Chapter 16 Treading Water #2
Calla tilted her head. She could not stop a flash of satisfaction from going through her. Clearly, she was not the only one affected by whatever this bond was.
“Clothes, Riley,” she reminded her as she pulled her pants down.
Riley blinked, as if drawing herself out of a daze, and tore her gaze away, fiddling with the hem of her shirt.
Was she… shy?
No, that was not it. Calla had undressed her before, after she’d nearly drowned herself, and Riley hadn’t been embarrassed by that.
What was this, then? Calla wanted to know.
She wanted to know everything about Riley–about what was going through her head, what her life had been before.
How she’d found herself so utterly alone as to start keeping a rat for company.
But she knew that if she pushed, Riley would draw away, and she did not want that.
So she said, “I will wait for you in the water.” With that, she slipped into the sea’s awaiting embrace.
The impact was not unwelcome. Her body didn’t feel as odd in the water as that first time, and as Calla dipped below the surface with a few tentative kicks of her feet, she was caught off guard by the sea’s responsiveness to her movements.
In a breath, she was below and across the other side of the dinghy.
This was all easier without clothes restricting her movements, without her boots covering the webbing on her feet.
With the water caressing her naked skin, swimming felt almost as it used to.
Calla had hated her skin. For as long as she’d known herself, she’d hated it, the terror it inflicted on her whenever she thought someone might find it, might kill her for it, like they had her mother.
But it had never been the water she’d hated, had it?
Just her skin. How she could never do anything, go anywhere, without thinking of it first.
Now it was gone. But she still had the water, and her crew, and… something new.
Calla’s head snapped up at a ripple on the surface. Bare fingers, treading water.
“Calla?” Riley called, her voice dim and distorted through the layers of water.
Calla resurfaced, seawater dripping from her hair and chin and ears as she gripped the dinghy’s edge to peer at Riley.
She sat cross-legged inside the boat, still dressed.
A flicker of the lantern drew Calla’s gaze to Riley’s bare toes, and knees, and thighs, and–her breath hitched in her throat.
Riley smirked at her when she finally met her eyes.
Half dressed. She still had her shirt on.
Calla tilted her head. Inside the water, in her element, she didn’t think fast enough to stop the words tumbling from her mouth. “Your shirt, too,” she said. Light. Inquisitive.
Riley looked at her with a glint in her eyes. “Are you commanding me to take my shirt off, captain?”
Now Calla was the startled one. Her pulse beat strongly in her throat. “No,” she said, though she had a feeling Riley would if she asked.
Riley grinned. “Well, then.”
Without warning, she stood and jumped into the sea.
Calla froze. She watched the water settle where Riley had jumped in.
Then she kicked into action with a curse.
She dived under the surface and, in a blink, she spotted Riley, flailing just beneath like a sunk bird.
With another muffled curse, Calla caught her by the waist and pulled the both of them back to the surface.
Riley sputtered as she clung to Calla’s shoulders, and a flash of panic rose in Calla’s chest. Then she heard it for what it truly was. Laughter. Riley was laughing.
“What was that?” Calla demanded, and she was the one sputtering.
Because Riley had just jumped. She didn’t know how to swim.
And she was clear-headed, she saw it in her eyes.
Infuriating, reckless, impulsive woman. Her arm curled tighter around Riley’s waist, drawing her closer, where Calla could protect her. “Why would you jump like that?”
Riley’s grin was easy as she stared into her eyes. She did not look in the least bit scared. “I knew you would catch me.”
That should not feel so good to hear. Riley’s fingers digging into her bare shoulders should not make Calla forget her anger so easily. Because she was angry… wasn’t she? Wasn’t she supposed to? But her words came out breathless rather than angry. “That was still reckless.”
“I’m supposed to swim, aren’t I?”
“That wasn’t swimming. You were sinking. Like a rock.”
Riley giggled, and no, Calla wasn’t angry at all. “Sorry,” she said, not looking in the least bit sorry. “But don’t worry, if I die here, I’m coming back to haunt you.” Riley grinned.
As Calla glanced at Riley’s lips, she realized that if she held on any longer, she wouldn’t be able to let go of her at all.
Only the thin fabric of Riley’s shirt stood between them, and already Calla’s thoughts were turning muddy.
