“No, thank you,” I say when he removes his hands from me and leans back on his heels. I turn my head to look at him and realize I can see right up his shorts. I glance away quickly.
I will not look.
“Why not? Scared?”
I lean up on my elbows and remind myself that I will not be provoked into doing something stupid.
“I’m not scared.”
“Prove it,” he says, and I narrow my gaze at him.
I slowly push myself up into a seated position and begin reapplying my sunscreen to my front, trying to remind myself to be rational. To not act without thinking. But the way he’s watching me…ugh. Those eyes are tracking my hands as the sunscreen is spread across my torso and limbs, and there’s a challenge in those depths. Something within me roars to life. Standing up, I place my hands on my hips.
“Fine. I’ll go out there. Because I’m not afraid. Of anything.”
Sem’s mouth turns up in a wicked smile, and he reaches for his surfboard and tucks it under his arm.
“Let’s go, Maggie.”
I turn my head slightly and side-eye him. He’s never called methatbefore, but the nickname makes my heart flutter in my chest.
Probably just nerves.
My dad insists on calling me Magnus because he thinks it sounds manly, even though I’m anything but. My friends call me Mag. But no one has ever called me Maggie. My family would hate how feminine it sounds. I should tell them that’s my nickname next time I see them. Watch their heads explode. I mean, my dad wouldn’t even let me join a dance class when I was younger because he thought I was effeminate enough. He put me in soccer instead. I got my ass beat by the other kids on the team. It was areally greatexperience. If I told my dad my so-called masculine name was shortened to Maggie, he would die.
I walk into the water with Sem and shiver, realizing how cold it is despite the sun beating down on us. A wave crashes into my shins, and I almost topple over, but Sem reaches out and wraps a strong arm around me, pulling me into his side. And I let him because I don’t want to be knowingly reckless.
We push forward, and when the water is at my chest, Sem gestures to the surfboard and says, “Hop on.”
I try and launch myself onto it but end up just hanging onto the side of it like a weakling. Apparently, I don’t have enough upper body strength to actually pull myself onto the board. Not that I’m surprised. I can bend myself into weird positions but forget a pull-up. That’s not happening.
Sem chuckles at me and then reaches over, picks me up, and plops me right onto it as if I weigh nothing.
“Scoot up,” he says, and I do as I’m told, grasping onto the tip of the board with white knuckles as Sem pulls himself on behind me. We’re both now laying on the board and he spreads my legs slightly to fit between them. When I glance back, I see thathis face is right above my ass.
Oh my god.
“You have a tiny butt,” Sem says and then leans down and bites it.
He bites my ass.
A gasp leaves me, and I narrow my eyes at him.
“Keep your mouth away from my ass.”
“Why?” he says, with a quirk of his eyebrow. “You let me stick my cock in it. Twice.”
My mouth unhinges, and I contemplate rolling off the board and into the water, but then realize that I might get eaten if I do that. So instead, I face forward and tell myself that my face is hot because I’m a little sunburned. Not because he was teasing me. Was he flirting? Does Sem even know how to flirt? I imagine him just throwing someone over his shoulder caveman-style and then fucking them through a wall. He doesn’t seem like the type to actually work for it.
We move farther out into the water, Sem occasionally touching my ass with his face as he paddles us forward, but I pretend to ignore it because acknowledging it will only make it worse.
Suddenly we are spinning around, and Sem says, “Come on, Maggie. Sit up. Look around.” I glance back at Sem pushing his wet hair back, looking entirely too sexy to be real, and I inhale deeply.
“I don’t think I can,” I say, prying my fingers from the board's edge. They’re practically glued to it.
“Nah, you can,” he says, unnecessarily running his hands up the back of my thighs, gripping onto my hips, and pulling me up.
But he doesn’t stop there. He slides me toward him, pulling my back to his front and keeping a steady grip on my waist. And I let him because it’s dangerous out here, and he’s my barrier between life and death. It’s totally a safety thing.