Cecilia - Eighteen
The water was warm from the afternoon sun, silk-smooth against my skin. I let it glide over my arms as I floated, the steady rhythm of my breath keeping me buoyant. Every so often, the wind rippled the surface, brushing cool shadows across my stomach.
Theo swam nearby, not close, but close enough that I could feel him. That quiet awareness of his body moving through the water — smooth strokes, the soft splash of muscle and intention. I didn’t look at him. Not really. But I saw him. Felt him.
I sank deeper until my ears were submerged, muting everything except the thump of my own heart. I closed my eyes.
God, I wanted him to touch me.
The thought was quiet but certain. Heavy in my chest. He’d said last night — not with the others around — and I understood.
I did. But I also knew Nate and Rae had popped out together, something about needing snacks, and Siena had wandered inside to call her sister.
It was just us out here now. Just water and heat and everything we weren’t quite saying.
When I surfaced, he was watching me .
His elbows rested on the edge of the pool, shoulders gleaming, dark hair pushed back from his face. Relaxed, maybe. But his eyes… his eyes didn’t look relaxed at all. They looked hungry.
“You’re not very subtle,” he said, voice low, like it belonged somewhere closer to my neck than the open air between us.
I blinked water from my lashes. “Neither are you.”
He smiled, slow and crooked. “You’ve got a tell, you know.”
I drifted lazily toward him, not touching, but close enough that I could see the drops clinging to his stubble. “What kind of tell?”
“Your cheeks flush when you’re thinking something you’re not saying.”
“Maybe I’m just warm.”
He let his gaze dip — throat, collarbone, the thin strap of my bikini — before meeting my eyes again. “You weren’t warm ten minutes ago.”
I swam past him, letting my fingers trail over the tiles at the edge of the pool. “Well,” I said over my shoulder, “maybe you shouldn’t be watching me so closely.”
He moved then. A quiet ripple behind me. The sound of his hands slicing through water.
I stilled.
I could feel him there — the space between us taut, electric. If I turned around, I knew what I’d see. Want in his eyes. Restraint clinging to it by a thread.
Did he want me to touch him too?
I turned .
He was right in front of me now, the water up to our waists. Neither of us moved. My breath hitched when his hand lifted, slow, and brushed against my shoulder — just his fingertips, trailing over my damp skin like he was memorising the shape of me.
“Tell me to stop,” he said, his voice almost a whisper.
I didn’t.
I tilted my head up to meet him, heart hammering against my ribs. I lifted my hand, hesitating just a second before touching his chest, fingers resting over the place I knew his heart was beating too.
He didn’t stop me.
“I should probably go inside,” I said softly, though my hand stayed where it was.
Theo’s eyes didn’t leave mine. “Then I’ll walk you back.”
I looked at him quizzically trying my best to act nonchalantly when every part of me was hoping that for once he wasn’t being a gentleman.
“I can walk back on my own,” I stated and normally it would sound like a bite, but there was nothing in my voice except unadulterated desire.
His hand slipped from my shoulder trailing down the front of my chest, before he retracted it all together.
“Oh, I know,” he replied and the way he said it – deep and rich – didn’t sound very gentleman like at all and it made me shiver.
I moved towards the edge of the pool, stepping back out into the afternoon heat and grabbed my towel from the sun lounger as I passed.
I snuck a quick glance over my shoulder and his eyes were still burning across my body.
I turned back around quickly and continued into the house, padding down the hallway towards my room.
The air still smelled faintly of chlorine and orange blossoms as I stepped through the doorway of my room, towel wrapped around my damp body, droplets running down the backs of my thighs. It was likely I had left a water trail between the pool and here – offering a beacon for Theo.
My skin was sun-warmed and still tingling from the swim, but it wasn’t the water that made the goosebumps stand up on my skin.
It was the thought of him following me.
And I didn’t have to wait long.
The soft sound of the door closing behind me was like a full-body thrill. Even though the sound of the click was quiet, it seemed to echo in the space, amplifying through me. I turned to look at him.
Theo stood there in only his black swim shorts, water beading across his chest, a spattering of dark hair catching the light on his tanned skin.
His shoulders were broad, arms still glistening, his hair pushed back from his face in damp waves.
He looked like he’d just stepped off the cover of something sinful.
I didn’t mean to say it. It just escaped. “Have you always looked this good?”
He grinned. Slow. Confident. And then he started walking.
It was all swagger and certainty, but his eyes were steady on mine, like he was still checking I wanted this — that I wasn’t going to bolt .
