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I heave, forcing the water out of my lungs just to take more back in. Tears are pouring out of my eyes, mixing with the water the second they do. I am drowning again. I am drowning, and I can’t fucking die. There is no peaceful darkness protecting my mind. No nothingness to fall into. There is just pain and terror.
I break through the surface of the water, flailing, coughing, and sputtering. But I’m not alone.
Oz is already here. He supports my weight as I convulse, easily keeping me above the water. I hold onto him like a fucking life preserver. I can’t speak or do anything other than try to breathe. Most of the water has been expelled from my lungs, but the breaths still aren’t clean. A few more body-shuddering coughs take care of the remaining lake water.
I gulp clean air at last.
We stay like that for two minutes as I breathe deeply and try to calm myself down. When my breaths finally even, and I don’t feel half dead anymore, I look at Oz’s concerned face.
“You ok?” He asks, still holding me close.
I press into his chest and nod.
Drowning the second time is much worse than the first. “I am now, yes.” I notice he is still fully clothed. He dove into the same water he’d saved me from a week ago without a second thought, and this time there is no real danger to my life. I am just a silly new vampire who bit off more than she could chew and paid for it.
He doesn’t even address that he is holding me against him, and I’m nude.
Oz is a strange man indeed.
I like it.
We swim to shore together, but when we leave the water, I feel air sting my leg and look down. A piece of glass is shoved deep into my thigh. The stupid window…
Fucking fish.
“Well, there goes my career as a leg model.” I joke, reaching down to yank the glass out. His hands beat me to it.
He kneels before me, holding my leg gingerly as he clasps the glass between two fingers, his other hand gripping my calf to hold me still. I am very aware of how close his head is to me. Even injured, even after drowning again, even with a gaping wound in my thigh, I can’t get my mind off of a physical relationship with this man. His eyes haven’t even moved to look at me that way.
Maybe because he is in savior mode?
Or the gentleman thing again.
Honor?
I laugh quietly to myself and wobble on my one ankle. His eyes flash up to mine, and my smile is immediately gone with the intensity of his stare. He pulls the glass from me with a quick jerk. That bad boy was embedded deeper than I thought.
“Son of a,” I start, bringing my forearm to my mouth and growling my pain into it instead of the night.
Oz brings his wrist to his lips, bites down, and blood pours from it. I gasp as he presses it to my wound. It starts to stitch itself together again. Well, that’s a neat trick. He places the gentlest of kisses on my knee.
I take a sharp breath as arousal sends a pulse to my center.
My skin feels electrified where he kissed me.
I want him to kiss me more.
Mesmerized, I don’t think anything of it when he releases my leg and stands close to me, raising his wrist to my lips. “Drink,” he insists. His voice is firm, and I am reminded of that night. He’d told me to drink then too. Commanded it.
I do as instructed. God, he tastes good. “You’d have healed eventually, but this is faster,” he said. I release his wrist from my lips, licking them to get every last drop.
“Ready to go home?” His eyes bore into me in a way that makes me think his hunger for closeness is as intense as mine. He’s just better at denying it than I am.
I don’t understand.
Why are we fighting this?
Settling my hands on his chest for balance, I stand on tiptoe and press my lips against his. His lips return that kiss ever so gently at first. Hands wrap around me, I fist mine into his hair. Oz tastes like heaven and home as I kiss him. He walks me backward until we press against a tree. The force and passion grow as his kisses deepen.
