It was at the end of the summer I spent with my brother, Tim. I had actually seen Eric weeks earlier when I had accompanied Tim to work, but Tim was too busy laughing over my attraction to the cute Russian-Cuban to introduce us. The rest of the summer he let small bits of info drop. But since he is my brother, and he has this wicked - almost cruel - sense of humor he left the most important fact a secret. Until the very end.

It was my last day in Miami, and Tim had to stop at the precinct on our way to the airport to drop off some papers for Horatio. We were in the locker room when Eric walked in fresh from gathering evidence from the bottom of one of the canals still in his wet suit. He had the top open and bunched around his hips allowing me, and every other person so inclined, to see the way his faded blue MDPD t-shirt accentuated his muscular chest and abdomen.



"You're staring again," Tim's laughing voice sounded from behind me once Eric was out of earshot.

"So? It's not like he even noticed," I grumbled.

"Oh, he noticed," Tim teased.

"Did he, now?" I questioned, turning to face my brother, one brow raised in inquiry.

The smile that spread across Tim's face at this point rivaled the Cheshire Cat's in size. He waggled his brows before sing-songing, "I know something you don't know."

"What are you, five?" I huffed. "Just tell me."

Tim's grin got even wider, as if that was possible, and he leaned in real close to me to whisper in my ear, "Eric's a fish."

"A fish?" I repeated, shocked.

Tim nodded. "Yep. A fish."

I groaned. Great. Just great. Leave it to me to fall in love with a guy who loves to swim.

See, I'm afraid of drowning. Not really sure why, just know that I am. If my parents and Tim know the reason, they're keeping it to themselves.

A few months later I returned to Miami and confirmed that Eric had indeed noticed me that day in the locker room. I transferred to Miami U the following semester to be closer to him.

That was three years ago. Two years ago I made Eric my submissive and have been told by other Dominants, my brother mostly, that I'm too lenient with him. But after what we've been through, I feel he deserves it.

Which leads us to where we are today. In the locker room of a natatorium. Putting on swim trunks.

Several months ago Eric threw his back out while chasing a suspect. The doctor said we couldn't engage in any type of sexual act until he was fully recovered. I'm not sure who that order was harder on; me or him. I consoled him with the promise that once his doctor gave him the all clear I'd do whatever he wanted for a full day. I know I allow Eric to do things that any other Dom wouldn't, but I do have my limits and following his orders for a day is about as far as I'm willing to go. Of course what Eric wants most is for me to share his love of diving. I've always been willing to be near water for him but as far as going under is concerned, I have to draw the line. I haven't let my fear get in the way of Eric doing what he loves. Quite the opposite in fact. Tim and I bought a boat together, and Eric and I can often be found anchored several hundred yards off the coast. Him diving, and me either soaking up the sun or studying. I'm pre-med and as such don't have a whole lot of free time within which to actually study, not if I want to spend any time at all alone with my submissive.



"Josh?" Eric's voice pulls me from my thoughts.

The uncertain look on his face has me smiling reassuringly while I step over to stand in front of him. Sweeping my gaze from the top of his head to his toes, I reach out with one hand to gently cup his face. "I know I said I'd do whatever you wanted today," I pause to take a deep breath. I've never once broken a promise to him and really hate to do so now but my fear is stronger than my desire to see him happy. "But what say we go home, and I let you tie me up and fuck my brains out, hm?"

"You're going to break your promise?" he asks, voice breaking a little bit at the end, just enough to make me feel lower than low.

"Eric," I sigh. "I don't think I can do this. I know I said I'd do whatever you wanted but… this," I fling my arm out to encompass the whole of where we are. "Is more than I can handle."

His brows wrinkle in disappointment, and I can see tears shining in the corners of his eyes.

"Don't you trust me?" he whispers, voice almost childlike in its smallness.

