Chapter 1 #2
One day I showed up while it was already raining.
"Are you kidding me?" Ethan groaned when I appeared in the doorway of the lifeguard office, umbrella in one hand and pool pass in the other.
I gave him a dirty look. "There's no lightening or thunder yet. No reason I can't go in the pool."
"He might have a point, you know," Mitch said, chuckling, as his long, hard body unfolded from the chair he'd been sitting in. They'd obviously already started to set up a card game. "Sometimes you take the poolrat thing a little far."
"If I'm not here every day, rain or shine, then I don't deserve the title of poolrat," I said. Just as I spoke, two of my fellow poolrats came up behind me, both girls in their early teens who were constantly mooning over Ethan and Mitch. Not that I could blame them.
Just as they reached us we all heard the ominous roll of thunder.
"Sorry girls," Mitch said with his most charming smile as Ethan heaved a sigh of relief behind him. "You know the rules, that's a half-hour wait."
Both of the girls groaned and turned to go. I just gave Mitch a pleading look.
"Let me guess," he said with a deep chuckle that did delightful things to my insides. "You want to come in and wait it out with us."
"Well it takes me fifteen minutes to walk home," I pointed out. "At which point I'll immediately turn around to come back here as long as there's no more thunder."
"Alright," he said with an exaggerated sigh as Ethan grumbled behind him. "Come on in, sweetheart." He opened the door for me, playing the gentleman in a mockingly teasing way that had me giggling.
Ethan just ignored my entrance and turned on the radio.
There was no chance of any of the other poolrats showing up, we all knew what thunder meant.
We might come out in the rain, but no one liked being sent home due to lightening or thunder.
Anyone who hadn't arrived yet was either already turning around to head back home or was staying put until the wait was over.
I played a couple rounds of poker with them before I got tired of Ethan's churlish attitude.
The thunder had continued coming at odd intervals and finally we spotted some lightening, so I was just about to leave when the radio made that awful beeping sound that signaled a weather advisory.
All three of us groaned as the radio said that it was a severe storm warning and people should stay where they were until it lessened.
"Sorry guys," I said, with an apologetic shrug.
Mitch smiled at me and Ethan just shrugged.
"Want to play another hand?" Mitch asked.
"Nah, I think I'm just going to read for a bit," I said.
I figured Ethan was probably tired of playing cards with me anyway, and I could let him and Mitch just hang for a bit.
Besides, I'd gotten to a particularly good part in my book before leaving for the pool this morning and I'd been looking forward to reading more while I was at the pool.
Of course, I hadn't figured on being trapped in the office for so long—the weather report this morning had said scattered thunderstorms but I'd been hoping they'd be scattered elsewhere.
When I'm reading a book that I'm really into, it's like the rest of the world falls away.
Even if the rest of the world is two total hunks that I'm picturing in my head even as I'm reading.
Their voices dimmed to a muted buzz and then disappeared as I became completely engrossed in another world entirely.
So it was a rude shock when my e-reader was suddenly grabbed out of my hands from behind me.
I was cuddled into an armchair which meant that I couldn't even spin around very quickly, the bulk of the chair and the high back kept me from being able to grab the device back.
All the blood drained from my face as Ethan, my high school tormentor who loved nothing better than to tease me, danced backed with a huge grin on his face, looking at the screen.
"So whatcha reading, cupcake?"
"Give it back!" I clutched at the back of the armchair, up on my knees. Impending doom was racing down on me and there was nothing I could do to stop it.
Mitch was no help. He just sat at the card table watching with an amused smile on his face. To my horror, instead of just teasing me with his possession of my e-reader, Ethan did exactly what I was most hoping he wouldn't. He looked at the screen and started to read out loud.
"Working her jaw muscles to keep from drooling…" Ethan's voice faltered a little, becoming almost incredulous.
I just closed my eyes and tried to pretend I was anywhere else as he kept reading.
"She kept her eyes trained on the floor in front of her as she wondered what Justin was doing.
If he was going to touch her. What Chris was getting out of the bag.
Trying to keep track of both of them while also holding perfectly still in her position and sucking on the gag in her mouth was proving difficult.
