by Diana Seere
He stood. Only now did she see he was completely naked. And erect. “I’ll join you.”
“Not like that, you won’t,” she said, waving at his erection.
His voice dropped. “You could help me get rid of it first.” While she stared, praying for willpower, he took his cock in hand and began slowly pumping, never moving his gaze away from hers. “Have you ever watched a man pleasure himself?”
“The entire history of the world is men pleasuring themselves.” It would’ve been a more effective put-down if she hadn’t sounded like a flirtatious bimbo as she’d said it, all squeaky and breathless.
He strode over to the door and flicked on a light. “There. Now you can see everything.” Leaning back against the bench, he stroked faster, watching her. His cock swelled hard and long in his hand, which was quite nice, but it was the hungry look in his eye that made her grab a bottle of water she’d seen on the bench and pour it over her head.
It dripped down her cheeks and soaked her breasts through her bikini top, bringing a second of relief. Even hot water was cooler than her flesh.
“I should complain about your wasting the refreshments that I brought, but it looks much better on you than it would’ve tasted in me.” His gaze dropped to her chest, where her aching nipples were pressing through the wet nylon of her suit. “Looking at you makes me so hard, Jess. See what you do to me? This is for you. This is because of you.”
His heavily muscled physique flexed with each stroke of his hand. Mouth falling open, he stared at her under heavy lids as he squeezed and pumped, moving harder and faster.
She was going to combust. Right now, right here, she was going to burst into flames. An hour ago she was freezing, and now she was burning.
With more self-control than she’d ever thought possible, she turned, opened the door, and fled out into the dawn. The first dim light of day shimmered on the far surface of the lake, though the shore closer to them was still shadowed by the house. The freezing rain had stopped, but the sky was still a cool gray.
Not cool enough. Jess jogged past the deck chairs, down the stairs to the path, and then over the lawn to the lake. Not stopping, she charged ahead until she was submerged up to her waist, gasping as the cold water surrounded her skin and tried to turn her blood to ice.
Just as she was about to crawl back out onto dry land and save herself, she saw Derry’s naked figure running across the lawn, headed at full speed directly toward her.
She stopped moving, paralyzed by the sight of him. Ancient gay Olympians would’ve passed out in awe. He was magnificent.
No! She couldn’t let this happen. Here they were even more exposed than before. Without giving herself time to think—a familiar problem lately—she sucked in a breath and fully submerged herself. If icy water didn’t knock some sense into her, nothing would.
The cold struck her with such force, she wondered if she’d die before she could learn some self-control. She’d never realized how painful water could be. It was like being in space. Not that she knew what it was like to be in space, since she wasn’t an astronaut, although wouldn’t that be awesome? Being in space? Better than here in this lake which was making her feel very weird, like she was awake and asleep at the same time.
Somebody was lifting her out of the water. And then it was even colder, because air was slapping at her bare arms and shoulders and everywhere she had a body.
“Jess, talk to me. Are you all right?” Derry was holding her. He was like a giant hot water bottle.
Clinging to him, she tried to speak through her chattering teeth. “T-t-t-t-owel?”
“Why’d you do that? You could give yourself a heart attack doing that.” He sounded furious. His grip on her arms as he rubbed her was a little too rough, although she appreciated the friction.
“What the hell is going on?” another man’s voice cried. “Derry, by all that is holy, why are you trying to drown the maid of honor? And why are you naked?”
Chapter 18
Did his siblings have a secret schedule of some sort, a rotation for making certain to walk in on him while he was having sex with Jess? Not one to believe in conspiracy theories by nature, Derry was increasingly suspicious about the string of coincidences that continued to interrupt this budding romance.
Plus, those blue balls hadn’t been blue because of the cold.
“I’m rescuing her, you idiot!” he screamed at Gavin, lifting Jess over one shoulder like a sack of rice and marching out of the water, completely unfazed by Gavin’s look of rage-filled horror.
“Put me down!” Jess shouted, pounding his back with her cute little ineffective punches. She might as well pelt him with marshmallows.
