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The elated screams of Flynn, Reggie, and Alex down at the water pierced through the otherwise peaceful scene they’d found themselves in. It had been Luke’s idea for them to all head to the beach for sunset today, and Julie would be lying if she said she wasn’t grateful that the three of them had gone off on their own to leave her and her boyfriend with a little privacy on their stretch of the beach.
She’d brought a big quilt for them to lay out on, and Luke had immediately settled down on it and tugged her down to rest between his legs, his body forming the perfect cradle for hers to watch the sunset.
Now, she heard his chuckle in her ear as Reggie splashed at Flynn and made her scream. Alex was doing his best to stay away from both of them, building his own little sandcastle just out of reach of the rolling California waves.
It had been one blissful, glorious month of officially dating Luke. They fit together like two pieces of the same puzzle, lives meshing perfectly together in a seamless dance.
Julie made sure to check “beach cuddling” off her list of gross PDA things to do as she snuggled back further into Luke’s warm chest. His arm tightened around her waist, pressing her back against him completely.
“Are we gonna have to drag them away from the water once the sun goes down?” he wondered aloud, watching their three friends frolic and scream out ahead.
Julie nodded against his shoulder. “Oh, definitely. Then they’re all gonna pass out in the car on the way back home. When did we become the mom and dad of the group?”
She felt Luke’s laugh against her back more than she heard it over the crashing waves and squawking of gulls around them. “Hmm, that sounds very stable.” The words were spoken directly to her, goosebumps erupting across her skin as his lips grazed against the shell of her ear.
Julie blushed both at his words and at her body’s instinctual reaction that he’d obviously caught onto, because one of his hands left her waist to rub against her arms like he would warm her up with the friction. Which he probably would, if she was actually cold. “Yeah, well I’m pretty solid,” is the lame line she finally comes up with. And then hates herself immediately for it.
“I don’t know, I think you’re pretty soft.” Luke’s hand squeezed at her waist to emphasize the point, his fingers digging in gently without fluttering around to tickle at her side.
Julie snorted. “That’s true. You’re the solid one.” She reached behind her and poked at his stomach through his cutoff tee. The skin gave no give under her finger, a wall of solid muscle hidden beneath the shirt. Solid, for sure.
Luke flinched, and Julie’s smile turned wicked with the knowledge that he was ticklish. She filed it in the back of her mind as an important note for later.
“I saw that,” Luke mumbled, but Julie just shrugged her shoulders and played dumb about it.
“Mean.” The word comes with a sharper pinch to her side, so Julie craned her neck back and captured her lips with his.
It was obvious Luke wasn’t expecting it, but he was never one to complain about kissing Julie, and he recovered quickly. His lips moved languidly in time with hers, sucking against her bottom lip and then meeting her tongue in the middle when she gasped in surprise. He used one of his hands to guide her arm up and encourage her hand to tangle in the hair at the back of his head, then skimmed all the way down the inside of her arm and down the side of her torso to grasp back at her waist. She arched back into him further as his knuckles just barely skimmed against the edge of her bra on their way back down.
Julie loved Luke for a lot of reasons, but this was definitely up at the top of the list. She figured she could be comfortable kissing him for hours and hours if he’d let her. He was just so good at it. He always fed off her reactions and did things she wasn’t expecting, and kissing him was quickly becoming one of her favorite pastimes.
Determined not to be outdone, Julie nipped at the fullness of his overly-plump bottom lip and pulled back until it released with a little popping sound. Luke whimpered (which made Julie smirk) and immediately covered her lips with his once more.
His kisses grew slightly more desperate against her, moving faster and slightly more frantically until his mind seemed to catch up with him and he broke away with a start, gasping for breath as he leaned his forehead down on her shoulder.
Julie used the fingers still tucked into his hair to tug him gently out of the home he’d found in her neck. “Hey, you okay?”
At his nod, she snuggled herself back further against him.
And then she froze, and he froze too.
“What is that?”
“Nothing.”
Julie paused for a moment longer, and then she wiggled her hips to push even further back against him. There was no mistaking what she could feel against her tailbone. His sharp intake of breath and fingers flexing against her hip told her everything she needed to know.
She laughed. “Luke.”
“It’s a love boner!” he insisted, face hidden as far in her curls as he could get so she wouldn’t see him blush.
