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He guided me in a wide arc, an amused smile on his lips. “Cody?”
“Yup.”
We fell into an easy silence, Vinh’s hand a warm, welcome presence on my skin as we made several turns around the pool. I kept my eyes open the entire time, watching the beams that intersected the ceiling whenever I wasn’t stealing glances at Vinh, who I caught doing the same to me more than once. We never acknowledged it beyond a shared smile, enjoying the peace of the pool and each other’s company.
Floating, but not adrift. Anchored to my safe harbor.
Vinh’s other hand eventually joined the routine, tracing patterns down my thigh, across my stomach, and the valley between my breasts. As worked up as I’d been this evening and the obvious quickening of my breath from his teasing touches aside, I was in no hurry for this to end.
He seemed to feel the same, as he changed our direction again, the hand on my lower back shifting to rest over the top of my bikini bottoms. The water sloshed as I turned my head toward him, and he smiled down at me with a mischievous glint in his eye.
“I’m too tall for one-pieces,” I mumbled as if my bikini needed explanation.
His brow creased. “I don’t know what that means.”
I let my lower half sink back into the water and spun on the tip of my toe to face him, the water rippling in an expanding circle around us. His hands stayed attached to my body, never breaking contact as I moved.
“Most women’s clothes are made for people three to four inches shorter than I am. I’ve never found a one-piece that worked. I wore tankinis whenever we went to the pool or the beach, but Grandmother always made me swim in a T-shirt regardless.” I held on to his hip with one hand and let my other float freely in the water, smiling at the memory I was about to share. “When I turned eighteen, I bought my first bikini. It was one of my first real acts of rebellion. I got new piercings that day too. My upper lobe and orbital.”
His hands shifted to the top of my bottoms again and he pulled me closer, kissing the shell of my ear before turning us in a lazy circle. “That’s two acts. What was your third?” His voice rumbled in his chest and vibrated across me in a delicious way. I shivered, and one of his hands instantly shot up to massage my back.
“Garnishes,” I replied.
He let out a surprised huff of laughter.
I smiled widely, pleased to have caught him off guard. “I went to the buffet, Cornucopia, and asked if I could work in the kitchen, preparing the buffet garnishes. I cut and arranged a lot of kale. So much kale.”
“In culinary school, that might’ve been considered an act of rebellion too.”
I nodded, hoping to revisit that later. He hadn’t talked much about that time in his life, and I wanted to know it all. “Grandmother certainly took it that way. She was furious when she found out, but of course she didn’t show it in front of anyone at Fortuna. She waited until I got home that night to lay into me, but it didn’t stop me. I just waited a few weeks to do it again once she was off the scent. And got smarter about making sure I knew where she was.”
I brought my hand to my hair, feeling where it was starting to dry—a sure recipe for disaster—and tapped Vinh’s shoulder. “Dunk, please.”
He pulled me flush against him, catching my surprised gasp with an achingly tender kiss. Our eyes were open, locked on each other as he tilted forward and plunged us both underwater. My eyes closed on instinct as Vinh’s arms tightened around me, and he propelled us through the water, our lips never breaking their connection. His warm breath caressed my lips, and as we resurfaced, I felt his kiss turn into a smile. I reached out a foot to test the depth, and finding we were back in the shallow end, pushed myself up and pressed against him, kissing him until we were both breathless.
I trailed my fingers down his arm, stopping right above the largest of the burn scars above his wrist. I searched his gaze, planning to back off if I found too much discomfort there.
There was none, so I used his words, caressing his skin lightly. “Tell me.”
He looked down at our hands, which were clasped and floating in the water now, only hesitating for the length of one breath before speaking. “I went to culinary school right out of high school. I saw photos of the old bar and restaurant my parents used to own, and I had the vague idea in my mind of opening something like that one day. But in my second year, there was an… incident.” The crease between his eyes deepened as he looked past me as if searching for the memory. “I haven’t really thought or talked about this in years.”
I pushed back his wet hair. “I can understand not wanting to think about it, especially if it was traumatic.”
His eyes refocused and he nodded. “It was. Especially for my parents and Liem. Liem was only ten at the time.”
“I’d like to hear it. Any of it, long or short version,” I assured softly, remembering how patient he’d been with me and my haphazard storytelling.
He squeezed my hand. “Maybe the short version for now?” He stopped our motion in the water before he burst out laughing, shocking me enough that I reared back. He readjusted his grip on my hips with an apologetic smile. “Sorry, I just remembered something my aunt said last night.”
“Well, you have to tell me now. Especially after that reaction.”
He laughed again and ran his hands down to my thighs, gripping them tightly and encouraging me to encircle his waist with my legs. As soon as I did, he resumed our promenade around the pool, sending a cascade of water in our wake.
“She reminded me of the time Liem was being bullied in school. She basically said, among a lot of other things, that it was the mean look on my face that scared the bullies off when I confronted them. But now that I look back on it, I think it was the scars. They were still healing at the time, so I probably looked like a monster to them.”
My heart skipped before squeezing tightly in my chest as I imagined a nineteen-year-old Vinh protecting a ten-year-old Liem. It was almost too much to handle. I squeezed my arms around him and murmured in his ear, “Always such a good brother. That was probably the first thing I knew about you, before I even knew your name. Never dumb, never luck. It’s just you.” I nipped his neck, right below his ear, and trailed a line of kisses across his jaw before pulling back.
He groaned softly and tried to turn his head to capture my lips, but I pulled back and raised an eyebrow at him. “So, the short version?”
