CHAPTER TEN #3
Before I could react, before I could even register the shift of water against my torso, Riley’s hand shot out beneath the surface with a single, precise movement.
A soft snap echoed through the quiet.
I gasped.
The pressure around my ribs vanished. A ripple traveled across my chest as the fabric loosened.
He didn’t grab my skin.
He didn’t touch anything he wasn’t supposed to.
He simply stole the string.
And my bikini top floated up between us like some fragile sea creature, caught between his fingers.
“Riley,” I breathed, horror and heat crashing together.
“Relax,” he murmured, lifting the small scrap of fabric into the warm night air. Droplets ran down his wrist, glinting in the starlight. “You’re covered by the water. Mostly.”
“Give it back.”
“Of course.”
He twirled it around his finger like a prize he had just won at a carnival. “For a price.”
My pulse hammered. “I’m not playing this game.”
“You already are.” His voice dipped, smooth as deep ocean water. “You came into the pool with me. You let me touch you. You let me tell you what you look like when you lie.”
“That doesn’t mean I owe you anything.”
“No,” he agreed, eyes gleaming. “But it means you’ll bargain.”
“I won’t.”
“You will.”
I lunged for the top, but he simply lifted his arm higher, the move effortless, almost lazy. I couldn’t reach it without rising out of the water, and he knew it.
Of course he knew it.
“Riley,” I hissed. “Seriously. Stop.”
He took a slow step toward me, closing the distance until the heat of his chest hovered inches from my face.
“One kiss,” he murmured, the words brushing my skin like a whisper shaped only for me. “Just one. Then you can have this back.”
“No.”
“Not even a small one?” His voice dripped sugar and sin. “Right here.” He tapped a finger to the corner of his mouth, eyes glittering. “Tiny. Harmless. Barely counts.”
“I said no.”
He laughed, low and soft and unhurried, the sound sliding down my spine. “You’re adorable when you’re stubborn.”
“This isn’t stubborn,” I snapped. “This is me refusing to let you own me.”
His smile sharpened, a flicker of something darker shifting beneath it. “I don’t need a kiss to own you.”
I froze.
The words hit harder than they should have.
Because they felt true.
Because he wanted them to feel true.
He watched the reaction slide across my face, and instead of smirking, he softened. The smallest bit. Enough to confuse me again. Enough to make my pulse tangle with my breath.
Then he lifted the bikini top gently and tucked it behind him in the water.
“Fine,” he murmured. “Keep your kiss.”
Relief hit me so fast it nearly buckled me.
“But,” he added, voice silken and cruel all over again, “I’ll keep this for now. Think of it as collateral.”
“Riley!”
He grinned, wicked and triumphant. “Relax. I’ll give it back… eventually.”
And with that, he drifted backward, disappearing into the shadows cast by the pool’s edge, leaving me half submerged, half furious, and entirely aware that he was in control again.
Not because he took my bikini top.
But because he had made me fear, for one dangerous moment, that I might have given him the kiss if he had pushed a little harder.
For a beat, I stayed frozen in the water, heart thundering beneath the rippling surface like it was trying to break free. The night seemed to warp around me, the stars smearing, the torches flickering as if they, too, felt the sudden shift in energy.
He had taken my top.
And walked away.
Not far, just to the shadowed corner where the pool met the low stone wall, the water deeper there, darker, swallowing half his body. He leaned against the edge with casual arrogance, the stolen bikini top wrapped loosely around one of his fingers.
Waiting.
Watching.
Inviting.
Mocking.
My cheeks burned with humiliation, anger, and something more treacherous. Something that made the water feel too warm, my skin too tight.
I had two options.
Stay here and let him win.
Or follow him and… what? Fight him? Rip it from his hands?
My pulse answered for me.
I swam toward him.
Each stroke sent a shiver of cool water over my bare chest, reminding me exactly how exposed I was. The surface tension clung to my skin, making me hyperaware of every movement. I kept myself submerged to the collarbone, but he watched every inch that shifted beneath the water.
By the time I reached him, I was shaking. Not with fear, but fury so sharp it felt like a second heartbeat.
“Give. It. Back.” My voice wasn’t loud. It didn’t need to be.
He lifted his gaze from the water to my face, his expression unreadable for a moment. Too calm. Too composed.
Then he grinned.
“You came all the way over here.” His voice was a low purr. “I’m flattered.”
“I’m warning you.”
“Are you?” He tilted his head as if genuinely curious. “Because I don’t feel warned.”
I reached for the hand behind his back where I knew he was hiding the top.
Riley moved instantly.
He didn’t push me.
He didn’t grab me.
He simply shifted forward.
Just enough.
Our torsos collided, my bare chest pressing fully, intimately, shockingly against the heat of his body. Skin to skin beneath the water.
