Chapter 3
T he bedroom was smaller than I remembered.
Or maybe I was just taller, broader, heavier with age and a life that didn’t feel carefree like summers past. The double bed barely fit my frame. The mattress certainly wasn’t the luxury memory foam king I was accustomed to, but I sunk down into the nostalgia of my childhood, content.
It was the same room I used every summer since I was nine.
Whitewashed walls. A dresser that wobbled if you pulled the top drawer too fast. A print of a sailboat on the wall that I’d once drawn a dick on in pencil and blamed on Jack.
The place had been updated in surface ways—new curtains, bedspread, a better fan—but the bones were still there.
There was the same warped floorboard under the window, the same air, thick with sea salt and sweat and whatever it was I’d been trying not to think about all evening.
Charlie.
She was down the hall. Wearing a tank top with no bra, apparently.
Barefoot. Tanned. Hair pulled up like she hadn’t even tried.
Her perky little nipples pebbling in the breeze.
And the way she’d dealt me that withering sass in response to my dickishness, it did something to my equilibrium. And my dick.
I sat back against the headboard and opened my laptop, but the list of emails felt like such drudgery that I didn’t even open them. I closed it. Checked my phone instead. One text from Sloane.
Sloane
Let me know if you want me to pick up the wine from the list I sent.
I stared at it for a second, thumb hovering. Then I texted her back.
Grab what you want. I trust your taste.
The truth was she’d care a lot more than I would about having the perfect vintages.
Sure, there were standards I expected in my day-to-day, but life on Lemondrop Lane was different.
Less bougie, more simple. I could drop the polished facade and be salt-of-the-earth here. I was just hoping Sloane could too.
I dropped the phone on the nightstand and picked up the book I’d thrown in my bag.
A Sport and a Pastime by James Salter — something literary and morally ambiguous because that’s who I’d decided I was when I packed.
I read the same sentence four times before I gave up and let my head drop back against the wall.
Charlie Winslow.
She was not the same girl I used to know—the one who trailed after us like a puppy with sunburnt shoulders and an endless supply of baked goods.
She was a grown ass woman now. A little frayed at the edges in comparison to the women I entertained, but she was real.
Sexy. Sharp. And better at swinging back when provoked .
And God, I’d provoked her. I don’t know why I said that thing at the grill.
The line about fucking. It came out too easy.
Too fast. Her eyes had gone wide and stunned, and something about that made my stomach twist. Maybe I’d pushed the boundary too far, crossing over from the unspoken territory of treating her like a kid sister.
But mmmfph. Those long tanned legs. The honey blonde hair that hung in long silken waves.
The smattering of sun-kissed freckles across her nose.
That full pouty mouth. The thin top she’d pretended not to know was see-through when she leaned over the salad.
I’d wanted to bury my face in the crook between her small breasts and lick a line with my tongue to her nipple.
I’d wanted her fingers in my hair, yanking.
I’d wanted to see if she still said my name like a dare.
But I couldn’t want her. That was the deal. Always had been. Jack’s little sister was Off-limits with a capital O. Untouchable. Entire categories had been invented for women like her—too young, too sweet, too close.
Except now she wasn’t any of those things. She was twenty-nine, and pissed off, and perfect.
I closed the book. Turned out the light.
I rolled onto my side and stared at the wall.
The house was quiet. The fan ticked overhead, slow and useless, and the porch swing knocked once in the wind before going still.
I was already half hard—had been since dinner.
Since she said that bit about me not needing to worry about her tongue.
Her tongue had been worrying my dick senseless all night. Every time she talked back. Every time she bit down on a smile and reached for her wine. Every fucking time she licked her lips like I wasn’t sitting two feet away, trying not to picture that same tongue dragging up the underside of my cock.
I should’ve been thinking about Sloane. Perfect Sloane with her Chanel lips and cream cashmere sweaters. The way she sucked me off with just enough pressure to look polished, not enough to make me come. The picture of chic elegance. She was everything I was supposed to want.
But even as I closed my eyes, as I let my hand drift down inside my boxers, I knew I wasn’t picturing her.
