This really is the life. It's the end of October and I'm in a bikini with the Californian rays warming my pale and exposed skin. Being British, this is a very rare thing indeed. Back home, I would certainly not be in a bikini and sunbathing on an inflatable lilo lounger with a voddy in my hand. No, I would be wearing a jumper and be holding a brolly in my Londoner hand. Rhys says that this is the time when the weather in LA starts to really cool off and that November is the beginning of the rainy season, but with today being 67°F, for this Brit Chick, that feels positively tropical. Feeling utterly relaxed and warm as I float around in his lavish pool, I sigh with contentment as I stare at the panoramic views of the mountains and the valley that surround Rhys's single-storey home. It really is modestly beautiful. Simple and Contemporary Mediterranean by design with no expense spared. It's comfortably luxurious, not over-the-top luxurious like I thought it might be. Yes, Rhys has a pool and a hot tub, a movie and games room, a mini music studio, his very own gym, an indoor wet bar and a camera security system that surveils the entire property both inside and out, but his home really is a home. It's not excessively dressed up. It doesn't look like a show home. It's a place that is well lived in. As soon as I crossed its homely threshold, I felt right at ease here. I think it was the intricate beauty of the cathedral ceilings inside his home and the open air atrium in the centre of the gorgeous place that totally sealed the deal for me. I literally drew breath when I first laid eyes on their delightful design, which amused Rhys no end.

"Clara? Have you put sunscreen on?" He calls out to me from the side of the Spanish feel pool, wearing only a pair of casual swimming shorts with the cream being held tightly in his right hand.

"Yes, Dad!" I humorously shout back as I take a quick sip of my iced vodka and cranberry.

Rhys dives into the pool, causing annoying ripples to disturb my previously calm and very still water; effortlessly swimming towards me beneath the watery surface. When he slowly comes up for air, he looks a golden and wet thing of gorgeousness. Without saying a single word, he lifts my plastic martini glass from out of my hand and swims away with it. When he swims back, he has a determined look in his eye as he rests his elbows on my lilo. "Did you just call me dad?" His expression is pinched, his frown teasingly deep.

"I might have done." My chin juts out with smugness, my sneer with the same amount of supreme confidence.

Rhys doesn't say a thing, he simply ducks down beneath the water, leaving me to wonder whether he is going to do exactly what I think he might just do.

No, he wouldn't...would he?

Seriously, he wouldn't...would he?

The next thing I know, I am being thrown from off my comfy long lilo and submerged in the watery depths of the cool pool.

He did do it!

He really did!

The absolute git!

Arms soon come tightly around my sinking waist and push me back up through the water. Let me tell you, I certainly don't surface the water like a golden and wet thing of gorgeousness—more a pale and gasping thing of straggliness. "I can't believe you just did that!" I splutter, rubbing my eyes and trying to remove my stupid hair from off my dripping wet face.

Rhys is laughing but holding me tightly where he stands in the deepness of the pool. "I can't believe you called me dad." Is his cocky reasoning for tipping me off my inflatable.

"I was joking!" I almost shout back, totally annoyed with him now.

Helping me out with the dark strands of my hair that messily still cling to certain parts of my face, Rhys kisses my saturated lips. "You look kinda cute being all wet and angry." He smirks back at me with the water lapping against both of our shoulders, expecting me to forgive him.

"Those lips of yours aren't getting you out of trouble this time, Mister." I feign still being angry with him, knowing that his lips have indeed already gotten him out of trouble.

Rhys tilts his head to the side, smirking just a little bit more. "Really? How about this, then?" He submerges himself back beneath the water, taking hold of my waist as his lips start firmly kissing my stomach. With closed eyes and my buoyant body loving the sensation of his underwater kisses, a sigh of enjoyment is expelled from my dewy mouth as my hands reach down for him. Coming back up, he takes all the breaths that he needs before passionately seizing my mouth once again. This time, my floating legs wrap themselves around his waist because I want to be impossibly close to his wet and glorious body until we have kissed our mouths dry. "Did that work? Am I out of trouble?" He asks with a sentimentally amorous grin, playfully bobbing us both up and down in the glistening pool.

Draping my arms over his strong and defined shoulders, I teasingly shrug. "You might be."

Grabbing my butt cheeks with his fingers, he friskily starts pinching them. "I might be?"

