Turning to the cabinets along the wall, shelf after shelf was filled with pantry items and snacks, and as soon as I saw the box of cinnamon wheat clusters, I was reaching for them.
Dare always teased me for being the savage who snacked on dry cereal.
Setting my clothes on the seat of one of the counter stools, I opened the box, grabbed a fistful of Wheaties, and shoved them in my mouth. It wasn’t pretty looking, but I was too hungry to care. As I munched, my gaze wandered through the rest of the cabinet, pulling out at random the sliding shelves until I reached the bottom one.
No…
I stooped and yanked out the shelf, dozens of glass bottles clinking from the sudden movement. My eyes went round as I lifted them at random to see the labels. They were all different kinds and brands of hot sauce.
My fingers grazed the caps of some of the bottles. All unopened.Of course, they are, Robyn. You were the only one who liked spicy food, not Damon.
I shoved the shelf back, stood, and closed the cabinet, filling my mouth with another handful of cereal before I could curse him. A shelf of hot sauce didn’t make up for his betrayal. For his disappearance. For his lies.
A sound caught my attention.A splash?My brows pinched together as I strode over to the windows at the other end of the room, maneuvering around the dining table staged to have the best view.
And it did.
Looking out from here revealed a patio that bracketed this side of the house, angled around the back, and encompassed a large infinity pool overlooking the bay. But that wasn’t the view that made my throat work overtime to swallow.
The deep blue surface of the water rippled like silk around the body that sliced through it like a hot knife through butter.
My slack jaw would’ve hit the floor if I hadn’t snared my lip between my teeth, watching as Damon swam the length of the pool.
No wonder he was in such good shape.
The windmill of his strong arms. The powerful surge of his muscled legs. He reached the end of the pool in no time and went to spin—I choked again on nothing but the split-second sight of his bare ass.
My husband was swimming nude.
I should turn away—walk away—do anything but what I did, which was pop another piece of cereal in my mouth and admire for a single guilty moment just how gorgeous my husband was.
The long, sinewed lines of his arms down to his ankles, water sluicing over the ridges of his muscles. The firm swell of his ass as it rolled through the water, propelled the forceful kicks of his legs. The way he moved so powerfully, so agile and yet so vulnerably.
Air webbed in my throat as he approached the far end of the pool. If he wasn’t moving so fast…if the water churned just a little less near his waist…
The cadence of my pulse quieted as I watched, the anticipation weaving a low ache between my thighs. I could look because I knew better than to touch. I could look because the fantasy of this man still belonged to me even if the reality of him didn’t.
His head disappeared, and I leaned closer to the window, my breath confessing my desire to the glass. His whole body disappeared, and in a second, he’d tuck under himself and spring off the wall—except he didn’t.
Damon suddenly broke straight up through the surface likePoseidon rising from the sea, water streaking down his muscled torso like it wept to lose the feel of him.Didn’t we all?
The thought pained my chest, but I couldn’t look away. Not even when I risked him seeing me. He ran his hands over his face and pushed his hair back. Lower, the water began to settle, the pool lights coalescing on the parts of him underneath the surface as they began to come into focus.
I regretted my choice of food then. The dry cereal sat like tumbleweeds on my tongue.Did water make things look larger than they really were?I couldn’t remember. And neither could I remember if the man I’d ached for all these years had been that large for the moments I’d had him?
A hand crashed onto the water in front of his waist, breaking the clarity of the surface. Even though I was inside and on a different level, the muted thwack still made me jump.
I jerked my gaze up, thinking something was wrong.And there was.
Dark steel eyes found mine—found me watching him.
Shit.
Double dammit shit.
Damon’s brows rose along with his smile, a blatant invitation as the hand that blocked my view of his groin patted the water.To join him.
My core clenched, ready, wet, and willing to be his victim. To let him consume my body into a state of bliss that was as otherworldly as it was untrue. Thankfully, there was an entire floor and the structure of a house separating us, and also me from a moment of pure insanity.
