Page 70 of The Pact

He’s always been like that since school, people are attracted to Kelley and gravitate around him like planets around the sun. Men and women alike.

“Hey.” I smile, as Ashton wraps his arm around my shoulders, guiding me outside.

His gray eyes shimmer in the rapidly declining daylight and he places a soft kiss right above my ear. “You look gorgeous tonight,” he whispers. “Do you want to hang out in the hot tub? You can leave your clothes right over there.”

I look in the direction he’s indicating toward a pool house but shrug with a smile. “I’m wearing a bikini under my clothes, so I can just dump my clothes anywhere.”

“I like your style.” He chuckles. “Go on then, before the hot tub gets too crowded.”

I shed my clothes on a lounger right by the hot tub and I shiver when Ashton helps me out of my skirt with deft fingers.

“Fuck, you’re gorgeous,” he whispers, teasing the skin behind my ear with his lips. “I wish you hadn’t been wearing that bikini already. So I could’ve followed you into the changing room inside the pool house.”

And what do you know? All of a sudden, I regret wearing that bikini too.

“Come on, cutie.” He chuckles again, giving my butt a playful swat. “Bode is saving us a spot in the hot tub by scowling at everyone who even tries to get in.”

That surprises me. Normally Bode is super easygoing, almost zen in his relaxed attitude, leaving the role of the brooding one to Kelley.

But Ashton is right, as I accept his hand to help me into the hot tub I see stormy clouds in the depths of Bode’s dark blue eyes.

“Hey Bode,” I say, lowering myself into the seat by his side.

“Ausra,” he greets me and I’m disappointed that he isn’t calling me “pretty girl” like his usual.

“I missed you,” I say, suddenly eager to see him smile, worried that somehow the lack of his usual happy demeanor could be my fault.

“I missed you too,” he concedes, kissing me back immediately when I crush my lips onto his, summoning all my courage.

“Is everything ok?” I ask.

“It depends,” he answers, pulling me closer to him. “Did Kelley convince you to let him fuck you because it’s his birthday?”

His tone is laced with jealousy and it makes my heart beat faster. I tell myself that this doesn’t mean that he cares. Being athletes, the guys have very competitive natures, so that jealousy might be just because he doesn’t want to lose the game we’re playing.

I repeat to myself that the heat I see in his dark blue eyes is because of the competition, not because he feels possessive about me. “No, he didn’t,” I offer.

He sounds incredulous. “Are you trying to tell me that Kelley didn’t use his birthday as leverage to get into your pants?”

I shake my head. “He tried. I mean, kinda. But when he saw that I wasn’t sure, he didn’t push it. We did ... other stuff.”

I feel redness rise to my cheeks and I’m relieved when Bode doesn’t ask me for any further details about my afternoon with Kelley.

Instead he slants his mouth to mine for a deep kiss, while one of his hands pulls me closer into his side with a firm grip on my hip.

I really want to climb into his lap but the voices and the laughter around us remind me that we aren’t alone.

“Hey dude,” Ashton says, pulling me toward him. “Let me get some sugar too. You aren’t the only one who missed Ausra.”

I don’t know if this is some kind of game between them but I have no complaints when they start taking turns kissing me. When Bode’s lips glide over the column of my neck while Ashton explores my mouth in a searing kiss, I start imagining how it will be to be with all of them.

My body reacts with a throbbing ache between my thighs and for a second, I begin forgetting that there’s a whole party in full swing around us.

“Hey guys! Stop hogging Smokey! You can do all that shit later, now it’s party time!”

Shep leans toward me from behind and before I can make sense of what’s happening, he lifts me out of the hot tub by grabbing me under my armpits.

He turns me around in his arms to give me a greeting kiss of his own.

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