I giggle. “I thought you had to take me back to the house and feed me some Kool-Aid first?” I take a drink of punch and smirk at him.

He squints his eyes at me.

“I have to give you some shit. I can’t help it.”

His face gets serious. “That's not how I want it to be with you.”

“What do you mean?”

“It’s kind of embarrassing, but for most of the sex I've had, at least one of us, and usually both of us, have been drunk. Even Whitney, she never really wanted me unless she was messed up.” He lazily plays with a strand of my hair. “When we do it, if we do it, whenever that is, I don’t want us to be drunk.”

“Dawson.”

“Yeah.”

“I wanted you to take off my bikini in the bedroom, and I hadn't had a single drink.”

He stares at me for a couple beats then rolls on top of me and pushes his mouth onto mine. I part my lips in surprise, mostly at the force of his kiss. Up until now our kisses have been sweet, safe kisses. Friendly kisses.

This is not a friendly kiss. This kiss is full of desire. He grabs my tongue with his, sucking it into his mouth forcefully. He sucks on it greedily. Like it’s his to own.

He slides a hand into my hair and pulls my head closer to his. As close as I can get.

I wrestle my tongue away from him and slowly tease his lips with it. Then I grab the back of his head, sucking his tongue into my mouth with equal force.

I can't stop a little moan from escaping.

I rake my other hand down his back, settling on the back of his board shorts and kneading my fingers into them.

“Ahhh!” we both scream out when cold water splashes down across Dawson’s back.

He rolls off me saying, “What the f—” and sees Riley standing there, holding an empty sand bucket.

Riley says, “Jeez, Dawes, you’re gonna get us fined for indecency. Thought you needed some cooling off. Besides, that girl needs to show us her surfing skills.”

Dawson gets up and chases Riley down the beach and into the water, where they have a shoving match. Dawson gets Riley in a headlock and dunks him. Then Riley kicks Dawson’s feet out from under him and they both go down into the water.

They’re laughing as they run up the beach.

“Wish me luck,” I tell Dawson as I jog by him with a surfboard.

Riley and Ace grab boards and paddle out with me. Riley paddles out to a small wave, catches it, stands up, goes about twenty feet, then crashes.

Ace takes the next one and doesn’t even get to a standing position before he bites it.

I wait out three more waves, there's a slightly bigger one building.

I ride it, easily carving back and forth through the water, and take it all the way until the board glides up on the beach.

Dawson grabs me, runs his hands down the back of my swimsuit, and kisses me. “That was amazing.”

“That wave was like the bunny hill you learn to ski on.”

“It knocked my brother down.”

“Yeah, well his foot placement’s all wrong, and he's leaning too far forward.”

“Don't tell him that. I love to see him crash and burn. Makes for great videos.”

A couple hours later the punch we brought is gone. Everyone’s tipsy and worn out. We decide to go back to the house, where we chow down on sandwiches.

After we eat, I tell Dawson, “I'm kinda tired.”

Actually, I’m exhausted.

Emotionally exhausted.

“You need to come with me then,” he says with a grin, as he leads me into the bedroom then out a set of French doors to a screened-in porch with a big, padded hammock blowing in the breeze. “Best place in the house for a nap.”

We snuggle up together in the hammock and I immediately fall asleep.

I'm awakened by his stirring. My face is right by his neck, so I kiss it. Other than my giving him a single kiss at the football game, I really haven't initiated stuff with him. I've been letting him kiss me. But after his comment, his feeling like Whitney didn’t really want him, I figure he needs to feel wanted, so I kiss up his neck and toss my leg across his.

He laughs. “You realize we just slept together.”

“Yeah, I guess we did. Shh . . . don’t tell anyone. You’ll ruin my reputation.”

He runs his hand like he did in the picture, gently pulling my hair off my face. “I think you need to keep doing that,” he says, pulling me fully on top of him. I kiss gently down his neck, then kiss a little harder, then softer. I’m sorta teasing him and it seems to be driving him nuts.

