He's already chest deep in the water, then leaning back, drifting toward the grotto. "Live a fucking little, Delaney," he says. "Your father and my mother aren't coming out here, and the staff left after the dining room drama, I'm sure. It's just you and me."
I kick my jeans off, shivering in the coolness of the evening air on my skin. But the chill isn't the only reason I'm shivering. I'm shivering because I know Gaige is looking at me. I tell myself to stop feeling self-conscious. It's not like Gaige hasn't seen a bra and panties on a million other girls, and besides, it'd be no different than if I'd have grabbed my bikini upstairs before we came down here. I'm glad I picked these boy shorts to wear under my jeans instead of the thongs I usually wear. "It's cold."
"Then you should get in," he says. "The pool is warm. Stop standing there shivering in your underwear and jump in already."
I slide into the water, sinking up to my neck, as if the water itself affords me some protection from Gaige's gaze. We float around lazily in silence for a long time, before coming to rest side by side, our arms on the edge of the pool inside the grotto.
"Do you think our parents are going to split up?" I ask. I don't know why I ask the question. I looked at my father tonight and saw how unhappy he was.
"Would it matter?" Gaige asks. I'm suddenly aware of how close we are to each other, side by side like this. The distance between us feels like nothing.
"No," I say. "Why would it?"
"We wouldn't be siblings anymore," he says.
"We aren't now, Gaige."
"Then it doesn't matter now." He's looking at me, in my eyes, and then down at my lips. I realize I'm holding my breath, waiting for something, I don't know what.
That's a lie. I know exactly what I'm waiting for.
Him to make a move.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
GAIGE
I'm standing in the water, facing Delaney, looking at her under the soft lights that illuminate the darkness of the grotto area, the lights that bounce off the water and create this shimmery effect. Delaney's hair tumbles down her shoulders in waves, the ends floating in the water around her.
I consider kissing her, and the instant the thought crosses my mind, I'm as hard as a fucking rock, my cock standing at attention in the pool. Delaney opens her mouth like she's going to say something, and then closes it again.
"Don't," I warn.
"Don't what?" She scrunches her forehead, and there's something about that expression, so familiar, that pushes me over the edge. We're the old Delaney and the old Gaige. I don't want to think about any other bullshit.
I reach out, my hands on her arms, and lift her easily in the water, turning her and pressing her back up against the edge of the pool. She looks up at me, her face this mixture of lust and something I can't quite place. "Don't say anything," I tell her.
"Why?" she asks, and her voice is breathy. I don't want to listen to anything else. I silence her with my mouth, bringing my lips down hard against hers, and she whimpers as she melts into me. The minute my lips touch hers, the minute my hands are on her body, caressing her soft skin, I feel like I'm back there again with her. Her tongue finds mine, hesitating at first.
Then she moans into my mouth, and I'm fucking done.
I push her hard against the side of the pool, reaching up and threading my fingers through her hair at the nape of her neck, pulling her toward my mouth.
I want to devour this fucking girl.
I kiss her so hard that when I finally draw away from her, she gasps for air. I'm still holding onto her hair, yanking it so that her face is angled up toward me.
Her mouth falls open, and she flicks her tongue over her lower lip, still plump from the kiss. Her chest rises and falls, and holy shit I want to put my mouth on her tits. I think my goddamned heart is going to pound right out of my chest, I want her so bad.
This is how people have heart attacks, I think. I don't even have my cock in her and I feel like my fucking heart is about to explode.
"Gaige, this can't - "
I put my finger over her lips. Shit, those lips. I imagine her opening those lips and wrapping them around the end of my finger. My cock might actually explode if I think about anything else she might do with those lips. "Sssh," I tell her. "Whatever's going through that brain of yours, turn it off."
"But we -"
I press more firmly with my finger, looking into her eyes as I move it lower, over her chin, down her neck, and then in between her breasts. Her eyes flutter closed, and I trace my finger over the tops of her mounds, leaning close to her and touching the tip of my tongue to her earlobe. I nip the edge of her earlobe gently, pulling it into my mouth, and cup her breast with my hand as she arches against my palm.