Chapter 4

Ethan and I arrive at the beach, he grabs his bag from the trunk and starts walking towards the sand.

"Do you know where to go?" I ask as he takes his free hand and laces it with mine.

"Yeah, Cameron told me they're in front of lifeguard stand 13." I nod.

We start making our way towards the water, and once we get closer I see my friends sitting on a large blanket, all of them laughing together. I smiled, I love seeing them happy. But then I remember they set me up. But imagine if they didn't...things probably wouldn't have turned out the same.

"What's on your mind?" Ethan moves his hand to rest on my shoulder.

"Nothing." I smile up at him.

"Hi you two! Make up yet? So sorry that you couldn't ride with us Nova. But aren't you glad we asked Ethan to take you?" Lorena rambles as she grins at me.

"You two are so unpredictable!" I playfully glare at them.

They look at each other and then back at me. Then each grab one of my arms and yank me down. I fall onto the both of them and they start wrestling me.

"You should thank us!" We all burst out laughing as I struggle so get out of their hold.

"We are being good friends to you. You will thank us for that one day." I laugh and finally get away from them, standing up.

"I think she should thank you today." Ethan says and my two friends look confused.

Ethan grabs me and pulls me to him.

"Because without your guys's little stunt, I wouldn't be able to do this." He faces me and without hesitation, kisses my lips.

I was not one for PDA like this, however I couldn't help but to swoon and kiss him back with the same energy. I hear Lorena and Callie squeal. Ethan pulls away from me and grins.

"Say it. Tell them." He nudges me.

"They know, they just saw us kiss." I blush, looking away from everyone.

"Say it. We want to hear it. Loud and clear!" Cameron chimes in.

"Yeah, say it!" Lorena laughs.

"Ethan is my boyfriend." I roll my eyes without looking at them. I feel my face heat up.

"Huh? We can't hear youuuu!" Callie sings, I know damn well they can hear me.

"Ethan is my boyfriend!" I look at them all and laugh. I see that Lorena is recording me and I look away again.

"That's my boy!" Cameron and Ethan high five each other.

"That sounded so good to my ears. Say it again baby." He looks at me, beaming. I'd do anything to keep that expression on his face.

I cup his face and he pulls me to him. I kiss him.

"You." I kiss him again. "are" and again "my" ......and again "boyfriend." We both laugh.

"I like the sound of that." He rubs my bottom lip with his thumb.

"Gross! Get a room." Lorena yells at us, I look over at her and she's still recording. I cover my face and laugh.

"Dont film me!" I say at the same time as Ethan says

"Please send me those videos."

We sit down on the blanket Ethan brought, next to everyone else. Ethan brought alcohol for us, and there were sandwiches and water in the ice chest Cameron brought. Ethan passes around a bottle to everyone, and we all do a cheers. Cameron hands us each a sand which and we start eat eating.

"To friendship!" Cameron yells.

"And to love" Callie wiggles her eyebrows at me.

"Shut up." I mumble, tapping everybody's glass with mine.

"What are you drinking?" I ask Ethan, his bottle is different than everyone else's. I noticed mine is too. Everyone has a beer of some sort, and I have this purple-ish drink.

"It's just flavored water. I don't want to drink at all so I can drive you home safely." He smiles at me. My heart melts. It's the little things like that, that win me over.

"Do you want to share my drink? I don't think I'll be able to drink it all anyways. I don't like alcohol much." I say, looking at the label 'mikes hard black cherry lemonade' the colored drink read.

"I know you don't like alcohol, so I got you something sweet. I think you'll like it, you can't taste it much." He says, not really answering my question. I shrug anyways and open the drink.

I take a small sip. It tasted like a popsicle.

"Mmm." I say out loud "That's really good." I look at him. "Do you want to try it?" I tilt the bottle in his direction.

He takes it and takes a sip as well.

"It tastes like a popsicle." He laughs and gives it back. This doesn't burn my throat like the other drink I had at the party.

"That's exactly what I was thinking." I laugh. "It's really good, thanks."

"Nova, let's play volleyball!" I look over at Callie, who's holding a volleyball in her hand.

"Oh my gosh, yes." I grin at her. We rush to finish our drinks and food, then the three of us get up, leaving the two boys to talk amongst themselves.

The beach was nearly empty. We played volleyball for about 20 minutes, the two boys cheering us on half the time. They must be getting bored now because Cameron calls out to us.

