Chapter 7 — The Morning After Math #3
Reese appeared as if summoned by the mention of satisfaction, her glossy chestnut hair catching the morning light, honey-brown eyes warm behind her sunglasses.
She didn’t touch me. She didn’t need to.
She stood close enough that I could smell the sunscreen on her skin, the faint sweetness of whatever shampoo she used, and her smile was so tender it made my chest ache.
“I’ve known you longer than any of them,” she said, her voice quiet, carrying just to me.
“Not in a competitive way. In a ‘I have memories of you that go back to thunderstorms and dock photos and being small enough that your hands seemed huge’ way.” Her fingers brushed my forearm, tracing that familiar line from wrist to elbow, and the touch carried a weight made of time, memory, and the quiet way Reese had been waiting.
“I’m not rushing. I’m just... reminding you.
I’m here. I’ve been here. I’ll be here when it’s my turn. ”
She squeezed my arm and moved on toward the house, and the warmth she left behind felt like something I could build on.
Penny found me by the stacked chairs near my truck, which wasn't an accident. Nothing about Penny Rourke was an accident. She leaned against the truck bed, platinum blonde hair sleek even in the morning humidity, green eyes sharp behind her sunglasses, and the way she crossed her ankles and settled her weight said she’d been waiting for this moment.
“I can see it,” she said. “The change. In both of you.” Her smile was warm, polished, and contained a danger that made my cock twitch against my zipper.
“It’s in the way she looks at you. The way you look at her when you think no one’s watching.
And the fact that Kiki is glowing about it instead of sharpening knives?
” She shook her head, amused. “That’s the part that’s going to ruin you, Luke.
Not the sex. The fact that they love each other too, and they love sharing you, and there's absolutely nowhere for Responsible Luke to hide behind that.”
She pushed off the truck, straightened her tank top with fingers that knew exactly how the motion lifted her breasts, and walked away with the practiced Rourke glide that made every head turn and only one set of eyes matter.
Eden was everywhere and nowhere, moving between clusters with that party-bright ease, adjusting a speaker volume here, redirecting a sibling there, and every time she passed me, her hazel eyes found mine with a look that was equal parts warmth and wicked timing.
“The queue is real,” she said, materializing beside me as I was dumping the last of the melted ice.
“Just so you know. We’ve discussed it. Extensively.
In a group chat that would make your hair stand on end.
” Her smile was sunshine and mischief. “Kiki and Shay are one and two, obviously. The rest of us are... flexible. Very flexible. Very, very eager to be flexible. With you. In your bed. Possibly in combinations that would make your hair go gray, though Reese thinks we should build up and Tatum thinks caution is a disease. I’m neutral, mostly because watching you try to referee that conversation is the most fun I’ve had all summer. ”
She squeezed my shoulder and was gone before I could form a response, and I stood there with an empty cooler in my hands and the certain knowledge that I was overhearing something that wasn’t meant for eavesdropping.
They weren’t deciding whether this continued.
They were deciding how. With what order, what timing, what combination of wants converging on a single point that happened to be me, and the fact that none of them, not one, sounded hurt or threatened or anything less than thrilled about the whole arrangement should have simplified things.
It didn’t. It made the want larger. Warmer.
More impossible to contain, because now it wasn’t just desire or guilt or the wet heat of crossing a line.
It was six women moving through my life with a coordination that felt like coming home, and the only person still pretending this could be contained or managed or filed away under ‘complicated summer’ was me.
***
I threw myself at the folding chairs like they’d personally wronged me.
Stack, carry, line against the shed wall.
Stack, carry, line. Each chair was ten seconds where I wasn’t thinking about Shay’s pussy gripping my cock on a squeaking air mattress or Kiki’s smile when she’d said she was happy or the fact that four other women were moving through this yard with intentions so clear they might as well have been wearing signs.
The signs would have been redundant. Their bodies were doing the talking.
