It wasn’t lost on me that this was what you did with children at parties, not lovers.
“Did you say she’s twenty-four?” Turner asked, watching her laugh at something some guy that had sidled up to her in the water was telling her.
I was watching, too, fists clenched, so it took me a minute to hear his question. “Yeah. Twenty-four.”
“I hate to say this to you, man, especially considering how well I know you and your straight-laced tendencies, but that chick is not twenty-four.”
That threw me. “I made her show me her ID; first time I took her home.”
He had a good long laugh at that one. “Of course you did.”
“I studied it. It didn’t look fake.”
He laughed some more, really enjoying himself. “Of course you f**king did. Well, I hate to say this too, but she showed you a f**king fake ID, because that chick is not twenty-four. It must have been a good one, to fool you.”
“I studied it. It looked legit. Wait, so how old do you think she is?”
“Barely f**king legal, that’s how old. Definitely not twenty-four. Trust me. I’m a pro at this. You don’t get far in this life as loaded as I am, if you don’t learn well how to avoid all of the jailbait thrown your way. You were married to that nutjob for half of your sorry life, so you haven’t had to worry about these things.”
I felt slightly ill.
Was he just talking shit, or could he be right?
“I’ll check it again.”
I saw him shrug out of the corner of my eye. “I wouldn’t be too worried about it,” he mused.
“Why’s that?” I asked.
Iris, who we’d both been watching, turned and pulled herself out of the water, soaking wet and facing us.
“Holy shit, she is smoking,” he said reverently. “You weren’t exaggerating. Not one f**king bit.”
I saw Turner’s head turning my way and craned my neck to meet his laughing eyes.
He bit his knuckles, and I almost smiled, and also almost punched him in the teeth.
“My educated guess would be she’s somewhere between eighteen and twenty,” he finally answered. “You can f**k her, just don’t buy her any alcohol.”
He laughed hard about that.
I wasn’t finding the subject funny myself.
Not even a little. Just another thing to worry about where she was concerned.
I moved on to yet another touchy subject, wanting to get his take, though I knew I wasn’t going to like his brand of truth on this, either. “That guy in the Jaguar dropped her off at my house. She didn’t want me to see, but I saw him. He saw me, too. He doesn’t like me much better than I do him.”
I turned to meet his pointed look.
“It’s that generation, I’m telling you.”
“Your generation,” I remarked.
“Well, I’m at least seven years older than your Iris, but yeah, basically. Women get around more. Especially the hot ones. You have to consider how many options a girl like that has. Everything with a penis has pretty much been swinging it in her direction since she was fifteen, I’d bet. Have you ever asked her how many partners she’s had?”
I grimaced. “No. I don’t want to know. Thinking about it makes me feel violent.”
“Well, that’s hardly productive, especially since you’ve been hitting that bareback. You really need to ask these things.”
“Trust me, I know how stupid I’ve been, but I don’t have the stomach for it.”
“You are a bundle of contra-fucking-dictions my man, but I won’t knock you for it. She is . . . whew, she is enough to make you forget you ever had a brain, let alone how to use it.”
He wasn’t wrong.
“I can’t stand the thought of her with that guy, or f**k, any guy. It keeps me up at night, but she won’t so much as talk about him.”
“Being possessive gets you exactly jack shit. I can’t figure out why you do it.”
I studied him like he was a science experiment. “Are you saying you’ve never felt possessive of a woman?”
“Never. Fuck no. What a useless sentiment. Not even a little bit.”
I shook my head. “You’ve never had real feelings for a woman before, then.”
“I beg to differ. Isn’t ‘me man, me have boner,’ a feeling?”
That surprised a deep laugh out of me, partly at his expense. “Shit, man, you are in for it. You think you’re invincible, but some woman is going to come along and shake up your whole world one of these days. You better just hope she’s not as heartless as you are.”
“I’d rather spend my time hoping she has a rack like Iris, f**k, or just her clone would be nice.”
I socked him hard in the arm.
He bit his lip to keep from laughing.
Iris was talking to a group of young attractive girls in bikinis. They seemed to get on well right off the bat, even started dancing with each other in short order.
Iris started shaking her ass and h*ps in a familiar way.
I pointed it out to Turner, who I was sure had been watching the whole f**king time, the bastard.
“That thing she’s doing, is that twerking?” I asked him, feeling ancient and a little slow, but wanting to know.
“Holy hell, yes it is.” He whistled long and low. “No wonder she’s an ace in bed. Smooth. My God. I bet she works your c**k so good it scrambles your brain.”
I punched him harder in the arm. His tone and words had earned him that and more.
He grimaced, rubbing the spot where I’d hit him twice. They hadn’t been light blows. “My bad.”
We were both momentarily distracted when one of the girls Iris was dancing with reached to finger the strings draping her hips.
I heard Turner suck in a sharp breath.
I socked him in the arm again, because I was pretty sure I could read his mind.
After a vigorous (and distracting) round of dancing, Iris approached the cabana.
“Will you show me to the powder room?” she asked me, breathless from her exertions.
“I can show you,” Turner told her.
I glared at him and stood.
“We’ll be back,” I said, trying my damnedest to sound neutral.
I was pretty sure I knew what she had in mind, and I was hoping it wasn’t just wishful thinking on my part.
Iris looked too delectable not to touch. I wrapped my arm tight around her waist as I led her back to the house.
I squeezed her hip and put my lips to her ear. “Do you really need a powder room?” I asked.