The water caught the sun like a thousand tiny mirrors, broken only by the slow arc of his arm slicing through the surface.

She hadn’t meant to stop. Just a walk, she told herself. Just air, trees, and a bit of time alone after the suffocating politeness of another garden party she hadn't really wanted to attend. But then she’d heard the splash.

Marianne stood just beyond the edge of the clearing, half-hidden behind a hazel thicket, heart ticking far too loudly in her ears. The boy—no, the man—was alone. Completely, unabashedly naked. He moved through the water with a kind of lazy grace, all lean muscle and tanned skin, water rolling down his back like honey.

She should leave. Really, she should.

Instead, she stayed.

He ducked under, and for a moment she could only see ripples. Then he rose, water sheeting off his chest, hair slicked back, mouth parted slightly as if tasting the quiet. He looked so at home—untouched by the world she knew, the one filled with clipped conversations and invisible lines you didn’t cross.

She shifted her weight, twig snapping underfoot.

He froze.

For one electric second, their eyes met.

His were sharp—green or hazel, she couldn’t tell at this distance—but unmistakably alert. Not frightened. Curious. The corner of his mouth twitched into something like amusement.

Then, instead of scrambling for modesty or cursing her out, he turned slowly in the water, offering no attempt to hide himself. A soft breeze stirred the leaves overhead. A dragonfly hovered between them.

He raised one brow, as if to say: Are you staying?

She felt her skin flush, heat curling from her chest downwards like a tide. It had been years—decades, maybe—since anyone had looked at her like that. Not just seen her, but invited her.

She didn’t move. Didn’t smile. But her lips parted, her breath shallowed, and something in her hips gave a subtle tilt forward.

The water lapped gently at the edges of the pool, and he drifted toward the mossy bank closest to her. Not hurried. Not slow. Just... waiting. Watching. A shared pause in time, where nothing outside the clearing existed.

Marianne took a step forward.

She didn’t speak. Neither did he. But her body answered for her in a language older than words.

She stepped into the sunlight.

Leaves dappled her skin, catching in silver streaks along her collarbone, the hem of her linen shirt fluttering with each careful movement. She hadn’t planned to be seen—hadn’t expected to want to be—but now that he watched her with open hunger, something inside her refused to shrink.

He stood knee-deep where the water met the mossy bank. Water clung to his thighs, tracing the lines of youth and strength and everything she’d nearly forgotten she used to crave. He didn’t cover himself. He didn’t need to. That boldness—God—it unsettled her in the most delicious way.

“Should I leave?” she asked, voice low and steady.

He shook his head, just once. “Not unless you want to.”

A breath caught in her throat. She didn’t. And they both knew it.

She let her bag fall to the ground. Then her shoes. The forest floor was cool and damp beneath her feet. His eyes tracked her every movement—hesitant, reverent, just barely held back by a thin leash of restraint. She liked that. The tension of it.

Marianne moved closer, only stopping when her toes brushed the edge of the water. He reached out—not to pull her in, but to offer balance. A palm, upturned and open. She took it.

His skin was warm despite the water, rough in the way only men in their twenties can be—half-finished softness over sinew and impulse. She stepped into the shallows, her hem soaking instantly, clinging to her thighs. She felt exposed, but powerful. A queen returning to her grove.

“Do you do this often?” she asked, letting her hand slide down his wrist, trailing heat where water once cooled.

“Swim naked?” he grinned. “Not usually with an audience.”

She laughed, breathy and surprised. “You didn’t seem to mind.”

“I was hoping you’d stay.”

Her fingers drifted to his chest—curious, slow. His breath hitched. Good. She wanted him to feel unsteady now. To know that she, too, had her gravity. That fifty years of living hadn’t dulled her hunger—it had aged it into something more potent. More dangerous.

“You’ve got nerve,” she said, tracing a droplet down his sternum with a fingertip.

“And you’ve got the most beautiful eyes I’ve ever seen.” His voice was reverent now, softer.

The words landed between her legs more than in her ears.

She leaned in—slowly, testing—until her mouth hovered just over his. She felt the tension coiled in him, the tight control he held as her breath warmed his lips.

“Kiss me,” she whispered.

He did.

It wasn’t gentle. It was fire. All teeth and lips and that maddening scrape of youth against experience. She melted into it, pulling him closer by the hips, her soaked shirt forgotten, clinging like a second skin. His hands slid to her waist, up her back, hesitant no longer.

She tasted like sun-warmed skin and memory—faintly of mint and something sweet, like elderflower cordial and secrets kept too long. His hands roamed her back as if relearning a body he’d never known but somehow recognised, following every dip and curve with a reverence that surprised them both.

Marianne had forgotten what it was like to feel seen. Not politely admired across a dinner table, or passed a lingering glance in passing—but seen. Like she was a living thing again. Not just a role. Not just someone’s past.

He kissed down her neck, lips grazing the hollow of her throat, the buttons of her shirt still fastened between them like a dare. She reached for the top one, but his hand caught hers gently.

“Let me,” he murmured.

One by one, he undid them, eyes never leaving hers. When he opened the last, the shirt fell back, heavy with river water, revealing skin that had felt like hers again only now—under the gaze of someone who wanted her, not in spite of her age but because of the woman she was.

His hands slid beneath the fabric, cupping her breasts with slow certainty. She arched into his touch, eyes fluttering shut as his mouth found one nipple, tongue warm against the chill of air. She gasped, fingers tightening in his wet hair.

“God,” she whispered, “you’re bold.”

He smiled against her. “You like that.”

She did. And he knew it.

She pulled him closer, pressing her body to his, the hard length of him slick and hot against her belly. It made her pulse roar in her ears, want gathering low and insistent. They moved together, deeper into the water, her shirt floating off her shoulders and away like shed skin.

He kissed her again—slower now, but no less hungry—as he slid a hand between her thighs beneath the surface. She gasped into his mouth as his fingers found her, teasing, circling, coaxing her open like a bloom warmed by the sun. She moaned, low and broken, hips rocking gently with the rhythm of the ripples.

“Do you want me?” he asked, voice ragged against her cheek.

“Yes.” Her answer was breathless, immediate. “Here. Now.”

He turned her gently, backing her toward the mossy bank where the water shallowed, where she could lie back among the ferns and tangled roots, the earth cool against her spine, his body warm and insistent above her.

When he entered her, she gasped—not just from the stretch and slide, but from the sudden, sharp rightness of it. They moved together in a rhythm older than thought, her legs wrapped around him, fingers digging into his shoulders, his name lost in the rustling leaves above them.

The world narrowed to sweat, breath, skin. To the press of his mouth on her collarbone. To the pulse of pleasure rising like thunder between her hips.

And when she came—arching, crying out into the dappled canopy above—she felt herself return. Not to youth, but to herself. To a woman still capable of fire. Still capable of being wanted.

He followed her moments later, trembling in her arms, breath broken and reverent.

They lay tangled, half in water, half on land, the forest watching with ancient, indifferent grace.

Neither of them spoke.

They didn’t need to.