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Or to drown.
I slip away from his solid body, starting toward the boardwalk leading away from the sand, but he catches my elbow, swinging me back around in a circle with a gentle tug of his fingers.
“No one’s losing a limb today.” He nods toward the water’s edge, where at least a dozen bigger kids are riding boogie boards while a flock of mothers in wide-brim straw hats stand in the water, chatting as their little ones splash in waves by their feet. “Sharks don’t like crowds. We’ll be perfectly safe.”
I swallow.
Or try to swallow, but it suddenly feels like Gigi’s ruffle-necked, gauzy black cover-up is trying to strangle me.
I tug at the bow with clammy fingers. “I think a pool would be better, though, right? I should have thought of that before we left.” Yes, a pool. A nice shallow pool. Duh. “Easier to teach in a pool. Fewer waves and seagulls and—”
“The waves aren’t that big, and the seagulls won’t bother us. We didn’t bring any food.”
My skin prickles. My voice pitches higher. “But we probably should have.” I point back toward the subway station, desperate to go. “There was a sandwich shop up there. Should we grab sandwiches? Maybe have a beer and consider our options? I’m on vacation; I should totally have a beer at eleven a.m., right? I mean, when’s the last time I did that? Have I ever done that?” I laugh nervously. “I don’t think I have. Have you?”
“We’ll have a beer after,” he says, his fingers curling farther around my upper arm. “To celebrate.”
“Celebrate.” I huff. “I hear that’s hard to do when you’re sleeping with the fishes.”
“Ruby.”
“What? I just . . .” My tongue slips out to dampen my lips as I meet his unflinching gaze.
I told him I wanted him. Surely, I can tell him this truth too. That I am so scared.
I am terrified.
I am petrified of almost dying . . . again.
Finally, I whisper, “You said we would stop if I wanted to stop. If the list got too hard.”
He strokes my hair, gentle and tender. “We can, but this isn’t too hard, sweetheart. You’ve got this. And like I said, I’ve got you. I won’t let you drown. I won’t let you die. I won’t let anything bad happen to you. I promise.”
Can he keep that promise?
I’m not sure, but the fact that he makes it unknots the ball of fear in me.
So do his hands.
He cups my face, making me feel small in a good way. In a this man could absolutely throw me over his shoulder and carry me out of a burning building kind of way.
And yes, I like his promise.
Maybe I need to swim through my fear.
"Do you trust me?” he asks with my face still in his grasp.
A grasp that feels like an embrace.
And like he’s giving me some of his courage.
I take it, letting his strength fill me. “I do,” I say, meaning it.
“Good. I’ve got your back. I swear.”
A part of me tries to grab ahold of the fear one last time, to cling to my phobia. To stay . . . stalled.
That’s familiar. That’s comfortable.
But looking into his eyes, I know beyond a shadow of a doubt he means it. He will do whatever it takes to keep me safe. Fight off sharks and seagulls and tsunamis, and anything else the world might throw at us today.
Of course, I’m no damsel in distress. I’m not a woman who needs a man to save her.
But I am a person who knows when she needs help.
When she needs a friend.
I need his friendship right now.
I need him by my side.
Here with me.
My resistance melts away. I kick my fear onto the boardwalk.
The back of my nose starts to sting a little, and I nod. “Okay.”
His expression gentles. “Yeah?”
I nod and suck in a bracing breath. “But let’s hurry and get in before I chicken out again.”
“You’re not going to chicken out, and we’re not going to rush,” he says, taking my hand and leading the way toward an open space on the sand. “We’re going to take it slow and easy, step by step, and give your squirrel brain plenty of time to get used to the idea.”
I huff as I spread out the beach blanket and set my borrowed beach bag on top of it. “I don’t know about that. My squirrel brain is pretty—”
Jesse whips off his T-shirt, revealing all those beautiful muscles I became intimately acquainted with last night.
My gaze rakes down his frame, from his broad shoulders to the gorgeous biceps that I’m pretty sure I bit at some point.
Sometime around orgasm two, my memory gets a little fuzzy.
I narrow my gaze, staring hard at his muscle. Maybe my eyes are playing tricks on me, but I would swear there’s a little red spot there.
