The Pool Boy - Nikki Sloane Page 0,75

had discovered me lurking behind the bush with the other adult. He put his hand down on the concrete so he could pull his feet from the water, and when he stood, he no longer belonged with the rest of these twenty-something-year-olds.

He was meant to be with me.

“You can grab your suit and join us,” Greg said.

I had no idea if he was being genuine or simply polite, but I flashed him a hurried smile. Troy was stalking across the pool deck toward me, and I was coming apart at the seams, both dying to talk to him and desperately not ready. Our date had been fantastic, but it was a baby step to being a true couple and hanging out with Troy’s friends was a gigantic leap I hadn’t prepared for.

“Ms. Graham.” Troy’s hair was wet from the pool, and he wiped a hand over it to push it back out of his eyes. His gaze bounced from me to Greg and back again. “Hey, I haven’t checked on your pool yet. Should I do it now?”

I bit down on my bottom lip, feeling Greg’s knowing gaze burrow into me. “Uh, sure.”

“Cool.” Troy’s coy smile was dazzling. “Let me grab my stuff and I’ll be right over.”

He bounded back the way he’d come, reaching for his bag with his towel, phone, and presumably a shirt.

Greg cleared his throat. “Let him park in your garage. It won’t be long before Judy notices his Jeep, and then I expect she’ll find a way to complain about it.”

“Fucking Judy,” I muttered.

“Yup,” Greg agreed.

TWENTY

Troy

As I got my shit together and stepped into my flipflops, Preston slapped the surface of the pool and flung water at me.

“Where the fuck are you going?” he asked.

His grin said he already knew the answer. He’d seen Erika talking to his dad, and then the way I’d hurried over to her. Could he blame me? She looked so fucking hot today, standing on the stone paver in her skinny pants and off-white shirt, her reddish-brown hair falling past her shoulders.

I wanted to grab a fistful of that hair, jerk her head back, and kiss her until she begged me to fuck her. It was what I’d been planning since Preston invited me over this afternoon. Yeah, I’d wanted to be there for him as he dealt with helping his dad celebrate Cassidy’s birthday, but I’d also been biding my time until Erika got home.

But when I left the Lowe house, let myself in through her gate, and walked up the hill toward her pool, she was nowhere to be found.

“Erika?”

I dropped my bag on one of the loungers and peered toward the windows of the house. We’d come a long way in our relationship but barging in uninvited to her house wasn’t something I felt comfortable doing yet, plus I was still wet from the pool. Maybe she was in her pool house.

Heat rose inside me at that idea. We could role play and reenact when we’d watched each other jerk off, only this time we’d get to do all the things we’d wanted to do then. That could be hot.

But she wasn’t in the pool house either.

I stared at the work bench where she kept her chemicals. Fuck it. I was here and I was supposed to do it anyway. I grabbed the water test kit, went outside, and plunged the plastic collection block elbow deep into the pool, turning it right side up to let it fill with a sample.

I put the drops in and swirled the block, checking all the levels—which were fine. The skimmers were mostly clean, but I emptied them anyway. I dumped the sample water in her rock bed, repeated the process for the spa, put the kit back in the pool house, and measured out the chemicals I needed. She didn’t use her pool much, but it’d been a few weeks since I’d shocked it.

When I came out of the pool house carrying the measuring cup, Erika was standing in the shade of her covered patio. I tossed the cup of powder into the deep end, then set the plastic measuring cup on the table beside the lounger, making my way up the two steps to meet her.

Holy shit.

Around her shoulders was a white, gauzy cover-up, but I was more focused on what was beneath. I gazed at her blue-green bikini with a small ruffle accentuating her magnificent cleavage. “Is that new?” I grinned. “I like it.”

“Thanks.” She seemed distracted as