Read Waves of Love (Surf’s Up Book 1) for Free Online Page A

“Seriously, Sage, we don’t have to do this.”
                  She nodded, reaching dutifully for her board. “I want to,” she said. “I’m just being a baby.”
                  “I was scared my first time, too,” he offered.
                  “Yeah?” Her expression was hopeful.
                  “Then again, I actually was a baby at the time, so…”
              She slapped him playfully with her free hand. “Yeah, well, I feel like a baby about all this…”
                  They paused at the water’s edge, the surfboard feeling comfortable in his arm, hers looking jaunty and awkward. The sea foam fizzled around their feet and he turned to her, looking slightly down into her nervous green eyes. “So I’ll give you a break,” she said, his heart warming as her eyes gleamed hopefully.
                  “Yeah?”
                  “Yeah, just… for this first session, we’ll go out, catch some waves but you don’t have to stand up if you don’t want.”
                  “For real?”
                  Derek chuckled. “By the way, you never have to do anything you don’t want to do, but today especially, you don’t have to stand up if you don’t feel like it.”
                  Her smiled turned vaguely suspicious, and absolutely charming. “What do you mean, ‘ if I don’t feel like it?’” she asked. “I can tell you right now I don’t feel like it.”
                  He took another step in the water, knowing she’d follow without realizing it. Then another, and another. “I just have a feeling you’ll feel like it, is all.”
                  She shook her head. “Boogie boarding with a surfboard sounds much better to me.”
                  “Okay,” he said, before teaching her how to ride the board under, not over, a wave. She held her breath and scooped under the wave, dutifully, popping out on the other side wet, glistening and mighty proud of herself.
                  “I did it!” she squealed and he made a sarcastic little golf clap.
                  “Great,” he said, nodding toward another approaching wave. “Now get ready to do it about twelve more times!”
                  The wave caught her off guard but she was tough and quickly rebounded, taking the next few sets easily until, by the time they reached the calm flank between the crashing waves and those merely cresting, Sage looked like an old pro.
                  He coached her on how to climb atop her board before easing into a sitting position and, after a few slide-offs and one hilarious “fall off,” she quickly got the hang of that, too.
                  They sat there, the afternoon sun lazy and soft on their backs, feeling the lull of the waves beneath their boards. “Can’t we just stay here all day?” she asked, hair wet and damp on her shoulders, body glowing and moist.
                  “If you want,” he said, thinking he’d like nothing more. “Many is the day when I get out here, look back on the beach, and let the ocean lull me into a vegetative state.”
                  She was looking over at him, their boards so close their knees were almost touching, nodding at him. “Sounds nice,” she said, murmuring softly and nodding gently. “But that’s not quite surfing, is it?”
                  “Not quite,” he agreed. “But a pretty awesome perk.”
                  She nodded and turned, Derek following suit. He saw the crest of a nice, smooth, soft wave coming from behind them, the kind he could ride in his sleep. “Looks like a good—” he started to say as she laid down on her board and, as they’d practiced for nearly twenty minutes on the beach, started paddling to catch the