Chapter 3
Chapter Three
Lila
The dock is wide enough for eight people to spread out comfortably, which is the only reason I’ve been able to convince myself I can handle today.
I have a corner staked out, my tote bag dropped at the far end where the boards are a little warped and the view is mostly open water.
My bag with my book rests against my feet, and next to me is the uncapped sunscreen. I’ve been meaning to do my shoulders for the past twenty minutes, but I keep getting distracted by the inside of my own head.
Last night. Ace’s hands. The way he said I’ve wanted you for so long.
Instead of telling him I feel the same way, I rolled over without a word. Then I spent hours staring at the ceiling until his breathing evened out and eventually, somehow, I must have slept, because I woke up to daylight and his arm thrown over my waist like we do this all the time.
We do not do this all the time.
I hear him before I see him—the particular cadence of his footfall on the dock planks, unhurried. I know it’s him because Mom and Dad are already down near the paddleboards with the others.
The only person unaccounted for is the one person I was hoping would have the decency to sleep in. Alas, here he is.
Ace walks the full length of the dock and drops his towel directly next to mine. “Hey,” he greets cheerily. He does nothing to hide the way he drinks me in as I sit there in my skimpy green bikini.
Traitor. What happened to the unspoken plan to avoid each other? Or was that just me having said plan?
“There’s a whole dock,” I say flatly.
“I’m aware.” He sits down, stretching those long legs out in front of him, his swim shorts riding low. He’s not wearing anything else. I file that away with all the other things I’m pretending not to notice.
Down the dock, Mom calls something about paddleboards and asks if we want to go out before it gets too hot. Neither of us answers her fast enough, so she fills the silence herself by laughing while looping her arm through Dad’s and walking toward the water.
I reach for the sunscreen. Get about as far as applying it to my collarbones and the tops of my shoulders before Ace’s hand appears in my peripheral vision.
“I’ll get your back.”
“I’ve got it.”
He says, “You can’t reach the middle. You never could.” Like this is something he knows about me.
Mom’s voice floats back up the dock: “Ace, honey, just help her.”
Apparently, the entire family are traitors today.
Huffing, I hand him the bottle. “Don’t make this weird,” I mumble.
The moment his palms press flat against my shoulder blades, I stop breathing. I don’t mean to—my lungs just quit cooperating. His hands feel amazing on my skin as he spreads the lotion in long, even strokes that go further down my spine than is strictly necessary.
I look at the water. My jaw is clenched so tight I can feel the tension in my ears.
He works his way up to my neck, fingers brushing the edge of my hairline, slow enough that I know he’s doing it on purpose. And the thing is—my body has exactly zero interest in pretending it doesn’t remember his hands from last night.
“Ace,” I hiss. “This isn’t… they’re watching.”
“You’re good,” he grins.
Then he leans in, and I feel his mouth near the curve where my neck meets my shoulder, not touching, just—close. His voice drops to something barely above a whisper.
“I meant what I said, Li,” he rasps. “I’ve been waiting a long time, and last night was the hottest night of my life.”
I feel a flush climbing from my chest to my face in real time, traitorous and immediate. “Ace.” My voice comes out even, which is a miracle.
“I’m just saying.”
“Stop saying.”
I glance toward Mom and Dad—they’re at the water’s edge, Dad holding a paddleboard upright while Mom steps onto it with theatrical caution. Nobody’s looking at us. Nobody’s close. I shove him lightly on the shoulder, and he rocks back an inch.
The silence that follows is the worst kind—the kind with weight to it, shaped like something waiting to be acknowledged. He’s not talking. Not moving. Just sitting next to me while the sun beats down and my pulse refuses to settle.
“Mine too,” I finally admit in a whisper.
I don’t look at him when I say it. I keep my eyes forward, on the lake, on the glittering surface of water that couldn’t care less about the very specific kind of stupid I’ve just committed to.
He says nothing back. Doesn’t move. But I feel him exhale slowly beside me, and the tension in the air shifts—not breaking, just settling into something different.
Standing, he holds out his hand. “Come on, let’s go show the oldies how to paddleboard.”
I take his hand, letting him pull me to my feet.
* * *
Ace
After paddleboarding, Mom and Dad go for a walk while Li and I spread out our towels and lie down.
She’s only on her towel for thirty seconds before she pulls a book out of her bag. That’s Lila for you.
I drop back onto my towel beside her and stretch out on my back, one arm behind my head. The sun is high and pressing down. I let myself settle for a moment before I glance over at the paperback in her hands.
The cover has a shirtless man on it. The title reads, in block font that takes up half the cover: ‘Ruined by My Stepbrother the Devil.’
I look at it for a long moment, saying nothing. She doesn’t notice me looking. Or she’s pretending she doesn’t. Either is plausible with her.
“You’re still reading about those morally gray psychos,” I observe.
“Mind your own business.” She turns a page without looking up.
I shift my gaze back to the lake. A paddleboard drifts past about fifty yards out. “I’ve read three of them,” I say. “The stepbrother ones you left behind at Christmas.”
Dead silence.
“Trying to tell me something, Li?” I grin, waggling my eyebrows.
Her head comes up faster than I expected. She’s staring at me with an expression I don’t see on her often—genuine surprise, totally unguarded, her green eyes wide.
“You’ve what?” she hisses.
I shrug. “They were on the shelf in the den. I had nothing to do for two weeks.”
She blinks. Looks down at the book in her lap, then back at me. Her mouth opens and closes. For once in her life, she has nothing ready.
