Chapter Thirty

After dinner that night, West jumps up. “Mind if we take a rain check on coffee?”

His dad nods. “Sure.”

West disappears into a back room, comes back with a guitar and a blanket, and nods to the front door. “Grab your hoodie. We’re going to the beach.”

“Um…” I give his family a look. “Thank you for everything. Dinner was great.”

His Gramma’s eyes twinkle. “Sure thing, hon.”

It’s dark out, and West flicks on a small flashlight as we walk down his street, cross the coastal highway, and follow a path through the dunes down to the beach. The moon is high, glowing off the calm Atlantic, and I stand for a moment just taking it in and the soft lapping of the water to shore. There’s a boat way on the horizon with tiny lights, and a breeze stirring the dune’s stalks of grass.

Tugging the zipper up on my hoodie, I turn to West. “This is gorgeous. I can’t believe you grew up here.”

He spreads the blanket out, and smiling, opens the guitar case. “So, tell me about that music.”

“Music?”

“That piece you were strumming in Columbus.”

“The same day you gave me the stickers.” The same day we kissed.

He pulls the guitar out, “Yes,” and motions me to come sit.

“The music’s just something I made up,” I tell him and take a seat in front of him.

“Well, I think it’s incredible, and I’m about to surprise you with something.” He hands me the guitar and pulls his lyrics pad from the case. He shines the flashlight on it to show me the words. “I’ve been messing around with this song for the better part of a year and haven’t been able to put any notes to it. Then I heard you play that song, and it’s like it clicked. They go perfectly together.”

“Um, I’m not a songwriter, West.”

“Trust me, okay?”

I glance at his pad and then up into his dark eyes, seeing in them how much this means to him. I settle the guitar across my lap. “Do you want me to just start playing? Is that how this works?”

West nods. “I’ll come in with the words when I feel it’s right.” He flips off the flashlight, and we’re surrounded by the night, the moonlight, stars, and the ocean breeze.

“Close your eyes,” he whispers, “and just absorb.”

I do and a couple seconds later begin strumming my song, and he begins singing…

“Open up your heart

and see what is inside.

Now that we’re apart

can’t you see love’s blind?

I need you by my side

to comfort me this night.

Cross the seas with me

and join me in my flight.”

I continue playing, soaking in the words as his smooth, baritone’s voice flows around us, filling the night with peace and love. When West finishes, I open my eyes and stare into his. “Those words,” I whisper. “That’s the most beautiful song I’ve ever heard.”

He doesn’t respond and instead just stares at me. A couple of seconds pass and with each one, something shifts in the air. Taking the guitar, he lays it aside and comes toward me, gently pushing me onto my back and stretching out beside me. He leans in and my gaze fixes on his mouth. I watch his lips part, but when he doesn’t close the gap to kiss me, I trail my eyes up to his.

They gentle as he looks down at me. “Damn, you’re beautiful,” he says.

All kinds of flutters shoot through me.

He lowers his lips, but still he doesn’t kiss me, and instead hovers just a fraction above. “You’ve turned into my muse.”

I wet my lips. “I-I have?”

“Yes,” he whispers and closes that teeny tiny space to brush his mouth ever so slightly over mine. “Yes, you have.” He trails his lips over my chin and under to nuzzle there, and I shiver. Who knew a chin could be so sensitive?

“You smell like dryer sheets,” I tell him and immediately wish I could take it back. Why am I telling him he smells like dryer sheets? First Lever 2000 and now this.

He chuckles and shifts closer, not completely on top of me, but almost there. Even though I try to pretend it’s not, I’m fully aware my back is completely stiff. I can’t relax.

West trails his nose up my neck at the same time he snakes his arm under me and fits me even closer. I tense even more, waiting for him to encounter my scars.

“Have you thought about our kiss,” he asks, his breath brushing my ear.

I jerk a nod.

The arm that’s under me moves down away from my back and my scars, and I take in a soft relieved breath. His fingers massage into the area where my butt meets my leg, and then he trails his hand along the back of my thigh, stopping to flex his fingers, and on down further to grip the underside of my knee. Gently, he brings my leg up to wrap around him and slides completely on top of me.

I go from warm, to hot, to full on fire. But still I shiver.

West moves over to my other ear and takes a delicious nibble. “Cold?”

“No,” I croak.

His hand is on the move again—from the back of my knee to my hamstring and right back to my butt—where it stops. But this time he doesn’t massage, he trails his fingers all the way under and brushes them against the seam of my jeans.

I catch my breath.

“Do you like that?” he asks, and I open my eyes to look at him.

“Yes,” I whisper as I pry my left hand from the blanket and latch onto his jacket to pull him toward me.

His lips meet mine in a teasing yet firm, tongue-circling kiss. Sliding my hands up his back, I pull him tighter to me, consumed with the need to feel his weight. He grips the back of my bent knee, widening it a little, and presses right into me, and I take in a sharp intense breath.

West tears his lips away from mine to ask, “Are you okay?”

His weight is on top of me, his warmth surrounds me, and I feel nothing but safe, and so I nod, and West covers my mouth for another deep kiss.

Everything aches for the release I gave myself in the bathroom a few days ago. But this time it’s stronger, more penetrating, and I know when that release comes, it’ll be ten times more powerful than what I gave myself.

Voices way in the distance trickle in, and West must hear them, too, because he pulls back. We both stare at each other for a dazed second. Then slowly, he rolls to his knees and scrubs his hands down his face before looking at me and letting out a disbelieving laugh. “I get so lost in you.”

The voices get louder, and we both look down the beach to see a group of people walking with flashlights.

“Geocaching,” West tells me as he gets to his feet. “We better go back. But this so isn’t over.”

I flush, equal parts embarrassed and turned on. I get so lost in him, too.

When we get back, Vianca is waiting for him in their living room with the Twizzlers and round two of zombies.

“You can join us if you want,” West tells me, walking me to my bedroom.

I shake my head. “That’s okay. You go spend time with your sister. We’ll see each other tomorrow.”

He gives me a hard kiss. “Yes, we definitely will. Or maybe tonight. If I sneak into your bed.”