Page 9 of Silent Heart

I took a step forward, a pleasant flicker inside when she didn’t back away. “Nothing recently.”

“But you have swum?” She pushed the words out.

“Not much.” Because…define much. I wasn’t a former Navy Seal, so I didn’t spend quite as much time in the water as those guys did.

Her lips pursed in a tight line. “Okay, well, you seem fit.” When I didn’t respond, she continued with a flustered wave of her hands. “We’ll do some exercises in the water to warm up, and then I have a kickboard so we can start some basic stroke work, assess your form and technique, and, if you’re comfortable, we’ll swim laps to the no-wake-buoy and back.”

“I’m comfortable.”

It could have been the wind, but I would have sworn a breathy little sigh feathered from her lips. She hid it by clearing her throat. “Well, alright then, good. Glad you’re comfortable with the water, but I can’t have you drowning. You’re so big and—” she gestured to me “—I wouldn’t be able to haul you from the bottom if you sink.”

“I won’t sink,” I promised.

“Sure, Mr. Monosyllable,” she muttered while pushing down her tiny cotton shorts.

I swallowed the groan that threatened to claw up my throat. The cut of the athletic swimsuit left nothing to the imagination. It fit like a second skin, showing how her toned legs sloped into a perfect ass. And that thigh piece…damn. A horseshoe was the centerpiece, but there were vines and flowers and other objects worked into the image. That tattoo was sexy as fuck.

She’s not for you. She’s from the normal world.

Bitter laughter recoiled through my mind. I was a monster, a boogeyman in the dark. I had no business breathing the same air as an innocent woman from the regular world, whose only experience of my kind of darkness was when the local news found body parts and blamed it on wild animals, freak accidents, or other forms of natural demise.

Yet here I stood, fighting back the urge to touch her.

Heaven help me.

Chapter 4 – Harley

Kole was a natural in the water. He showed no fear and did every exercise I suggested. In fact, I pushed myself, feeling the rising challenge to go another rep or another minute longer than I instructed just because the look in his eye dared me.

It certainly wasn’t anything he said that brought out the competitive side of me. The man barely spoke. And it was almost impossible to read his stony expression, as if he was trying to hide something.

Which was so at odds with the unguarded moments we’d already shared. I wanted nothing more than to peel back the exterior and find the emotions I sensed rolling about beneath.

After working on some basic strokes, which Kole performed—albeit robotically and unnaturally—I felt his gaze on me as I explained breathing with the freestyle stroke. When I turned to meet his stare, my heart stilled. The intensity there was dark and consuming. It threatened to pull me under, like an anchor. But I was willing to let it steal the very air out of my lungs if I could only feel it.

“Show me?” he offered.

The air crackled with electricity, and when his brow arched, my skin prickled with the need to prove him right. How could he pack so much into such a short, clipped statement? Clambering up the ladder we’d attached to the end of the dock, I stretched my shoulder. The old strain wasn’t bad, despite how many drills I was putting it through.

Looking at the buoy, I tuned everything out—which was quite the feat. I should receive the gold medal just for that! Because behind me loomed a dripping, virile specimen who was doing things to me.

The beeps counted down in my head, the faraway horn blared, and I dove. My whole body worked in a tight wave under the surface as I maximized distance. When the momentum tapered, I emerged to start the freestyle stroke, kicks tight flutters and arms windmilling overhead. I only took air every second rotation of my arms. The buoy was in my line of sight, while my chin stayed in the optimal position. Granted, I should have had goggles, but I managed.

My palm arched out of the water to tap the buoy. I shifted less gracefully than I would have liked, but there was no wall to push against as I rotated. After a graceless stroke, I was back on track. My muscles burned. The sting was nothing short of delicious. Each breath was a controlled gasp. The cool, green water sloshed over me as I carved a relentless path through it.

And then I was clinging to the dock.

Adrenaline surged through every fiber of my being. It had to account for the shake in my limbs as I climbed from the water.

It certainly wasn’t the fire blazing deep in those stormy depths, nor the thumping pulse in his hard-clenched jaw. Was his nose flaring? And why did he fist his hands at his side?

“Your turn!” I panted, unable to keep back a smirk.

Maybe it wasn’t smart to taunt the rich man paying me an insane amount for swimming lessons, but I couldn’t stop it.

Time pulsed silently between us until the alarm on my phone told me it was seven. I had to leave.

The corner of his mouth twitched. Whatever emotions he struggled to express, he was doing a damn fine job of holding them back.

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