“Luke.”
He has goose bumps up and down his skin and I’m a pervert for even noticing this right now, but I can’t look away from his chest, at the drops of water that cling to it and the way his nipples are pert and hard. I want to flick them with my tongue. God, he has great nipples.
“Will you hold my hand on Goliath?” he asks, and I have to blink back to what he’s saying.
“What?”
“I think you heard me, Logan.” He ducks his head, adding, “My eyes are up here, by the way.”
I snap my attention to his face, biting back an embarrassed laugh. “Fine. Yes, I’ll hold your hand on Goliath.”
“Okay, good. I can do this,” he says, and takes one last look into the water. “Show me this duck bill thing.”
“Duck-dive.”
“Whatever. All I care about is surviving. I’m listening.”
I shake my head and reach for the nose of his board. “So your board is under, you take a deep breath, and the wave goes over. You’ll pop right back up and be ready to keep paddling. It takes some time to get but it won’t take long to feel when you get it right. And you don’t have to go deep. Just enough to get under the wave. Deeper isn’t always better.”
He snorts. “If that’s true then you wouldn’t have—”
I slide my hand over his mouth to get him to stop talking, and we both look up at the same time, our attention snagged by something to our right.
A huge set comes up, and we watch another surfer paddling out. “See how he’s going right through those?” I point to the smaller swells. “When you paddle out you want full steam because that wave is stronger than you and if you’re not working to move through it it’ll knock you on your ass. Watch how he pops, look at his stance . . .”
As we watch the other surfer, Luke eventually lets out a “Man, he’s good,” clearly impressed.
“You could be that good,” I tell him. “You’re definitely strong enough and a great swimmer. It’s all technique and practice. You’ll have the small waves down in no time.”
“And the big waves?”
“I don’t think you’re ready for a big wave yet, Blue Crush.”
“Very funny.”
“Okay, I’ll do it and then it’s your turn. Deal?” I ask.
He nods and I paddle out, watching the wave. Three more strokes and I tilt my board under, letting it roll over me. I pop back up and do it a few more times before I catch the edge of a larger one.
It’s short, and I barely have enough time to pop up and ride before the wave falls apart under me. When I break the surface again, I climb back up on my board and paddle over to him.
“See?” I say, squeezing the water from my hair. “You can totally do that.”
“Your confidence in me is impressive,” he says, looking out over the water.
“I know you can do this, Luke. Come on, up you go.”
He looks terrified but lies down and starts paddling out. He looks back at me a few times but keeps moving forward. I stay as close as I can, watching as the smaller waves rush over him, one of them knocking him off his board. Protectiveness surges tight in my chest. He pops back up—looking a bit shaken—but doesn’t let it stop him and tries over and over again.
A wave forms off in the distance and I see him size it up before paddling toward it. Butterflies form in my stomach as I watch him, already cheering him on. “Keep going . . . Nose down, hips forward, deep breath! Yes!” I shout, even though there’s no way he can hear it.
He disappears momentarily under the water. Then, head turning frantically side to side, he breaks the surface again.
When he spots me, he breaks into a huge smile. “Holy shit. I think I did it!”
“You totally did it!” I say, laughing at how excited he is. “Think you can try it again?”
He nods and climbs back on his board, pushing his hair back from his face before looking out at the water.
Watching Luke as he paddles forward, warm from the sun and wet, twitching with exertion . . . I’m sure I’ll never forget this sight. He spots a wave in the distance and aims his board forward. I hold my breath as he dives through the smaller waves and breaks the surface again, before finally popping up to his feet on the last one. He doesn’t stay up for long before he’s knocked off and it certainly wasn’t pretty, but he did it, and I feel wildly, fiercely proud. I try not to stare as he comes back over to me, because I know my adoration would show all over my face.
* * *
“I TOLD YOU,” I tell him for the tenth time as we paddle back to the shore something like an hour later.
Luke is exhausted but he hasn’t stopped smiling. “Now I know why you’re in such amazing shape,” he says, looking appreciatively at my body. “That kicked my ass.”
“But you still did it,” I say.