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Chris nodded and then cleared his throat. “You know, I just realized that I missed my morning dip.”
“Morning…?” Daphne murmured, too low for him to hear.
“A swim. In the lake.”
“It’s kind of…”
“Cold?” He smiled. “Exactly how I like it. Refreshing and ice-cold. The perfect way to start my day.”
Chris strode past them. “Let me get my bathing suit, and I’ll meet you at the beach.”
Daphne tried not to stare after him. He did know how cold it was, right? He’d been in the water last night when they capsized.
“I’ll tell the crew,” Sofia said with a smile. “We wouldn’t want to miss this.”
CHRIS
So freaking cold.
He focused on his strokes, taking him out across the lake, the speed warming him as he went while the cold water cleared his head.
Clearing your head is the reason you decided to go swimming in a glacial lake, buddy.
True, but it wasn’t the entire reason.
Daphne kissed him.
Okay, he kissed her, but it’d been her idea. Fine, she’d been doing him a favor, fending off Sofia’s attention, but it had been a kiss. A real kiss. Daphne in his arms, pressed against him, her lips parting under his. That little noise she hadn’t seemed to know she was making, a noise that slid into his mind and hit Replay on the bedroom scene, except instead of Sofia, it was Daphne.
Daphne coming into the bedroom. Daphne telling him how frightened she’d been, how magnificently he’d scared off the bear, how her heart was still thumping, primal urges awakened, desperate for an outlet. Daphne whispering what she wanted to do to him—
Keep swimming, buddy.
Just to the island and back. That’d be enough.
He touched the shallow waters of the island and turned around. In the distance, he could see Daphne waiting on the shore, and when he blinked, his brain slid in the image from last night, the one he’d been too worried to process at the time.
Daphne in his arms, drenched, clothing clinging to her as she looked up into his eyes.
Her lips parted. “You saved my life.”
She reached for him, arms going around his neck, mouth going to his, warm and pliant and hungry—
Need another lap, buddy?
Maybe just one more.
DAPHNE
Chris was on his third lap from the island, which was damned impressive, and Daphne would be in awe if she wasn’t too busy staring at him, arms rising from the water in powerful strokes that rippled down his muscular shoulders and back. She swore even from this distance she could see the sun glinting off his tanned arms, turning him a Greek-god shade of bronze.
There were worse ways to spend a morning.
“You’re a lucky lady,” Sofia said beside her.
Daphne made a noise Sofia could take as agreement.
“I really am sorry for hitting on him,” Sofia said. “I had no idea he was in a relationship.”
