Meet Me at the Lake
: Chapter 15

I don’t know why I bothered with pajamas. Or lying down, for that matter. I’m not going to sleep. Will left hours ago, but I’m still keyed up, my right foot tapping against the left like I’ve downed six shots of espresso. The moon must be bright—it’s well past two, but I can see the lacy web of branches outside my window.

What I said to Will tonight was awful. I wanted to inflict pain. I could feel it in my teeth, the urge to bite down, to leave a mark. I didn’t think I could explode like that anymore. My rage was like a tangible thing, something I could ball up and throw at him. It took me right back to being seventeen and screaming at my mother.

I haven’t finished reading the diary entries that set me off, not that my mom was to blame. I couldn’t handle the truth, even if I’d known it all along.

But I don’t want to be angry. I don’t want to lash out the way I did tonight. I’m ashamed of how I spoke to Will. He just started to open up to me, and I used it against him.

I shove off the sheets and walk to the window, although I don’t need to check. Will’s light is always on.

I don’t give myself time to change my mind. I charge from my room, down the stairs, and out of the house, my skin pebbling as I run along the short path in my bare feet and up the steps of Cabin 20.

I’m smacking my palm on the screen door before I can question the logic of running here with my fuzzy bed hair and the oversized T-shirt I wear to sleep in. It says pot head above an image of a coffeepot, and when I first saw it on the rack, I hated it, but then I decided I couldn’t live without it.

Will appears in his underwear, pulling on a shirt. I catch a glimpse of skin and swirls of black, but it’s hard to make out much of anything with the light shining behind him.

“Fern, what’s going on?” He walks across the porch in three strides, but I don’t give him a chance to open it before I start speaking.

“I was an asshole earlier,” I tell him through the screen. “I’m so grateful that you’re here, helping with the resort. I should have told you that before. And I think it’s amazing that you have a job you like and a family who you love and that you know how to cook. You make a truly excellent hamburger, Will, and I want that salad dressing recipe.” I let out a breath to put a stop to my rambling. “I didn’t mean what I said about giving up your dream. I’m so sorry.”

His face is in shadow so I can’t see his expression. “All right,” he says, his voice low. “Is that why you came here?”

“Yes? No.” Will opens the screen door for me to come in, but I can’t make my feet move. “I came here to apologize but also because I wanted to tell you that you were right. I know what I want.”

Will pulls me through the doorway and onto the porch. He puts his hands on my shoulders and leans down. Without thinking about what a terrible idea it is, I kiss him.

It’s clumsy and quick, less a kiss and more of a leap toward his lips, my mouth landing somewhere near the corner of his. I pull away almost as soon as I make contact because Will does not kiss me back. His arms do not encircle my waist.

Shit. I hadn’t meant to do that. I meant to tell him I think I want to stay at the resort. Now he’s blinking at me, eyes wide. Turns out insulting someone’s life choices and then attacking them with your mouth in the middle of the night is not an effective wooing strategy.

“I’m sorry,” I sputter. “I should go.”

I spin around, but Will catches my arm.

“Tell me what you want, Fern,” he says behind me.

I shake my head, and he turns me to face him.

“Why not?”

“Because you already know,” I say, barely audible. He knew it then, and he knows it now. He doesn’t need me to say it out loud.

“I want to be sure.” His voice is a low rumble. “What do you want, Fern?”

I take a breath and then whisper, “You.”

The word has barely left my mouth when everything happens at once. His arms band around me, pulling me up and off the ground. My legs wrap his waist, my arms his neck. Our mouths come together so fast that our teeth collide, and I start to laugh, but it’s extinguished by the urgent press of our lips.

Will walks us into the cabin, his mouth on mine, citrusy and warm, shutting the door behind. I don’t have time to register anything except the dim glow of the living room lamp, because in an instant Will has me pinned against the door. I take his face between my hands, pressing my lips to his scar before I replace his mouth again. He rocks against me and I rock back, my thighs tight around him, moving my hips as much as I can, but it’s not enough. An unfamiliar growl vibrates in my throat.

“I’ve thought about you for so long,” Will says as he kisses down my neck, and I pull at his shirt, trying to get it off from under my legs. It takes me a second to realize he’s whispering into my skin, telling the space below my ear how much he wants this, telling the underside of my jaw how beautiful I am.

Delirious and frenzied, I reach my hand between us, but he wraps his fingers around my wrist, bringing it above my head. He does the same with the other, so both my arms are held high.

“Don’t move them,” he says, looking me in the eyes. “Okay?”

