Panic crashes through my blood.
“I can’t,” I mutter, barely feeling the ocean floor beneath my feet.
I start swimming back.
He catches me and pulls me back to him. I lock my arms around his neck and loop my legs around his waist.
He pivots so I can see the shore.
“Is this better ?” he asks.
I nod, my gaze dipping to his lips.
“What scares you?” he asks in the same soft voice.
“The ocean.”
“Not now. ”
Holding my gaze, he lets his eyes drill deep into places I’ve always tried to hide.
Gently, I touch his face and lips with trembling fingers.
What scares me?
Nothing. Not anymore.
But I can’t tell him why, so I stay silent.
“Why were you set on me?” he asks, locking my eyes again. “Why me, Senna? Anyone could’ve given you what you wanted.”
I slowly shake my head.
“I’m not so sure,” I say, a smile tugging at my lips. “I don’t know why. That’s how I felt… Right from the beginning. Something pulled me to you. I can’t explain what it was. It hadn’t happened to me before, so I went for it. I followed my instinct.”
He ponders for a moment.
“Weren’t you afraid?”
I shake my head.
“Not many things scare me, and men surely are not one of them. I knew you weren’t any man, but it didn’t matter to me. Perhaps I saw in you something I hadn’t seen in anyone other than in myself. That’s why I couldn’t just walk away and forget about you. I had to find out whether what I saw was real or not. In a way, I had no choice. I had to try to get to you. ”
I pause.
“For a long time, I was trapped in my own world, convinced that my fate was sealed. There was very little chance I’d find someone like you, so I seized the opportunity.”
“And?”
I stroke his neck.
“I think you are much more than I imagined and way deeper than I envisioned. And I think your life is full of secrets and stories and scars. Some of them are on your arms, and some of them are in your heart.”
He watches me in silence, his eyes glinting silver in the moonlight.
Nothing reads on his face.
“You don’t like to talk much,” I say, my thumb trailing his lips, my gaze hovering over his mouth.