I’m greedy for more details about his career, but this isn’t the time. So I nod and slip the regulator into my mouth.
It takes a few minutes to get my buoyancy right. I sink too quickly, my ears popping like crazy. But when Cole removes my weight belt, I’m flipping and darting and holy shit, breathing underwater.
The thirty-pound air cylinder on my back feels like nothing in the water. I swim aimlessly, limitlessly, without a sense of the ground or the sky as my hair swirls around me in rippling waves. I feel like a mermaid.
It’s liberating, like dancing, but different. There’s no gravity, no weight, no pressure. Like an out-of-body experience or floating in outer space. Boundless and serene. Absolute freedom.
Cole hovers at the bottom of the pool, seemingly content with watching me swoop and dive around him. Tiny bubbles rise from his aeriform figure, the outline of his hard body fuzzy in the weak light of the water. But I know the instant his contentment morphs into something darker, hungrier. His head tips slightly, and he drifts closer. His forearms flex as he glides slowly through the water, circling, stalking, closing in.
I twist around, keeping him in my line of sight. A few feet away, his eyes glint like a shark. Then he shoots past me, cutting close enough to caress his fingers across my stomach.
He corrals me again and guns for another pass. This time, I feel a slight pull on my hip. My breathing accelerates, increasing the froth of bubbles around my face. When the water clears, I glance down and find the string on my hip untied, leaving my bottoms hanging on by a thread. That sneaky, flirty fucker. Where is he?
I turn in a circle, scanning the underwater horizon. He’s nowhere in sight, which means he must be hovering behind me, moving when I move.
I crane my neck, which is a challenge with the equipment on my back. A fizz of air surges beside my head just as the knot on my other hip pulls free.
The swimsuit bottoms fall off, and I reach for them, rolling through the water and grabbing at nothing. What the hell?
I feel him before I see him. His hands sliding up the backs of my thighs. His hair brushing between my legs. Then his mouth, his lips, his exhale covering my pussy. I moan through the regulator, making it vibrate.
Floating face up between my thighs with his legs behind me, he grips my hips and licks me with vicious strokes. My spine bows, and I suck harder on the apparatus. Sweet lord, it feels so good I’m going to use up all my air.
The scuba mask encloses his eyes and nose, preventing water from entering those parts of his face. But he removed the regulator from his mouth.
He’s holding his breath. For how long?
Panic rises amid the swelling pleasure. But I push it down, reminding myself he’s trained for this. He probably endured all sorts of inhumane drills that forced him to go without air for extended periods.
My fingers tangle in the silken strands of his hair as I grind against his mouth, weightless and drifting. I take care not to bump his face mask while the hands on my hips hold me in place.
I don’t think I can come like this. I’m too worried about sinking or shooting to the surface. Not to mention the fact that he still hasn’t taken a breath. It feels unbelievably sinful, though. Without a doubt, the best sexual experience I’ve ever had.
He curls his tongue inside me, his lips sucking with delicious pressure while tingling my flesh with each exhalation of air.
When he finally moves his mouth to take a breath from the apparatus, he releases a barrage of bubbles that caress and slide along my skin on the way to the surface. Fucking amazing.
He swims through the V of my legs and skims up the front of my body. A fold of white material peeks out of his vest. My swimsuit bottoms.
I bet he planned every detail of this date. The easy removal of a string bikini. The rubber piece in my mouth, preventing my protests. And the exquisite seduction of naked, tangled bodies underwater.
The regulator conceals his expression, but the hunger in his eyes burns behind the mask. It’s the same hunger that rages through my blood and trembles my insides.
I’m in trouble. I know this as soon as his hands fall to the buckles on my BCD vest. He unlatches it and slides it off my arms, taking the tank with it. Alarm spikes through me, widening my eyes. He’s taking my air!
He taps my jaw and shakes his head, telling me not to panic.
After a few steady breaths, I rest my trust on his shoulders. And my hands. There’s no way I’m letting go.
My vest tries to sail to the surface, but he holds onto it. His other hand unhooks the emergency regulator from his vest—every diver has a backup. I understand his intentions when he holds it up to my face.
He wants me to swap mouthpieces and breathe from his tank. If we were a hundred-feet deep in the ocean, I might’ve hesitated. But we’re in a pool, and he won’t let anything happen to me. Worst case, I’ll hold my breath and swim the fifteen feet to the surface.