The sensation was electric. Violent.
My breath caught in a soundless gasp.
His breath hitched, barely, a fraction of a reaction, but unmistakable. His hands didn’t touch me, yet the nearness felt like an embrace pinned together by water and want.
“Careful,” he whispered, voice turning molten. “You’re the one touching me.”
“I didn’t—”
The words broke apart. My mind blanked.
My breasts were flush against his chest, soft against solid heat, rising and falling with my frantic breaths.
His heartbeat thudded steadily against me, too close, too real.
The contact was full, inescapable, terrifying.
I tried to retreat.
He didn’t let me.
He didn’t grab me, he would not give me that kind of clarity. He simply shifted his hips the slightest bit, controlling the water, forcing our bodies to stay aligned even as I tried to lean back.
The water made him impossible to escape.
“Riley—” My voice sounded wrecked.
“You came to fight,” he murmured, eyes locked to mine. “Now you’re trembling.”
“I’m not—”
“You are.” He leaned closer, not touching me with anything but the barest brush of his breath. “And you want to know the worst part? I like it.”
That broke me.
Not entirely.
Just enough.
“Stop,” I whispered, the word strangled. “Please.”
The shift was immediate.
His smirk didn’t disappear, but something in his posture loosened. Not kindness.
Not remorse.
Restraint.
He stepped back.
Just an inch.
But it was enough. The water slid between us like a gasp of cold air, separating my skin from his, letting shock and humiliation hit me in one crushing wave.
I recoiled as if burned, covering my chest with an arm as I scrambled backward through the water, breath shaking.
Riley didn’t chase me.
He didn’t apologize either.
He simply lifted my bikini top again, letting it drip from his fingers.
“Whenever you’re ready, princess.” Soft. Dangerous. “You know where to find me.”
I fled from him, the water trembling around me, the night too loud in my ears, my heartbeat a frantic, mortifying anthem.
And behind me, his quiet laugh followed like a warm, velvety hand at my spine.
Like a promise.
A threat.
A warning.
I didn’t swim so much as escape.
The water felt thicker now, clinging to my skin like a second shame as I pushed toward the nearest ladder.
Every small sound seemed magnified. The soft slosh of my movements, the faint tremor of my breath, the distant throb of music drifting from the resort bar.
All of it echoed inside me, too loud, too raw.
My arm stayed glued across my chest, fingers locked so tight my knuckles ached.
My legs trembled when they found the pool steps.
I climbed out slowly, carefully, trying to be silent even though every drip of water from my skin felt like a shout.
The night air hit me like a slap, cool and merciless on my exposed skin.
Goosebumps raced across my torso, not from the temperature but from the dizzying intensity of what had just happened.
I didn’t look back.
I couldn’t.
But I felt him behind me.
His stare.
His awareness.
His victory.
The resort grounds stretched in long, polished pathways of pale stone, lit by soft torches and buried lamps that cast warm pools of light on the ground. I had never felt more visible. More bare. Every inch of me felt exposed, shaken open, rearranged.
I kept my head down and moved fast, hugging the shadows, pressing into the palm-lined edges of the path.
My wet hair clung to my shoulders. My feet slapped quietly against the stones.
I ducked behind a tall hedge when a couple walked past, laughing softly, arms linked. I held my breath until their voices faded, my heart pounding so violently I worried it would give me away.
For one terrifying second, I imagined Riley following me.
Not loudly.
Not taunting.
Just… appearing.
Silent.
Amused.
Waiting to watch me unravel all over again.
I almost heard his voice, low in my ear: Running away already, Luna?
I bit down hard on the inside of my cheek, just to ground myself.
My room was farther than I remembered. The walk felt endless, every step a frantic countdown.
I kept seeing flashes of the pool, the moment my chest collided with his, the impossibly warm drag of his skin against mine.
The way the water had trapped me against him.
The quiet hunger in his eyes when he thought I couldn’t see it.
A shiver tore through me.
I hated him.
And worse, I hated the part of me that hadn’t pulled away fast enough.
I fumbled with the key the second I reached my door, hurrying, shaking, practically falling into the room the second the lock clicked open.
I slammed it shut, not loudly, but firmly, and pressed my back against it, breathing hard, chest heaving, dripping water onto the polished hardwood floor.
Only then did the shame finally hit me full force.
My bikini top was still in his hands.
Against his skin.
Carried with him.
Claimed.
A scorching, humiliated heat crawled up my throat and into my cheeks.
I wrapped my arms around myself, sinking down onto the floor, drawing my knees to my chest, trying to quiet the riot inside me.
I wasn’t just mortified.
I was shaken.
Shaken by him.
By myself.
By the fact that, for a moment in that water, I had forgotten to be afraid.
And that terrified me more than anything Riley could ever do.