Still Waters

His fingers combed her hair back from her temples, fanning wide to encompass her head. Her head had become too heavy for her neck to support. It felt good to let it lie in the basket of his hands.

'Don't go to sleep on me, now.' His voice was gently amused.

Her eyes flew open, and for a moment she felt disoriented to discover it was still daylight. Her senses had somehow evoked subliminal memories of tropical nights, soft and humid and heavy with the scent of flowers. She cleared her throat, and, like an intoxicated person trying hard to appear sober, focused her eyes on Zack's dimple and said, 'I wasn't sleeping.'

Her intention was to speak clearly and with authority, but for some reason her words came out with a bit of a slur. She knotted her eyebrows into a frown and tried again. 'I was just… relaxing.'

'Good.' His smile was approving. His fingers moved, rubbing back and forth on her scalp. The rasping sound they made was loud in her ears, and had an oddly hypnotic effect. Her jaw felt unhinged. She said 'Umm…' then decided that it took too much effort to talk.

'Now,' Zack murmured, 'I want you to lie in the water. Raise your body, stretch out flat, just like you would if you were lying in bed. The most comfortable bed in the world. Feathers… down…'

'Water bed,' she mumbled, pleased with her cleverness.

Zack's chuckle made a cool stirring on her heated skin. Still supporting her head in his hands, he turned her and arranged himself so that her back was against his chest, her head resting in the hollow of his shoulder. His hands slid down her neck to her shoulders, then moved slowly along her arms to her wrists. Very gently he drew her arms up and out until they lay on the water's frothy surface, perpendicular to her body.

'That's right… just let them float. Let the water hold you.'

She felt his hands on her back, her ribs, her waist, gently lifting. They seemed like part of the water…

It was weird, as if she were floating on clouds of fragrant steam, but at the same time her body felt so heavy. She was aware of her pulse throbbing in strange and disturbing places, in parts of her body she'd never noticed her pulse in before. She had a vague feeling that what she was doing, what he was doing, was more erotic than educational, but she couldn't seem to care. In fact, if she turned her head just a little, her lips would touch wet-silk warmth… his neck…

'Oops,' Zack said. 'It's getting too hot in here, I think.' Odd, she thought. Was it her ears, or did his voice seem slurred too? 'Time to cool off. Upsy-daisy.'

He restored her to a sitting position. She felt lightheaded and slightly nauseated.

'Can you stand?' he asked.

She nodded, and did so, but her legs felt like jelly and she had to lean heavily on the hand he offered to help her over the side of the tub and into the pool.

'It'll seem cold,' he said, 'after the hot tub.'

It did, but it also felt refreshing, like a cool drink on a hot summer's day. The water was a liquid caress on her heated skin. It touched and tantalized her nerve endings in new ways, and gave another dimension to the term 'gooseflesh.' Maddy forgot she was in a swimming pool. All she was aware of was the cool kiss of the water and Zack.

He was there, close behind her, his hands curving around her shoulders, his chest against her back. His words were a whisper in her ear.

'Now, do what you did in the tub. Stretch out… just like lying in bed. Relax. Let the water hold you.'

This time he didn't have to position her arms. She let them drift outward on the gently undulating water, like wings. And her head came to rest quite naturally in the curve of his neck. Once again his hands were on her waist, lifting, but now the water was cold and his hands were warm, and there was no confusing the two. She felt his body come up against her back and align itself under hers, and she knew beyond any doubt that it was his body that supported her, not the water. She felt her hair fan out around her shoulders and tickle her skin with a feather's touch. Zack's chin was a solid, raspy pressure against her temple, her anchor and her security. She could have drifted like that forever.

Her legs settled slowly downward, until they tangled with Zack's hard, masculine ones. She jerked hers upward, but that caused her middle to sink. When her bottom encountered an approximately corresponding section of his anatomy, she panicked, and floundered to an upright position. Zack's arms came around her and held her tightly against him.

'Take it easy,' he said tersely against her ear. 'It's okay.'

'I'm all right,' she said irritably. 'I'm fine.' She didn't tell him that it wasn't the water that had precipitated her panic. She tilted her head forward so that his lips were touching her hair, and not the supersensitive shell of her ear. She felt his mouth move briefly down along the lines of her neck. Then he put his hands on her shoulders and stood back, separating himself from her.

'Good job. You did great.' His voice sounded strange, oddly garbled. 'And that's enough for one day, I think.'

Maddy thought so too. She felt shaky, and again knew it had very little to do with her fear of water. In fact, she'd hardly thought about her fear at all.

Quite suddenly, she didn't want to look at Zack. She was vibrantly, electrifyingly aware of him with every nerve and sense she possessed, and was afraid he would see it in her face if she looked at him. Dammit, it was his fault. In fact, he'd done it deliberately, showing her the 'sensual properties of water'! The trouble was, how did she turn her senses off now that she was out of the water?

He gave her his hand to guide her up the pool steps. His hand was firm and strong, and she was sorry when he released her and bent to pick up two beach towels from the deck. As he tossed her one, she noticed that he didn't seem eager to meet her eyes, either. He was wearing that same perplexed frown she'd seen on his face the day she'd appeared by mistake in his swim class. She was just beginning to feel as shy and awkward as she had then, when he suddenly looked full at her and smiled. To Maddy, it was as if someone had turned on a high-powered heat lamp.

'Well, that wasn't so terrible, was it?' he asked. All at once he seemed to be bursting with energy and good spirits.

She shook her head. He was making her breathless again. 'No. But I didn't-we didn't do anything. I thought…'

'Thought what? That I was going to just toss you in the deep end of the pool and let you sink or swim?'

It was a joking remark, but it caught Maddy off guard. She couldn't control her involuntary spasm of reaction. She saw Zack's eyes narrow slightly and knew he hadn't missed it, but he didn't comment. Instead he stepped close to her, took her towel, and arranged it around her shoulders, using one end of it to dab at the moisture on his own face. It was an unexpected gesture, and one of such complete familiarity that it seemed to link them together in a cozy intimacy that excluded everything but the two of them. Everything-even breathing-was suspended. His eyes were very intense, and so near, she couldn't focus on both of them at once. She could see the tiny amber specks in the deep blue irises, count the drops of moisture on his eyelashes. His body was heat, strength, and magnetism, pulling on her.

She heard a small, sharply indrawn breath, and realized it was hers. It broke some sort of spell. Smile lines crinkled around Zack's eyes.

'I'm your teacher, remember? You done good- trust me.' He ducked his head and dropped a quick, and completely fraternal, kiss on the end of her nose. 'Come on. Let's dry off, and I'll see if Dahlia's around. Would you like some coffee? Hot cocoa? Herb tea?'

'Herb tea?'

He shrugged, grinning. 'Hey, we aim to please.'

Laughing, Maddy said, 'Coffee's fine.' And then, impulsively, 'No-hot cocoa. I don't think I've had hot cocoa since I was a little girl.' She drew the towel around herself, snuggling into its folds and into her memories. 'It makes me think of snow and cold winter evenings. We'd come in half-frozen, and Mother would have a big pot of cocoa steaming on the stove. One sip, and you could feel the warmth clear down to your toes.'

Zack dropped his arm casually across her shoulders and said softly, 'Hot cocoa it is.' As they went into the house he raised his voice to call up the stairs, 'Dahlia? Dahlia, are you there?'

A rich and mellow voice answered, with just a touch of gentle mockery, 'Yes, Zachary.'

'Dahlia, come here a minute. Want you to meet a friend of mine. I'm in the basement.'

'I can hear where you are,' the voice scolded goodnaturedly, coming nearer. A very