The word came out wrong.
"'Unnnh—'"
Not what she'd intended. Not the two syllables, the vowel-consonant architecture that had been with her through everything today and was apparently the last thing left of her before it wasn't even that. Just: sound. Unstructured, pressed through a throat that had been restructured by the afternoon and was reporting back on the experience.
His hands left her breasts.
She became aware of this the way you become aware of something you didn't know was load-bearing until it's removed—the sudden, cold absence of his palms, the nipples he'd been playing with contracting against the mountain air, her whole chest registering the departure.
He looked at her for a moment longer.
Then he turned—settled himself at the pool's bank, sitting at the edge with his legs hanging over the water—and reached for her.
His hand found her waist.
He dropped her.
