Juniper sat next to me, maybe six inches away, looking like she’d just scored a touchdown and I was the field.
She hadn’t even bothered to towel off her legs.
Her thighs were still damp. Still glistening. How much of that was…
Mythighs were still shaking.
“I’m going to combust,” I muttered under my breath.
Juniper tilted her head. “What was that?”
“Nothing.”
Her mouth quirked. God, she knew exactly what she’d done. The smugness was practically radiating from her skin.
I reached for the nearest towel and tried to casually —socasually— drape it over my lap again. It was wet. Everything was wet. I wassoakedand still so hard it hurt.
Even a second towel wasn’t hiding the erection I was sporting, again.
“I’m gonna go grab a water,” she said, stretching like a damncat. “You want one?”
I blinked at her. “I need, like… five.”
She grinned and stood, and I had to physicallyclench my fiststo keep from groaning. Her cover-up still drifted behind her, undone, she was Aphrodite rising from a chlorine-scented sea.
I tilted my head back and stared at the ceiling.
I was going to combusttwice. Once from shame, and once from horniness-induced organ failure.
Fucking…
Get it together, Barlowe.
When she returned, she handed me a bottle, then — God help me — pressed the other one to the back of my neck.
I jolted as if she'd tasered me. “Shit,” I hissed.
“Too cold?” she asked, faux-innocent.
She was having thetime of her lifewatching me unravel.
“No,” I managed, cracking open the water as though it might save me from drowning in my own desperation. “It’s perfect. Everything’s perfect. I’m doing amazingly.”
“Mmm.” She plopped down beside me again, knees bumping mine. The water bottle was still trailing condensation down my spine. “You look a little tense.”
Iwas. I was tense everywhere. My shoulders, my stomach, my — yeah. Especially there.
“Youareevil,” I muttered, turning the bottle upside down and pouring half of it over my head.
Junipercackled.
“You can’t just…” I floundered, gesturing vaguely at the pool, at her, at my life. “Youcan’t.”
“Can’t what?” Her eyes were so wide and fake-innocent I almost believed her. “Sit next to you? Bring you a drink? Offer a little refreshment?”
“You know what you did.”
She sipped her water. “Do I?”
