Her mouth pinched. “I’d like to see you try that.”
“Forty seconds.”
Did she really think I wouldn’t do it?
“Thirty seconds.” I smiled, hoping she didn’t do it.
Because I totally would toss her ass into the lake and I would thoroughly enjoy myself.
She snapped into action, muttering under her breath as she reached down with a quick, jerky motion and grabbed the hem of her shirt. She yanked it off and then quickly pulled off her shorts. Then she straightened, her hands on her hips. “Happy?”
Holy shit.
She was not wearing a one-piece, and I got my wish. It was a two-piece red bikini, and yeah, holy shit. All I could do was stare. I don’t know what I was expecting, but it wasn’t this.
Under the plain shorts and shapeless shirts I’d seen her in, Kat was hiding a…a magnificent body full of the kind of curves that made me want to do stupid things. Fun things, but damn, things that would be really stupid considering everything.
I wasn’t staring. I didn’t notice how the blood-red bathing suit stretched across her chest, reminding me of the top part of a heart. I didn’t notice how her body was reacting to the way I was staring at her, because neither of us was moving, and there was something tangible in that moment, like a physical caress. And I sure as hell didn’t count the inch and a half, maybe two inches of skin between her navel and the top of her bottoms.
Aw hell.
Now was a good time to drown myself.
Who was I kidding? I was totally checking her out.
For someone who was so short, her legs appeared incredibly long, but that might’ve had something to do with the skimpy cut of her bottoms—a cut that displayed the fullness of her hips and the surprising tininess of her waist. Muscles low in my stomach tightened as I dragged my gaze over her soft-looking stomach and then farther north. How that red top was staying on was beyond me, and I didn’t know if I should be grateful or disappointed by that.
Average? Had I seriously used the words average or plain to describe her? Hell, this girl…
The old saying surfaced in my heated thoughts. Be careful what you wish for. So true. I wouldn’t have wished for this if I had known how intensely my body would’ve reacted to it, and oh, it was reacting all right.
This plan I’d come up with had to be an all-time dumbass one.
My smile slipped from my face. “I’m never happy around you.”
“What did you say?” she demanded, eyes narrowing.
“Nothing. You better get in before that blush reaches your toes.” And before I really started considering all the stupid shit I could do right now.
And that blush deepened. She walked stiffly over to the edge of the lake where the water was shallow, giving me a view of her backside, and that really did nothing to help dampen the purely physical response.
Folding her arms along her waist, she dipped her toes into the water. “It’s beautiful out here.”
Yeah, it was beautiful out here. And it was hot. My gaze dipped to her bent knee and then slid back up, getting hung up on certain areas. My throat tightened. Other parts of me tightened.
Shit.
I dunked myself and when I came back up, it hadn’t helped, because now she was wet. She must’ve gone under while I had. We were only a few feet away, and I was in deeper water, hunched down to where the water lapped at my mouth.
“What?” she asked.
“Why don’t you come here?” My heart was pounding in my chest. If she were smart, she wouldn’t get anywhere close to me at this moment. Actually, if I were smart, I wouldn’t have called her over.
Kat was smarter than me.
She twisted around and dipped under the water, swimming toward the rocks. When she pulled herself out of the water, climbing onto the rock, I swallowed a groan. I wanted to—
“You look disappointed,” she said.
God, I was disappointed, and I really didn’t know what to make out of that. I pushed it aside.
“Well…what do we have here?”
Her legs dangled off the rock, her feet slipping into the water. “What are you talking about now?”
“Nothing.” I waded closer to the rock.
“You said something.”
“I did, didn’t I?”
“You’re strange.”
“You’re not what I expected,” I admitted, voice low.
She gave a little shake of her head. “What does that mean?”
I grabbed for her foot, but she moved her leg out of reach. No fun.
“I’m not good enough to be your sister’s friend?” she asked.
“You don’t have anything in common with her.”
“How would you know?” She shifted back as I reached for her other foot.
“I know.”
“We have a lot in common. And I like her. She’s nice and she’s fun.” She scooted back this time, completely out of arm’s reach. “And you should stop being such a dick and chasing off her friends.”
Her words slipped over me, and I laughed outright. “You’re not really like them.”
“Like who?”
Like any person I’d ever met. Truth was, human and Luxen females treated me the same. Only Ash and Dee mouthed off at me, but we’d grown up together. It was different for them, but others? They pretty much wanted one thing from me. Most of the time I was okay with that, but if I so much as glared in their direction, they scattered like bugs. Not really attractive when you thought about it. But not Kat. She may not have a clue what I was, but she was not scared of me, she wasn’t wowed, and as twisted as it was, that turned me on.