His eyes were on my breasts pressed up against the board. He brought my hands out from under my chin, wrapping his hand lightly around my arm as he brought it into the water. Julian’s stare burned into me from the surface of the pool as Turner then murmured close to my ear.
“Riding isn’t the hard part,” he said, his blonde hair dark now that it was wet. “Paddling out then popping up – that’s half the battle.”
I attempted the paddling on my stomach. I gave an earnest try at popping up on the board. I did okay, but I wasn’t really paying attention to myself.
Despite engaging with Turner, it felt like my attention had never truly left Julian since leaving the locker room. His had certainly not left me. In fact, his focus had only strengthened, refusing now to even acknowledge the girl. They had been talking before. He’d answered her questions politely.
Now, as he watched me dripping wet on the board, he either couldn’t hear her anymore, or he no longer cared to.
I hardly processed Turner’s hand touching the back of my thighs as he reached across my body. Gripping the edges of the board, he showed me how to sink its pointed tip into the water – to swim under the “waves” we pretended were there. I even a mustered a laugh for him after I tried my first one and got way too much water in my eyes.
Outwardly, I looked like I was enjoying Turner’s lesson.
But in reality, I was so far from being there with him it was crazy.
I was still locked in sync with Julian. I didn’t know how, considering I was in the water and he was dry on the ground, but we’d just spent the past ten minutes in silent conversation. I knew what he was saying. He’d said it to me before.
I’ve got you.
Turner had his hands on my shoulders, my arms, my back. But Julian had his eye on me, his instincts sharpened and primed for the second Turner crossed the line.
To my surprise, he didn’t.
For the next twenty minutes, Turner switched between giving me tips and telling me stories about his worst wipeouts. I laughed and listened genuinely at his recount of the time he nearly passed out over a shark sighting in Hawaii. But as it turned out, it wasn’t so much a shark as a dolphin who, according to him, “was trying to fuck with him.”
“Dolphins are smart,” I pointed out.
“And a little shitty sometimes,” Turner said. “He was circling me like he knew that’s what sharks do in the movies. Then right when I was gonna have a heart attack, he popped up with this big smile, like ‘psych, got you, bitch.’”
I cracked up. Straddling my board, I looked up at Julian, half-expecting to see him looking stiff or displeased.
He was neither.
His elbows rested on his knees, his fingers interlocked and his expression neutral till I caught his eye. Then he smiled. It was easy, content and it filled me with a calm till Turner spoke again.
“What are these?”
He tightly held my wrists with my palm facing up. I yanked my arm back before even looking at him.
“Whoa.” We’d had a few good minutes, but that shit-eating grin returned to his lips as he looked up from my scars. “Sore spot, eh?”
“That’s incredibly rude, Turner,” I said, feeling as if I were speaking to a child. He reacted like one.
“What, are you embarrassed now?” he grinned. “Don’t be. Nothing wrong with having a bit of a dark side. Lord knows I do.”
My stomach turned, and the blood drained from my face as Turner dropped his voice to say something else, but just as he started, he was interrupted.
“Roth.”
We both looked up at the same time to see Julian standing at the edge of the pool. Turner grinned like a kid who’d just gotten busted by his father.
“We’re done here, correct?” Julian said, holding his hand out to me. I went to him fast.
“She did great. Can’t fucking wait for Biar
ritz,” Turner replied. I knew his eyes fell to my ass as I hoisted myself out of the pool, because Julian shot him a look that sent a chill down my spine.
“Perfect. Have your assistants email Colin or me in the morning.”