Chapter 25: The Pool Proposal
The cool, clean water was a shock after the sweat-slicked heat of the bedroom. Aidan sank into the infinity pool, the world dropping away into a vast, shimmering blue that met the sky at a seemingly impossible edge. He floated for a moment, suspended, letting the chlorinated silence fill his ears. He could hear Thea rattling off settings on her camera, perched on the edge with her feet kicking idly in the water.
“Light’s perfect,” she declared. “Softer now. More diffuse. Makes everything look… ethereal.”
Sloane surfaced beside him like a seal, smooth and sudden, her hair plastered to her skull, water sluicing off her shoulders. She grinned, pushing a dark strand from her eyes. “Ethereal. That’s the brand, right? Classy porn.”
“Artisanal,” Thea corrected without looking up, a smile playing on her lips. “Hand-crafted intimacy.”
Sloane rolled her eyes, but she was already moving closer to Aidan. The water made everything slow, weightless. She drifted into his space, her legs finding his waist beneath the surface, her ankles locking at the small of his back. Her body was slick and cool where it pressed against his, warming rapidly where they touched.
“You heard the director,” Sloane murmured, her voice low, just for him. Her hands came up to frame his face. “Slow.”
She kissed him. It was a languid, exploring kiss, the taste of pool water and her own unique warmth. Aidan’s hands settled on her hips, the skin impossibly smooth under his palms. The buoyancy made her light in his grasp; he could feel every minute shift of her muscles.
Thea’s camera was a silent witness from the coping. Aidan heard the soft click of the shutter, the almost inaudible whir as she adjusted the zoom. He kept his eyes open, watching Sloane’s closed lids, the faint dusting of freckles across her nose. Her hand trailed down his chest, past his stomach, fingers closing around him under the water. The sensation was strange and intense—the cool liquid, the heat of her grip, the frictionless slide.
She guided him into her, a slow, yielding pressure that made him suck in a breath. The water did strange things, easing the way but amplifying the sensation of tight, wet heat. She began to move, a gentle, rocking undulation that used the water’s lift. Her breasts, just above the surface, glistened in the dying light, bouncing with each quiet thrust.
“That’s it,” Thea’s voice came, a soft prompt from the side. “Let me see the connection.”
Thea slid into the pool, camera held above the waterline. She ducked under, a bubble-stream escaping her lips. Aidan felt her presence near their joined hips, the water nudging him as she maneuvered for an angle. He caught a glimpse of her, eyes open behind a mask of bubbles, the lens pointed right at where Sloane sheathed him. It was surreal. Intimate and clinical all at once.
Sloane’s rhythm began to falter, her breaths coming in shorter gasps against his mouth. Her internal muscles fluttered, then clamped down in a series of rhythmic pulses that made his vision blur at the edges. She cried out, a short, sharp sound that was swallowed by the vastness of the sky and sea. She shuddered, her forehead dropping to his shoulder, her body vibrating against his.
Before the aftershocks had fully faded, Thea surfaced, gasping for air, her hair streaming. She handed the camera to Sloane, who took it wordlessly, her arms still trembling. Thea moved into the space Sloane vacated, her own legs coiling around Aidan, pulling him toward the rough-tiled wall of the pool.
“Here,” she said, her back against the edge. Her eyes were bright, commanding. “Now.”
The dynamic shifted. Where Sloane was a rolling wave, Thea was a direct current. She hooked her heels on the pool’s coping, leveraging herself, opening herself to him. There was no slow burn now. Aidan drove into her, the water splashing around them with each thrust. The sound was loud—wet slaps, her sharp cries echoing off the villa walls. Sloane filmed from a few feet away, her gaze focused, professional, though her lips were parted, her own arousal still evident.
Aidan felt the familiar, tightening coil in his gut. “Thea,” he warned.
“Not inside,” she gasped, her head thrown back against the tile. “On me. Let me see it.”
He pulled out, his body thrumming with the sudden, released pressure. He came across her lower stomach, the white streaks vivid against her sun-kissed skin before the pool water diluted them, swirling into milky, vanishing clouds.
Thea looked down at the dissipation, then directly into Sloane’s lens. Her breathing was ragged, but her smile was pure, undiluted triumph.
“Okay,” she panted. “Okay, yeah. The sunset shot is gonna be unreal. Subscribers are going to fucking lose it over this.”
They untangled. Aidan leaned back against the pool wall, spent, the cool water soothing his heated skin. Sloane handed Thea the camera and swam to the infinity edge, staring out at the horizon where the sun was beginning to bleed orange into the water.
Thea scrolled through the footage on the camera’s tiny screen, nodding to herself. “The underwater stuff is pure gold. Absolute gold.”
A silence settled, comfortable, filled only with the lap of water and distant gulls. Aidan watched the two women. Sloane, pensive at the edge of the world. Thea, engrossed in her digital harvest. He felt a pang of something then, not regret, but a sharp awareness of the bizarre, perfect bubble he was in. It couldn’t last. Catriona was due to call tonight. Real life, with its questions and its familiar weight, was waiting in the wings, just beyond the shimmering blue illusion of the horizon.
Sloane turned from the view, catching his eye. She smiled, a quiet, knowing thing, as if she’d heard his thought. She paddled back over to him, not touching, just floating nearby.
“Penny for them?” she asked softly.
Aidan just shook his head, returning her smile. “Not worth it,” he said.
Thea climbed out of the pool, water sheeting from her body. She wrapped a linen towel around herself, still cradling the camera. “I’m uploading the highlights. Don’t bother getting dressed yet. I want to get some stills by the loungers in this light. The soft, post-coital vibe. It’s authentic.”
Aidan looked at Sloane. She shrugged, a small movement that made the water ripple. “Told you,” she said. “We’re always working.”
He sank a little lower, letting the water touch his chin. The sun warmed his face. For now, the bubble held.