“I have to go,” I say, pulling back from Evan’s mouth. It tastes like cheap beer and mint gum, a flavor combination that belongs in a dorm room, not a life-altering moment. “My sister. Emergency. You know how it is.”

He blinks, his hands still hovering near my hips. “Right now?”

“Family,” I say, with a dramatic sigh that would make Tennessee Williams proud, and I slip away before he can form another sentence. The walk back to the estate is a blur of cold Wyoming air and my own hot humiliation. Sebastian’s blue eyes, watching from the shadows like a critic in the front row, then turning away. The ultimate review: not even worth staying for the third act.

The main house is dark. The guest house has a single lamp on in the living room, casting a long, rectangular glow onto the patio stones. I stand there, the silence a physical weight. I can’t go in there. Not with him in there, probably reading some dense treatise on metaphysical poetry, having neatly filed me away under ‘Predictable American Chaos.’ The indoor pool room is attached, a glass-walled sanctuary Amelia and Arthur built and then forgot. I need to wash the bar off my skin, the failure out of my head.

The pool room is all shadow and echoes, the water a sheet of black glass under the dim safety lights. It smells of chlorine and damp concrete, a clean, empty smell. I don’t turn on the main lights.

I peel off my shorts, the cotton rough against my thighs, then pull the crop top over my head. The air is cool and immediate on my bare skin, my breasts, the strip of stomach never touched by sun. The clothes pool on the tile.

I stand there, naked in the half-dark, feeling the vast, judging quiet of the house. The cool tile under my feet, the air raising goosebumps. Then I take a running start and jump.

The water is a shock, a perfect, icy slap that steals my breath and then gives it back, purified. I sink, letting the silence swallow me whole, before kicking back up to the surface. I float on my back, staring up at the shadowed skylights, the water lapping at my ears. This is better. This is mine. No one is watching. No one is cataloging my movements. I am just a body in water, weightless and unobserved.

I swim a few lazy laps, the water cool and forgiving against my skin, the only sound my own breath and the soft splash of my strokes. This is freedom. This is mine. I flip onto my back, floating again, and that’s when I see him. A silhouette in the open doorway to the pool house, backlit by that single lamp. Sebastian. He’s pulled on a grey t-shirt, but his hair is still rumpled, his posture rigid with what looks like… concern? The alcohol in my veins makes the image waver slightly, softens the edges of my humiliation into something braver.

“The noise police?” I call out, my voice echoing in the tiled room. “I didn’t know skinny dipping was a disturbance of the peace in Wyoming.”

He doesn’t move from the doorway. “I heard a splash. It was… substantial. Given your evening’s trajectory, a wellness check seemed prudent.” His tone is dry, but his eyes are scanning the dark water, finding me in the center of it. I feel seen, but not cataloged. Worried over. It’s a novel sensation.

“Well, I’m perfectly well. Better than well. It’s glorious. You should join me.” The words are out before I can think, a product of the vodka-soda courage and the raw, naked truth of the water. I expect immediate refusal. The tightening of his jaw, a clipped remark about propriety and hypothermia. So I give a lazy kick, turning my back to him, and swim toward the deep end. Let him watch my retreat. Let him see I don’t need his approval.

The splash behind me is a cannonball of sound in the quiet room. I twist in the water, my heart hammering against my ribs. The edge of the pool is empty. Just my little pile of discarded clothes. Then I see his: a neat, folded stack of grey t-shirt, dark shorts, shoes placed side-by-side like soldiers at attention. A ripple cuts through the black water a few feet away, and he breaks the surface.

Sebastian emerges like something from a myth, water sheeting off the broad planes of his shoulders, his dark hair plastered to his forehead. He’s closer than I expected. Close enough to see the droplets caught in his eyelashes, the steady rise and fall of his chest. He doesn’t speak. He just treads water, those analytical blue eyes fixed on me, the dim light carving the severe lines of his face. The propriety is gone. All that’s left is the raw, physical fact of him, and the several feet of charged, liquid space between us.

“You’re quiet when you want to be,” I say, my voice smaller than I intended. It echoes anyway.

“One tries not to make a spectacle of oneself,” he replies, his tone low and measured, but it’s different here. The water seems to have washed away the clipped distance. “Unlike some.”

“I thought you’d say no.”

“I am, as you Americans say, full of surprises.” He drifts a fraction closer, the movement effortless. “You left your admirer rather abruptly.”

So he saw that, too. The catalog is open. I feel a fresh wave of heat that has nothing to do with the water. “He tasted like a frat house. It was a humanitarian retreat.”

A faint, almost imperceptible smile touches his mouth. “And the pool is an upgrade?”

