Page 38 of Ravished By Her

“I’m not scared of the water. I just…I don’t trust it. I swam in pools, not in the ocean that has who knows what in it,” she said, looking at the water as if it was going to bite her.

I had to bite back a laugh because she was so adorable right now.

“Come on,” I said, holding my hand out to her. “If you get taken, then you can drag me with you.”

She snorted, but took my hand and inched closer to the water, letting it break over her toes as she flinched.

“I’ve got you,” I said, squeezing her hand and stepping close to her. I took a step further into the water and Lacey came with me.

“It’s cold,” she said, looking down at her feet.

“You can handle it.” I smiled at her as we waded out slowly into the water.

“What the fuck was that?!” Lacey said suddenly and I thought that she was going to jump into my arms.

“Probably some seaweed. Or a crab or something,” I said, trying not to laugh at her reaction.

“Okay, that’s enough,” she said, leaving the water, but not letting go of my hand so she ended up dragging me with her.

“Hey!” I said, nearly crashing into her, but she grabbed my waist with her other hand to stop me from moving.

“Sorry.” Lacey looked down into my eyes and I let myself get lost in hers. It was so easy to tip over and fall right in. Time stopped and I didn’t even know if I breathed.

“What’s next?” she asked and backed away from me, dropping my hand.

“Now, we walk,” I said, gathering myself, and pointing in front of us.

“I think I can handle that,” she said, nodding.

Lacey walked beside me, with me in between her and the ocean. Cute.

“Are we allowed to talk while we walk, or is this supposed to be silent?” she asked, stepping over a piece of driftwood.

“We can talk, if you want,” I said. “There are no rules for beach day. That’s kind of the point.”

“No rules? I like that.”

We took a few more steps and I spotted what might be a nice rock.

“Okay, there’s one rule,” I said, leaning down. “You have to brake for rocks and sea glass and other interesting items.”

Lacey leaned down next to me as I brushed sand off the rock. It was oval and almost completely smooth, light gray with speckles of white and black.

“Here.” I held it out to her.

“What am I supposed to do with it?” she asked.

“Keep it, toss it, maybe you could make it into some jewelry? It’s up to you.” Lacey turned the rock over in her hand, rubbing it with her fingers.

“I don’t normally use natural stones like this in my work, but I’m not opposed to it,” she said in a thoughtful voice.

We both stood up and kept walking and Lacey seemed to be on the lookout for more stones. I watched as she gathered up an entire handful of them. She even found a piece of green beach glass, smooth as could be.

“Now this is definitely something to use,” she said. “You can buy sea glass that’s been tumbled by machine, but this is better.”

Finally, the beach day was having an effect on her. Lacey seemed totally lost in looking for interesting rocks, and it turned out she knew a fair bit of geology, which was probably an occupational hazard.

Still, I enjoyed hearing her tell me about the different kinds of rocks and the colors and so forth.