Chapter 2 — Under The Table #3
Her eyes dropped to my lap, flicked back to my face, and filled with a satisfaction so bright it felt almost cheerful.
She knew I was trapped.
She loved it.
I sat there another minute, letting the worst of the throb settle into something I could hide, then forced myself to stand with the careful posture of a man carrying a live grenade in his shorts.
Kiki watched from the edge of the patio, teeth catching her lower lip for half a second before the innocent smile returned.
I needed to leave.
Instead, I helped clear plates because apparently I had decided to die as I had lived: useful at lake gatherings.
The crowd loosened after dinner. Mark and a couple of fathers settled into chairs with beers.
Cooper and his friends drifted back toward the pool.
Paige helped Caroline in the kitchen. Owen and Ryan orbited Kiki near the dock rail, still hopeful, still harmless, still making my chest tight in ways I didn't want to examine.
I carried a stack of plates toward the kitchen and told myself I'd say good night, walk home, take the coldest shower known to man, and figure out how to avoid Kiki Bishop until Labor Day.
Kiki appeared beside me with a towel over one arm.
"Hey, Luke," she said, bright enough for the patio. "Can you help me grab the extra towels from inside? Mom wants another stack by the pool."
Nobody blinked. Why would they? Luke helping Kiki carry towels was the least suspicious thing in the world.
"Sure," I said, because there was no safe way to say no without making it strange.
She led me through the kitchen, past Caroline rinsing bowls at the sink, past Paige arranging brownies on a tray, and into the short hallway that connected the back door to the laundry room.
The Bishop house smelled like ribs, air conditioning, pool towels, and lemon cleaner.
Family voices carried behind us, close enough that every pace deeper into the hall tightened something in my chest.
Kiki stepped into the laundry room.
I followed.
She shut the door.
Not loudly. Not dramatically. Just a soft click behind me, the kind no one in a busy house would notice.
"Kiki," I said.
She turned, and the golden-girl mask was gone.
Her eyes were blue fire. Her cheeks were flushed from the sun. Her mouth was still soft and sweet from the outside, but there was nothing innocent in the way she looked at me. Nothing unsure. Nothing playful enough to dismiss.
"Your family is right outside," I said.
"Then be quiet."
She came up on her toes and kissed me.
Hard.
Her mouth opened against mine, tongue sliding in before I could do the honorable thing and stop her. Her hands grabbed my shirt. Her body pressed into me, all warm curves and white bikini under thin fabric, and every good intention I had walked in with scattered across the laundry-room tile.
I tried to pull back. I did. My hands caught her shoulders, and I turned my head enough to breathe.
"We can't."
"You keep saying that like your body agrees with you."
"Kiki."
"Say you don't want me." Her voice dropped low, private, full of challenge. "Go on, Luke. Say it."
I should have said it.
Instead, I kissed her.
The sound she made against my mouth was small and satisfied, like she had known exactly how long my restraint would last. I pushed her back against the folding counter, not rough, but with enough urgency that she grabbed the edge for balance and arched into me.
Her hands slid down my stomach. Fingers found the button of my shorts, worked it open, drew the zipper down.
"Kiki, stop," I said.
My hands were already on her waist.
She slipped her hand inside my shorts and wrapped her fingers around my bare cock.
The words in my head vanished.
Her palm was warm and soft and sure. She stroked me once from base to tip, slow enough to make my whole body lock, then looked up at me with those blue eyes gone dark.
"God," she whispered. "You're so big and hard."
I groaned into her mouth when she kissed me again. There was no dignified way to survive it. Her hand worked me in steady strokes, thumb sliding over the head where I was already wet for her, and my hips moved before I could stop them.
She smiled against my lips. "All that for me?"
"You know exactly what you're doing."
"So do you."
I did.
That was the worst part.
I knew exactly what I was doing when my hands dropped to her ass and gripped her through the thin cover-up.
I knew exactly what I was doing when I pulled her closer, when I kissed her harder, when my other hand slid up and cupped her breast through the white bikini and soft blue fabric over it.
She was full and warm in my palm, her nipple hard against the fabric, and she arched into the touch with a quiet gasp that nearly broke me in half.
Her hand tightened around my cock.
"I've wanted this for so long," she whispered. "You have no idea."
I had some idea. Not enough. Too much.
My fingers sank into her ass. My other hand squeezed her breast, not tentative anymore, not the accidental brush of an old family friend, but the open, hungry touch of a man who had been pretending he didn't want exactly this.
Kiki's hips rolled against my thigh. She stroked me faster for three seconds, then slowed again, keeping me on the edge of panic without letting the moment become something we couldn't stop.
"I'm not a kid, Luke," she said.
"I know."
And I did. God help me, I knew. There was nothing childish about the way she kissed me, nothing naive in the way her hand moved on me, nothing uncertain in the way she watched my face and took pleasure in every crack she found.
She was twenty-one. Adult. Beautiful. Bold.
And absolutely impossible to resist.
I kissed down to her jaw, then the side of her neck, and she tipped her head for me with a soft little sound that made my cock jump in her hand. The washing machine hummed beside us. Someone laughed in the kitchen. Mark's voice carried from outside, asking where the serving tongs had gone.
Reality pressed in from every wall.
Kiki didn't stop.
She stroked me again, thumb circling the head, and I had to brace one hand on the counter beside her hip to keep from doing the thing my whole body wanted.
The thing that belonged to some later, more private corner of whatever terrible plan the six of them had made, not here, not in her parents' laundry room, not with Caroline fifteen feet away arranging brownies.
"We have to stop," I said, breath rough.
"Do you want to?"
No.
The answer was so immediate I hated myself for it.
Before I could lie, footsteps crossed the kitchen.
Kiki heard them too.
She let go of me in one smooth motion, stepped sideways, and grabbed two folded towels from the basket. I turned toward the shelving unit with my shorts still open, heart hammering, while she smoothed her cover-up and ran her fingers through her hair like she had all the time in the world.
The door opened.
Paige stood there with an empty glass in one hand. "Hey. Mom wants to know if we have more lemonade mix."
"Top shelf," Kiki said, voice sunny and calm.
She reached past me, close enough that her arm brushed my chest, and pulled down a packet. Her lips were swollen. Her cheeks were flushed. Her eyes were bright with private victory, but Paige saw only her sister helping with lemonade.
"Here you go."
"Thanks, Sissy." Paige glanced at me, then at the towels. "Mom says cobbler's out too."
"We'll be there in a second," Kiki said.
Paige disappeared back into the hall.
Kiki turned to me, folded the towels over one arm, and smiled the sweetest smile I had ever hated.
"See?" she whispered. "Easy."
"Jesus Christ, Kiki."
She rose onto her toes and pressed a quick kiss to my cheek. Chaste. Public-safe. The kind of kiss anyone could see and misunderstand completely.
"Go back out there and smile," she said. "Nobody has to know yet."
Yet?