“You smoked because I didn’t claim you.”

“And?”

“This is me claiming you.”

Jamie’s eyes returned to their normal size. His lips parted.

“I really want you to know what all I like,” I added, sounding desperate because I was. I needed to tell him. My fingers wrapped around his ribs. “Please,” I whispered. “Let me tell you my truths.”

Jamie pressed his lips together and drew in a deep breath, looking like hearing that meant something big to him. Then dropping one hand to my hip, he slid the other to the back of my neck and curled his fingers there, squeezing as he dipped closer.

“Give me what you need to give me,” he began. His voice was rough and heavy with meaning. “I’m talkin’ what’s urgent, babe, then you hold on to the rest until I’m moving inside you. I wanna feel all that beauty while you give me that. You got more to share after we’re done, which straight up, is gonna be a while, you got time, ’cause ain’t no fuckin’ way are you leavin’ me. Probably won’t make it to the bed to fuck, but you’ll be wakin’ up there. That’s for damn sure. You got all night to tell me what you need to say.”

I smiled big, liking the sound of that plan better than my own.

“Maybe we get as far as in front of the fireplace?” I suggested, stepping closer so my hands wrapped around his slippery back. I leaned in and kissed his chest. “I like this,” I shared, tasting saltwater on my lips. “You make me love the ocean.”

Jamie’s entire body tensed up, his fingers on my neck squeezing deeper now.

“Two seconds,” he warned.

I tipped my head back and looked into his eyes. Shit. What was urgent? Everything. How could I choose? I thought about it as I sucked on my lip.

“Babe,” Jamie pressed.

“I like how you take care of things that are precious to me,” I rushed out, knowing that was important and at the very top of my Things I Like About Jamie McCade list. “My nana gave me that pie plate before she died, and I can never replace it. It’s the only thing I have of hers. I love it. I won’t bake a pie in anything else, and you were careful with it, Jamie. You could’ve thought it was silly when Syd told you what it meant to me, but you—”

“Syd didn’t tell me,” he interrupted.

I blinked up at him, confused. “What?”

“She didn’t tell me,” he repeated. “She asked me to take it to you, but she didn’t say shit about the plate.”

“She didn’t?” I watched him shake his head while thinking back to that night. “But you said you knew it meant something to me. You acted like you knew.”

Jamie shrugged lightly. “Just figured it was somethin’ you cared about since it looked old as shit. My mom keeps dishes like that in this special cabinet. Know how she is with them. Thought maybe you were the same.”

I inhaled sharply through my nose. It tingled. Oh, God …

“What?” he asked.

I blinked at him again, feeling the tears building behind my lashes and, a second later, the quivering in my lip.

I was not a crier. Not at all, but God, I couldn’t help it. He was killing me.

Jamie watched my emotions take hold. His brow furrowed. “Babe?”

“I can’t condense it!” I cried, face wet now and voice breaking again. “My God, it’s impossible! I like so many things about you and each one of them is urgent! Even little things, like how you play with my hair sometimes when we’re falling asleep, I like that so much! I even tried recording you doing it one night with my phone after your eyes were closed but my eyes were closing, too, and I basically only ended up with a video of your elbow.” My shoulders dropped on an exhale. “I kept it, though. I like your elbow,” I added softly.

Jamie slowly grinned.

“I can’t condense it,” I repeated through my tears, a little quieter this time. I reached up and held his face. “I can’t choose what’s most important because I know I’ll think of something that’s just as important and I might not think of it until an hour from now. Or in the morning. And I don’t want you thinking the way you look at me isn’t something I like as much as something else. It’s equally important.”

“Fuck it then. Don’t condense it,” he suggested, grin softening to a smile as he stepped into me. His grip slid down my body, over my ass to the backs of my thighs. Our foreheads touched. “Just start listin’ what you like, Legs,” Jamie said, voice dropping low and quiet. “I’ll know what you say now means just as much as what you tell me when I get inside you. Same goes for what you think of and feel like sharin’ tomorrow. And the next day. And next fuckin’ month. That work for you?”

I nodded, liking that he was thinking about next month. “That works for me,” I told him. Then I gasped when Jamie lifted me off the sand and guided my legs to wrap around his waist. I slid my hands to his neck and held on.

We started moving.

“What about your board?” I asked, speaking against his lips as we kissed softly.

“Fuck my board. I’ll get it later.”

I smiled. He was always saying that.

“’Kay,” I mumbled.

Jamie pushed his tongue inside my mouth, pulling back to suck on my lip. “How much you like me, babe?” he asked.

“So much,” I whispered.

“Yeah?”

I nodded as he took us up the stairs.

“You gonna start namin’ shit then?”

I smiled again, then I pressed my lips to the corner of his mouth, his cheek, his ear. I closed my eyes. “You want a truth?” I whispered.

“Yeah.”

I love you.

Chapter Sixteen

JAMIE

“You gonna give it up?” I asked Tori, moving my thumb in circles over her clit while I pumped my fingers into her pussy.

She arched off the floor and dug her nails into my thigh, moaning, “I did. I told you.”

“Lies, babe.”

She shook her head.

This was the game we were playing.

I knew Tori had a truth she was keeping from me and she knew I knew it, but instead of sharing whatever it was, she was insisting the bullshit she gave up on the deck was the only thing on her mind.

I knew she was lying the minute I saw her face.

“You want a truth?” she whispered.

“Yeah.”

I reached the top of the deck and started crossing it to get to the slider, getting there before Tori gave up what she was offering and what I was asking for.

“You fall asleep or somethin’?” I chuckled, feeling her breath blowing slow and evenly against my ear. I paused at the door.

Tori moved her hands to my shoulders and slowly leaned away to look at me.

Her cheeks were flushed and her eyes were big and bright, looking like she’d just heard something that surprised her.

What the fuck was she thinking about?

“Legs,” I prompted after several beats.

I watched her eyes close and a smile twist across her mouth, slow and shy. Then she shook her head and looked at me again, cleared her throat, tipped her chin up, and admitted, “I like that you call me Legs. I always did. I just pretended I didn’t because I didn’t want you thinking I did. But I do. I like it.”