Two Hours Later: Lake Sunapee

"So, what did you think?"

Steven turned off the engine, impressed by the nods of his head.

"They're good, yeah. Great drumming. Actually, really fuckin' great."

Leah unclipped her seatbelt, swivelling towards him so her knees were pushed together. She didn't, however, manage to get a word in.

"Though, next time I want to hear you sing. I could tell you knew the lyrics."

"Um no." Leah's laugh was nervous, and she averted her eyes to the beautiful location they had arrived at for an escape. "Absolutely not. I can't sing for love nor money."

Steven squinted, twisted his mouth with an unconvinced hum, and leaned over. His closer presence and the waft of his cologne from the movement had returned her attention back into the car anyway, but the palm sliding on her cheek focused her on the teasing kiss that was just about nudged to her lips.

Leah was embarrassed, felt warm in the face, even more so with the thumb spreading the blush, but it didn't stop her from the clumsy lunge to kiss him properly.

She felt Steven smile, the soft rush of air escaping his nose, but when she was about to touch his chest for more stability, her eyes were rudely fluttering open because he had pulled away.

She was left to watch the tip of his tongue sweep between his dampened lips, a sight that she would pay to see in slow-motion.

"Wanna go inside?"

Steven's voice alone gave her butterflies, and his thumb moved to trace the outline of her mouth and gently tug down the right corner. Everything about the way his fingers had curled and scratched into her hair at the back of her neck, palm safe on her cheek, was making her dazed in his beauty.

"Yes," Leah responded faintly.

Steven expressed his satisfaction joyously, and retreated to his own side to exit the car.

Leah did too, first composing herself with a single deep breath and rubbing her fingers down either side of her nose, but she was crunching the gravel with her shoes, and standing on the grounds of Trow Rico.

The fresh air was peaceful, and the stretch of her arms and back from being cooped up in a car was incredibly relieving. In doing so, she acknowledged the casual observations from her wonderful company who had just stopped what he was doing.

Steven leaned on his forearms on top of the car, hands laced together, and his eyes were trained downwards to the band of skin she was revealing from her interrupted stretch.

When he bit his lip, it gave her a brilliant idea.

Under a pair of watchful eyes, Leah slowed, having made her way over to him, and trapped him against the car so his elbow nudged the side mirror.

Pushing into his crotch was dangerous, especially when she knew what was concealed in his jeans, as was running her hands up the creases of his baggy sweater to his shoulders, but Steven was playing the game just as much as she was.

Every expression he made was bragging and leading, and watching her currently was both of those things.

Steven hummed.

"Is there something I can help you with?"

Leah didn't hesitate to kiss his smirking mouth that had drifted closer. She knocked his knees trying to push into him again, and wanted to feel the response of kissing him too deeply for the intentions to go unnoticed.

When his hands tentatively held her face, she thought she was winning. Definitely made the assumption from how he let her put the French into a kiss.

"As much as I want to." Steven broke away, leaning into her nose instead. "You're gonna have to wait."

Leah was not expecting a denial after following the insinuations. She tried to decipher the happy crescent indents appearing from his smile, and not so much on the precise placement of her hand on his neck so she could feel his hair on her knuckles.

She was a curl away from being able to loop it around her fingers and tug him back down to her lips, but instead, she let her hold slip.

"We're going to the lake."

Leah lifted her chin in the direction over his shoulder.

"What? That one?"

"No, the one ten miles from here." Steven leaned back against the car, seriousness fading. "Of course that one!"

"Why?"

"I'd like to show you around?" he chuckled, shrugging innocently. "That's something a boyfriend would do, right?"

Another moment of flicking over his smiley features, Leah's needy frown that wanted him for sex, disappeared. She actually dropped her chin in shame because this getaway was about learning about him too. Like why this place was so personal to him, and the stories he had here, and not just wanting him to fuck her over and over again.

Stepping back, Leah brought up, and stretched her thumb and pads of her fingers across her brows, partly to hide his pretty face from view, and partly to knock some politeness back into her brain.

