Chapter 6

“Okay, the sheets are in the dryer,” Bethany said to interrupt the tense moment I was having with Mark. I reached out to pull her closer because I needed her support just then. She slipped her arm around my hips before asking, “Are we still swimming?”

Mark frowned like we were a puzzle he couldn’t figure out, then he nodded. “Come on then.”

Bethany got our towels. I locked the house on the way out and took Bethany’s hand. Mark was silent as he led us the two doors down to his house. The last time I made this walk with Mark I thought he might care about me a little. But if he cared about me he wouldn’t have refused to be with me again. It’s not like I’d have told anyone. And plenty of girls dated older guys.

“What did he say?” Bethany asked.

“He came upstairs,” I said and met her eyes as they widened. “He heard us.”

“Oh,” she said with a worried frown. “What did you tell him?”

“That I fucked your brains out.”

Bethany barked a laugh and Mark turned back to glare at us. His eyes dipped to our joined hands and then he looked away with a muttered grunt.

I thought about his girlfriend then. I’d met Sophie a handful of times at swim parties or when we got together with Mark’s family for cookouts. She had huge boobs. I glanced down at my puffies and frowned. Maybe that’s why he didn’t want to be with me. Fuck him, then.

We got to his house and he led us around back to the screen door into the enclosed pool area. Mason and his best friend Trevor were already in the pool. They were listening to some kind of country rap and yelling the lyrics in each other’s faces like they were so cool.

We walked past Mark who held the screen door open, tossed our towels on two lounge chairs, then jumped in the water with a wild shriek to make a huge splash over Mason and Trevor.

“What the hell?” Mason yelled at us as we surfaced.

“Hey Mason. Hey Trevor,” I said as I smoothed my hair back with both hands to draw their attention to my chest. “You guys oughta start a band!”

Bethany giggled because it was fucking absurd, but that’s the kind of shit we had to do to get the attention of guys our age. Play dumb, pretend they were cool, and show off our boobs. I hated it, but I didn’t make the rules.

“Totally,” Bethany said with a grin that barely hid her sarcasm. She reached around underwater to give my ass a squeeze.

I shot her a knowing grin as we swam closer to Mason and Trevor. “So you guys wanna hang out and swim or are you too busy practicing.”

“It’s cool, I guess,” Mason said, affecting a kind of indifference he clearly didn’t feel. Typical macho bullshit.

I pretended I cared, at least until Mark stormed into the house and slammed the sliding glass door closed.

“What’s up his ass?” Trevor asked Mason.

“Beats me,” Mason replied. “He’s been weird since yesterday.”

Hearing that made my heart rate surge.

“You guys wanna have a chicken fight?” Bethany suggested as she moved towards Trevor.

“Yeah,” Trevor sang as he squatted low in the water. “Hop on, Bethany!”

I got behind Mason and pushed his shoulders down so I could climb on. He grabbed my feet to keep me in place and walked towards Trevor and Bethany.

I squeezed my thighs around Mason’s neck to hold on and reached to wrestle Bethany off Trevor’s shoulders. We were laughing so hard it was impossible to gain any leverage at first. Then Trevor lost his footing and I shoved really hard to push them both over in the water.

“We won!” I bounced up and down on Mason’s back, taking the opportunity to rub myself against the back of his neck.

“Hey,” Bethany yelled as she surfaced with her arms across her boobs. “Stop feeling me up, Trevor!”

Trevor chuckled with a red face. “Sorry, I was just trying to help. Best two outa three?”

“You got it,” Mason yelled. “We’re gonna take you down!”

Bethany got back on Trevor’s shoulders and smacked him in the head for good measure. We grappled again while Trevor and Mason tried to trip each other. Bethany got a good grip while Trevor backed up. I slipped off Mason’s shoulder, but he kept a grip on my legs as I fell. Before I made it to the water, Mason pushed his face right into my crotch and blew noisy bubbles.

“Oh my God!” I laughed at the surprise stimulation and pushed his face away as I splashed into the pool. I bounced off the bottom and swam away. “What the hell, Mason?”

“You mean it didn’t tickle?” he asked as he pursued me with a wicked grin.

Trevor and Bethany surfaced in a tangle of limbs, his face pressed against her chest. She pushed and kicked away.

“What are you doing?” Bethany shrieked in laughter.

Bethany and I swam fast to the other side of the pool while the guys huddled together making attack plans and glancing at us. Bethany whispered, “That was kinda hot.”

“I know, but don’t tell them. We gotta make’em work for it.”

The guys separated and came at us from two different angles. I was about to dive under them to escape when my brother came out with Mark.

“You guys messin’ with my sister?” Joe yelled and stopped Mason and Trevor in their tracks.

“We were just playin’ around, man. No big deal,” He said as he swam back to the shallow end of the pool.

I caught Mark’s expression and his shit-eating grin pissed me off. I grabbed Bethany and pulled her towards the ladder out of the deep end near our towels.

“Let’s lay out,” I growled.

“What happened?” she whispered, glancing at Mark.

“Nothing.”

While we set up the lounge chairs, the guys organized a two-on-two basketball game using the pool-side hoop. I found a bottle of sunscreen on the shelf near the sliding glass door and sat on the edge of Bethany’s lounge chair.

The teams were Mark and Mason versus Joe and Trevor. Mark threw the ball in to Mason just as I filled my palm with sunscreen and rubbed it to get it warm. Bethany smiled up at me as I covered her legs with long, slow strokes. I moved when I got to her feet so I could massage the instep and each toe.

“Damn, that feels good,” Bethany murmured.

I rubbed some more between my palms and slid up her thighs, covering right up to the very edges of her bikini line. She had tiny dark hairs up high on her thigh that made my mouth water suddenly. Bethany bit her lips and squinted up at me.

Next, I covered the exposed skin from the top of her breasts to her shoulders. She had lighter colored hairs there that were only visible in the bright sunlight. The need to explore her in the daylight, front and back, to learn her other secrets, pulled at me.

“Damn it, Mark, wake up! You missed that perfect shot,” Mason complained.

I glanced over and caught him staring at us.

“Sorry,” he muttered.

“I’ll do you,” Bethany said. “Lay down.”

She sat on the edge of my lounge chair so her body blocked the guys’ view of what she was doing. She took the lotion and started with my feet. I got chills from her thumbs running up the soles. The firm strokes up my calves made me hum deep in my chest. I kept my knees up as she worked my thighs and since no one could see she brushed her knuckles against the gusset of my swimsuit.

“Damn,” I whispered. Knowing we were outside and four guys were feet away made me glad my swimsuit was already wet.

Bethany chuckled silently, then moved to my shoulders and arms. She lingered along the edges of my top until my nipples ached for her touch. I wondered just then why I was bothering with Mark anyway. He was hot, but Bethany had proved that heat was more flexible than I’d realized. She ran her fingertips across my nipples, leaving sparks in their wake.

“All those years of dance and gymnastics really paid off,” she murmured.

That made me smile. I cracked an eye open at her and said, “I wish we’d done this years ago.”