I stopped myself cold. I wasn’t going to do that. I wasn’t going to let my mom into my head.
Sure, it was screwed up to want the guys who’d fucked me over in high school, but lust was biochemical, like being hungry or tired. It wasn’t related to logic and reason, both of which told me the Bastards were bad news, not to mention memory, which proved it.
Rafe opened the back of the Jeep and all three of the Bastards started stripping right there in the parking lot, tugging off shirts and jeans until they were standing in their underwear.
And my god.
I mean, I hadn’t seen a lot of naked men. Or any. I hadn’t seen any naked men in real life, okay?
But I was pretty sure most men wouldn’t look… this way naked. And also, was it normal for them to have such obviously huge dicks?
I looked up to find Nolan looking at me with a knowing smirk. “Something you’d like to say, sweetheart?”
My throat was dry when I tried to swallow the lust that had roared to life in my body, probably because it was mixed with humiliation.
“Nope.”
I turned my attention to the water. The waves rolled in one after the other, several surfers riding boards in the distance, some of them getting to their feet to ride them to shore while others sat on their boards, floating over the swells before they broke.
This was better. Safer.
It was so cold I couldn’t believe anyone would want to get in the water, but the cold felt good, like a cool washcloth on my forehead when I had a fever. I wasn’t dumb enough to think whatever was happening in my body could be cured by the cold, but I would take relief where I could find it.
I sat on the back of the Jeep, the hatch open, while the guys continued pulling on and zipping up their wetsuits. Jude and Nolan had loaded the Jeep while I’d gotten dressed, so I hadn’t had a chance to see the gear they’d packed, but now I could see there were bags of extra clothes, beach towels, and surf wax. I averted my eyes when I spotted a sheathed knife, bigger than the one I carried, even though the Bastards had made no secret of the fact that they were pretty much always armed with something.
I’d gotten used to watching them check their weapons, strap them to holsters under jackets or into their waistbands like they were spare cell phones and not deadly weapons.
It scared me, not because of the weapons themselves, but because I’d gotten used to it so quickly. I’d done everything but learn how to use a gun in the name of protecting myself, and in less than a month, being surrounded by guns had become a yawnfest.
All the more reason to get away from the three giants around me — and fast.
I was in danger — and not the kind the Bastards had exposed me to in high school. This time I knew exactly who they were, exactly what they were capable of, and I was still putting my vibrator through its paces, fantasizing about my roommates on the regular.
Rafe grabbed one of the boards leaning against the Jeep and started for the water.
“You cold?”
I turned to find Nolan looking at me.
“I’m fine,” I said.
He leaned over, brushing against my shoulder as he dug through one of the bags. I tried to ignore the fact that his chest was still bare, the wet suit unzipped to the waist, but my breath caught in my throat, a humiliating private betrayal.
“You can wait in the car if you want,” he said, completely oblivious to the lust humming in my veins. “But I have a feeling that will be a negative.”
Another thing I was getting used to: the way the Bastards used military speak for everyday things.
He handed me a sweatshirt.
“I said I wasn’t cold,” I told him, even though I was.
“It’s going to be colder down by the water.” If he was put off by my brattiness, it didn’t show in the even tone of his voice. “You need to keep warm, keep your heart from working overtime.”
“Fine.”
I expected him to hand the sweatshirt to me. Instead he took a step closer and moved to pull it over my head.
I grabbed his wrist, not so much because I didn’t want him touching me, but because I did.