Free Floating by Natasha Thomas Page B

called, ‘Read ‘em and Weep’ for going on three years, saving every penny I had for the summer before I started college, and for expenses when I got there. I wanted to make this the most memorable summer of my life, and I didn’t want to worry about being tied down with a job for it.
     
    What Nate didn’t know, and I didn’t tell him until later, was I had every intention of using that money for bus fare to track him down and see him before I started the new chapter of my life. Luckily, he’d saved me the hassle because I had no idea how I would have made that happen, I only knew that I would have. 
     
    For two weeks; we swam, had picnics in the national park, went to movies, and generally just hung out together, like old times. I played him my eclectic music selection, all while he laughed at the fact that it included country music and electronica. According to him, they should be melting my iPod having to reside in the same playlist as each other.  Nate made me feel special every day. In some little way he tried to make up for all the days, weeks, months, and years he was absent. Sometimes he gave me bunches of wildflowers, and sometimes it was my favourite candy, Sour Patch Kids. Most of the time he just held my hand and told me how beautiful I was, how much I’d grown up, and how proud he was of me for going off to college and chasing my dreams. Everything changed shortly after that…
     
    I can’t even really tell you how it started. I know it was five days before my eighteenth birthday though, that day would be burned in my memory forever. Nate and I were sitting under the tree in my backyard when he leaned in and kissed me for the first time. At first I froze, it was my first kiss, after all. Yes, I had been asked out and all, but I had said no every time. I desperately wanted it to be Nate, that I gave my first kiss to, that I gave my first everything. Even though he wasn’t here, and hadn’t ever come back, I knew deep down he would one day, and that day, I wanted to be able to give him everything. I held on to that hope for four years, and I was damn glad I had.
     
    Nate started out by kissing my lips softly. His lips were warm and sure, coaxing me to open for him. The second I did, he stroked his tongue against mine and I melted into him. MELTED, I tell you. It was the best first kiss in the history of man, I was sure of it. I relaxed under his guidance, hands travelling over my shoulders, down my arms and linking around my back as he rolled us to the grass. With me underneath him, and his hips firmly wedged in between my thighs. I was aching, my panties were getting damper by the minute, but he didn’t let up the sensuous torture of his mouth. It was then I felt how hard he was, how turned on he was by me.
     
    I couldn’t believe it. I, Veronica May Stevens, made Nate; gorgeous, handsome, sex on a stick that could have any woman he wanted Nate, hard. His chest was heaving like he’d run a marathon as he wrenched his mouth from mine, and I whimpered at the loss. “Damn, Baby. You kiss like a fucking dream. You know what this means don’t you, Ronnie?” I’ll admit; I was a little confused by that. What this means? I had no idea. I must have looked all kinds of stupid as I looked up at him. Chuckling, he rolled us to our side and tucked my head into his neck. “You’re fucking adorable, Baby. You haven’t worked it out; I’ll clue you in. This, what happened just now, makes you mine, Ronnie. All MINE. We’ll work it all out, but you and me, this is us together, Babe.”
     
    My heart soared and then decided to do barrel rolls in my chest. He said I was HIS. I had always known it somewhere in the deep recesses of my heart that were reserved just for him. I just never, ever thought he would feel the same way. I hadn’t dared to give conscious thought to that desire. From the time I was nine, right up to and including that day, I loved Nate Burke. No matter the distance, the non-existent