Page 6 of Heatstroke (Private Encounters #15)

SIX

CORAL STEPS

The reply came at dawn, when the sky was still the color of bruised plums and the air smelled of salt and wet earth. Daniel's phone buzzed against the nightstand, pulling him from restless sleep. He reached for it, throat tight, expecting anger, exhaustion, some final dismissal.

Instead, it was an invitation.

Thierry : Anse Mistral. Sunset. Bring goggles.

No plea. No demand. Just those five words, simple as the tide. Daniel exhaled, his ribs loosening for the first time in days.

Anse Mistral was a crescent of white sand tucked between black volcanic cliffs, the kind of cove locals shared with only the most special of tourists. Daniel arrived early, his rented fins slung over one shoulder, the neoprene of his dive socks still damp from yesterday's rain.

Thierry was already there, waist-deep in the shallows, his back to the shore. The dying sun gilded the water around him, turning his skin to liquid bronze.

Daniel hesitated at the shoreline, his toes curling into the wet sand where the tide licked hungrily at the beach. The last molten rays of sunset painted the water in liquified gold, each wavelet crested with fire as it rolled toward shore.

His chest rose and fell in quick, shallow breaths—not from exertion, but from the weight of what lay beneath that shimmering surface. The goggles dangling from his fingers suddenly felt absurdly inadequate, like trying to armor himself against the universe with children's toys.

Thierry turned.

The water reached his waist, swirling around the sharp angles of his hips where his swim trunks hung low. Droplets clung to the ridges of his abdomen, catching the light like scattered diamonds. He said nothing. Didn't need to.

That slight tilt of his chin—an imperceptible movement that somehow carried the gravity of a shouted invitation—was enough. Then he was gone, sliding beneath the surface with the silent grace of a predator, his dark form dissolving into the deep blue.

Daniel exhaled sharply through his nose and followed.

The ocean swallowed him whole. The shock of coolness against his sun-warmed skin made his breath hitch, the sudden silence pressing against his eardrums like a physical presence. When he opened his eyes, the world had transformed into something from a dream.

Sunlight shafted through the water in golden columns, illuminating particles that swirled like distant galaxies. Below him, the ocean floor dropped away in terraces of living rock, purple sea fans waving lazily in the current, their delicate fronds trembling with each pulse of the tide.

Ahead, Thierry moved through the water with effortless power.

His body cut through the blue like it was his natural element.

The muscles of his back flexed beneath skin gone amber in the filtered light, his shoulder blades rising and falling with each stroke.

Schools of tiny silver fish scattered before him, and their synchronized movements created flashes of light like scattered coins.

Without thinking, Daniel found his rhythm matching Thierry's, their kicks falling into sync as if connected by some invisible tether. His pulse, which had been a frantic drumbeat in his veins for weeks, slowed to match the ocean's timeless cadence.

Here, surrounded by this ancient, breathing world, the ghosts that haunted him seemed small and far away. The water demanded presence, required complete surrender to the moment—there was no room for yesterday's regrets or tomorrow's fears when every breath was measured and precious.

Then—contact.

Thierry's fingers brushed against his wrist, the touch feather-light but electric in the water’s silence. He guided Daniel toward an outcrop of brain coral, its convoluted surface resembling a petrified thought. With his free hand, he pointed.

There was an octopus.

It pulsed between the rocks, a living inkblot test of shifting hues. As they watched, its skin morphed from slate gray to mottled ochre, then erupted in sudden electric blue rings that flashed like warning lights before dissolving into a pattern of intricate stripes.

Its eyes—dark pools of alien intelligence—fluttered open just the slightest bit and regarded them with cautious curiosity. The pupils were horizontal slits that widened slightly as it assessed the intruders in its domain.

Daniel felt laughter bubble up in his chest, escaping his lips in a rush of silver spheres that spiraled toward the surface. The sound was strange and wonderful to his own ears.

When had he last laughed like this? Without irony? Without pain?

Thierry's answering smile was slow to form but radiant in its completeness, the corners of his eyes crinkling in a way that made Daniel's stomach flip.

His hand lingered near Daniel's hip, the warmth of his touch palpable even through the water's chill as they hovered together in the weightless dark, suspended between surface and depths.

