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bought her for her last birthday. It was white with tiny pink rosebuds sewn in between the cups of the bra and on the front of the knickers. It covered her far more than some of the bikinis she had worn in the past, but even so as she walked towards the pool she felt as naked as the day she had been born.
    Alessandro was at the other end of the pool when she slipped into the water but he turned to look at her as if someinternal radar had signalled to him she had joined him. ‘Changed your mind?’ he said.
    ‘I was practically melting out there,’ she said, disguising a sigh of pure bliss as the cool water embraced her.
    ‘You should be used to the heat coming from Melbourne.’
    ‘It’s winter there now and it’s been a cold one,’ she said.
    He leaned against the end of the pool in an indolent pose. ‘Come over here,’ he said. ‘It’s deeper.’
    ‘I’m fine here,’ Rachel said. ‘I like to be able to touch the bottom.’
    ‘You can still swim, can’t you?’
    ‘Of course, but I’m clearly not in quite the same league as you,’ she said.
    ‘I’ve been putting in a little extra practice just lately,’ he said in a tone touched with wryness as he effortlessly hauled himself out of the pool to sit on the edge, his legs still dangling in the water.
    Rachel’s eyes went to his flat abdomen seemingly of their own volition. There was not a spare gram of flesh on him. Every abdominal muscle was clearly defined as if drawn by an anatomy artist. Her fingers itched to explore those hard ridges, to feel the texture of his skin, to tiptoe through the hair that marked him as a healthy potent male. Her heart began to beat heavily and she hadn’t even swum a stroke. Her breathing too was uneven, stopping and starting in her chest as if her lungs were being squeezed on and off by a large hand.
    ‘Are you going to do a length or two?’ Alessandro asked.
    ‘Are you going to criticise me if I don’t do it like a professional athlete?’ she tossed back archly.
    He gave a slow, lopsided smile. ‘You need to learn to take constructive criticism, Rachel,’ he said. ‘How else can one learn to improve oneself if one is not open to feedback?’
    Rather than answer him she slipped into the water and began swimming. She had never been more conscious of her body, and yet she had strutted on catwalks in several major cities before her career had been blown apart by her ex-fiancé’s double life in dealing drugs being exposed.
    She got to the other end of the pool and had to draw breath. Obviously her fitness was something she needed to work on.
    ‘You need to stop fighting the water,’ Alessandro said from where he was sitting on the poolside. ‘You’re making it harder for yourself. You’re expending twice as much energy as you need to.’
    She pushed the hair back off her face. ‘Yes, well, it’s not easy when I can’t see where the heck I am going.’
    ‘You need to tie your hair back or wear a swimming cap, goggles too, if you don’t like the water in your eyes.’
    ‘If I had known I was booking in for boot camp I would have packed accordingly,’ she said tartly.
    His mouth was tilted in that half-smile again. ‘Try another lap without thrashing the water,’ he said. ‘Let the water support you as you move through it.’
    Rachel went back and it did seem a little easier this time. She wasn’t quite so breathless, although that soon changed when she saw the way Alessandro glanced at her breasts. Heat flowed through her at the intimate contact. It felt as if he had touched her, cupping her with those broad strong hands of his. Her skin tingled in response, her nipples peaking as if he had just brushed the pads of his thumbs over them. There was no way of hiding her reaction to him. Could he tell? Did he know what he was doing to her? Was he remembering how he had once brushed his hot mouth against her tightly budded nipple in a stolen moment in the summer house?
    His eyes came back to hers and held