Sweet mother of all fuckery.
How is this fair?
He’s ripped, from the lean muscles of his shoulders and arms, to the hard planes of his chest, down to the ladder of abs and the cut V between his hips. Beyond that, I’m struck by the tattoo spanning both collarbones that declares, ‘Only the Strong Survive’. He’s also branded by a pitchfork logo. The same one that Georgia has below her neck. The same one that Vandy has on her inner thigh. This school pride thing is beginning to look more cult-like every day, and it’d almost have to be, because in no universe is someone who looks this perfect anything but evil.
Seeing him like this, in the flesh, combined with the way he’s looking at me—all dark-eyed and smirking—sends a ripple down my spine. I feel like I should chant some Latin or burn some sage or something. A sharp retort stalls on my tongue, because he’s already moving, jumping into the water and sending a wave of water crashing over me and everyone else.
“Bass! You asshole!” Elena shouts. Her hair is piled on top of her head and it’s obvious she didn’t plan on getting it wet.
“Sorry, babe.” He gives her a wink, and she shakes her head in annoyance. “See?” he says, swimming over to me. “You’re not the only one I piss off.”
“So, she’s kneed you in the balls before too?”
“No, that’s an honor only you have. Well… and Vandy once. But I don’t count it. It was an accident, and unlike other people who shall remain nameless—” His eyes dart all over the place, caught in a struggle between looking at my mouth, my chest, and my eyes. “—I can tell the difference.” A
cool gust of wind blows across the pool deck and I duck down, seeking warmth under water. His eyes track the motion before meeting mine. “So you’re still special, Sugar Voss.”
God, and now he’s doing this stare thing—head dipped slightly down, gazing at me through his wet lashes. He’s too close. Too handsome. Too everything. I take a deep breath and submerge myself just to get away from the sudden intensity, pushing off the bottom and swimming across the pool toward the others. Sebastian follows, but not me specifically, instead snatching the volleyball from Ben.
“Dude!” Ben cries, lunging for him. Ben’s big—a football player, if I’m not mistaken—and he grabs Bass around the waist, dragging him under. They wrestle like two giant octopuses, arms and legs everywhere, a whirl of slippery motion until Bass emerges, spiking the ball to Carlton.
“Is it always like this?” I ask Caroline, who’s moved to the side of the pool.
“Immature and a touch homoerotic?” She scoffs. “Always. I swear to god all they do is grope one another. They need to get laid.”
A wave of water sloshes toward us and Elana squeals as Bass dunks her under water.
Emory abandons the hot tub to cannonball into the deep-end, and Aubrey jumps in the pool after him. Even Reyn and Vandy come up for air to join in. The entire pool is a free-for-all and all the closeness, unrestrained delight, and jostling bodies make me twitchy and over-stimulated. I start to swim away but a pair of strong hands suddenly grab me by the waist.
“Aww, Sugar, trying to get away? I don’t think so. Not in that sexy little bikini.”
Panic engulfs me and I twist around, fighting frantically against Sebastian. It’s almost a relief now that it’s happened. Just like back home, when I’d spend days on edge, waiting for Doug’s next outburst, punch, kick, punishment. Yes, it was awful, but the waiting was worse.
This is it. This is when Sebastian finally traps me, hurts me, and it’ll be my fault for not being more careful—for looking at that nice body and wolfish grin and intense blue eyes, and being stupid enough to let my guard down for one second.
Gasping for air, I shove wildly at his fingers, shaking hands trying desperately to pry them away.
Whatever he sees in my face startles him into letting go. “Hey, hey, chill,” he says, raising his hands. “I wasn’t going to do anything, I was just horsing around.”
I’m too lost in the motion of rubbing my hips—the place where his hands were—and trying not to hyperventilate. It doesn’t hurt, and it feels strange, like something is missing. His hands on me should have hurt. I’m still stuck in that in-between of waiting and knowing that it’s finally coming.
Why doesn’t it hurt?
When I finally start coming back to the moment, I realize that his hands might be gone, but he’s got me cornered on the step where Reyn and Vandy were making out just moments before. The water fight in the pool is still going strong just a few feet away, but the air vanishes around us, like we’re caught in a bubble.
Sebastian’s looking back at me with an odd expression, brow furrowed and lips pressed into a tight line. “You good?”
No. “Fuck off.”
He does not, in fact, fuck off. “It’s the rule, right?” I lean warily back against the step, but he just moves forward, placing a hand against the step, bracing me in. “No hands?”
“You really want to get cut, don’t you?”
“Well, I sort of figure you couldn’t fit a knife in those seven inches of fabric masquerading as swimwear.”
I snarl, “Try me,” but it just makes his head tilt.
His eyes wander back and forth between my own, really slow and methodical, scrutinizing. “Jesus, you’re beautiful. You know that?”