I sit up, my knees straddling him, and kiss down his chest, then run my hands in a little tickle down his sides.

He laughs and squirms a bit, but I can feel that other parts of his body have just jumped to attention.

He goes, “Mhhm,” then grabs me, and tries to flip me over. He apparently wants on top of me, but uh, yeah, I think he maybe forgot we’re in a hammock because he rolls up over the side of it. The hammock flips. He falls onto the floor on his back, and I land right on top of him.

“Shit,” he mutters, but then laughs. “Real smooth, huh?”

I reply with a deep slow kiss.

Then he flips me over, pinning me against the rug under his weight. He kisses my neck and down my chest. He unties my bikini top, takes in what he sees, kisses what he saw. My body is responding, enjoying everything he does to me. He maneuvers himself between my legs and rocks his hips against mine.

I’m hot and, honestly, I am a bit shocked at how much I want him.

But we can’t. I cannot. We said we were going to take it slow. And this, wonderful though it may be, is not moving slow.

“Dawson,” I manage to breathe out.

“Hmm?” He smiles at me and kisses my nose.

“I thought we were gonna take things slow?”

“Maybe we should rethink that.”

God, he's dreamy.

I squint my eyes at him in fake irritation.

He kisses me again, then says, “No, you’re right.”

But what he says and what he does are two entirely different things.

He kisses me deeply again, runs his hands through my hair, then down my back, his hands stopping on my butt and pulling it towards him, making his pelvis slam into mine. His hardness pushes on what little there is of my bikini bottoms.

We keep kissing. Our hips move together like we’re having sex, even though there are two thin layers of fabric between us.

I’m getting extremely worked up. And it’s obvious he is as well.

It feels so damn good that I don’t want to him to stop.

But one of us needs to use our head.

“Dawson.”

“Don't worry. We're not. Not yet anyways.” Then he gets up, snatching his hardness away from me.

I’m left lying on the floor, my body saying, But wait!!!!! My mouth may have been saying no, but my body majorly disagrees. It wants to pull him back down on top of me.

He reaches his hand out and pulls me up as I retie my top. Then he backs away slightly, leans down, and studies my tattoo. “I didn’t know you had a tattoo. Bad girl moment?”

I shake my head. “No, not really.”

“What does it mean?”

“It’s the symbol for chaos.”

“Chaos, huh? Interesting. So does that mean you like to cause chaos?”

“No. It’s from a quote. Life is divine chaos.”

“I like it.”

“I used to like it.”

“You don’t now?”

I roll my eyes. “The surfer has a matching one.”

“That’s probably fitting, considering.”

“Yeah, probably.”

We drink a little more, eat a little more, relax a little more.

The punch has officially caught up with me.

We’re both a little tipsy.

Well, I’m maybe kinda drunk.

I’m also feeling a little naughty.

I drag him back to the bedroom and start attacking him.

I kiss him, take off his polo, undo his shorts, and slide them off him.

He stops me from untying my bikini.

“Keatyn, we talked about this. We’re not gonna do stuff when we’re drunk. We’ll wait.”

I laugh at him. “Yeah, you’re probably right.”

But then I give him a devilish grin, drop down on my knees in front of him, and look up at him in question.

His face breaks out in a huge grin. “Oh. Uh, well, that’d probably be okay.”

Sunday, September 4th

So, um, about last night.

Too fucking early.

Wake up to sunlight streaming in the windows. Look at the clock. It’s freaking sunrise-early.

I feel a bit fuzzy, confused about where I am, and thirsty. I look down and see I slept in my bikini.

Dawson walks out of the bathroom, wearing only board shorts, and that dark, gorgeous body of his is looking sexier than ever. While Riley only has a four pack, Dawson’s got a full six. Almost eight, if that’s even possible. His chest is totally ripped. And quite yummy.

“So, the early bird gets the surf. Us guys always go out and try to surf at sunrise, then we come back and eat a huge-ass breakfast. Come with us. Or do you want to sleep some more? The girls always sleep in.”

“I slept in my swimsuit?”

