He gently pinned her back to his chest and held her still, their bodies facing the motionless water. “Look.” A.J. nudged her cheek with his chin. Little fireflies blinked in the air before them, their light barely a twinkle since it wasn’t too dark out yet. Her skin was warm, and her body relaxed against him. “I can hold your hand. We can go in together.”
“No.” She shook her head. “And what are those sounds?” She tipped her head to the side as if searching to define the “sounds” of Alabama surrounding them like a symphony of nature.
“You ain’t ever heard an owl before?” He chuckled, his mouth dangerously close to her ear. Based on how her body had responded to him in the kitchen, he knew if he whispered his words against her skin, she’d go weak in the knees. He wanted to see her tremble like that again. “No bullfrogs in those big cities you lived in, either, I’m betting,” he teased at the sounds of the crying frogs.
“No, none.” He felt her body tense in his embrace, and he was worried Alabama’s normally seductive voice wasn’t quite Ana’s song. A few more days, and he was sure that’d change.
“Well, I’m going in. It’s your loss if you don’t join me, sugar.” He smoothed his thumbs down the sides of her arms, then sidestepped her to jump into the pond, remembering Grant had said it was shallow. Less than five feet deep, so no diving.
A.J. dropped to the bottom of the pond, fully submerging himself, and held his breath for a bit. He always found himself at peace when under water.
He popped up and swiped the beads of water from his face and hair. Ana’s rounded mouth, followed by her crossing her arms with dramatic emphasis, meant she’d been worried about his length of time beneath the surface. “You do remember I’m a Teamguy, right? We have to hold our breaths for a long damn time.” When he grinned, she shot him daggers. The soft, pillowy kind that soothed his soul because it meant the woman cared, even if she didn’t want to admit it. “Awfully refreshing in here.”
Her nerves were still all tangled up, but he was fairly certain it was more about letting go and jumping in and not because of the truth she’d laid on him.
“I just don’t know if I can do it.” Indecision warred across her face, but the cute way she wrinkled her nose told him she had an aching need to join him and relax—he could feel the imprint of that need as surely as he heard Mother Nature cocooning them with her lyrics and ambiance.
“No snappers in here.” He lowered himself in the water up to his chin and tipped his head back. “And probably no snakes.”
“Probably?” she shrieked.
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