"There's plenty of time for that too." Steven followed when her feet started moving. "I promise the wait will be worth it."

Having opened up the boot of the car, Leah grabbed a bag to distract her mind from the proposal, only for Steven to muscle an arm across and stop her from lifting it. It meant she had to feel his generously large palm sit on top of hers, lift her eyes to meet his deadly serious ones, and slip into the mindset that wanted him all over again.

"I promise."

Leah pursed her lips, challengingly.

"Is that a promise you can keep?"

Slowly, Steven reclaimed his hand, which left her to wonder what he was up to. Those questions were answered when he squeezed her ass which quite literally had her forget how to breathe.

Steven leaned closer, lips hovering close to her ear. He might have even bitten her ear lobe if her messily braided hair from the journey wasn't in the way.

"I know so, baby."

Another squeeze, lower, and then he was slinging a backpack over his shoulder like nothing had ever happened.

<>

Once their luggage was dumped inside and Leah had been given a brief insight to the beautiful interior, like the nature paintings that decorated slatted walls, and the crochet blankets draped over sofas, Steven was grabbing her hand and leading her back outside.

She couldn't even admire the wrap-around porch or the rocking chair that was situated in the corner on the decking, or switch her shoes for flip flops that she had abandoned by the door, because of the strong insistence to keep her moving.

Leah was a little sceptical of Steven's plans, but had no choice but to jog the short distance to the lake whilst trying to refrain from laughing every time he turned around to tug her hand impatiently if she slowed down too much to admire the scenery.

Seeing a glimpse of his smile was well worth the lack of explanation though because Steven was happy, and that meant Leah was happy. Embarrassingly, so.

Thudding about three quarters of the narrow plank dock that stretched from the lake's shore, Steven finally let go of her hand to face her.

"What are we doing?" Leah asked, both with joyful interest and confoundment, as she breathed out a deeper breath.

Steven stretched a wicked grin, hands bracing his hips, which only hurtled a further wave of confusion through her.

"This."

She was watching him take off his shoes and socks, and her stomach dropped knowing she probably should have figured it out.

"Are you crazy!?" Leah exclaimed, staring at the fingers that rapidly undid a button and jerked down a zip.

Steven glanced up once his jeans were pooled to his bare feet.

"Yes," he replied, kicking out an ankle to turn the fabric inside out. Those jeans then fell into a heap onto his haphazardly abandoned footwear.

Next, he whipped off the two layers that covered his top half in one go and they also joined his growing pile of clothes.

Shocked at what she was witnessing, Leah was slightly convinced he was about to skinny dip in front of her, but he thoughtfully kept his boxers on.

He snapped the white branded waistband with a wink.

"Watch this."

Unable to formulate the words to argue, her eyes followed the man turning on his heel, running to the edge, and propelling himself in a well-practised somersault straight into the undisturbed water.

He made a huge splash that sent birds squawking to the peaks of dark green pine trees.

Speechless, Leah stared at the enormous ripples that reached all the way back to the shore behind her, as well as further into the lake, and the dramatic emergence of a human being that shot up from the surface.

"AWOO! OW-OW AWOOO!" Steven slicked his hair out of his face with his hands. "LEAH, get in here!"

Even with the short distance, she could see his ridiculous grin.

"NO!" she yelled back. "Absolutely not!"

"Leeaahh!" he groaned, smoothing the droplets down from his nose. He slapped the surface to try and encourage her. "Get in here!"

Face scrunching in reluctance, Leah scoped the area. Conveniently, she saw absolutely nobody, and the only sounds were protesting nature, her drumming heartbeat that had crept into her throat, and Steven's playful howls, probably from the cold, as he pushed or kicked through the water to keep himself afloat.

Conceding to the idea of fun, she crouched down, untied her shoe laces, and took off her socks to stuff neatly into her unoccupied footwear. She was meticulously slow, and constantly lifted her head up to catch Steven watching her every move as he floated calmly on his back with his hands behind his head.

He was looking extremely satisfied with her decision and irritatingly tempting with his almost bare body being lapped at by the settling waves of the lake.

