Page 42

In the deep end of the pool, tiny bubbles rose to the surface.
Ice froze over my gut.
“Oh Jesus, fuck. No.”
My legs felt disjointed. Like no matter how hard I kicked, the water kept pushing me backward. I turned my head and gulped for air, forcing my arms to spear through the water to get me there quicker. Water streamed into my eyes, stinging them, but I couldn’t close them. Not until I got there. Not until I knew if I’d been making up those bubbles I’d seen.
Rebel sank slowly toward the bottom of the pool, her black T-shirt billowing out around her. Small bubbles leaked from her nose and mouth, but her eyes were closed.
She made no move to swim. No effort to propel herself back up to the top so she could breathe.
How long had she been down there? Ten seconds? Thirty? A minute? Maybe more?
I swam harder, panic fueling my kick. A few feet away, I took a breath then dove beneath the surface, kicking down until my fingers touched her skin.
She didn’t react.
I wrapped my arm around her bare waist and dragged her up. We broke the surface, and I sucked in a lungful of air, simultaneously shaking her.
“Rebel!”
Her eyes flew open, and she shook her head, water droplets flicking me in the face. “Yeah?”
The adrenaline departed my body in an instant. I shoved her away from me, my chest so tight I couldn’t breathe let alone hold us both up.
Treading water easily, she watched me with big brown eyes.
I swam away.
I swam as far as I could with trembling arms. At the opposite end of the pool, I grasped the edge and tried to breathe normally but I couldn’t. It fucking hurt too much.
A minute later, a soft voice came from behind me. “Vaughn.”
I spun around, suddenly way more angry than scared. “What the fuck was that? You just play dead now?” If she hadn’t been treading water in the middle of the lane, blocking my escape, I would have swum straight past her again.
She shook her head. “I was just…I don’t know. It’s peaceful down there.”
“Peaceful!” I exploded, words fueled by fear. “Sure, real fucking peaceful down there where there’s no goddamn air! You know, that thing you need to breathe?”
She reached out and touched my chest. “Hey. I had air. I wasn’t tied down. I was coming back up.”
I tried to breathe normally, but it was like it was me who’d been the one drowning, my lungs filling with water. I grabbed the edge of the pool, shaking my head. “What were you thinking? You think you were the only one who suffered a trauma that night? You weren’t, Rebel. Do you know how useless I felt, realizing no matter how fast I drove, I probably wasn’t going to get there in time? How guilty I felt when I saw what he’d done to you? If you wanted to punish me, you picked the best fucking way to do it.”
Her arms came around my neck from behind, her chest pressing to my back, her lips at my ear. “I’m sorry. I didn’t think.”
Her lips touched the side of my neck.
I froze.
She did it again.
Her lips were soft and warm but insistent. She kissed a trail up the side of my neck, mumbling the word ‘sorry’ in between each kiss.
I reached behind me and grabbed her thigh. In a second, I had her swiveled around in front of me, her back hard up against the side of the pool. She gasped when I dragged her thigh around me, but an instant later, her other leg mirrored the action, and she linked her ankles at my lower back.
My barely covered dick pressed to her running shorts.
“I’m sorry,” she said again, mouth an inch from mine while she searched my face. “I wasn’t thinking. I didn’t plan it. I just jumped in. I’d planned to swim…but then I just…didn’t.”