Tatum found me by the shed for the third time in twenty minutes, which wasn't a coincidence.
Nothing about Tatum Bell was a coincidence.
She materialized beside me with an armload of pool noodles that she had absolutely no business carrying, her copper-red hair flying, freckles dark against her fair skin, and when she “accidentally” dropped two of them at my feet, the way she bent to retrieve them, ass in the air, denim shorts riding up her thighs, was so deliberate I nearly dropped the chair I was holding.
“Oops,” she said, not sounding sorry at all.
She straightened, noodles in hand, and bumped her shoulder against mine hard enough to make me step sideways.
“Your turn. I’ve been working way harder than you.
My arms are falling off. Feel.” She pressed her bicep against my hand, warm skin against my palm, and the contact lingered three beats too long.
“See? Exhausted. Possibly dying. You should carry these for me. It’s the gentlemanly thing to do. ”
I took the noodles because refusing Tatum was like refusing sunshine, technically possible but morally questionable, and she grinned, that bright, trouble-making grin that made her blue eyes crinkle at the corners.
“Also, I call next. Just so you know. Unofficially. Very unofficially. But also very seriously.” She bounced away toward the water, calling over her shoulder, “And I fall a lot, Luke. A lot a lot. You might need to catch me. Frequently. With your hands. On various parts of my body. Just a heads-up!”
I carried the noodles to the boathouse with hands that weren’t entirely steady and a cock that was starting to make its opinions known with an insistence that was becoming its own kind of problem.
Reese found me on the path back from the boathouse, and she didn’t need to manufacture a crisis. She just stood there, glossy chestnut hair lifting in the breeze, honey-brown eyes warm behind her sunglasses, and the way she smiled at me carried the weight of a dozen summers.
“Remember that thunderstorm?” she said. “The big one, three years ago? When the power went out and we all sat on your porch and you told those stories about the ironclads?” Her fingers found my forearm, tracing that familiar line from wrist to elbow with a touch so gentle it almost hurt.
“I sat next to you the whole time. My leg against yours. You probably don’t remember.
You were talking about the Merrimack, and I was counting your heartbeats through your shirt, and I thought, this is it.
This is the man I’ll spend my life with. This is who I want.”
She didn’t wait for an answer. She didn’t need one. She squeezed my arm and moved on toward the house, and the warmth she left behind felt like something I could build a life on.
I was hauling the last of the trash bags to the road when Penny materialized beside the big can like she’d been planted there by someone with a very clear agenda.
Platinum blonde hair sleek even in the humidity, green eyes sharp behind sunglasses that probably cost more than my boat shoes, and the way she leaned against the canister, ankles crossed, one hip cocked, tank top riding up just enough to show a strip of sun-warmed stomach, said she’d been waiting for this moment and had dressed for it.
“Visibility is underrated,” she said, her voice warm and carrying just enough that anyone within ten feet could hear the words without catching the heat behind them.
“Everyone thinks the thrill is in the hiding. The secrecy. The behind-closed-doors thing.” She smiled, that polished Rourke smile that contained absolutely zero innocence.
“I disagree. I think the thrill is in being seen. In standing right here, in broad daylight, with everyone watching, and knowing that the man they all trust is thinking about exactly what I want him to do to me.” Her eyes dropped to my mouth, held, then found my eyes again.
“And he’s thinking about it in very dirty detail.
I can tell. Your pupils are doing that thing.
The thing they did at the Rourke event when I wore that blue dress and you didn’t look away fast enough. ”
She pushed off the canister and walked away with that glide, ass swaying in cutoffs that had no business looking that good on anyone, and the space she left behind hummed with a danger that made my cock throb against my zipper hard enough to hurt.
I dumped the bag and turned back toward the yard, and Eden was there, because of course Eden was there, timing her appearances with the precision of someone who’d been turning the next move into a party game.
Dark brunette hair pulled back, hazel eyes bright with amusement, and the smile she gave me was equal parts warmth and wicked timing.