She couldn't believe how much he'd changed.
Little, stringy, petulant Arthur, who'd smashed her sandcastles when he grew impatient and pulled her ponytail when he sensed he was losing an argument.
Most of the time they'd been the best of mates, their sides pressed against one another as they laid on their stomachs on the sun-bleached dock of his family's lake, dangling small nets over the edge, intent on catching the biggest insect they could find.
She remembered falling asleep against him, her head resting on his shoulder and his against her hair, skin warmed through from the incandescent summer sun.
No, she could barely believe this was the boy she had known. The man before her had such a captivating presence, such masculine vigor. He was the sort of fully formed male figure that might have made Michelangelo weep.
She was mesmerized by how the muscles in his back and shoulders shifted as he twisted around to catch the football against his knee; how the sun caught his hair in a glowing halo; how his smile brought a lightness to his bottomless blue eyes. She watched them twinkle as he laughed at something one of his mates said, and she admired the elegance of his gait, his neck, his hands.
How had he become this from the boy she'd known?
She wondered if she'd seem as different to him.
Only one way to find out, she supposed.
"Arthur?" She called out before she lost her nerve. The men were packing up their things and making to leave.
She saw his head jerk around, looking for the source of her voice. His eyes fell on her face and his smile faltered briefly. She could tell that he didn't immediately recognize her. He turned and said something to his friend, and the group of guys went on without him.
Arthur approached her slowly, and she could tell he was still trying to place her in his mind.
When he was close enough, she decided to help him out.
"It's me, Gwen." She didn't know why she suddenly felt so shy.
If she hadn't been so inexplicably nervous, she might have laughed at how his eyes widened and he seemed physically taken aback by this revelation.
"Guinevere? Is it really you?" His eyes poured over her, taking in her casual cut off jean short shorts and bikini top, her smooth, slightly frizzy curls pulled into a loose braid over her shoulder, trying to reconcile the woman she'd become with the little girl he used to play with.
She smiled and asked "how have you been?" for lack of a better idea of how to start a conversation with someone she hadn't seen or spoken to in 15 years.
Apparently fully convinced, he beamed at her and stepped forward to give her a massive hug. Pulling back he looked her over once again. "I can't believe it. What are you doing here? It's been so long…"
She looked down at her sandy feet shyly. "I know. I'm here on holiday, but I'm not sure how long I'll be staying."
Arthur shook his head, unable to suppress the grin on his face. "We've got some catching up to do."
She agreed.
"I dare you," he challenged her, looking down over the railing on the pier at the 15 foot drop into the water.
She looked at him, not in the least bit surprised. "Well, well, I see you haven't changed much, have you?" He was always trying to trick her into doing something dangerous.
"And you're still too afraid, aren't you?"
She scowled at him. "Am not. But it's a bit rough, don't you think?"
He looked at the slightly choppy waves and shrugged. "I've been in worse."
"Oh, now I'm quite impressed. So this is nothing to you?"
"Yeah, I'd do it," he proclaimed, showing off a little.
"Prove it." She smiled slyly, knowing she had him trapped. If there was still a shred of the young Arthur she knew all those years ago, she knew he would be too proud to refuse.
"Alright then." He agreed, promptly pulling off his sandals and setting them on the ground beside her. Hefting himself up onto the wide wooden railing, he dangled his feet over the side.
She'd be lying if she said she wasn't a little nervous for him, and she instinctively grabbed his forearm lest he slip right over the edge before he intended to.
"Hey," he chuckled, slowly pulling his arm out of her grasp. "It's no big deal. Watch, and learn."
She obediently stood back, observing anxiously as he drew himself up to stand on the railing which seemed somehow narrower to her now. If she weren't so nervous about something going horribly wrong, she might have been admiring the spectacular new view she had now been afforded of her old mate's incredible physique as he prepared to jump.
"Ready?" he asked her, sensing her anxiety.
She gave him what she hoped was a reassuring smile. He turned his head to look down briefly, then over his shoulder with a quick wink before he sprung off of the railing in a well-practiced dive.
She watched as he disappeared into the water below, and waited to see his golden head reappear.
And waited.
When 15 seconds had passed, she began to panic. Her eyes searched the water below frantically for any sign of him.
Suddenly, she saw his head break above the water, a little ways from where she had been searching.
He pushed the wet hair out of his eyes and looked up at her with a strange expression on his face.
"What is it?" she asked.
"Uhm…I may have lost something."
She gave him an impatient look that said, well?
She followed his gaze toward the shoreline where she saw a pair of crumpled shorts washed up in the sand, shallow waves lapping against the dark red fabric.
She doubled over in a fit of giggles. "You idiot!"
He had the humility to look a bit embarrassed, and she wondered how long she dared to drag this out.
In the end, she took pity on him treading there in the cold water, and made her way around the base of the pier to the shore to collect his trunks.
Wading in just above her knees, she called to him, "You're going to have to come a bit closer!"
Reluctantly, he advanced a few feet closer to her, but he was still out of reach. The water was becoming too shallow, and he was already bared to his belly button.
"This is as far as I'm coming," he insisted.
