“In our underwear?”
“If you want.”
“But I’m not wearing a bra.”
He smirks at me. “Neither am I.”
I slap his shoulder.
“Come on, Dee. Live a little.”
We arrive at the pool, open the glass door, and find it completely empty. It’s a heated pool, it steams, and the lighting is dim, and the pool casts shards of wavy light against the walls.
Duncan closes the door behind us, and I hear the click of a lock. He opens a digital keypad flap, touches a button, and the glass door turns opaque instantly.
“How did you know it would do that?”
“You mean because I’m just some dumb fighter?” he asks, taking me into his arms and pulling me against him.
“You are a fighter,” I tell him. “And sometimes, you can be dumb.”
“The button said ‘privacy’. I took a chance.”
“How brave of you.”
I grin, pull away from him, walk up the side of the pool. It’s small, meant for private parties.
I walk to a storage cupboard sitting flush almost invisibly in the wall. It slides into a recess, and I pull out a fresh towel, and lay it down on one of the deck chairs.
Duncan starts to approach me, but I stop him with an outstretched hand.
“Uh-uh,” I say. I slowly take off my heels, let him watch me, and then lie down on the deck chair, get comfortable. “Take off your clothes for me. Let me watch.”
He licks his lips.
“Come on,” I say, daring him with my eyes. “Show me what you got, champ.”
He pulls off his jacket without hesitation, folds it in half lengthways, tosses it at the deck chair next to me.
“Your turn,” he says.
I shake my head at him, and so he starts at his vest, undoing the buttons one by one, his eyes never leaving mine. They’re bluer than the water in the pool.
He tosses the vest, too, then loosens his tie, slides it off, his eyes ablaze with a lustful, singular intensity.
“Your turn,” he says.
I take my left cap sleeve, pull it down over my shoulder, and then return my eyes to Duncan and flash my eyebrows at him.
He laughs, and begins to undo the buttons to his shirt. I watch, eyes wide, as his muscular chest comes into view first, darkened on his left side by the solid tattoo of a house silhouetted – the windows are squares of uninked skin – and on the right side a leaping tiger.
Then I see his stomach, hard, flat, cut, like any fighter’s body should be.
But it just looks so much hotter on him.
He leaves his shirt still tucked in at the bottom, but runs his hands slowly down over his stomach, fingers dipping below the line of his pants for just a moment. As he pulls it down, I see the buzz of his neatly trimmed pubic hair.
“More,” I tell him.
He pulls out his shirt, rolls it off his shoulders then lets it drop down his arms. His arms are sheathed in coiling black tattoos, nothing defined, just impressions, like inked emotion. Some of those lines are sharp and severe, others calm and curved.
When he catches his shirt behind him, turns slightly to toss it onto the deck chair, I get a glimpse of the lines and lines of blessing script he has tattooed on his back.
I soak up the sight of his body, broad shoulders, narrow waist, an Adonis belt at his hips that takes my breath away, the kind that makes smart girls stupid.
God, he’s drop-dead gorgeous, and it still gets me even now.
“More,” I say, humming a grin at him. He doesn’t move, and so I crane my neck to the side, rub a hand down it, bite my lip at him.
“You are so fucking sexy,” he growls in defeat, his hands going to his belt. He unbuckles it deftly, pulls out the leather, then wraps it around one open hand until it’s a tight coil, tosses it at the deck chair.
“Your turn,” he says. “I’m serious this time.”
I grin, reach my hands behind me over my head to pull the zip down to my dress. His eyes linger on my underarms, and he swallows, his Adam’s apple jumping up and down.
“You look fucking hot in that dress, especially when it’s coming off.”
I pull the zip down a little, then lower my other sleeve over my other shoulder.
“Who said anything about coming off? Your turn. I’m serious this time.”
The quick smudge of red-pink that is his tongue wetting his lips steals my attention, before I focus on his hands as he unbuttons and unzips his pants, pulls the flaps open to either side, and I can see his black boxer briefs beneath, his bulge.
He hooks a thumb into the elastic, slowly teases it down, reveals the base of his wide shaft. He stops, looks at me, lips slightly parted so I can see the tips of his teeth.
“More,” I whisper at him.
Millimeter by millimeter he pulls down, and more of his manhood comes into view. I gasp as he finally springs out, as he tucks his underwear beneath his smooth balls.