Don, I Left as You Wished novel · Chapter 11 of 32

Chapter 11: The Pool House

"Pool house," Santo breathed.

We went along the wall hand over hand, keeping under the lip where the light didn't reach.

At the shallow end I climbed out first and pulled him up the steps by the wrist.

We ran low across the deck, dripping.

The pool house door stuck. It always stuck.

He put his shoulder to it and it gave, and we fell inside, and he shut it behind us without a sound.

Dark.

Chlorine and old cigars.

The only light was the moon through the little frosted window over the bench, gray and thin.

We stood with our backs to the door, breathing hard, water running off us onto the tile.

I could hear my own heart.

I could hear his.

"Did she see?" I whispered.

"I don't know."

"If she comes down."

"She won't come down."

"You don't know my mother."

"I've lived with your mother for fifteen years."

"You've lived in the same house as my mother. That's different."

He laughed, very quietly, in the dark beside my ear.

His arm was against mine, wet and warm.

Neither of us moved away.

Through the frosted glass I could just see the square of her light, up on the second floor.

It stayed on.

"Thirty seconds," I said. "She's getting her milk. She'll go back."

"And if she doesn't?"

"Then we live in the pool house now."

He turned his head. I felt his breath on my cheek.

"I could live in the pool house," he said.

Then his mouth was on mine again.

It was different in here.

In the water we'd been weightless. In here we had floors and walls and nothing holding us up but each other.

He pushed me back against the door, slow, and the wood was cold against my wet shoulders.

He kissed me.

Maybe longer. Maybe a lot longer.

My hands went into his hair. It was soaking and short and his scalp was hot.

His hands went down my sides, over the wet nylon, and stopped at my hips and held on.

"Tell me to stop," he said against my mouth.

"No."

"Roz."

"I said no."

He made that sound again, low.

He pushed the strap of my suit off my shoulder, and this time it went all the way down.

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