“The longest day.”
“We’ll know soon enough. The dog has a fine idea there with a swim in the bay. A good way to end a day in May after an easy training session.”
“You call that easy?”
“I do, aye, so it was. Taking it easier on you so if Odran looks, he sees that, and how quick you tire and fall so he thinks you’ve little skill.”
“Bollocks, and I don’t mean the dog. And I’m ending my day with a long, hot shower and a glass of wine.”
“Sure you won’t need the shower after a swim.”
He plucked her up, tossed her as easily as he had the stick. She managed one stunned curse before she hit the water.
Drenched, she pushed up to stand in water nearly to her waist while Bollocks swam happy circles around her and Keegan stood on the shore grinning.
“Jesus! Men are suchboys!” She shoved at her dripping hair.
“So you may think, but I’m looking at a wet woman with her clothes all clinging to her body—clothes I’ll remind you I didn’t strip away without permission. And I’m not thinking like a boy, not a’tall.”
“So you throw me into the water fully dressed. And it’s cold!”
“Bracing.” He stripped down to the skin with a flick of his hands, then walked in. “That’s what it is, bracing.”
“My ass.”
“I’ve a great fondness for it.”
“Then you can watch it walking away. I’m going inside.”
“Ah now,mo bandia, swim with me awhile, on a bright spring evening.”
He circled her waist and towed her out until she was over her head. “Why don’t we get those clothes off, and on the shore with mine. With your permission, of course.”
“I’m not skinny-dipping in the bay. Marco and Brian are in the cottage. They left before we did. And the water’s cold!”
“Swimming will warm you quick enough.” He twirled a finger in the air, calling a mist. “And there, you see, like a curtain. We’ll have those wet clothes and the sodden boots off you, and dry on the shore.”
He kissed her as he said it, and as he held her now skin to skin.
“Your body doesn’t spark in the blood of those in the cottage as it does in mine. But they’re men and lovers and will likely suspect what’s going on inside the mist.”
“Swimming.”
“Aye, but after, if you will. Let me push those dark thoughts away for you.”
“We might drown.”
“There’s Mer in me, and I’ve been practicing. Let me show you.” He kissed her brow, her jaw, her lips.
He slid inside her.
“Give over to me, will you, Breen Siobhan? In the waters and the mists, give yourself to me.”
He rocked her in the waters and the mists, slowly, so she floated on them. So she gave herself to him.
And when he took her under, she felt no panic, only pleasure as his hands streamed over her. As his mouth, joined with hers, breathed air into her.
Under the water with the sun sparkling its surface, with the mists rising, he took her and took all he wanted. When she came, she had no thoughts at all, only the sensations rippling over her skin and under it, only the heat that burst into her.