My sister and I don’t see each other often, but we talk enough for me to know who she is.
And she’s off-limits.
She’s not just a wedding guest but the maid of honour, the one I’m depending on to make this week go without a hitch.
Too young. Too messy. Too complicated.
But, instead of telling her who I am and putting a stop to our not so subtle flirting, I’ve been evasive. Instead of digging out a towel from the pool house and waiting for her to leave, I let her stand there with that see-through thing clinging to her body and told her to settle back and enjoy the show.
And why?
Because I lost all good sense the second I saw her.
Because she is captivating, intriguing, different...and I want to carry on enjoying the thrill of it. Of this. The attraction, the heated push and pull, the flirtation.
Because, let’s face it, I’ve not experienced anything as remotely stimulating outside of work in a long time.
And now what?
Now she’s lying on her front, her elbows planted in the bed, her head resting on her palms as she watches me as though I’m the most interesting thing she’s ever seen. And it feels good. Too good to tell her to leave.
Her eyes are too far away for me to make out their colour but, having seen them up close, I won’t be forgetting them any time soon. They’re the palest blue and so piercingly clear. As for how they made me feel when my hand held hers... My skin prickles beneath the water. They struck through the very heart of me, exposed me... Me and every debauched thought that had raced through my brain.
But she’s Dani’s best friend...
And she’s lying there all at ease, her legs bent in the air and hooked by her slender ankles, the little chain she wears around one glinting in the pool lights. She could be a nun and I’d still want her.
I execute a turn under water, my back to her now, but her presence is no less teasing. I’m aware of her eyes on me, aware of her enjoyment too, and it thrums a reciprocal beat through my body that’s suddenly decided I’ve gone too long without sex.
I try to remember all that Dani has told me about her. I know they met at uni and lived together. Aside from that, nothing. I feel a stab of guilt. We don’t talk enough, my sister and I.
Another turn and I’m facing her again, quashing the guilt with rising curiosity about the brunette who’s still giving me the come-to-bed eye. I know she’s here alone this week, and that likely makes her single and very much available... All thoughts you shouldn’t even be entertaining.
This week is about Dani and her happiness. It certainly doesn’t involve me getting lucky with her hot—and likely just as young—best friend.
Tyler wouldn’t let me live it down. Not after the hell I put him and Dani through over their age gap.
And Dani. She’d crucify me.
But Faye... I look to her before I turn in the water again and our eyes meet, a brief clash, but long enough to see the reciprocated desire firing back at me. She swings her legs, the anklet flashes and I imagine hooking my finger beneath it, tracing its line around the curve of her ankle, smoothing my palm up her calf, her thigh...
My blood rushes south with the very vivid thought even as my mind plays judge, jury and executioner in one: She wouldn’t look at you like that if she knew who you were.
Or maybe she would.
Maybe she’d push this as far as I’m willing to go.
Not helping...
But I do need to tell her, and I do need to put a firm end to anything more. Because this week is about Dani and not the complicated mess I could get myself ensnared in if I pursue this attraction further. A mess that would detract from what is important: Dani and her wedding day.
Si, I’ll tell her...once I have a towel wrapped around my waist and my nagging erection under control.
Cazzo.
I swim harder, losing track of the number of lengths as I focus on taming my uncooperative body so I can stand before her and not succumb to the offer so brazen in her gaze. Part of me hopes she will tire and leave. Another part hopes it’s enough to exhaust my overactive organs into neutral. And another part, so determined to rear its head, wants me to say to hell with the consequences and dive right in.
But she’s not leaving, and eventually I’m forced to cave. I swim to the pool edge closest to her, sink beneath the water and rise up, flicking my hair out of my eyes as I look to her.
‘Could you do me a favour?’
She cocks a grin and I sense her mind racing with the many, many favours she could do...each of them as tantalising as the ones my mind is too eager to offer up.
‘Sure.’
She rises onto her knees, that sheer robe clinging like a second skin and dragging my eyes south. I swallow the swell of desire and force them back to hers. ‘Could you get me a towel from the pool house, per favore?’
Her smile lifts to the side. ‘You mean to say you had access to towels all this time?’
I can’t help the grin that forms. ‘I did.’
‘And you didn’t think to get me one.’
‘And spoil my view?’
Cazzo, Rafael. That’s hardly playing it cool and giving her the brush off.
‘Well, in that case, I think it only fair you do it yourself...’
She lies back down and rolls onto her back, her eyes on the heavens now as she trails a hand down her front. From this angle all I can see is the tip of her head, the peak of her breasts and her nipples taut against the fabric as her fingers trail between them.
‘You can get me one while you’re at it...per favore.’ She teases with the
