Page 34 of Please Don’t Go (The Midnight Strike #1)

JOSEFINE

“Are you okay?”

“Yup, I’m good.” Daniel gives me a shaky thumbs-up then places his goggles on his forehead and climbs down the steps to get in the water.

I wade through water once he’s standing inside the pool. It stops right below his waist line but with the blanched look on his face, you’d think he was in the deep end.

“Hey, you have to be honest with me. I promise I won’t judge.” I grab his hands. “For this to work, you have to trust me. Otherwise, I won’t be able to help you, and I really want to.”

An apprehensive, uneasy smile curls on his face. “Sorry, I…yeah, I’m a little nervous.” His eyes dart to our connected hands and stay there until his hands have stopped trembling. When they lift, his smile looks and feels more relaxed. “I was nervous, but I’m okay now,” he corrects himself.

“I promise I won’t make you do anything crazy. But you still have to communicate when something I’m doing is making you uncomfortable. I’m able to adjust and rearrange, but you have to talk to me, okay?”

He nods and I note how less tense his broad shoulders are. “Okay, Jos, I will. I promise.”

Today will be our second swim session and hopefully will go without any interruptions. I did check the weather channel and app multiple times to make sure there weren’t going to be any storms.

With his hands still clutched to mine, I slowly tug him away from the stairs. “I’m not taking you to the deep end, but I do need the water to be at least below your chest. I’m going to have you blow bubbles under the water.”

His hands tighten on mine, but he doesn’t pull away. He easily moves with me.

“You’re doing good, Garcia,” I praise once the water sits at his chest. Because he’s so tall, we couldn’t stand by the stairs. “Really good.”

His face brightens, his smile invigorated. “I haven’t done anything.”

“You’re trusting me, and that’s the most important part of this entire process.” Gratification rolls down my body and back up, but then it evolves into something else. I don’t let myself mull it over before I’m shifting my attention back to him.

“You’re easy to trust.” His thumb skims over my fingers under the water. “It makes this feel less daunting.”

I stop myself from smiling proudly at his compliment. “Let’s see if you still feel this way after the lesson.”

For the next thirty minutes I have him blow bubbles underwater for five seconds. I also have him float while holding on to the edge of the pool. He looked relaxed but I couldn’t risk having him float on his own or using the board yet. Still, he’s doing really good.

“I hope I’m not wasting your time,” he says after he’s dropped his feet back on the floor. He pushes the goggles back up to his forehead and wipes the water away from his face.

I’m trying to maintain professionalism, but he’s making it hard not to look. He’s already got an attractive face as it is, now add the abs and how firm and muscular everything is, and I’m straining my eyes to keep them on his.

If I had HR, I’m sure they’d write me up or fire me.

Snapping out of it, I pinch my brows together at his statement. “Why would you think that?”

“Because we’ve been going at this for thirty minutes or so and all I’ve done is blow bubbles and float.” He rubs the nape of his neck. His cheeks are flushed pink. “That’s thirty minutes of your life you’re never going to get back.”

“I love doing this.” I grab his bicep to—I swear I didn’t do that to feel him, but he does feel really nice—reassure him.

He leans into my hold, his gaze burning mine.

“Knowing that you’ll learn how to swim someday feels really rewarding.

So no, you haven’t wasted my time. Like everything else, we have to start slow and that means blowing bubbles and floating like this until you feel comfortable enough to use the board then float on your own.

So far, this has been one of the best thirty-minute sessions of my life. ”

The sun does a wonderful job of hitting his face just right because it glows. His cheeks burn a darker shade of pink, and his eyes look like two rich pools of honey. Sweet and thick, consuming and blazing.

“You sure know how to make a guy feel special.” He drags his fingers through his damp locks, causing his bicep to flex and the water to ripple down his arm.

“Were my compliments not already doing that?” I cock a brow.

His cheek twitches but his eyes smolder, growing dark. “They were, but hearing you say that was the cherry on top. So keep them coming. I really like hearing how well you think I’m doing, Josefine.”

“You gotta earn it, Daniel.” I shouldn’t have said it like that, slow and seductive, but it just left my mouth that way.

