The Pool Boy

He gives me a look and an encouraging nod. “That’s a beautiful goal to have. I’m sorry you’re not having good luck.”

“How did you know that?”

He packs down some dirt. “If you were having good luck, you probably wouldn’t be home in the middle of the day or need to blow off steam.”

“Right,” I laugh. “Good point.”

“But,” he says, “You may have a promising career in over-watering flowers.”

I look down, and see there’s a puddle of water around the base of the camellia I’m watering. I quickly point the hose in a different direction. “I swear, I’m not usually bad at this.”

“Don’t worry,” James says. “I was in your garden—I’ve seen what you can do.”

I smile at him. “Good. But next time you want to go in my garden you have to ask permission.”

“I will. I think I’d like to explore it further.” He winks at me. I didn’t realize winks could be so sexy. “I promise to be careful and not deflower any of your plants.”

My mouth goes dry as I realize: he’s flirting with me. Oh. My. God. I’ve never been good at flirting, but his words have my imagination spinning and the reply is easy. “Sometimes a little deflowering is healthy.”

“I can’t argue with that.”

I feel my body heat up, and I have to move away from him. I finish watering the circle of flower beds, and then grab the second bag of soil. I join James on the ground and dive into filling the beds. It’s hot, and soon I’m sweating, my arms covered in dirt. James is sweating too, and I’m desperately trying not to imagine him without his shirt on, sweating and glorious. The work is good, and the silence comfortable. I keep sneaking glances at him out of the corner my eye because I can’t help it. I’m pretty sure he knows it too.

He pauses to get more soil from his bag and adds, “I wouldn’t have thought you were the kind of girl to get dirty.” The way his fingers form the soil around the plants has me imagining his fingers doing other things. To me.

“I—” I look over at him, and he’s closer than I realized. So close that I can see his eyes are a rich coffee brown and there are crinkles around them as he smiles. His eyes move down to my mouth, and I realize I’m thinking about him kissing me. And what I imagine is being kissed like I’ve never been kissed before, right here on the ground, his arms pulling me tightly against his hard body, and now I’m staring at him again. “I like getting dirty,” I murmur. “Dirty is good.”

His lips curl into a teasing smile. “I guess we’ll have to save that for another time, then.” He gestures to the ground. “We’re finished.”

I hadn’t even realized that we’d made it all the way around the circle. “I guess we are. What do you have left to do?”

James picks up both the bags of soil. “Clean the pool. Saved it for last.”

“Great,” I say, “I’ll see you over there.”

He laughs. “It’s kind of a one person job, though I appreciate the offer.”

I turn and give him my best flirtatious smile. “You’re going to clean the pool. I’m going to use it.”

3

James

I watch Vera walk toward the house, and I’m absolutely sure there’s a swing in her hips that wasn’t there before.

Damn, I’m in trouble.

When Mike asked me to fill in for him this week he told me the client’s daughter was hot. I’m going to kill him when I see him next, because she’s way more than hot. She’s got curves no amount of clothing is going to hide, and I’ve been half hard since the moment she ran up totally intent on ripping me a new one.

I take the bags of soil back to the utility shed, thinking about the way she let her hands get dirty. I’ve met plenty of girls like her—rich and spoiled and totally privileged. But most of them are too worried about looking good to do any kind of work. Vera surprised me, but she was still planning on busting me for working in her garden. Until she saw me.

I relive the way her eyes travelled all over me, and…I have to think about anything but that in order to keep my body in control.

Then there’s the fact that she wants to be a humanitarian. It’s something else I wouldn’t have pegged her for. I like the contradictions I’m finding even though I just met her. The image of her sweating in the sun and inches away from me comes back. I was seconds away from kissing her. I would have pushed her down into the flowers. I would have kissed her breathless before slowly finding out the dimensions of each and every one of her curves. I let myself imagine everything.

I can see the way her skin will streak with dirt and sweat, her nipples hardening under my lips and teeth. I can feel the heat of her as I pull my gloves off and press my fingers into her one by one, and I can imagine the tight exquisite pleasure as I sink deep inside her.

My dick is straining painfully against my jeans, and I’m more than tempted to take care of it right here in this little garden closet.

I think about vegetables. About cute animals. About being cold. Anything to get me to cool down. I took this job for the extra money, and I don’t want to get fired for jacking off next to the tools. If I’m going to get fired, it’s going to be for a better reason than that.

It takes a few minutes, but I manage to get the raging hard-on under control. I check the time—I have a couple of hours. I have more than enough time to clean the pool and get back across town in time. If I move fast I might be able to get some work done on the Mastersons’s house before the end of the day. I make sure all the landscaping tools are put away and head over to the pool shed. It made me laugh when Mike told me they had two sheds, but these kinds of houses always have more than they need.

The pool shed is infinitely nicer—it doubles as a changing room for guests. I grab the pH kit and the chemicals and the skimmer and head back out onto the patio—holy hell.

Vera is lying out next to the pool.

And that might be the smallest bikini I’ve ever seen.

Her eyes are closed as she basks in the sun and I take this moment to consume her without being observed. I let my gaze slide down her body, starting at her face and mouth and moving to her breasts, which are barely contained by that blue top. Her stomach is glistening, and I watch it rise and fall with her breath, trying very hard not to visualize my hands touching her everywhere. Finally my eyes land on her hips and the fact that her bathing suit bottom ties at the sides. I memorize the image—I’ll certainly be returning to it later.

My dick is stirring in my pants and I grit my teeth hard enough to crack to keep it down. Vera opens her eyes and sees me. A lazy smile plays across her face, and suddenly I feel like she’s wearing that just to tease me. Keep it together, man. You took this job for the money, not to get tangled up with a rich girl.

Vera stretches, her arms over her head, arching her back. Her tight belly contracts and her breasts thrust upward and I swear for a second I think they’re going to burst out of her suit.

Damn damn damn.

I move over to the pool. I can’t just stand here staring.

But I can see that Vera’s smiling at me, and I know she isn’t finished with me yet. I force myself to look away and get to work. If I can make it all the way through this week with my pants on, I’ll be lucky.

4

Vera

I own several bathing suits, none of which are nearly as skimpy as this one. But from the look on James’s face, it’s doing its job. I wanted him to look at me the way I looked at him—as absolutely delicious.

I stretch out on the chair, arching my back. It feels great after being hunched over working on the flowers. Plus, I know that James is watching me. It may be incredibly stupid, but I’m hoping my hitting on James gets back to my dad. It’s the perfect opportunity to piss him off. I’m old enough to know better, but the truth is, I want nothing more than to make my father angry. Maybe then he’ll feel the way I’ve been feeling for months.

I hear James clear his throat and move over to the pool. I watch h

im set the skimmer aside and kneel down with the plastic case that tests the chemicals.