Chapter 23 #2
“It’s either this,” I interrupt, speaking over my shoulder, “or running in the freezing rain, but didn’t you say you’d be more flexible?”
Again, he goes quiet. It’s not the kind of silence I’ve come to associate with him, which is heavy with annoyance or judgement. This is something quieter. Something that feels like he’s actually thinking about me instead of defaulting to his preconceived notions.
I’d wondered whether yesterday was his attempt to “make it up to me” and once his conscience was clear, he’d go back to being an asshole, maybe without the insults regarding my intelligence. That doesn’t seem to be the case, though.
Interesting. He really is trying.
I shouldn’t get my hopes up. It hasn’t even been a full forty-eight hours since he apologized for his attitude, and who knows if this newfound peace will hold.
We do seem unusually good at getting under one another’s skin, and maybe this time next week, we’ll be back to Dictator Damien and Bratty Blair.
“I did say that,” Mallory admits at last with a hint of regret, as if keeping such a promise is much more difficult than he expected in the present situation.
Even so, the tiny admittance feels like a victory as I dip my toes into the pool, letting out a breath of pleasure at the feeling of the warm water on my clammy skin.
I’ve been avoiding this place. In the month since I arrived at Thornhurst, I haven’t come down here even once, too lost in my spiral of depression and hatred of Mallory to indulge in anything that I actually enjoy.
I’m hyperaware of his eyes on me as I lower myself onto the topmost step. The warm water laps at my calves, soothing muscles that have ached for weeks, and by the time the heat reaches my hips, I feel my shoulders releasing tension I hadn’t realized they were holding.
How had I forgotten how good, how safe, this room used to feel?
I sink lower with a happy sigh, letting the water rise to my collarbones, as I finally lift my gaze to where Mallory is standing.
Staring.
Not at the pool, or the stone ceiling, or the lights. At me.
He blinks, tearing his eyes away when he realizes I’ve caught him, jaw tightening as he runs a hand through his already messy hair.
“Are you getting in?” I call, my voice carrying through the chamber in the same melodic, echoing song. “Or is swimming laps instead of running them a little too flexible for you?”
His eyes cut to mine. “It might be.”
“You need therapy.”
This retort prompts a bark of laughter. “Probably.” He admits it so dryly that I find myself smiling, holding back a laugh of my own as—finally—he bends to remove his shoes.
I sink lower in the water, letting it cover my lips as I watch Mallory undress.
This is different, heavier than it felt to see his body before.
During those unforgettable moments we shared in his cottage, I can barely remember him taking his clothes off.
I’d been too far gone, too unbelievably desperate for him to fuck me, after the heaven and hell he’d just unleashed on my pussy.
At the thought of our one and only sexual encounter, I press my thighs together beneath the surface of the water, watching as Mallory strips off his shoes, socks, and zip-up coat.
He’s methodical about it, putting each sock in its appropriate shoe, and folding his jacket before putting it on the bench beside my things.
When the compression shirt goes next, though, I find my mouth suddenly bone dry.
Good Lord. This was such a bad idea. I didn’t need to see… all that again.
My recollections of Mallory’s body were, unfortunately, very accurate.
His chest is broad and well defined, without being obnoxiously muscular.
Dark hair is dusted over the center and trails down to beneath the waistband of his sweatpants, an honest-to-god happy trail that I instantly imagine tracing with my fingers.
He has tattoos, too. Above his heart, there are several lines of slanting, cursive script–impossible to read from here—and on his bicep, I see the corner of what I remember is an anchor.
There’s another one too, a curving ocean wave on his upper right flank, but I’m too distracted to appreciate how beautiful the aging ink looks on his skin, because the pants go next.
The temperature of the water seems to rise by degrees as Mallory folds his sweats and lays them carefully with our other things. He doesn’t look at me as he moves to the edge of the pool, following me into the water in nothing but black boxer briefs, which cling to his strong thighs.
Thighs that strained when he was fucking me, and… oh, fuck.
I am not okay.
In the interest of self-preservation, I turn away, my cheeks burning as I push off toward the far end of the pool, eager to put as much distance between us as possible.
Mallory seems to be thinking along the same lines, because he diverts to the opposite end, meeting my eyes across twenty yards of shimmering, greenish water.
“Twenty laps, then break,” he calls, apparently recovering his sense of superiority and authoritarianism.
Finally, I thought there might be something seriously wrong for him to go two whole days without barking an order at me.
I don’t argue, though.
Where running is new, and my muscles seem to pull back against it, swimming seems almost effortless.
I haven’t been in a pool for anything other than a party in years, yet within two laps, I’ve found my stroke again.
