Chapter 3

CHAPTER

THREE

CAL

My mouth went dry the second Jack walked out of his room wearing only a towel slung low on his hips and the damn shark-tooth necklace I’d never seen him take off. He was unknowingly testing every ounce of my resolve to avoid sleeping with him on this mission.

Every single ounce.

He’d walked past me, leaving me gaping at his tight ass wrapped in terry cloth, and it took me a second to remind my feet how to move before I followed.

There was nothing to say, so I strode behind him silently, trying to think of anything other than what I knew was under that damn towel as we descended farther into the ground.

I kept waiting for the telltale scent of chlorine that would indicate we were getting close to the pool, but it never came, and I was more than a little confused when Jack turned a corner and pushed open a heavy wooden door that deposited us into a huge underground cavern. A wide stone ledge ringed a massive spring.

Suddenly, Jack’s decision to forgo a bathing suit made a lot more sense. I didn’t love swimming in a chlorinated pool, but when I was desperate, like I was now, water was water. I hated the way chlorine made my skin feel in either of my forms, having trained in an Olympic-size swimming pool as both a human and an orca during my time in the military. I’d assumed Reuben would have a conventional swimming pool, so I’d opted for a bathing suit since I didn’t think there was any way I’d be able to swim in my shifted form.

This pool made me reconsider.

I knelt by the edge and dipped my hand in. The water was the perfect temperature, and I could tell it was salt water. Shocked, I looked up at Jack, who was wearing a cocky grin.

“You could have told me it wasn’t a typical swimming pool.”

He shrugged. “And miss getting to see you in that swimsuit? No chance, sweetheart.” Jack turned his back to me and walked over to a row of teak chaise lounges. He slipped the necklace off and set it carefully on a small marble-topped table. His chest looked strangely bare without it, but then his towel slid away, revealing his gorgeous ass, and I forgot all about the necklace. He dropped the towel on the chaise in front of him, then stepped to the edge of the pool and dove in, barely making a splash as he hit the water. He came up in his human form ten feet from where I was standing.

He brushed a lock of wet hair back from his face as he treaded water. “It’s deep. At least twenty feet.”

I nodded, watching the effortless way he moved.

“You mind if I shift? You’re welcome to do the same.”

“You sure?” I put as much sarcasm into the words as I could.

“I’m not scared of swimming with a giant sea Oreo, sweetheart.”

I slipped my flip-flops off near the chair next to the one Jack had dropped his towel on. Despite the fact that Jack was a great white shark shifter, I was the apex predator. In our human forms, we were pretty evenly matched in size, but even if Jack was a larger-than-average great white in his shifted form—which I’d never seen—I’d still be two times his length and three times his weight.

“You should be. I’m the one at the top of the food chain.” My shirt landed on the chaise as I stripped.

“So is that a no on a shifted swim, then?” he asked.

“I’m game if you are.” My board shorts hit the stone floor, and Jack made a strangled sound he tried to cover with a cough.

Jack slipped underwater, and the next I saw of him was a short gray dorsal fin, the edges such a dark gray they looked almost black. He cut through the water gracefully, and watching him took my breath away. My fingers found the spot on my neck where my saddle patch had changed after I met him, and I pushed away the weird longing that welled up in my chest. Dwelling on it would just make me break my vow to keep my dick in my pants where Jack was concerned.

That didn’t stop me from wanting to touch him in his shifted form, though. I’d never touched a shark in real life, and I was curious. His rows of sharp teeth were a little bit of a deterrent, but I wanted to feel him under my fingers anyway.

Jack’s fin disappeared under the water, and when he came up again, he was back in his human form, a wry smirk tipping his lips.

“Are you planning to get in, or are you just going to watch me swim?”

“I’m going to get in.” I bit back the question dancing on the tip of my tongue. It would be too weird to ask him if I could touch him.

“Then come on! I’ll race you to the other side.”

I scoffed. “Won’t be much of a race. I’ll be, like, twice your size, and I can swim much faster.”

“You wish, sweetheart.” He disappeared under the surface again, and I stepped back, getting a running start before pulling my animal side forward and shifting on the fly, landing in the water with a massive splash that rocked Jack off course. I internally chuckled as I propelled myself through the water until my nose touched the far end of the pool. I turned, looking for Jack, who I’d left in the dust.

Told you so, asshole.

He hit the wall a moment later and opened his mouth, revealing those rows of sharp teeth. I couldn’t really scoff in this form, so I blew a big breath out through my blowhole. Jack took off through the water again, and I chased after him. Every time I got close, he dodged out of the way. I hated to admit it, but he was able to change direction faster than I could, and he wove through the water until I was almost dizzy from chasing him in circles. Pausing for a second, I scanned the water for Jack. He snuck up behind me and whacked my side with his tail, then swam away.

