“Are you having fun, baby?” Sharon asked.

Robert took a few more gulps from the water bottle before screwing on the top and handing it back to her. “I can’t tell you how much I’m enjoying this.”

He was taking a break from surfing while Nick was teaching Ruth how to balance on the surfboard. As an immortal, she had what it took to master the skill with ease. The only thing keeping her from doing well was fear.

Leaning over Sharon, Robert was careful not to drip water on her sun-heated skin as he planted a quick kiss on her mouth.

“Your lips are cold,” she complained.

“Sorry about that.” He sat next to her on the sand and tilted his head up toward the sun, basking in the warmth.

Since escaping the Ojai compound with Carol, Robert’s only physical activity had been happening at the gym or at his apartment.

He missed his outdoor runs.

When everything had been feeling too tight, and the walls had seemed to be closing on him, he would get outside and pound the trails until he was ready to collapse. Doing so on a treadmill didn’t provide the same relief. Absent were the fresh smells of nature, the wind beating on his face, the scenery rushing by him, or the soothing effect of seeing living green instead of dead concrete walls.

As he was discovering, surfing was even better than running. He loved the ocean with its sandy beach. The blue and the yellow contrasted beautifully, the cold to the hot, the wet to the dry, and in the distance, the green mountains provided the living colors he craved.

But even more than the great outdoors, he loved the sight of Sharon in a bikini. He was having a hard time deciding what he wanted to do more, keep on surfing the waves, or take Sharon home and make love to her.

“I love seeing you happy and carefree.” She cupped his cheek.

“I have you to thank for that. None of this would have been possible without you.”

She chuckled. “You passed the tests with flying colors. This is your doing, not mine.”

“I beg to differ. Without you in the picture, Kian would’ve not submitted me to the tests in the first place.”

He’d put Robert through the grinder—an hour-long questioning by Edna, with Arwel and Andrew present as backup. Only when all three had vouched for his complete devotion to Sharon, had Kian allowed the cuff to be removed.

Free at last, Robert hadn’t known what to do with his new privileges. The first thing he’d done was to take Sharon out on a proper date in a restaurant. But other than that he had nowhere to go.

Until now.

He owed that to Sharon as well. At first, he hadn’t been keen on an outing with the hacker and his girlfriend, including Sharon’s coworker and the immortal the guy was courting. But Sharon had insisted, and he had no choice but to tag along.

“That is true,” Sharon said. “I wish he’d offered the same tests to me. How come my word was enough, and yours was not?”

“Because you’re not a former enemy, and you have Eva to vouch for you.”

Unlike him, Sharon had been accepted into the clan’s fold immediately following her transition. But then no one had any reason to suspect her, and since she was an immortal now, it was in her best interest to keep the clan’s existence secret.

“Robert,” Sylvia called him. “Could you please convince Roni to give surfing a try?”

Other than Sharon, who’d from the start announced that she was not going to dip even a toe in the ocean’s cold water, and Nick, who had his own equipment, the rest of them had rented wetsuits and surfboards, including Roni.

For some reason, though, Roni hadn’t put his on.

“Come on, kid, it’s easy. You’re going to have fun.” He offered Roni a hand up.

“Maybe for you it is. But I’m athletically challenged. I don’t want to make a fool out of myself.”

“Take a look at Ruth.” Robert pointed toward the water. “She is doing great. And she started out with nothing.”

Roni’s face twisted into a grimace. “Fine.” He got up and grabbed the wetsuit, reacting exactly as Robert had known he would.

Robert winked at Sylvia.

Young men were the same everywhere. Their worst fear was to look bad in front of others. Refusing to give it a try now would make Roni look even worse than doing poorly in the water. Because if Ruth, his girlfriend’s mother, could do it, so could he.

He couldn’t allow himself to look more afraid or less capable than Ruth.

“Let’s take the boards to the water and paddle a little first,” Sylvia said once Roni was done putting the wetsuit on.

“How about you?” Robert asked Sharon. “Are you sure you don’t want to go for a dip?”

“The water is too cold.”

“I know how to keep you warm.” He waggled his brows.

“Take your wetsuit off. If you’re going to keep me warm, I want to feel your skin on me, not rubber.” Sharon giggled.

Ever since he’d told her the truth about the part condoms had played in keeping her from transitioning, the word rubber had become a trigger for laughter. He would never forget her expression when she’d asked him if the only thing standing between her and immortality was a rubber.

“Done.” He peeled himself out of the suit in seconds.

“Yum.” Sharon smacked her lips. “You have the best body on this beach.”

“Only on this beach?”

She looked one way and then the other. “Do you know how long it is? Miles upon miles.”

He offered her a hand up. “Ready for the water?” He pulled her up.

“I am.”

“What about this?” He pointed at the scarf thing she had tied around her bikini bottoms. “Don’t you want to take it off?”

Sharon shook her head. “I’m not about to let everyone see my jiggly butt. Unfortunately, the transition did nothing to make it smaller.”

“And it’s a good thing that it didn’t, or I would’ve been very disappointed.” He tugged at the tie and took the scarf thing off. “You should be proud of this ass. It’s the sexiest on the beach.”

“Only this beach?”

Smirking, Robert waved his hand at the meandering shoreline. “As you’ve said, it’s miles upon miles long.”