“Yeah . . . It’s like two hundred for the course I was looking at.” Kyle’s gaze shifts away. “May as well be two thousand.”

Two hundred dollars. Less than the cost of the running shoes I bought for this summer. I didn’t even blink at setting my credit card on the counter for that purchase. I try to wrap my mind around the idea of not being able to afford something, and I can’t. I can’t recall a time those words have ever left my parents’ mouths.

“But you’ll make more than that working here this summer,” I push, keeping my voice light and hopeful.

“I need that money to make it through the year. Clothes and shit like that.” His tongue darts out to toy with his lip ring.

“Well, I can lend you the—”

“No, Piper.” His tone is sharp. He adds, more softly, “That’s nice of you to offer, but . . . no.”

Uncomfortable silence falls over us, and I’m desperate to push it away. “How do you tread water like that? I mean, without using your arms?”

His soft sigh skates across my cheek. “Easy. It’s called the rotary kick.”

“Teach me.” Anything to get the conversation away from how different our lives are.

A slight smirk curls his lips. “Keep your arms still and imagine your legs are an egg beater.”

I try to mimic Kyle, freezing my arms and kicking my legs how I’d imagine an egg beater would rotate.

I start to sink.

Kyle’s hands grip either side of my waist, pulling me back up. “Try again,” he coaxes, keeping hold of me this time, our knees knocking against each other’s intermittently.

It takes me a few minutes to get the hang of it. “ ’Kay, I think I’m doing it.”

“You are.” He smiles, but he doesn’t let go, pulling me in closer to kiss. I let my arms float on either side of me and I close my eyes, reveling in the feel of Kyle’s mouth against mine, in his shallow breaths, in the tip of his tongue as it first skates over the seam of my lips, and then into my mouth. He tastes like the spearmint gum he was chewing earlier, and not cigarettes. Though, if he did, I wouldn’t care.

Kyle’s hands begin to shift upward, ever so slowly, until his thumbs are nestled against the underside of my breasts. And then they’re on my breasts, tenderly, as if he’s memorizing their shape, his index fingers drawing small, teasing circles over my nipples.

I open my eyes, wondering if his are as full of lust as mine must be.

That’s when I notice the teal string floating atop the water behind him.

“My top!” I frown a second before realization hits me. My mouth drops open as I reach behind him, to find that he secured it through one of his belt loops. “Kyle!”

With an impish grin, he slips from my grasp and takes off swimming toward the alcove. I chase after him, yelling his name. It’s in vain, though; he’s much too fast for me.

When I round the corner, I find him sitting on the rocky plateau, leaning back and propped up by his elbows as if basking in the sun, his legs dangling over the edge.

He grins at me, holding out my top. “Sorry, I couldn’t help myself.”

I yank it from his grasp and attempt to put it back on, quickly abandoning the idea. It’s too hard while treading water.

Kyle smirks, like he knows it. “I won’t look. Promise.” He rolls over to lie on his stomach, facing away from me.

I hoist myself onto the ledge. The rock is almost too hot to the touch. It would be a nice place to relax and rid myself of these hideous T-shirt tan lines. A nice, quiet, private place to linger that can’t be seen from the expanse of lake.

“You’re not mad at me, are you?” He reaches for a loose stone nearby, to twirl it within his grasp.

“No,” I admit. I enjoyed every second of that moment when he was touching me so intimately.

In truth, I wish it hadn’t ended.

“Tell me when you’re good.” He has kept his word, his gaze still on the crop of bushes beyond.

A rash of butterflies explodes in my stomach as I commit myself to my decision. Splashing the hot-to-the-touch rock with handfuls of water to cool it down, I stretch out onto my back and shield my eyes against the blinding sun, leaving my top resting next to my head. “Okay.”

With a sigh, he moves to roll back. “I was thinking we should—” His words cut off, his mouth falling agape as it skates over my near-naked body.

“I have these horrible tan lines that I need to get rid of,” I explain casually, closing my eyes and settling my arm down beside me.

Kyle clears his throat. “Right.”

I can feel his heavy gaze touching my body, and each second that passes makes me crave for his hands to be on me again.

“Did you put on sunscreen?”

Shit. I groan. “No. And my bottle is all the way up—”

“I’ll get it.”

“You don’t have . . .” My voice trails. He’s already on his feet, nimbly picking his path up the treacherous hill.

I’m going to need Kyle’s help coating my back, I think with a smile, imagining his hands smoothing all over my body, along every inch of exposed skin.

By the time the loud splash sounds a few minutes later—Kyle, leaping off the cliff again—my body is aching with need.

Kyle swims around the bend and pulls himself back onto the rock, my tube of sunscreen firmly gripped in his hand. Droplets of water land on my skin as he shifts closer to me. “Here, roll over,” he murmurs as he tries to catch his breath, his eyes skittering over my chest and stomach.

I do, carefully, so as not to scrape my skin against the jagged edges of rock, and rest my chin atop folded arms, silently reveling in the feel of the cool gobs of sunscreen landing on my back.

“You sure ran up the hill fast.” His first touch draws a small gasp from my lips.

“Yeah, I guess I just really wanted to jump again.”

I smile to myself. “Right. Jump.”

He chuckles softly.

We fall into a comfortable silence as his hands smooth over my shoulders and down my sides in long, languid strokes, until my entire back is covered. Only he doesn’t stop there. He squeezes another dollop onto the back of each thigh and covers the full length of my legs, all the way from my ankles to the edge of my bikini bottoms, his fingertips sliding down over my inner thighs, teasing me, never venturing where I want them to, making the mild ache between my legs morph into a needy throb.