And he was naked.
Naisha clapped her hand to her mouth in a mixture of shock and amusement. A man, swimming nude in a lake; you didn’t see that every day!
He rolled again, and she got another eyeful and man, oh, man, ‘eyeful’ was an understatement.
He was magnificent.
I should go, she thought.I don’t belong here. But her feet had grown roots. All she could do was gape at the ripples on the water, which drew closer and closer, and hope that he would rise again, so she could get another look.
Something inside her young body stirred, an intense sensation she had only been vaguely aware of before. Curiosity, admiration, interest. Desire.
“What the hell are you doing here?” A deep voice boomed in French.
She realized she had zoned out so completely that she hadn’t even noticed he was standing at the water’s edge, just meters from her. Stark, staring naked, dripping water from his face, his shoulders, his chest, his… oh, my.
She looked away.
“I asked you a question,” he demanded. “This is private property. This is our private property, so who are you, and why are you here?”
She had a choice, she thought. She could apologize, back away, and get the hell off this man’s land, or she could obey every instinct that told her to stay just a little while longer.
She looked back. “I was just passing through,” she answered with spirit, in flawless but accented French. “I’ve touched nothing. I’ve harmed nothing. I haven’t plucked so much as a flower from the ground, or eaten so much as an apple from your trees. So what’s your problem?”
He squinted at her, examining, reassessing. “You’re American,” he said in English.
She shrugged. “So?”
He took another step toward her, and the increased proximity cranked her senses up a notch. “Are you always this rude?”
“Are you always this,” her eyes averted downwards and then quickly looked away again, “naked?”
He grinned, and the softening of his features made her revise her assessment of him. He was younger than she had assumed: early twenties, perhaps. Dreadfully handsome, with light brown hair that clung to his head because of the water, and thick lashes that framed brown eyes speckled with honey. “Only when I’m swimming on my land. Which, I assume, you are about to leave, unless you want me to call the gendarmes.”
She pointed her chin at his naked frame. “On what? The phone you have in your back pocket?”
His brows drew together. “Maybe I will detain you myself. A citizen’s arrest.”
The idea of being chased across the fields by this large, splendidly naked man did something to her, brought a warm tingle between her legs. She thought of herself streaking off, like a nymph chased by the god Pan.
And that’s exactly what she decided to do—streak off. She was on the track team in school, and at least she had on shoes. “Arrest me,” she shouted as she turned and sprinted, “if you can catch me!”
And off she went.
To her grave disappointment, he didn’t follow.
She made it back to the mansion before Toni and her grandmother returned, and smiled her way through the evening like an idiot. Toni threw her funny looks, as if she suspected something was up, but couldn’t figure out exactly what.
That night, in the privacy of her own room, Naisha slid her hands under the covers and explored her own body for the first time, spurred by the image of that astounding, perfect, soaking body, which would be forever imprinted on her memory.
The next afternoon she found an excuse to slip away, and tramped all the way over to the neighboring property, tingling with excitement. Consumed by the naughtiness of her actions. Would he be there again? Was his afternoon swim a regular occurrence or a one-off thing?
And if he was there? Would he arrest her for sure this time?
Most importantly, would he be naked?
The moment she approached the lake, she heard the splash of a swimmer, and her heart pounded with excitement and dread. She was in deep, deep trouble if this man followed through with his threat. She was in even deeper trouble if he was naked again.
He was not. The moment she strode to the water’s edge with false bravado, he changed course and moved towards her with swift, sure strokes, and got to his feet as soon as he could stand.