“You’re doing just fine on your own,” she tells me with a smile. “And besides, I didn’t bring my suit.”

I distract her by sliding my hands around her hips to cup her ass. Her breath hitches and I return her smile.

“Who needs a suit?”

I yank her towards me as hard as I can, her arms immediately wrapping around my shoulders. I cut off her shrieks of protest with a quick kiss to her lips before I push off the bottom with my good leg, pulling her off the edge of the pool and under the water with me.

MY HEAD GOES under the water mid-scream and I’m too shocked by the sudden chill of the water seeping through my clothes to give much thought to the feel of Cole’s lips against mine. Shoving my hands against his bare chest, I push out of his grasp and come up for air a few feet away from him, sputtering and coughing as I try to maintain a stern look even though all I want to do is laugh.

Cole’s head breaks through the surface and he treads water, giving me that signature smirk that screams he’s up to no good. I’m not about to tell him that I needed cooling off and the sudden dunk in the pool was the only thing that stopped me from wrapping my legs around him and pulling him closer. God, it felt so good having him touch me. His hands on my hips and ass made me forget about that moment back in the gym when I came clean about why I was fired. Listening to his theories about his parents pissed me off so badly that I just couldn’t keep my mouth shut any more. He’s still operating under the false impression that everything they did for him was out of love. Given their actions during the last year, I suspect the bulk of what they did was for cruelty, spite and their own personal gain. Telling him about what happened in the hospital will probably come back to bite me when Vivien finds out. She doesn’t realize that I’m not afraid of her anymore. She took everything from me. There’s nothing she can do to me that she hasn’t already done.

“You are in big, BIG trouble, Mr. Vargas,” I threaten as he continues to grin at me. He stands up and I try not to stare openmouthed at the water dripping down his muscular chest. I’m suddenly filled with the need to lick every single drop off of him and, to quell that desire, I shove my hands through the water as hard as I can, splashing his face.

He laughs, wiping the water out of his eyes before diving beneath the surface. He moves so quickly that I don’t even bother trying to move out of his reach. He’s a Navy SEAL and, even with a bad knee, he’s still a much faster swimmer than I’ll ever be. I scream as he wraps his arms around my waist, lifts me up and tosses me a few feet away like I weigh nothing more than a bag of cotton. When I surface, he’s still laughing.

“You know, if those wet clothes are getting too cumbersome, you could always take them off,” he suggests with a wag of his eyebrows.

“Nice try,” I reply, pulling the wet rubber band from my tangled hair before dunking my head backwards to smooth it out in the water.

I watch as Cole backs up into the shallow end, stopping when the water is waist high. He squats down a little and holds his arms out in front of him.

“Alright, come on. I know you want to do it,” he teases.

I laugh when I see the position he’s in and realize what he means.

“No way! Uh-huh,” I tell him with a shake of my head.

“Don’t lie, I know you’ve been thinking about this since we first got out here to the pool.”

I cover my face with my hands in embarrassment and continue to shake my head.

“Nobody puts the baby in a corner!” He shouts with a laugh.

Removing my hands from my face, I see him standing in the same position, waiting for me to come at him. I used to force him to do this every single time we swam in the pool when we lived here together. He would grumble and complain but he always did as I asked.

“Oh, my God and now you just ruined it. It’s not THE baby, it’s Baby. That’s her name,” I giggle.

“Who the fuck names their kid Baby? That’s like naming your dog, Dog.”

I take a few steps towards him and put my hands on my hips. “Her real name is Frances Houseman. Were you not paying attention at ALL when we watched that movie?”

Cole shudders and his mouth turns down in a grimace. “Jesus, no wonder she went by Baby.”

He claps his hands together twice and holds them back out towards me. “Now, come on, before I change my mind.”

I know he won’t stop until I do it, so I close my eyes and take a deep breath. I move sluggishly through the deep water until I get into the shallow end and can move a little faster. As soon as I get close enough, I launch myself at him with a mixture of a laugh and a shout. His hands go to my hips and he easily lifts me up and over his head. I’m laughing so hard that I can barely hold my arms and my legs straight out in the signature Dirty Dancing lift. When I start to lean forward to dive behind him, he pulls me backwards, sliding me down the front of his body. My laughter dies as he wraps his arms around me, holding me close as we stand toe-to-toe in the water, staring at each other wordlessly.

He takes one hand off of my back and uses the tips of his fingers to slide a chunk of wet hair off of my cheek. I shiver even though the air is at least eighty-five degrees and the heated pool even warmer.

“Jesus, I’ve missed you,” he whispers.

I stare at his wet lips as he speaks, thinking only about how much I want him to kiss me again. That quick little peck before he pulled me into the water wasn’t enough. I’ve been empty and cold for so long without him. Logic and pain and all the good reasons for not falling back into old habits with Cole go right out the window as he lifts me up and holds me tightly against him.