I nod, but he doesn’t move. “Yes,” I tell him.

He unwraps my legs from his waist and sets me down so that I’m leaning against the door while he runs his hands up and down the sides of my hips.

“I’ve got a very long list of things I want to do to you, to do with you,” he says, his voice rough.

“Better make a plan, then,” I whisper.

A small smile sneaks across his lips. “I could do that.” He takes my earlobe between his teeth, one hand reaching up to hold my wrists in place. “I could go from top to bottom,” he says, tracing his nose down my neck. “Would you like that?” He presses his tongue along the underside of my arm toward my elbow, pushing his hips against mine to keep me still when I squirm.

“Yes,” I tell him. “That works.” He leans over me, and my forehead presses into his chest. The contrast of soft fabric and hard muscle and the smoky-sweet smell of him is overwhelming. And then I feel the hot damp of his tongue as he takes my pinkie finger into his mouth.

“Oh my god,” I murmur, and I feel him smile around my finger, his teeth brushing against the knuckle. He moves his tongue to my ring finger and does the same, sucking it into his mouth. I tilt my hips forward, rubbing against his bare thigh, but he slants himself back and out of reach. A more composed person might be embarrassed by the moan that I make. But I am not composed. I feel like I am being unwritten with every movement of Will’s mouth, with each finger he envelops with it.

I’m shaking by the time he applies his lips to the opposite wrist, kissing my pulse, and then running his tongue back down my arm, sucking and biting until he’s found my neck, back to where he started. He pulls my shirt up, bringing it past the tops of my legs, past my underwear, exposing my stomach. “I’m going to need this off,” he says, but he doesn’t keep pulling.

“Okay,” I tell him, and in one swift movement, my shirt is gone. I hear him curse under his breath and he pauses for a long second, then reaches with both hands to tuck my hair behind my ears before crushing his mouth to mine, running his tongue over my bottom lip and then moving it back to my neck.

“Gotta stick to the plan,” he says into my collarbone, cupping my breast and moving his mouth down my chest as he rolls the nipple between his fingers, gently, then a little harder. I cross my ankles together, squeezing my thighs, and the movement is so blatant that Will stops and looks between us.

“Or maybe you want a second option to consider?” He grins at me. “I could start at the bottom and work my way up. See if you like that better?” He runs a hand from my knee up to my hip, sliding his fingers under the cotton of my underwear.

“Good idea,” I breathe. “I choose option two.”

There’s a flash of mischief in Will’s eyes. “You sure?” He twists the fabric in his hand, pulling it tight between my legs.

I sigh out an “uh-huh” and then he drops to his knees with his hands on my waist. My legs are shaking in anticipation, and I hold his shoulders to keep myself upright. Behind him, I get a glimpse of papers strewn about the floor and a set of pencils on the coffee table. But then Will wraps a hand around my left ankle and brings my bare foot to his mouth, his eyes on me. I try to pull it away. He traces his index finger along the bottom of my foot, and I squeal, twisting and attempting to stay upright.

“Option one,” I cry.

“Too late,” Will says, but he puts my foot on the ground. “I’ve already put option two into motion.”

He grips both of my hips tightly. Even kneeling, he comes up almost to my chest, and he dips his head to trace up the inside of my leg with his tongue. I dig my fingers into his hair, pulling it back from his forehead so I can see him better.

“So soft,” I murmur, and he nips the flesh of my inner thigh in response. He moves his thumb over my underwear to where every sensation is pooling tightly inside me, and I let out a sound that starts as a laugh but ends as a groan. He slips his thumb under the fabric, moving in little circles, and he brings his lips to my other thigh, lightly biting. My body can’t make sense of the rapid transitions between pleasure and denial, between tickling and teeth.

“What are you even doing to me?” I mumble.

Will looks up at me from beneath the black line of his lashes, the golden lamplight kissing the tops of his cheekbones. He keeps moving his thumb, faster now, then shifts his hand so he can bring a finger over the spot where I’m wettest. I close my eyes, because Will is watching me with such hunger, I won’t be able to maintain any semblance of control. I feel him slip a finger slowly inside, then after a few seconds, he adds another, setting a rhythm that brings me right to the edge, and just when I’m about to fall over, he slows down.

“No, no, no. Keep going. Keep going.” I open my eyes, and Will’s are fixed on me.

“I want to make you want this as much as I do,” he says. “I want you to feel as desperate as I have all this time.”

