I wasn’t staring. I didn’t notice how the blood-red bathing suit stretched across her chest, reminding me of the top part of a heart. I didn’t notice how her body was reacting to the way I was staring at her, because neither of us was moving, and there was something tangible in that moment, like a physical caress. And I sure as hell didn’t count the inch and a half, maybe two inches of skin between her navel and the top of her bottoms.

Aw hell.

Now was a good time to drown myself.

Who was I kidding? I was totally checking her out.

For someone who was so short, her legs appeared incredibly long, but that might’ve had something to do with the skimpy cut of her bottoms—a cut that displayed the fullness of her hips and the surprising tininess of her waist. Muscles low in my stomach tightened as I dragged my gaze over her soft-looking stomach and then farther north. How that red top was staying on was beyond me, and I didn’t know if I should be grateful or disappointed by that.

Average? Had I seriously used the words average or plain to describe her? Hell, this girl…

The old saying surfaced in my heated thoughts. Be careful what you wish for. So true. I wouldn’t have wished for this if I had known how intensely my body would’ve reacted to it, and oh, it was reacting all right.

This plan I’d come up with had to be an all-time dumbass one.

My smile slipped from my face. “I’m never happy around you.”

“What did you say?” she demanded, eyes narrowing.

“Nothing. You better get in before that blush reaches your toes.” And before I really started considering all the stupid shit I could do right now.

And that blush deepened. She walked stiffly over to the edge of the lake where the water was shallow, giving me a view of her backside, and that really did nothing to help dampen the purely physical response.

Folding her arms along her waist, she dipped her toes into the water. “It’s beautiful out here.”

Yeah, it was beautiful out here. And it was hot. My gaze dipped to her bent knee and then slid back up, getting hung up on certain areas. My throat tightened. Other parts of me tightened.

Shit.

I dunked myself and when I came back up, it hadn’t helped, because now she was wet. She must’ve gone under while I had. We were only a few feet away, and I was in deeper water, hunched down to where the water lapped at my mouth.

“What?” she asked.

“Why don’t you come here?” My heart was pounding in my chest. If she were smart, she wouldn’t get anywhere close to me at this moment. Actually, if I were smart, I wouldn’t have called her over.

Kat was smarter than me.

She twisted around and dipped under the water, swimming toward the rocks. When she pulled herself out of the water, climbing onto the rock, I swallowed a groan. I wanted to—

“You look disappointed,” she said.

God, I was disappointed, and I really didn’t know what to make out of that. I pushed it aside.

“Well…what do we have here?”

Her legs dangled off the rock, her feet slipping into the water. “What are you talking about now?”

“Nothing.” I waded closer to the rock.

“You said something.”

“I did, didn’t I?”

“You’re strange.”

“You’re not what I expected,” I admitted, voice low.

She gave a little shake of her head. “What does that mean?”

I grabbed for her foot, but she moved her leg out of reach. No fun.

“I’m not good enough to be your sister’s friend?” she asked.

“You don’t have anything in common with her.”

“How would you know?” She shifted back as I reached for her other foot.

“I know.”

“We have a lot in common. And I like her. She’s nice and she’s fun.” She scooted back this time, completely out of arm’s reach. “And you should stop being such a dick and chasing off her friends.”

Her words slipped over me, and I laughed outright. “You’re not really like them.”

“Like who?”

Like any person I’d ever met. Truth was, human and Luxen females treated me the same. Only Ash and Dee mouthed off at me, but we’d grown up together. It was different for them, but others? They pretty much wanted one thing from me. Most of the time I was okay with that, but if I so much as glared in their direction, they scattered like bugs. Not really attractive when you thought about it. But not Kat. She may not have a clue what I was, but she was not scared of me, she wasn’t wowed, and as twisted as it was, that turned me on.

That did make her dangerous.

I pushed away from the rock, making ripples in the water, and then I slipped under. I swam to the other side of the rock and I stayed under, hoping the icy water would cool down the very inappropriate arousal thing I had going on.

Dammit, I didn’t even like the chick, I thought, trying to convince myself.

Yeah, she was amusing. Yeah, even entertaining. And yeah, I wanted to trace her curves with my hands and my mouth. Possibly even my tongue—okay, definitely with my tongue—but she irritated the hell out of me.

And she didn’t even like me. She liked looking at me, because who didn’t, but the distaste went both ways.

I had no idea how much time passed underwater until I was about 92 percent confident I wouldn’t do something, and I broke the surface.

“Daemon!”

The sheer panic blanketing the sound of my name caught me off guard. I burst onto the rock, crouching as I scanned the lake, expecting an Arum to be nearby. Those assholes wouldn’t blink an eye when it came down to taking out an innocent human.

All I saw was Kat, on her knees, in her damn bikini.

Whelp, there went all the work that cold water had done for me.

She was frozen for a second and then scrambled over the rock, clutching my shoulders. Blood had drained from her face and she was exceptionally pale. “Are you okay? What happened?” Then she let go of my shoulders, hauled back, and smacked my arm. Hard. “Don’t you ever do that again!”

“Whoa there.” I threw my hands up. “What is your problem?”

“You were under the water for so long. I thought you drowned! Why would you do that? Why would you scare me like that?” She jumped to her feet, chest heaving. “You were under the water forever.”

Oh shit. I’d been under there longer than I’d thought. My body didn’t function like hers, and I’d forgotten that. Luxen didn’t need to breathe air, but humans weren’t supposed to figure that out, dumbass. “I wasn’t down there that long. I was swimming.”

Her hands were shaking. “No, Daemon, you were down there a long time. It was at least ten minutes! I looked for you, called for you. I…I thought you were dead.”

I climbed to my feet slowly, cursing myself every which way from Sunday. “It couldn’t have been ten minutes. That’s not possible. No one can hold their breath that long.”

Her throat worked. “You apparently can.”

Damn. I stepped closer to her, my eyes searching hers. “You were really worried, weren’t you?”

“No shit! What part of ‘I thought you drowned’ don’t you understand?” A tremble rocked her.

Hell, she was really upset. Honestly, if I’d drowned, I figured she’d do a little dance on my grave. In her bikini. Shit. Screw the bikini. “Kat, I came up. You must not have seen me. I went right back down.”

Taking a step back, she shook her head, and I could see in her steely eyes she didn’t believe me. Holy hell, here I was worrying about Dee doing something to expose us, and it was me who did the bonehead thing. Let it go, Kat. Let it go. I took a deep breath, thinking maybe if I pissed her off, she would forget what happened in her anger. Better than the other option. “Does this happen often?” I asked.

Her gaze snapped back to mine. “Does what?”

“Imagining things.” I gestured at the lake. “Or do you have a horrible issue with telling time?”