First Time: Ian's Story (First Time (Ian) Book 1) by Abigail Barnette Page A

top. She
sighed contentedly and closed her eyes, which was fortuitous for me
because disguising an erection in swim trunks is improbable, at
best.
    I kicked backward, toward the deeper water.
“One of my top five requirements for girlfriends is buoyancy. How
long can you float like that?”
    She laughed and rolled over, standing again.
“For a while. I wouldn’t try to do it across the English Channel or
anything.”
    “ So, you’re vetting me as a
potential boyfriend?”
    “ Of course I am. That’s what
dating is about, right?” she asked. “You go on a date with someone
to see if you like them enough to have a second date. Then you go
out on the second and subsequent dates to find out if you want to
see them exclusively. And then you start seeing them
exclusively—”
    “ And they move in, you spend
a few years in that type of domestic bliss, then you get married,
grow apart, and finally divorce.” She didn’t want to hear that.
Nobody wanted to hear it, but there I’d gone and vomited my sadness
everywhere. “I’m sorry, like I said, it’s—”
    “ Been a rough day,” she
finished for me, with surprising understanding. “Believe me, after
what I went through with Brad, I was ready to give up on dating and
other people in general before Sophie set me up with you. But I
don’t share your unhappy view of the relationship evolution
chain.”
    “ You’ve been cured of that
pessimism?”
    “ I was never really
pessimistic to begin with.” She smiled as if to prove it, or force
it, I couldn’t tell which. “I believe that, someday, I’m going to
find the person I’m meant to be with. If I didn’t believe that, I
wouldn’t have gone out with you.”
    “ Fair enough. For what it’s
worth, I’m very glad you did.”
    “ I am, too,” she said, and
it was so easy to believe her, because I desperately wanted
to.
    Penny was like something out of a dream that
I had forced myself to wake from. I’d thought Gena would be the
last woman in my life, but having spent just a few hours with
Penny, I’d started to see possibility where there had been none
before.
    Which was likely the reason
I’d reacted so strongly to my sister’s criticism. She disapproved
of me dating a much younger woman; that was fair. I’d turned it
into a blanket disapproval of me dating anyone .
    But at the moment, the only woman I was
interested in was Penny.
    She sighed and lazily pushed her way through
the water toward me. “Isn’t this so much better than sitting home
alone on our respective couches?”
    I had to concede it was certainly more
exciting. “The view is definitely better.”
    “ I know you want me to think
you’re talking about the windows, but I’m on to you,” she warned
playfully. She had to stand on her tiptoes to keep her head above
the water.
    “ You caught me.” I sank down
a bit and took her hand to pull her in closer. She came along
without any resistance, sliding her fingers up my arm to my
shoulder.
    “ When I first starting
coming here, I was afraid it was actually a part of the UN,” she
confessed with an embarrassed giggle.
    I settled my hands at her waist, my palms
tingling against all that bare skin, and turned us in a slow
circle. “I have to admit I had a moment where I thought that,
myself.”
    “ Well, we’re safe. I
promise. The worst they can do is kick us out.” She looped her arms
around my neck. “But my plan is that we pretend you’re a delegate
staying here.”
    “ Do I get to pick which
country?” Not that I could think of one with her legs brushing
against my side as she leaned back.
    She feigned thinking it over. “Hmm. The
obvious choice, and the one you’d be more likely to pull off, would
be Scotland. Sorry.”
    “ Scotland doesn’t have a
delegate in the UN. We’re just lumped into the United Kingdom.”
Christ, was I really trying to educate her on a geopolitical
organization while her body was bumping into mine below the surface
like some kind of…sexy