“Are you?”
When I realize what I’m seeing is pity, I feel my eyes narrow. “You think because I don’t hang around with Barbie and her league of Skippers that I’m not adjusting? The pathetic new kid?”
“I didn’t say that,” he says with a slow shake of his head.
I shrug. “I have better things to do with my time than waste it on trying to impress people.”
Something flashes in his eyes, but it’s gone before I can read it. “I guessed that about you.”
There’s an intensity to his gaze that I’m totally un-prepared to handle. The one skill I’ve mastered in the last few years is invisibility. Flying under the radar. But Marcus’s radar just pierced my lead cocoon and I suddenly feel totally exposed.
I turn and dive into the pool, swimming my lane as fast as I can. I’m only half a lap in when I feel the shift. Someone’s drafting on my left. And, since Marcus and I were alone on the pool deck, it has to be him.
I reach the wall and flip-turn, then keep swimming. Now that my head is clearing and I feel mostly back in control of myself, I don’t give him the satisfaction of knowing I even care he’s there by speeding up or slowing. He keeps pace at my heels through forty laps, though I’m sure with his six foot four swimmer’s frame, he could leave me in his wake if he wanted.
But I’m a little pissed. I was looking forward to solitude—a chance to decompress. Swimming laps with my too-hot-for-his-own-good water polo coach is not relaxing.
At all.
Because all I can think about is him in those low-slung swim trunks. The sinew of his legs; the deep grooves of his hip lines; the cut of his abs and pecs; the V of his back; the defined shoulders and curve of his biceps. Every inch of him is ripped and hard. And his strong, intimidating face…the dark hair and square stubbled jaw contrasting with light skin; the intense cinnamon eyes that seem to darken every time they look into mine…
Despite the cool water, I feel hot all over.
Intentionally, I only breathe to the side away from Marcus. I don’t want to chance catching a glimpse of him and risk my body forgetting how to function altogether. The last thing I need is to drown and wake up with him giving me mouth-to-mouth. But, damn. I feel him electrifying the water all around me. My skin tingles and my brain is threatening to short circuit. Sort of the same sensation as when I stuck my finger in a light socket when I was five.
But just because my coach is so hot he could start the entire pool boiling doesn’t mean I’m going to let him turn me into every other girl on his team—all fluttering and swooning, intent on making a total fool of herself. Any high school girl who thinks a guy like Marcus would be into them is deluded. Knowing this should be enough to keep my hormones in check.
Should be.
First key to invisibility: Don’t react to anything.
So I keep swimming.
I lose track of laps somewhere around a mile, but as long as Marcus is on my heels, I keep going. Somewhere around the eighty lap mark, I feel myself just run out of steam. My adrenaline rush begins to ebb and it’s as if someone flipped a switch. I struggle to finish the last half lap, then pull myself to the edge of the pool, where I hook my arms on the edge and suck wind.
Marcus stands with his back against the pool edge and the water laps against his eight pack abs. “Just what I needed, someone to pace me.”
He’s not even breathing hard, so I work to control my breathing too, even though my lungs are screaming for air. “I should have gone faster, then.”
“No,” he says with a shake of his head. “That was perfect. You set a steady pace and you’re quiet in the water. Good technique.” He dips under the lane divider between us. “The only suggestion I have is to keep a brain cell trained on your left shoulder.” He comes around behind me and pulls me away from the pool wall with a hand on my stomach, and as he leans over me to reach for my wrist, I feel his hard abs all up my back.
A shower of sparks ignites in my belly at his touch. He says something about technique as he pulls my shoulder back until it’s against his chest and moves my arm, but it may as well be in Farsi, because I can’t process his words. When he lets me go a minute later, I suck in a shuddering breath.
I know he hears, because when he skims through the water so he’s in front of me, there’s a crease between his dark eyebrows. “You okay?”
I nod, then realize my mouth is hanging open and I’m an inch from drooling. I snap it closed.
His eyes narrow as his gaze examines the contours of my face for the lie. “You’re sure? Because you feel hot, like you might have a fever or something.”