I swallow past the lump that's trying to choke me as I realize that that's what he's really asking for. Not for me to share his love of water but for me to show him how much I love and trust him. In the three years we've been together, but mostly during the two I've been his Dom, I've asked him that question countless times when introducing something new. I've even had that question asked of me several times, by Tim and other men who've topped me, but never has Eric asked that of me. That he's doing so now says so much about the dynamic of our relationship it's almost painful.

"Of course I trust you, Eric," I reassure him, leaning in to gently press my lips against his. "I'm just not sure about this, is all."

"If you trust me, put aside your fear and do this for me."

"You're right," I concur. "Lead on," I say, stepping back and lowering my head in a show of submission.

"Ja ljublju Vas," he whispers, leaning down and capturing my lips in a breath-stealing kiss.

It takes all my willpower to not take control of the kiss. I remind myself that I had promised Eric. And with that thought running through my head, I open my mouth wider to give my lover even more access and relax into it, allowing him to explore to his heart's content.

Finally he begins to soften the kiss until he's just nibbling on my lips and that's when I realize that the only place we're touching is our lips. Not being allowed to touch me is so ingrained in him that he probably didn't even realize he could now. That today the rules don't apply.

"Mm, Eric," I murmur breathlessly when he begins to trail kisses down my jaw to my ear. "You sure you don't want to just go home?"

"Not yet," he replies, his warm breath in my ear making me shiver. "Come along," he says, turning to exit the locker room.

Sighing in frustration – it's been a long time since I've had to deny myself sexual gratification – I adjust my growing hard-on before following him.

I enter the pool area in time to see him lower himself into the water.

"How'd you manage to get this place all to ourselves?" I question, joining him in the warm water. I never have understood why people heat an indoor pool.

"I know the owner," he tells me walking backward, forcing me to follow, until we're about half way to the other side.

"Still doesn't tell me how you managed it."

"The owner's a client of Artie's. He found out I know Mistress…" he shrugs.

"So you promised him an invite," I finish for him.

"Yeah, sorta," he mumbles, ducking his head.

"Sorta?"

"Told him I'd see what I could do."

"Ah, I see," I murmur, tilting my head to the side. I wonder if there's a reason Eric bargained with this guy. "You want him?" I ask, knowing the answer before the question is even fully out of my mouth.

Despite being together for three years and him being my submissive for two, and after all the things I've done to him and that he's seen done to others at The Hideout, Eric still has the ability to blush when asked such personal questions. I actually find it endearing that he's managed to maintain this degree of innocence.

"Yeah," he finally answers, his voice mostly muffled by the fact he's staring at where he's making ripples in the water with his hands.

"Then tell him he'll accompany us the next time we go," I say, smiling at the way Eric's face lights up at my 'gift'. "But," I caution, holding up one finger. "I get him first."

"Of course…Master," he agrees. The brief hesitation before he says my name tells me he's beginning to slip into subspace, and that's not where he needs to be. Not today at any rate.

"Hey, Eric?" I call, splashing him in the face once I have his full attention.

"Hey!" he exclaims, splashing me back.

The water fight that follows soon has us both dripping and laughing so hard my face and sides hurt. I can't remember the last time I had this much fun in a pool.

After a few brief moments to catch our breath I start to tell him I'm ready to continue when he splashes me with such a huge wave of water that I'm momentarily blind. When I finally get the water out of my eyes enough to see, he's not standing where he was before. I turn around looking for him, my heart starting to pound. What if there's a real emergency? What if he's unconscious on the bottom of the pool? I doubt I could rescue him. Especially if he's in the deeper end. With my fear of drowning, I never learned to swim.

I start making my way to the edge intent on finding a phone to call someone, anyone, to come help, when my legs are yanked out from under me, and my head dips below the surface. With my mouth open on a startled yelp, I end up swallowing some water and come up coughing and sputtering, wiping furiously at the water pouring down my face.

"Damnit, Eric!" I shout, heading once again toward the side of the pool, cursing the fact that I can't move very fast in four feet of water.

"Josh!" he calls, the tone of his voice one I haven't heard from him since the night I first took him as my submissive. It has me stopping in the process of raising myself out of the pool. "Never figured you for a coward," he growls in my ear.

