“The ocean,” I said.
His arms slid around me from behind. “I want to smell it in your hair after we swim,” he murmured. “And on the bedsheets later…”
I turned and kissed him, my hands sliding over his chest and arms. His skin was hot, slippery with sunscreen. I tugged him to the water.
The cold of the ocean bit down hard, taking my breath before it relaxed into a soft coolness. I dove under the foam of a wave, just as I used to do when I was a kid. The cold water on my face and the pull of the ocean were just as I’d remembered, and the nostalgia was so strong, I had to get my bearings for a minute. But there was Jonah. My here and now, and the moment felt as big as the ocean.
Jonah flopped backward into a cresting wave and disappeared beneath the surface. He came up out of the water, the sun glistening in the beads of water along his chest. Water arced off his head as he whipped the hair out of his eyes. I bit my lip as a shiver went up my thighs.
Jonah swam up and kissed me. God, he tasted so good. Like himself—clean and warm—but with the tang of saltwater mixing in. He groaned into my mouth, then broke away with a gasp.
“Holy shit,” he said. I could feel his erection straining against his swim shorts. “You taste like salted caramel.” He kissed me again, and pressed my hips to his. “We’re going to have to live here.”
“Oh yeah?” I said, ringing my arms around his neck.
“Literally right here in the water. I’ll be arrested if I come out.”
I laughed and walked backward, deeper into the ocean, shielding the front of his body with mine. I fell back, taking him with me, and we kissed above the surface and below it, before coming to rest in the water, neither of us speaking.
Jonah held me as I floated on my back, my head in the curve of his shoulder, and I had the fleeting wish that we could live here. Not in San Diego but in this day, these moments, over and over again, forever.
We had dinner at the Chart House, a beachfront restaurant that was a splurge, but life was short and money was for spending today. Afterward, we walked along the surf, hand-in-hand, carrying our shoes. The full moon hovered over the horizon. Its light spilled over the black ocean in a cone of molten silver.
“This was a good idea,” Jonah said. He stopped walking and cast his gaze out over the waves. “Every decision I’ve made since I met you has been good. Taking you home that first night, eating at that diner, letting you stay for a few days, asking you to come back when you left.”
“I was a little persistent on some counts,” I said.
“Thank God you were.” He turned to look at me and his moon-filled eyes were fierce. “My family and friends ask me what I want. What I want to do or see besides make glass. And I’ve only told them what I don’t want. I don’t want to travel to some far-flung place, just so I can say I went. I don’t want to climb a mountain or jump out of an airplane. A little bit of exhilaration and then back on the ground again—those manufactured moments aren’t what I want.”
He brushed his hand over my hair, pulling me close.
“This is what I want. You and me, in a place like this. Outside of time. Going for a walk along the beach, eating or swimming or making love when we feel like it.” I heard his breath catch and his next words were gruff. “This is living, Kace. This is exactly what I wanted but I didn’t know who to ask.”
I felt tears sting my eyes, and I let out a breathy little laugh. “It was me.”
“It was you.” He held my face in his hands, brushed his lips over mine. “Always and only you.”
We packed a lot into the next day, starting with an early–morning stroll on the beach and breakfast at the Pannikin coffee shop.
“This is where me and my best friend, Laura, used to come when we ditched class,” I said. “This building was once a train station.”
Jonah plucked the corner of his napkin, shredding it into careful strips. “Your parents’ house must be close by then.”
“A mile and half east,” I said. “But we’re not here for that. The things I like about San Diego are far away from my house.”
Jonah smiled gently. “Show me all of them.”
I took him to my favorite fish taco stand for lunch, followed by a doughnut from the best doughnut shop in the world. We strolled the Pacific Beach boardwalk, crowded with pedestrians, and skateboarders.
“Do you want to see the place where I had my first kiss?”
“Not especially.”
“What? Think you can’t top fourteen-year-old Ricky Moreno with his braces and bad breath?”
The twist of Jonah’s mouth was smug as he slid a hand around the back of my neck and kissed me. A man’s kiss, demanding and deep, leaving me breathless.
“Ricky who?” I murmured.
He arched his brow in that way I loved. “Damn right.”
We started walking again, arms crossed over one another’s backs.
“The kiss at the MGM Grand really was my first,” I said.