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He was leaning on the wall between our rooms, his arms crossed over his chest. He’d changed into a tight black tank top and black-and-white striped board shorts, and I couldn’t stop myself from taking him in just like Reuben had. My gaze fell on the black skin at his neck, his saddle patch, that marked him as an orca shifter. I’d spent time running my tongue over the darkskin in Budapest, making Cal squirm as I teased the sensitive flesh. My dick twitched under the towel, and I quickly redirected my thoughts, looking up to meet his eyes.
Cal had been giving me a similar appraisal, and his eyes burned hot when they met mine.
“Forgot your suit?” he asked, his gaze on where I’d tucked the fabric in on itself to keep it from falling off my hips.
Mildly embarrassed at my miscalculation, I grinned through it. “Nah, just not in the mood to wear it.”
Instead of waiting for Cal to respond, I took off down the hall that led deeper underground to the saltwater spring, assuming Cal would pick his jaw up off the floor and follow me.
Eventually.
Hopefully.
CHAPTER
THREE
CAL
My mouth went drythe second Jack walked out of his room wearing only a towel slung low on his hips and the damn shark-tooth necklace I’d never seen him take off. He was unknowingly testing every ounce of my resolve to avoid sleeping with him on this mission.
Every single ounce.
He’d walked past me, leaving me gaping at his tight ass wrapped in terry cloth, and it took me a second to remind my feet how to move before I followed.
There was nothing to say, so I strode behind him silently, trying to think of anything other than what I knew was under that damn towel as we descended farther into the ground.
I kept waiting for the telltale scent of chlorine that would indicate we were getting close to the pool, but it never came, and I was more than a little confused when Jack turned a corner and pushed open a heavy wooden door that deposited us into a huge underground cavern. A wide stone ledge ringed a massive spring.
Suddenly, Jack’s decision to forgo a bathing suit made a lot more sense. I didn’t love swimming in a chlorinated pool, but when I was desperate, like I was now, water was water. I hatedthe way chlorine made my skin feel in either of my forms, having trained in an Olympic-size swimming pool as both a human and an orca during my time in the military. I’d assumed Reuben would have a conventional swimming pool, so I’d opted for a bathing suit since I didn’t think there was any way I’d be able to swim in my shifted form.
This pool made me reconsider.
I knelt by the edge and dipped my hand in. The water was the perfect temperature, and I could tell it was salt water. Shocked, I looked up at Jack, who was wearing a cocky grin.
“You could have told me it wasn’t a typical swimming pool.”
He shrugged. “And miss getting to see you in that swimsuit? No chance, sweetheart.” Jack turned his back to me and walked over to a row of teak chaise lounges. He slipped the necklace off and set it carefully on a small marble-topped table. His chest looked strangely bare without it, but then his towel slid away, revealing his gorgeous ass, and I forgot all about the necklace. He dropped the towel on the chaise in front of him, then stepped to the edge of the pool and dove in, barely making a splash as he hit the water. He came up in his human form ten feet from where I was standing.
He brushed a lock of wet hair back from his face as he treaded water. “It’s deep. At least twenty feet.”
I nodded, watching the effortless way he moved.
“You mind if I shift? You’re welcome to do the same.”
“You sure?” I put as much sarcasm into the words as I could.
“I’m not scared of swimming with a giant sea Oreo, sweetheart.”
I slipped my flip-flops off near the chair next to the one Jack had dropped his towel on. Despite the fact that Jack was a great white shark shifter, I was the apex predator. In our human forms, we were pretty evenly matched in size, but even if Jack was a larger-than-average great white in his shifted form—whichI’d never seen—I’d still be two times his length and three times his weight.
“You should be. I’m the one at the top of the food chain.” My shirt landed on the chaise as I stripped.
“So is that a no on a shifted swim, then?” he asked.
“I’m game if you are.” My board shorts hit the stone floor, and Jack made a strangled sound he tried to cover with a cough.
Jack slipped underwater, and the next I saw of him was a short gray dorsal fin, the edges such a dark gray they looked almost black. He cut through the water gracefully, and watching him took my breath away. My fingers found the spot on my neck where my saddle patch had changed after I met him, and I pushed away the weird longing that welled up in my chest. Dwelling on it would just make me break my vow to keep my dick in my pants where Jack was concerned.
