THE SAND WAS soft between my toes. "So how do we do this?" I asked Derek.
He was leaning down to place the surfboard on the sand. The muscles in his back contracting as he was careful to not knock the fins. "Well first we have to add a coat of wax so you don't slip off, I'll show you."
On his knees he shifted to the side, beckoning me to sit next to him. I came around and knelt beside him on the sand, my body aware how close it was to his shirtless one.
"You ever wondered what surf wax looked like?" He pulled out a light blue box that said Sticky Bumps and began to open it.
I've never thought about it but I'm questioning it now, there's wasn't even the slightest idea forming.
He pulled out a circular lump. "Smell it," he pressed with a grin holding it in-front of my face.
"What no I'm not going to smell it."
He rolled his eyes. "Just smell the damn wax River."
He put the wax under my nose and my narrowing eyes widened as I took in the aroma of what smelt like a marshmallow.
"Good isn't it," he heaved in the smell himself. "If the oceans a drug this is an addictive part of it."
I watched Derek and the waves outlining behind him. He looked beautiful against this atmosphere, it suited him, but so did the soccer field. "Is surfing one of your main sports like Soccer or Baseball?" I asked intrigued. He seemed to know a lot about everything.
"I do a little bit of everything," he met my eyes and began. "I guess its like carrying a different part of each foster family with me. About six years ago I had a host family out in Southern California total surf junkies," he laughed.
"Must be nice," I replied.
"What going from foster family to foster family," he answered with a raised eyebrow.
Realising what I must've sounded like I shook my head feeling instantly bad. "No, no that's not what I meant-"
"Don't worry I know what you meant," he gave me a small smile and I felt better about my mistake. I haven't figured out if it was a touchy subject or not.
"But yeah it's nice picking up a bunch of different skills," he added and skimmed over my face with his chocolate soaked eyes. "Because then I get to teach girls named after water how to surf."
I laughed, he always has something to say.
"Ok, step one before ticking night surfing off from the list you have to learn to surf, hence the daylight."
"And to surf you have to stay on the board, hence the wax," I said when I saw where he was getting at.
"Look now she's getting it!" He nudged his shoulder with mine. I still had my oversized shirt on but the tingle of the touch went through the fabric and lit up my own skin with something other than warmth.
He placed the wax tenderly in my palm. "First we draw Criss-Crosses up and down the deck with base coat and then we'll go over it with a bunch of circles."
"Like this?" A thick line came off on the surface as I rubbed the wax along it. I couldn't imagine covering the entire board like that, I certainly wouldn't fall off then.
"Press lighter, like you're drawing with a pencil." His hand came over top of mine and he gently helped me draw Criss-Crosses.
We had become pressed closer together, his forearm connected with mine, his chest against the half of my back. We moved together, back and forth as he took the lead, changing to drawing circles on the the deck with the wax.
"Do you do this before every surf?" I let out, my breath slightly caught by his existence against me in the most innocent way.
"It's only if I haven't done it in a while," he answered, his words heavy on the skin behind my right ear. "But this should be enough." We stopped waxing but he didn't remove his hand from mine nor did he shift from the close position beside me.
I didn't want to move first. I didn't know if I should move at all. I liked this.
Derek's eyes met mine and they had grown darker.
And then he cleared his throat and stood up. "Okay, so surfing."
Ducking my head I hid a smile. Whatever just happened he had felt the effect too.
We spent awhile on the sand practising how to pop up. When he showed me he had done it so effortlessly but once I gave it a shot, it became a whole other story.
Eventually we took the board down the shore dump to the ocean. The water was a splash of coolness against my bare legs, we went further in until we were thigh deep. The water soaked two inches of the hem of my shirt. Which I still hadn't taken off to reveal the bra of my bikini underneath. But Derek hadn't questioned it.
"You ready?" He turned the board around so that the nose was facing back towards the beach.
There was an exciting smile on his face and his entire posture seemed to spell out enthusiastic. I'm not sure what mine said but my heart was pumping with the rhythm of the water I was nervous but couldn't wait to try it.
"You'll be fine," he reassure after noticing my nerves. The board was the only thing separating us and for a split second I wished it wasn't, but the tide swept away those thoughts in a moment when a set came rolling in from the distance.
"Climb on!" Derek yelled overtop of the crashing and rumbling waves.
I followed his orders, sliding on, the board rocking beneath my body and I gripped the rails even though he told me not to when we practised on the sand. My heart rate increased and I thought about telling him to get me off, oh I was definitely nervous.
"On the count of three you're going to paddle really hard and very fast," he told me and then looked backwards at the oncoming set.
I was looking over my shoulder at him. His bare upper half shining in the sunlight and already getting soaked by the waves.
"One"
Maybe this wasn't a good idea.
"Two"
The wave hurdled closer and closer till it came up behind me.
"Three!"
The wave caught the board from behind, carrying me down the line. My arms burned from my quick struggling strokes. My heart pumping, beating in my ears loud like the crashing of the waves.
"Up, up, up!" Derek was calling out behind me as the white water built and then in an instant I was up and on my feet.
My heart took a leap as I rode down the face of the small wave. It was rocky, and nothing like the pro surfers like Kennedy Dyline that you see in the rip curl pro. The air whipped my black hair up away from my cheeks revealing my smile. But even so, I was doing it and I felt amazing, my heart was still beating, my lungs breathing better than ever.
I was surfing.
Derek was clapping and whistling from way behind me his cheers echoing in my ears. "Atta girl!"
I turned my neck to look over my shoulder at him and I saw a glimpse of his massive smile before I toppled off the board.
