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sp; Not even his body was helping to distract her right now.
‘Sit on the edge and come in bit by bit.’
More because she didn’t want to look like a total fool in front of Max than anything else, she gingerly sat down on the edge and put her legs in the water. Immediately she started shaking, remembering how the water had sucked her down.
But Max had his hands on her waist and she gripped his arms.
Slowly, and with far more patience than she would have ever credited him with having, Max gently coaxed Darcy until she was standing in the water. Once she knew she could touch the bottom, he persuaded her to let him pull her along while she kicked her legs.
At one point she saw Max send a glower in the direction of some sniggering kids, but she didn’t care.
And then he turned her on her back, which she only agreed to because he kept his arms underneath her. He was talking to her, telling her something, instructing her to kick her feet, and she was just getting comfortable with the feeling of floating when he said, ‘Darcy?’
‘Hmm?’ It was nice, floating like this.
‘Look.’
She lifted her head and saw Max with his hands in the air. It took a second for the fact that she was floating unaided to compute, and when it did she started to sink. But just as her head was about to go under she was caught, standing with her feet firmly on the bottom and Max holding her.
She was breathing rapidly and he was making soothing noises.
‘I can’t...can’t be—believe you just let me go.’
‘You were totally fine—you’ll be swimming in no time.’
Darcy looked up at Max and her heart turned over. The pool was empty now, and she moved closer to him until their bodies were touching.
‘I know one way of taking my mind off things...’
She reached up and wrapped her arms around Max’s neck, moaning her satisfaction when his mouth came down on hers. Then he was lifting her, and she was wrapping her legs around his waist as he sat her down on the side of the pool and proceeded to do very adult things—until the discreet coughing of a staff member forced them apart like guilty teenagers.
* * *
Much later that night, after Darcy had shown Max her gratitude for helping her to start overcoming her fear of water in a very imaginative way, using her mouth to drive him over the edge of his control, Max couldn’t sleep.
His body was still humming with pleasure...but not yet with the full sense of satisfaction that he usually felt after he’d bedded a woman. The sense of satisfaction that led to a feeling of restlessness and usually preceded his moving on.
Okay, so he knew he couldn’t move on because he and Darcy were married—whether for real or not, they’d gone way over the boundaries of pretence now. But was that it? No. He’d be feeling this way if he and Darcy had started an affair anyway...and that revelation was disturbing.
No woman kept a hold over Max beyond the initial conquest. If he continued a liaison it was usually because it served some purpose not remotely romantic.
But things had escalated with Darcy so fast that his head felt as if it was spinning. She’d made him work for it, but it hadn’t really been game-playing. And the final capitulation... It hadn’t been sweet—it had been fast and furious and intense.
Even now he knew that if she was to turn to him he’d be ready to take her again and again. And tomorrow all over again.
He cursed softly and got out of bed and went downstairs, raiding Dante’s drinks cabinet for some of his fine whisky. He went out to the terrace, where the sound of the lake lapping against the shore should have been calming, but instead Max was remembering the look of stark terror on Darcy’s face as he’d had to coax her into the pool.
Inferno. Since when did he mess about in paddling pools, teaching someone to swim? Yet he couldn’t deny the sheer pleasure he’d taken from seeing her face lose its dread in the pool.
It had given him a kind of satisfaction that he usually reserved for each pinnacle he conquered on his way to the ultimate acceptance and respect in business. Which he still hadn’t attained.
A shiver of something cold crawled up Max’s spine—a memory...crying, feeling as though his guts were going to fall out of his body, his legs shaking...his mother gripping him. ‘Stop snivelling. I’m taking you with me.’
He’d told Darcy practically everything. More than he’d ever told anyone else.
He went even colder and realised that he wasn’t even sure he recognised himself any more. Who was this person who made impromptu wedding proposals? Who chased a woman around a kitchen with a glass of water?