Without a word to either of them, he stormed back up the snow-speckled lawn, up the stairs, and over to the pool deck, dropping Jess into the water like a child finding the perfect rock to plunk into a river, delighted by the sound. Compared to the lake, the heated pool felt like bathwater.
She shot back up by pushing her feet against the pool’s bottom, her face rocketing to the surface with a blustery sputter, and gasped, “You asshole!”
“At least she has some sense of perspective left,” Gavin growled from behind Derry.
And then a mighty shove in the middle of his back—and it had to be mighty, to move a man Derry’s size—catapulted him right into the water next to her. Pivoting midair to see what had hit him, he watched Gavin lower his leg just before sinking below the water. Hah. He knew his brother took martial arts, but…
Jess was treading water a few feet from him when he popped over the water’s edge, his own limbs instinctively mimicking hers.
“If you two are going to rut like animals, at least have the decency to do it indoors,” Gavin said in a low, threatening voice that made Jess’s eyes widen with fear, but Derry just laughed.
“We can’t rut anywhere at all, Gavin. Between Sophia and Edward and now you, my own siblings have nicely subverted my sex life. How much is Asher paying you?”
Gavin’s eyebrows drew together like two battle-axes over glowing sapphires. “Consider yourself fortunate that Asher has no idea about any of this.” He waved his hand toward Jess with a dismissiveness that made Derry’s nostrils flare. “You were told she’s off limits. And now you’re fucking her in public and running around naked on the ranch, with hundreds of guests here? Derry, what on earth are you—”
Derry opened his mouth to reply, but Jess beat him to it.
“Off limits!” Jess made her way to the edge of the pool and pulled herself out, the movement so sleek and athletic, his view of her ample, shapely ass only making his cock harder, damn it.
She wiped the pool water from her face and walked up to Gavin, stopping two feet away, looking up. Planting her hands on her barely-clad hips, she tightened her face and squared off against Gavin.
“You don’t get to dictate what anyone can and cannot do with me!” Her slow cadence, the steel behind her words, made Derry’s stomach drop slightly.
Gavin paled but did not break eye contact with her. Didn’t blink. He remained impassive, his face as frozen as a stone gargoyle’s.
“I am my own person. Derry is his own person. My sister may be marrying you, and you are about to become my brother-in-law, but that does not make you my keeper!”
Derry’s heart split into two hands and applauded.
“If telling him—or anyone, for that matter—that I am off limits is a reflection of some sick, perverted idea of yours about your role in my life, then wipe it out. Now. You have zero control over what I do, Gavin.”
Derry snickered at the word “perverted,” the sound making Gavin squint one eye at him, the gesture familiar. In childhood, it had meant he was going to get a thrashing later from his displeased big brother.
Who knew what it meant in adulthood, but whatever it was wouldn’t be good.
“And you!” She turned and pointed at Derry, who felt the full force of her self-righteous rage like she was holding a fire hose a
imed at his face. “You think you can just waltz into my life and take my virginity and—”
“WHAT?” Gavin finally spoke. This time it was Derry who felt all the blood rush out of his face. Oh God. What was she going to say next?
“—and not tell your family what’s going on? I told Lilah about us, Derry, and she—”
“You told Lilah? Lilah’s known about you two?” Gavin’s incredulity made it abundantly clear that his anger and shock over finding them in the lake in various stages of undress had been genuine. He’d had no idea. Derry had wanted to keep it that way.
“Yes,” Jess said, continuing her tirade, her ire focused once again on Derry, who looked at her and just took it. “But you’re slinking around, angry when Sophia figured it out by smell, and when Edward found us making love in Asher’s car, and—”
“You had sex in Asher’s Phantom?” Gavin roared. “By God, Derry, you’re a dead man!”
“Would you stop interrupting me?” Jess screamed at Gavin, now in his face, finger wagging, her normally feminine voice now low and so menacing it sounded almost demonic.
Even Gavin shrank back, however slightly.
