Page 45 of Her Devil

“It’s fine,” Stephanie says, not needing me to finish the rest of the sentence. “I’m surprised Aimee and Penelope didn’t want to come though.”

“Same,” Tamsin agrees. “But I get prepping for the week ahead too. These schedules aren’t likely to ease up any time soon.”

“And what do we have here?” Taylor says, pushing off a tree and stepping out of the shadows as he sits on a chair at the side of the pool. How long has he been there, and how much has he heard? “Enjoying an afternoon swim, huh?” Mischief twinkles in his eyes as he looks at Tamsin, and I’m reasonably sure she gave the game away.

“We said no boys,” I complain, looking her way.

“I never said anything,” she argues, splashing water my way.

“So, your boyfriend just happens to be the one to find us out here and you had nothing to do with it?” I ask, narrowing my eyes in her direction.

“I would never! Pinkie promise,” she swears.

“Hey, I’ve just been out running. Not my fault that sounds carry out here, and you're not exactly being quiet,” Taylor intervenes. “But the swimwear pic was hot, babe.”

He jumps up, running around to the edge of the pool where she sits and placing a quick kiss on the top of her head before running off, his laughter echoing around the pool.

“You totally gave us up,” Stephanie agrees. “But I can see why.”

“Can’t we just have one day without the local penises getting involved?” I grumble.

“What about yesterday?” Charlotte asks, turning to do another lap around the pool.

“Yesterday doesn’t count, we were still over there in the early hours of the morning,” Tamsin says with a roll of her eyes. “And there’s absolutely nothing wrong with the local penises, I’m quite fond of one, actually.”

A chill creeps over the back of my neck again, but I can’t see anything as I turn around, just the thick bushes that line the pool.

“So, are you ladies ready for some company?” Taylor asks, Jasper helping George down the stairs from their back porch with his crutches.

He doesn’t wait for an answer before jumping in the pool, water flying everywhere, but for some reason, he doesn’t re-emerge. I’m not the only one looking around, but our view is limited by the water. That is, until Tamsin screeches and she’s pulled off the side and dragged into the water, the two of them laughing hysterically.

I lean up against the side, resting my elbows in the channel and doing my best to keep as much of me as I can in the heated water, but the longer we’re here, the less the autumn chill bothers me. Wyatt winks my way as he comes out, board shorts slung low on his trim hips as he glides into the water.

Stephanie joins me in the water, Charlotte and George whispering at a table before she dives back in. Before too long, Emmerson joins George, and Leo and Jacob find their way into the pool.

I don’t know exactly how, but I’m starting to notice the little differences. Not just the missing charge in the air, but the way his eyes don’t wander to a single one of the half-naked girls loitering around, instead fixing on Leo’s ass and staying there. The mannerisms are similar, but not the same.

And I don’t even need to turn around to know the heat at my back is his brother, his cologne surrounding me as his thighs land on either side of my shoulders, his feet touching the water and swishing it around absentmindedly as he gets comfortable. Just about everyone else plays some kind of tag in the water, Tamsin doing surprisingly well as she carves through the underwater gracefully.

“You’ll get cold up there,” I comment, his hands coming to my shoulders and massaging gently. “You could come and warm up in the water.”

“You want to warm me up, sugar?” he asks. The words tumble, whispered and raspy, some kind of tone that makes even the most innocuous statement sound like a proposition, and I can’t help the way my body reacts to it.

“Nope, sit there and get cold.” I shrug.

He might elicit some kind of a response from my body, but I’m still pissed he managed to demand me the other night, and I went. I think it’s safe to say that I can’t be trusted around him. I’m also more than aware of the way Leo looks over periodically, and Wyatt didn’t miss his arrival. The atmosphere is charged, but I’m not sure anyone else feels it.

At the end of the day, it was Wyatt that made the move, he’s the one I went to bed thinking about. It just wasn’tonlyhim for very long. Now, with Nick’s hands on my skin and Wyatt and Leo just steps away, I can only imagine the carnage that would be in real life.

I’m not convinced anyone else notices the shift in the air as Nick shuffles me forward, sliding into the water behind me.

“You can still rest, just wrap your legs around me.”

“I’m good,” I reply, shuffling over and leaning back against the wall of the pool. He joins me with a chuckle, clearly not expecting that to work as he winks and smirks my way.

“There’s more than one way to do this,” he whispers before calling loudly, “Who’s up for wrestling?”

“Ooh. Me, me, me,” Charlotte replies excitedly, swimming over to Jacob and grabbing his arm. “We’ll be a team!”

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