Water closes over my head.
Music softens into vibration. Light fractures above us. My hair floats around my shoulders.
Seth’s mouth stays on mine.
The kiss changes underwater. His hands move along my waist and ribs before sliding to my hips.
The last time I had been submerged, I felt terror.
Now I feel something else.
Every nerve wakes beneath his touch. My body is not bracing anymore.
It is choosing.
Seth opens his eyes.
Gray locks onto mine through the wavering light of the pool.
Underwater, everything about him looks different. His hair lifts slightly from his forehead, dark strands drifting weightlessly around his temples. The angles of his face soften beneath the shifting ribbons of blue light moving across the water. Tiny bubbles cling along the line of his jaw and the bridge of his nose before slipping upward toward the surface.
His eyes never leave mine.
The color looks lighter down here, storm gray turned almost silver by the light breaking through the water above us. His gaze holds steady and unblinking, intense in a way that makes my chest tighten even though I’m not breathing.
His hand tightens at my waist.
The muscles in his forearm flex beneath the water while he holds me against him, my body suspended in the warm weightlessness between the surface and the tiled floor. His other hand drifts slowly up my spine, fingers sliding through the floating strands of my hair before settling against the back of my neck.
The look in his eyes says everything his mouth can’t underwater.
I’m here.
I’m not letting you go.
For a moment I forget about the burn building in my lungs.
All I can see is him.
His mouth still pressed against mine. The faint movement of his chest as he holds the breath we shared seconds earlier. The way the water bends the light across the planes of his shoulders and the dark ink stretching over them.
He looks almost unreal beneath the surface.
Dangerous.
Beautiful.
Mine.
The pressure in my chest finally returns, a slow ache spreading through my ribs as my body reminds me it needs air.
I squeeze his shoulder once.
His arm tightens around my waist and he pushes upward, cutting through the water as he lifts us both toward the surface.
The second our heads break through, air rushes into my lungs in a sharp inhale.
Our mouths are still connected.
