had. Those last few inches between us disappeared. He annihilated them. I barely had time to open my mouth, and then his lips were against mine. I opened wide for him as he pressed against me. A moan escaped my mouth, and I’m pretty sure he growled.
Then his tongue pressed against my lips. It slid warm past my teeth, and I opened wide for him. His hands were on my back too. On my waist. Our tongues danced together, and his hand ran up my thigh again. It was like what I’d always imagined my first kiss would be like, rather than the disappointment of what it had really ended up being like. We were hungry for each other, we couldn’t resist touching each other. I was just groping his chest now. No awkward little puppy pats now. I had that same insane hormonal urge to do everything all at once that I’d had as an awkward teenager, but this time I was with a man who actually knew what he was doing rather than a clueless little boy.
I knew what I was doing too, at least more than I had back then, but Noah was taking a dominant lead, and I was happy to just submit and go along for the ride.
When his hand ran up my body and touched one of my breasts—touching the actual skin too, because the minidress made for some easy access—something came over me, and I grabbed his wrist and pulled him away.
We broke the kiss.
“What?” he asked. His voice was deep and hungry. Seductive.
“I...I don’t know,” I stammered.
“You want us to stop after that?”
I looked around. No one was really watching us. A lot of people were drunk, dancing, grinding. It wasn’t exactly out of place to make out here, even though it was public.
“Why don’t we go somewhere?” I asked.
His face lit up like a Christmas tree, or maybe more like a boy on Christmas morning. He grabbed my hand, and we walked out of the bar.
We exited the bar into the open air. We had to walk across the deck to get back to our rooms, but we paused by the pool. It was late, and this ship had multiple pools. This one was apparently not among the most popular, as it was empty.
“We could swim,” he said, grinning.
I shook my head. “We have a hot tub back in our cabin. On one of our many balconies.”
He leaned in close to me. His forehead pressed against mine. He didn’t kiss me, but just ran his hand along my cheek. The back of his knuckles were rough as they ran across my smooth skin.
“The hot tub is perfect, Lacey.”
My heart pounded the whole walk back. I’d already mentally committed to doing this. Or maybe it was more that my hormones had committed my brain to doing it, but my brain had lost that battle, and it wasn’t going to try to resist anymore. I knew I might wake up badly regretting this, but it wasn’t possible to stop myself anymore. I needed Noah, and I was willing to risk possible regret later down the line if it meant that I got to have him now.
When we got back, the babysitter was sitting on the couch and looking at her phone. She perked up immediately and stood.
“She went down without too much fuss,” she said.
She grabbed the baby monitor and handed it to Noah.
Noah smiled at it, then showed me. Naomi was curled up into a little ball on her whale bed. She was hugging her stuffed panda bear.
Noah tipped the babysitter, and then she was gone.
He took me by the hand up the stairs, but I stopped him just outside of my room.
“What?” he asked.
“I have to get my swimsuit on.”
He shot me an incredulous look.
“Please, Noah,” I said, “I want you to see how it looks.”
“You think it’s going to be on for more than a few minut—”
I put a finger up to his lips and shushed him. I may have only been a librarian two days per week, but I was very good at shushing.
He held up his hands in resignation. “Fine. I’ll go get changed too then.”
I put on the bathing suit. It was a one-piece, but not like the mopey ones that I’d used to wear in middle school. It was elegant black, with golden borders that also criss-crossed through the mid section, making an “x” shape. It wasn’t the most revealing swimwear, but it was low-cut enough