I didn’t move. Not an inch.
“You love flirting with me,” he said as he closed the gap, voice low, the kind that did things to my insides. “And I’m under the distinct impression, Celia, that you want me to touch you.”
He reached for my hands. Held them gently. And then with a single motion, he let the towel drop.
I was in only my bikini. The air hit my skin and my pulse skittered. But his gaze wasn’t greedy — it was reverent.
His hands skimmed the curve of my hips, slowly dragging up my sides, brushing against the edge of my ribs and up to the hollow of my throat. One finger swept across the pulse at my neck. It thudded wildly beneath his touch.
“But I need you to say it.”
I swallowed. My whole-body buzzing.
“Please.”
His brows lifted, amused. “Please what?”
My voice cracked the second time. “Touch me. Please.”
And then he did.
His mouth found mine in a rush of heat. There was no soft beginning — it was molten, all tongue and teeth and breathless, aching need. I moaned into his mouth, grabbed at his hair, let my fingers trail down his back just to feel the flex of muscle beneath my palms.
He kissed me like he was trying to unravel every breath I’d ever taken.
His thumbs grazed the swell of my breasts, rubbing over the bikini top until my nipples strained beneath the fabric. My hips tilted forward on instinct, already needing more.
“You’re already this sensitive?” he murmured into my mouth, his voice thick with arousal.
One hand slipped beneath the top, warm and firm against my bare skin. He cupped me fully, squeezed just right, and when his thumb rolled across my nipple, I gasped.
My hands slipped down, shameless now, fingers skimming across the front of his shorts — over the hard, thick ridge of him pressing against the fabric.
He tutted softly, his lips brushing my ear. “That’ll have to wait.”
Then his hand trailed lower, down my stomach, slipping beneath the waistband of my bikini bottoms.
I barely managed a sound before he found me.
He glided his fingers through my folds, slow and sure, grazing my clit just once and I buckled for him. My knees practically gave out at that one touch.
He caught me with one arm, holding me up as he dipped back in. This time, he dragged the slickness up again, circling my clit with maddening precision.
“You’re soaked,” he whispered, lips grazing my cheek. “You want to come on my fingers, Celia?”
I whimpered, breath broken, thighs trembling. “Yes.”
“Good girl.”
He picked me up without warning, like I weighed nothing, and set me on the edge of the dresser. I spread for him without shame. He pushed my bikini aside and slid two fingers inside me at once .
They curled perfectly. Deep. Sure. His thumb pressed against my clit again and my back arched, the heat coiling low in my belly turning unbearable.
His mouth was back on mine as he fucked me with his hand — slow, deep strokes that had me writhing. Kissing me through it. Drinking every sound, I gave him.
“I’m—Theo—”
“I know,” he murmured. “Let go for me. Come on my hand. Let me see how pretty you are when you fall apart.”
And I felt it — too close, too loud, and too much. I let out another broken moan, and he immediately pulled his mouth from mine, his palm covering it gently.
“Be quiet, baby,” he whispered roughly against my ear. “I want to be the only person who hears you come undone.”
Something about that shattered me.
The pressure in my core detonated. My whole body convulsed, trembling violently, hips bucking into his hand as wave after wave tore through me.
I cried out and he tore his hand away, replacing it with his mouth, swallowing the noises, while his other hand held me up right - kept me steady, as he held me through it.
When the tremors finally faded, he continued giving me soft kisses, brushing his lips against mine like it was nothing. Like I hadn’t just fallen apart completely for him.
He stepped back just enough to look down.
I followed his gaze and saw the glistening wetness on his fingers.
My face burned with embarrassment at how wet I was.
“I—” I started, breathless. “Sorry, I didn’t—”
“Don’t,” he said firmly. “Don’t be sorry.”
And then, eyes on mine, he raised his hand to his mouth and licked his fingers clean.
“You taste as good as you look.”
I moaned again — involuntarily this time.
He leaned forward, gently adjusting my bikini back into place like I was something to be treasured. Then he kissed my shoulder. My collarbone. The hollow of my throat.
Still breathing hard, I curled into his chest, legs shaking where they dangled from the dresser.
I was unravelled. Completely.
And the worst part? I never wanted to be put back together.
“That’s going to be hard to top,” I said on a breathless whisper.
He smirked, that same old smirk he’d always given me and brushed his lips against my cheek, “Oh Celia, I’ve only just gotten started with you.”