"Are we getting in the water, or what?" He says. The three of us look at each other and nod.

"Yeah, let's go!" Callie calls back and we make our way back to the blankets.

The boys take off their shirts and we take off our shorts, just standing in our bikinis and bathing suits.

"Nova your ass looks like it got bigger." Lorena pushes me, laughing.

"You're talking about me?" I grin at her. "Girl, look at you." Callie and I look at her dramatically and Lorena starts shaking her ass.

"Ayyy!" Callie screams and we all laugh.

"Let's gooooo!" Cameron groans and we all chuckle, walking to the water together.

Ethan follows a little bit behind us and I look back at him.

"What's wrong?" I ask. He looks at me as if he's been caught.

"Nothing." He quickly replies, face turning red. I gasp at the realization.

"You were looking at my butt!" I playfully accuse him. He turns an even darker shade of red.

"N-no! I wasn't!" He puts his hands up in the air, but his face says he is guilty.

I just laugh and grab his hand, running to the water. I don't let go of his hand as I drag us into the cold waves.

"Shit, it's so freezing!" Callie gasps beside us. I laugh.

"It's better to just jump in. You'll get used to it faster." I say to her.

"Is that so?" Ethan looks at me, a mischievous look in his eyes.

"Yes sir." I look at him curiously. Before I could register what is happening, Ethan picked me up and is running further into the water, then throws me in.

He threw me in! I am going to kill that boy! I come back up the the surface of the water, just as Ethan comes jumping in next to me. My tippy toes barely reach the sand. Ethan resurfaces next to me, smiling innocently. I'm about to hit him but I see the light in his eyes. He looks so happy. Peaceful. I can't help but smile at him. Seeing that I'm struggling to keep my head above the water, he pulls me against him, encasing me in his arms. I put my hands on his chest, looking up at him. The ocean is calm. There isn't any big waves, so we just stand there, basking in each other's presence.

Ethan leans down, blessing me with a kiss full of passion. And I kiss him right back. His lips are salty from the water, but also sweet from whatever drink he had while we were sitting down. I wrap my legs around his waist, becoming 1,000 lbs lighter in the water. A soft sound escapes from his mouth and I smile. I pull away and look at him.

"The things you do to me..." he blushes. I take a peek over at our friends, they're not paying attention to us, thank god.

"Let's move further away from them. So we can have a little bit more privacy." I suggest.

"We're in the ocean," he laughs, nonetheless holding me tighter and making his way further from the 3 other people we came here with. "they're going to see us regardless." He finishes his sentence.

"Well they can see us from further away then. Im not offering front row seats to the free show we're putting on." I laugh and he grins at me. I look back and we're a good distance away from our friends.

I waste no time resuming our previous activity.

Ethan's POV

"You are so beautiful." I whisper against Nova's lips. "So divine. The best thing to ever happen to me."

"Don't say things like that to me." She whispers back. And kisses me again. "I might just believe it."

I grin. I can't help but feel so lucky to have her right now. The feel of her body perfectly against me, her full lips against mine, her small arms around my shoulders. There's nowhere else in the entire world I'd rather be, than in her arms.

I haven't really been in a relationship before. I grew up seeing my parents constantly fighting over little things, and I hated it. I didn't want to be in a relationship like that so I decided that I just shouldn't be in one at all. But the night I saw Nova, I couldn't help myself. I lied to her, so I can have an excuse to talk to her. I told her that I was sitting there before she came out, when in truth, I was sitting in my room. I looked out of my window and had seen her sitting there by herself. I didn't completely lie to her though. I did often sit there by the pool, whenever I just wanted to read a book or something. So technically, it was my spot. I don't know what I would have done if I didn't talk to her. It feels like my world has completely changed within a little over a month and it's all because of her. I smile and deepen the kiss at the memory of us in the pool together.

Nova pulls away and I'm about to protest, when she starts attacking my neck. I gulp. Her lips are so warm, I feel her bite down softly on my skin and I accidentally let a quiet moan out. Shit. I think to myself. I hope she didn't hear that. But my hopes went out the window when she pulls away from my neck and starts to chuckle.

"That was hot." She says and I feel myself turn multiple shades of red within a second. "I wanna hear it again." She whispers and kisses my lips for a split second before going back to my neck.

I tighten my arms around her and throw my head back. She works at my neck for a few more minutes before she pulls away and looks at me, grinning.

