by Alexa Woods
and still, June could see the nasty beast sliding over the water at speeds she
didn’t know were possible, heading straight towards them.
“Hurry, Summer! It’s still freaking coming after us!”
Arabella climbed higher onto her seat, folding herself into an even
smaller ball. “What’s wrong with that thing? It’s possessed!”
“It might be,” Summer agreed. She kicked the boat into high gear so fast
that June and Arabella lurched forward. June braced herself with the dash,
but Arabella nearly toppled over the seats. She righted herself with ease, a
throwback to her cheerleading days from high school, and cranked her head
back around.
Thankfully, the spiders were long gone. They moved out into the lake,
away from the small island. She kept going, speeding past the deeper, open
waters and cutting through the other side, where a cluster of islands and
natural bays usually provided protection from the wind. They didn’t have to
worry about that. It was so hot there were hardly any other boats out on the
lake. Too hot for boating, even with the wind in their hair.
Summer suddenly slowed down and cut the engine between two islands.
She moved to the front, dug out the anchor, and threw it over. “Time for
swimming, bi atches. It’s too hot for boating.”
“I was just thinking that,” June said. She glanced over the edge of the
boat at the sparkling water.
It looked inviting, cool and wet, but she hated doing this. She was a
strong swimmer, but she wasn’t into swimming in the middle of nowhere
like Summer was.
“Relax,” Summer said as June hesitated. “I made sure it’s deep, but not
that deep. No water monster lurking in there at twelve feet, and also no
weeds and no leaches. We’ll wear the life jackets. We’ll be fine.”
June gave Arabella a sidelong glance. She didn’t look very certain either.
“How will we get back in?”
“The boat’s got a swim ladder mounted at the back. It’s easy.”
“Can you swim, Arabella?” June wanted to be sure. This wasn’t about
peer pressure. This was just about Summer being Summer and expecting
everyone else to be just as comfortable with her wild and adventurous ways.
“I can,” Arabella whispered, then winced. She looked like she wished she
would have lied.
“That’s what the jackets are for.” Summer, still standing at the front of
the boat, dug out the water-skiing life jackets and tossed two towards the
back. She shrugged one on, already in her bikini, and without hesitation
leaped over the edge. She surfaced a few seconds later, shaking water off
her wet hair, peeling the strands off of her face. “Oh, my God, that’s good!
Nice and cool, but not frigid. It’s such a relief. Get your buns in here. Both
of you.”
“I swear we won’t die,” June muttered under her breath as she grabbed
one of the life jackets.
She tried not to look at Arabella, and failed, as she picked up the other.
She bent at the waist, her bikini bottoms tight and tiny against her perfectly
shaped behind. June nearly swallowed her tongue. She quickly checked the
life jacket over for spiders— she’d had a few incidents in the past where
she’d gotten nasty surprises—and zipped it on right over her tank and
shorts.
“June!” Summer yelled. “Take those off! Come on!”
Arabella zipped up the life jacket. When June turned around, the other
woman was standing right behind her, her breasts pushed up from the tight
life jacket, her long legs on display. Her hair swirled around her shoulders,
and when she bit down on her bottom lip nervously again, June’s legs
turned to jelly.
She needed to get her ass into the water before she freaking melted just
looking at Arabella. In high school, her meanness had ruined her prettiness,
but now… She was older, more mature, seemingly much nicer, and she was
smoking hot; totally sexy.
And June’s employee.
There was also a high chance, like somewhere in the ballpark of one
hundred percent, that Arabella was straight.
“Get in here!” Summer roared, splashing water playfully.
While June was trying to catch her breath and calm the riot of sensations
storming through her body, Arabella went to the side of the boat. She stood
there for just a second before she put one foot up on the side and gracefully
leaped off. She hit the water in a pencil dive, plugging her nose, and hardly
made so much as a ripple.
June took the opportunity to turn her back and let out a small groan of
frustration. She could literally kill Summer for bringing temptation
incarnate with them. She could also kick her own ass for getting all hot and
bothered over someone who wasn’t in her league, used to be crazy horrible
to her, and wasn’t even a lesbian. June never did things like that. She didn’t
just find random people attractive. Not in the steal your breath, make you
gasp, swallow your own tongue, hyperventilate kind of way.
Maybe she was overheating. Her brain was probably getting scrambled in
her own head due to the sun. If that was the case, Summer was probably
right. A cool dip would fix everything.
There was no way June was shedding her tank and shorts. She was too
self conscious to do that in front of Arabella, someone who had once called
her ugly and said she looked like a boy. Even if Arabella had changed,
comments like that had stuck with June. She wasn’t shaped like the glorious
women in the water already and they were watching her.
