I’d felt rested and loved, warm and happy, and now, I just felt traumatized.
This place was spoiled, and I was angry at that, annoyed and raging because this was supposed to be precious.
I smacked my hands flat against the pool, appreciating the splash and enjoying the way that the water cascaded over me.
I wanted to scream and rage my annoyance, but I didn’t.
Instead, I just took some deep breaths, floated a little, then a thought hit me.
Eli was probably stripping.
The thought made me feel terrible, especially considering how out of whack my brain was, but I couldn’t stop myself from rolling my chin forward so I could look at him.
He was dragging off his jacket now, and I caught him just in time to see him drop it on the ground.
When it disappeared, as had mine and Austin’s clothes, I laughed because he muttered, “What the fuck?”
I grinned and snapped my head back down when I knew he was going to glance over at me to ask me what had just happened.
When he grunted, thinking I was still having a ‘moment,’ I quickly peered up again and saw him strip off his tie. That hit the ground and disappeared too.
My lips twitched as he scowled, peering around him like a pixie or a sprite was there and stealing his clothes away from him. I dropped my head back into the water again when he looked over at me.
I could sense his movements in a way I hadn’t been able to before I’d come to this horrible fucking place.
Being claimed by Austin had probably done it, or maybe communing with the spirit of the totem, or perhaps it was just my becoming more comfortable with my she-wolf while I was here. I had no idea what the reason was, just knew it was the truth.
I quickly peeked up at him when I knew he was working on his pants. They were wet rags around his thighs, and I knew he was going to find them hard to drag off.
Wishing he’d turn around so I could see his ass, because that was a thing of beauty, I watched as he began to slide them down his legs, revealing long, strong muscles that made me think shit I shouldn’t be thinking right now.
Not when I was in the middle of commuted hysteria.
Still, he was so fine that I just wished Austin was here and Ethan too, because then I’d know everything was well. I wouldn’t have to worry about a pack of wolves coming out of the trees to attack us.
Maybe we’d been short-sighted staying close to the pool. Maybe we should have gone and explored, but there’d been no ants, no bugs, no fucking anything. Not even birds.
Why the hell would there be none of that, no rabbits or mice, but there’d be wolves? Didn’t the wolves frickin’ eat here?
As I started to get worked up again, I watched him and had to admit that just viewing him was enough to right my mood. Not only because he was hotness personified, but because he was inadvertently funny.
Plus, he gave me the show I was asking for. When his pants were around his ankles, and he toed off his shoes and socks, which miraculously didn’t disappear, he leaned up on tiptoe, then somehow did this quick swipe so the fabric didn’t brush the grass. It worked. He didn’t lose them.
I sensed his triumph, and as I wondered what his next move was, I watched him pull off the other pant leg too. He kept the fabric bundled in his hands, holding it off the floor like it was a crocodile’s mouth or something.
The sight of which, of course, made me want to laugh.
When he turned around, he finally gave me a glimpse of that fine naked butt. He was also commando, which meant, had I known earlier, I could have pulled down his fly while he was dressing me up like I was a child and grabbed a hold of the good stuff. Yum.
Holding that thought for another time, I watched as he strode over to a nearby tree. This one had dark green leaves with a petrol blue sheen that reminded me of when gas was on the road, gleaming iridescently when the light hit it at unusual angles. He went to hang out his pants, trying to keep them all neat like, and then he hung