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“Let’s go for a swim, then.” He went to undo his trouser buttons.
“Seriously?” I waved my hands up and down my body. “I don’t have a bikini.”
Stefan shrugged. “Neither do I.”
My eyes widened. “In the nude,” I whispered, as if we were speaking in public.
“Mausi, there is nobody here and we’re not overlooked. Why not?” He whipped off his shirt, tossing it onto a nearby sun lounger, one of several left out alongside the pool.
I couldn’t move. I’d hidden my nudity during the night, careful to keep him at bay. If I stripped off, it would level things back to how they were. Was I ready to see him naked and to have him take delight in me? I shuffled away from the edge of the pool, because visions of him chucking me in flashed through my head.
“Come on,” he encouraged, starting to shake down his pants.
I undressed in slow motion, carefully folding my clothes on the same sunbed. When it came to my underwear, my inhibitions kept me immobilized. I caught sight of his naked form. His figure remained tantalizing. Those carved, muscular buttocks with their smooth dimples, the soft hairs on his legs and chest, darkening his pale skin, and his long fingers, manicured and slender. All of him kept me magically entranced. His penis appeared inactive, benign. I took that as a good sign. He did want to swim.
I wriggled out of my knickers and snapped my bra off. By then, Stefan had taken the plunge, the water splashing up onto the tiles by my feet. I didn’t dive or jump into water. I preferred to enter in my own time and I took it. I perched on the edge and dipped my feet in. Gradually, I lowered my lower body into the water and let out a small shriek as it lapped up over my erect nipples.
“Good, ya?”
The German affirmation reminded me that he was on his home turf. What to me felt strange and unusual was to him normal—a morning’s impromptu swim. He pushed off and swam to the other end of the pool in a matter of a few strokes. I followed using my version of the breaststroke, which meant that my head stayed out of the water. He’d already begun another length by the time I’d reached the far end. A slightly shallower end, the water came to just below my breasts.
We remained out of synch for a few lengths. He swam with purpose, taking only two breaths for each length. I gasped, splashing unnecessarily. One pass, he flicked water in my face. I squealed, wiping the spray out of my eyes. Two could play that game. The next time we met, I scooped up water in my hand and fired it directly into his face. He ducked his head under, missing the worst. I scowled at my lack of accuracy. It began a mini battle of splashing and the end of any serious swimming. In the middle of the pool, we waged a water fight.
The tension drained away. Whether it had been his intention to force me to unwind, I didn’t know, but it worked. I giggled until my ribs ached. He dived under, trying to grab my ankles and flip me over. It took a few attempts before he achieved his goal. He lifted me up and backward, I flapped my arms uselessly at my side, before sinking, spluttering with mouthfuls of water.
I staggered to my feet. “You bastard,” I shrieked.
I tried to exact some kind of revenge, but he was nimble and I wallowed about like a lumbering elephant. Each time we came closer to each other, our skin touched. The backs of his hands brushed against my thigh, or his elbow nudged my back as I spun out of his way. It became increasingly hard not to make contact. I shoved him away at one point with my hands on his chest. Then one time I successfully caught him off balance and he stumbled backward, splashing and disappearing under.
He stayed there. I waited for him to come back up, but he didn’t. He floated below the surface and I panicked. Had I hurt him?
I stepped forward, dragging my heavy legs through the water, and just as I reached him, he sprang up. I screamed, waving my hands about in shock. “Beast!”
He laughed. “You’re so easy to fool.”
I straightened up, moving backward slightly. “Fool? Easy?” I was sure he’d meant them in jest, but the words had offended my still-sensitive nature. I didn’t like the implication that he could trick me into doing what he liked.
The smirk vanished from his face. “What?”
“Nothing.” I shrugged. Perhaps I was being overly sensitive.
“Oh no, Mausi. New rules. You don’t hide behind a frown. Neither of us does. If I’d opened up to you about my family problems last Sunday, you would have felt so shut out by me.” He paused. “Would you have stayed? If I’d told you.”
The water settled and I wrapped my arms about my chest, conscious of my nudity. “Yes. I might have. Probably.”
“I really didn’t give you a chance to get to know me, did I?” Water dripped off the end of his nose and he shook it off with a snort.
“No,” I hastened to say. “I put up barriers too. I ran off at the first sign of you backing off and it wasn’t the kindest thing to do, given your obvious…distractions. It’s what I did with…Micah.” I uttered the name of my absent ex-boyfriend with distaste. Thinking his name was hard enough—saying it, I wanted to wash my mouth out.
“Micah?” Stefan edged closer, cocking his head to one side.
“My two-year relationship with a man who liked company when it suited him, not me. I got used to giving him a wide berth when he didn’t need me. When he did, well, I got sucked into his life, his friends, and let him milk me.” The bitterness went on longer than I’d intended. I stopped.
“Ah. I take it you chucked him?”
“Eventually. After lots of false tries. He liked space just as much as company. We met on his terms. I realized that now because…”
“I demanded you stay.”
