Page 99 of She Wolf

“Right, let's settle this once and for all,” he mutters as he gets up from his chair. “Why do I feel like I’ve been saying this their whole goddamn lives?”

“Because you have, honey,” my mom smiles, patting him on the leg as he passes by her without taking her eyes off the book she’s holding. My aunt May chuckles, the same book on her lap.

“Right, because I have. Jesus. Okay. Split into teams and then fan out around the girls sun loungers.” He turns to face us. “Ladies are you play—” There's a cough from Casey and Dad lifts his face to the sky exasperated. “Competing?” He finishes with a roll of his eyes, making me and Lex snicker.

“I’m good thank you, dad. How about you?” I turn and nudge Lex.

“Nu-huh. I want to see if this is anything like Easter last year,” she says with a smirk.

“Why, what happened last Easter?” Anna asks.

“Oh, just you wait,” Lex replies, and then she pushes her shades onto her head.

“Rex, sweetie, don’t get too crazy ‘kay? Remember Jack just wants to have fun,” Chloe reasons with Rex, who looks like he’s preparing himself by stretching out a little. See? Ridiculous.

“Gramps, who do I go with?” Jack queries worried he’s going to have to choose a side.

“Why don’t you help out each team, spend a little time with all of us?” Scott says, always the calm and collected one.

“Okay cool,” Jack nods.

“Hang on, hang on,” Casey starts, all Captain-y. “How long do we have? What are the rules, and parameters? Jack only has one pail and shovel down here. How's that gonna work?”

“We’ll go get what we have up at the house,” Jase motions to Knox and they scarper to get the stuff.

“How about we make an afternoon of it? I’ll ref and your mamas can judge at the end. Say 16:00 hours?” Dad says checking his watch. It’s one of those cool pilot watches military personnel seem to favor. “And you can only use what you find on the beach to decorate. Yes?”

There’s a resounding “Yes Sir!”

“Look at their faces Lex, they are so focused,” Anna says taking a sip of her iced tea, nodding her head towards the group.

“I can’t look away. Get a load of Theo and Scott. They look like they’re about to take down every last one of these suckers. Is it wrong to feel turned on?” she says, her voice going a little breathy at the end.

“No,” Chloe, Anna, and I say at the same time. Gunner looks like a Greek god. He wasn’t pasty before but now he’s all golden and with how ripped his body is, he’s just perfection.

“You know I thought we were going to have a problem with like volleyball or something, but this is on another level,” Anna says over her shoulder.

She’s right. This afternoon just got a whole lot more interesting. Knox and Jase bundle down the steps laden down with more pails, little sand molds, and shovels placing them down in front of us. I didn’t even know we had this much stuff. There's plenty to go around.

The boys chatter amongst themselves for another minute or two and then split off into groups.

“Jack, come and put your ball cap back on and let me put some more sunscreen on please.” He dramatically sighs up at my dad, but sprints over. At that Gunner scrambles over too.

“Can you do me after?” I raise an eyebrow at his eagerness, as he pats his face with a towel.

“Okay, snookums,” I try. “Damn it! That’s not right either.”

I spritz Jack all over with his kids’ sunscreen and then swap to a lower-factor one for Gunner. “I’m happy you're so sun-safety conscious,” I say to him as I squirt the cool cream onto my hands.

“Nah I just want your hands on me and just so you know, I’m going to win this thing,” he says with a wink.

“Oh, I bet you are.” He’s not, unless he ends up being on the same team as Rex. I’ve seen a picture of Rex’s prize-winning masterpiece. They’re all screwed.

I take my time sliding my hands across Gunner's back which is just as impressive as the front if I'm honest. Yeah, his ‘V’ and abs are amazing and so are his pecs, but his back and shoulders are so thick and wide—it's sexy. My hands find their way to the waistband of his trunks. I’m always telling my brothers to pull up their bathing shorts because, gross, but the way Gunner’s accentuates his hockey butt is nothing to scoff at, and because it’s so juicy I just have to give it a good squeeze when I’m finished.

He turns pulling me into his warm sun-soaked chest. He smells like him, but it's mixed with sunblock and sea air.

“One day soon I’m going to whisk you away to a tropical paradise. Just me, you, and a private beach,” he whispers. “What do you say?”

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