She shook her head. “No, I need to face this. I can’t … I need to stop letting the past rule my life.” She unlinked her hands, and reluctantly, I let her go. I could hold her for a day … for a month … longer … and it would still not feel like enough.
“It doesn’t have to be today. If you want to come back and?—”
“No. It needs to be now. If I leave, I’ll have to psych myself up to come back. Better to rip the Band-Aid off, yes?”
I smiled softly. “Whatever you need, Catnip. I’m here. And I promise you’re not going to die today.”
She returned my smile with a tentative one of her own, sending a shot of heat straight to my chest. She unwrapped herself from the towel. “Just stay with me, okay?”
No words would make it past the thickness in my throat, so I nodded, taking the towel and returning it to the bleachers. I gripped her hand and took that first step into the water.
She hissed as she followed, her fingers tightening on mine, but as I slowly descended, she stayed with me.
“Pizda, it’s freezing!” she gasped when the water hit the bottom of her swimsuit. “How far up your torso are your balls right now, Henry?” Something loosened inside my chest. If she could make a joke, she was going to be okay.
“Approximately sternum level,” I replied, earning myself a heart-melting, if slightly nervous, grin.
When we reached the ledge, I stopped her. “It’s deep here. This is as far as you can go and still touch the bottom.”
She took a deep, fortifying breath. “It’s okay. I’m okay. It’s different. I can swim this time.”
I gave her hand a reassuring squeeze. “You can. Better than me, I might add. Do you want me to go first? Or?—”
“No, I can do this.” She extricated her hand from my grip, gliding out into the deep water. The only sound she made was a short gasp as her chest submerged. And then she tugged her goggles down over her eyes, her lips set in a determined line, and pushed off from the end of the pool.
Her gliding stroke was like moving art as she cut elegantly through the water at warm-up pace. A ridiculous grin burst onto my face as I followed her down the pool towards the shallow end.
I hit the wall with my palm and stood, water sluicing from me. Itugged my goggles off to find Ri panting, staring back towards the far end of the Olympic-sized pool.
“I did it,” she muttered, a slow smile spreading across her face. “I did it!” Her ocean blue eyes found mine, and I beamed at her.
“You did it, Catnip.”
She launched herself into my arms, and I barely had time to scoop her against my body when her mouth fused to mine.
Caught off-guard, my brain short circuited, and I met her enthusiasm with my own, moulding my mouth to hers. When my tongue sought entrance, her lips parted all too willingly, her tongue matching mine, stroke for stroke. Her damp body warmed against mine, her legs wrapped tight around my waist. My fingers dug into the toned flesh of her backside, clutching her closer to me.
She made that perfect little moan into my mouth, and every nerve ending in me lit up like the Opera House during Vivid. This was heaven. I had died, and her in my arms was my eternal paradise.
“Such a brave girl,” I rasped against her lips before taking her mouth greedily once more. She responded by tilting her hips, as if to find a way to get closer to me, and I sent out a silent ‘thank you’ that the water was waist deep because my body was reacting violently to the heat of her against my groin.
“Maybe take the fudging foreplay down a notch—there’s a kid nearby!”
I tore my mouth from Ri’s, panting and flushed, searching for the owner of the voice. It came from a tall, tattooed man in the lane beside us. Elbows casually resting on the pool edge, he smirked. “She’s not even one yet, I was kind of hoping to hold off on the birds and the bees chat for a few years at least.”
“Sorry!” Ri blurted, wading closer. “I just overcame a lifelong fear of drowning in cold water, and the adrenaline rush went to my head.” She wrapped an arm around my waist, and I slung mine over her shoulder.
Adrenaline rush … I was having an overdose on dopamine, oxytocin and serotonin. My body felt limp and heated and all I wanted was to wrap her up, carry her out of the pool and continue where we’d left off, out of sight of this smirking dad.
“Levi! Leave the poor couple alone. Lily is sleeping.”
I peered up, squinting to get the woman who had called down to him into focus. A pretty, curvy blonde. She smiled down at the man, shaking her head as she rocked back and forwards, a baby strapped to her chest in a carrier.
“Oh, my God! You’re Levi Fox!” Ri squawked beside me. I wrinkled my nose. The name sounded familiar, but I couldn’t place where I knew it from. Ri elbowed me. “He’s an Olympian!” she hissed.
I turned back to the man. “Swimming?”
Ri grated, “Rowing!” in my ear. Her fingers tightened at my waist. She was practically vibrating with excitement, and a tiny piece of my heart broke for her.
