Page 86 of Fighting With Light

A cross between anger, relief, and the word I swore I would never use runs through my body with the adrenaline at an all-time high. She looks at me funny and starts swimming to the end where I stand. Anger wins out, and I get to the bottom of the pool, rip off my shirt, and dive in. I come up on her, halting her swim and I want to choke her, scream at her, and kiss her at the same time. Too many emotions are filling me and I’m struggling to filter them all.

The water is deep. I noticed that as I swam over to her, thank God. Otherwise, I would have been walking out of here with her body crumpled from impact, and that thought alone makes me want to puke again.

I reach for her, checking for breaks, sprains, cuts, anything. “Do you understand how stupid that was?” I ask her, skimming my hands over her body.

She shrugs. “But it was so much fun,” she says, smiling at me.

I shake my head, treading water.

“I’m fine, Liam,” she says quietly, realizing how angry I am.

“But you might not have been, Aelia, do you get that? You…I ….” I choke on my words because it’s hard for me to organize them. I turn around and swim closer to the edge, where some rocks come out of the water. I hear Aelia swim behind me and find a rock to stand on, but the water is still up to my chest.

She grabs my arm and pulls herself closer. My throat is still too tight to form sentences. She floats herself over to me, locks her legs around my waist, and takes my face between her hands.

“Hey,” she breathes.

I avoid her gaze and look at the water rushing down the falls smoothing out the rocks.

“Tarzan,” she coos.

I glance at her and then away again. I can’t even hold her. She’s wrapped around me all on her own.

“I’m okay,” she whispers.

Anger wins out yet again and I look her in the eye. “But what if you weren’t, Aelia? What if that water was only a foot deep? Huh? I’ve done a lot of bad things in my life for good reasons, so I regret very few of them. Carrying your body out of this jungle would have been the biggest regret of my life. I can carry a lot, but I couldn’t carry that,” I say as anger burns in my chest.

She stares into my eyes for a moment and nods. “You’re right, I’m sorry. I just…I didn’t think I just did. I—”

“Do you care if you live or die?” I ask herseriously.

She looks away and at the rocks behind me. “For a long time, no. I lived for the sake of my mother,” she whispers. “But now? Well…” She brings her hazel eyes to mine. “Now I think I do,” she whispers.

Tears brim in her eyes and I swallow the groan. I don’t want to make her cry, but I thought…I might have lost the one single love of my life and then I truly would have been done for. I would have become a fragment of the man I am, and most days, that barely feels like a man at all. With her, I am better, more focused, and perform at higher levels. She makes me want to try harder.

Aelia brings her arms around my neck and hugs herself to me, and I hesitate for a moment before squeezing her back. Her shoulders shudder with her silent cries and I hold her as she lets them out. I rub her back until her cries stop and she leans back to look at me.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to make you cry,” I tell her, wiping her tears.

“You didn’t make me cry,” she whispers and leans forward, brushing her lips on mine

She’s solidifying the forbidden connection between us and doesn’t know it. I lift my chin, kissing her lightly over and over again. Her teeth grab my lower lip before kissing me deeper and I take control, claiming Aelia Costa, the enemy of my enemy, and allow myself to love her.

I let that feeling burst through my chest and I hug her as tightly as I can, wanting,no,needingto feel all of her. She breaks away, panting against my cheek and I continue my exploration of her skin down her neck, over her collar, and to her shoulders. Aelia sighs as I suck on her skin and her fingers run through my hair. She’s so easy to get lost in, and yet I think I would be okay, never being found by anyone else but her.

“Liam,” she sighs. I pull my mouth away and she looks at me with bright eyes and puffy lips.

She opens her mouth as if to say something and my heart thunders.

No, she can’t say. If she says it, I will say screw the rest of this, we will disappear, we will make new lives for ourselves. I’ve got money, I’ll buy us an island if I have to. That’s how much control she has over me.

“Let’s go jump off a cliff,” I blurt.

Her face contorts from confused to happy and she presses a sloppy kiss on my mouth before swimming over to the edge. The moment she climbs out I realize she’s not wearing pants or a bra.

“Why the hell are you naked?” I ask her.

She shrugs. “I’m notcompletelynaked. I didn’t want to wear wet clothesandshoes all the way back down so I split the difference because you need boots for cliff jumping.”