Chapter 51

Gryph

After leaving Oliver with Ralph, Julia had needed a distraction. With our mate bond complete, I sensed her sadness at being separated from Oliver for an indefinite period. I’d have liked to take her out somewhere to distract her, but I didn’t feel safe doing that while Desmond LaCroix was still out there. It made it harder to keep her safe in public with a shapeshifter after her. He could be posing as anyone. That meant I had to be more creative.

“Are you sure Ray won’t mind us using his pool?” Julia asked. “I know he offered, but maybe he was just trying to be neighborly while hoping we wouldn’t take him up on his offer.”

“Ray wouldn’t offer if he didn’t want us to use it,” I assured her.

“I’m still not too sure about swimming in my underwear,” she argued. “What if someone sees us?”

I laughed at her modesty. “The only people this far back in the community are vampires and their children. The human donors live near the front,” I assured her.

“What if the kids see me in my underwear?” she asked.

“You’re more covered than most women are in swimsuits,” I insisted as I stripped down to my boxers and dove into the pool. Julia had opted to wear a sports bra and some panties that looked like little shorts. She was far from naked. I’d kept my boxers on in case one of the kids happened to see us. Like most werewolves, I wasn’t modest.

Julia slipped her sundress over her head before using the steps at the shallow end to climb in.

“Not even gonna dive in with me?” I asked as I treaded water at the other end of the pool and watched her.

“I don’t swim very well,” she admitted as she cautiously stepped into the pool and walked out until the water was up to her breasts.

I dove under and swam toward her, emerging directly in front of her. My arm wrapped around her waist to pull her against me.

“What are you doing?” she screeched.

“I was about to kiss my mate,” I announced with a grin.

She laughed and pushed lightly at my chest, making no real effort to get me to release her. “We are not going to fool around in Ray and Lauren’s pool.”

“Whatever do you mean by fooling around, Sass?” I asked with a playful grin as I turned to walk further into the pool while still holding Julia against my chest.

“I mean no sex,” she clarified with a laugh. “What are you doing?” she asked when only our heads were above water. Her legs wrapped around my waist, and I suddenly worried I was frightening her.

“Fooling around,” I responded. “I won’t let you drown, Sass. You can trust me.”

“I can swim,” she insisted. “Not well, but I’m sure I won’t drown.”

“Then why are you climbing me like a tree?” I asked with a raised eyebrow.

“Are you complaining?” she asked.

“No, ma’am,” I replied with a grin. “You can climb all over my body any time you like. It does seem like a bad idea if you really don’t intend to fool around in Ray’s pool.”

I was teasing her. Of course, I didn’t have any intention of having sex where kids might see us. Even werewolves weren’t that bold.

“You aren’t going to let me go under, are you?” she asked.

“No,” I assured her. “I just like having you this close. Don’t they teach swimming in witch school?”

“They do, actually,” she replied, wiggling further up my body. If she kept going, we’d end up in a very obscene position.

“How’d you end up a poor swimmer if your witch school teaches swimming?” I asked.

“Promise not to laugh?” she asked.

“Nope,” I replied. “I can’t make that kind of promise.”

“Fine,” she relented. “I’ll tell you, anyway. They teach swimming at a very young age.”

“That’s smart,” I agreed. Werewolves learned to swim shortly after they learned to walk.

“Well, I was afraid of mermaids,” she admitted.

My lips twitched. “You’re fucking with me, right?”

“No,” she admitted with a sigh as I walked us back to the shallow end of the pool. “In my defense, mermaids can be scary.”

Mermaids were definitely not as sweet as most humans believed. They had a reputation for drowning people who came near their territory. They’d even been known to sink ships. “Did you have many swim lessons in the Bermuda Triangle?” I asked since that’s where all the mermaid colonies were located.

“It was a pool,” she admitted, releasing her death grip on me when we reached the shallow end.

I let her slide down until her feet touched the bottom. “We should be safe from mermaids here if you’d like to practice your swimming.”

“I’m a mermaid!” Ray and Lauren’s youngest daughter shouted as she launched herself into the pool. Her two older sisters were right behind her.

I’d heard them sneaking out of the house, which was part of the reason I’d decided to move to a place where Julia wouldn’t continue climbing my body. “Your shriek must have woken them up.”

Julia giggled as the little girls splashed around us. “Ray and Lauren are going to be mad at us for waking the kids up.”

“They aren’t the only ones,” I told her as several other children burst into the yard.

While I hadn’t planned to spend the afternoon overseeing a children’s pool party with Julia, it certainly lightened her mood.