Summer.
She’s wearing the little white bikini she’s been wearing the first day I ever saw her. Her skin is glowing under the moonlight, and I watch as she walks into the waves.
I hesitate only a moment before I go back inside, throw on my swim trunks, and then walk out onto the sand.
I’m drawn to her like a wolf to the moon. I can’t fight the pull now if I tried. I’ve tried. God knows how hard I’ve tried to stay away from her. To give her space. To not hurt her anymore with this obsession I have with her.
But I can’t fight it anymore.
I follow her out into the ocean.
I don’t know if she’s aware of my presence or not. If she is, she makes no indication.
I’m close enough I can touch her now, but I don’t. I just stop in front of her. The water comes up to her shoulders, but it’s not even mid-way up my chest.
It’s on the tip of my tongue to apologize to her. For what I don’t know. Everything?
But the words catch in my throat. How can I tell her I’m sorry? I’m not sorry for wanting to make her mine in every way.
I’m not sorry for loving her.
And I do. I’ve known it for a while now. I think I knew it the moment I laid eyes on her. I’ve never been one of those saps who believes in love at first, but with Summer, I do.
With Summer, anything is possible.
She’s crying, tears rolling down her cheeks as she looks down at the water rolling around her.
I can’t tell her I’m sorry, so I slowly reach out to her and kiss the tears from her cheek, tasting the salt from both her tears and the ocean.
And I think she gets what I’m trying to say because she collapses against me then, flinging her arms around me and sobbing into my neck.
“Ssh,” I stroke her wet hair as she clings to me, wrapping her legs around me. She’s made weightless by the water, but she would have been anyway.
I love the feel of her pressed up against me like this, seeking solace from me. If she only knew what I would give to always be the one she comes to with all her problems.
“Dane?” she finally whispers my name as she looks up at me, her eyes shimmering in the moonlight.
“You didn’t demolish the building?” she asks it like a question, but she already knows the answer. She’s living in the renovated building.
“I didn’t demolish the building,” I confirm.
“Why?” her eyes search mine.
“Why do you think?” I ask her, my voice strangely raw and choked-sounding.
She lets out a sound that’s half sob, half whimper. “Oh, Dane, I’m so sorry,” she says before burrowing her head into my neck again.
I stand there shocked before I pull her head up, forcing her to look at me. “What the fuck are you sorry for, sunshine? It’s me who should be sorry. Not you. Not ever fucking you,” I tell her adamantly.
Fuck, I coerced her into staying with me, practically forced her into fucking me, and she’s the one who’s sorry.
Her pureness, her innocence, it hurts my heart.
“Dane?” she whispers my name again.
“Yeah, sunshine,” I look down at her, so soft and beautiful in my arms.
“Promise me something?” she asks.