“Three,” she repeats.
“Three,” I confirm.
She stares at me for another full beat, like she’s looking for a tell, anything that will let her write this off as me fucking around. She’s not going to find it. I’m deadly serious.
If I’m honest, I don’t think it was a coincidence she left them behind. Just as I don’t believe it’s random she’s reading a stepbrother romance after what happened last night.
Eventually her jaw clicks shut. She looks back at her book, though her eyes aren’t moving across the page, and the flush sitting high on her cheekbones isn’t from the sun.
We stay like that for a while. She reads while I stay on my back. I watch the clouds where they’re stacked on the far side of the lake.
“Get in the water with me,” I say eventually.
“I’m in the middle of a chapter.”
“You’ve been on the same page for twenty minutes.”
She turns another page. Deliberately.
“Li.” I sit up. “Either walk by yourself or I’ll carry you.”
She holds out for another ten seconds, which, honestly, is less resistance than I expected. Then she closes the book, sets it on the towel, and stands up like it was her idea.
The way she moves makes her breasts look even more amazing than usual in her bikini. Which, let’s be honest, is barely containing the globes. Fuck.
The water is as cold as it was last night, which is exactly what I need. Lila hisses through her teeth when she gets in past her waist, and I watch her from where I’m already treading water a few feet out, her expression screwed up against the cold.
Mom and Dad are down the shore, a long stretch of water away. Just shapes against the sand.
When Lila reaches me, I let her get settled—feet just barely touching the rocky lake floor, the water at her chest. She pushes her wet hair back from her face. I move with her as the water moves us until I’m close enough that her breasts brush against my chest with each breath.
Tipping her head back, she looks up at me through dark, thick lashes. “What are you going to do to me now that we’re here?” she asks teasingly, biting her bottom lip.
“You want me to do things to you?” I shoot back suggestively.
Before she can answer, I grip her hip with one hand while the other cups her pussy. I press my palm flat against her through the fabric of her bikini bottoms, and she goes very still.
“Ace,” she breathes.
“Can you keep quiet?” I wonder aloud. “While I make you come?”
She holds my gaze. Then she nods.
She grabs my shoulders as I pull the fabric to the side, her fingers digging in while her face does everything it can to stay composed. I push two fingers inside her in one slow press and feel her grip tighten immediately, her nails biting into my skin.
“Fuck!” she moans.
The water gives me cover. Nothing above the surface looks like anything other than two people treading. Below it, I’m finger fucking my stepsister’s soaked pussy.
Li’s chin drops forward, and her forehead nearly touches my shoulder.
“Look up,” I say. “Keep your face up, baby.”
She forces her head back. Eyes on the sky. The effort of it is written all over her face—the locked jaw, the controlled breathing, the way her hips keep rocking forward to get me deeper.
I add a third finger. She makes a sound in her throat that she swallows before it can become anything.
“Oh, God. Ace. Yes. Yes. More. Harder. I need. Fuuuuck!”
“Shh!” I growl, immediately looking around.
There is no one else near us, but that doesn’t mean anyone can’t notice if she can’t keep quiet. I kind of hate that. I want to hear her moan my name like last night. But for now, we need to be discreet.
I angle myself so my back’s to the shore and use my free hand to guide her head to my shoulder. “Bite down when you need to, baby,” I breathe.
Then I grab her ass with that hand while still fucking her with the other. While she moans against my shoulder, I press my thumb against her puckered opening. I circle with just enough pressure to loosen her.
“What… Ace…” she cries softly. “I’ve never had anyone do that.”
I fucking love hearing those words. “So I’ll be the first to claim your ass?” I ask, needing to hear the words.
“Yes,” she confirms.
“Oh, baby,” I growl. “Hold on.”
With those words, I slowly work the tip of my thumb into her tight opening while still fucking her with three fingers. Her reaction is immediate and total. She bites down on my shoulder as her whole body shudders once, hard, before she locks it back down.
“Oh God,” she whispers, barely audible. “Don’t stop. Ace, keep going. I want you to fuck my ass.”
While moaning, she reaches for me under the water. She gets her fingers inside the waistband of my shorts and wraps her hand around my hard length.
I let out a guttural groan. “Who’s a good stepsister?” I growl. “Fuck me with your hand. Make me come all over it.”
Whimpering, Li strokes me in a slow, firm pull that matches nothing I’d call controlled—she’s working from feel, from instinct, and it’s pulling every thought out of my head.
We’re just two people floating in a lake. That’s what it looks like from the shore… I hope.
Below the surface is another matter. It’s so fucking taboo. So fucking perfect.
“Ace,” she gasps, barely a sound. “I’m… I can’t wait…”
“I know.” My voice is filled with gravel. “Jerk me faster, baby. Make me come with you.”
Obeying, she squeezes harder; it’s almost painful when her orgasm crests. Her whole body going rigid, her hand stuttering on my cock, her mouth dropping open on a breath that’s all shape and no sound.
I feel her clenching hard around my fingers, and that is it for me—my hips buck forward into her grip, and I come in the dark water, my jaw clenched, my forehead dropping to hers before I can stop it.
We float. The lake holds us both. Somewhere behind us, Dad shouts something about lunch, and Mom echoes the sentiment.
I pull my hand back at the same time that Li releases me. “Wow,” I gasp.
“You could say that again,” she giggles. “I… look, Ace… what you said last night. I—”
I silence her by pressing my finger to her lips. “You don’t have to say anything.”