A spark of heat shoots straight up my spine.
We both keep our eyes forward, pretending it didn’t happen.
“Oh God, it’s freezing!” she squeals, knees jerking up as the water hits. “I’m not lasting more than two minutes in here!”
This is fucking torture.
I hover nearby under the excuse of safety. But the truth is I can’t not watch her.
Her joy is back in full force. She swims around the boat like she’s discovered a whole new world, diving down to peer at whatever’s moving beneath the surface.
I tread water closer, unable to help myself.
“This is amazing,” she breathes before slipping under again.
She bursts back up, shrieking and thrashing toward me. “Oh my God, what is that?”
I spot the flash—a school of mackerel, dozens moving as one. “Mackerel. They’re harmless. Just curious about what we’re doing in their territory.”
She looks sheepish. “Sorry for being jumpy.”
“Nothing to apologize for.”
“I think I need to get out,” she says, teeth chattering. “I can’t feel my organs anymore.”
She reaches the ladder first, pulling herself up slowly. Each rung shifts the soaked fabric higher, red material disappearing between curves until I’m seeing far more than I should.
Halfway up, her hand shoots back, yanking at the fabric that’s ridden up. A little wedgie fix, done self-consciously, like she knows exactly how bare her ass looks from where I’m floating and hates that I can see it.
She should hate it. Because I’m definitely bloody looking.
I grit my teeth, force my gaze to the rocks, and count to three before following her up the ladder.
By the time I haul myself over the side, she’s peeled off the life jacket. Water runs off her in streams, and she’s shaking hard, arms wrapped tight across her chest. But it does nothing to hide the nipples pressing taut against the red fabric.
Brilliant idea, this swimming trip. Right up there with that time I ate petrol station oysters and spent two days wishing for death.
I grab towels from the storage bin, and wrap one around her shoulders without meeting her eyes. “Better?”
She nods, then winces, looking down.
I follow her gaze to her knee, where a thin line of blood trickles down her leg.
“When did that happen?” I frown, crouching down to get a better look at the cut.
“I just clipped it on the boat getting in,” she says with a shrug. “It’s fine.”
“It’s not fine if you’re bleeding.” The cut isn’t deep, but it’s enough to make my jaw clench. I should’ve been watching her more carefully.
I retrieve the first-aid kit from the cabin, then drop to one knee on the deck. “Don’t move.”
“It’s not exactly a frostbitten dead toe,” she says with a quick, breathy laugh.
I rip open an antiseptic wipe. “You’ll live to see another day but I want to make sure this is clean, all the same.”
I clean it slowly. Carefully. Which puts me at the worst possible angle—her crotch right in my eyeline. One tilt of my head and I’d be staring straight at the shape of her through red fabric.
My thumb presses against her calf to steady her leg. When I glance up to check if I’m hurting her, she stares down at me like I just dragged her from a shipwreck instead of patching a scrape. It’s so much worse than someone trying to seduce me on purpose.
