths are hurried but she only clings to me tighter, and when she doesn’t say anything I smooth my palm over her hip, her teeth scraping my shoulder. Slow and cautious, my fingertips explore the geography of her I can’t see under the veil of moonlight-tinted water: the rise of her waist, tickling their way down over curves and valleys until the heel of my hand rests against the bump that is half of my entire world.

The pad of my middle finger slips down between her legs and she sucks in a breath that takes my own, my mouth flirting with hers as they slide against each other like they don’t know how to be apart anymore but can’t quite seem to fully connect, and with my left arm firmly wrapped around her back and holding her to me, my right one starts to move. A soft press against where she’s most sensitive, letting her adjust to the knowledge that I’m touching her, and then shifting again. Tracing teasing circles and a skim here, a brush there, my fingers tasting her as my tongue moves hungrily against her own.

Her back arches and she strains against me, asking for what I haven’t yet given but I’m not about to deny her, and I lean back. My eyes lock with hers as her lips part, breathing heavily, and I dip my finger inside of her. She gasps but her gaze never leaves mine, and silently, we watch one another as I stroke slowly into her, her hands tightening against my neck when I give her a second finger and then curl them against her front wall.