Chapter 20 #3
“Get in here, Lexie!” Finn called, splashing Freya. She let out a shriek and dove under, popping up behind him and dunking him. He came back up out of the water, shaking his hair out of his eyes. She swam away and he chased after her, promising retribution.
Griff was still waiting, arms outstretched. “Jump,” he urged gently. “I’ll catch you.”
His smile and the laughter was infectious. I had to join in. I slid off the robe, baring that expanse of skin. Griff blinked and swallowed visibly.
Just friends, huh, Champion? Maybe this was worth it.
I took a big breath and slid into the water, and he was right there, his hands firmly around my waist. I locked my arms around his neck, his bare chest against my scantily clad one, and a warmth that didn’t come from the water washed over me.
He towed me around, getting me used to it, showing me how to kick my feet to tread the water like he was doing.
I started to relax and released a bit of the death grip I had on him.
The water bobbed us up and down, the waves gentle out here, ebbing and flowing peacefully, pushing us closer together.
“Lie back,” he urged.
I followed his directions and allowed myself to float, the waves gently moving my body.
He stayed close to me, one hand supporting me, but I started to understand the appeal of this.
Our eyes met, and there was a softness in his that I rarely saw.
He opened his mouth to say something but never got the chance.
“My turn!” Finn cried, coming out of nowhere.
I let out a shriek as he grabbed my arm and started hauling me around, far more exuberantly than Griff did. He took me out farther than I had ventured with Griff. Those waves were significantly higher than the small, gentle waves near the house.
“Finn, I don’t know about this—”
I barely had time to get the word out before a massive wave crashed over me and I went under. I lost hold of Finn, tumbling in the water. Before I had time to panic, the water pushed me back up and spit me out. I flailed for a moment, my hair plastered over my face, struggling to get a breath in.
And then Griff was there, firmly clutching me against his chest.
“Told you your channel wouldn’t let you drown.” His lips brushed my ear as I spluttered. “One of the benefits to having an elemental channel fully open is that it cannot hurt you. Water will not drown you. Fire will not burn you.”
“Now you tell me,” I said through coughs.
He brushed my hair back off my face, one arm firmly clamped around my waist.
Finn swam over, looking like he was born to the water. “I’m sorry, Lexie. I didn’t mean to get you dunked like that.”
I garbled a response as Griff shooed him away with a simple, “I’ve got her.”
“I’ve got you,” he repeated for my ears only.
Were we really only friends? His possessive grip and the words he spoke to Finn suggested otherwise.
He moved us to where the waves weren’t quite so high, where we could float in peace. With his arms still around me, I relaxed. I could see why he loved the ocean.
“I guess for the first time I’m glad of your hovery tendencies,” I said wryly.
“Knew you’d come around, Princess,” he said as he laughed. A true laugh. I’d seen small smiles before, especially the private one he reserved for me, and chuckles break through his mask. But this sound was infectious.
I felt an answering smile stretch my mouth wide. He was happy here. At peace.
When a knock came at my door at bedtime, I flicked a finger, and it opened. Shit, that worked! The magic had never responded that easily before.
Griff pushed through and closed it quickly behind him, the sound of the lock clicking unnaturally loud in the quiet of the room.
“What are you doing here?”
He locked the door and then glanced up at me. “What are you wearing?” he asked gruffly, his voice carrying an edge that made my skin tingle.
I looked down at the shirt hanging almost to my knees. “A shirt? I assumed it was one of yours or Finn’s. Your mom gave it to me to sleep in.”
He frowned and yanked his shirt off, and as he came to the bed, handed it to me. I tried not to be distracted by the way his stomach muscles clenched, but every detail was magnified—the way the shadows played across his skin, the way his breathing had roughened. “Take this one instead.”
I stared at him blankly, the shirt in his outstretched hand.
“Take that one off and wear this one,” he explained to me as if I was the crazy one here. “If you’re wearing one of our shirts, it’s going to be mine. That one is Finn’s.”
What does it matter? I thought to myself, though the thought was distant. As though it belonged to someone else.
“It matters. I don’t want to see you wearing his shirt.”
Maybe I had said it out loud.
Shrugging, I took his shirt, ignoring the butterflies that were bouncing in my stomach.
There wasn’t any place to have privacy to change, though somehow that wasn’t strange.
I turned around, stripping off the offending shirt, before putting his on.
I was wearing panties underneath, but nothing else.
I could feel his gaze burning into my back like actual heat searing my body.
As his shirt slid over me, I was engulfed by his comforting ocean scent, something so indefinably him.
And then he was behind me. He gently, oh so gently, moved my hair over my shoulder and then slid the neckline of the shirt down to bare the opposite shoulder before pressing his lips to the spot he’d revealed.
The sensation shot through me like lightning.
I arched back into him as his hand snaked around my waist, pulling me roughly against him before his hand splayed over my stomach.
I could feel him, hard and thick against my lower back.
His mouth surged up the side of my neck, focusing on a spot right below my ear, and I moaned, the sound echoing strangely in such a small room.
“Lexa, I—”