Where the hell has this guy been all this time? I wonder. If I'd've known of his existence I might have been willing to switch. But it doesn't matter now. I'm the dominant one in this relationship and that's how I like it.

A shiver of anticipation trips down my spine and does not go unnoticed by the man pressed up behind me.

"So you do like not being in charge some of the time," he murmurs, his arms snaking out to cover my hands where they're gripping the edge of the pool. "No wonder you offered this as a reward so quickly."

"Don't let it go to your head, Pet," I warn him. "Tomorrow you'll be right back where you belong; on your knees at my feet."

"Luckily that's a place I love to be," he reassures me, grinding his erection against my ass. "Wanna know one of the great things about water?" he purrs, running the tip of his tongue around my ear.

Before I can even blink he's removed my swim trunks and tossed them out of the pool. They land with a wet plop on the concrete. "No real need for lube," he hisses in my ear, shoving two fingers up inside me, stretching me quickly.

His trunks soon follow mine, and then he's pushing his way in. I whimper at the sweet burn of his penetration, enjoying the way the pain grounds me. Keeps me in the here and now and reminds me I should let him do this more often.

He begins to fuck me slowly, with short almost hesitant strokes. I drop my head, exposing the nape of my neck and push back, urging him to go faster, harder, deeper. Eric responds by sealing his lips around the knot of bone where my neck meets my shoulders and sucking gently, marking me as his. I shiver and give a breathy moan when he allows me to feel the sharp edges of his teeth before he releases me.

"Eric!" I beg, trying to get him to fuck me properly but the counter-resistance of the water is too much and I can't move more than a few inches.

"Is there a problem?" he asks with a chuckle, punctuating each word with a sharp thrust of his hips against mine.

"I need more, damnit!" I say through gritted teeth, still trying to take more of him inside.

"I'm in charge today, Joshua. Or have you decided to break your promise after all?"

My breath catches in my throat at his words. He's right, of course; demanding he fuck me the way I want to be fucked is tantamount to breaking my promise to let him have his way. I instantly still my efforts to get him to hurry this along and relax into his strong embrace. He must have been waiting for just that, because as soon as I allow my muscles to go slack, he pries my hands off the edge of the pool, crosses our arms over my chest and begins moving us back into the middle of the shallow end. I feel a moment of panic when he leans back so that my feet are no longer touching the bottom but relax once again when I realize this new position has him going even deeper.

I soon discover one major drawback to sex in a pool. There's nothing for me to rub against. A deep growl of frustration escapes my throat and has Eric snickering in my ear.

"Problem?" he purrs, voice thick with his amusement.

I swallow thickly, trying to get some moisture back in my mouth, and shake my head. I manage to shake my right hand loose so I can reach up and cup the back of his head while burying my nose behind his left ear. Lightly scoring his shaved head with my nails, I wish, and not for the first time, that his hair was still long enough for me to grab. But since it never grew back correctly after being shaved for surgery when he was shot, I don't complain. Not out loud at any rate.

We had only been together for six months when he was shot in the head in the line of duty. Getting that call from Alexx took me right back to the day my parents and I received the call about Tim being shot just a couple of years before. I spent night and day by Eric's bedside, having a friend audit my classes, so that I could be the first thing he saw when he woke up. Only I didn't know he'd have memory problems. He didn't remember the previous six months and moved in with his parents saying that living in a one-room apartment with a strange man was 'not something he was comfortable with'. The next six months were really hard but we pulled through. In fact the night I first took him as my submissive is the night he returned to me, having remembered our first time together.

"Hey," Eric's gentle voice brings me back to the present. "Where'd you go?" he asks, his free hand rubbing soothing circles on my lower abdomen, occasionally brushing against my hard cock and pushing me even closer to the edge.

"Nowhere," I whisper, pulling his jaw around so I can capture his lips with mine.

He pulls back, bringing his free hand up to wipe his thumb across my cheek. "Then why're you crying?"

