“You didn’t come back up,” I accuse.
“Didn’t I?” She laughs, “Or did you just not see me?”
She releases me so I can spin on her, grabbing her again when she tries to move away. Her legs return around my waist, water clinging to her lashes and the corners of her mouth.
“I just swam over there.” She points to a dip in the rock edge. From where I was standing, I never would have seen her come back up.
“You did that on purpose,” I accuse.
“I did.” She admits without hesitation, her hands coming up to push away the hair that’s fallen over my forehead. “And I’m not sorry.”
“Sweetheart,” I sigh.
“You’re not yourself, Roman.” She kisses the corner of my mouth. “I know you’re stressed and you’re worried.”
“They closed it.” I tell her.
“What?”
“The investigation on my dad and your accident. Not enough evidence.”
“That’s bullshit,” She snaps.
“When does it end?” I ask her, “When it’s too late, and he’s got to you? When he’s got the ranch?”
“He willneverget the ranch.”
I keep it to myself that I’ve considered handing it over, just to get him to stop. I would be willing to if it meant she would be safe from his reach.
“We have to keep living.” She sighs before kissing me again. “You taught me that.”
“Did I now?”
“Mmhmm,” She nods, “I wasn’t doing that before.”
“And jumping off cliffs is what living is?” I challenge.
“It’s hardly a cliff,” She chuckles, “I just wanted you in with me. Feels good, doesn’t it?”
“Not sure having a heart attack feels good,” I answer her gruffly.
Releasing her legs from my waist, she giggles as she swims away from me, toward my hat floating on top of the water. I hadn’t removed it after I jumped in after her.
She plucks it off the water and puts it on her head, water running down her face as she meets my eyes.
A new kind of heat blooms through me, seeing her so damn free, with that smile on her face and my hat on her head. She’s the perfect mix of sunshine and storm, chaos and calm that makes it impossible not to notice her.
“You ever heard of the rule, sweetheart?” I swim toward her, but she slowly swims back, toward the falls.
“What rule?” The glimmer in her eye tells me she knows exactly what I’m talking about, her lips slightly parted as she watches me advance on her.
“You wear the hat,” I rasp, almost close enough to catch her. “You ride the cowboy.”
“Is that right?” She stops just shy of the falls and stands, the water stopping just below her shoulders. I come up ahead of her and rise to my full height, fingers skirting up the dip at her waist and then toward her back where I can grasp the strings on her bikini.
“That’s right,” I confirm as I tug the strings hard enough that they fall loose. She gasps when I pull the bikini off her and hold it in my fist, my eyes dropping to her chest. The water laps against her skin, and a moan slips from her when I move my free hand to cup her breast, thumb rolling over her peaked nipple.
I lean in to seal my mouth over hers, pressing our bodies together in the water, my cock jerking behind the soaked material of my jeans. She feels it, slipping a hand between us to cup me, stroking the outline of my dick through my pants.