"I've never done that before." She admits, gleaming. "I think I did a good job." She touches my raw skin lightly with her fingers.

My eyes widen. Oh shit. How many hickeys did she leave? I laugh in realization, looking down at her. I lift her higher so we are eye to eye. I put my forehead against hers.

"You make me so happy." I close my eyes, whispering to her. She gets closer to me, pushing her chest against mine.

"You make me feel the same way." I hear her say back. I open my eyes and give her a cheeky grin.

"Can you come to my house after we leave the beach?" I ask and she tilts her head. "I have a surprise for you, and I have presents for you." I smile. I'm really excited to give her her gifts. It took me forever to pick it out. I really hope she likes it.

"Your house?" I see her frown. "I thought you live on campus." She pulls away, I can see her fully now.

She's so pretty. The way her dark skin glows in the sun, is just so captivating. Her sight is like a drug, and I'm addicted to it.

"I do live on campus." I smile at her. "I'm in a fraternity. The house that throws those 'awesome' parties? I live there with my brothers. You've even been in my room." Her eyes widen a bit.

"Oh." She laughs. "That was your room? What were the odds I picked your room of all of them, to go and literally cry in." I throw my head back in laughter.

"Hey, I think regardless of what happened that night, I had fun. I learned a lot more about you, and I learned more about myself, and how I need to work on certain things. I think it brought us closer, wouldn't you agree?" She purses her lips, thinking.

"Hmm, I guess so. You also taught me how to dance a little bit." She laughs.

"You have to admit. That was romantic. I deserve extra kisses for that." I say to her, and she laughs again. Music to my ears.

"You want kisses?" She teases. "I can do that." She says and connects our lips once again.

I've never felt this strongly about anybody before. I never allowed myself to. But even if I did, I don't think any of the girls I went to school with, could ever compete with Nova. They were all stuck up, white bimbos with no brains. Nova is different. She's smart, and humble. And she has the richest thing in the world, what white and other light colored people desperately try to have. Melanin. I didn't grow up with many black people. I could probably count the amount of black people I've actually conversed with on one hand. But there's no doubt that their melanin sets them apart from everyone else. So rich in flavor, priceless. It's so beautiful. It's something so powerful, it makes people cower in fear. But I love Nova's melanin.

I've only come to realize this after I came in contact with her. I wasn't taught to hate black people, but I think the people in my neighborhood always implied that they were below us. I never really paid attention to those comments. I thought that because I wasn't ever around black people, I didn't have to worry about how to treat them or what to think of them. But I now realize, they're no different from me. We all just some skeletons on the inside anyways.

"Ethan." Nova mumbles against my lips.

"Hmm?" I respond. Not wanting her to say we should go back to our friends, I pull away from her lips and start to kiss her neck.

A small gasp escapes her lips and she tilts her head back, allowing me full access. I work at giving her my first love bite, ever. I hear her form a small moan, and I groan. That was so hot. Holy shit, I need to hear that again. I think to myself as I start to kiss lower and lower, until I'm kissing the middle of her chest. I leave a love bite there as well and Nova let's out a shaky breath, trying to hold back another moan.

"We're in p-public." She whispers, trying to keep her composure. I pull her body closer, pushing her into me as closely as we can be.

"I don't care. You taste so good." I groan and kiss her lips again.

There is nobody around us anyways, at least close enough to see what we are actually doing. The beach is practically deserted. At that, Nova grabs my arms from around her and I assume she's going to pull away from me. But, to my surprise, she guides my hands down her body instead. She places my hands on her bum, and I can feel my cheeks turning red.

She adjusts herself on me and does something I definitely did not expect. She moves her body against mine, slowly, and sensually.

"Fuck." I moan against her lips.

What happened about being in public? Did that just slip her mind? I would be lying if I said I wasn't aroused from the very moment we started kissing. I was definitely not opposed to what she initiated, so I moved my body against hers in sync. This feels so good...she feels so good. Geez, are we really doing this? I can't help but feel a little embarrassed. We should stop, and we both know that we should stop. But I just can't. I really can't. I'm addicted to every part of her and I'm going to take whatever I can get.

"Ethan." She moans my name quietly.

I can hear and feel her breaths getting shorter and shorter. We need to stop, we need to stop before-

My thoughts get interrupted when Nova yanks herself away from me. My eyes fly open and I look at her, but she's already trying to make her way back to the shore.

