It was hard not to feel awkward, knowing they'd both decided they had to have sex by the end of the night.
"It's kind of cheesy," Nick admitted, opening the door.
"Oh?" Lina looked into the room and swallowed hard. "Oh," her voice squeaked.
Nick's house was built into a hill, so even though they were in the basement, the late afternoon sunlight flooded the small room through sliding glass doors. It warmed the sand covering the flagstone floor and reflected off the bubbling water of the hot tub.
"I'm going to boil us alive?" she managed to joke nervously as Nick led her into the room.
"Well, I thought ice water might kill the mood." Nick smiled a little. "But it *is* water - it might help."
"Yeah. although... candles?" Lina suddenly noticed the ring of candles around the tub's edge. She turned, taking in the second ring around the room's perimeter. "Isn't that worse?"
"Not if we don't light 'em."
"Huh?"
"Okay, you're *way* too nervous," Nick concluded. "You're not thinking." He traced a finger down her spine, " Plus, you're tense."
Lina shivered at his touch. "I thought that was the point?"
"Making you tense?" He stepped closer, his hand slowly rubbing the small of her back. "Not in my plans."
Lina felt the heat of his palm through her top and inwardly cursed the conditioning that had her, even now, struggling to control and conceal her response to his touch, his closeness.
A tendril of reassurance slid through her mind, helping her to relax a little. Nick knew these things, and he'd help her get over them. She felt his chin on her shoulder. "Want to get into the tub?" he suggested. "Just you, for now. Relax a little."
She shivered out of discomfort this time, looking at the water in the middle of the room. "I'm a little afraid of it," she admitted in a low voice. "It's just...waiting for me. A big mouth, waiting to swallow us up."
"I don't remember you feeling that way the last time we shared a jacuzzi," he teased, remembering an early morning in a hotel. He'd had a hard show, and she'd worn herself out in a rescue effort that happened to be in the area. They'd both been so relieved by the therapeutic pool, they'd barely spoken.
"Actually, it was kind of similar," she mused and felt him simutaneously press closer to her and venture further into her mind.
While they shared the perfect recall characteristic of all psychics, it didn't prevent either of them from having to work to remember things. Nick recalled sounds and images most easily - Lina remembered touch.
As they examined the memory, Nick could feel the hot water against her skin, the soothing jets healing bruised muscles, relaxing her body, letting her mind drift until she imagined strong, supple hands in place of the jets of water. Suddenly she realised she was in a jacuzzi with him and his guard was down, and so had hers been, and what if he touched her, by accident, a hand or a leg sliding across her skin...
"You would have frozen," he murmured, letting his hand drift from her back to the warm flesh of her stomach, stroking her slowly.
"Maybe not. I always wondered what I'd do if you'd tried something before my guard went up." She was paging through her memories of all the close calls now, that one being one of the least dangerous. They hadn't even touched. Not like they were touching now.
"Guess we'll never know." He teleported her shoes and socks out of the room and was rewarded with a giggle as her bare toes sank into the sun-warmed sand. He reached in deeper, feeling the warm grains move between her toes as if they were his own.
"Since you're so curious..." His footwear disappeared. He laughed, enveloping her in a bear hug from behind. She put her arms on top of his, holding him close. Nick smiled, now really feeling like her boyfriend.
Lina had wormed her way deeper into his mind as she snuggled into his embrace.
"I wish we had time to enjoy it first."
"Yeah."
They stood there for a long moment, rocking together unconsciously, each trying to reassure the other and establish that the moment was real. The pool cast a shadow over their thoughts, distracting them both. Finally, Nick gave up.
"Come here." He walked Lina forward, not letting her go for a moment. "Sit down." She sat crosslegged at the edge, sheilded from the water by the ring of candles. He sat beside her, an arm around her waist. Moving a few candles, he stretched out a leg and dipped his toes in the warm, bubbling water.
"It's *your* element, Nickelodeon. Of course you're not scared of it."
"It means the same thing to both of us," he argued. "A new beginning."
"An end?"
"Sure," he agreed, acknowledging the doubts that still hovered. "But it's time." He edged forward until he was sitting right on the edge, his legs in the water up to his knees. He still kept a hand on Lina's knee, unwilling to stop touching her even for a second.
"Jeans, sweetie."
"I *know*," he smiled, gazing at her intently, pulling her deeper into him until she could feel the wet, heavy, warm denim clinging to his skin. "Like it?"
This is the most bizarre seduction in the history of the universe. She rested her hand on top of his, exploring it for a moment, wondering at the way she could feel his reactions to her touch as intensely as her own to his. But oddly, I do.
She leaned forward to kiss him and Nick met her halfway. The moment their lips touched, they each felt every jolt of electricity the kiss sparked in the other's body. Nick had just enough presence of mind to realise Lina was sitting precariously and pushed her back into the sand as their need for one another, repressed far too long, swirled up and enveloped them both, erasing any further thought.
Somehow they both managed to slide into the water, and somewhere along the way their clothes ended up on the bottom of the hot tub, but they were barely conscious of how it happened. So many years of sharing memories had given the partners a completely instinctual knowledge of each others' bodies. Every touch served to deepen their connection, heighten their mental and physical awareness of each other until the only barrier between their souls seemed to be their separate bodies. They clung to each other desperately trying to get closer, acting completely on instinct,unaware of anything else, including the rising temperature in the room around them. As her climax overtook her, Lina wasn't sure if the explosion she felt was literal or not. She certainly felt like she was dying, so tangled up in Nick that there was no way she'd ever find her old solitary self again. She didn't care - she was dying whole.
It was Nick who finally assured her they had lived through it. "Look," he prodded. She peered out at the room, now beginning to dim as dusk descended. They both took a moment to get over the fact that she instinctively used his eyes instead of her own. The floor was glowing a dark orange.
You're so brilliant. Lina sighed, not even needing to consciously check his memories to figure out what had happened. Creation instead of destruction. Remind me to thank Sebastien, too.
It's an innovative way of interior decorating, Nick agreed, watching the sand and ash mix Sebastien had sold him cool slowly into a form of raw glass. If we can consciously do that again, I want to try the bathroom.
I know.
Shut up.
I ruined the candles, she observed, noting piles of melted wax that had heated from the bottom up, so that they had never actually been lit.
Thank you Captain Obvious.
It is I, Captain Vegetable, with my carrot... they chorused as Nick evoked Lina's old Sesame Street earworm.
Are we ever going to speak again? Lina wondered, laughing.
Sure we are. Nick answered, knowing she already knew the answer.For the important stuff.
Like "I love you" ?
Yeah. I think "I love you" needs to be said a lot. What about...
She knew all of his thoughts as soon as he did now, so it wasn't a surprise, but Lina took a moment to let the idea wash over her, to consciously bask in the love of her student, her friend, her partner and her lover before she let him say it aloud, and then she said it with him.
"Marry me?"