Stuffed at the Shore House (Pranked to Gay #4)

Chapter 1

My best friend Nick elbows me as he dries off a plate and stacks it in the dish rack, tilting his chin toward Lilah, who is wiping down the table. “What’s the deal with the guy Lilah brought? I thought this was gonna be your chance to make her your girlfriend.”

I’m elbow-deep in soapy water, and I sneak a peek over my shoulder at the girl I’ve had a crush on since freshman orientation at college. “She said he’s a family friend.”

Nick’s eyebrows shoot up. “With that body and that accent, you sure?”

I sneak another look at Kieran, who is sitting at the table nursing the last of his beer, arm sprawled across the back of Lilah’s chair. My throat goes a little tight as my eyes scan his muscled upper body, outlined in a tight shirt.

It can’t be. Lilah and I have a friends with benefits thing going, hopefully more. She wouldn’t bring some guy she’s fucking to my shore house, would she? “I don’t know, maybe he’s gay or something,” I whisper. “She said he’s never been to the Jersey shore and he wanted to check it out.”

“But we live in Philly. How is that possible?”

“Dunno. Maybe he just moved here. He does have an Irish accent.”

I glance at Nick as he dries another dish, muscled forearms flexing with the motion. Nick still has that post-cooking glow, and I wonder if he’ll end up a chef. He looks happiest when people have enjoyed his food, and tonight was no different. His fish tacos are stupid good.

Nick’s cooking saved dinner from being super awkward. Lilah asked me weeks ago if she could bring a friend on our end of summer trip to my grandmother’s shore house. She didn’t mention the friend would be a six-foot-something wall of muscle with tattoos and a jaw you could break a hand on.

He’s also older than us, mid-twenties, maybe.

Old enough that he showed up with a case of beer and offered us some.

Old enough that he looked a little startled when I revealed that we were all underage.

I can’t quite figure out why a guy like that would want to hang out with a bunch of college kids, but I’m too afraid to ask.

Between the tattoos and the surly glares, he looks like the kind of guy who would beat the shit out of you for asking too many questions.

Lilah comes over and pats me on the back as she tosses the dishcloth into the sink and stretches, her shirt riding up to show a strip of smooth stomach.

“I think I’m going to shower and go to bed,” she says, and her eyes find mine across the room and hold. “Thanks again for inviting us, your grandmother’s house is fabulous.”

“Of course, she hardly ever uses it, so we might as well enjoy it! That’s what Nana says, anyway.”

“See you later?” Lilah asks. “Can’t wait to hang out.”

I nod, probably too quickly, my cheeks going hot, and she brushes past me toward the stairs, her fingers trailing across my lower back for half a second. A touch so light it might not have happened except my skin burns where she touched it.

Kieran watches her go, his bottle stalled halfway to his mouth, then pushes back from the table. “I’m heading up too.” He nods at us and follows her upstairs.

The kitchen goes quiet. Just the radio, the ocean, the soft creak of the house settling.

Nick sets the last dried plate on the stack and turns to me, leaning against the counter with his arms crossed in a way that makes his pecs look like works of art, even through his shirt.

Not that I look at guys’ pecs, I’ve just been noticing things like that lately, ever since I took a figure drawing class as an elective.

“So,” he says, waggling his eyebrows. “She wants to see you later, huh?”

I shrug, reaching for a dish towel to dry my hands, as I try not to get my hopes up. “She might have meant later tomorrow.”

“No, that was definitely flirty, I saw the way she was looking at you. She meant later tonight. I guess you’re right, the guy is just a friend.”

“He’s gorgeous, but I’m sure he’s not her type,” I say.

Nick smirks. “So you noticed he’s gorgeous, huh?”

“Oh come on. Anyone with eyes could see he’s hot. That bone structure? Those lips? Okay, yeah, I hear myself.” To cover for the insanity of mentioning a guy’s bone structure, I swat at him with a dish towel, and he laughs.

“I’m not arguing with you, I’m mostly straight, and even I kind of have a hard-on for him.” Nick does a little dance, wiggling his butt.

“Mostly straight?”

“Long story. But let’s not talk about that right now, let’s talk about how you’re gonna stop mooning over Lilah and go fuck her brains out.”

“Fuck off. It’s not like that when we make love,” I say, and I can feel the grin spreading across my face before I can stop it.

“Make love?” Nick cracks up. “Who says that.”

