Chapter Twenty-One #2
“Eh.” Kieran leaned back, arms crossing over his broad chest. His biceps bulged under the short sleeve of his shirt. Sammie decided to keep her eyes on her work. “Not great. We’re all still shaken up, have been since the game.”
“Think you’ll be ready for this weekend?”
There was a long pause, stretching on until Sammie finally looked up. Kieran’s eyes were on her, his gaze heavy, searing, tugging at the string that tied them together. The one Sammie wasn’t ready to unravel.
“I think we will be,” he finally answered. “I want us to be. It feels like I keep letting them down this season. I can’t let it happen again.”
Maybe he didn’t know it, maybe the realization hadn’t yet occurred to him, but it slammed into Sammie like a brick wall.
Kieran was coming to her for comfort. He was suffering, more than he let on if Sammie’s suspicions were correct, and he’d come to her.
The spark within her flared once again. Sammie set down the keg, giving him her full attention.
“I know Atticus doesn’t think you’ve let them down.
” She moved closer. Kieran’s eyes stayed on her, searching her face for answers Sammie didn’t think she had.
“None of the guys do.” Something occurred to her for the first time, and she closed the distance between them until she was looking down at him where he still sat on a tiny barstool.
“Do they know what all you’ve been dealing with? ”
Kieran broke their eye contact, looking away as he sucked in a deep breath. Guilt flickered across his expression. “Your brother knows about the stuff with my dad. Only Coach knows about the stuff with the farm.” He glanced back up at her, words left unsaid in his eyes. And you.
Sammie ignored the way that made the light in her pulse brighter, the knowledge that he’d confided something he hadn’t yet told his friends.
“You should talk to them.” She reached out, squeezing his shoulder.
He was always grabbing her hands, keeping her from picking at her nails and hurting herself.
Sammie knew, even if he didn’t say it. He cared.
Kieran cared so much, just not in a way that matched Sammie’s own feelings. “Let your team support you.”
“I know.” Right on cue, Kieran reached out himself, grabbing her hand before she could pull it away. Sammie let him hold on to her. Let herself believe in the fantasy. His expression turned serious as he searched her face. “Thank you. For being a friend, too.”
Sammie paid no mind to the spear the words shot through her. A hole through her chest, bleeding out, and she did nothing to stanch the flow.
A distraction. Both of them could use a distraction after the events of the last several days. Sammie knew it was a flimsy lie, pointless.
She never had been much for lying.
Distractions though? Hiding from the truth? That she was good at.
“It’s a shame,” she said, chuckling softly, hoping it hid every sincere emotion that was coursing through her. She waved a hand at their surroundings. “This place would make for an interesting backdrop in a video.”
It did the trick. Kieran smiled, small and surprised, a laugh huffing out of him.
“Terrible idea.” He looked better already. Sammie liked that she could make him laugh, get him out of his head, even if it didn’t last.
“I know that.” She smirked as she rolled her eyes. “But I can come over tonight. If you want to record something.”
Such a fucking glutton for punishment.
Kieran’s gaze turned dark, a low heat simmering in his eyes even as he shook his head. “I’m supposed to FaceTime my parents when I get home. You know how mom likes to talk, could take a while.”
That was fine. Sammie didn’t really want to record a video tonight. She didn’t want the camera on them, because that would make it harder to pretend any of this was real.
“Well.” Heart in her throat, Sammie moved forward, hesitating for only a moment before settling herself in Kieran’s lap as she prayed for Eli to stay put in the taproom. “What if we just practice?”
With that cheesy fucking line, Sammie half expected Kieran to toss her out of his lap and head toward the door.
Instead, he just kept looking at her, his expression unreadable.
There was still heat there, warm and steady, evident in the way his hands found their way to her hips, squeezing lightly.
But there was something else hidden in those pretty eyes, something that Sammie couldn’t quite read.
“Won’t there be people here soon?”
Leave it to Kieran to be thinking responsibly even as his dick twitched once under her ass. She could feel his immediate reaction to her through the thin fabric of the linen shorts she wore.