The phrase only made Julie laugh harder. Honestly, a love boner was maybe even worse than a regular one. Surely that wasn’t real, right? She made a note to Google it later.
Actually, bad thought. She didn’t even want to know what might come up.
And then thinking about that made her laugh even harder until she was slipping down against Luke’s front and he had to tug her back to keep her from falling onto the blanket beneath them.
It got to the point where even Luke was laughing, but she was pretty sure he was more so laughing at her tears and gasping breaths than the whole boner dilemma. And then finally, “Okay, okay, just listen, all right, and stop laughing. I have something to tell you.”
It took her a minute to calm down enough for him to speak, but she made a serious effort to wipe the tears from her eyes and look back at him sincerely with her head rested back against his shoulders. She could do this. He obviously had something important to say.
“Mmkay.” She tangled her hand with one of his against her stomach, and he leaned down to peck her on the tip of her nose before he started speaking again.
“This is…this is all at your pace, okay? I don’t want you to feel like I’m expecting anything from you because we are dating. Not that I don’t want to do anything, because I do. Eventually. But, like, whenever you want to. I don’t want us to do anything you’re not totally okay with. I’m down to wait as long as you need. For anything. Just promise me you won’t do something because you think it’s what I want, because I’m pretty sure I would hate myself if–”
Julie slid a hand over his mouth to stop the rambling statement. He froze, his seafoam eyes wide and honest as he waited for her response.
She appreciated that he’d said something about it. It wasn’t a conversation they’d had yet, but if school rumors held any merit then he had at least some experience with girls while she had absolutely none with guys. But being forced into doing something she wasn’t ready for wasn’t even something she’d considered when it came to Luke. He’d probably throw himself off the Santa Monica Pier before he did something that might make her uncomfortable.
“That goes both ways, okay? This is an equal relationship. We don’t do anything till we are both ready for it. No 'my pace'. This is our pace. We decide everything together.” She leaned up to rest her forehead against Luke’s while she waited for him to consider her words.
After a moment, his nose nudged sweetly against hers. “You’re perfect, you know that?”
Julie rolled her eyes and recaptured his lips. This time, everything she did was returned with tenfold enthusiasm, and his happiness was palpable between them. His teeth nipped gently against her lip before soothing across the area with his tongue, content little hums passing back and forth between their mouths as they kissed.
But if Julie was being honest, she wanted more. She just wasn’t quite sure how to voice it.
Finally she parted from his lips with a gasp, tilting her head back against his chest but keeping a solid hand against the back of his neck to keep him from pulling away. When she applied more pressure to tilt his head down toward her throat, he got the idea and obeyed her wishes eagerly.
Neck kisses were a first for them, but Julie was sure immediately that this wouldn’t be the last time he did this to her. How was he so good at this?
Luke’s teeth scraped against the skin at the corner of her jawline and then his lips traced a path down the column of her neck before settling into a spot right over her clavicle. He applied a gentle sucking pressure there that left her gasping.
Pleased with her reaction, she felt as he gently nosed the collar of her shirt out of the way to expose more of her heated skin to his mouth. His lips found a spot that made her whine and laved wet kisses to it until she was arching into him and her head thunked against his shoulder.
Was this what it felt like to be turned on? Heaven help her if that was the case.
When he finally pulled away, it was with a distinct kissing sound that left her whimpering and wiggling frenetically against him. Why did he stop? “See, this is an example of me telling you I want more.”
His chuckle was dark and raspy, eyes blown wide and lips red and shiny from all the attention he’d lain upon her. “I know, but I’m not about to maul you on a public beach while our friends try very hard not to pay attention 50 feet away. You deserve better than that.”
The statement surprised Julie. That thought hadn’t even occurred to her. Her eyes scanned the beach for somewhere more private they might be able to go but came up empty.
Sigh.
It would have to be continued another day.
“Wow, you really do love me, don’t you?” The words were meant mostly as a joke, and Luke’s smacking kiss to her cheek made her giggle immediately.
“Seems that way,” he hummed, finally releasing his hold on her to lean back against his hands and watch the sunset as they’d originally intended for this excursion.
She leaned back with him, drumming against his raised thighs on either side of her hips as she turned her attention toward their friends still horsing around closer to the horizon, enjoying the silence and warmth of the boy pressed lovingly against her back.
The silence didn’t last all that long.
“So do you…love me back, or?”
Julie laughed. “Yeah, I think I do.”