LITMIR.BIZ

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and moved into her swiftly, before she could guess what he was going to do. Maybe he didn’t even know what he was going to do himself until he had done it.

      He scooped Isabella up and held her against his chest.

      “Oh,” she sighed with surprise. She would have weighed about as much as a feather under normal circumstances. With the water taking most of her weight, it was like holding a puff of air.

      Except that her skin was warm and sensual, like silk. She blinked up at him and then twined her arms around his neck.

      What part of the Swimming 101 manual was this in? he demanded of himself. He pried her fingers from around his neck and put her away from his chest, supporting her body on his hands, at right angles from his own.

      “Okay,” he said. His voice was faintly hoarse, not completely his talking-a-hostage-away-from-the-bad-guy voice. “Just relax. That’s it. Now straighten out your legs. I’ve got you.”

      Tentatively, she did as he asked, her forehead wrinkled with anxiety as she gave herself over to the water. Her hair floated out in the water around her face, like dark silk ribbons. The small of her back was resting securely on his hands. Her skin was warmer than the water, and he felt a primal awareness of her that he did not want to feel.

      At all.

      “You’re a bit tense,” he told her. He heard the tension in his own voice and took a deep, steadying breath. “Relax. I won’t bite.”

      “Yes,” she said. “So you’ve said.”

      “Focus on your breathing. Put your hands on your tummy—no, you don’t need them, I’ve got you—and breathe until you feel your tummy rising instead of your chest.”

      Shoot. Did he have to mention her chest just as his voice was returning to normal?

      “This is quite amazing,” she said after a moment.

      “Amazing,” he agreed. His jaw was starting to hurt from clenching his teeth so tightly. “So, just try moving your legs a bit. Kick.”

      She did a little kick.

      “Very good,” he encouraged her. “Harder, both of them.”

      She kicked tentatively. And then harder. The splash hit him in the face, which seemed to motivate more strenuous kicking on her part. She giggled.

      That giggle helped him turn a page. Connor pretended to be worried about getting wet, ducking the worst of the splash while never letting her go. She giggled some more.

      “Now straighten your legs out. Think of a pair of scissors opening and closing and kick like that. That’s perfect. That’s why it’s called a scissor kick. Now, instead of just standing here, I’m going to let the kick propel you. I’ll move with you, though. You see how it works? Your legs are amazingly strong.”

      What he meant was that everyone’s legs were amazingly strong, that this particular movement used the gluteus maximus, the largest muscle in the human body, but he didn’t clarify, since she looked so pleased. And there was no denying her legs were amazing!

      He supported her and guided her until she had kicked around the pool in a large circle.

      “Now,” he said, “my hands are still here, but I’m moving them away from you, so you can see it’s the water supporting you, not me.”

      “No.”

      “Yes.”

      She glared up at him.

      “Don’t be nervous. The water’s only three feet deep here. You can stand up at any time. Just relax. I’m going to—”

      “No! Don’t let go of me. I’m not ready.”

      He’d heard it again and again, looking into the eyes of a terrified civilian who was being asked to do something that required more of them than had ever been required before.

      “Yes, you are,” he said, “you are ready.”

      Slowly, he slid his hands out from underneath her. Her eyes grew wide, and then she got nervous, and her body folded at the center, legs and head going up, abdomen and torso going down, under the water.

      “Ahh,” she yelped.

      His hands were floating inches below her, and so he supported her again, very quickly.

      “Try and keep your body stiff.”

      “I thought I was supposed to relax!”

      “Well, relaxed stiffness.”

      “There is no such thing.”

      “Maybe not in Italian. There is in English.” He managed to say it with a straight face.

      She smiled in spite of herself, and then he let her go, and she tried again. Again, she got nervous and began to fold; again he used his hands to steady her. The third time, she got it. She kicked on her own and he shadowed her.

      “Am I swimming?” she demanded. “Am I swimming all by myself?”

      He smiled at her enthusiasm, and she seemed to realize she was swimming, unaided, on her back. The realization ruined it, of course. This time he wasn’t quite quick enough, and her head went under the water. She came up sputtering, her hair spilling rivulets of water down her golden skin. She grabbed for him and clung to him.

      He realized he was enjoying that way too much and put her away from his chest, though he allowed her to hang on to his forearms.

      “That wasn’t so bad, was it?” he asked her.

      She shook water from her hair. “No,” she said, surprised and then delighted. “No, it was fine. I just held my breath when I went under.”

      There was a moment when people reached deep inside and found out who they really were that was awe-inspiring. It could happen as you sneaked them across a border or pushed them out of a plane, or it happened in those moments, large and small, when people required just a tiny bit more of themselves.

      And so it could happen just like this, a woman in a swimming pool on a warm spring day when everything seemed suddenly infused with a light that was not the sun.

      It was always an amazing thing to be a part of this moment. She was grinning ear to ear, which increased Connor’s sensation of basking in the light. He had to force himself to move away from that moment and back on task.

      “And that brings us to part two,” Connor said. “For some reason, people have a natural aversion to getting their faces wet.”

      “I told you not today,” she said. The grin disappeared.

      “Let’s just ride this wave of discovery,” he suggested.

      For a moment, she looked as if she intended to argue, but then, reluctantly, she smiled again. “All right. Let’s ride this wave.”

      Both of them had said it—let’s. Let us. Us. A duo. A team. Sheesh.

      “So, before you dunk again, we’re going to work on getting your face wet,” Connor said. There it was again, slipping off his tongue naturally. We. “Lie on my hands again, this time on your stomach.”

      She flopped down on her stomach, and he supported her, his hands on the firm flesh of her belly. “Good. Now put your face in the water and blow air out of your mouth. Make bubbles. The more the better. Think of yourself as a motorboat.”

      Whatever reservations she might have had up until this point now disappeared. Isabella gave herself over to learning to swim with unreserved enthusiasm. With Connor supporting her stomach, she blew bubbles and then they added a scissor kick. She managed a few kicks without any support before she went under and came up laughing.

      Isabella laughing.

      Isabella soaking wet, in the world’s skimpiest bathing suit, laughing.

      It was

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