“What is going on?” interrupted another female voice. Long, silky blonde waves caught the pool lights as Lilah appeared, wearing a parka and suede boots, entering the situation with an iron rod in her backbone and looks that could kill. “You’re making a huge scene. Eva texted me and—”
Gavin whipped around, aggressive in his stance, curling his body around hers with a sneer that made Derry recoil. “You knew Derry was fucking your sister and didn’t tell me?”
“What the hell does that have to do with anything?” Jess said, inserting herself physically between the two, her protective stance evident. Derry watched with a morbid fascination as he realized that while Lilah may be the big sister in the family, Jess was overpowering instinct right now.
She was defying the laws of animal behavior.
And taking on his big brother, Gavin.
“Enough!” Derry leapt out of the water and grabbed Gavin’s arm, turning him away from the women. Lilah gasped as she took in his state of undress. Either that, or his cock was so enormous she couldn’t help but react. He rather liked the idea of the latter.
“I can sleep with whomever I choose,” he said.
“We all know that,” Gavin said with a sneer.
“And so can I!” Jess added, through gritted teeth.
“Of course you can,” Lilah said, putting her arm around Jess, who had begun to shake in the cold. Derry held back an impulse to replace Lilah’s arm. He sensed the need for sister solidarity.
“But not with him!” Gavin countered, getting in Derry’s face, teeth bared as if showing fangs. Steam rose off Derry’s skin like coiled heat, rising up to the early morning sky, the familiar tingle beginning.
My God.
They were about to shift.
Lilah’s eyes cut over to his with an alertness, a fear that understood the immediacy of the situation. Or, it suddenly occurred to him, she was about to shift, too. Could she feel it? How did humans who went through The Change learn to read the subtle signals of the body when they’d not experienced it all their lives?
Time for musings later.
The chlorine nearly made him lose consciousness, the scent overpowering. Gavin’s skin teemed with sweat and a lime verbena soap he’d used in a recent shower, while Lilah smelled like aluminum and coconut. Jess’s fear poured off her like an infusion, but there was more. Anger. Fury. The musk of frustration and the relief of having a target.
Gavin.
Right now, Derry had to find a way to defuse what was about to become an incredibly volatile, and potentially violent, situation.
“Lilah? Jess?” In the distance, a hushed voice called out. A distinctly feminine, human voice. Derry’s ears perked. It was coming from behind the pool house.
Before he could move, a woman he had never met, yet felt he knew, appeared.
Jess gawked as the woman, old enough to be the sisters’ mother, took in Derry’s naked form. He felt her eyes crawl over him, cataloging his wet skin, his curves and planes, the hard muscle and thick hair. Her eyes settled on his midsection, and quickly she turned, modesty prevailing, curiosity sated.
In profile, he saw it. The resemblance, the bone lines, the high cheekbones and—
Oh dear God.
“Mom?” Lilah and Jess said in unison.
This was not how Derry had imagined meeting his future mother-in-law.
Oh shit. Her mom. Looking at Derry.
At least he wasn’t erect anymore.
Jess was tempted for only a moment to help him find a towel—a large one—to cover himself and salvage some pride, but then she remembered how he was the one who had brought them to this, where strangers and family caught them at their worst. Lilah might understand, but her mother wouldn’t. Jess’s cautious, prudish streak had come from her.
Let Derry be embarrassed. Not that he felt any shame, the giant manwhore. Countless women had seen him naked because he liked showing off that sexy body of his.
But for a second there, when he’d been facing off with Gavin, he’d seemed to change, get even bigger. Gavin, too, had become truly menacing, his teeth bared like—well, a wolf. She’d never seen him as a wolf. Since it defied her previous understanding of the world, she hadn’t quite believed it, not truly. Until now. Something had changed, or almost had.
Had they begun to shift just then? Even Lilah had acted strangely, digging her fingernails into Jess’s shoulder, hard enough to hurt.
Jess put up a hand to the sore flesh, realizing she was still shaking from cold, shock, and adrenaline. Catching sight of her clothes in a pile outside the sauna, she pulled away from Lilah, whose grip had softened, and strode away from the little party. She picked up her sweats, shoving her damp limbs into the pillowy fleece as fast as she could.