"Nova!" I call after her. Did I do something wrong?

I swim after her and watch in a trance as she fully emerges from the water. Water drips from her body and down her long legs. She looks like a goddess. Her curly hair already starting to shrink from not being in water anymore. I don't even remember when it came out of her two braids. I'm so mesmerized by her. She stands facing away from me. I gulp, scared she's mad at me or something.

I stand behind her and wrap my arms around her, pushing my chest into her back. I rest my head on top of hers when she leans back into me.

"Are you okay?" I ask her gently. She puts her hands on my arms and just stands there.

"I'm sorry." She responds, sounding nervous. "I-I just...I don't know. I got scared. I'm sorry. If we kept at it for another minute...I wouldn't have been able to last. And I don't want something as intimate as my first time getting off with a guy, done in the middle of the ocean." She laughs nervously. I kiss the top of her head and smile.

"You don't need to apologize, silly. I understand. I never imagined doing that....here either. But I just can't seem to control myself around you." I turn her around to face me, I can barely see a deep shade of red under the skin tone of her cheeks. Black people can blush?

"We should head back to the group." Nova says. She holds onto my arm as we walk back.

I didn't realize we had drifted that far away from the group. We ended up at life guard stand 10 when we set up our stuff at 13. It took almost 10 minutes to walk back. Not that I was complaining tho, I enjoyed being by myself with Nova. Even if we're just walking in silence, just being in her presence was enough to satisfy me. We finally reach where we set up and the two girls are looking worried.

"Oh my god." Callie screams when she sees us. "There you are!" They jump up and attack Nova in a hug.

"We were so worried about you guys. We didn't see you two walk off. We thought maybe you guys just went to take a walk or something but after an hour and 45 minutes, we started thinking of the worst." Lorena says, I see her eyes running over Nova's body, checking if she was hurt at all.

"I'm so sorry." Nova says, sounding guilty. "I had no idea. We're fine, we were swimming and didn't even realize how far we had drifted down. Where's Cameron? Is he okay?" Nova looks around.

"He went looking for you two about 15 minutes ago. I'm going to call him to come back." Callie leaves Nova's presence and gets on the phone.

"We didn't mean to worry you. I'm sorry." I chime in. "I wouldn't ever let anything happen to Nova." I add.

"We don't know that." Lorena sticks her nose up. "We haven't known you for that long. Next time, please tell us when you guys are going to leave."

"We will. I promise." Nova says.

"Wait. What the fuck." Lorena narrows her eyes at both of us. She suddenly gasps and closes her eyes.

"Oh my god! Gross! You guys fucked! Again! What is up with you two and fucking in the water? You guys disgust me. How nast-" Nova covers Lorena's mouth with her hand, making her shut up.

"No we didn't!" Nova says panically, she looks over at Callie, making sure she didn't hear anything.

"If you even wanted me to believe a little bit, that you're not lying to me about this, the least you could have done is cover his hickeys. You can't see yours that much. By tomorrow they definitely will show. But for him-" Lorena says when she throws Nova's hand off her, she turns towards me.

"He's white. His neck is practically a different color." She sticks her finger into her mouth and pretends to gag. I see Nova has a look of embarrassment on her face.

"We just made out, okay? We didn't do anything other than that. Please keep it down.." I say to Lorena, hoping with everything she'd believe me.

"You can't convince me otherwise. You both need to cover up before Callie sees. She won't let you live it down." Funnily enough, I believe Lorena is the one who won't let us live this down.

I grab the sweater I brought from out of my bag, and quickly throw it over me. Nova grabs her shirt and puts it on. It's extremely oversized, going down to her knees, but she tries her best to position it to where nobody can see her neck. Cameron comes back and asks if we're okay. We nod and he sighs.

"Are you guys ready to go home?" Callie asks. "There's going to be way more traffic if we leave later. If we leave now it'll probably only take about 2 hours to get back to the school. Hopefully we can be back by 7." We all agree to go home and start packing up.

Nova's POV

We get back to where Ethan parked after saying bye to everyone. I feel so tired. The sun really drains my energy at the beach. Ethan puts our stuff in his trunk and then goes to the passenger seat to open my door for me.

"Um..." I make a face and scratch the back of my head.

"What's wrong?" He frowns.

"I'm still kind of sandy. I don't want to mess up your car, it's really nice..." I trail off and he laughs at me.