The wave engulfed me, ensnaring me beneath and all I could see was dark blue. I was only in the shallows but the circular motion of the wave had sent me tumbling as if I were in a gigantic washing machine.
With no thought of which way was up, I gasped for air and my lungs filled with water. I didn't swim often and add on the fact the leash of the heavy surfboard was pulling my leg at all angles.
Two arms wrapped around my shoulders and pulled me upwards and I found myself at the surface again, after only being under for less than a minute.
I took air into my lungs, ignoring how soaked I was, then realised I was face to face with Derek and I forgot how to breathe all over again.
He just watched me, grinning. "What a damn good teacher you have. You totally nailed that first time!"
And I laughed, pushing him. "Until the end that is."
His arms were still around me refusing to let go at my push. "Part of the process," he shrugged like it was nothing. "We all fall sometime. It's a good thing anyways."
"A good thing?" I raised my eyebrow doubting him. There was no way that being spun around in a place where every wall was water without oxygen could be seen as a good thing.
"Yeah," he was smiling a boyish smile. "Cause that means I get to come in and save you." He wiggled his brows.
My eyes flitted across his features. The brown curls on his head now dark and damp from the water and they curled against his forehead. His boyish tendency's left his face and he looked more serious.
His pupils had grown as I saw him take in all of me and I saw a reflection of mine in his own.
Then his hands dropped lower to my waist. The water hiding the touch. I didn't dare stop it, I embraced it, allowing myself to be pulled up against his body. I could feel the rhythm of my heart against my ribs.
I was so caught up in the feeling of him that I forgot about the body of water around us. The push of the tide seemed to dare us closer, causing me to feel everything everywhere that I wasn't sure I was meant to feel.
He had gone from goofball to serious and so suddenly he was searching for permission but I had no words to form. His head dipped lower and he stopped inches from my face at a sense of contemplation. My breath caught and my body only roared for him to kiss me, touch me, anything.
His curls brushed my forehead. It was as if he didn't know it were right to do what we were about to do. Like he was contemplating the aftermath.
But his eyes were still on my lips. "Fuck it," he decided and he met my lips with his.
His tongue brushed my lower lip, and I opened to let him in. It was gentle and cautious at first and then deep in an instant. A rush of heat spread through my lower stomach and my hands moved their way up his chest to wrap around his neck.
Like a puzzle I fitted against him, he was hard in all the places I was soft.
I was hesitant as I moved my mouth in mirror with his and he lifted one hand to the back of my head, guiding me. Our lips diving, our hands travelling and the water flooded continuously around us as we kissed over and over again. I didn't think I could stop.
Someone should've warned me about kissing Derek Matthews. Someone should've warned me how intense his heated touch was, how he seemed to make everything feel so right.
Neither of us could get enough, his fingers twined with my hair and with each kiss my head spun.
Our breathing got heavier and he pulled back the smallest bit and rested his forehead against mine. Both of our chests rising and falling together.
"Well shit," his voice was a low breathy whisper. "Now I'm mad."
My brows knitted together and my thoughts got the better of me. Was the kiss bad? Was I bad?
"Why are you mad?" My question came out in parts, heavy almost, as I worked on slowing my heart rate, which seem to have sky rocketed after whatever that was that we just did.
With heated eyes his hands pressed me closer to him "Mad about how I should've done this sooner."
He kissed me again, but slowly this time, more tenderly as if to savour every taste of me. My body reacted in a way I didn't know it could and I found myself savouring all of him along with the electric pulse flowing through my blood.
It was shorter this time and we pulled away again. "Is it always meant to feel like that?" I asked. If this is what I was missing out on all these years, then god I was mad too.
"No," he breathed heavily. "It's never felt like that."
"Really?"
"Really."
We stayed how we were in the ocean, unmoving yet completely feeling and I started to question if I really liked Toby at all, especially if this was the way Derek made me feel it made Toby seem like the bare minimum.
He was watching me. I took in his features, the way he was built with muscle and the tan of his skin complimenting his chocolate coloured eyes.
And then I said something crazy. "Make me feel it again."
A smile spread across his lips and he leaned in again. "You're something else River, you really are." And so he kissed me one more time and the world fell away again.
My shirt floated in the water leaving a gap between the fabric and my skin and his hand slowly grazed my skin further and further up. I panicked, forgetting about my scar that went down my chest near my heart. I stopped the kiss suddenly just before his hands could reach the skin that he thought would be smooth there.
When I pulled back he had a question on his face. "Are you okay?"
He saw me looking down at his hand and he cursed, not realising his own doing and dropping it from beneath my shirt. "Sorry that was too far I shouldn't have-"
"No no you're fine. I just-"
I realised he must've thought I didn't want him to touch me. Thing was I did but, I didn't want him to find the scar and then question everything and question me. I couldn't let that happen, not when this is all going perfect.
"I shouldn't have. I'm sorry I didn't realise what I was doing." He looked around the shoreline at the children building sand castles and shook his head at himself. "And how many five year olds just saw that."
Sexually it was fine my concerns weren't in that direction, they were somewhere else. I couldn't tell him it was because I was insecure of my heart surgery scar, I couldn't tell him it was even because of a scar, not without risking him finding out about my congenital heart disease.
"Sorry," he whispered again. I rested my head back on his forehead in an attempt to tell him I didn't mind and that it wasn't because of I didn't want him to touch me. My heart melted at the fact he felt bad but there wasn't a chance I'd let him know the real reason why.
So I just let him believe it.
A/N: ah okay now this is what we're talking about