The Persistence of Memory

Chapter Twenty One

I frown. "You're not seriously thinking about going in there?"

She shrugs and turns her head to look out into the lake. "I've been staring at it for ages.  It's been calling to me. I feel like I need to go in."

"Eloise, you'll freeze."

She turns back to me. "Not if you come in with me I won't. Your body heat is abnormally high." Her mouth curls up at the sides showing straight white teeth. 

I stare at her dumbfounded for a moment before turning my head to look at the water.  Fuck sake. Water retained heat, right?  It was pretty fucking warm today.  So warm that I'd had to put the oversized table umbrella up while she was typing because I could see the tops of her shoulders and the back of her neck start to turn pink.

When I look at her she's doing the smile that makes my dick throb, that soft seductive smile that makes my body want to obey her every command.  I am actually doing this. With a sigh I walk back to the stool and sit down the camera, then I begin to strip out of my trousers.  She watches me for a moment before sliding the robe back off her shoulders again.

"I should maybe go in and get a couple of towels?" I suggest.  

When I turn round she's walking away from me toward the end of the little pier.  She doesn't answer me or look back and then with a swift smooth movement she raises her arms and dives gracefully down into the freezing black water.   

Something cold grips hold of me when she disappears underneath and I bolt to the end to wait for her to reappear, resolved to jump in if she doesn't come up in the next five seconds.  I pull off my T-shirt and toss it behind me just as she pops up out of the water.  She's about fifteen feet away breathing hard and fast.  "Jesus fucking Christ, Eloise," I snap, my heart thumping in my chest. 

"What?" She turns her body in the water and begins to swim back toward me.  "You coming in or not? It's really not that bad once you're in."

As my heart rate starts to slow back down I brush a hand through my hair and peer over the edge.  I can't see a fucking thing.  

"You can swim can't you?" Her breath is short as she comes to peer up at me.  She wipes her hand up over her face and hair and squeezes the end of her nose.

"Of course I can swim."

"Then what are you waiting for?"

I sigh and lower myself to sitting, hanging my legs off the end.  She takes hold of one of my legs, wrapping her arms around it pressing her mouth against the side of my lower calve.  "This was a stupid bloody idea," I grumble.

She smiles up at me sweetly, looking like some sort of sea temptress ready to drag me down to her lair.  I'd bloody go too.

"I know, but I promise I'll make it worth your while once you get in.  And the water's quite lovely."

My cock stirs as she gazes up at me through long wet eyelashes.  When I still don't move she lifts her head up from my leg.  "I let you photograph me naked, Aidan, for god sake.  Do this for me."

I give her a last long look and use my hand to lever myself into the water.  My last thought before I hit the water is the memory of a film I'd watched late one night about this lake.  One about a man-eating crocodile that lived in it.

Jesus fucking christ.

I'm suffocating. I'm being smothered to death by a million tiny ice picks.  Like fuck was the water quite lovely.  Along with the rest of my body, the remnants of the wine from dinner and my growing arousal are drowned instantly.  When I emerge from the ice-cold water I have no clue where I am or what day it is.  I open my eyes to find her floating next to me, smiling mischievously.