“Honestly, Lord Poo?” Her eyes track to my left hand. “Never.” She grins at me deviously before she goes running down the narrow strip of sand. She hits the water, droplets spraying out all over, runs a few steps, then dives in. Her lithe body parts the waves, and she swims like she was born in it, a siren or a selkie, returning to her home.
My throat constricts as I stand up, strip off my T-shirt, and lose the shorts. My boxers stand little chance of hiding my massive erection, and there’s no way to angle to make this any better or less visible. It’s pretty much like sporting a lance in a jousting tournament. I need to make a decision. If I go in that water, I know I’m coming out a changed man.
I’m already changed. I’m not the same person I was before last night.
Nothing has ever been so painful. Or felt so freeing.
I hold my breath until Darby surfaces, and then I release it from my burning lungs because I didn’t realize I was doing it. She’s far. Out way past the dock, bobbing and floating along the surface. “Seriously, if you’re coming in, run and dive,” she yells. “There are way too many weeds and so much lake muck that it will grab you and swallow you up if you hit it past the sand. Float over it. It’s so nasty otherwise. If you don’t want six hundred leaches, run and freaking dive.”
I stand there, frozen for a minute. I don’t know why, but I just can’t move.
“Leon?” Darby calls. “Are you okay?”
I’m glad she doesn’t voice concern that my hard-on will put me off balance or sink me to the bottom like an anchor or that…—stop thinking. Those are crazy thoughts.
Closing my eyes, I race through the sand, hit the water, and dive, just like she instructed. I hold my breath and crest the water with powerful strokes, swimming to her. I have visions of leaches, which are horrifying because while toes and such might be alright, I’m worried about getting them stuck in other places. If she has to pull a leach off my arse, I will die. Of all the things she’s seen in the past few days, I will not live that one down. Not to mention the other unmentionables that a leach could choose.
I lift my eyes, shaking my head to clear them from the droplets of water cascading down my forehead. When I see Darby’s smile in the distance, beaming like the full moon above us, I stop caring about leaches and start swimming a little harder.
I think that maybe, my whole life, I was swimming to her.
11
DARBY
Holy grilled cheese sandwiches with pickles.Leon is gorgeous. I haven’t had the pleasure of seeing my husband stripped down to virtually nothing, but I watch him take off his clothes on the beach now. He’s a good distance away, but that changes nothing. I can still see the massive sweep of his shoulders, the hard, defined muscles in his arms, the freaking rock-hard eight-pack he’s sporting, the manly V part of him that angles into the black elastic band of his boxers that rides low on his hips, and legs that are thick and powerful.
From this distance, I can’t see any scars that might be there.
I let out a breath I didn’t realize I was holding and tread the water. The lake is warm since it’s mid-summer, so I don’t shiver out here like I would if it was mid-June and the sun was down.
When Leon hits the water, and I watch him disappear under the surface in a graceful arc, I mess up my strokes, and my head just about goes under the water. I choke on a gulp of lake water, spitting it out of my mouth. When he surfaces a few feet away and swims his way over to where I am, I just about go under completely.
He’s beautiful, arresting. He’s more god than he is man, and good sweet lord, the water is kind to him. The dark droplets bead in his hair, which looks black when it’s wet out here in the dark. His eyes are a darker blue. I want to lick every bead of water off his perfect, chiseled face, and there are many of them. I’d be there for a good long time, my tongue on his skin, which would suit me just fine.
I don’t know if it would suit him, though, and I’m afraid to hope.
Until he opens his arms in clear invitation, and I swim over, even though my movements are wooden and jerky because I’m still frozen with shock at the sight of his lean, powerful, muscled body. All of me feels cold, and now I’m shivering. Well, all of me except the spot between my legs. Right there, I’m burning up. I think my va-jay might actually have a fever.
Need. Hunger. I’m like a shark in the water, a shark that is sloppy, uncoordinated, and half drowning. I push forward anyway, and the fact that I’m a good swimmer saves me from my own body. This isn’t a cramp. Or yes, maybe it is. A whole-body cramp that paralyzes my limbs.
I swim into Leon’s open arms, and they close around me. Opening up to me. Pulling me in. Holding me. He’s warm—all of him. I lower my head to his shoulder and lick the droplets there, along the column of his neck. He hisses near my ear as I wrap my legs around his waist, cradling his hard length near my aching center.
Too many clothes. Too many layers in the way. Is this even real?
His hand supports my shoulders, and he kicks, keeping us both afloat. His body is wrapped around me, and I can feel how twisted and irregular the skin is on his palm. I lean into his touch, wanting more while I try to stop my heart from wrenching in half again. I wish I could save him. I wish I could build a damn time machine or find a portal or a wormhole or something science-fictiony and go back and undo all that for him. All the pain, all the suffering—suffering I can’t even comprehend. Sadly, I can’t, but I can give him now. I can give him good memories and laughter and love. I don’t know much about love, but I’d like to learn. I’d like to create something with him, something so good that it obliterates the bad, one step, one memory, one moment at a time.
He kisses me, the kiss to begin and end all kisses and the kisses in between. He’s magic. The force of this is like the beginning and the end of the world. Our lips crash together, and I devour his mouth. I love the taste of salty water. The lake is freshwater, but it always tastes a little bit like salt. And lake muck. But it’s good on Leon. So, so good. Sign me up for more lake muck. His tongue parts my lips, and he’s all fire, searing through me.
I moan against his mouth and rock against the hard bulge that’s pressing up against my crotch. I whimper and mewl into his mouth. Using the water to float away just an inch, I reach down and palm his hard-on through his boxers. He’s huge and so freaking hard that it’s like gripping iron.
And then, we both promptly sink.
“Mrpphffhhhhhhh!” I shriek as my nose fills up with water.
I let go of his neck and regretfully tear my lips from his, inhaling too much lake water while I push to the surface. We both come up sputtering.
“Sorry!” Leon gasps. “It’s hard to kiss and swim at the same time. It’s even harder when you…uh…do that.”