I surveyed Riggs’s rapidly dampening clothing. “I would say strip, but it’s too late.”
“Can’t anyway,” he said as he pulled hard on the lead. “Tatts, remember?”
Hard to forget, but he had a point. Many of the students had them, but nothing like what Riggs had flying across his skin. They were way too typical of a Dragon shifter.
Grunt finally yielded to the lead, swung back to the shallower area, and began to paw. He sent great waves of water over us until we were thoroughly soaked.
My feather, fur, and scale clothing combo seemed to repel adequately, but Riggs’s dark clothes clung to his muscular frame. As I squeezed the shampoo onto Grunt’s shaggy coat, I found myself distracted…
“Hey. That’s me, not the beast,” Riggs complained as a stream of it shot across his hand. “I’m not the one covered in cookie dough.” He was trying to stop the splashing by holding Grunt’s head up.
It wasn’t working.
Then he tried a headlock, but the bearing beast joyfully butted him, and Riggs plunged into the water.
He surfaced, spluttering.
“Are you okay?” I asked.
“Yeah,” he said with a grin. “Just drenched.” He straightened—still, fortunately, holding the lead—and winced. Then reached down and yanked on the sweats, which were outlining and defining in truly fascinating ways.
“Blasted clothes,” he muttered.
The discomfort in his features had my lips twitching, and then I couldn’t help it—I began to laugh. He arched a brow at me, but then he laughed, too.
I’d never heard him laugh before. It was a wonderful, booming sound, totally contagious. And irresistible.
And then, as we grinned at each other like kids over the back of a rather soapy bearing beast, something pinched my butt.
I yelped and spun, but there was nothing there. Nothing, that is, except swirling water?—
Wait a minute.
“Nar!” Riggs bellowed.
The Sea Krayt materialized so close to me that I stumbled back into Grunt.
“I’m so glad you’ve come out to play,” Nar said.
“We’re not here to play with you,” Riggs growled, all traces of laughter gone.
A sleek, whiskered head popped out of the water only a few feet away. I turned my back on the sea creatures and gestured to Riggs. The sooner we got away from these two, the better.
“Let’s get Grunt rinsed off,” I said.
Unfortunately, Nar and Leah decided to help. Leah shifted to human and moved over to Riggs’s side, brushing her damp fur-clothes all over him. Nar spent a lot of his time proving his scales could be used to stimulate my ass.
Even Grunt seemed ticked off. He decided he’d had enough, and marched out of the water, dragging us with him.
“Stay,” Nar pleaded.
“Go,” I ordered, pointing back toward the water.
He did an admirable impression of Adilyn’s eye roll, but turned and vanished into the water, Leah following.
Grunt didn’t stop until he was on the sand, and then he shook, sending droplets everywhere. Riggs backpedaled, and then, now that we’d discouraged the sex-crazed barnacles, he grinned.
“Well, I’m totally wet,” he stated, unnecessarily, and reached down to tug again. “And infernally uncomfortable. How do guys swim in clothes?”