But, the moment Leach rested forward onto her knees and crossed her wrists at the hem of her jumper, lifting slightly, an obnoxiously loud wolf whistle made her stop.

A splash that turned into a propelling rhythm cutting through water, filled her silence.

"Leeeahhh, there's no one around! Trust me!"

"I don't!" she replied, through a nervous laugh, refusing to acknowledge he had swam closer. She fiddled with a spec of dirt on the toe of her shoe. "That's the problem!"

Steven hauled himself onto the edge of the platform, about a metre from where she awkwardly kneeled.

A wave of water splashed onto the sanded deck and darkened the immediate vicinity in a puddle, and his shiny shoulders tensed as he kept his weight up on his horizontally parallel arms. His hair had turned jet black in colour, was clumped together behind his ears, and a rogue curl fell across his forehead. A couple, actually, trying to reclaim, and flop down into his fringe.

Everything about him was effortlessly sexy, which just made resisting him that little bit harder.

"I'll throw you in if you don't get in."

Leah disapproved.

"You can't make me."

With his pause, she continued to look at him. Dipped her eyes to the locket secured around his neck, pronounced collarbones from the angle he was lifting himself at, muscles taut in his arms, and eventually, the naughty smile stretching his mouth.

"Oh, I can."

"Fine, fine!" Leah jolted her hand out to stop him rising further out of the lake. "But can you just turn a-around?"

Steven made a low noise of disbelief deep in his throat as he dropped back to his original position.

"I've seen you naked, you know. About...four times. Actually, no, maybe five or six."

"Just turn around, Steven," she instructed tiredly, but was unable to stop her smile twitching from his accusation that was so incredibly true.

Steven obeyed, sinking back into the lake, and swam out further to prove his back was well and truly turned.

Leah undressed, embracing the chill when her neat pile of clothes stared back at her.

"Can I turn around yet?"

"No."

Walking to the wet edge, she sat down and dipped her toe in.

Predictably, it was cold- it was late October after all, and as lovely as the sun was keeping the wispy clouds away, the warmth from the peak of summer was considerably lacking.

It was no weather to be messing around in a close to zero degree celsius lake in minimal clothing.

"It's better to just jump in."

Grumbling, because Steven was definitely going to turn around if she didn't say something soon, Leah took his annoying advice and inhaled a deep breath.

Nothing, it turned out, prepared herself for the temperature shock that peppered her exposed skin in goosebumps, and had her gasping for air as soon as she resurfaced.

"Holy shit! It's so cold!"

Leah dragged her hands down her face to remove the intruding droplets from her vision, and spewed a few from her lips.

Steven's laugh attracted her attention, and with a shivering scowl she watched him swim over in all his glory.

"If it helps, I can't feel my balls anymore," he said, taking a hold of her wrist to guide her a few paces to the left. Presumably, so they could stand on the gritty lake bed.

"No, it doesn't help."

Leah was already beginning to shiver when she stopped in their new spot, and her teeth were close to chattering.

"You'll get used to it in a second," Steven added unhelpfully, amused by the situation that had his chin constantly disappearing underneath the water surface. Observing, and deliberately concealing his shoulders to show he wasn't cold anymore.

Scrunching up her face in glowering displeasure, Leah thought anything but.

They weren't too far from the shore; if she turned around she could see the cabin, but she was too busy fighting off the numbness stiffening her limbs to make the decision to walk the walk of shame. Plus, Steven had waded closer and his hands had found her waist under the water to secure her in place, and removed any sort of plan she was trying to formulate.

"Leah..." His playfully patronising tone made her want to slap him. "Look at me."

From the dripping sound of water and a loss of pressure on one side, Steven had lifted his right hand. Picturing his idiotic smile, Leah kept her eyes firmly shut, breathed deeply from her nose, and bit the inside of her trembling lip.

She was not having fun.

When there was a gentle tug at the tied end of her braided hair, her frown softened, resisting the urge to open her eyes became harder, and the initial freeze was, like Steven had predicted, slowly subsiding.

