"You were crying in your sleep. I heard you when I came up," he says casually to me but there's something heavier beneath it, a tension I can't name. Who he? Gabe of course, who else?
"I'm fine." It comes out of my mouth as if on auto then his words register. I had no idea I spoke in my sleep or in this case, cried. I have been plagued with nightmares about the accident almost every time my eyes close and I give in to subconsciousness.
Currently, we are in the heated pool because Gabe thinks I should do some laps to unwind my mind. It 'relaxes him' he said but I already knew this. Gabe lived in our pool in his spare time. And in recent times- he apparently lived in Casandra.
No, I will not be bitter now. It has not happened yet.
The sight of him now, in nothing but a sky-blue pair of trunks, so casual and familiar, sends a pang through me. This is the man I married in another life. The man who shattered me. And yet, here, now, he's just Gabe. The man who doesn't yet carry the weight of what he'll do to me.
I have to note the difference. Zulu and Dan pop up in the back of my mind.
"Are you?" he asks, and I avert my eyes, focusing on the floor behind him when I find myself lingering my eyes on his wet chest. Bare and muscled. His abs are defined but the older him from 2024- his body is harder- more muscled. I am sitting on the pool's edge, legs in the water, toes wiggling, in my bra, undies, and one of Gabe's T-shirts.
"Yes," I lie.
He doesn't push, just leans back against the pool's edge, on the deep end, his gaze fixed on me, his stubborn chin jutting upwards calling me to join him again. He's already done a few laps and is loud and rowdy because we are alone. Douglas and Linda aren't home, having left early this morning for their morning jog when Gabe brought me to the pool house.
"Won't be disturbed when they come back," he'd added. His parents never used the pool in the mornings he said and wouldn't venture here unless they needed to. He had also told the domestic staff to stay clear from here until we leave. He would drop me off at the hotel and then to his class at 11 am. Operations and Supply Chain Management.
Mr. MBA.
His eyes travel to my brassier-covered t-shirt- wet because he had splashed me with water. Even from the far side of the pool, his heated stare has my insides in turmoil. I am dripping wet as if I had been in the warm water myself. Knowing where his vision is, my breathing becomes shorter and quicker, and I think about the kisses we shared. Not the old ones but the recent ones. The rushed one last night in his bedroom and the one outside my parent's home. Soft and slow.
This younger Gabe has become part of the chaos in my mind, and I don't know how to untangle him from it and while I am panicked about tomorrow, Gabe is grounding me. I mean, I have no choice until later to stay away from home, but I can think of no other person I would rather be with right now than my present company.
Leaving the deep end, he swims skillfully over to me but his movements are predator-like. The water laps gently around my legs as he stops inches away. Reaching out, his warm wet hand on my thigh, the contact sends a jolt through me. It's fleeting, nothing anyone else would notice if others were around, but it's enough to make my skin burn where he touched me. His fingers linger just a second too long, and I wonder if he feels it too- this electricity crackling between us.
"Megara," he says, his voice low, steady, his hand dropping away as he looks up at me. My name on his lips sounds like a secret, like a promise, and I can't decide if I want to get up and run or step closer.
"Gabriel," I manage, my voice unsteady. My heart pounds in my ears, drowning out reason, logic, and everything except the overwhelming awareness of him. The space between us feels too vast and too small all at once, a paradox I can't escape.
And then he takes a step closer, between my legs. The world narrows to the sound of his breathing, the slight dripping of water from his wet hair onto his face, the way his gaze drops- barely perceptible- to my mouth. My pulse stutters, heat blooming across my wet skin as if he's touched me without lifting a hand. There's nothing overtly romantic or physical about what's happening, but the charge is undeniable, a heavy, unspoken tension that grips us both.
I don't know what this is or where it's leading, but the intensity of it is terrifying and intoxicating and like him, my eyelids grow heavy with desire.
Hands beneath my armpits, he lifts me down and into the heated water with him, pulling me against him as my body slides down and my feet touch the bottom. I am chest-deep. "Please..."
He's not listening. His hands move, tracing the curve of my hip through the fabric underwater. The heat of his touch seeps through, igniting a fire that quickly spreads through my veins. He tugs me closer, so I feel the rising bulge of him.
Whatever excuse I was about to offer up dies as his hands slide up, fingers leaving a trail of heat and soon the sound of the pool's filtration system.
His hooded gray eyes seemed enlarged but that's the magic of his irises. It's only his pupils enlarging, leaving a ring around them. I swallow hard. His eyes were the most beautiful thing to me about his physical appearance.
The air sizzled around us.
"Don't deny this, love," he whispers to me, his tone sending a shiver down my spine as his forehead rests against mine, his soaking wet hair dripping. He stares into my eyes from this close and I feel his fingers moving the hair from my face to behind my ear, his breath against me. I could feel myself drowning and I welcomed it- it takes me away from the burdens that had been plaguing heavily on my mind. Last night was the first night in a bit I slept so comfortably despite my nightmare.
And even though he brought it up, he did not push me to talk about it. This is better than talking anyway.
Maybe it was me who started it, maybe it was him who initiated it first, but time seemed to have stopped when our lips meet. It's slow and deliberately so, as if testing my resolve. The pressure behind his mouth is anything tentative. I do not hesitate, my hands slide up fingers tangling in the tails of his wet hair, pressing my front against his lean hard one.
Tongues meet and clash in a slow soft dance.
Around us, the water swirls. Forgotten by us. His hands roam over my wet skin, pushing the fabric of his t-shirt I'm wearing, higher, his fingertips sinking into my flesh. My heart races, each beat echoing the unspoken pleas between us.
Lips leaving mine, he trails a path, mouth, and wicked tongue along my jaw, and down my neck. My head angles to accommodate him and he breathes out, "Meg." His voice is almost pained, and it excites me- more. The butterflies are scattering everywhere inside me.
"Yess," I hiss in response, my hand grabbing a fistful of his hair roughly, and sink my teeth into his neck. He grounds out a pained groan, moving swiftly to recapture my mouth, pouring his soul it feels like into it.
"Meggg..." He slides his hands under my fleshy butt and lifts me higher, his hand sliding under my thighs to guide my legs around his narrow waist.
We both unfused our lips to gasp out, raw cries escaping our throats when my core rubs against his hardened length. Then I feel my back pressing against the pool's wall, another cry and an animalistic groan from Gabe when he presses himself firmer between me.
My world tilts and I in turn am pouring everything I am into this moment. My fear, frustration, and longing into it. I forget about earlier- last night, yesterday, the past weeks, and even the man I married. All I am is for this moment. The mouth now, that is so sweet yet wrecking every atom in my body.
The world out of tour fevered bodies ceases to exist. There is no impending accident, no secrets, no lies. No Cassandra waiting in the shadows of my mind coming to grab him from me. There is only here and now. His chest rumbling as he moans, his thumbs tracing lazy circles on my waist, moving to the small of my back. His large hands spanning my waist then traveling upwards to under my front lady lumps.
Gone is the painful weight of tomorrow and the betrayal of the future.