"It's nothing, really," I reassure him, shaking my other hand free to reach around his hip and squeeze what I can reach of his ass. "Fuck me, Eric," I beg, clamping down on the fullness in my ass.

He gives a short puff of humorless laughter as he leans forward until my feet once again touch the bottom of the pool and we eventually settle into a rhythm that's still not quite enough. "It's not working, is it?" he asks, placing an open mouthed kiss to the back of my right shoulder.

"No, it's not. Any suggestions?"

"I have one," he says. "But you have to trust me."

"I do trust you, Eric."

He slips from my body and turns to make his way across to the deep end of the pool. He still has a hold of one of my hands and I soon discover another drawback to being in a pool. No matter how hard I dig my heels in he's able to pull me closer to the area of the pool where I won't be able to touch.

"The human body is designed to float," he says in his CSI voice.

"I know that, Eric," I snap. "Pre-med, remember?"

"Then relax, and let the water carry you."

Relax, he says, I snark to myself. Easy for him to say. He doesn't have a fear of drowning.

My panic is steadily rising as with every step I get closer and closer to not being able to touch the bottom any more. Eric finally seems to sense my growing panic and halts, treading water an arm's length away. I'm standing on the very tips of my toes with my neck stretched as far as it'll go and water is still lapping at my chin.

"Josh," Eric calls, and I can hear his growing frustration in the face of my continued distrust of him. "Trust me, Moe serdce." If you hold my hand you won't go under. Promise."

Part of me is screaming to just let go because I know he'll catch me while the part that remembers the trauma that built my fear is telling me I trusted before and almost drowned.

Suddenly, like a bolt of lightning from the sky, I remember what happened. I was 4 or 5 and at a friend's house playing in his pool. His older brother dared us to swim to him in the deep end. My friend went first and made it just fine. But when it was my turn…just as my fingers touched the brother's he moved, and I went under. All the way to the bottom.

Swallowing a sob at the remembered fear, but knowing the only way past it is to stop saying I trust him and act on that trust, I grip Eric's hand tighter and push off from the bottom, letting the momentum carry me straight into his waiting arms.

"Hi," he whispers, wrapping his arms tight around my waist.

"Hi," I whisper back, a shy smile playing on my lips. "See? I told you I trust you."

"Saying it and actually acting on that trust are two totally different things, Josh."

"I know, Eric." I hang my head for a moment. "Forgive me?" I ask, peeking up at him through my lashes.

"I never could resist your puppy dog face," he tells me, kissing the tip of my nose. "Now hold on. You'll like this, I swear," he tells me, shifting his grip so he can use his right arm to move us closer to the deepest part of the pool. Right under the diving platforms.

Placing my hands on the lowest diving board, Eric once again tells me to hold on before taking a deep breath and disappearing under the surface. A brief moment of panic follows but once his mouth closes around my soft dick I understand and give myself over to his ministrations. Over the past two years, Eric has learned how to give the best blowjobs. But the one he gives me now reminds me of the very first one he ever gave me. Fast, dirty and with no finesse what-so-ever. Sooner than I like, I feel my orgasm building in strength and reach down to grab Eric's shoulder. I want to come with him inside me. He bobs to the surface with an ear splitting grin on his face.

"Did ya like it?"

"You know I did."

"I'm glad. But I think you'll like this even more," he purrs, guiding my legs around his waist.

I can't stop from taking the lead and slowly begin to impale myself on his hard length. "God, but I love how you feel buried inside me," I pant, wrapping one arm around his neck and nuzzling the back of his right ear.

"And I love the way you feel wrapped around me," he responds, reaching up to grab the diving board and begin moving us to the side. "Of course I prefer when you're buried in me."

When we reach the side he turns us so that my back is to the wall. Being in the deep end he can't brace his feet on the bottom to get the leverage he needs so I grab a hold of the drain and he gets the hint. With a wicked grin he plants his feet on the wall and leans back so that he's almost floating in the water. It's still not quite enough, but it works. With him gripping my hips, me raising and lowering myself, using the edge of the drain and giving my triceps a workout, and him basically doing crunches while stroking me, it's not long before we're both screaming our release.

