Cole hovers at the bottom of the pool, seemingly content with watching me swoop and dive around him. Tiny bubbles rise from his aeriform figure, the outline of his hard body fuzzy in the weak light of the water. But I know the instant his contentment morphs into something darker, hungrier. His head tips slightly, and he drifts closer. His forearms flex as he glides slowly through the water, circling, stalking, closing in.
I twist around, keeping him in my line of sight. A few feet away, his eyes glint like a shark. Then he shoots past me, cutting close enough to caress his fingers across my stomach.
He corrals me again and guns for another pass. This time, I feel a slight pull on my hip. My breathing accelerates, increasing the froth of bubbles around my face. When the water clears, I glance down and find the string on my hip untied, leaving my bottoms hanging on by a thread. That sneaky, flirty fucker. Where is he?
I turn in a circle, scanning the underwater horizon. He’s nowhere in sight, which means he must be hovering behind me, moving when I move.
I crane my neck, which is a challenge with the equipment on my back. A fizz of air surges beside my head just as the knot on my other hip pulls free.
The swimsuit bottoms fall off, and I reach for them, rolling through the water and grabbing at nothing. What the hell?
I feel him before I see him. His hands sliding up the backs of my thighs. His hair brushing between my legs. Then his mouth, his lips, his exhale covering my pussy. I moan through the regulator, making it vibrate.
Floating face up between my thighs with his legs behind me, he grips my hips and licks me with vicious strokes. My spine bows, and I suck harder on the apparatus. Sweet lord, it feels so good I’m going to use up all my air.
The scuba mask encloses his eyes and nose, preventing water from entering those parts of his face. But he removed the regulator from his mouth.
He’s holding his breath. For how long?
Panic rises amid the swelling pleasure. But I push it down, reminding myself he’s trained for this. He probably endured all sorts of inhumane drills that forced him to go without air for extended periods.
My fingers tangle in the silken strands of his hair as I grind against his mouth, weightless and drifting. I take care not to bump his face mask while the hands on my hips hold me in place.
I don’t think I can come like this. I’m too worried about sinking or shooting to the surface. Not to mention the fact that he still hasn’t taken a breath. It feels unbelievably sinful, though. Without a doubt, the best sexual experience I’ve ever had.
He curls his tongue inside me, his lips sucking with delicious pressure while tingling my flesh with each exhalation of air.
When he finally moves his mouth to take a breath from the apparatus, he releases a barrage of bubbles that caress and slide along my skin on the way to the surface. Fucking amazing.
He swims through the V of my legs and skims up the front of my body. A fold of white material peeks out of his vest. My swimsuit bottoms.
I bet he planned every detail of this date. The easy removal of a string bikini. The rubber piece in my mouth, preventing my protests. And the exquisite seduction of naked, tangled bodies underwater.
The regulator conceals his expression, but the hunger in his eyes burns behind the mask. It’s the same hunger that rages through my blood and trembles my insides.
I’m in trouble. I know this as soon as his hands fall to the buckles on my BCD vest. He unlatches it and slides it off my arms, taking the tank with it. Alarm spikes through me, widening my eyes. He’s taking my air!
He taps my jaw and shakes his head, telling me not to panic.
After a few steady breaths, I rest my trust on his shoulders. And my hands. There’s no way I’m letting go.
My vest tries to sail to the surface, but he holds onto it. His other hand unhooks the emergency regulator from his vest—every diver has a backup. I understand his intentions when he holds it up to my face.
He wants me to swap mouthpieces and breathe from his tank. If we were a hundred-feet deep in the ocean, I might’ve hesitated. But we’re in a pool, and he won’t let anything happen to me. Worst case, I’ll hold my breath and swim the fifteen feet to the surface.
I open my mouth and hold my breath as my regulator slips free. He removes his own, and we float toward each other instinctively, our mouths colliding in a wickedly hard kiss. He angles to deepen it, but I don’t know how to engage my tongue without swallowing water. I’m awkward as all hell, but the kiss? It’s fucking thrilling.
It’s not completely silent underwater. The pressure against the ears puts a different perspective on sound. Everything is louder, deeper, resounding in the chest. Like the flow of air through the tubes, the swish of the water around us, and the groans of our voices as our lips move together.
When I pull back, he slides his backup regulator between my lips and pops his own breather in his mouth. Somewhere above us, my tank and vest bob away.
Since we’re sharing an air cylinder, we’ll use up the oxygen in half the time. But I know that’s not the reason for the urgency in his eyes. He stares at me with ravenous need. To claim me. To fuck me. And he illustrates the direction of his thoughts by gliding his hands up my back and untying the strings on my bikini top.
This is happening. I’m going to have sex with Cole.
The moment I’m naked, Trace’s handsome scowl flashes through my mind. But I stop myself from analyzing and dreading and tripping into guilt. Instead, I focus on Bree’s words.
For once in your life, you’re going to put yourself first.
Cole swims around me, his biceps bunching with the slicing movements of his arms, his physique strong and chiseled beneath the vest and tank. I turn with him, physically connected by an air hose and emotionally attached to every beat of his heart.
We glide toward each other, our bodies sliding and tumbling together, our hands roaming, gripping, nails scratching across skin. His palms cover my breasts as I feather my fingers down the bumps of his abs, over the waistband of his dive shorts, and stroke the outline of his swollen cock.
I try to temper my breaths, but they come fast and hard with the fire roaring inside me. My nipples go taut, and my pussy throbs with the need to be filled by him.
He releases me and descends, sliding down my body until my thighs rest on his shoulders. Droplets of air fizzle upwards, blurring my view of him. What is he doing?
Something moves in the corner of my eye. I turn my neck just as his abandoned shorts waft by.
My pulse pounds through my veins. He’s naked. I wave away the effervescence of air and look down, trying to see him beneath me.
The water clears a millisecond before he slides up my chest and positions my legs around his waist.
I grip his shoulders, and the underside of his erection rubs hard and hot between my legs. Nothing separates us, not even doubt. I love him. I want him. If I don’t take him into my body right now, in this magical subaquatic moment, I’ll regret it for the rest of my life.
He studies me from behind his mask, communicating more with his eyes than he could with words. He loves me, too. And if I don’t let him fuck me, he might die from the bluest balls in the history of blue balls.
It’s been over four years.