I tighten my grip in his hair, tugging in frustration, and Will closes his eyes. I make a new compartment in my brain and label it what will likes. I tug a little harder and watch as he brings his hand under the waistband of his underwear, moving it back and forth a few times. I want to do that, I think, and I begin to lower myself to the floor, but Will stops me, holding my hips.

“I’m very dedicated to finishing my work, Fern,” he says, and slides my underwear down, helping me step out of them. He eases my legs apart and then grabs my ass in his hands, bringing his mouth to where his thumb was.

My legs go weak, and I give his hair a sharp pull.

He moves his hands to steady me by the waist.

I feel the vibrations through me when he speaks. “Trust me.”

He puts one leg on his shoulder, and when I’m close, I tell him don’t stop, don’t stop, don’t stop, and this time he listens.

After I’ve gone still, he loosens his hold and I stumble. He stands, puts his hands on either side of my face, his fingers in my hair, his eyes darting between mine. Checking.

I want to tell him how good that felt, but I seem to have lost the ability to turn vowels and consonants into actual words, let alone string a bunch of them together in a sentence. Instead, I stand on my tiptoes and close the distance between our lips, kissing him hungrily. I reach down between us, running my hand over the hard length of him. I want more, more, more.

“I want more of you,” I say. I’m not sure it makes any sense, but Will is nodding.

“You can have it all.”

I feel like someone has handed me the keys to the most incredible theme park and told me to play. I want to do everything at once. I want to be under him, on top of him. I want to fall to my knees. I want to push him to the couch. I feel frantic. My hands are trembling. I start with the basics. I grab the hem of his shirt and move it up over his stomach. Will helps me take it off, and when it’s gone, I let out my most reverent “Holy shit.”

The man is covered in ink. Not so much that there isn’t a square inch of unadorned skin, but there have to be at least half a dozen tattoos over the planes of his chest, the ridges of his abdominals. The contrast between his fair skin and the designs, all done in black and gray, is striking.

“Have you always had these?” I trace the pencil that sits atop the jut of his right hip bone. It’s held by long fingers. There’s a meandering line that swirls out from its sharpened tip and disappears into the waistband of Will’s boxer briefs.

“Since birth,” he deadpans, sucking in his breath as I move my finger to his rib cage.

“I mean back then.” If I had known he was hiding all this under his clothes ten years ago, I don’t know if I would have had so much restraint.

“Some of them.”

The name Sofia sits at the top of his right side, almost under his arm. I hate it immediately. I don’t ask who she is. There’s a lemon on his ribs that I adore and a comic strip across one side of his stomach. The lettering is instantly recognizable.

“You drew all of these, didn’t you?” I say, peering up at him. He murmurs in the affirmative.

“Fern, I’ll give you the guided tour later, okay?” he says, voice strained.

“I don’t think so.” I bend, bringing my mouth to the lemon. “You had your turn, and now I want mine.” I move my hand inside his underwear, wrapping it around him. “I want the world’s greatest tour of Will Baxter.”

Will tilts his head back, and I move my tongue along the ridge of his pelvis. He sucks in a sharp breath and clasps my wrist. “Bedroom.”

I disagree. I have my own ideas that involve Will coming apart in my palm right now, so I keep going. Will puts his hands on his head, and just as his stomach muscles tighten in a way that tells me I’m about to get what I want, he hoists me right off the ground, and I have no choice but to hold on to his neck.

“But you were so close,” I say in protest, and he sucks on the skin below my ear and says, “You have no idea how much self-control I can exert when it comes to you.”

I bite his shoulder as he walks us into the room. “I’m very dedicated to getting what I want.”

We tumble onto the bed on our sides, and I reach for the waistband of Will’s underwear, but before I’ve lowered it an inch, he puts his hand on my cheek and says my name. My eyes replace his. “Slow down, okay? I’ve waited a long time for this.”

I nod, but his words and his gaze—the way he’s looking at me, open and steady—stir up something I didn’t feel moments ago. I’m lying on a bed, naked, with Will Baxter. I don’t know where to put my hands. I don’t know where to look.

Will lifts my chin so I’m staring at him. “Are you okay?”

I tell him the truth. “I think I’m nervous.”

He smiles. “Me too. Do you want to stop?”

I shake my head. “Definitely not.”

Will moves my hair aside, then kisses my neck. We make out for a long time, and Will keeps his touch to my shoulders and waist and hips, until I’m not nervous. I’m impatient. I move myself against him, taking his hand to my breast. I push his underwear down over his hips, and he doesn’t stop me.

“I want you inside me,” I tell him.

He begins to pull away, and I wrap my leg over his to hold him close. “Now.”

