Wet (A Real Man #25) - Jenika Snow Page 0,2

to his olive-skin-toned body.

“What?” I cleared my throat, because I heard how gravelly my voice was. It was laced with arousal, but I prayed like hell nobody realized that but me.

I was still crouched on my haunches by the chemical distribution component. There was no way I could move at the moment, no fucking way I could stand up. I had a raging hard-on from checking out Pyper.

My father stared at me for long seconds, his eyebrows pulled down low, because he was no doubt confused why I was so tense all of a sudden.

“You okay?” he asked, and I nodded a little too quickly.

And I was, as I curled my hands by my sides to stop them from shaking. “I’m good. I’m good.” I looked at the component again. “Just checking this out, making sure the levels are working properly.”

He didn’t say anything in response, and I glanced at him. He still watched me with skepticism, but after muttering something under his breath in Italian, he left to go back to working on the hedges he was trimming.

I breathed out roughly and closed my eyes for a second, trying to get my composure together. I had no control over my body where Pyper was concerned. There wasn’t even any point in trying to fight it. She was like this force of nature that destroyed me from the inside out, and I didn’t want it to stop.

I wanted that destruction as much as I needed to breathe.

I opened my eyes then and looked over at her again. My head was racing as I saw her head turned in my direction, as I watched her lift her hand and slowly pull her sunglasses down the bridge of her nose, her eyes locked on mine.

And like it did every single time I noticed her glancing in my direction, my heart stalled, and the world tilted on its axis.

And all because she looked at me.

Chapter Two

Pyper

I shouldn’t have kept staring at him, because I’d gotten caught. That in itself wasn’t the end of the world, but I didn’t want Gio knowing I watched him. And I don’t know why I even cared. I knew he stared at me too.

For years, we’d done this back and forth, not really speaking, but I knew he watched me, and I was pretty sure he caught me nearly every time I stared at him.

And right now, our eyes were locked.

I felt my cheeks heat for that fact alone and prayed like hell he couldn’t see the reaction he caused in me. It wasn’t just my embarrassment that he caught me, but also because I didn’t miss how his eyes dipped to look at my chest, or my belly, or even my legs. Yeah, I’d seen him looking at me as he checked me out.

His gaze was intense, so powerful I could practically feel his fingers on my body, between my thighs.

As I watched him finish what he was doing, all I could think about was what it would feel like to have all that hardness pressed to me. To be fair, I always thought about that, but God, it was becoming a lot more insistent as each day passed.

He stood then, and I took him in. Gio was well over six feet. I couldn’t help but stare at his muscular yet lean body. I felt my body instantly react, felt my nipples harden, sensed wetness pooling between my thighs. I’d felt desire plenty of times since I knew what the feeling was, and every time, it was directed at—was because of—Gio. I’d never felt anything like this arousal, this passion, with anyone other than the boy currently walking away from where I sat.

I should have looked away and not been so obvious, but at this point, I’m completely shifted on the chair now, one hand on the cushion, my fingers digging into the fabric. My heart was racing as I watched him stop before he disappeared behind the side of the house. Our eyes locked again. So many feelings and desires spilled from me, but I was too afraid to ever say them.

And then the connection was broken, and I was left sitting there feeling empty.

I didn’t know how long I stayed by the pool there, but my interest in sunbathing when Gio wasn’t around diminished quickly. It wasn’t that I wanted to lounge around in my bikini so he could check me out, but more so that I wanted to be the one checking him out.

My