Her mother was still staring at Derry. Jess sympathized. It was hard not to.
When Jess returned to the group, Gavin was wrapping his own shirt around Derry’s midsection, cursing him under his breath.
“My apologies,” Gavin said to Marilyn. “I’ll take care of this.” Then he grabbed Derry by the shoulders and frog-marched him away.
Derry’s head twisted around, trying to catch Jess’s eye, but she quickly looked away.
Just because he’d known she would be in the sauna didn’t mean he’d had to meet her there. And then to try to drive her insane, touching his body, watching her watch him, putting himself on display—it wasn’t fair. He didn’t play fair.
“You’re up early,” Jess said to Marilyn, plastering on a smile. “Did you sleep well?”
“You think this is a joke?” Lilah asked tightly.
“Better to laugh than to cry,” Jess said. How could she ever live this down?
“Do you realize why I came out here?” Lilah’s voice was soft but terrifying. “Because I got a text from Eva. You know why Eva texted me? Because she got a call from Edward. He was afraid a certain member of the Stanton family was going to hear a rumor about Derry’s antics and then kill him, which would kind of spoil our wedding tomorrow, don’t you think?”
Jess’s shivering got worse. Edward, Eva, Lilah, Gavin, and her own mother had seen her and Derry acting like insane, hormonally deranged teenagers. If she hadn’t turned down that thermostat last night, she’d be in bed, safe and cozy, her reputation (somewhat) intact. And the reason she’d had to turn down the thermostat was because she’d been feverish for Derry.
Derry again. It was always Derry.
“Is Eva going to fire me?” Jess asked. Her teeth were chattering.
Lilah’s tone turned as cold as the icy lake. “That’s what you’re worried about? Your job?”
“Let’s talk about this inside.” Marilyn said, putting an arm around Jess, rubbing her upper arms. “You need a hot drink. We all do. My cabin has a little kitchen. And it’s private.” She pursed her lips at that last w
ord, giving the windows of the big house behind them the side-eye.
Feeling even worse, Jess hung her head and let her mother and Lilah lead her away. Her first thought had been about her job, when here was her sister, who’d done everything for her, having to worry about being humiliated at her own wedding. How many people had seen her and Derry running around naked?
They reached Marilyn’s little cabin and went inside.
“Lilah, I’m s-s-s-so sor-r-ry,” Jess said. The chattering had gotten worse. “Your wedding. I’m ruining it.” Lilah’s face softened.
“Hot shower,” Marilyn said, pointing at the bathroom. “I’ll make tea.”
“I d-d-don’t want to get wet ag-g-gain,” Jess said.
Lilah and Marilyn both glared at her. Jess realized, belatedly, she was in no position to argue. Deflating, she walked away to the small bathroom, thinking it was nice to be alone for a minute. Maybe she could stay in here for a few days. For the rest of her life, she’d be wondering who else had seen her jump in that lake and get hauled around over Derry’s shoulder like a cavewoman in a pre-historically inaccurate melodrama.
The shower helped drive out the chill but couldn’t do anything for her ego. When she was done and dressed again in her sweats with a towel wrapped around her damp hair, she rejoined her mother and sister, hoping the lecture wouldn’t last too long. More than anything, she wanted to curl up in bed and sleep. Maybe cry a little.
“That was Gavin’s little brother, I understand?” Marilyn handed her a steaming mug of tea and ushered her into the small sitting area overlooking the lake. “Sophia’s twin?”
When Marilyn had been recovering from surgery, Sophia had helped her out at the house, playing nurse. The two had become unlikely friends. “Yes,” Jess said, sinking into a deep, overstuffed chair. “That’s him.”
“I take it you two haven’t been seeing each other very long,” Marilyn said.
Looking into her tea, Jess shook her head.
“Speaking of ‘seeing,’” Lilah said. “I’m afraid you were in full view of half the guests in this house.”
