“Regardless, Amber, I’m not going to let you use your lack of curves, boobs, or scarred skin to push me away. I won’t allow it. I will bend over backward to protect you from storms and anything else that wants to hurt you, but I won’t let your hurts ruin what could be the best thing that has ever happened to you.”
“Wow,” I said, laughing sarcastically. “Now you’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me. Someone thinks highly of himself.”
“Never used to,” he admitted, staring up at the sky as the sun dropped lower until it was nothing but red streaks across the clouds. “I used to think no woman would be interested in dating a single dad, so I didn’t put myself out there.”
“That’s kind of silly, Bishop. Athena didn’t even live with you.”
He grasped my chair to hold it next to his. “That’s true, but I was still heavily involved in her life. I had a few relationships, but in the end, they refused to bend when it came to the time I spent with Athena. That told me they weren’t the right woman for me.”
“I can’t wrap my mind around that. Maybe it’s because I grew up with Hay-Hay, but if I dated a single dad, their kids would be my kids. I would never ask them to spend less time with their children. I would do whatever I could to make sure he had the support he needed not only to see them but to make a difference in their lives. I wouldn’t have felt any different if those kids lived with the guy I was dating. Asking someone else to be a shitty person just because you are isn’t right.”
He chuckled as he leaned over and kissed me in the gathering dusk, his lips warm against mine. “That’s because you don’t look at life the way most women do, my little tart. I think that’s what attracted you to me in the beginning. You were so,” he paused as if searching for the right word, “different, I guess.”
“Different. There’s a loaded word.”
“But it’s not a bad one,” he promised. “You should wear it proudly. The fact that my exhausted, end of the year teacher’s soul sensed you were different instantly should fill you with the knowledge that you are amazing. It takes someone special to stand out to me at the end of May. You were a bright spot in the storm, and rays spread from your being.”
My hand smoothed its way across his soft beard. “I’ll wear it proudly then,” I promised. He jumped out of his innertube and tossed it on the sand, leaning over my chair and capturing my lips for a longer taste. I moaned, being careful not to rock the chair too much, so I didn’t fall into the water. He was everything I’d come to understand over the last few days. “I want to feel close to you, Bishop,” I sighed when his lips released mine for much-needed oxygen.
He pulled me from the chair and tossed it behind him, directing my legs around his waist as he sat down on the sandy bottom of the lake. “Let me hold you,” he whispered, and I draped myself across his chest and over his shoulder, my lips kissing his neck gently
“I love how your beard tickles my lips when I kiss you,” I sighed.
“How does it feel when I kiss your other lips?” he asked, his voice decidedly lower than usual.
I thrust against his belly and moaned softly. “Unlike anything I’ve ever experienced before,” I whispered. “I love when it rasps against the inside of my thighs and raises goosebumps across my skin.”
“Mmm,” he hummed, his lips kissing their way down the back of my neck. “God, I love how innocent yet naughty you are, my beautiful tart. I want to have my head buried between your legs right now. In fact,” he whispered, scooting me back until I was lying half in and half out of the water. “Stay right there, time for a new lesson.”
He lowered himself under the water, moved my bikinis aside, and put that beard between my legs again. I grabbed for his hair, but the water made it float away just out of reach. He anchored me to the sand with two fingers inside me while his tongue stroked me. The sensation of being underwater while he did it just amplified the desire coursing through me. I moaned softly, knowing we were alone, but still afraid of being too loud. He lifted his head for air and was grinning as water trailed down his face in rivulets.
“I think the teacher is going to detention this time,” I said, shaking my head on the sand. “He’s very, very bad.” The last word was said on a squeak as his fingers buried themselves a bit deeper to tease me. “Downright evil,” I sighed.
He took another breath of air and disappeared under the dark water again, and then his tongue flicked in and out rhythmically. My hips thrust into the air, and my whole soul yearned for his throbbing manhood to fill me right there. I was so near release when he lifted his head, his gaze locking with mine. “Don’t stop,” I begged, pressing my pelvis into his hand. “I’m so close to coming.”
He leaned over me and thrust his fingers in and out gently, his lips almost on mine. “I know. I want to see it happen. I want to watch your face as you soar up into that night sky and ride the moon,” he whispered. I noticed his other hand was stroking his hardness, the rhythm matching what his fingers were doing inside me. He wanted us both to come at the same time while staying apart, I realized.
“God, what is happening to me?” I cried out, my hips bucking in the air as I watched him pleasure himself, his
