Shame the Devil (Portland Devils #3) - Rosalind James Page 0,146

so she headed over there, past the teenage boys who were horsing around and shouting, tried to ignore the dozen or so people in lounge chairs arranged around the pool deck, took a deep breath, untied her robe, put it and her towel on a lounger of her own, and pretended to be casual.

Own it, Harlan had said. She tried. She didn’t instantly slide into the water and into oblivion, anyway. She kicked off her sandals and walked to the edge of the pool, and she didn’t hurry.

Which was when she heard one of the teenagers say, “Check it out.”

Another deep breath. That’s your superpower. Harlan had said that, too. Another boy said something else, and she tried not to hear it. All she wanted to do was to vanish into that water. How long did she have to stand here before she did it?

“Hey.”

It wasn’t Harlan. It was the guy in the corner lane, who’d stopped swimming and pushed his goggles up. He was holding onto the edge, too. And smiling.

“Hi,” she said back, though she didn’t want to. She wanted to ignore him, but wasn’t that worse? Face it, she had no idea how to own it. I’m pregnant, dude, she wanted to tell him. It should be obvious.

Right. She was sliding into the pool. She was disappearing. This was so not fun.

Harlan came through the pool gate after a hasty change and … didn’t stop dead. Instead, he headed over there fast.

“Hey,” he said, and then he got his arm around Jennifer and kissed her for good measure, in case anybody needed telling. The guy who’d been hanging out at the end of his lane decided to start swimming again, which was a wise decision.

“Hi,’ she said. Her cheeks were a little flushed, her mouth a little trembly. “I did that thing you said. Owning it. Man, was that hard.”

“Yeah.” He shot a look across at the boys, and they decided to look away. “That’s a lot to own.”

Because … holy hell.

Her suit was black. Which she’d probably bought to be slimming, or something, but instead was just … whoa. The legs of the bottom piece were high-cut, but the waist was high, too. Except that she’d rolled it down, because it probably didn’t fit over that round little belly. Which was definitely rounder than two weeks ago. Her skin was still white and so translucent that you could see the blue veins at the base of her throat and on her inner arms, her waist still nipped in hard and asked for your hands around it, her ass was still juicy, and her breasts were …

That was the other thing. Probably the main thing.

The top of the suit was sort of a … straight-across deal, and there was only about half as much of it as you’d expect. It lifted her up and put her on display like that was the whole point, because it so clearly was. A little strip of black fabric did its best to cover her, but it wasn’t up to the job, and the wide straps were cut so they nearly fell off her shoulders. That strip of black, though, and the round, white swells of her breasts above it …

Well, yeah. That was a pretty devastating combo.

She said, “I know. I bought this about two years ago, and I’ve worn it about five times. The top was a little extreme before, and now it’s … Well. You can see.”

“Yep,” he said. “I sure can. Let’s slide on in here, baby, because that’s probably enough owning it for now, don’t you think?” It was sure as hell enough of every guy in the place staring at her.

She lowered herself down into her lane, and if he watched her do it, how could he help it? After that, he got in himself, enjoying the brief shiver of cold on his overheated skin.

Meanwhile, she’d hoisted herself by the elbows onto the floats of the lane divider and had her legs kicking, keeping her up. She said, “I, uh, forgot myself a little bit back there. In the lobby. I’m not supposed to kiss you. Friends. And you’re not supposed to kiss me, either. Or call me ‘baby.’”

“You drive a hard bargain,” he said.

“And yet Mark just told me today that I was a terrible negotiator.” She was smiling, looking so pretty, then sliding under the water and starting to swim. She did it slowly, almost languidly, as if she moved her body solely