Too many things to turn her attention to. "
"What the hell..." I heard Mitch say as I wondered if it was possible to spontaneously die of embarrassment.
I should be so lucky.
"When Chris walked up in front of her and fondled her breast, she felt a little gush of pleasure between her legs.
She was so wet that she wouldn't be surprised if she was actually dripping on the floor.
Whimpering around the gag as he pinched at her nipples, she did her best not to move at all, sure that Justin was watching while Chris enjoyed himself.
The whole two-against-one thing could be so immensely unfair sometimes.
One one hand, she couldn't get away with anything.
On the other hand, she knew that deep down she liked it that way. "
Ethan's voice had been getting almost hoarse as he read and now it finally stuttered to a stop.
I forced myself to open my eyes and hold my head high, despite the fact that my cheeks were so hot I thought I might actually burst into flame at any moment. I shouldn't be the one embarrassed, I didn't care what they thought. I could enjoy whatever books I wanted and screw them, anyway.
They were both staring at me as if they'd never seen me before.
I hadn't thought it was possible, but somehow my face felt like it got even redder.
Actually my entire body was feeling kind of hot and I told myself it wasn't just because I'd been listening to Ethan describe a scene right out of one of my fantasies in his deep sexy voice.
It was a combination of arousal from what I'd been reading, humiliation that now they knew what I'd been reading, and the despair of knowing that there was no way in hell I'd ever be able to come back to this poolhouse.
"Can I have my e-reader back please?" I said, almost primly, as if I wasn't experiencing my first ever full-body blush.
For a moment it looked like Ethan was debating, and then out of the corner of my eye I saw Mitch moving toward me.
Turning to look at him, I almost froze when I saw the heat in his sparkling blue eyes. There was an intensity there that I'd never seen before, that was absent when he normally flirted with me and the other girls around the pool.
"Is that what you're reading on that thing all the time?" Mitch asked. "Porn? Kinky threesome porn?"
He had almost reached the armchair where I was kneeling when suddenly Ethan moved, standing on the other side of the chair so that I was between them, as if they were facing off against each other. My head tilted back to look up at Mitch who was grinning down at me.
"Have you ever done anything kinky?" Mitch asked, ignoring the dark presence of Ethan on my left.
He leaned down toward me and all of the sudden Ethan's arm was around my waist, underneath my breasts, pulling me away and off of the chair.
My back was pressed up against all six-foot-something of him and, I swore I heard him actually growl.
"Leave her alone," Ethan said warningly.
What the heck? I suddenly felt like they were fighting over me, but that wasn't possible. Mitch was just a flirt and Ethan didn't like me... but there was no denying that the atmosphere in the lifeguard office had just altered. Tensed. Just like Ethan's arm.
I let out a little squeak and tapped the muscular forearm that was like an iron band around my ribs. "Can't breathe."
Immediately it loosened. But it didn't drop away.
"She reads about kinky sex and threesomes," Mitch said, never taking his eyes away from mine.
I wanted to speak up and tell them to not talk about me like I wasn't there, but my breath felt strangled in my throat.
Not to mention all the distractions, like the hot, hard male standing directly behind me and his arm around my middle.
Not in a million years did I ever think I'd be pressed up against Ethan like this, my back or my front, and some part of my brain was memorizing exactly how fantastic it felt.
"Maybe she'd like to experience a little. Do you have kinky threesome fantasies, Allie?"
"Yes." The word slipped out before I could stop it. Mitch was coming closer again, his eyes almost hypnotizing.
Maybe this is the way a mouse felt when it was in front of a snake, knowing that it's in danger, but unable to look away or run. My instincts for self-preservation obviously suck.
"Do you sometimes fantasize about having a threesome with me and Ethan?"
"Mitch—" Ethan’s voice is a warning growl and I still don’t know why.
"Yes." It was like being drunk, this endorphin high that was flying through me, making me say things that I never thought I would—like the truth.
I felt dizzy, light-headed, and like I was flying on top of the world.
Like Icharus flying too close to the sun and knowing I'm about to get burned, knowing that my wings were about to melt and I was going to have a shattering fall to earth in the form of reality, but right now things were too much like one of my fantasies for me not to want to indulge a little.