“No cameras, nobody comes back here.” Except for the occasional bartender.
And Robert. She pointed toward one of the 930 gallon tanks, its shiny metal towering above them.
“That blocks the window to the taproom.” Because Robert had insisted on a window there, because wouldn’t it be so neat if customers could see Sammie dripping sweat and swearing like a sailor as she worked?
Kieran seemed to be weighing his options, silent, pinning her with his gaze. He was half hard underneath her. Sammie gave her hips a little wiggle, pulling a small groan from him.
“I don’t have a condom.” He closed his eyes as Sammie shifted once again.
She looked around, biting her lip. She didn’t have a condom on her either.
And they didn’t have to do anything penetrative, but she didn’t want to make a mess and, well, after the week she’d had, she kind of just wanted to be fucked.
Her eyes snagged on a box on the counter behind Kieran.
It had arrived that morning. She’d had time to open it up, sanitize it, but was out of zip ties, so the new vibrator was still there, waiting to be tied onto the whale tale.
Sammie leaned forward, pressing her body to Kieran’s chest. He let out an almost pained grunt as she reached past him, snatching up the vibrator.
“Who needs a condom when we have this?” She wiggled the toy between them. It wasn’t the most… discreet thing. Not like the simple, small vibrator that had failed her before. No, Sammie hadn’t taken any chances this time.
Kieran looked a little horrified. “It’s… big.”
“Correct.” Sammie grinned, a feral need igniting in her core as Kieran’s eyes stayed glued to the toy. It was vaguely dick-shaped, no veins or flesh tones. Long, thick, a soft shade of periwinkle. And the best part? Sammie clicked a button on the remote that made it hands free.
It vibrated like a beast.
“Well.” Kieran tilted his head to the side. “I think this one will move the cans for you.”
Sammie thought for a moment. “I think it’s going to have to come home with me after we sully it with our foul deeds.”
Kieran snorted as he shifted, just enough that his cock pressed harder against her. “Is that what we’re going to do?”
A small voice in the back of Sammie’s mind answered immediately.
No.
Say no and stop before it’s too late.
“Might be fun.”
She waited for Kieran’s response, holding herself still, steady. Even the rise and fall of her chest with every breath felt too much, like if the stillness between them broke she might lose it all in a single moment.
Kieran gently took the toy from her, his long, thick fingers wrapping around it.
“Practice,” he said, the word hardly more than a whisper.
Sammie nodded, a small, tentative movement.
Kieran sucked in a sharp, shaky breath, pressing the end of the vibrator to her sternum.
He slowly, so slowly, dragged it down the front of her shirt, past her belly button, past her waistband, stopping only once it was pressed to the seam of her shorts.
Sammie’s heart hammered. She could already feel wetness in her underwear, made all the more apparent as Kieran ran the toy up and down slowly with just enough pressure on her pussy to send waves of pleasure up her spine.
“Turn it on.”
His voice broke through the haze Sammie was already drifting in. A quiet command, dark and needy. She still held the toy’s remote in her hand, so she did as he’d asked, turning it on. The vibrations immediately rocked through her as she wrapped her arms around Kieran’s neck.
“You’re sure nobody will see us?”
Sammie hesitated. “Not one hundred percent but… pretty sure.” She desperately hoped pretty sure was enough. Kieran used his free hand to tug at her shorts, his movements measured and slow. The cotton fabric shifted aside easily.
“Pretty sure.” He repeated her words, letting them sink in as his eyes fell to her open legs, to the fabric of her underwear that he was now shoving out of the way. His chest rose and fell with each heavy breath he took. “Okay.”
Then he was pushing the toy into her, and it was immediately so overstimulating that Sammie hastily pressed the off button, her head falling forward to rest on Kieran’s shoulder as he pressed deeper inside of her.
“I said turn it on,” he whispered. A challenge.
