Page 81 of The Contract

I smirk, shaking my head. “That sounds like a challenge.”

Elena barely has time to react before I scoop her up into my arms, lifting her effortlessly against my chest.

“Damien!” she yelps, but her laugh betrays her. She’s enjoying this.

With long strides, I move toward the diving platform, stepping past the railing with nothing but the vast ocean below us.

She stiffens instantly.

“Damien—” Her arms clamp around my neck, her breath hitching against my skin.

The panic in her voice is instant. “I can’t swim.”

The words, soft but sharp, cut through the moment in a second.

Every trace of playfulness vanishes as I feel the real fear in her voice. The way she’s clutching me like she’s bracing for impact.

My response is immediate. I turn around with my back to the water, setting her down and closing my arms around her, the railing behind her.

“Elena.” My voice is quiet, careful. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”

She exhales shakily, her body still rigid. Her arms remain looped around my neck, and we’re too close now—close enough that I can see the rapid rise and fall of her chest, the way her pulse flutters at her throat.

“Hey, look at me.” I insist, my gaze trying to call hers to me. “I’ve got you, Elena.”

She takes a deep breath.

“That’s it. It’s just you and me.”

She gives me her hazel stare, her eyes bright but filled with fear, and it guts me for putting it there.

“Fuck, I’m sorry.” I pant, wrapping my arms tighter around her waist and placing a kiss on the top of her head.

It happens without thought, but she doesn’t protest. She doesn’t step away from me.

In fact, her arms hold my neck tighter, and I run my hand up her back.

“I’m so sorry, baby,” I whisper against her ear.

Shit. I didn’t mean to say that.

But I’m not sorry I did.

The air shifts. Her breaths come out labored, but for an entirely different reason now.

The weight of something unspoken presses between us as she pulls back, looking at me, her fingers playing with the hair at the nape of my neck.

I run both hands down her back, gripping her hips. My thumbs almost toy with the thin waistband of her bikini bottoms.

Her breath hitches, my voice dipping lower, rougher.

“Do your rules still apply over the open ocean?” I murmur, unable to keep myself from looking at her full lips, pink, wet, slightly parted and begging for my kiss. “Or are there maritime exceptions?”

Her nipples pebble through the thin fabric of her bathing suit as her eyes flicker between mine. For a second—just a second—I think she might say yes.

But a moment of clarity makes her straighten, tilting her chin just slightly. “The rules are the rules.”

I grin, a slow, knowing smirk, when she quickly looks at my mouth, then back at my eyes.

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