The water around them rippled gently, warm and fragrant with crushed herbs and fallen petals, soft steam curling upward into the quiet night. The moon hung low, casting silver ribbons across the surface of the hot spring, and the arbor's white blossoms, heavy with dew, glowed faintly in the shadows.
Sienna-Rose sat in the middle, her shoulders submerged, bare skin glistening with warmth and the weight of what she had just confessed. Her heart beat against her ribs like a trapped animal.
Then Olivia moved. Graceful and calm as a wave rolling in, she swam closer, each movement slow, intentional, and measured like a ritual she had rehearsed in her heart a hundred times before.
The ripples she created lapped gently against Sienna-Rose's chest as she stopped in front of her. Olivia reached out, took her hand without a word, and guided it beneath the water, slowly, deliberately, to rest against her own stomach.
