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I kissed him back, my hands sliding from his thigh to his chest, my touch turning needy.

For a handful of seconds, nothing else existed. Not the chlorine smell or the echo of the pool room or the fact that this was the most unprofessional thing I’d ever done. Just his mouth on mine and the way his other hand moved to the small of my back, steadying me in the water.

Brashe Kedish was kissing me like he really meant it. Tongue ridges really were special.

The water made everything feel suspended, dreamlike, but the kiss was very, very real.

His hands found my waist beneath the water, spanning my ribs, pulling me closer until there was no space left between us. The buoyancy made everything weightless, and it was easy to wrap my legs around his hips, to feel him hard against my core through the thin barrier of our swimsuits.

He groaned into my mouth, the sound vibrating through my chest.

I should stop this.

Instead, I rocked against him, chasing the friction, my fingers digging into his arms. His hands slid lower, gripping my thighs, adjusting the angle until⁠—

My moan rang out.

“Right there?” he murmured against my lips.

I couldn’t speak. I could only nod and move against him, the water sloshing between us with every shift of our bodies. His thumb moved higher on my inner thigh, and my mind short-circuited, every nerve ending I possessed redirected to that single point of contact. I forgot how to breathe. How to think. How to do anything except feel.

“Tell me to stop,” he said again, his breath ragged. “Tell me and I will.”

I didn’t. I couldn’t.

His fingers brushed over the fabric, finding my clit through it, and I bit down on his arm to keep from crying out. The pressure was maddening. Not enough. Too much. Exactly what I needed.

“Ellie.” My name came out broken. His hips rolled against mine, and heat shot through me so fast I gasped.

I should stop this. I knew I should stop this.

When he stroked my clit, I lost whatever focus I might’ve been clinging to.

An orgasm roared through me, and I shuddered in his arms, rocking against him while he thrust against me.

A door closed somewhere above us. The locker room, maybe. Or the gym.

Reality crashed back.

I pulled back, breathless, my hands still pressed against his chest. “We need to… I need to finish the session.”

He studied my face, still breathing hard. “Right. The session.”

We separated, him with a hard-on thrusting against his shorts, me with limp limbs, buzzing from the orgasm he’d given me.

“We can’t—We shouldn’t⁠—”

“You’re right,” he said.

We got through the rest of the exercises in charged silence. Every time I touched him to adjust his position, the air crackled. Every time our eyes met, I saw the pool kiss reflected back at me, and my limbs went limp all over again.

When we finished, I climbed out first, wrapping a towel around myself quickly.

“Continue the hip mobility work,” I said, falling into business mode because it was the only thing I knew how to do. “I want you in this pool doing three sets, twice a day.”

“Will do.”

“And don’t skip the adductor squeezes just because they’re boring.”