Eric places soothing kisses on my right shoulder which help keep me grounded after such an earth-shattering orgasm. I wrap my arms around his neck, secure in the knowledge that he won't let anything happen to me, and nuzzle my way under his jaw to leave a hickey where I know it'll be seen.

"You just can't resist, can you?" he asks with a chuckle.

"Gotta make sure they know you're taken," I answer, not having to explain who 'they' are.

"Hm. After all this time you still don't believe me when I say they don't flirt anymore."

"You expect me to?"

"Trust, Josh."

"I trust you, Eric," I sigh. This is an argument we've had numerous times, and I'm sure he's getting tired of hearing me say I trust him, no matter that this time it's about something different. "It's them I don't trust." It's not like I don't know Eric has a wandering eye.

In fact his wandering eye is one of the reasons I 'share' him whereas Tim selfishly keeps Horatio to himself. I learned early on that the only way to 'rein in' his tendency to stray was to allow him to think he has the freedom to fuck whomever he pleases. Of course I have final say in who he actually does fuck. But the point is, if I allow him to 'stray' when the urge strikes I don't have to worry that he actually will cheat without my knowing about it.

"I happen to know that they are still flirting outrageously with you."

"I've learned how to ignore them. None of them ever even tempted me. Not since I first got you in my bed," he whispers in my ear reminding me of the man who charmed the pants off me on our first date.

"That's not entirely true," I remind him of his one and only infidelity, the one that led me to decide to 'share' him.

The pain in his eyes tells me how much I hurt him with my reminder of the indiscretion that happened just a few months after I took him as my submissive. I over did a punishment and he retaliated by going 'toothing' and hooking up with some nameless bimbo who ended up stealing his badge.

"Alright, enough of this talk. Unless you're ready for round two?" I mentally pour cold water on my libido.

Eric raises an eyebrow at my comment. "You know perfectly well I'm not ready for round two. Yet," he huffs.

I grin cheekily at him because while we were discussing the bimbos who see the badge and decide they want a piece of him, his dick softened enough that it slipped out of me.

"So. Now what?" I ask. "It's your day."

"I think you know what I want."

I sigh deeply because I do know what he wants and the truth of the matter is I kinda want it too. The only way to truly get over my fear is to confront it head on, and what better time or place than here and now with Eric here to catch me if something should go wrong.

"One quick down then up?" I suggest.

Eric nods his agreement. "Down, then right back up."

Staring into his eyes I keep telling myself I can do this and that Eric won't let me drown. Once I've gotten my rising panic under some semblance of control, I give a tiny nod telling him I'm ready. He begins bouncing us while counting. "One, two, three," he says each number on the up bounce and on three we take deep breathes, and he pushes us under and pulls us right back up. Just like he promised.

"See? That wasn't so bad now was it?"

"No, it wasn't."

"Care to try for a bit longer?"

"Don't press your luck, Delko," I warn, reaching for the ladder so I can climb out of the pool.

"I swear one of these days I'm gonna get you into a wet suit," he challenges.

"I wouldn't hold my breath if I were you," I inform him. There is no way on God's green earth I'll ever put on a wet suit and go diving with him.

Eric sniffs overly loud causing me to turn and look at him. The look on his face is one of cartoonish pouting. "I thought you loved me," he whines in an extremely annoying voice.

I just roll my eyes. "If I didn't know you were teasing I'd have to punish you for trying to guilt me into it."

He can't hold back his grin any longer and laughs out loud. "That's what you get for falling in love with a fish!" he calls as he walks ahead of me into the locker room.

Hearing those words come out of his mouth has me stopping in my tracks. That little punk, I fume silently. I'm gonna have to find a way to punish him for lying about not hearing that conversation between Tim and me. With that decision made, I follow him.