‘Hello, you,’ he said, gifting her that sunrise smile, eyes like a pool at midnight and she was about to dive in.
She stared at him while her stomach did a tumble turn all of its own. Lazy and languid. There was nothing tight and six-beat about that turn; it took its own sweet time.
‘Coming in?’ Ella said, before she turned back to the water.
‘I might watch you for a while.’
She laughed. ‘Chicken.’
‘Go on. Get all that speed out of your system. Then I’ll race you. And I’ll catch you.’
‘You’re on,’ she said, and she gathered her muscles, filled her lungs with oxygen and dove.
Water sliced around her.
It didn’t shock like the day she dove in Jake’s dam. It was too warm for that, thanks to the bank of solar panels on the roof, but the easy streamlined slip of water was a surprise all its own, and as she stroked underwater, aiming up, and broke the surface into a way-too-fast crawl, Ella felt like every dolphin and every fish on every wildlife documentary she’d ever seen.
So free.
Twenty metres was the length of the town pool. Five lanes.
Ella powered up and down until her arms ached, and no amount of Erik’s voice in her head that said, “Welcome the burn, build, build, build,” could fool her that this didn’t freaking hurt.
She didn’t have to welcome the burn.
This was swimming for the fun of it.
God, how she’d missed it!
Ella stopped when she reached the end, put her swimming goggles up on her head and shook water from her ears. Then her eyes searched for Jake.
* * *
Holy snapping duckshit. She was amazing.
Ella’s stroke in the water drew Jake’s eyes like a magnet and he didn’t want to look away in case he missed anything, until she went up and down so many times she made him dizzy.
Jake kicked off his tracksuit pants, and toed them towards his kit bag with the towel, stripping down to board shorts. He didn’t own goggles. Hadn’t ever given goggles a thought in the dam, but if he was going to start any town pool swimming, he’d better get a pair.
Ella performed another perfect tumble at the end of the pool, and Jake noticed her shoulders turning dark pink, and he wondered if exertion might bruise her nipples a few shades darker than the pale pink he’d spent so many months imagining.
Ella pulled up on the next lap, shook her hair out, breathing hard, put her goggles on top of her head and looked for him.
‘Are you all puffed out?’ he called to her, moving to the same lane as Ella but at the opposite end of the pool.
‘I’m shattered. That really hurt.’
‘Okay then. Now is when I catch you.’
She splashed water at him. ‘Like to see you try.’
‘This isn’t my dam, Ella, and I’m a big lump of a guy. I’ll catch you.’
‘Go your hardest.’ She pulled the goggles back into place.
Jake strode from where he’d been standing and began walking up the long length of the pool towards her.
‘That’s cheating,’ she said, slipping under the brightly coloured lane guide to her left, moving away.
‘I never said I’d catch you fair.’
He heard her squeal a protest before he dove at her.
Eyes open underwater, he saw her push off the wall, trying to cut above him before he could reach her, but he had the momentum, and he’d given her hardly any space to play with.
Yeah sure, he’d cheated. He’d do it again too. He didn’t have a hope in hell of catching this little fish if he played in the water by her rules.
Tiny bubbles streamed from beneath Ella’s body, and larger bubbles from her mouth, and there was a second where his eyes met hers just as he reached for her leg, and laughter bubbled there too.
Even then, she kicked and he nearly missed her.
A thousand attempts to corner sheep in a stockyard came into play as he finned himself hard to the right, anticipating her next move.
Jake got her ankle.
They both came up spluttering, and no way was he letting go.
* * *
Ella wrapped her arms around Jake’s neck and kissed him. He pulled her goggles off, threw them poolside and then picked her up in the water and wrapped her legs around his hips so there was no denying his arousal and how hot he was for her.
Skin met skin under water. It really was a very itsy-bitsy pink and white bikini.
‘You are so damn beautiful, Ella Davenport,’ he said, between kisses that kept getting hotter.
‘Not so bad yourself, Jake.’
He waded—Ella clinging to him like a koala bear—to the edge of the pool, then he pressed her into the wet tiles with his body and his big, capable hands went everywhere at once.
He palmed her breast, kneaded, stroked, then he tugged the triangle of bikini fabric low and rolled her nipple with his thumb.
His gaze feasted on her, devoured her, and then he tilted his head. ‘It’s not light enough. I can’t see.’
‘What? See what?’
‘If you knew how long I’ve wondered what colour your nipples are, Ella.’
Oh.
This time, the flush started from her toes. She flushed all over: legs, shoulders, tummy, face. She was pale pink and deep pink all over; puffed-out purple, aching, panting, swollen and wanting.
Jake lowered his dark head and captured her nipple with his mouth, and Ella arched her back to push her breasts up and out because they both wanted their turn with that naughty, clever mouth.
Then the water moved. A giant wave of water that spilled over the edge of the pool, staining the tiles, as Jake picked her up and settled her on her bottom, feet dangling in the water.
‘I am so not christening us on a damn pool deck,’ he said, heaving himself out of the water, standing and putting his hand out to take her with him.
* * *
If you could float on air and land, that’s what they did, Ella thought later when
