Page 25 of The Villain Edit

We stand like that until the frantic pounding of my heart calms. My arms go numb from her weight. Her sobs disappear and she stops shivering. We just…breathe.

“You can put me down,” she whispers eventually, and I do.

I should get out, but I can’t leave her. My head is a jumble, caught in the rush of what could’ve happened. The moment after I swam away, when I turned and realized she wasn’t coming up, plays on a loop. My heart slams into the wall of my chest, an echo of that panic. If I had kept swimming away from her, I might not have noticed.

I don’t want her to be alone. I don’t want to be alone. So I stay.

“May I?” I pick up the expensive-looking shampoo from the little cubby.

She nods, and I shift us so the shower spray is hitting my back. “Hate to think what the chlorine will do to this natural hair color,” I say lightly as I squeeze shampoo onto my hand.

She laughs. It’s a small one, but there’s none of her derision in it. It’s nice. Real. I don’t know what to think of it.

A soft floral scent fills the steamy air as I run my hands through her wet hair, lathering and massaging her scalp. Her body relaxes, and she tilts her head back for me. Maybe I relax too because now I’m noticing things. I’m hyperaware of the steam rising around us. The strong pressure of the water pounding on my back. The quiet between us. The way her neck curves as she rolls her head in my hands.

Her moan is soft, half-strangled like she tried to catch it. I reverse the movements of my fingers until I hit a spot that makes her moan again.

Christ.

Near-death experiences can inspire a need for physical intimacy. That’s all this is.

I force myself to swallow. I’m imagining things. Feeling that same need to fill the space where fear had me in a chokehold.

She nearly drowned, and she doesn’t like me. I don’t particularly like her. So I shouldn’t be noticing the way the water beads on the dips and swells of her body. I definitely shouldn’t be wondering how see-through her white bikini is now that it’s wet.

Suds run over her shoulders, down her back, down down down…

Of course, her bikini is a thong and her ass is perfection. The kind of ass I could dig my fingers in, with cheeks made for palming. Knowing what little I do of her, I bet she’d appreciate a firm spanking.

But not ten minutes after she nearly died, for fuck’s sake.

I snap my eyes back up to her hair. The showerhead is removable, so I take it down and slowly, carefully rinse the shampoo out. Her moans are more like hums and I think I can live with that, but turns out I can’t. My cock is rock hard, and I’d give anything to kill this erection.

What would she think, if she knew the direction my thoughts are going? Would she still call me boring? Would she be disgusted? Turned on?

I need to get out of here. I’m about to hand her the showerhead and step out when she pulls her bikini top off.

My pulse throbs, echoing in my cock.

She slides the bottoms over her hips, bending to push them down her legs before stepping out of them.

My groan is out before I can stop it.

She turns and I reach for her, cupping her face and tilting her head up so she can’t see my hard-on. So I have to look into her eyes instead of at the water streaming over tits I want to suck.

Her eyes are a dark shade of caramel, and the sorrow they hold is enough to fill me with a deep sense of shame.

I’m better than this. I need to get a grip.

“I—” She bites her lip, leaning into my touch, her hands coming up to grip my forearms. “I thought I was going to die, and I didn’t want to watch the crappy highlights reel of my life.”

Her admission glues my feet to the floor. Vulnerability isn’t something I expected from her. Ever.

I brush her wet hair from her face. “You can make a new highlights reel.” I bend down and plant a chaste kiss on her forehead. My lips dip back for a second kiss, drawn closer by the softness of her. On the third, I hold my lips to her wet skin and we stand like that for a while because oh my god do I want to give her some new highlights.

She nearly died.The fact I have to remind myself is more proof I’m not what everyone thinks I am. I hate the reminder.

“I can’t swim,” she says eventually, and yeah, I kinda noticed she can’t fucking swim, but I don’t know what to say so I tear my lips from her and nod.

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