They were here for a reason. She took Riley’s hand from her shoulder and directed it to the dinghy’s edge instead, drawing back a few hand spans.
Until she was able to breathe in the night’s cool air again rather than Riley’s intoxicating scent.
“You’d be too busy being dead to worry about anything else,” Calla said then.
Riley huffed a laugh. “Tell that to those ghost pirates I ran into.”
Calla studied her from across the water.
Riley’s knuckles turned white as she gripped the dinghy to stay afloat, but she wasn’t letting any other hint of fear show.
Her feet were kicking out below the surface, stirring a gentle current that brushed Calla’s bare thighs from the scant few inches separating them.
After a moment’s hesitation, Calla held out her hand.
Riley glanced from the gently lapping water to Calla’s outstretched hand, then back to the dinghy she was clinging to.
Calla waited patiently. Just as suddenly as before, Riley made a jump for it.
She threw herself towards Calla, splashing water all over the place, and then, when she was halfway, she was sinking again.
With an amused twitch of her lips, Calla closed the distance and grabbed Riley’s shirt, bringing her back up.
Her fist tangled up in the soaked linen as she made sure to keep a few inches between them.
As Riley clung to her wrist, it quickly became obvious this wasn’t any better than before.
But this time Riley really was sputtering.
“You’re not supposed to drink the water,” Calla teased.
“No shit,” Riley coughed.
Her soaked curls were plastered to her forehead and ears and neck, and seawater clung to her eyelashes, glinting in the shimmering moonlight.
There was barely any space separating them, bare legs brushing together underwater as Calla held the both of them afloat.
Heat radiated off Riley’s body. Calla ached to press into it.
To close the distance. Riley was so close.
All these years, Calla had kept to herself.
Getting entangled with anyone would’ve been a death wish for her.
A threat to the secret she’d been so careful to hide.
She’d had urges, of course, and moments when her resolve had nearly faltered.
With Sable, once. But she’d remembered her father, and keeping her distance had been no choice at all. It had been survival.
Lonely, miserable, survival.
That had changed, though.
You’re not alone, Calla. I won’t let you.
And yet Calla still found herself holding back. She didn’t know how to do anything else, even as a hunger like she’d never known before rose in her chest, demanding. Demanding. But Calla clung to the last shreds of her lingering resentment. It felt safer.
“We’ll start with something easy tonight,” Calla said, instead of all the unspoken things. “I will teach you how to float.”
Riley looked unsure. “Float?”
“Yes. The salt in the sea should make that easy. You only need to hold your breath and not panic. The water will do the rest.”
Riley frowned. “Hold my breath? For how long?”
Calla smiled. “Until you’re floating. And calm. Breathe in.”
Calla inhaled deeply to demonstrate, and Riley followed suit.
“Now relax. I won’t let go of you, so don’t fight it.”
Calla moved a hand to the small of Riley’s back.
“Lean on your back,” she said. “Don’t fight the water.
Keep your breath in.” When her other hand came on Riley’s stomach, above her soaked shirt, Riley’s breath hitched.
But she allowed Calla to gently push her on her back until her front brushed the surface of the water.
“Hold it, a moment more,” Calla murmured, looking at her. Riley was tense, but listening, and her gaze was fixed on the starry sky above them. Once she was floating, Calla withdrew her hand from Riley’s stomach, but kept the other on her lower back. “Now let it out. Not too fast.”
Riley exhaled, and then took deep, measured breaths. Slowly, Calla withdrew her hand, and watched as Riley floated by herself.
A small, satisfied smile snuck onto her lips. She hadn’t expected Riley to trust her so easily.
Just then, Riley turned her head to look at her, and her face split in a wide smile. “I’m doing it!” she said, tilting her body towards Calla. “I’m–”
She tilted too far and fell under the surface with a splatter. Calla caught her by her shirt and brought her back up.
“You said you wouldn’t let go of me!” Riley accused once she was done coughing up water.
“How will you learn if I don’t?”
Riley scowled. “You could’ve warned me.”
“You would’ve panicked.”
Riley bit her lip. “You still should’ve warned me.”
Calla raised her eyebrows, but didn’t argue. “Again,” she said instead.
And her fears had been warranted. Now that she was really touching Riley, she never wanted to let go again.