Page 26 of Swim To Me

Grey leans further over the small table, gifting me a close up of his soft-looking brunette curls on the top of his head and the freshly shaved sides. God, he smells good. Chlorine mixed with a tang of sweet mint and—

I catch myself, or should I say, my thoughts, taking a pull of my tea to centre myself back into my body.

It doesn’t really help. I’m warm all over again, something in my gut stirring akin to when my bare thigh had bumped into his just last week. It’s a visceral reaction, one I can’t fucking stop or control.

“You really take your editing seriously? Hm?”

It’s only becauseI’mwatchinghim–unable to draw your eyes away, more like, Delilah –that I catch the way Grey’s eyes look down at the bound manuscript, and then trail back up, snagging on my chest for a second, before arriving at my face.

I thought I was flushing warm a second ago, but now it’s practically painful. I feel my heart rate pick up, liquid heat pooling in my lower stomach.

Beneath the table, I uncross and cross my legs again, not an easy feat in my pencil skirt, in an attempt to quell the sudden weight I feel growing between the apex of my thighs.

I know what’s fucking happening. I’m bloody attracted to the man. To this man who’s supposed to be teaching me how to swim. My fucking swim teacher.I’m attracted to my swim teacher.

Christ, Aurelia would be having a field day if she were here right now.

Grey’s lips are moving again, but I can’t hear him over the roaring of my blood and the spiral of my thoughts. I take a larger gulp of my tea, sugar gnawing at the back of my teeth.

“Sorry, what did you say?”

“I said, you take your editing pretty seriously… and you’re neat at it, as well. My handwriting wouldn’t even be legible,” he shakes his head, “just a messy scrawl all over the place. They’d hate me.”

I shrug. “It comes with practice, I suppose.”

A nod of his head and then said, “Did you have a nice weekend?”

“It wasn’t bad,” I say, placing my now empty teacup onto its China saucer and pressing my lips together to smooth out my lipstick. “Cleaning, yoga, more editing. Yourself?”

Grey raises his eyebrows in a playful manner. “I’ve got a little workaholic on my hands, huh? I was here, at the pool, on Saturday and then I hopped on the train home for our weekly dinner. It was nice… chaotic as usual, but—”

“You go home every Sunday?”

“Yep.” He pops the ‘p’. “I’m close to my family… are you?”

“Am I close to my family? Uh—” My eyes fall into my lap where I allow myself a second to clench my fists before I forcibly uncurl my fingers and sweep across the cotton material of my skirt. I still can’t force myself to look back at Grey. “I’m close to my sister, yes. Mum… not so much.”

“Families are tricky,” I hear Grey reply. “I’m super grateful I got lucky, but I get how difficult it can be.”

That waxy smile of mine, the one which feels like clay upon my face, is back. I look back up to find his eyes on mine, fingertips inches away from the rim of my tea and saucer. He’s got nice nails, clean and trimmed, attached to large hands I find myself staring at.

Delilah…

“Is home far?”

“Nah,” Grey answers, twin dimples appearing in his cheek. “I’m from a town called Burford, in the Cotswolds, so I just get a train to the nearest station and then my brother, Noah, usually picks me up.”

“Sounds lovely, Grey.”

“It is,” he agrees. “Are you from London originally, or…”

“A small suburb in Surrey. I left it as soon as I could really, I needed a faster way of living where everybody didn’t know my business. I did try living abroad, but, um,” I feel my left eye twitch, “that didn’t work out. Could you see yourself moving back to the Cotswolds?”

“Sometimes I could, yeah, when the traffic gets too loud, and the pub spills out into my street at two am waking me up. But then something comes along, and it makes me want to stay all over again.”

I couldn’t look into Grey’s eyes before and now I can’t stop staring into them. They’re warm and inviting, chocolatey and decadent, with a gold dot just off centre in his right iris.

Those eyes slide to the clock sitting right above the smoothie bar. “It’s almost six. You going to get changed and meet me by the pool, Delilah?”

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