“Finn.” His voice rumbled through the short distance that separated us, competing with the crash of the waves as they rolled up on the shore.
I swallowed. “Um, yeah?”
“What are you waiting for?”
“Right, sorry…” I cleared my throat and turned to hit the water.
A strong hand wrapped around my bicep, jerking me back to face him.
I tripped and fell into him. Suddenly, my palm was flat against his warm chest as I tried to steady myself. My fingers grazed his nipple, and I watched in fascination as it hardened… just like a girl’s nipple would.
My mouth watered, and I licked my lips before peeking back up at him.
He brushed his thumb against my bicep in what felt like averyintentional way and leaned down, pressing his mouth close to my ear.
“Don’t drown,” he whispered, and my scalp tingled as his hot breath caressed the side of my neck.
Then, without warning, he shoved me away from him, and I stumbled ungracefully into the water.
He watched me swim out with that same unreadable expression on his face, and I had never been so grateful to be in the ocean as I was at that moment.
As long as I was in here, the evidence of the strange effect he seemed to have on my body was just between me and the waves.
After the first hour, when I showed no signs of tiring, he made me do another sixty minutes.
Then another.
Until I reallydidalmost drown.
He had to come in and get me when my arms stopped working, and I could barely keep myself afloat.
I choked and spat out the seawater I’d swallowed as he dragged me unceremoniously back to the beach and tossed me effortlessly into the sand.
Pushing myself up on shaky arms, I coughed and winced at how exhausted I was.
“I feel like I’m going to die.”
“Stop being so dramatic.You’re not going to die.”
“Dude, I just killed myself out there for three hours, and you still seem pissed with me or something!”
I peered up at him, squinting against the sun’s blaring heat to try to make out his face as he towered over me.
“I just had to save you from drowning on day one, Finn. What did you think? I was going to give you a reward?”
I scowled at him, the first nips of anger finally starting to overtake me.
I shakily got to my feet, blinking away the dark spots swimming across my vision.
“I was doing high-intensity laps forthree hours,Riddick! Anyone would have a hard time with that!”
His eyes flashed, but that was the only indication he gave that I’d pissed him off. If I was being honest, I’m pretty sure he wasalreadypissed off. He was pissed at me before he even sent me out into the ocean.
A small, insecure part of me wondered if it was because I had admitted to touching myself, and this was some sort of weird punishment for disobeying his super vague order that I still wasn’t even sure was actually an order.
Suddenly, he was crowding me. I took a few shaky steps back, but he cuffed my throat. He didn’t squeeze as hard as he had the day before, and if I didn’t know any better, I would say he was being careful not to aggravate the mild bruise that now marked my throat from the rough way he’d handled me in the shack.
“You think three hours is a lot?”
