I Kissed a Stranger to Spite My Cheating Boyfriend, and Monday He Was the Professor With a Rule Against Me novel · Chapter 18 of 24
Chapter 18: Salt
The channel was black and flat at midnight, and the stars were out for the first time in a week.
I stood on the rocks below the seawall in my bare feet, with my clothes folded on a boulder and my hair tied up.
I had never swum with anyone I loved.
I had swum from my father's boat all my life, alone, and once with a man I'd been told to keep secret.
I had not been in salt water in my seal skin since June of last year.
Elias stood beside me in the dark in his jeans, with his shirt already off.
"We don't have to," he said.
"I want to," I said.
"A mark rises the first time two people swim together in their other shapes," he said.
"You know that better than anyone."
"I know it," I said.
"Do you want one?" he said.
I looked out at the channel.
"I don't know," I said.
"I'd like to find out by swimming, and not by deciding."
He took a long breath.
"Then I'll swim next to you," he said.
"And whatever comes up, comes up."
"Whatever comes up," I said.
I walked down the cold wet rocks to the edge of the sea.
The tide was slack.
I stepped in to my ankles, my knees, my hips.
The water closed around me black and bitterly cold, and I took a breath and let go.
It happens in a breath.
The skin turns first, pulling tight and slick all over my body.
My bones folded in on themselves, and my arms became flippers, and the cold went from a knife to a blanket.
The world rose around me, dark and loud and wonderful.
I could hear the whole channel.
The rest of this chapter is part of the paid portion of the series. Chapters 1–6 of I Kissed a Stranger to Spite My Cheating Boyfriend, and Monday He Was the Professor With a Rule Against Me are free to read — start from the beginning, then unlock the rest with coins in the app.
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