When they broke through to air, the world had transformed. The sun hung fat and red just above the horizon, setting the clouds aflame in streaks of violet and tangerine. Daniel pushed his hair back from his forehead, the water streaming from his limbs as he gulped in great lungfuls of briny air.

"It changes color when it dreams," Thierry said, treading water beside him. His voice was rough with salt and exertion, but his eyes shone with quiet delight.

Daniel blinked saltwater from his lashes. "What?"

"The octopus." Thierry wiped water from his face with one broad hand. "Its skin. The locals say it mirrors whatever it's dreaming about."

Daniel laughed again, the sound breathless and bright. "Bullshit."

Thierry's grin was unrepentant.

"Maybe." He drifted closer, the waves nudging them together until their knees bumped beneath the surface. "You're smiling."

The observation caught Daniel off guard. He hadn't realized the expression on his own face, hadn't been aware of the unfamiliar stretch of muscles long unused. The knowledge sat between them, vulnerable and unguarded, like one of the fragile sea urchins clinging to the rocks below.

Thierry's gaze dropped to Daniel's mouth, lingered there just long enough to make Daniel's pulse stutter, then lifted again to meet his eyes. "Come under again."

This time, when they dove, Thierry didn't let go of his hand.

The reef rose to meet them like some ancient, submerged city, its coral spires glowing amber in the fading light. Daniel braced one palm against a rough outcropping and found the texture both abrasive and strangely comforting beneath his fingers.

Thierry crowded close, their legs tangling in the lazy current and the warmth of his body palpable even through the cooling water. Salt crusted their lips, their eyelashes, catching in the hollows of their collarbones like tiny crystals.

When Thierry kissed him, it was slow and deliberate, a communion more than a conquest. The taste of salt and something indefinably Thierry flooded Daniel's senses as the ocean cradled them both, buoyant and forgiving.

Daniel sighed into the contact, his body arching instinctively toward the heat of him, his fingers finding purchase on the solid planes of Thierry's shoulders.

They broke apart only when their lungs demanded it, surfacing into air that smelled of iodine and impending night. Daniel's breath came ragged, his thoughts scattered like the first stars appearing overhead.

"I was scared," he admitted, the words torn from some deep, untouched place within him.

Thierry pressed their foreheads together, his breath warm against Daniel's lips. "I know."

No judgment. No demands for explanation. Just quiet understanding, as constant as the tide lapping at their shoulders.

Then Thierry was kissing him again, deeper this time, his hands sliding down Daniel's back to grip his hips with possessive certainty.

The coral scraped against Daniel's thighs as Thierry guided him backward, the rough edges a delicious counterpoint to the slick heat of their bodies moving together.

The water lapped at their waists, warm where the day's last sunlight had touched it, cool where the ocean's deeper mysteries still clung to their skin.

Around them, the sea pulsed with life—the darting shapes of nocturnal fish beginning their dances, the distant cry of gulls heading inland for the night, the eternal whisper of waves against shore.

And for the first time in longer than he could remember, Daniel was exactly where he wanted to be—not fleeing toward some uncertain future or haunted by ghosts of the past, but here, now, alive in every sense of the word.

Thierry's mouth moved to Daniel's throat, his teeth grazing the tendon there before soothing the sting with his tongue. Daniel gasped, his head falling back, the sky a blur of fire above them.

"Look at me," Thierry murmured.

Daniel did.

Their eyes locked as Thierry pushed inside him, the stretch burnished sweet by the ocean's buoyancy, by the way Thierry's hands trembled just slightly as they gripped his waist. Daniel wrapped his legs around him, pulling him deeper, the water rocking them together in a rhythm as old as the reef beneath them.

No guilt. No ghosts. Just this—the salt, the sweat, the way Thierry's breath hitched when Daniel clenched around him. Pleasure built like a storm surge, inevitable, overwhelming.

Daniel came with a soundless cry, his body bowing against Thierry's as the waves swallowed his gasp. Thierry followed, his groan muffled against Daniel's shoulder, his fingers leaving crescent moons in the skin of the latter’s hips.

After, they floated together. Their limbs were loose in the water as the current nudged them toward the shore.

The last of the sun finally dipped below the horizon, painting the water in shades of rose and indigo.

Daniel turned his face into the crook of Thierry's neck, breathing him in—salt, sweat, something indefinably warm.

Thierry carded a hand through his hair. "Stay this time."

Daniel closed his eyes.

For once, he didn't want to run.