She sighed, residual giggles bubbling up as she contemplated the situation. "You know," she said, her breath catching a bit as she resigned herself to wading further into the frigid water and soaking her shorts, "I have seen you naked. We used to take baths together."
His eyebrows shot up, and he gave her a disbelieving expression. "I think…this is a little different, Guinevere."
She couldn't stop herself from laughing at him just then, and he made an exasperated face in response for her entertainment.
She stopped when the water reached her belly button. "Come here," she demanded.
Arthur was out of moves. She had his shorts, after all. It wasn't like he could go anywhere without them. He swished forward toward her until they were only a foot or so apart, stooping a little to compensate for the shallower water.
He reached out to retrieve the shorts from her hand, but before he could she had snatched them back behind her with a mischievous look in her eyes.
Without hesitating, he lunged forward, snaking his arms around her back and grasping at her hands, but he was unable to free the shorts from her wicked grip.
He suddenly realized he had only succeeded in bringing her closer against him, and he saw the realization dawn on her face a second later.
They both stilled, frozen in their precarious position.
She looked up at his face slowly, at the droplets dripping from his disheveled hair, down his chest, his nipples pebbled from the cold.
Turning her face up to his, she found she was only inches from his lips, and she saw that his eyes were intent on her lips.
"Guinevere," he said softly, not a little breathlessly.
She found this closeness extremely preoccupying, and she was afraid what she might do if she looked into his bold sapphire eyes for too long. She bit her lip, smiling slightly as she turned her head away.
Just then, she felt his hands loosen on hers behind her back, and would have mourned the absence but she felt them move to grab her waist in his strong grip instead, pulling her against him.
She felt his warm breath ghost across her face just before his lips covered hers, and she brought her own hands from behind her back to throw around his neck, still gripping his shorts.
She was lost in the sensuousness of his kiss, lips moving ardently against hers; the strong but soft muscle of his tongue massaging hers, exploring her mouth, taking her in.
Her body was plastered to his, one of his hands finding its way just to the top of her rear to pull her more firmly against him. Suddenly she was aware that she could feel everything.
Her mind was racing, not unlike her heart, trying to register all of the sensations of his hard, muscular body against hers. This was Arthur, after all. Arthur, the boy she had basked in the sun with, slung mud at, hid in the cupboards with when her mum got cross.
But this Arthur was all raw, masculine strength and beauty. She suddenly felt urges to do things with him, to him, she'd never dreamed she'd had the guts to do. Sliding her hands down his lower back, feeling the muscle and definition, she couldn't help herself from grabbing ahold of his backside, so muscular and bare and—
"Oh my god" she mumbled against his mouth in between kisses. "What are we doing?"
"Mmmm," came Arthurs response, "I don't care." He continued his frenzied worship of her mouth with his lips, and when she tried to tear her lips away from his, he changed focus to her neck instead, eventually settling where her neck met her shoulders.
"Ohhhh, god," Gwen let out an involuntary moan as he found just the spot that always set her nerves afire. His hands slid up and down her sides, caressing. She was afraid to acknowledge the ever-hardening heat she felt against her stomach.
"Arthur," she said, little more than a moan at first.
"Arthur." She repeated, trying to bring herself to her senses as much as him.
Arthur sighed deeply against her neck and dragged his head up to meet her gaze.
Her eyelids fluttered open just as reluctantly, her hands sliding back up over his back, his chest.
She could tell he was waiting for her to say something.
What had she been about to say, anyway? That this was crazy? That they were in public? That they should spend more time getting to know each other again?
Somehow, she didn't care about any of these things. She wasn't sure why she had felt the to need to interrupt what was quickly becoming one of the most exciting encounters of her life.
"We should…" she started to say, but she could see him bracing himself for disappointment, his hands still clutching at her waist.
"We should do this somewhere else," she finished, a wide grin spreading over her features. A matching grin broke out on his face a moment later.
"Well then…" he said flirtatiously, "can I please have my shorts back?"
She glanced down at the water where his arousal might have been on display had they not stumbled a few inches into deeper water during their frantic exploration of each other.
Glancing back up at him with a wicked grin, she said "only for a bit."
He widened his eyes at her in mock scandal as he took them from her hands and she turned away, affecting modesty with a small chuckle.
The water splashed up against her back as he pulled his shorts on quickly, and she started to wade away from him slowly, toward the shore.
"Oh no, you don't!" she heard his grumble from behind her, and suddenly she was locked tightly against him, her back against his chest, his arms holding firmly to her waist.
She felt his breath tickle at her neck as he bent his head to her ear. "I'm going to make you pay for this," he whispered darkly against her ear, and by the warm wetness of his tongue on her neck and the impossibly hard thickness of him pressing against her backside, she believed him. She felt heat and moisture of a different kind seep between her legs, and she shivered in anticipation.
Removing his arms from around her, he took a moment to adjust himself before running ahead of her, splashing through the water toward the shore.
"You coming?" he called over his shoulder as he reached the solid shore at last.
"Definitely." She said to herself, surging forward to catch up.
She was going to enjoy reacquainting herself with her playmate.
A/N: My first story, so any feedback would be much appreciated!