A crooked grin grows on his face and something about the unevenness in his smile makes my body feel…coiled. Everything feels tight, like I’m in a box, confined, and the oxygen is thick and hot, making it hard to inhale.

I breathe in the salty air, hoping it’ll give me some semblance that I’m not struggling with my thoughts right now. But in his next words, the box only gets smaller.

“I’m willing to do anything to earn it.” He casually drops his comment as though it didn’t hold an innuendo that we both know did.

For the next thirty minutes in the pool, we pretend like it didn’t because we’re living together now. We’re not only roommates but friends.

Besides teaching him how to swim, it’s been a while since I felt like this. Although I’m not sure if I can really say a while because I can’t remember the last time I actually felt human. Like I’m in my body and not outside of it, watching life happen around me.

The void in my chest is nowhere near or even halfway full, but I feel something enough that I don’t dread waking up in the mornings. I don’t know what to call that, but I feel…okay.

And okay is the most I’ve ever felt.

“So how did I do?” he asks, dropping on the chaise lounge chair after our hour session is over.

I wring the water out of my hair, keeping my gaze trained on his face and not let it coast down the way it wants to.

I don’t know why I’m struggling. He’s just a guy…

a guy who happens to be firm in all the right places, with abs that look unreal, light brown skin that glows beneath the sun, and a smile that makes me feel things.

“Is this another way to get me to praise you?” I tease and take my towel that he holds out for me.

“Why? Is it working?” He brushes the damp hair that falls over his forehead back, but it only falls forward. A drop clings to one of the ends and temptation screams for me to touch it, but I don’t.

“You got a praise kink I don’t know about?”

“I don’t know, but I’m willing to find out.” He smirks.

I’m not sure how much he’s joking right now, but my brain still accepts it as an invitation. My body goes taut, and a pulse grows between my thighs, but I don’t shuffle on my feet or squeeze them the way they desperately want to.

“I think I’m good. You’re a little needy for my taste,” I apathetically reply.

He gasps, placing his palm on his chest. “Needy? Josefine Resendiz, I’m anything but needy.”

A small chuckle claws out from the back of my throat. “Yeah, okay, Daniel Garcia.”

“Don’t mistake my willingness for neediness because I’m more than welcome to show you just how needy I can make you .” The muscle on his jaw tics and his gaze sweeps over me in a slow, longing motion. This time I can’t stop myself from shifting from one foot to the other and clenching my thighs.

I tried not to make it obvious, but I know he notices because his jaw clenches and I hear his breath hitch.

Thankfully we’re saved by his vibrating phone on the table. While he answers, I grab his goggles and place them in the small shed I bought to store all my swimming gear.

When I’m out of the shed, the atmosphere doesn’t feel as charged as it did a few minutes ago. He approaches me with a smile on his face and pretends he hadn’t implied what he did.

“Go get changed or you can go like that too.” His eyes this time don’t graze over me, and I should be glad, but instead there’s this dip in my stomach. I shouldn’t want him to look at me, but I do.

We’re friends.

“What’s with the demand? Where are we going?”

He grins, grabbing the ends of the towel he has draped around his neck. “We’re going to the beach to play volleyball with the guys, have dinner, and then they go for a swim.”

I take a step back, everything good I was feeling rushing out. “Thanks for the invite, but I’d rather not go. I really don’t want to run into Bryson or?—”

“It’ll just be the guys I was roommates with.

We do this roughly two weeks before the bonfire and the season begins.

It’s a little tradition we started my freshman year.

It’s just us, though sometimes Pen comes and brings her friends.

She was going to ask you, but I told her I’d tell you.

I meant to do that yesterday but with me moving in, it slipped my mind. ”

“I think I’m going to stay and?—”

“And what are you going to do?”

Stare at the email from Monica Jameson and contemplate my life. I haven’t answered her and have been avoiding her on campus. I know I should turn her offer down, but for some reason, I can’t bring myself to do that.

“Tomorrow is Monday and I have classes and?—”

“And I do too, but you’re still going to come with me. Okay?”

“But—”

“ Pero nada. Vas a venir conmigo. Ve agarrar tus cosas y apúrate. ” It’s a nonnegotiable demand.

I should tell him that he can’t boss me around because I hate nothing more than a man telling me what to do but…this is Daniel, and I find it hot.