Here, I’m fast and strong and capable. Instead of being dragged down, my heart lifts as I push against the burning in my muscles and kick off the wall, only to realize Mallory is just ahead of me.
I’m faster than him.
The realization sends a thrill of triumph through me, and I kick harder, pull faster.
He isn’t letting me win, either. His clean front stroke falters when he catches sight of me in his periphery and does a double take beneath the surface, arms pulling through the water faster as he tries to pick up the pace.
I feel my lips pull into a wide, unseen smile when I push away from the side and pass him as he goes to do the same.
I lap him once.
Then, after another few well-executed kicks off the pool’s rocky wall, I lap him again.
I have no sense of how long we’ve been at this, and my attempt to keep track of my progress fell off somewhere along the way.
We might have swum ten laps or a hundred, but I don’t want to stop.
I’m soaring, addicted to the feeling that comes every time I catch sight of Mallory’s legs beating the water ahead of me, signaling another victory is fast approaching.
He must not be getting the thrill out of this. I am, though, because after about my fourth cycle of outpacing him, the next time I see him, he’s standing in the shallows.
I stop ten feet away and stand, too, wiping the water from my eyes. My heart is beating hard, but my breathing is under control. Unlike Mallory, who is gasping and clutching one of his sides.
The sight of this man truly winded is a victory unto itself.
“Weren’t you in the Navy?” I call, breathless but unable to disguise the delight in my voice.
“In the Navy, they preferred us to stay on the boat,” Mallory pants, pushing his dripping hair off his forehead with a disgruntled grimace.
My laugh reverberates off the stone walls and ceiling as I sink back into the water with a happy sigh. God, I never would have expected myself to need this, but I really, really did. How long has it been since I had a win? A real, hard-earned victory?
“Where did you learn to swim like that?” Mallory asks unexpectedly, his brow furrowed.
I was wondering if he would be sour about losing, after weeks spent setting the precedent of him being my superior at all things. His ego appears to be intact, however, because he doesn’t sound put out, only curious.
“Swim team until I was—gosh—fifteen, I want to say? Something like that.” I allow my legs to float up, enjoying the buoyancy of the water. “It’s been a while.”
“Why did you stop?”
At this angle, I can’t see him, and I’m grateful for it as my smile slips.
Just a little, though, and not for long.
I don’t allow the pinch of an old scar to detract from my happiness at the present.
God knows I’ll probably feel sorry for myself about all sorts of things tomorrow, but after the lowest weeks of my life, I want to feel good a little while longer.
“My grades got too bad,” I reply simply, and I’m pretty proud about how blasé I sound, like I’m not ashamed at all.
My toes skim just above the surface of the water, and I pull them back under with a little splash, gazing up at the arched, stone ceiling.
“There are accommodations, aren’t there? For people with your…” He trails off awkwardly, the words muffled a bit by the water lapping against the sides of my face.
“You can say it,” I reply, amused despite myself. “Dyslexia isn’t a bad word. Hard to spell, though. Whoever invented it had a sick sense of humor.”
Mallory makes a low, impatient noise, and I turn my face to look at him.
He’s still standing where I left him, his hands resting on his hips.
Up close like this, I wish I could make out the script tattooed over his heart, but the letters blur together, and discerning it would take a lot more staring than is good for me.
Catching my eye, he frowns.
I turn away, allowing my eyes to close.
“Yes, of course there are accommodations,” I admit.
“Maybe they would have helped, but it’s hard to accept you’re different at that age.
The most important thing in the whole world is fitting in, and nobody can fit in with a fifty-year-old woman named Suzanne following them from class to class or sitting in a classroom for an extra hour to finish a test while everyone else is on a field trip,” I scoff, annoyed at myself for the edge of bitterness which colors the words.
“It was easier to pretend I didn’t care, and that I didn’t need to, when I’d get control of my trust fund when I turned eighteen. ”
Mallory doesn’t respond for a long time. I don’t even realize I’ve been pushed closer to him by the gently lapping water until my foot brushes the bare skin of his abdomen. I suck in a gasp, and my eyes snap open, instantly meeting the darkened gaze of the man standing over me.
I drag my arms through the water, pulling myself away, my stomach in knots. “Can we do this again sometime? Instead of running?”
I’m fully prepared for him to say no. Even after all his talk about doing things differently, I don’t really expect the dynamic of our relationship to change much. Why would he compromise the way he does things when he has been handed all the power in this relationship?
In my experience, people don’t change unless they have to.
Mallory surprises me. “Okay,” he agrees, his voice barely discernible over the water lapping against my head, and though I don’t look, I can feel the weight of his eyes on me. “We’ll do it your way, princess.”