The underwater lights cast a glow upward, illuminating his face in stark relief. His hazel eyes looked greener in this light, dilated and dark. It was the same lingering look I’d caught before in the car, in the locker room, the one I always told myself was Cal sizing me up as an opponent. A coworker. A rival.
Except this time, with the steam curling around us and the water pressing our clothes against our skin, there was no denying it.
My breath hitched in my throat. The air between us felt suddenly thin, charged with a static that made my skin prickle under the water. He drifted closer, the water doing the work for him, until his knees bumped against mine beneath the surface. He didn’t pull back.
I don’t know where my head went, or where Silas Reed, the man of control, of discipline, disappeared to. The logic center of my brain simply shut down.
Without thinking, driven by an instinct I had spent months burying, I lunged forward.
I crashed my lips onto Cal’s.
He let out a faint, shocked huff against my mouth, a sharp intake of breath, but he didn’t pull away. For a split second, it was just the shock of contact. Wet lips. Stubble burn. The taste of chlorine and something distinctlyCal.
Then, the dam broke.
He didn’t just accept it; he claimed it. He pulled me closer, his hands splashing the water to grip my waist, his fingers digging into my skin like he needed to anchor himself. He deepened the kiss instantly, opening his mouth, his tongue sweeping against mine with a heat that rivaled the water around us.
It was urgent. Messy. Starved.
It was the kiss of two men who had been circling each other for months, pretending the gravity didn’t exist.
I groaned low in my throat, the sound swallowed by his mouth. My hands found their way to his shoulders, the wet skin slippery under my palms, before sliding up into his soaking wet hair. I tugged, tilting his head back, devouring him.
I pulled away first, gasping for air, my chest heaving against his. I stared at him, wide eyed, the reality of what I’d just done crashing down on me.
I just kissed Callum fucking Kincaid.
Cal’s face mirrored mine, pupils blown wide, lips swollen and red, water dripping from his chin. It was like we were both looking to one another for confirmation that the world hadn’t just ended.
A small smirk ghosted across Cal’s lips. Not his typical arrogance. Not the sharp, jagged grin he wore to get under my skin. This was soft. Dark. Possessive.
He gave a small nod, as if answering a question I hadn’t asked. His hands slid from my waist to the small of my back, and he guided me backward through the water until my shoulders hit the concrete wall of the pool.
“Finally,” he whispered, his voice a wrecked rasp.
He leaned in and kissed me again.
This time, I didn’t just let it happen. I met him. I didn’t fight it. I didn’t want to. Because fuck, this felt addicting.Hefelt addicting.
My hands snaked into Cal’s hair, gripping the strands, pulling him up towards me. The second I did that, he groaned, a vibration I felt against my chest. His movements shifted, getting rougher, less careful. He pressed his hips against mine under the water, the friction of our soaked shorts maddening. He kissed me like he was angry at the time we’d wasted, like he wanted to consume the air from my lungs until I was drowning in nothing but him.
I felt myself whimper into the kiss.
A whimper? I’dneverfucking done that.
I was Silas Reed. I was silent. I was controlled. But the sound clawed its way out of my throat, pathetic and needy, lost in the wet heat between our mouths.
Cal’s hands trailed up my back, his nails dragging across my slick skin, sending violent shivers racking through my entire existence. And fuck, my cock was rock hard between us, throbbing to the point it ached against the compression of the wet fabric. But that wasn’t the part dazing me. It was the fact I could feel Calagainst me, just as hard, the rigid length of him pressing into my hip, proving he was feeling the exact same pain as myself.
“We should—get—back—to the room,” I said breathlessly, the words broken between frantic, wet kisses.
Cal had started trailing nips and open-mouthed kisses down the side of my neck, sucking at the sensitive skin right below my ear. I felt like my body was going to explode. I squeezed his bicep, my fingers digging in hard enough to bruise. He let out a low, growl into the side of my neck at my words, the vibration sending a shockwave straight to my groin.
He dropped a hand between us.
I gasped as he traced his fingers across the waistband of my shorts. He didn’t go lower. He just lingered there, his thumb brushing the elastic, teasing, waiting for the okay to do more. Waiting for me to break.
“Cal…” I said with a small moan, my head falling back against the concrete wall of the pool. His fingertips felt electric brushing across my hip bones.
