“Jesus, Sawyer. That’s really fucking sappy.”

I laughed. “Well, it’s true! And I’m trying to get better about prioritizing my relationships. Letting people know how much they mean to me.” I nudged him with my elbow. “So how am I doing? Do you feel special and appreciated?”

“Uh, yes. So you can stop now.”

“In a minute.” I tipped my head against his shoulder for a few seconds. We walked until we hit a patch of the shoreline where the sand had been eroded and the waves came right up to the trees. For some reason, I didn’t want to turn around and go back yet. “Want to sit?”

“Okay.”

We dropped down onto the beach a little ways from the water and watched Renzo chase a bird, dig a hole, and fling sand around. No longer holding my hand, Noah sat with his forearms draped over his knees, looking out at the bay. Looked like I had to face the fact that this whole kissing in the surf thing wasn’t going to happen.

In fact, I had to close my eyes and chastise myself. How ridiculous could I be? If he hadn’t tried anything when he was seventeen and all jacked up on adolescent hormones, he certainly wasn’t going to do it now that he was older and more mature. I had to face reality—he simply didn’t look at me like that.

And maybe it was better this way. But still . . .

“Can I ask you a question?” I ventured, the wind blowing my hair all around my face.

“If I say no, will you ask it anyway?”

I thought for a moment as I gathered it over one shoulder. “No. I won’t. Because it’s personal.”

He exhaled. “Go ahead and ask. There’s not much I don’t tell you.”

“You might not want to tell me this.”

“For fuck’s sake, Sawyer. Just ask already.”

“Okay.” I bit my lip for a second. “Why haven’t you ever tried to kiss me?”

He didn’t answer. He didn’t even look at me.

When a five full seconds had passed—which felt like five years—I got nervous. “Never mind. I shouldn’t have asked. It’s a stupid question, and the answer is none of my business. Obviously, you’ve just never felt that impulse or you’d have done it. And that’s fine, it’s totally fine. I don’t know what’s going on with me. I think I’m just feeling bad about myself, and I—”

He moved so fast, I didn’t even see it coming. One second I was sitting there gripping my hair over one shoulder, burning with humiliation and wishing a hole would open up in the sand and swallow me, and the next I felt his lips on mine, his hands on either side of my face.

My pulse went haywire as the shock and thrill of his kiss moved through me like lightning. His mouth was warm and firm, and covered mine completely. His lips moved with slow, strong confidence, and his tongue sought mine with hungry strokes. I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think, couldn’t even kiss him back. My hands remained wrapped around my hair as heat pooled at my center and my mind spiraled with happy, dizzy, unimaginable excitement. A small sound issued from the back of my throat—a gasp for air, a plea for more, a cry of blossoming desire.

Suddenly Noah let go of me, breaking the kiss, and I fell back on my elbows in the sand. I hadn’t even realized he’d been holding me up. I blinked at him as the wind whipped my hair around my face again.

“Fuck,” he said. “I’m sorry.”

I shook my head. “No, don’t be—”

“I don’t know what I was thinking.” He jumped to his feet and moved a few feet toward the water, readjusting his cap. Renzo came running over with the stick again, but Noah didn’t throw it.

For a few seconds, I just lay there on my elbows, staring at Noah’s broad back and trying to figure out what the fuck had just happened. Last I could remember, I’d said something stupid and embarrassing, and he’d gone silent. Then all of a sudden, his lips were—

I closed my eyes as my core muscles clenched. God, he was a good kisser. Even better than in my fantasy. And I loved the way his hands had grabbed me that way. Possessively. Hungrily.

Why had he apologized?

When I opened my eyes again, Noah was walking slowly toward me, his face grim, his jaw set. His dark eyes were shadowed by the bill of his cap, but I didn’t need to see them to know they were full of regret. His body language was clear.

I started to get up, and he offered me a hand. Placing my palm in his, I rose to my feet, but I still didn’t feel all that steady.

“I’m sorry,” he said again.

I took my hand back. “It’s okay.”

“No, it’s not. Let me say this.” He exhaled. “Your question threw me off balance. Because it’s not true that I haven’t thought about kissing you. I’ve thought about it a thousand times.”

I stared at him. “You have?”

“Yeah.” He looked down the beach in the direction we’d come from. “But I talked myself out of it every time.”

“Why?”

“Because I don’t want to ruin what we have.”

I nodded slowly. “I get that.”

“You might think you’re not good at letting people know what they mean to you, but you are. I don’t need very many people in my life, and I don’t need them often, but you’ve been there for me.”

“Just like you’ve been there for me.”

“Which is exactly why giving in to whatever physical attraction we feel is a bad idea, Meg. It would change things. Probably ruin them.”

Meg. He never called me Meg. Things were different already.

“But—”

“It wouldn’t be worth it,” he said. “Believe me, I’ve gone over and over this in my mind. Because as much fun as it would be to say fuck it all and take you to bed, I’d be too afraid of losing what we have.”

I don’t care, I thought stubbornly. Say fuck it all and take me to bed.

But he was right to be scared.

“I’d be afraid too,” I admitted. “Although I agree—it probably would be fun.”

“Oh, there is no probably,” he said with the touch of that cockiness I was used to in his voice. “It would be epic.”

I had to laugh a little. “Right. But we can’t.”

Part of me was hoping he’d argue, but he never did that when he was supposed to.

“No,” he said firmly. “We can’t.”

I sighed. Why’d he have to be such a good man?

Renzo came sniffing around us again, and Noah finally gave in and threw the stick. Then he looked at me again. “So are we okay?”

I nodded and smiled, although I sort of felt like crying. “We’re okay.”

We walked back down the beach and through town to his car, and then he took me home. The conversation stayed light, and although there was an awkwardness between us, I didn’t feel like we’d wrecked anything. We’d get back to normal. In fact, maybe we’d even be glad we’d gotten that kiss out of our systems. At least we could stop wondering.

Except . . . I didn’t stop wondering.

I spent the entire rest of the afternoon moping around the house, mooning over him, and replaying the kiss in my head. Finally, I got so fed up with obsessing over it that I threw on a sweater and walked across the orchard to the tasting room to see if Chloe needed help. I needed a distraction.