Page 47 of Vipers & Roses

The unfortunate image of him fucking Lucy from behind enters my mind, and my stomach turns. I need to talk to her.

“That’s a shame,” Lyons says, stepping away and winking as if he and I share a little secret. Damn, where’s my gun? If only bathing suits were designed with gun halters. “I’ll see you around, Rae.”

“No, thank you,” I murmur and wait until he’s several feet away before climbing out of the pool. His brazenness irritates the living fuck out of me as if what he did to me was nothing. Nothing.

As I walk towards my sports bag resting on a bench, I spot an impressive figure sitting with legs spread next to my bag, wearing a towel wrapped around his waist.

“I’ll never get tired of looking at that,” he states without smiling as water dribbles down his bare, muscular chest as if he had just climbed out of the pool moments ago.

“I hadn’t noticed you were here,” I tell him as those sky blues run over my bare, toned legs as he hands my towel to me.

“Sure,” he answers in a doubtful tone as I wrap my towel above my breasts. “What did he want?” nodding towards Lyons on the other side of the pool, standing directly opposite us with arms folded across his chest. Shudder.

“He was suggesting I should join the swim team,” I tell him, noticing his narrowed blue eyes are still fixed on Lyons, reminding me of the lion watching his prey from afar. But I’ve noticed that Cormac tends to stare intensely at people. I wonder if it has something to do with his father being a detective, making him naturally suspicious of human behavior.

“I got the impression you didn’t want to rejoin the team,” he says, frowning and dragging his stare away from Lyons.

“I don’t,” I chuckle, trying to rise above the intense weight of Lyons' stare, which is making me uncomfortable. “I’ve left competitive swimming and the awful long hours in the past, I’m afraid.”

“Good. Anyway, have you had breakfast?” Cormac asks.

“No, I was going to pick up a coffee and bagel at the Kiosk on the way to the Horticulture School,” I explain, grabbing my bag.

“Let me take you out for a cooked breakfast at a good café. Bacon and eggs, pancakes, maple syrup, decent coffee,” he licks his bottom lip and stands up, hovering dangerously close to me, naked skin almost touching naked skin, and immediately fear kicks in.

There’s going to be a point where I’ll have to resign to my sexual desire and let one of those two men take me into their bed. It might hurt physically the first time or not, but at least the first time back on the horse will make the second time more pleasurable. Besides, living life as a nun was never on my Bingo card.

I exhale and inadvertently meet Lyon's gaze, watching us closely, and my stomach turns. Cormac snatches my bag from my grasp and holds it behind him. “I won’t give this back until you say yes,” he threatens.

“Huh? And if I decline your request?” I ask, reaching behind him for my bag and pressing my chin against his smooth, bare shoulder, electricity infiltrating through his touch.

He lowers his head so our lips are only an inch apart. “You’ll say yes.”

“Will I?” I test him, reaching for my bag again, only for him to snatch away from my grasp.

“Say yes,” he whispers in that sexy voice riveting down my spine.

“Okay,” I resign, and how can I say no? “But I need to change into my clothes.”

His nostrils flare. “Looks fine where I’m standing.”

I shoot him my best raven scowl - a woman’s warning should never be ignored, and he immediately hands me back my bag. “Lucky for you, I’m in a good mood.”

“Yeah, I know what women like you do when you’re in a bad mood,” he says, rubbing his throat with his hand as if imagining a giant mantis biting it off.

I smirk, and my eyelashes flutter inadvertently in a flirtatious fashion. “I’ll meet you out front in the car park,” I tell him and walk towards the locker room, feeling those eyes rake over my legs as I go. As soon as I reach the locker room door, I whisk around to see if he’s still watching and catch him in the act. He cocks his dark eyebrow at me as I shoot him my middle finger, and when I turn back around, I come face to face with Lucy, wrapped in a towel and heading into the locker rooms to change.

“How are you?” she asks, smiling, and all I can think about is her bent over the desk getting rammed from behind by the man I’m planning to kill. I thought she was on the same side as me. I got the impression she found Lyons to be a creepy old prick that she and her friends nicknamed the Octopus.

“I’m good. How are you?” I ask politely, struggling to look at her in the eyes. But I need to know if she was doing that by choice or if Lyons has a hold over her. I want to convince myself it’s the latter because I can’t bear the thought that anyone would voluntarily let that man touch them, let alone get off on it. Yuck. Vomit-inducing.

“Tired,” she confesses. “We’re being pushed hard for the Nationals coming up.”

We walk into the locker room together, and I’m dangerously close to asking her about Lyons, but now is not a good time. “Oh, well, you look after yourself,” I say as I step onto a shower cubicle and shut the door behind me, “or else you might let ol’ Lyons down.”

“Yeah,” is her faint reply. I can’t see her reaction to my dig at Lyons, but the tone of her voice is enough to send the prickers down my spine. Something is off. Perhaps I’m sensing her guilt, and I don’t know Lucy well enough to ask such a personal question. How do I even compose the sentence? ‘Oh, by the way, did you get railed by Lyons?’ Nah, that won’t do.

I switch the faucet on and let the water run over my hand until warm before stripping my sodden bathing suit off, keen to rid myself of the scent of chlorine. There are moments when I stand under the shower that memories return of those days after The Four ruined my life when I’d shower several times a day and never feel clean and scratch my skin raw. There are faded scars on the anterior of my forearm that are only visible in bright light, but mostly, the skin on my stomach and thighs bore the brunt of my self-hate episodes.

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