Giggling and squealing, I splash up and down in the water, trying to get away from his pinch-happy fingers. "Okay! Okay! You're out of trouble." I quickly surrender to Rhys, giggling louder.

Bringing one hand up, his fingers soon immerse themselves into the back of my damp hair as his mouth intoxicatingly hovers over mine. "I might be out of trouble, but you're not."

My eyes flick from those sensuous lips of his, up to his intense sage eyes. "Why?" I ask, brushing my mouth across his in a salaciously slow way.

Unclipping and discarding my bikini top somewhere in the pool, he then starts removing the bottom part of it in a leisurely lewd way. Once he has me thrillingly naked, he removes his swimming shorts with a confident sneer. "Because Clara Thorn, I am stupidly, ridiculously, crazily in love with you." Although I am floating in Rhys's arms, I just need a second for his words to sink in. I have known for days that I love him, but for him to tell me that he feels the same way, makes me beyond happy. I still don't seem to have the right words to say back to Rhys, so he feels like he needs to say more. "I know we haven't been together very long, but I really do love you, Clara. I love you now, tomorrow and all the days after that...I love you."

The water surrounding us both swims with my many emotions—Elation. Joy. Contentment. Pleasure. Excitement—they all swim with us. Now is my time to speak up. Now is the time to tell Rhys exactly how I feel, how I completely and utterly feel. A loving smile gently pull up the corners of my mouth, expressing my inner happiness. "Rhys Ryan, I am just as stupidly, ridiculously, crazily in love with you, too."

"You are?" He asks with wide and surprised eyes.

"Of course I am, I have been for days."

Bringing his wet hands gently around my face, Rhys holds me still as we share a deeply intimate moment. "So what now? What does this mean for us, Clara?"

The truth slips out from between my calm lips. "I haven't thought that far ahead." And I hadn't. I loved Rhys. He loved me. Beyond that, I honestly didn't know. I will need to return to London in a few days time and the hectic carousel of Rhys's life will start up again once I am gone. The only thing I am sure about, are the feelings that I have for him now.

"About you returning to London...don't." From literally out of nowhere, Rhys throws that confusing gem right into the poolside air. It's like he can read my most private of thoughts or something?

"Please don't say that." He is the only one who is brave enough to actually say that out loud. In my most sentimental of moments, I have wondered the very same thing.

Could I stay here?

Could I really leave London behind?

Rhys tries to kiss away my panic; unhurried and honest. "Don't be freaked out. We can't deny what is happening, Clara. I know that you'll have to make a lot of sacrifices if you choose to be with me, but I promise you, I can give you so much more than what you'll be giving up."

I smile at him, as confused and as anxious as I am; I offer to him an heartfelt smile. "I know you would, Rhys...but I need time to really think about this, okay?" My palm caresses the curves of his unshaven jawline as my teal eyes slowly reach his. 

His full and accepting mouth presses down onto mine, kissing me with love and gentle understanding. As our sumptuous kiss comes to a slow and sweet end, Rhys tells me with his soft American accent. "You have three days to think it over, okay?"

With my watery arms holding him close, I gently nod. "Okay."

Pressing his gorgeous nakedness up against me beneath the water of the sun-filled pool, Rhys playfully pinches my butt again. "I think it's now time for me to show you how we make love over here, LA style." His wayward brows waggle with such delicious wickedness.

With my eyes becoming hooded with such brazen flirtatiousness, I teasingly bite his succulent lower lip. "Oh yeah?" I then suggestively push my saturated skin closer to his.

"Yeah." Rhys hornily whispers.

Unbelievably now ready to be shown, my wantonness seems to know no bounds. "I like being in trouble." My lips teasingly then part, wanting Rhys to see just how receptive my body is to him. "And I think I am going to like making love, LA style." I seductively add.

Walking us through the rippled water, Rhys finally pushes me up against the stone wall of the warm pool, to show me all the ways in which he loves me. His mouth and tongue also want to show me all the ways in which they worship my body. I love that about my American lover, my Mr Mega Famous. He pushes me further than I've ever been before—emotionally, mentally and physically—blissfully pushes me there. I know I have a life-changing decision to make, but that can wait, now is now. And now, beneath the Californian sunshine, we intend on making long and lustful love in his Spanish pool—LA style.