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"Hey, what are you doing?" Ice slipped into the chair next to me. He didn't even pretend he wasn't looking at my laptop screen. "Oh, essay writing. Yeah, I don't miss that."
"I'm sure you don't." I closed my laptop and tried not to look at Mannix when he gripped the hem of his T-shirt and pulled it off over his head with one hand. Why the hell was it so hot when guys did that?
On the other hand, did he have to strip off right in front of me? I was supposed to be concentrating on university work, not counting his abs—eight—or admiring the V of his hips. I really shouldn't be memorising his tattoos, or how fucking thick his biceps were. Or the way his thighs looked like he could crush a watermelon without raising a sweat.
Crap, I was wetter than the pool right in front of me.
I could study in my room, but it was a nice day to sit under a wide umbrella beside the sparkling water. Right, I was only here for the pool, not the view of the guys when they came out at the same time every morning for a swim. I totally didn't work here so I could watch them do laps and splash each other, all shirtless and hot.
"Ice," Ares growled. He looked at me like somehow I’d be a bad influence on his friend.
I met his gaze glare for glare until his eyes slid away like I wasn't worthy of another second of his time. If he thought I'd be intimidated, he'd have to think again.
He pulled off his T-shirt and threw it across the back of a chair. He dove into the pool right in front of me, clearly knowing he'd leave a splash behind.
"Asshole." I grabbed my laptop and turned so it didn't get wet. If it did, the fucker could buy me a new one. Yeah, hell would freeze over before he did that.
Mannix grinned. Apparently the sight of me pissed off amused him somehow.
I resisted the urge to flip him off.
Don't take their bait, I told myself. For some reason, they seemed to have made it their life's goal to make me as unwelcome as possible. I wasn't going to let them get to me. Right now, this was as much my home as it was Mannix's.
"How are you friends with these assholes?" I asked as Mannix leapt into the water, his arms around his knees. The splash from his bomb sent droplets of water flying, covering the top of the table. If I hadn't moved my laptop, it would have gotten drenched.
Ice shrugged. "They're okay when you get to know them."
"How will I do that when they don't want to know me?" Did I really want to anyway? I should at least try to get to know Mannix, if only for my mother's sake. I owed Ares no such consideration. If anything, I owed him a big, fat fuck you.
"If they don't, then I get more time with you," he reasoned.
I brushed a tangle of red hair off my face and looked at him in surprise. "At least one of you is nice." He wanted to spend time with me? His friends would love that. Not.
He smiled, which was just as panty melting as any set of abs, but said, "Don't be fooled. I'm nowhere near as nice as I seem. If anything, I'm less nice and more dangerous than those two clowns." He jerked a thumb in the direction of Ares and Mannix, who were freestyling neck and neck up and down the pool.
I'd seen their routine often enough to have it memorised. They started with a few laps of freestyle before switching to butterfly, then backstroke and finally to breaststroke to cool down.
"I don't know, you seem a lot nicer than them. Did you meet on the swim team or something?" They all seemed to know how to do the strokes correctly. At least, as far as I could tell. I was no expert on swimming techniques.
"Something like that," Ice said. "We all like getting wet." He gave me a smile that left me in no doubt about what he was referring to.
Hint: nothing to do with pool water. Or any other kind of water for that matter.
My face heated, which made him smile wider. He also liked to get to me, but in a different way from the other two. It was hard enough to focus with them around, without one of them flirting with me.
"I'm sure you do," I said awkwardly. "Shouldn't you be swimming too?"
"Yes, I should." He hopped up, but before he walked away, he leaned over to whisper in my ear, "Are you wet already, Beautiful?" His warm breath brushed the side of my neck. My skin pebbled. So did my nipples.
Before I could answer, he straightened up, winked and walked away to the other side of the pool before stripping off his shirt and diving in.
He might be right about being dangerous, especially to my heart rate. More than that though. He also had a simmering undercurrent of violence, but kept it behind a friendlier mask.
The thought of masks took me back to that night and my pulse quickened.
Dusk Bay was a combination of violence and sex that shouldn't be heady, but it was.
Not the murder, that was terrifying, but the sense that three guys doing laps across the pool in front of me knew how to use their bodies to hurt other people. Fists, feet, thighs. My money would be on them in a fight. What if they fought each other? I didn't know who’d win, but imagining them wrestling made me hotter than hell.