The tug was followed by the distinctive feeling of her braids being loosened over her shoulder, a tricky procedure because of the effect of water knotting the strands tighter together, and another slosh of water told her Steven was using both of his hands for better access.

Fingers prodded, and carefully untangled, and they eventually sifted up to her scalp so her hair was fully down against her back and dangling into the lake's surface that circled them.

Leah opened her eyes.

She blinked enough to see her hair band was now on his wrist, but was more drawn to the raised elbows either side of her head that couldn't hide the little smile directly in front of her.

Steven worked on detangling knots, but flicked his concentrating eyes to hers because she had pressed her wet palms to his shiny face to reciprocate the affection.

Leah could put it down to the occasional cold that still etched goosebumps along her arms and behind her neck, but she knew the real reason behind the lack of air to breathe was because she was so intimately close to Steven.

Clothes or no clothes, his eyes compelled her to the core, hooked her to a safe place, and always intrigued her when the perfect lighting defined the lighter tints. There wasn't quite a definitive green, but the shades of brown mixed breathtakingly to blend around his pupils.

Delicately, Leah began slicking his hair back, gliding over his ears that didn't tend to make an appearance too often, which, with a quick glance, she also learned were significantly pierced.

Her blinks slowed to take in every possible detail she could, and to memorise each texture under her searching fingers.

Steven was copying her too, thumbs smoothing over her eyebrows and down the edges of her face, and it was a constant path of exploration for them both.

Neither of them spoke. They just couldn't.

They breathed slowly and deeply, locked in a warm gaze of each other to contrast the water that surrounded them, and when it couldn't be put off any longer, they finally kissed. Forever it felt like, and it didn't bother them when cold lips pushed for heat and gently lingered over a favoured spot.

"Steven."

Panting a swallow, Leah held his face back when he infatuatedly tried reclaiming her mouth again.

"Can um...can I tell you something?"

Steven disturbed the water when he dropped a hand that had already been slipping to snake a hold around her back. His other already rested on the side of her neck so his thumb brushed along her jaw in a way that made her want to melt into the lake.

"Yeah, of course," he encouraged softly.

Leah studied him again. Almost flush against his front, and standing on his feet so she was about the same height as him, had made the experience quite something when she had been kissing him, but getting carried away proved to be too much for her cluttered mind to handle.

"Hey, don't go quiet on me." Steven pinched a frown, moving his hand to a more comforting position around her back. "You can tell me anything."

The same silence returned, and he gave in with a sigh.

"Including if you're too cold and want to get out. I'm glad you joined me, really I am, but I don't blame you for-"

"You're so gorgeous," Leah confessed, unable to stop the words leaving her mouth. She also, apparently, couldn't stop. "So ridiculously handsome- don't even get me started listing all the details because I'd probably be here all day."

Her nervous little laugh didn't even throw her off course.

"I'm convinced I'm actually the luckiest woman in the world to have met you, and after everything we've been through, all of it has made me realise how much I want you in my life."

She switched the position of her hands, one feeling over his collarbone that was above the sway of water, and released her right one from his cheek so her fingertips could stroke the faint wavy line that could only really be seen if it was pointed out.

"And this little scar? This reminds me it was all real...Yes, it hurts to know what we both lost, but it's also the evidence that proves us- that something good managed to happen- and that something, for me...was you."

Even with her confidence slipping by the end, Leah managed to finish without her heart palpitating out of her chest. What she didn't expect was to be looking into increasingly widening eyes, with an overall reaction that she didn't know how to take.

After a shaky breath, Steven's throat bobbed.

"Shit."

Dropping her shoulders, Leah felt her chest tighten from a rush of cold. And when she slipped off his feet, she just made herself feel smaller than she already did.

The rogue stones pierced her heels and she was increasingly aware of her shrivelling fingers that were a lot more uncomfortable than they had been thirty seconds ago.

"Are you...okay?" she asked hesitantly, despite her rejection.

"I have-" Steven revealed a pair of apologetic eyes, looking up at her with an unusually clamped jaw that he kept pushing out. He shuffled in the water, and his hand had officially disappeared from her waist. "You've just uh- you just...turned me on a little bit."