“Condom,” he says, and I blink. Right. He brings a strip back from the bathroom, and I watch him roll one on, then I pull him onto the bed.

“It’s best for me like this,” I say, turning so that he’s spooning me. He reaches his arm around me, and I press back against him, but he doesn’t take it for the invitation that it is. He pinches my nipple and kisses my shoulder, and then says, “I’ll do whatever you want”—and then he shifts so that he’s on top of me—“but I’d really like to look at you the first time. Okay?”

I swallow, my throat tight, then whisper, “Yes.”

Will holds my gaze as he pushes inside me, taking his time, until we fit together fully. We stare at each other, unblinking. My heart feels like it’s going to burst with an emotion I can’t quite name. I don’t realize there’s a tear running from the corner of my eye until Will kisses it away.

I apologize. “That’s never happened to me before. I’ll be fine.”

“You’re sure?”

I nod. “I’m okay.”

Will presses his lips to mine, sweetly, and then begins to move in a slow rhythm. “We can do better than okay.”

—

The sun hasn’t yet risen when I’m woken by a loon’s mournful tremolo. There’s only the soft predawn light and the bird’s strange, beautiful song. It takes a few seconds for my eyes to adjust enough to see where I am, to remember that I’m not at the house. Last night comes back in a flash of sweat-slicked skin and tattoos. My face pressed against a pillow, Will curved over me, whispering in my ear. That was the second time.

I remember gathering the courage to ask him to hold me as we fell asleep, wanting the comfort of his body pressed to mine. It’s not something I usually request of my bedmates, to fit themselves around me, and I wasn’t sure I could ask it of Will. In the end, I didn’t need to. He tucked himself around my back, holding me to him. I drifted off with his lips pressed to my shoulder.

Rolling over, I replace Will stretched out on his back, sheets bunched around his waist, his hair a black bramble.

I decide to take the opportunity to look at his tattoos more closely before I slip out. I don’t want a guest witnessing me sneaking back to the house in my pajamas. More than that, I don’t know how to be with Will in the light of day.

“I guess we didn’t get around to the tour last night,” Will rasps, startling my study of the name Sofia on top of his ribs.

“I decided to take a self-guided one.”

He tucks a hand behind his head and pulls me up so I’m resting in the crook between his chest and arm. It catches me off guard, and I stiffen. Casual sex and morning-after cuddling don’t usually go together, and this was the dictionary definition of a late-night hookup.

Will squeezes me. “Hey, where did you go?”

“Sorry. I was thinking.”

“What are you thinking about so hard?” His fingers twist around a strand of my hair.

“I think,” I say, running my hand over his stomach, “you have a lot of tattoos.”

He tousles my hair, and everything inside me unwinds a little. “Are you always this observant in the morning?”

“I don’t really boot up properly until I’ve had coffee.” I clear my throat. “I should probably get back to the house before I have to walk-of-shame it in front of guests. I don’t think that’s the kind of wildlife they’re hoping to see here.”

He moves his hand down my bare back, cupping the arch of my hip. “But I had big plans this morning.” I suck in a breath as his fingers skim lower.

“Tempting, but—”

“Fern,” he says softly. “Don’t leave yet. I’ll go over to the house later and get you a change of clothes, okay?”

“Okay.” I turn my head and bury my smile in his chest. I know this isn’t going anywhere. Will has a life in Toronto, and I . . . well, I think I’m going to have one here. For now, though, I can stay a little longer.

“So why all the tattoos?” I run my finger down the fir tree on his arm.

“Women love them.”

“Women like Sofia?”

He chuckles and runs his hand through my hair. “Oh yeah, Sofia definitely loves them.” I twist my neck to replace him smiling down at me. “Sofia’s my niece.” Will must see the relief as plainly as I feel it, because his smile deepens.

“Oh,” I say. “I don’t think you told me her name before.” He tucks me back in the crook and snakes his fingers through my hair again.

“No? That wasn’t intentional, but now I’m glad I didn’t. You’re cute when you’re jealous.”

I make a pfff sound. “You’re impossible.” I run my hand over the name. “Do you miss her?”

Will lets out a breath with a whoosh. “It’s the longest I’ve been away,” he says slowly, like he’s choosing his words from a forty-page menu. “But my sister was adamant it would be a good break for all of us.”

“And has it been? A good break, I mean?”

He tilts his head down so he can see my face. “Are you kidding?”

I shake my head.

“I’ve been working, yeah, but it’s felt like a complete vacation. I haven’t had this much alone time in ages. It’s been amazing. A total break from reality.”

