Chapter 213: pool party III

Chapter 213: Chapter 213: pool party III

Damian had been watching the first game from the edge of the conservatory with Julian and Adrian.

Julian laughed as one of the contestants slipped into the pool.

"Look at them."

He grinned.

"Half of those guys are getting lucky today."

Damian glanced at him.

"Getting lucky?"

Julian looked at him.

"You know what I mean."

Damian did.

He was hardly oblivious. He’d been at enough university parties to know what happened when a group of young people spent an entire afternoon together, drinking, flirting, and getting increasingly comfortable with each other.

Especially when the games involved this much touching.

Julian gestured toward the pool.

"They’re carrying gorgeous girls around, getting soaked together, spending half the day practically wrapped around each other..."

He shrugged.

"And it’s only the afternoon."

Adrian chuckled.

"Give it a few more hours."

Julian grinned.

"Exactly."

Damian shook his head.

"You two are ridiculous."

"You know I’m right," Julian said.

"I know you’re enjoying saying it."

"That too."

Damian glanced back toward the pool.

He had no particular interest in joining.

Though, for one brief and inconvenient moment, he imagined what it would be like if the girl beside him were Vivienne.

The thought came with an immediate awareness of the fact that he was standing in swim trunks.

Damian quickly dismissed it.

Absolutely not.

He had already spent enough time imagining Vivienne in ways he probably shouldn’t.

He wasn’t going to start doing it while standing beside a pool surrounded by his peers.

Julian shook his head.

"Fine. I’ll go."

"You’re actually doing it?"

"Of course."

Julian headed toward the growing group of participants.

Damian watched him go.

He smiled faintly.

Then the whistle sounded again.

The crowd shifted.

The next group began gathering around the pool.

Damian looked toward the starting area.

And stopped.

His eyes landed on her.

Vivienne.

For a moment, he genuinely wondered if he was imagining it.

She stood near the pool with Claire, laughing at something one of the other students had said.

She was wearing a lavender two-piece swimsuit beneath a light cover-up, her golden-blonde hair pulled into a ponytail.

Damian stared.

He had seen Vivienne dressed beautifully a number times.

Formal dresses.

University clothes.

The outfits she wore to Foundation events.

And, unfortunately, his own imagination had supplied him with details he had never actually seen.

The curve of her waist.

The shape of her shoulders.

The way her hair might fall against bare skin.

His dreams had always been frustratingly incomplete.

Apparently, his imagination had been waiting for this.

Even with the cover-up, there was enough to catch his attention: the graceful line of her neck, her bare shoulders, the length of her legs beneath the hem.

He swallowed.

This was already bad.

Then Claire said something.

Vivienne laughed and reached for the edges of her cover-up.

She slipped it from her shoulders.

Damian went completely still.

The light fabric fell away.

And there she was.

The lavender swimsuit revealed far more than he had ever actually seen of her.

The fitted top emphasized the feminine fullness of her chest, while the bottom followed the graceful curve of her hips. Her waist looked even narrower by comparison, flowing into the long, elegant line of her legs.

Damian’s gaze lingered before he could stop it.

Then Vivienne turned slightly.

He caught the curve of her from behind—the rounded shape of her hips beneath the lavender fabric, the way the swimsuit followed her figure when she moved.

His breath caught.

He looked away.

Immediately.

But the image had already settled into his mind.

He had imagined her before.

He had wondered what she might look like beneath all those carefully chosen dresses and skirts. His dreams had supplied fragments: bare shoulders, the curve of her waist, the warmth of her skin beneath his hands.

He had never been able to picture the whole of her properly.

Now he could.

And somehow, reality was far more devastating than anything he had imagined.

Vivienne standing in the sunlight.

Vivienne in lavender.

Vivienne looking like this.

Damian swallowed.

His imagination had been nowhere near adequate.

He forced his gaze toward the pool.

One second.

Two.

Three.

His eyes went back to her.

He couldn’t help it.

He already knew he wanted her.

That wasn’t the revelation.

The revelation was seeing the woman he had been dreaming about standing in front of him in a way that made those private fantasies suddenly feel much less abstract.

And she had no idea.

She was simply smiling at Claire, adjusting her ponytail as though nothing about the moment was remarkable.

Damian’s jaw tightened.

God.

She had no idea what she was doing to him.

Then he noticed the others.

Their eyes had followed her too.

One man looked openly.

Another elbowed his friend.

A third turned his head as she walked toward the pool.

Damian’s expression darkened.

Of course they noticed.

Why wouldn’t they?

He looked around the conservatory again.

There were men everywhere.

And apparently, now that Vivienne had removed her cover-up, they had all become very interested in where she was.

A thought occurred to him.

Vivienne.

At a pool party.

Surrounded by other men.

He hadn’t known she was coming.

He hadn’t even known she had been invited.

And yet here she was.

Laughing.

Relaxed.

Happy.

Damian’s jaw tightened.

He had spent the last two days deliberately creating opportunities to be near her.

Walking with her.

Finding reasons to stay beside her.

Making his presence part of her everyday life.

He had decided on Friday that he was going to pursue her.

He had already identified Christopher as the obvious obstacle.

Christopher was the man Vivienne was interested in.

Christopher was the rival Damian had been quietly measuring himself against.

But now—

Damian looked across the pool again.

Another man was watching Vivienne.

Then another.

His expression hardened.

Christopher wasn’t the only problem.

Apparently, Christopher wasn’t even the whole problem.

There were other men here.

A great many other men.

And every one of them could see exactly what Damian could see.

The realization settled heavily in his chest.

He had been so focused on Christopher that he hadn’t considered the much larger problem.

Vivienne was beautiful.

Vivienne was charming.

Vivienne was single.

And now, apparently, half the men at this party knew it.

Damian exhaled slowly.

He had wanted to take his time.

He had wanted to court her properly.

He had wanted to make her gradually see him as a man who wanted her.

But watching another man look at her now made patience considerably more difficult.

He had no claim over her.

He knew that.

Christopher had no claim over her either.

Neither did any of these men.

Still, the realization irritated him more than it should have.

He looked toward Vivienne one last time.

She was still laughing with Claire, utterly oblivious to the small war Damian had just discovered existed around her.

His mouth tightened.

Christopher was one problem.

Apparently, the rest of the university had decided to become problems too.

Damian sighed quietly.

This was going to be considerably harder than he had anticipated.

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