Chapter 2 — Under The Table #2
She played the role perfectly. Laughing at Owen.
Letting Ryan angle himself close enough to think he had a chance.
Accepting a water bottle. Tossing her hair back when the breeze lifted it.
Her body stayed turned enough toward them that anyone watching would see a gorgeous girl enjoying attention from men her own age.
But every few minutes, she checked on me.
Not obviously. Kiki was too good for that. She would laugh, touch Owen's forearm, then let her eyes flick sideways. Or she would lean toward Ryan's joke, smile sweetly, and glance at me over his shoulder. Each look landed below my belt like she had touched me.
When she finally broke away and came toward the cooler near me, I told myself to move.
I didn't move.
Kiki bent to pull a drink from the ice. Her cover-up rode high enough to show the bottom curve of her ass in the white bikini, tight and round and golden, and I looked because I wasn't dead.
She straightened, cracked open the bottle, and took a slow drink.
Water slicked her lower lip. Her blue eyes found mine over the rim.
"You came back," she said.
"You told me it was just pool and dinner."
"It's." Her voice stayed bright enough for public use. Anyone passing would have heard nothing but a sweet girl talking to an old family friend. Then she stepped closer, close enough that I could smell vanilla sunscreen and warm skin. "You looked tense yesterday."
"I wasn't tense."
Her smile widened. "You really were."
"Kiki."
"Were you embarrassed, Luke?"
My hand tightened around my beer. "Your friend Owen's been trying to get your attention for ten minutes."
"Has he?"
"He's your age. Seems like a good guy."
"Maybe I don't want Owen's attention."
She said it softly, still wearing that sticky-sweet public smile. Then her gaze dipped again, not to my face. Lower.
"Besides," she murmured, "I already know who gets hard for me."
My pulse punched once, hard.
Kiki took another sip of water, innocent as sunlight, and brushed past me on her way back to the pool. Her shoulder touched my chest. Barely. Enough.
"Don't worry," she whispered as she passed. "I'm not telling."
Then she was gone, bouncing back into the younger crowd, golden hair swinging, cover-up fluttering around her thighs, Owen and Ryan turning toward her like plants toward the sun.
I stood by the cooler with my beer sweating in my hand and the terrible understanding that the presence of men her own age hadn't made me safe.
It had made me worse.
By six, the ribs were ready and the crowd shifted toward the patio tables.
Caroline had put two long tables under the pergola, all paper plates and real silverware and enough bowls to feed a small town.
The lights strung overhead had not come on yet, but they hung above us waiting for dusk.
People found seats in the loose, chaotic way Waverly families always did, half assigned by habit and half by whoever claimed a chair first.
The five of them scattered with the same casual precision they had used all afternoon.
Tatum ended up at the far table, still damp from the pool, with two guys trying too hard on either side of her.
Reese slid in near Paige, bright and smiling, while the soda-carrying guy found a reason to sit close.
Shay dropped into a chair backward and let the guy beside her believe he was interesting.
Penny took a seat where the evening light loved her and every man with a pulse noticed.
Eden stayed near the outdoor bar for a minute, watching the whole arrangement come together before she chose her own chair.
None of them crowded Kiki.
None of them crowded me.
That was worse than if they had.
I took a spot between Cooper and one of Mark's friends because it looked safe.
Kiki sat across from me and one seat down.
Of course she did.
Owen took the chair to her left. Ryan ended up near her right, angling himself toward her like proximity might win him something.
Kiki accepted both with perfect warmth. She passed Ryan a napkin.
She laughed when Owen made some self-deprecating joke about losing every pool game.
She complimented Caroline's potato salad, teased Cooper about eating half the ribs before anyone else got a plate, and looked for all the world like the sweetest sunshine girl at the table.
The Bishop golden girl.
Then her bare foot found my ankle.
I froze with a rib halfway to my mouth.
At first it was just a brush. Warm skin against my leg. Her toes traced a lazy line along the outside of my ankle, then up my calf. The table was crowded. People shifted. Feet bumped under tables all the time.
This wasn't that.
Kiki's face gave away nothing. She was looking at Paige, laughing at something about a pool float, blue eyes bright, mouth sweet, lips glossy and perfect enough to make my pulse kick.
Her foot slid higher, inside my calf now, slow and deliberate.