She buckled up her life jacket and leaped off the boat, flipping neatly in
midair like she and Summer used to practice. The water rushed up at her,
cold and an instant relief against the scorching summer sun.
She surfaced, shaking off the water droplets, swiping them away from
her mouth so she wouldn’t swallow the lake water.
“This is nice,” June admitted.
“It is.” Arabella sounded surprised. She treaded water easily, and
probably would have without the life jacket keeping her bobbing in place.
Summer swam by on her back. “Told you.”
They swam for half an hour, doing laps, chasing and splashing each
other, or floating lazily on their backs when they were tired. June had to
admit she was shocked at how easy it was for them to have fun. All of
them. Arabella included. She wasn’t even close to the same person she’d
been in high school.
June didn’t need any further evidence than Arabella leaping into the lake.
The old Arabella never would have done anything that could have ruined an
expensive blowout, and lake water would have been a total no-go. She
would have wrinkled her nose and snorted and said that lakes were for
people who couldn’t afford treated swimming pools that didn’t have mucky
bottoms, murky depths, leaches, and other horrible creatures like fish. Or
spiders.
When they got out, Summer went first, demonstrating how to use the
ladder. Arabella went next, while June hung back. She tried very hard to
keep her eyes busy and not watch Arabella as she got out of the water,
dripping wet, the water sluicing off her creamy skin, lush breasts, and
ample curves.
She failed.
Arabella stripped off her life jacket as soon as she got into the boat and
June’s eyes were drawn there like Arabella had her own magnetic field.
June pulled herself up easily on the ladder and took off her life jacket. So
what if she was wearing her clothes? They’d probably be dry in a few
minutes from the wind and the sun. She went to plop down on her seat in
the front, right at the same time Arabella bent over to snatch the life jacket
from the bottom of the boat. June got an eyeful of Arabella’s breasts. The
nipples were beaded, hard through the damp bikini top.
It was like getting punched in the face, and June nearly stumbled back.
She tried to tear her eyes away, and then Arabella turned. Giving her a
distinct and clear view of her bottom.
Apparently, Summer was also looking. And she spotted it at the same
time that June did.
“Oh shit,” Summer groaned, but there was far too much pleasure in her
voice. “I said there were no leaches, but they were happy to be prove me
wrong.”
Arabella screeched. “Where? How do we get it off you? Show me! I’ve
never seen one before.”
June debated throwing herself back into the cold water to knock some
sense into herself before Summer noticed that she’d been checking Arabella
out all day. She couldn’t do that in the future. For a thousand reasons.
Summer actually choked back her smile. June was proud of her for
making the effort. “Oh, it’s not on me,” Summer said smoothly. “It’s
actually stuck to your behind.”
Chapter 7
Arabella
It wasn’t just because it was hot out that Arabella couldn’t sleep. Though
the cabin did have the small window air conditioner, relief didn’t reach into
the small bedroom at the back. The room was basically a closet, but she’d
been given her own room, and that was either a gift from Summer or a
punishment.
Arabella chose to think of it as a gift. That was, until she’d tossed and
turned for a few hours on the narrow twin-size bed. It wasn’t a comfortable
mattress, and maybe that was why she’d been given it.
Arabella knew it probably wasn’t safe to go out of the cabin and wander
the woods at night, but she didn’t want to sit in the living room and risk
waking anyone up. They would probably be grouchy with her, and she was
already at the top of Summer’s shit list. She cracked the front door, and
when nothing bit her, not even the bugs swarming at the porch light
overhead, she closed it behind her and ventured down the steps.
The yard was bathed in shadow, the darkness absolute beyond the porch.
It wasn’t like the city where a halo of light seemed to surround everything.
For a minute, Arabella held her breath, but then she gulped and took a few
more steps into the shadow. She should have thought to bring her phone to
use the flashlight, but it was back in the cabin.
When her eyes adjusted, she could see a huge tree at the far side of the
yard. Its branches moved sinuously in the slight breeze. It was probably still
at least seventy-five degrees out. The air was warm, but not close and
humid like in the cabin. The night breeze smelled like the trees and the
more pungent scent of the lake, but Arabella found that despite not being an
outdoorsy person, she liked it. She even liked the dark once her nerves had
settled, and the big tree she walked over to felt like a safe spot to sit and just
think. Or not think. Come to think of it, she actually wouldn’t mind if her
relentless thoughts and worries would give it a break.
She leaned against the rough bark of the tree and sighed. After the sigh,
she dragged in a big inhale of the fresh lake air. It felt good, so she did it
again. Sighed. Breathed in. Eventually it turned into a regular exhale, inhale
and she found herself relaxing, her shoulders melting against the tree
through her tank top, even though the bark scratched and bit in.
