“Hey! I was getting used to the water.”
“You can’t stand there like that, all naked, and not expect me to drag you into the depths.”
I smirked and twisted my hand, but he kept the hold. “So you can drown me, I suppose?”
“Drown you, fuck you underwater, where the doc can’t see. One of those. Maybe you’re a siren with sharp teeth?”
“Hmmm. I wish.” Then I could swim away into the cold dark depths and never see Dr. Romanus or Cassius again.
Would I miss them?
It was a question I lost as Cassius moved in and began to kiss me, with his hands wandering over my hips and breasts. The lure was irresistible, and I molded myself to him, feeling his hardness press on my belly; his body was warmer than the sea, and probably more alluring than a kraken probing me with eight fat tentacles.
“No sex,” I reminded him, coming up for air from that prolonged kiss.
“If only kissing was sex.” His thumb traced the edge of my jaw, but his other hand was pushing between my thighs. “Did you see the cemetery?”
“Yes.” I left my mouth open, let my eyelids flutter down as his fingers probed and slid. “I did. Later, talk about it later.” His laugh was mocking, and he teased me and never quite put those fingers inside me, just circled my throbbing clit and pushed along my slit. After a moment or ten, where I sighed and kissed his shoulder and slipped my hand to his waist, near his cock, tempted to touch him, he stepped away.
“Swim, little mermaid.” He dove in and with a few lazy strokes surged past the doc in perfect freestyle. Smiling, I followed, diving then kicking to the surface.
At the dash of the coldness, thoughts reawakened.
Was I essential to this information gathering his boss wanted when Cassius could see it all? I kept swimming and went past where the doctor and Cassius stood, heading along the shoreline, toward the end of the beach where the blocks from the tower rested. The sea was deeper here but still clear. When I trod water, fish cruised by my legs. I ducked my head under to watch them, though I was out of practice with keeping my eyes open underwater.
As a dare to myself, I followed a school as they swam into the debris from the tower, casually flicking their tails, only to discover the bottom of the sea dropping off into an alarming depth beside the piled blocks. This depth seemed well beyond my feet and at least half again my height. Seaweed and mollusks had made a home on the stone blocks, and the fronds waved at me as the tides and currents sucked and surged past. As it retreated, the sea delivered cooler water to my lower legs.
I popped my head into the air and found the men were saying something, but the gurgle of water lapping at my ears muffled them. I dove again, flipping ass-up then kicking and pushing with my arms to slide even deeper, determined to touch the bottom.
I’d nearly died recently.Seize the day. Life was too short not to have adventures.
I touched the rock-strewn sand and pushed off to the surface, and on the way up I glimpsed a hole between tumble-stacked blocks where a section of tower lay—a hole that flickered with impossible light. A reflection? A trick of the eye?
The block above the hole had looked to be part of a carving.
When I surfaced, I realized the doctor was warning me not to dive where I was. I couldn’t see why. The water was quiet, the surf barely there, compared to other shores I’d once tried. I wanted to touch that deeper block. After a few breaths, I up-ended and kicked for the bottom.
There, there it was. My fingertips scraped over the granite block, and I saw a glint, a flash of wavering light beneath the headland shore.Light. Light in the depths.
That could only be from sunlight?
What else could there be where the tower had risen? No matter how deep in the earth its chambers, it could not have been built beneath sea level. Perhaps the land had shifted. The bomb might have opened a chasm in the land that reached deep into rock. Although, after sixty years of neglect, the devastated tower would have settled, and the spaces would be filled with weathered-in sand and soil.
This was a puzzle, and I loved puzzles.
I dove one last time to look and found nothing when I surfaced, except…the two men on short surfboards glaring at me.
“There’s been a stonefish spotted on these rocks,” said the doctor. “Don’t go down there again.” As if to add emphasis, the water slapped against the underside of the board.
“I know of those.”
“If you get stung, Charity, you’ll might die before I can fly you to somewhere for medical care.”
“Then…” I looked from one to the other, treading water, and grabbing the side of Cassius’s board to steady myself, “why didn’t you say?”
“He did! We both were yelling at you.”
“Oh. Sorry.” I frowned. “The water is so beautiful here, and I got carried away. Show me what they look like. Later, doctor. Please,” I hurriedly added due to his scowl intensifying.