“I do.” Her eyes meet mine, gaze unflinching. She’s confident, no seed of doubt in her words or posture. I swallow, and that makes her break out in a cocky grin of her own. “Ready to jump?” I freeze. I’d somewhat forgotten about the reason we were undressing in my lust-addled distraction. While I fight the urge to run back away from the cliff edge, she picks up our clothes and places them in a basket that she lowers down toward the water. “No turning back now,” she says with a glint in her eye. “Our clothes are at the bottom. Unless you want to stay standing up here half-naked, we have to jump in the water.”

“I wouldn’t mind staying half-naked,” I involuntarily murmur, and her cheeks turn pink. But she takes my hand and leads me to the very edge of the rock. I look down and pale, trying to take a step back, but she holds me firmly in place, deceptively strong for her small stature. My palm sweats in hers, but she strokes my thumb.

“I’ve got you,” she soothes. “On the count of three. One. Two.”

Pulse racing, I close my eyes.

“Three!”

My thighs coil, and I lift myself up and out over the edge of the bluff. We both free fall, but Genevieve’s hand never leaves mine. Air whooshes around me, and the white-blonde tendrils of my hair slap my face. An involuntary shriek leaves my lips, and Genevieve giggles in the air beside me. For a moment that could be seconds or hours, we fly through the air, adrenaline pumping through my veins as I face this fear with a female I’ve come to care deeply for at my side.

We slam into the water, the brisk, salty waves washing over us as we sink below the surface. Bubbles float around us as Genevieve hauls me upward, cresting the surface before me.

“You did it,” she cheers and wraps her arms around me. As I tread water, I pull her into an embrace, and her arms circle my neck. We stare at one another for a beat. Her tongue brushes over her lower lip, and I track the movement. She wraps her legs around me, then leans in—

Someone yells at us to swim away from the landing spot so another can jump. Smiling, we both swim toward the sandy beach that was hidden behind the cliff face.

“We could have walked down to this beach all along!” I chide, but she only grins with an roguish glint in her eyes.

“We could have, but that wouldn’t have been nearly as much fun.”