“I don’t know, I really like her. And I think I’m ready to ask her. If she wants to be more official.”

Nick’s face splits into that wide, dimpled smile that makes him look like he should be on a cereal box. He claps me on the shoulder, hard enough that I stagger. “Fuck yeah, man. It’s about time. She’s been stringing you along since freshman year.”

“She hasn’t been—”

“Whatever you need to tell yourself.” He pulls me into a one-armed hug, his body warm and solid against mine.

“Go get her. Don’t be too loud though, I need my beauty sleep.

Can’t be up all night listening to moaning.

” He grabs his dick through his shorts. “Or maybe you can be extra loud and let me enjoy the show.”

I shove him off, laughing. “Shut up.”

“Good luck.” He flicks the radio off, plunging the kitchen into sudden quiet except for the ocean. “Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.”

“That doesn’t really cut anything out, does it?”

He grins and heads for the stairs, taking them two at a time, his footsteps fading down the hall toward his room.

My cock is already half-hard thinking about her, and I sprint up the stairs, ducking into the main bedroom.

I’ve claimed the biggest room for myself, and the bathroom is incredible, with a huge walk-in shower that my grandmother’s interior decorator just installed and I’m dying to try.

I turn on the tap to let the water warm and check myself out in the mirror, taking off my shirt and flexing my muscles.

“Not bad, Chase,” I mutter, doing a little pose, then laughing at myself.

I’m not as big as Nick or Kieran, but I’ve been working out and my slimmer muscles have gained a cut, defined look that I know Lilah will go crazy for.

The mirror steams up, reminding me that I planned to shower, and I step in, groaning at the delicious sensation of multiple shower heads pounding me with hot water.

I let my head fall back, eyes closed, hand moving lazily down my stomach.

My cock fills under my palm, and I stroke it slow, imagining Lilah, finally mine, in a way that isn’t just late nights and morning awkwardness.

But tonight, she wants to see me, so I stop myself from taking it further, and turn off the tap, dry off, brush my teeth, and pull on a pair of clean boxer briefs. The kind that make my ass look good, not that I’m thinking about that. I climb into bed, the sheets cool against my skin, and I wait.

The house ticks and creaks around me. Someone flushes a toilet, and a door closes down the hall. Waves crash outside.

Did she mean she’d come to my room, or does she expect me to go to hers? I wish I hadn’t left my phone downstairs on the charger by the TV. Maybe she messaged to clarify. She didn’t tell me specifically what the plan was, now that I think back over our conversation.

I sit up, kicking myself for lounging in bed waiting for her while she’s probably in her room wondering where the fuck I went. That would be kind of funny, really, if we both spent the night waiting for the other to show up. And just like us.

I walk to the door and crack it open, peeking out, wondering if I should put on more than just my underwear. The hallway is dark and quiet. My heart hammers against my ribs as I sneak down the hall, the wood floor cool under my bare feet. Not sure why I’m sneaking. We’re all adults, after all.

Lilah’s door is three down from mine. It’s cracked open, a slice of darkness visible through the crack. I can’t see her, but the open door is like an invitation. She’s ready for me.

I push it wider and slip inside, closing it softly behind me. The room is black except for the faint blue glow of a phone charger on the nightstand. I can make out the shape of the bed, the lump of covers, the dark spill of hair against the pillow.

My cock stirs again, traitor that it is.

I slide my underwear down and let it drop to the floor. The sheets are cool as I slip beneath them, and press against the warm body beneath, nestling my hardening cock against the bare curve of an ass. She’s been working out, I know, and her rear end feels smoother and more muscular.

“Missed you so much, baby.” I slide a hand around the curve of her hip, and it lands on something thick. A cock. I freeze.

This isn’t Lilah. This is… Kieran? He’s heavy against my palm and velvet soft, half-hard and warming fast under my touch. He lets out a gentle snore, then stirs. Oh my god I’m touching a near stranger’s dick while he sleeps.

What the fuck am I doing? Am I a sexual predator?

No! It was an accident.

But my hand is still wrapped around another man’s cock, and it’s hardening in my grip, and I should let go, I should fucking let go right now, but there’s a split second where my body doesn’t obey because some broken part of me is fascinated by how it feels.

He is silky and heavy and alive under my palm.

Then the body against mine goes rigid, and a voice that is absolutely not Lilah’s comes out of the darkness, deep and rumbly with a sexy Irish lilt.

“What the fuck?”