It was no worse than that leach.
Correction, it was a lot less worse. That leach was horrific. What was not
horrific? The feel of June’s capable hands—her fingers cool from being
submerged in the cold water as they swam—against her skin. They had
ignited an undeniable fire in her belly. She was almost more worried about
how she would react to that touch than she had been about the leach.
Then again, she couldn’t actually see her offender, which was somehow
easier. She’d managed not to freak out and June had, after a few tugs, sent
the little beast back into the lake. It didn’t actually hurt at all, but the feeling
of June’s fingertips on her behind lingered long after it should. At least she
attributed the tingles in that spot to June, and not the leach. It could have
been the leach.
Summer took great delight in the whole leach thing, but June had treated
the incident passively. She’d been entirely impersonal the whole trip. It was
like Arabella was a stranger to her, but treated like any other stranger, with
deference and enough kindness. Though she’d caught June staring a few
times, she was professionally nice. Distant, but not aloof.
She hadn’t been delighted at the leach. There was no glee or distaste in
June’s face when she’d pulled away. The times she was looking at Arabella
could probably be credited to the fact that she was trying to figure out if
Arabella was still horrible or if she really had changed.
She’d wanted to return that look, but she wasn’t brave enough.
She was musing on that when a great black shadow leapt out of the tree
and landed on the ground in front of her. Arabella screamed. She backed up
against the tree so fast that the bark ground into her skin painfully, sending
burning twinges down her back. Her scream echoed through the night, and
she clamped a hand over her mouth as she wobbled to her feet. Whatever
the shadowy animal was, it was probably best to be as quiet as possible. Her
mind ran through scenarios in an instant. Bat? Bear? Racoon? No, too big
for those. Wasn’t it? Her erratic breaths escaped the hand pressed over her
lips, sounding like hoarse snorts.
The shadow turned around a second later, and a light flicked on. Arabella
blinked into that blinding beam. She relaxed when her brain finally
computed that it wasn’t a terrifyingly huge animal holding a flashlight on
her, but a person. A lithe figure wearing black leggings and a black tank,
her hair flowing down her shoulders like ink from a broken pen.
“J-June?” Arabella stammered, blinking against the blinding light.
June lowered the flashlight towards the ground. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to
scare you.”
“You were up in the tree?”
“I was. It’s something I’ve done for a while now. If I can’t sleep, I come
out here. Climb the first few branches and sit. The tree’s huge, so there isn’t
any worry about falling out. Even if I did, it’s not a long way down. The
branches are crazy thick this close to the base anyway.”
Arabella spun and whirled around, glancing up at the thick branches.
They were huge, extending well out, the leafy bits not until the ends. She
judged the climb and figured June was right. It wouldn’t be hard to get up
there.
“My God,” Arabella panted. “Why didn’t you say something?”
“Sorry. I should have. I wasn’t sure if you were going to stay there. And
then I wasn’t sure if I wanted to say anything. You looked like you were
settling in, so I figured I had better do something. I meant to jump a lot
further away, but I wasn’t thinking about how that would scare the life out
of you.”
Arabella’s hands moved to her chest, and she crossed her arms. “You
didn’t want to scare the life out of me? Because it was funny? Because I’d
deserve it?”
The flashlight’s beam wobbled a little. June slowly shook her head, and
even though Arabella really couldn’t see her face, she believed her. June
had always been like that. She’d probably never had a truly mean or spiteful
thought in her life.
“It’s hot inside,” June said without looking at Arabella. “I think I might
just sit under this tree for a bit.” She didn’t move. “Uh, you can…you could
sit out here too if you want.”
“Are you just saying that because you’re too nice to kick me out of the
spot I was already in before you nearly gave me a heart attack?”
It was impossible to see June’s face clearly, especially still half-blind
from the flashlight, but Arabella could swear that she actually heard
amusement in June’s tone. “Kind of?”
“Well, I’ll take kind of over a hot room. It’s a thousand degrees in there
and the wind isn’t coming the right direction to actually go in the window.
At least out here, I can breathe.”
June made a noise that wasn’t a choke or a gasp or a gurgle, but
something in between. “Think out here,” she echoed softly. “Yeah. That’s
about right.”
She toted her flashlight underneath the tree, sat down abruptly, and
turned it off. Arabella wobbled her way over on unstable legs. It felt strange
to be night blind again. She sat down harder than she meant to, adding a
bruised bottom to the scrapes on her shoulders.
June sat with her back straight, and Arabella was sure to maintain her
distance. She stayed a few feet away, curled around the other side of the