He sits on the bed next to me and grins. “Yeah. You remember last night? You were pretty tipsy, maybe drunk. I don’t know. I haven’t drunk with you enough yet to be sure. You were kinda naughty though. Do you remember that part?”

“Yeah, I do, but then it gets kinda blurry—not because I was drunk, more because I was just so tired. Yesterday was a long day.”

“You were tired. You told me Kool-Aid makes you sleepy. Then you snuggled up next to me and crashed. Maybe even snored a little.”

“Oh, gosh. That’s embarrassing.”

“Naw, it’s cute. And you’re such a little snuggler.”

“I’m really not a snuggler.”

“Yeah, you are.”

“No, I’m really not. It usually makes me feel kinda claustrophobic.”

“Well, I don’t know about that, all I know is you were glued to my side all night. My right arm’s still numb. So if you wanna go, get dressed and meet us down there okay?”

“Okay.”

I get up, pee, brush my teeth, throw on a different bikini and a rash guard, spf my face, pull my hair back into a ponytail, grab my flip flops, and head down the beach.

They’re just getting the boards down there when I arrive.

We have fun playing around in the surf.

I make Dawson tell Riley what he’s doing wrong. He grudgingly agrees, then looks like a proud parent when Riley rides a wave all the way to shore. He runs over to him, high fives him, and is like, Riles, dude, that was awesome.

And he wasn’t kidding when he said they come back and eat a big breakfast. I don’t think I’ve seen this much food consumed in one place. Apparently, growing boys can eat a whole freaking lot. Their cook set out plate after plate of bacon, eggs, pancakes, fried potatoes, biscuits, gravy, sausage, and they drank at least three gallons of milk.

I sit there just watching the frenzy.

Riley says to me, “Dude you need to eat more. We need to fatten you up a little.”

Dawson stops lifting the fork to his mouth. “Naw, she looks damn good in a bikini. Perfect, if you ask me.”

And that pretty much made my whole day.

We’re walking over to play tennis when Dawson says, “So, um, about last night.”

“Last night was great. The sunset was amazing, and the partying, and hot tubbing. I’m having so much fun. Thanks for inviting me.”

He kicks his racquet gently with his foot. “Uh, I was sorta referring to after that.”

“After that?” And I’m thinking after that we went to bed. Oh. After that. “Oh. What about it?”

“What about it?” His eyes get big, like I could be so nonchalant about it. “Hands down. The. Hottest. Thing. Ever.”

He’s so cute, and so excited about this. You’d think we were talking about cars or Xbox or something. But what did Grandpa’s ranch hand say about boys? They have two moods, hungry and horny. So if you see a boy without an erection, you should go make him a sandwich. That made Grandpa laugh, and Grandma say, Keatyn, don’t you dare listen to them. You tell them to make their own damn sandwiches.

I say, “Really?”

He suppresses a big smile. “You. Down on your knees. Uh, yeah.”

I’m pretty surprised by this, considering his summer in whoredom.

“Hmm. Well, good. Does that mean it’d be okay if I wanted to get down on my knees again sometime?”

Dallas walks up behind me. “And just what are you going to do down on your knees, Kiki?”

“Look for seashells, what else?” I sass back.

Dawson chokes down his Kool-Aid laughing, but as soon as Dallas walks away, I have to ask. “I don’t get why it was so hot. I mean, I’ve heard about your summer.”

“It was just different. I actually like you. I didn’t ask you to, and it was a surprise.”

“And you like being surprised?”

“Like that? Hell, yeah.”

“I’ll have to remember that,” I say with a smirk, my mind going to naughty places it should so not be going. But Dawson’s hair is blowing in the breeze and his mouth is curled into a very sexy grin. Plus he smells like cocoa butter and the ocean. Which reminds me of home. And Brooklyn. “You know, I can see now why my mom says you have to date different people, so you know what’s good and bad in a relationship. Like you said, you worshiped Whitney, then dated her. Same with me. I crushed on the Keats guy. I did stuff with him because I wanted to make him like me. This feels different. I feel like we like each other.”