My hand closed around the edge of my chair beneath the table, and my cock stirred.
"Luke?" Cooper said beside me. "Dad asked if you opened the pool yet."
"Yeah." My voice sounded almost normal. "Last week."
"Perfect," Mark said. "We may need to rotate over there if this crowd gets any bigger."
"Sure," I said.
Kiki's foot reached my inner thigh.
The pressure was light. Testing. Her toes brushed the hem of my shorts and paused there as if she were deciding whether to behave. Above the table, she smiled at her mother and asked for the corn.
Below the table, she didn't behave.
Her foot slid higher and pressed against my cock through my shorts.
The reaction was instant and humiliating.
One second I was trying to survive dinner.
The next, I was hardening under her bare foot in front of her parents, her brother, her sister, two guys her own age, and half the Bishop family circle.
Blood rushed hot and stupid through me, and my cock swelled against the fabric like my body had been waiting all afternoon for permission to betray me.
Kiki passed the corn to Caroline.
"This is so good, Mom," she said.
Her foot rubbed me.
Slow circles first. Then a firmer drag along the length of me, her arch pressing down while her toes curled around my tip just enough to make my breath catch.
I looked at my plate. I looked at my beer.
I looked anywhere except across the table, because if I looked at her I was going to make some sound that no man should make at a family dinner.
"You okay?" Cooper asked, amused. "You look like you just saw a ghost."
"Hot sauce," I said, because lying was apparently all I had left.
He laughed and went back to his ribs.
Kiki's foot moved again, stroking from base to tip through my shorts with wicked patience.
My cock went fully hard, rock hard, painfully obvious under the table.
The kind of hard that made standing impossible.
I was trapped by the chair, the table, the family conversation, and a twenty-one-year-old knockout who looked like she had never done anything wrong in her life.
Owen leaned closer to Kiki. "So what are your summer plans, Kiki?"
"We'll see," she said brightly. "Depends what summer brings."
Her eyes flicked to me.
Her foot pressed harder.
I gripped the chair until my knuckles ached.
Caroline turned to me. "Luke, are you still working on that ironclad model for the museum?"
Of all the possible questions in the English language, she had chosen the one that required me to assemble thoughts while her daughter rubbed the head of my cock with the ball of her foot.
"Yeah," I said. "Almost done. USS Cairo. Just finishing the smaller deck details."
"You have to show us when it's finished," Paige said. "The last one was beautiful."
"Anytime," I said.
Kiki's toes curled around me through the fabric.
My voice nearly broke on the last syllable.
She smiled at Paige like she was listening to the conversation, then took a sip of iced tea.
Her face was pure innocence. Her foot wasn't. She dragged it down my shaft again, slow enough to make my thighs tense, then eased back to circle the tip with a pressure that had sweat prickling under my shirt.
Ryan said something to Kiki about a party later in the week. She answered him politely, with that golden-girl sweetness that made men feel chosen even when they weren't. Owen laughed and tried to one-up him. Both of them thought they were competing with each other.
Neither of them knew Kiki Bishop was rubbing me under the table while she smiled at them.
The jealousy hit again, sharper this time.
Not because she wanted them. She clearly didn't, not in the way that mattered.
It hit because they could sit there beside her without carrying the old line in their chest. They could flirt with her openly.
They could ask for her number or invite her to a party or look at her mouth without feeling like they were betraying people who had trusted them for eleven summers.
And Kiki, damn her, knew exactly what that did to me.
Her foot pressed full-length against my cock. She looked at Ryan, laughed at something harmless, then glanced at me just long enough to prove she knew I was about to lose my mind.
"Big appetite at this table," she said, still smiling.
Caroline laughed because she heard a joke about food.
I didn't.
Dessert came out eventually. Brownies, peach slices, ice cream starting to soften in the heat. Chairs scraped. People shifted. I stayed seated because I couldn't stand without announcing to the entire Bishop patio exactly what Kiki had done to me.
She let me go only when the table began to break apart.
Her foot slid down my leg, lingering at my ankle for one final soft brush, then disappeared beneath her chair. She stood, accepted Owen's offer to take her plate, thanked him sweetly, and smoothed the skirt of her cover-up as if she had been nothing but polite all evening.
Then she looked at me.