Mark’s mouth went dry. He stepped forward and unlocked the gate without saying a word, and both women laughed.
“Oh, good. We were hoping you would be.”
“You look like Alex a little,” the shorter one said. “Are you related?”
“I’m his brother,” Mark said, shutting the gate again behind them. “And you are?”
“Oh,” the tall one giggled, “I’m Amanda and this is Danni. We’ve been friends with Alex for years. I’m surprised he hasn’t mentioned us.”
“Alex and I weren’t exactly on good terms for a while,” Mark said, because he didn’t want their feelings to be hurt. “By the time we started talking again he was already dating Jamie, and he didn’t really talk about any other women much.”
“Oh,” Danni nodded, “that’s totally understandable. It’s been a year or two since we’ve seen Alex. We didn’t tend to do a lot of talking.” She giggled as they stepped around the corner of the house and onto the deck that overlooked the pool. “You know,” she offered, “the last time we were here we played in the pool, too.”
Mark really hoped Alex had cleaned the water after that. Though he supposed it didn’t really matter. It had been more than a year ago. Well before he was doing any swimming in Alex’s pool. “If you ladies want to go through and put your suits on,” he said, “I assume you know where the bathroom is.”
They grinned at him.
“Oh,” Amanda said.
“We know,” they added together. They giggled. Amanda tilted her head slightly. “It’s changed slightly. He was building a gym by the pool last time we were here.”
“That door there is my suite. Why don’t you go and change there,” Mark said, “and we’ll see what kind of mischief we can get up to once you’re back?” He pitched his voice deliberately low, gave it a little growl.
They looked at him with wide eyes and hurried off to take his advice.
Mark slid back into the pool as soon as they’d stepped into the house, shaking his head. Trust Alex to have booty calls that showed up unexpectedly a year and a half later, happy to jump into bed—or the pool—with the first person they met. He laid back to float on the water again, chuckling to himself, and listened for the sound of the door opening. If he couldn’t bring himself to talk to Erica about how he felt, at least he could have a little fun.
The door opened and shut again, and Mark opened his eyes to find the girls standing on the edge of the pool, looking down at him.
That collection of strings that Amanda had been holding up turned out to cover more than he had expected, though that really wasn’t much. Not that he was complaining. He was very far from complaining, in fact. Danni’s suit looked a little more like something that was held together by tenuous hope, but it didn’t leave much more to the imagination.
“Planning on joining me?” Mark asked, not moving from his laz
y float.
They laughed, and then the water was rippling out from their bodies sliding into it, and a moment later they were on either side of him. Mark looked up at their faces in the summer sunlight, and grinned. “Yes?”
“I think you said something about mischief,” Amanda pointed out.
“Did I?” Mark looked thoughtfully up at the clouds floating overhead, silent for a moment.
“Well, if you’re not going to start it,” Amanda said, “we will.”
There was a giggle, and then the sound of water splashing as both girls ducked under the water. When they came up, they were a few feet away, and Mark raised his head to watch them, wondering just what kind of mischief they had planned.
Danni wound herself around Amanda, arms lifting to wrap around the other girl’s neck, and they both turned to look at him. Danni with wide brown eyes, Amanda with green. Then, slowly, they leaned into each other and let their mouths meet in a kiss.
That was decidedly not fair.
Mark rolled upright, pushing off of the bottom of the pool and coming to a stop just out of arm’s reach. When he reached out, a hand caught his wrist.
“Uh-uh,” Amanda said. “You weren’t fast enough. Now you get to watch.”
He could have pulled free of the hold if he’d really wanted to, but Mark had always been the type of man who would try anything once. Or more than once. He took a step back, and both girls gave him overly sweet smiles.
“Good boy,” Amanda purred.
She dropped his wrist, and pulled Danni into another kiss. A long, teasing, gratuitously slow kiss apparently designed to see if humans were in fact capable of spontaneously combusting from sexual frustration.