13
Rafael
The call took much longer than I wanted it to, but I never stopped watching Isa. She might not communicate verbally as well as I suspected most women would have in her situation, but her body never bothered to try to hide anything from me.
Her body was an open book, and I'd use that to my advantage until she let me inside her head.
The moment my phone rang, she'd gone from joking about me being creepy to tense and insecure. While I loved that she was jealous over potential threats to her claim on me, she needed to understand that no woman would ever tempt me away from her.
I just didn't know how to tell her that without scaring her off. She wasn't ready for words like forever.
When I returned to our daybed, she was busily texting the photos she'd taken of the citadel the day before to her mother. She made no move to hide her phone from me or keep secrets, and the thought pleased me more than it should have when I couldn't be as open with her.
Probably ever, if blood and death threats made her squeamish.
The only part of the photos that didn't sit well with me was the way she specifically avoided sending any pictures of the two of us together. We'd taken a couple in the citadel, her beaming face next to mine as she curled into me comfortably.
"Why didn't you send her any of us?" I asked, settling in next to her and nodding toward her phone.
She laughed in response, the sound sarcastic in a way I didn't like coming from her. "She very specifically told menotto get into trouble," she said, touching a finger to my bare chest and looking up at me with a secret smile.
"To be fair, you didn't get into trouble. Trouble got into you." She gasped, slapping my chest playfully at the dirty innuendo. Taking the phone out of her hand, I dropped it onto the daybed and hauled her up into my arms with a broad smile on my face.
As much as I wanted Isa to tell her family about me, I had more pressing matters to tend to. Since it was probably better they didn't know about me until I was certain Isa would make the right choice, her family would wait.
She wrapped her legs around me with a laugh, my hands touching the naked flesh of her thighs where her bikini bottoms grazed the edges of her perfect ass. She went still in my arms when she realized where I was walking, neither her fight or flight instincts taking over as her breathing went rapid.
My first foot touched the water, submerging while I pretended not to notice Isa's rising panic. She couldn't live on an island and not be comfortable swimming. I'd push her as much as I needed to, until we unraveled the bulk of the fear that had kept her away from the water since she'd nearly drowned as a child.
The moment the water touched her feet, she clung to me tighter and tried to inch herself up my body. I forced my face into a mask of confusion, tilting my head at her thoughtfully as I stepped further toward the deep end. "Are you afraid of the water?" I asked her.
She sighed, nodding her head and burying her face in my neck as the water covered her from the waist down. “Mhm,” she hummed into me.
"I'm sorry, Princesa," I said, rubbing my thumbs over her skin to soothe her. "You never said." I turned toward the stairs, hoping that the stubborn side I knew was inside her would come to the surface.
"It's okay. Just don't let me go. Please," she said with a little whimper. I felt an unreasonable amount of pride, that she was brave enough to confront her fears at all, but also that she trusted me enough to let me help her through it.
"I won't let you drown," I reassured her anyway, moving through the water slowly until it kissed the back of her shoulders. She sucked back a ragged breath, working to control her breathing. I didn't go any deeper, sensing she'd reached the limit of her tolerance for the day. In all my reading about severe phobias stemming from childhood trauma, I knew logically it would take time. She wouldn't suddenly not have a fear of water after one swim in a pool.
But I'd gladly take the baby steps she took with me, when she'd never even tried with anyone else. I moved to the loungers on a ledge at the edge of the pool. Lifting her up onto one of them, I deposited her in a lounger and admired her body as she forced herself to lie back, and the water moved over her skin. That emerald green bikini would be the death of me as she put her arms at her sides and forced herself to hold perfectly still. Pulling myself up onto the lounger next to her, I enjoyed the way the sun felt on my skin, even as I knew we'd only have a few moments to enjoy it before Isa should get into the shade.
It would take time for her skin to adjust to the strength of the Mediterranean sun, even with all the sunblock in the world.
"Have you always been afraid of the water?" I asked, watching as she forced herself to turn her head toward me, while she considered her words carefully.
"No. I—" she paused, sighing as my hand took hers in mine and she breathed a little easier. "I fell into the Chicago River when I was little. We were on the Riverwalk one day, and it just happened so fast," she said. "Odina and I both ended up in the river."
"Odina?" I asked, watching as she realized I didn't know who that was. I was sure it was hard to imagine having someone who was so a part of your identity, a mirror of yourself, and having someone not know she existed.
"My twin sister," she said. "We aren't close. We're totally opposite, even if we look the same."
"There are two of you?" I asked, chuckling because I knew it was impossible. Even if I hadn't seen for myself, there could never have been someone as flawless as Isa.
She shrugged. "Physically yes. Although she's the fun sister. She's so adventurous and unafraid. Sometimes I wish I could take just a little of that from her and give her some of my caution. Balance us out, you know? It's like she got all the extremes on one end of the spectrum and I got the other."
"Polar opposites," I said, nodding my head because I understood and very much agreed with the assessment.
"Anyway, I've never been comfortable with the water since then. I wasn't breathing by the time they pulled us out." I only just managed to keep myself from asking how her mother could have allowed such a thing to happen. To letbothyour daughters fall into the river was unthinkable.