If that’s how he wants to play…

I dove low and stalked below him, deep enough that he couldn’t see me.

Coming up slowly, my tail under his body, I pulled back and gave him a light smack. In my defense, it was hard to gauge my strength in my orca form, so I was mildly surprised when he went sailing across the pool. Whoops!

When he came up, he was back in his human form.

“What the fuck, Cal?” He shook his head like he was trying to shake something back into place.

I wanted to laugh, but the best I could do was a high-pitched whistle that echoed off the stone walls around us.

“You think it’s funny that you just fucking punted me across the damn pool? See if you think this is funny, you dick!” He dove under again, and so did I. I caught the last part of his shift as he took off my way, his teeth bared. I swam away, and he chased after me, trying to nip my tail.

For a second, I lost track of him, and then I felt a sharp sting on my right pectoral fin. I couldn’t see it in this form, the curse of having a big head and little fins, so I pulled my human side forward and shifted back.

“You absolute asshole! Look what you did!” There was blood in the water and a gash from where several of Jack’s teeth had grazed my arm. Blood mixed with the water on my skin and ran in rivulets to my elbow before dripping into the pool.

“Oh, fuck. I’m sorry, Cal.”

I swam one-handed to the edge of the pool and hauled myself out, the salt water stinging the wound. “And you say I’m the reckless one.”

“To be fair, you punted me first.”

“Whatever, Jack.” I had my board shorts back on and turned to leave the cavern.

“Where are you going?”

“Back to my room. I’m hungry and tired.” The words weren’t a lie, but I knew I was running.

I didn’t wait for Jack to reply, turning to leave before I did something stupid like bite him back.

In the spot on his neck that would show anyone who looked at him that he was mine.

And my brothers said I had no self-control.

By the time I got back to my room, the gash on my arm had stopped bleeding. The cut had been deep enough to bleed like a son of a bitch in the water but not deep enough to need more than a few minutes to start healing. Tomorrow morning, there would be nothing left except a patch of new pink skin, and by tomorrow night, there would be nothing left of the mark at all, not even the tiniest nick like the one he’d left on my side with a knife in Budapest.

And something about that made me sad.

Ugh.

If this was how Nero felt about Felix all the damn time, I wasn’t sure I wanted it. Pining over Jack was not part of my plan.

In fact, nothing having to do with Jack Grayson was part of my plan.

You just keep telling yourself that.

My subconscious needed to shut the fuck up. Yes, I wanted Jack to tie me to the bed and fuck me until I couldn’t breathe, but that couldn’t happen. Not now that I knew he was my fated mate. Not if opening that door meant I might have to spend the rest of my life with him.

Of course, thinking about that night in Colombia had me hard as a rock. I could worry about my connection to Jack later. Right now, I needed a shower and to rub one out. Then, I needed to track down something to eat. That would get my head on straight.

I tossed my clothes and Jack’s towel, which I’d stolen to be petty—walking through the halls of Reuben’s house naked was the least he could do after drawing blood—on the neatly made bed in the center of the room and slipped into the bathroom. The space was modern, just like what I’d seen of the rest of the house. A long vanity with two polished stainless-steel sink bowls resting on top of it stretched along one side of the room with a long mirror above them. The taps for the sinks came out from the wall right under the mirror and were also polished to a high shine. The toilet was just inside the door, separated from a glassed-in shower by a tile wall the same deep russet color of the stone surrounding the saltwater spring. Silver fixtures, including a rain showerhead, gleamed on the other side of the glass.

Reaching around the glass wall, I flipped on the taps, twisting each knob until I got the exact temperature I wanted. The shower area filled with steam, and I stepped under the spray. In my orca form, I loved to swim in cold water, but in my human form, nothing beat a hot shower. They had been in short supply when I was in the military, and while I’d typically stayed in marginally nicer places while working ops for Alex, a hot shower was still my favorite little luxury.

I let the water slide over my body, and my muscles started to relax. Visions of Jack in both his human and shark forms swimming through the spring flashed behind my closed eyelids, making my dick throb. The shower was taking care of one need, and my soap-slick fingers wrapped tightly around my shaft were on their way to taking care of the other.

Tomorrow, I’d figure out a way to get myself off without thinking about Jack, but today, I let the highlight reel from all the times we’d fucked around over the last eighteen months play on a loop, his whisper in my ear telling me I’d been so good for him as he left me in Colombia the image that sent me over the edge, his name falling from my lips as my cum washed down the drain.