Is she startled? Yes. Definitely. Ransom opted to sit at the bottom of a pool not even six feet deep after she kissed him; Marta is honestly not braced for much more than the vague expectation that she might have to coax him into standing up.
Fortunately for both of them, her shock doesn't translate well into flailing underwater.
Instead, she's pulled in close and held in his lap, being kissed while still in the water. Somewhere beneath the shock is slight relief that her arms are wrapped around his shoulders because she didn't know what else to do with them. You know, instead of stupidly at her sides (like the time he kissed her in the visitation room at the correctional facility) or hovering in the air (like less than a minute earlier, when he went and put himself underwater in the first place). While Marta knows how to swim and is fairly good at holding her breath, kissing underwater is a new skill that would be desperately lacking in the 'thrilling' department and more heavily weighed towards 'what the hell are we even up to', if not for her partner.
This is only their third kiss, after all. The first had been wholly unexpected on Marta's end and a sort of gloating pseudo-revenge on Ransom's part, to pay her back for surprising him by showing up the week before.... and probably also for an uncountable number of transgressions since he went to prison in the first place. It had been a gentle thing intended to cause some sort of upset, and Marta's responding kiss earlier had been a gentle thing intended to just be. This is different. There's water from the pool that leaks into the corners of it, and all Marta can hear is her own pulse loudly banging in her ears while also being acutely aware that there's barely water between their bodies at this point.
She bites his lower lip. Gets a hand up the back of his neck. Ransom kisses like he means to consume her and she will match that energy.
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Fortunately for both of them, her shock doesn't translate well into flailing underwater.
Instead, she's pulled in close and held in his lap, being kissed while still in the water. Somewhere beneath the shock is slight relief that her arms are wrapped around his shoulders because she didn't know what else to do with them. You know, instead of stupidly at her sides (like the time he kissed her in the visitation room at the correctional facility) or hovering in the air (like less than a minute earlier, when he went and put himself underwater in the first place). While Marta knows how to swim and is fairly good at holding her breath, kissing underwater is a new skill that would be desperately lacking in the 'thrilling' department and more heavily weighed towards 'what the hell are we even up to', if not for her partner.
This is only their third kiss, after all. The first had been wholly unexpected on Marta's end and a sort of gloating pseudo-revenge on Ransom's part, to pay her back for surprising him by showing up the week before.... and probably also for an uncountable number of transgressions since he went to prison in the first place. It had been a gentle thing intended to cause some sort of upset, and Marta's responding kiss earlier had been a gentle thing intended to just be. This is different. There's water from the pool that leaks into the corners of it, and all Marta can hear is her own pulse loudly banging in her ears while also being acutely aware that there's barely water between their bodies at this point.
She bites his lower lip. Gets a hand up the back of his neck. Ransom kisses like he means to consume her and she will match that energy.