A break from reality. The words bash around in my skull.

I point at the four-panel comic on his stomach; the first shows a scruffy guy surrounded by moving boxes. “Is this your comic?”

“The first strip of Roommates, yeah.”

“Do you ever think about starting it up again?”

“The comic, no.”

“But what about drawing? Even if it’s just for fun?”

He’s quiet for a long beat. “I’ve been sketching a little since I’ve been here.”

I think of the cartoon in the card he gave me and the pencils I saw scattered about the living room last night. “You’ve had more time to yourself.”

“Yeah, it’s that. But it’s also . . . I don’t know. I guess I’ve been reminded about that side of myself.”

I look up at him and am startled by the weight in his expression.

“I’m glad,” I murmur, then brush my hand over the tattoo below his collarbone. Two tiny words. Only thoughts.

“What does this mean?”

Will goes completely still. “It’s a reminder,” he says.

“For what?”

He blinks twice. “Nothing important.”

“Usually people don’t get tattoos of things that aren’t important.”

“I guess that’s true,” he says. But he doesn’t elaborate.

I look up at him, frowning, and he rubs his thumb over the lines between my eyebrows, trying to smooth them out.

“Let’s talk about something else,” he says. His other hand skims over the flesh of my bottom. “Better yet—let’s not talk at all.”

—

For the second time today, I wake up in Will’s bed, but he’s no longer in it. I hear the gurgle of brewing coffee, and I’m about to take one of his pristine white button-ups from its hanger, but I pull a soft navy blue T-shirt from the dresser instead. The logo on the chest is a little red heart with cartoon eyes, and I know that means it’s expensive, but I like his T-shirts. They remind me of twenty-two-year-old Will. The hem falls midway to my knees.

I walk through the living room. There’s no sign of the paper and pencils I saw last night, and I replace Will looking out the kitchen window, palms flat on the counter. He’s put on underwear, but that’s it. I stop before he hears my footsteps, taking a moment to appreciate the topography of bone, muscle, and smooth skin that is Will Baxter’s back.

“Good morning,” I say. “Again.”

Will turns around, his eyes sliding down to where the shirt brushes against my legs.

“I like . . .” He raises his eyebrows, and nods in my general direction. “This.”

“This?” I slant my head.

“Yeah. You here. In my clothes.”

There’s a shadow of stubble on his cheeks that I haven’t seen since the first morning he was here, and I want to run my hand over it. But I pull a couple of mugs down from the cupboard, heart hammering under my ribs. Morning-after caffeination is not usually something I stick around for. “And I like . . . coffee.”

“I hope I didn’t wake you up when I got out of bed. I didn’t want to move you off me.” His eyes glimmer at this. “But I have a call at ten.”

“That’s okay. I should have left earlier.” I fill the mugs, passing one to Will.

He pulls a carton of half-and-half from the fridge and pours it into his cup along with three heaping spoons of sugar. I take a sip of my own, black, sighing at how good it is.

“Wait a sec.” I pause. “Where’d you get the coffee maker?”

Will grimaces. “I bought it in town my third day here. Those pod machines are terrible.”

“God, I know.” I’ve got to replace them. “That reminds me. I have a bunch of resort stuff I want to talk to you about later. What does your schedule look like?” The last thing I want is to jeopardize our working relationship. If I decide to stay, I’ll need Will’s help more than ever. But I’m not going to get into all that before his meeting.

“We have a pitch today. It’s at two and will probably drag on for a bit.”

I feel a pang of guilt for coming here so late. “Who’s the client?”

Will’s forehead creases. He puts his mug on the counter and takes a step closer. “Do you really want to talk about my work right now?” he says, brushing a strand of hair behind my ear. “Because I would rather talk about last night.”

“Oh,” I say. “Last night was . . .”

Will puts his hands on my hips and pulls me toward him, kissing my neck under my jaw, and then he says into my skin, “Last night was what, Fern?” He nips at my earlobe.

“Last night was . . . nice.” A break from reality. Will’s description crawls through my mind.

“It wasn’t nice.” He cups his hands around my face. “It was amazing. This morning was pretty amazing, too.”

I should tell Will that, as amazing as it was, I can’t see him like this again. It’s one thing to have a crush, but naked sleepovers will only lead to ruin. I don’t think my heart can handle being Will’s break from reality for the rest of his time here.

But then he kisses down my neck, his stubble tickling my skin. “I think we should try it again, don’t you?”

I nod. “Come over as soon as you’re done.”