Page 107 of Making Choices

“He has particular tastes,” Cub offers, shooting a sly look my way. “Takes him a little more than a push up bra and a short skirt to sport a hard on. Slash likes to take his time with the chase... ’cause only fools rush in where cherub’s fear to tread.”

“Shut the fuck up.” I snap back. “How many times have you tapped that arse, yet you still need Sander to give you the okay to take her solo.”

“It’s not like that,” Cub protests. “She’s not interested in me... I’m just a buffer.”

“More like a fluffer,” Hunter declares.

Seeing how pleased my baby brother is by his porn joke sets me off. I clutch my gut, laughing hard. Every time I catch a glimpse of the innocent expression on Hunter’s face, my mirth increases. Isaiah loses it a second after me. It takes Cub a minute to get the analogy, then he’s falling about as well. My brother watches us, a dopey smile quirking his lips.

We must look like a trio of clowns because the old ladies cease their shenanigans to stare at us. When we notice their perusal, it takes us a moment to get control of ourselves. By the time we do, we’re surrounded by ten tipsy women. They take turns thrusting their embroidery in our faces. Blue alien dicks. Spurting dicks. A double-headed dick. Cock after cock is presented for our critique, and the four of us do our best to offer compliments about their needlework.

Always the first to break, Nadia’s giggling is the initial sign.

Still, we go on for another few minutes before Hunter realises what they’re doing. He steps out of the fray and plants his hands on his hips, “They’re havin’ a lend of us.”

“No,” Nadia protests. She tries her hardest to fight back her mirth. “We’re genuinely—” Collapsing into laughter, her shoulders shake, and she points at me. “You should’ve seen your face. The big, bad sergeant-at-arms falling over himself to applaud our embroidered cocks... I should’ve videoed you to show the rest of the Shamrocks. They won’t believe me when I tell them.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, really.” Nadia pokes her tongue out at me. “I think you’re secretly closeted... it’d explain the leather restraints on the posts of your bed at the compound.” The rest of the old ladies hoot and holler to encourage her. “Hold on and bite down, big boy. Ready or not, I’m coming in.”

She’s so busy thrusting her hips like she’s fucking air that she doesn’t have time to get out of the way when I lunge for her. My grip is tight around her waist as I hold her over the edge of the pool. “Take it back, Nads, or prepare to take a swim.”

“Never!”

I feint like I’m going to throw her.

Her resulting scream would wake the dead.

“Take it back.”

“You have a man bun,” Nadia argues. The old ladies shriek their agreement. When I pretend that I’m going to drop her again, this time allowing her foot to brush the water, her tune quickly changes. “Okay. Okay. I take it back. You’re straight as an arrow.” I lower her to the ground, and she scrambles out of my reach to quip, “Even if the man bun says otherwise.”

With the surging group of women trapping me near the edge of the pool, I can’t get to Nadia, so I settle for flipping her double-barrelled birds. Her eyes light up with an evil gleam, a heartbeat before she runs at me. I do my best to avoid her, but she still manages to knock me off balance. Arms flailing, I grab for something solid to steady myself. The only thing I find to grip is silky, and my fingers easily slip free of the material as I stumble backward and run out of concrete beneath my feet.

The water is cold when I hit it. It floods my nose and makes my eyes sting. She shoved me in the deep end, so the knives strapped to me and my heavy boots weigh me down. As my feet touch the bottom and I try to kick off it to swim to the side, I realise that I’m not the only person in the pool. Curling an arm around their waist, I haul them back to the surface. Our heads emerge from the water, and I discover that Cherub’s in the pool with me. Her makeup is running down her face and she’s coughing while she laughs.

“Fuck. I grabbed your shirt, didn’t I?”

Cherub snorts as she wraps her legs around my waist to keep herself afloat. “Nearly ripped it off me.”

I look down to where she’s gesturing to find that her top is torn down the middle, exposing the black bra that cups her tits and lifts them high. Her ample cleavage is mouth-watering. A feast for my eyes. Spying the alien-head pendant nestled between her tits, I swallow down my need and raise my gaze from her creamy flesh to her face.

The necklace that Venom gave her years ago mocks my need for her.

Whether he’s here or not, she remains branded by him.

Holding Cherub to me, I use one arm to paddle us over to the shallow end while the other rests beneath her arse. This side is the furthest from everyone else and will hopefully offer Cherub a modicum of privacy when she exits the pool.

Setting her on her feet, I heave myself out of the water.

“Here.” Peeling my t-shirt off, I hand it to her. I took my cut off earlier when Delia spilt her drink on me, thank fuck, so I’m left shirtless. “This’ll keep you safe from pryin’ eyes.”

“I’m good.” She holds out a hand to me and I, very begrudgingly, pull her up. With water running down her body, plastering her short skirt to her thighs and moulding what’s left of her shirt to her torso, Cherub looks like a sexy water nymph. “Are you gonna move your butt or do I need to swim back to the house?”

Realising that I’m standing in her way, I take a step backward. My pool is kidney shaped and set far enough back from the house that the end of my yard is within a metre of the edge of the pool where Cherub and I are standing. The builder tried to tell me my design was backward, and I almost caved into him at the time. My idea was to offer swimmers the most privacy possible by creating an arbour that was out of sight of my neighbours.

Although, after the bullshit with Jenna, this is actually the first pool party I’ve ever hosted.

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