Chapter 6 #2
Finally, she understood him. He could tell by the glaze of shock in those dark eyes.
“You want me that much?” The words vibrated with a kind of emotional intensity he couldn’t quite decipher. “You care about me that much?”
“Yes.” He stroked the back of her hand with his thumb. “Which means I need your assistance. Until you’re completely, unequivocally sure you’ll want to be with me once we return home, please take pity on a besotted former academic. Help me keep a certain amount of distance.”
“No one can promise forever,” she reminded him.
He acknowledged that with a lift of his shoulder. “Right now, I’m not asking for forever. Just next week.”
One side of that lush mouth tilted. “So don’t tempt you. And don’t kiss you until I’m absolutely certain I won’t regret it.” Her head inclined a fraction. “I can do that. Or, more accurately, not do that.”
“Thank you.” He nudged her arm with his. “I’m grateful.”
“And in return, will you promise to trust me if and when I say I am sure?”
Her brows were raised in challenge, and he smoothed each of them with a stroke of his free thumb. “I promise.”
“So we’re good now? I can eat breakfast, take my anxiety meds, and stop having intense conversations before I’ve consumed even a single cup of coffee?”
He laughed. “We’re good.”
She eased her hand from his and headed for the room’s little coffee station.
“Want to see whether the resort is offering a snorkeling cruise this morning? We should have time to do it before we need to make our”—she crooked her fingers—“big decision. Especially since Gladys surrendered to our charm offensive and didn’t schedule anything specific for this morning.”
Callie wanted him to spend several hours staring at her in a wet bathing suit?
Oh, no.
But also: Oh, yes.
“Reserve the tickets,” he told her, and promptly left the bedroom in search of a cold, cold shower.
* * *
Callie eyed the water down below, those tempting lips pursed.
The captain of their vessel had zipped to the side of the island that boasted a sunken ship—sunken via holes strategically placed by the island’s owners, because they’d wanted a snorkeling feature nearby—and tossed a rope around a cushioned wooden pole sticking out of the clear water.
The pole implied the water wasn’t too deep in that spot, and there were multiple employees watching out for the safety of all the tourists aboard.
Still, Callie hesitated.
The colorful trim on her goggles almost matched that heart-stopping coral suit she wore, and her flippers fit perfectly.
Which Thomas knew, because he’d checked.
Her mouthpiece swung from her clenched hand with every restless movement.
An inner tube waited for each of them in the rippling waves below, held by another patient crew member, so she wouldn’t need to worry about staying afloat once she ventured in the water.
The single cameraman who’d accompanied them to the boat had braced himself against some sort of fiberglass bulwark and was capturing every moment on film, as Gladys had insisted.
Everything was ready. Everything but Callie.
When he laid his hand on her shoulder, the strengthening sun had turned her silky skin feverish. “Do you want to jump in together?”
She cast a dubious glance at the narrow gap in the rail. “There’s not room for both of us.”
“There is if I hold you.” He’d lowered his voice to a whisper, since maybe the crew wouldn’t love that idea.
But he couldn’t come up with another solution that would allow Callie to move past her anxiety and give herself what she wanted.
“We’ll just have to make sure we jump far enough out from the boat. ”
She nestled into him, front to front, her arms wrapped around his waist, and he almost whimpered as her breath ghosted against his earlobe. “Not to be rude, but maybe potentially-dangerous feats of physical prowess aren’t exactly your greatest gift?”
“I’d never let you get hurt.” He might whack himself against the boat on the way down, but she wouldn’t get a single scratch. Not while he was alive, conscious, and within arm’s reach. “Trust me.”
Silence.
Moisture glinted on her lashes as she stared up at him, and she was biting that lower lip.
Dammit. She was going to be so disappointed and angry at herself if they didn’t do this, but he wouldn’t push her to do anything—anything—that made her uncomfortable.
He frowned. “Sweetheart, we don’t have to jump. We can stay on board, or there’s an inclined ladder toward the back of the boat—”
She nodded toward the gap in the rail. “Are you ready?”
He blinked at her. “Of course, but like I said, we don’t—”
“I trust you.” Her voice was firm. Decisive. “So here we go.”
As it turned out, Callie boasted not only surpassing beauty and softness, but also a startling amount of physical strength. Because the next thing he knew, the two of them were flying off the side of the boat, powered only by the might of those curvy legs.
Somehow, they lost hold of one another as they smacked into the water, and as soon as he made his way to the surface and oriented himself, he swung his head in a frantic search for Callie.
The search didn’t last long. He just needed to follow her giggles.
“Are you all right?” She reached out a hand and tugged him to her side. “The water’s so warm!”
“I’m fine.” More than fine, actually. Delighted and proud.
Her legs shifted in a graceful, sinuous kick beneath the water as the nearby crew member handed them their inner tubes.
She hooked an arm around her yellow doughnut, contemplated the opening for a moment, looked down at her chest, and shrugged. “I think I can wedge myself into this thing. Let’s find out.”
After a couple minutes of fumbling and goggles readjustment, the two of them were floating on the surface, their faces in the water, the inner tubes supporting their middles as they studied the deliberate wreck and the schools of glinting fish darting beneath them.
Callie’s fingers had intertwined with his, and he couldn’t spot any signs of tension in her movements. Which was why he was startled when she squeezed his hand and suddenly went vertical.
He did the same, only to see her remove her goggles and mouthpiece.
They’d only been snorkeling for a short time, but maybe she’d gotten a cramp? Or started worrying about drifting too far away from the boat?
He yanked off his own goggles and mouthpiece, so he could see her better and speak intelligibly. “Are you o—”
Her free hand curled around the back of his neck and guided him closer, despite the hindrance of the inner tubes. Then closer, until all he could smell was salt and Callie. The goggles had drawn a faint line on her forehead, her hair sleeked against her head in a shining cap, and her tongue—
Her tongue, unless he was mistaken, had just licked a drop of water from his ear.
The nearby tourists, the boat, the ocean itself ceased to exist.
“I can’t wait any longer.” Her fingers threaded through his hair and cupped his skull. “I’m sure, Thomas. So you need to trust me.”
Her lips pressed to his, soft as velvet and warm as the sun on his back.
It was loving affirmation in kiss form, neither hurried nor demanding. When his hand cupped her cheek, she nestled against the touch with a sigh he breathed into his lungs, and that cool cheek heated beneath his fingers as her mouth opened to his tongue.
She tasted of salt and sweetness, and she smiled when he rumbled a desperate surrender of a groan into that tempting mouth.
When he wrenched himself away to explore further, she grasped him with trembling fingers, trying to draw him back to her lips as he trailed a path from her lips to her jaw and licked that fragrant, shadowy spot just below her ear.
Musk and roses. Delicious.
She moaned, and he surged upward to capture it against his tongue.
The kiss stretched into the entirety of the ocean, and when they paused for a moment, both breathing in rapid rasps, she whispered his name with such longing he nearly floated away.
Then he blinked his eyes open and realized: They were floating away.
The gentle current had inexorably nudged them farther from the other tourists.
The captain appeared to be saying something into a megaphone and waving them back toward the ship with a certain amount of controlled impatience, as if she’d been doing it for a while.
A crew member was swimming in their direction.
And Thomas’s hands were empty of everything but Callie.
Callie smoothed back the hair plastered against his forehead and gifted him with one last, lingering brush of her mouth against his. A tender, private caress, despite the watchful eye of HATV’s camera lens.
Then she smiled at him. “Let’s go find your goggles and mouthpiece, shall we?”
He was hers. She’d claimed him.
What else could he do but follow?