Chapter 5 Bright Lines #3
Near the pool, a guest held up his phone while Lucy finished dividing volleyball teams.
"Can we get the fireworks pose?" he asked. "You and the others around Nash? It'll take ten seconds."
Lucy didn't lose her smile. "No, thanks."
"Just one shot."
"Still no." She tucked the ball under one arm. "You want something real, join the game. Losers carry the coolers back."
The man lowered his phone and joined a team.
Lucy blew her whistle once. "That's what I thought."
Bristol was already handling a quieter problem. A woman near the railing had held her camera toward Poppy and me for too long. Bristol stepped into the frame, said something I couldn't hear, and waited. The phone came down.
She returned to the bar and stole a fry from Poppy's plate.
"Handled," Bristol said.
Poppy reached out and squeezed her hand. "Thank you, Bris."
"Anytime."
Then Bristol went to join Lucy, leaving no speech behind her.
Poppy turned on my lap until one knee rested on either side of my thigh. Not straddling me. Not quite. Close enough that her breast pressed into my shoulder when she leaned down and kissed me.
This one wasn't quick.
Her tongue touched mine. Her fingers moved into my hair, and the noise of the cookout dropped behind the warm slide of her mouth.
She tasted like ketchup, lime, and Poppy.
I kissed her deeper, enough to feel her breath catch, and let one hand travel from her waist to the firm curve of her ass before good sense caught up with me.
We had guests ten feet away and a mother somewhere behind the bar with excellent peripheral vision.
Poppy didn't care about either one. She kept her mouth on mine, tongue teasing, nails scratching lightly at my scalp until the hard pulse in my jeans pushed against her thigh.
Poppy eased back with a satisfied little breath.
"That was for me," she whispered.
"I was hoping I got something out of it."
"You did." Her hips shifted once against my thigh. "I felt it."
My jeans had become a problem.
Her grin told me that was the point.
She stole the last bite of my burger and slid off my lap when Luna shouted for another cornhole player. Poppy went, but she came back between rounds to steal my drink, kiss my cheek, or lace our fingers together under the edge of the bar.
Nobody asked for another definition.
They watched Poppy keep choosing me.
By the time the last volleyball game ended and Bella began directing cleanup, every casual touch had left another live wire under my skin. Poppy carried plates toward the lodge, curls bouncing against her shoulders, then glanced back and caught me staring at her ass.
She smiled.
Not the service smile. Not the one she'd rebuilt for strangers.
This one knew exactly how badly I wanted to get her alone.
***
At ten fifteen, the far end of the dock held the only quiet left at Brewster Bay.
The last section of string lights ended twenty feet behind me.
Beyond that line, moonlight silvered the boards and broke across the water whenever a wake reached shore.
Music still played near the lodge. Cabin doors opened and closed.
Somebody laughed by the pool, but distance softened the resort into warm noise behind me.
I sat at the edge with my feet above the water and tried not to think about Poppy's mouth.
It wasn't working.
Bare feet crossed the boards behind me.
Poppy stepped out of the light wearing the same cutoff shorts and Brewster Bay tank she'd worked in all day. Her curls were down now, loose around her shoulders and wild from humidity. No phone. No clipboard. No towels, plates, keys, or problem requiring her to save anybody.
She stopped in front of the bench near the end of the dock and sat.
Then she spread her knees and crooked one finger at me.
"Come here, Brew."
I stood and moved between her legs.
Poppy hooked her ankles behind my thighs, drew me close, and rested both hands at my waist. Her touch was warm and steady. So was the way she looked at me.
"I've been trying to get you alone since breakfast," I said.
"You had three girlfriends in your bed at breakfast. Your definition of alone needs work."
"I noticed you anyway."
"Good answer."
Her fingers slipped under the hem of my shirt and spread against my back, but she didn't kiss me yet.
"I meant what I said earlier," she told me. "I love being Kittie's best friend. I love that Luna trusts me enough to let me push when she needs pushing. I love the girls. I love your mom texting me grocery lists and acting like I work here even when nobody has technically hired me."
"We pay you in stolen food."
"And access to the owner's hot son. The benefits package is competitive."
I smiled, but Poppy's hands tightened on me.
"Today, every good thing about me became a way not to say my name.
The sunshine one. The social-media one. The bridge.
Kit's best friend. One of Nash's Girls." Her eyes stayed on mine.
"I don't need to be the only woman you see.
I love that I'm not. But I need to know you see Poppy when you look at me. "
I put my hands on her thighs, bare and smooth beneath my palms.
"I see the woman who spent two years engineering group hugs because she wanted her hands on me without hurting Kit."
Poppy's lips parted.
"I see the woman who sat on my lap every chance she got and smiled like she wasn't making it impossible to stand up afterward. I see the girl who makes my mother laugh, knows when Sally's lying, and can get Luna and Kit into the same room without either one reaching for a weapon."
"That happened once."
"Still counts."
Her smile flickered, but I kept my eyes on her.
"Kit opened the door," I said. "She didn't hand you to me. You were already there, Pops. I wanted you for years. I stayed back because I didn't know what touching you would do to Kit, and because I knew what it would do to me."
Poppy's ankles tightened behind my legs.
"What would it do to you?"
My hands slid from her thighs to her waist. "Make me want this. All the time. In public. In private. With Kit. Without Kit. Every version of you I could get."
Her eyes darkened.
"Then get me, Smoke Show."
Poppy pulled me down by my shirt and put her mouth on mine.
The first kiss landed hard. The second opened. Her tongue slid against mine, warm and sweet, and every hour I'd spent watching her swallow the day's pressure came out through my hands. I gripped her waist and dragged her to the edge of the bench until her body fit tight against mine.
She made a hungry sound into my mouth.
Her fingers climbed my back beneath my shirt, nails grazing skin. Mine moved lower, over the curve of her hips and around to her ass. I filled both hands with her through the denim and pulled her against the hard length of my cock.
Poppy broke the kiss on a gasp.
"Exactly what I wanted."
"You've been working on that all day."
"Longer."