Chapter 27 #2
I hit the wall with my palm and stood, water sluicing from me. I tugged my goggles off to find Ri panting, staring back towards the far end of the Olympic-sized pool.
“I did it,” she muttered, a slow smile spreading across her face. “I did it!” Her ocean blue eyes found mine, and I beamed at her.
“You did it, Catnip.”
She launched herself into my arms, and I barely had time to scoop her against my body when her mouth fused to mine.
Caught off-guard, my brain short circuited, and I met her enthusiasm with my own, moulding my mouth to hers.
When my tongue sought entrance, her lips parted all too willingly, her tongue matching mine, stroke for stroke.
Her damp body warmed against mine, her legs wrapped tight around my waist. My fingers dug into the toned flesh of her backside, clutching her closer to me.
She made that perfect little moan into my mouth, and every nerve ending in me lit up like the Opera House during Vivid. This was heaven. I had died, and her in my arms was my eternal paradise.
“Such a brave girl,” I rasped against her lips before taking her mouth greedily once more.
She responded by tilting her hips, as if to find a way to get closer to me, and I sent out a silent ‘thank you’ that the water was waist deep because my body was reacting violently to the heat of her against my groin.
“Maybe take the fudging foreplay down a notch—there’s a kid nearby!”
I tore my mouth from Ri’s, panting and flushed, searching for the owner of the voice.
It came from a tall, tattooed man in the lane beside us.
Elbows casually resting on the pool edge, he smirked.
“She’s not even one yet, I was kind of hoping to hold off on the birds and the bees chat for a few years at least.”
“Sorry!” Ri blurted, wading closer. “I just overcame a lifelong fear of drowning in cold water, and the adrenaline rush went to my head.” She wrapped an arm around my waist, and I slung mine over her shoulder.
Adrenaline rush … I was having an overdose on dopamine, oxytocin and serotonin. My body felt limp and heated and all I wanted was to wrap her up, carry her out of the pool and continue where we’d left off, out of sight of this smirking dad.
“Levi! Leave the poor couple alone. Lily is sleeping.”
I peered up, squinting to get the woman who had called down to him into focus. A pretty, curvy blonde. She smiled down at the man, shaking her head as she rocked back and forwards, a baby strapped to her chest in a carrier.
“Oh, my God! You’re Levi Fox!” Ri squawked beside me. I wrinkled my nose. The name sounded familiar, but I couldn’t place where I knew it from. Ri elbowed me. “He’s an Olympian!” she hissed.
I turned back to the man. “Swimming?”
Ri grated, “Rowing!” in my ear. Her fingers tightened at my waist. She was practically vibrating with excitement, and a tiny piece of my heart broke for her.
I wanted to make her dreams come true. I wanted to fix it so that she could have her Olympic dream. Last night, I’d sat up far later than was reasonable, researching. More than researching, really. Completely immersing myself in statistics and rules and selection criteria.
While she was right that swimmers peaked younger, there was a growing trend towards older competitors. But age wasn’t the only factor in being eligible to compete for Australia, and when I went on a deep dive into all the selection criteria, I came out feeling despondent.
I didn’t want to mention any of it to her.
It risked getting her hopes up when I wasn’t sure that we would be able to make it happen for her.
And really, we needed to focus on the most important goal first. Getting her temporary partner visa approved.
Then we could worry about permanent residency, and then citizenship …
and then, if the stars aligned, we could talk about the Olympics.
I reminded myself that the plan was for me not to be a part of her life once she had her permanent residency.
What had I told her to begin with? It would be a marriage for show only.
We’d remain married long enough to secure your permanent residency, and then we could have a simple, amicable divorce.
A weight dropped into the pit of my stomach at the thought of not being around past the success of our original plan. But that was what I’d promised her.
“Henry!” Irina poked me in the side, and I blinked, realising I’d missed the entire conversation she’d been having with this Levi character.
“You didn’t tell me they have a gym here, so I can do my dry land training!
” She lowered her voice, gripping my arm and breathing into my ear, “And you don’t need a membership to use it. ”
I tried to smile, but when she gave me an odd look, I knew I hadn’t managed to pull it off. “I’d forgotten about the gym. Is it safe to say Icebergs is a win?”
She nodded, pecking me on the cheek. “Thank you, Henry. This is … I can’t even express how much this means.”
Flustered, I shook my head. “It was nothing, really. I just like fixing things. I didn’t know this would end up fixing more than just your need for a pool to train in.”
“But you handled it … handled me, just right,” she insisted, smiling shyly, earnestly. That smile had the potential to undo me in ways that every single of her cheeky ones didn’t. It felt more intimate, more real.
“Just doing my husbandly duty,” I mumbled, turning away.
I hoped that Levi wasn’t still listening to this conversation.
Thankfully, he’d already left the water and was several feet away, wrapping a towel around his waist. He leaned down to brush a kiss on his partner’s cheek. She waved him away with a grin.
“You’ll drip all over Lily!” she warned, stroking the little head that peeked out of the top of the carrier. He grinned at her, sneaking a kiss to the top of the baby’s head instead.
“That’s so adorable,” Ri crooned, tearing her gaze from them and smiling wistfully at me. “You’d be such a hot dad, Henry.”
I raised an eyebrow at her. “You want to start trying?” I teased, trying to throw off the tangle of emotions those words elicited.
Ri lifted a shoulder in a cheeky shrug. “I’d rather practise for a while first.” Her eyes slid away from me, staring along the length of the pool, her smile slipping. “Besides, I have an IUD, so it’s kind of impossible … for now.”
With that, she pushed away from the edge, launching into a freestyle lap.
I stood watching her swim away from me. It was for the best, letting her get a pool-length from me.
Because I had been about to tell her, without a hint of pretence, that we should go home and practise.
All afternoon, and into the night, and again first thing in the morning.
My resolve when it came to keeping this professional was a hairsbreadth from crumbling, and I needed some distance to build it back up.