Sammie pressed against his chest, leaning back enough that she could look him in the eyes. She held his stare as she clicked the button once again, as vibrations sent wave after wave of pleasure pulsing through her.
Kieran began to move the toy, pulling it out to the very tip, slowly pushing it back in, again and again. His gaze fell, and the breath was knocked from his lungs as he watched himself fuck her with the toy.
That voice in the back of her mind, the one she was trying so hard not to hear, didn’t like that, even as a larger part of Sammie reveled in the thought of Kieran getting off to this.
“Look at me.”
Her tone was more commanding than his had been. It had become the norm for them, Kieran handing over the lead once Sammie was finally ready. It worked, came so naturally to both of them.
Kieran did look up. His eyes met hers once more, even as he continued to push the toy deeper and deeper into her, keeping the motion steady as he pumped faster.
“Fuck.” The word fell from his lips on a breath, a mirror to what Sammie could already feel building inside of her.
Kieran’s cheeks were red, as she was sure her own were, and sweat dotted his forehead.
His cock pressed hard against the fabric of his shorts, and Sammie thought it might be amazing if he could get off from just this.
The toy was hitting deep inside of her. Sammie began to rock gently with his motions, the shift setting off flames that licked at the base of her spine. There. Every thrust of the toy inside her was hitting the right place. She could feel her orgasm building.
The thought of getting caught, of someone coming into the brewhouse to ask a question or to swap out a blown keg, it made every beat of pleasure that crashed through her all the more delicious. They were keeping quiet, but Sammie had to bite back a moan as she tipped closer and closer to the edge.
Kieran was still watching her, just as she’d told him to. His eyes burned along her skin as he drank in her face, his lips parted as he breathed in and out. She could smell the shampoo he always used after practice, different from the one he used in his home. Warmer, sweeter, drawing Sammie in.
She knew it was a terrible idea. Maybe the worst one she’d had yet. She whispered the words anyway. “There’s no camera on us.”
A flash of confusion crossed Kieran’s expression. He slowed his motions, and Sammie had to press her lips into a line to hide a whimper. But then understanding seemed to wash over him.
Sammie was glad she didn’t have to say it. Didn’t have to ask for what she wanted.
“Are you sure?”
The vibrator hit just right on his next movement, and Sammie nodded even as she closed her eyes and let the pleasure drown out every other voice in her mind.
No kissing on camera.
When she opened them, Kieran was still watching her. He gave a small nod of his own, and that was all the permission Sammie needed. She leaned forward, right as he began to pump the toy inside her in earnest once again.
And then Sammie kissed him.
It was hurried. A dam bursting at last. Sammie cried out against his lips as she came, her pussy clenching around the toy as her hands cupped his face.
His beard was scratchy against her palms, his lips wet against her own as he kissed her back.
The orgasm ripped through her, rending her body even as her heart finally tore open, spilling its contents between them.
Kieran kissed her firmly, steadily, his free hand coming up to cup the back of her head, his fingers tangling in her loose hair as he held her to him. Sammie drank him in greedily. She wanted more, more, so much more than she could rightfully expect to receive.
So Sammie would take what she could in this moment, and promise herself after that she would never again ask for more.
She had clicked off the vibrator at some point, as their kisses had turned slow, measured, a finality to them that was wholly one-sided. Because Kieran didn’t see the turmoil in her. How could he know? She’d told him she could do this, that she could handle all of it.
That hadn’t been a lie. Sammie could handle the things they were doing. She could see herself thriving, putting herself out there in this new, erotic way.
She just couldn’t handle it as long as he was involved.
Her heart had cracked open, and it was finally starting to hurt.
A dull, persistent pain that was seeping out from her chest, spreading to every cell.
The ache she’d felt at sixteen, as she’d cried in the rain, it was nothing more than a shadow of what she felt now, as she finally broke away from the last kiss she would ever share with Kieran McCullough.
~
Ivy: everything good? didn’t hear back about tonight so i’m gonna assume you’re busy, lemme know if there’s a different night you wanna meet up