Until We Fly (The Beautifully Broken) by Courtney Cole

so long. 
    She wants me. 
    Through the glass, Nora’s eyes meet mine and holds my gaze.  She swims on her belly for a while, her eyes just above the surface of the water, never looking away from my own. 
    She splashes and kicks at me, flipping onto her back. 
    Her tits bob above the water, her nipples pointed to the sun. 
    My dick twitches again.
    And then when she’s finally done showing off for me, she emerges from the water, dripping wet and bathed in sunlight. 
    She’s sexy as hell. 
    And she knows it. 
    She strides back across the lawn, watching me every step of the way.  She climbs the back steps, crosses the kitchen, and pauses in front of me, dripping on my feet. 
    “I’m cold,” she murmurs into my ear, leaning up on her tiptoes.  She is.  Her cold skin grazes against me, bleeding through my shirt, as her tits press into my chest. Her nipples are hard enough to cut glass and my hands ache to slide along her skin, over her hips, down to where I’d grip her ass and…
    I grit my teeth.
    “Then you should get dressed,” I tell her calmly, bending to pick up the towel she’d discarded earlier and handing it to her.  I make no move to touch her, regardless of how much my traitorous fingers want to slip in between her legs and…
    I grit my teeth again. 
    She sees my jaw flex and grins victoriously.
    She knows that she won the game she was playing… that she made me want her. 
    I don’t bother telling her that I wanted her already. 
    Instead, I just meet her gaze and hold it, until she steps back and walks away.
    This time, instead of staring at her bare ass, I focus on the black words tattooed on her shoulder blade. I saw them earlier, but I was too distracted to read them, even though they make me curious. 
    Nora isn’t the type of girl I would’ve figured for a tattoo. 
    She’s refined, buttoned-up, classy. 
    But even still, she has black words tattooed on her shoulder blade, with a small elegant anchor.  Fluctuat nec mergitur.  
    It’s Latin.  What does it mean?
    I pull my phone out of my pocket and punch the words into a search engine. 
    A result is immediately returned. 
    She is tossed by the waves, but she does not sink.
    It has meaning.  It’s symbolic.  The ink is stark black and the tattoo looks new.
    It’s a reminder to her… to stay strong.  To be resolute.  To never sink no matter what.   
    My eyes narrow as I remember the text on her phone. 
    I want your word.  And I want you to keep it. 
    I know where you are.
     Something happened to her.  Something she doesn’t want to talk about, something that she’s scared of, something that involves this William person. 
    I’ve seen the fear in her eyes a couple of different times, but she always covers it up.
    I’ve seen that kind of fear before, in the eyes of women in Afghanistan.  In the eyes of women who had been beaten and abused and raped.
    My stomach clenches at the memory, but also for Nora. 
    Someone has hurt her. 
    But that someone won’t do it again, not while she’s here on my watch. 
    Of that, I am certain.
    Resolutely, I make my way back out to the living room and drop into the chair by the windows.  I wait while Nora gets dressed, and ponder our situation the whole time. 
    We’re like two prize fighters, circling around a ring, each waiting for the other one to pounce. 
    We’ve both got secrets that we don’t want the other to know. 
    It’s kind of ironic. 
    Nora finally emerges, clad in a t-shirt with no bra and short shorts.  Her nipples poke through the thin material and the corners of her mouth twitch. 
    She knows exactly what she’s wearing. 
    I smile at her. 
    “How was your swim?”
    She smiles back. 
    Thrust and parry. 
    “It was refreshing.  How was watching?”
    I hold her gaze and smile again.
    “It was refreshing.”
    Her grin widens. 
    “I forgot to get breakfast stuff for tomorrow. What would you like?”
    You.
    “Eggs,” I suggest. 
    She nods.