I jerk my hand back like I’ve been burned and scramble backward, tumbling off the bed, my ass hitting the cold wooden floor with a thud that sends pain shooting up my tailbone.

My cock, which was rock-hard seconds ago, is already wilting from pure shock, and my pulse is going so hard I can feel it in my throat.

The bedside lamp flicks on.

Kieran is sitting up in bed, the sheet pulled to his waist, his chest bare and tattooed and rising fast. His black hair is mussed from sleep or from whatever I just interrupted, and his dark eyes are fixed on me until my skin prickles.

“What the fuck are you doing in my bed?” Kieran says, biting off every word, the Irish lilt to his accent warming me from the inside.

“I—” My voice comes out strangled. “Lilah invited me. She said, after dinner, she said she wanted to see me later, and you know, we hook up sometimes. Wait, what are you doing in Lilah’s room?”

“It’s our room. Couples sleep together. Wait, hooked up when?” Kieran’s voice doesn’t change, but his jaw goes slack for half a second, then sets. “You fucked my girlfriend?”

“No. I mean, not tonight,” I say, but it comes out weak because I’m putting it together even as I say it: the way she touched his arm at dinner, the way he looked at her, the way she never called him anything but a friend. “We’ve been fooling around for a bit. Just occasionally.”

“Occasionally? How often are you two fucking?” Kieran says, and my face goes hot.

“Not just fucking.” But it was, wasn’t it? Friends with benefits, on and off. Never official. Never hers. “We’ve been… I thought…”

I thought tonight was the night she’d finally choose me. I thought the kiss meant something. I thought the way she looked at me in the hallway, the promise in her voice. My throat closes. The room feels too small suddenly, the air too thick.

“How long have you two been dating?”

“We’ve been dating since Christmas. Six months,” Kieran says. He says it evenly now, like he’s reading it off a list. “She told me some rich friend invited us to come to his shore house. A friend. Not a guy she’s been fucking behind my back.”

“Behind your—” My laugh comes out broken. “She told me you were just a family friend she felt sorry for.”

“A friend? Why the fuck would she bring a male friend to the beach with her?” He runs a hand through his hair, and for a second he looks almost as wrecked as I feel. Then his jaw tightens again. “So she’s been playing us both. Keeping you on the hook while she’s with me. Classic.”

I push myself to my feet, legs shaky, and spin, looking for my underwear. “I should go. I’m sorry. I didn’t—I really didn’t know.”

He tugs on his hair. “Not your fault. You didn’t know.”

I’m halfway to the door when Kieran speaks again.

“Wait.”

“Oh yeah, my underwear,” I say, covering myself and reaching for it.

“No. I mean, if she was planning to fuck you tonight,” Kieran says slowly, “where is she? She went to shower ten minutes ago.”

I turn. He’s sitting on the edge of the bed now, the sheet still around his waist, his forearms resting on his knees. His eyes are sharp, calculating.

One corner of his mouth pulls up, and there’s nothing warm in it. “Unless she’s just using the shower as an excuse to disappear while she fucks her side piece.”

My stomach drops.

“You think she’s headed for my room.”

“I think so,” Kieran says. “Why would she expect you to be anywhere but waiting for her like a good boy?”

The words good boy hit somewhere low in my gut, and I hate that they do.

Kieran stands, and the sheet slides off his lap and pools on the mattress. He’s taller than me by several inches, broader, and completely naked. His cock hangs heavy between his legs, still half-hard from whatever my hand started, and I cannot look at it. I will not look at it.

Except I do. For one second, my eyes drop, and I see it: thick, cut, with a glint of metal at the head. He’s pierced, a Prince Albert, and my fingers itch to explore it, which makes no sense.

I drag my eyes back to his face, and he’s watching me without blinking.

“She’s playing us,” Kieran says. “And I don’t like being played. So I’d very much like to piss that bitch off.”

“Okay, but—”

“I have the perfect revenge.” His eyes drop, deliberate this time, traveling down my chest, my stomach, and landing on my cock where it’s starting, against all reason and dignity, to show signs of life again under his gaze.

“She expected to fuck you tonight. She expected to come back to this room and find me waiting, none the wiser. What if she came back and found something else entirely?”

My mouth is dry. “Like what?”

Kieran’s eyes hold mine, dark and intent, and the corner of his mouth lifts. “Like her boyfriend fucking the guy she’s been cheating with.”