I was picturing Charlie. Messy bun, no bra, standing barefoot in the kitchen with lemon on her fingers and heat on her skin.
Her laugh biting, her eyes bright, her mouth slick with wine and something mean.
I couldn’t get the image out of my head—her licking goat cheese off her thumb, slicing strawberries without looking up.
The way her tank top clung to her tits, how she bent to grab something from the fridge and didn’t give a fuck who was watching.
I was watching.
I ran my hand slow, lazy, the way I did when I was trying not to admit how bad I needed it. My cock responded instantly—familiar pressure building as I gripped the base and squeezed once, tight.
I thought about her thighs, tanned and bare, wrapped around my shoulders. I thought about her mouth, smart and sharp and full of me. I thought about her saying my name like it wasn’t a curse anymore. I exhaled. My jaw clenched. My hips shifted against the mattress like I couldn’t help it.
I shouldn’t have wanted her. But I did.
God, I did.
My hand moved faster, just enough to let the friction ride up the head, slick now, swollen and sensitive.
I imagined her in the kitchen, sweat beading between her breasts, her thighs spread on the countertop, the tang of lemon on her skin, her voice low and wrecked when she begged me not to stop licking her.
I came hard, silently, jaw tight, spine arching off the mattress as I spilled into my hand with a curse I bit back before it reached my lips.
I laid there after, chest rising slow, sweat cooling on my neck.
The fan clicked. The porch swing creaked again.
I wiped my hand on a towel I’d tossed over the nightstand and stared up at the ceiling.
Sloane was arriving in the morning—and I was already fucked.
I hadn’t planned to run into her.
It was barely seven. The house was quiet, and the summer sun was just starting to seep through the kitchen window.
I’d figured I had time before she woke up—just enough to grab coffee and yogurt, and head back up to my room to skim the headlines before I showered.
So I threw on some gray sweats that hung low and didn’t bother with anything else.
The second I twisted the lid off the coffee tin, I heard her footsteps—soft, slow, dragging down the stairs like she wasn’t fully awake or just didn’t care who saw her like that.
Then she walked in. Sleep shirt barely hitting mid-thigh.
Nipples visible through the thin, well washed tee that slouched off one shoulder.
Hair up in a knot with golden pieces falling out around her face.
That same mouth I’d been dreaming about, parted around the rim of a yawn that almost made me drop the fucking coffee scoop.
I poured two mugs before she even asked—half to avoid looking at her, half because I already knew she’d want one.
“You’re up early,” she said.
I didn’t turn around. “Could say the same.”
“Big plans today? Gonna bulldoze a farmers market or evict a dolphin sanctuary? ”
“I smirked, grabbing a spoon from the drawer. ‘Thought I’d redraw some zoning lines to turn a playground into a luxury parking garage—maybe kick some orphans off a nature preserve. Depends how fast the coffee hits.’”
“All in a day’s empire building. Glad to see the Whitmore legacy lives on.” Her voice was light, but the edge was still there—razor-sharp under the sugar-coating.
I turned then and handed her the second mug. Her fingers brushed mine, just barely. She didn’t pull away. “There’s fruit. Fancy granola. Yogurt in those little jars that Sloane likes.” I gestured toward the fridge. “Help yourself.”
She walked past me, hips swinging like she knew I’d look, and opened the fridge. “I was gonna have the lemon posset I made last night,” she said, casual.
I didn’t miss the pause—or the tone.
“Already ate it,” I said, leaning against the counter. “Licked the bowl clean, actually.”
She turned her head just enough to glance at me sideways. “You saying thank you, Whitmore?”
“I might’ve already moaned it,” I said, deadpan. “Hard to say. It was good.”
Her cheeks flushed and her eyes dropped. She was flustered at first but then seemed to fix her gaze on me. Right where my cock was half-hard in my sweatpants, thick and obvious under the thin fabric.
She stared. Didn’t even bother hiding it. And fuck me —I twitched.
I grabbed my coffee and walked out before I could say something I’d regret.