"I don't care if you get sand everywhere. I'll clean it baby." He tilts his head at me, my heart fluttering at the nickname.

"Can I put my towel down at least? You shouldn't have to clean after me." I bite my lip. I would be so embarrassed if I made a mess. The car looks super expensive.

"I'll do it for you." He smiles and brushes past me. He gets both of our towels out the trunk and lays his on the floor, mine on the seat.

"Do you think that'll be comfortable for you?" He asks and I nod.

"Thank you." I smile at him shyly before getting in the car. He closes the door after me and gets in the drivers side.

"Are you still okay to come to my house?" He asks as he pulls out of the parking lot.

"Of course, but do you mind if I go to my dorm first? I want to shower to get all the sand off of me." This is what I hate about the beach. There's always sand everywhere on you when you leave. It's so annoying.

"Take a shower at my place." He looks over and winks at me.

"I can't do that." I look away.

"Why not? I have my own shower in my room. Nobody will bother you. I don't want you to go home." He pouts and glances at me.

I mean, what's the worse that can happen? I think to myself. If he has his own shower, then the other guys in the house can't come knocking or barging in.

I end up agreeing to shower at his place

The drive home was long, there was more traffic than we anticipated. But we spent the drive asking each other questions, singing songs, and just having fun with each other. Right now, we're walking up the steps to the front entrance of the frat house.

"It's so quiet. It feels wrong." I say, the only times I've been here the house had been playing music so loud I could barely hear other people.

"Nobody is home right now." Ethan laughs. "They're at another one of the fraternity's party." He informs me.

"Oh, I see." I smile, nodding. We get in the house and Ethan locks the door after me.

The house is so clean, I'm shocked. Maybe it's just because there's no party going on right now, but I feel like the times I've been here, it looked disgusting.

Ethan takes my hand and leads me up to his room.

"You can shower in my bath. Take your time. Don't come out before like, 30 minutes. Girls take long showers anyways, right?" Ethan looks at me and I raise my eyebrows.

"Are you planning something?" I ask.

"Yes, I am. Okay, have fun. Towels are under the counter. Bye!" He hurriedly kisses my forehead then runs out the room.

He's so weird, I laugh at myself. At least I can wash properly. I turn the shower on and wait for it to get warm. I strip my clothes, and place them neatly on the sink counter before getting into the shower and letting the water run all over my body. Maybe I have time to wash my hair really quickly. 30 minutes is definitely not enough time....but maybe I can go fast. I look around at the different products Ethan has in his shower.

"Oh my god." I gasp as I see the most horrible thing ever. "A 3 in 1." I whisper, mentally gagging.

I see that he also has a bottle of conditioner, but no shampoo. Is this a guy thing? Or a white guy thing? Lord, please help this man.

I end up finishing my shower in 35 minutes. I heard Ethan constantly coming in and out of the room while I was in the shower. Once I get out and quickly dry myself, I realize that I don't have any clothes to change into.

"Ethan?" I knock on the bathroom door, not wanting to peek outside into the room, just in case whatever he is doing is a surprise.

After a few seconds I hear the padding of his feet come into the room.

"Yes baby?" He asks. "Are you done?"

"Yeah, are you? I don't have clothes." I say through the door.

"I need like, 5 more minutes. Let me get you something to wear okay?" A few seconds later I hear him rummaging through his closet. "Okay. I don't think I have anything that will actually fit you. But here." He opens the door just enough to hand me the clothes, then closes it right away again.

"Thank you." I laugh.

"Okay I'll come get you when I'm ready." I hear Ethan quickly leave again.

I look at the clothes he gave me. One of his T-shirts and a pair of boxer briefs. Ew. I pray they're new as I slip on the clothes. His shirt comes mid thigh for me. I look in the mirror and smile. I am definitely taking his shirt home.

I start to finger detangle my hair. Afterwards, I quickly put it into one braid before sitting on the counter, bored and waiting for Ethan. It has to have been at least 10 minutes already. I groan and sit back against the mirror.

"Novaaaa!" I hear Ethan sing, walking into the room. "I'm ready, come out."

I excitedly jump off the counter and open the bathroom door. Nothing could have prepared me for what I'm looking at. A gasp escapes my lips and my hand flies to my mouth.

"Oh Ethan..." I trail off, tears forming in my eyes.

I should have ended at a different place because this kind of feels really long lmao.