His self-burn of a laugh at the end quite literally stole the top spot of the most embarrassed Leah had ever seen him.

She had to take the time to process exactly what she had just heard, study the awkwardly twitching expressions in his face, and when Steven looked down again, her mood skyrocketed into space.

Keeping a straight face as she wondered the extent concealed under the water proved to be a serious challenge.

"I thought you were cold?"

"I-uh, yeah. Fuck, that's so embarrassing, sorry. You were just- ugh. My fucking penis took the compliments too literally."

That did it.

Leah broke into a silent laugh, and glanced over his shoulder to the row of trees that she hoped could cleanse her mind. She even clamped her palm over her mouth to limit the noise, because this might have been the funniest scenario she had been in for a very long time.

"Please don't laugh," Steven begged.

"I'm sorry." Leah took a breath, but failed miserably to stop her vibrating laughter. Her eyes were beginning to glaze with tears from holding it in. "You're right- it's mean. You can't...help it."

"You don't sound very pitiful," he grumbled, glancing down to his hands that presumably held his situation.

Leah felt a smidge of guilt, so she composed her outburst and sympathised with the sorry looking sight of her boyfriend. She placed her hands either side of his neck again, and caught the cold lobes of his pierced ears with a pinch of the sides of her fingers.

She sighed, letting the water fill the space between their bodies.

"Honestly, I'm not because I really want you to fuck me."

It was another confession on her behalf, but it was one Steven had been aware of prior. To think of how crude she was being, but she was having too much fun with the power she had.

"My god." Steven strained a groan, tipping his head back. "You're playing with fucking fire."

Leah dipped her lips to kiss the cold, wet skin of his neck. A hand rotated to the back of his head to keep him in place, and she grazed her teeth all the way up to the closely shaved area on his chin.

"Do you want to go in?" she asked there, only then allowing him to bring his head forward so their noses were almost touching.

"Fucking-A I do," Steven responded, an evident rasp in his voice.

Teasing a kiss, Leah smiled when he tried to secure it, and turned around.

She waded towards the shore, emerging higher and higher from the lake, sloshing water with each kick of her feet, and with a gut feeling she was probably in for a bit of a ride.

On solid ground, she slowed and smoothed a hand to rest on the back of her wet, uncombed hair. She kept it there as checked on her following shadow.

"Out of interest, what was it I said that did it for you?"

"Shut-" Steven took two steps closer, which were a lot more progressive since the water was below his knees, but it was all about his hands covering the front of his snug fitting, dripping underwear. "-the fuck up."

Leah gasped, a hand on her chest.

Steven made the final trudge up to her level on the bank with an unimpressed scowl darkening his eyes, removed his hands that cupped his royalty, and slammed them down on her hips to pull her into him.

Immediately, Leah felt the heat from his erection strain against her. She had to hug his shoulders to keep her balance, but it just made escaping his body that had water droplets sliding down his skin, a crushing sin to enjoy.

"Can you feel me, Leah?" he taunted, tilting his head off to one side to access her neck. "Do you have any idea of all the things I want to do to you?"

The ends of his hair dripped on her skin to make her shiver, the uneven streams of air from his nose were directed harshly into her neck, and Steven was taking the initiative to grind against her, but Leah did not let a hint of a whimper leave her lips that brushed his shoulder.

Instead, she caught sight of the heap of their abandoned belongings on the dock.

"What about our clo-"

Steven sucked the spot on her neck that he had been lingering over, and caused an abrupt end to her question. His hands gripped tighter on her hips, fingers toying to curl her underwear down, and all of a sudden Leah was struggling to keep a level head.

"Don't need 'em," he said, lifting his face back into view. "Clothes are banned in the bedroom."

Before she could protest, Steven took her hand and motioned for her to walk with him. A walk that soon became a rushed stumble to get back to the cabin as fast as humanly possible before desire had them stripping the remaining way and breaking the barrier of privacy to go wild in the outdoors.

Because that promise of being worth the wait was about to be proven for all its priceless worth.

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