“The pool is neutral territory. It doesn’t judge.” I kick gently, putting another foot of water between us, a futile gesture. “Why did you leave the bar?”

He considers this, his gaze never leaving mine. “The anthropological study reached its conclusion. The subject’s behavior became… predictable.”

“Predictable.” The word is a stone in my stomach. I expected it, but hearing it from him, here, naked, is a different kind of chill. “Right. Because you have me all figured out.”

“No,” he says, and the simple word stops me. He moves again, closing the distance I’d created with a few smooth strokes. He’s close enough now that I can feel the displacement of water from his body, a warmer current against my legs. “That’s the problem, Imogen. You are relentlessly, fascinatingly unpredictable. Which makes you a terrible subject for a study. Only a very poor scholar confuses chaos for a pattern.”

He’s a foot away. The air between us crackles, thick with chlorine and something else, something alive. I can see the pulse at the base of his throat. My own heart is a wild, fluttering thing. This isn’t a catalog. This is a confession. And we are both very, very naked.

"It seems you are also unpredictable," I say, my voice a whisper that skims the water between us.

He doesn't smile. "No. Just full of surprises."

It’s not a decision. The water shifts, a warm current pulling, and we close the final distance. His hands find my waist under the surface, his palms broad and shockingly hot against my cool skin. My own hands land on his shoulders, the muscles there hard and defined under my fingertips, water-slick. Our breaths mingle, chlorine and night air, and I can see every fleck of grey in his blue irises, the dark fringe of his lashes still beaded with moisture.

"We've both been drinking," he says, his voice low, a statement of fact that feels like a question. His thumbs stroke small, absent circles just above my hip bones, a touch so deliberate it steals my breath.

"I had two vodka sodas. You had one whiskey, neat, at the bar for forty-seven minutes before you left," I counter, the words coming out in a rush. I feel his hands still. His gaze sharpens, and something like approval flickers there, deep and warm. He’d been watching me, but I’d been counting, too. The realization hangs between us, another layer of nakedness.

He leans in, his forehead nearly touching mine. "A scholar's attention to detail. How unexpected." His breath is warm against my lips. "And entirely inconvenient."

I close the final inch and kiss him. It’s not a question. It’s a hard, claiming press of my mouth against his, a silencing of all that dry, inconvenient logic. His lips are cooler than I expected, still damp from the pool, and for one terrifying second, he doesn’t move. Then his hands tighten on my waist, pulling me flush against him under the water, and he kisses me back. It’s not gentle. It’s a surrender to the current, his mouth opening under mine, hot and desperate, all that British propriety dissolving into chlorine and taste.

His tongue slides against mine, and a sound escapes me, half-gasp, half-moan, swallowed by the water lapping at our chins. I can feel him everywhere—the hard plane of his chest against my breasts, the solid strength of his thighs brushing mine, the shocking, insistent heat of his cock, hard and thick against my stomach. My fingers slide from his shoulders into his hair, gripping the dark, wet strands. He breaks the kiss, his breath ragged against my cheek. “Imogen.” My name is a rough, foreign syllable in his mouth, stripped of all analysis.

“Don’t,” I whisper, my forehead pressed to his. “Don’t think. Just be surprised.”

He lets out a shaky breath that’s almost a laugh. “A monumental task.” But his hands are moving, one sliding up the slick curve of my spine, the other cupping the back of my head, holding me there. His blue eyes search mine in the dim light, and the look in them isn’t detached. It’s hungry. “You are chaos.”

“You’re welcome,” I breathe, and I kiss him again, softer this time, nipping at his lower lip. He responds with a low groan, his hands drifting down to grip the backs of my thighs, lifting me effortlessly in the water. My legs wrap around his waist, the new angle bringing that hard length into direct, aching contact with the heart of me. I am slick and throbbing, and the feel of him there, even through the water, is an obscene promise. He stills, his entire body tensed like a bowstring, his forehead dropped to my shoulder. “Christ,” he mutters into my skin, his breath scalding. “This is…”

“Inefficient?” I supply, my voice trembling as I roll my hips, just once, a slow, deliberate grind against him. The friction is exquisite, water-slick and maddening. “Unscholarly?”

He lifts his head, his eyes dark pools. “I was going to say inevitable.” And then his mouth is on my neck, hot and open, sucking at the tender skin just below my ear. His teeth graze, and I arch against him, a sharp cry echoing off the tiles. One of his hands leaves my thigh, sliding between our bodies, his fingers finding me with an unerring, devastating accuracy. He doesn’t fumble. He touches me like he’s reading Braille, learning the texture of my want.