“Audrey and Nicolette were both very drunk that evening, as was I,” Theo said, floating on his back with his eyes cast toward the cave ceiling. “I kissed them both, sure, but then I put them to bed and I slept in a different room.”
“You did?”
Theo smiled. “I did.”
“You didn’t want to… to…”
“Have sex with two beautiful women?” Theo answered for me, glancing at me with a grin. “On a normal occasion, yes. But let’s just say my mind was a little… pre-occupied.”
I frowned, tilting my head to the side. Theo waited for me to connect the dots, but I didn’t see the dots at all. And so he sighed, blowing out all the air in his chest until he slipped under the water. When he re-emerged, he swam toward me with his mouth under the water, his nose and eyes over it, gliding through the blue mirror like a predator.
My breath hitched in my throat, and he didn’t stop until the warmth of his body struck me through the icy cold water. He didn’t touch me, but was close enough that everything inside me buzzed to life with the desire that he would.
“I’m growing tired of this game, Aspen.”
“What game?” I asked on a breath, one that was met with his, and the cave seemed to quiet, as if it was closing its doors to all others and locking us inside.
“The one where you pretend like you don’t want me,” he husked, and under the water, a warm palm wrapped around my waist.
I inhaled a stiff breath, shaking violently at the touch, my eyelids fluttering as he slipped that hand around to my lower back and pulled me closer, into him, until we were flush against each other and I could feel his desire pressed against my core that ached for him in return.
“And I pretend like you’re not already mine.”
My next breath shuddered out of me, and I clung to his arms. “But I’m not yours,” I reminded him, but the whisper was so faint, so shaky from the cold and my nerves that I wondered if I truly believed what I’d said at all.
Theo swallowed, and I traced the water as it dripped from his hair and down the bridge of his nose, down the edges of his jaw, over his lips that were rolling together as he watched me in return.
“Is that so?” he asked. He pulled me closer with one hand just as his other slicked up my chest in a way so possessive I felt my soul gravitate toward it like a magnet.
My entire body trembled at the warmth of his palm running over my breasts, up my collarbone, until his fingers wrapped around my neck. He squeezed just a pinch, and then released the grip, trailing his hand up more. His thumb and pinky fingers stayed fixed at my neck, but his index finger skated over my wet bottom lip.
And I opened it as if he’d entered some secret code.
His finger slipped inside my mouth, and I tasted the salt of the sea on his warm skin as a pang of desire shot between my legs. My eyes connected with his, and his nose flared, his erection flexing against me where our bodies met under the water.
“I call that bluff,” he whispered as he pulled his finger free, and I would have sworn it was someone else in my body, because I sucked it on the way out, like I didn’t want to let it go.
Like it was a different part of him entirely.
Theo groaned, his next breath nothing but a hiss, and I yelped when he yanked me toward him in the way a wild beast might ravage its prey. His lips were on track for mine, and I leaned my head back, closing my eyes, opening my mouth, surrendering.
Until suddenly, a flashlight blinded us both, along with a deep voice screaming at us in Italian.
I panicked, shoving away from Theo and shielding my eyes from the light as the man yelled and yelled. His booming voice echoed in the cave, disorienting me even more than the light.
Theo held up his hands, and when the flashlight swung to him, my eyes cleared enough for me to see the man had rowed in on a small boat labeled Carabinieri. He was wearing a uniform and had a baton attached to his hip.
Theo hollered back something in Italian to the man, who continued yelling back and shining the light between the two of us.
“What’s going on?!” I whisper-screamed at Theo.
“It’s the police,” Theo said, but there was no panic in his voice. In fact, he smiled when he looked over at me. “Guess we aren’t supposed to be here, after all.”
My eyes widened. “Oh my God! Are we being arrested? I told you it was illegal to swim in here!”
Theo laughed then, shaking his head and reaching for my hand under the water. “It’s just a little fine. But, sadly, I do believe we have to leave now.”
The police officer continued yelling, and the way he was moving his flashlight, I knew he was saying we needed to swim out of the cave now.
Theo swallowed, not bothering to fight back his smile as his thumb traced my wrist under the water. “What a pity,” he whispered. “Just when things were getting interesting.”
And I couldn’t help it then.
I laughed, too.
Theo was slapped with a fine equivalent to something around six-thousand U.S. dollars.
It was enough to make my eyes pop out of my head, but so little for Theo that he almost laughed at it when the police officer had him sign the paperwork. Then, we were escorted back to the yacht, and warned that should we try to swim in the Grotto again, we would be thrown in jail.
Wayland was on the lower deck when we pulled the boat in.
He watched us both curiously, his eyes holding mine with about a dozen questions swimming in those
