Chapter 5 — The Count #4
It wasn’t that tight.
In the main cabin, Vince showed off the convertible dinette, the flat-screen TV mounted on a swivel arm, the storage compartments under every seat. Shay climbed onto the arm of the sofa beside me, her thigh pressed against my shoulder, and leaned forward to point at something on the ceiling.
“See that? Mood lighting. Daddy splurged.” Her tank top gaped as she reached, giving me a clear view down to where her breasts pushed together into cleavage so deep I could have lost my car keys in it.
She held the position a beat longer than necessary, her blue eyes finding mine with a smile that said she knew exactly what I was seeing and exactly how hard it was making me.
Vince, bless him, saw nothing. He was too busy demonstrating the sound system, which involved a lot of button-pressing and muttered curses.
“Here, let me.” Shay slid off the armrest, her body brushing mine from shoulder to hip, and reached across me to the control panel.
Her breast pressed against my arm, warm and heavy through the thin tank top, and her fingers moved over the buttons with total confidence.
The stereo had very little to do with it.
What mattered was the way she leaned into me, her scent filling my lungs, her hip against my thigh.
“Got it,” she said, and music poured from hidden speakers, something upbeat and summer-wild that Vince immediately approved of with a nod.
“Told you she was good with gadgets,” Vince said, clapping me on the shoulder again. “Takes after her mother that way. Trina could program a VCR blindfolded. Shay’s the same with anything that beeps.”
We moved to the primary suite at the stern, and the space was, as advertised, impressive.
Queen berth with storage underneath, en-suite head with a proper shower, and enough headroom that I could stand without ducking.
Vince showed me the climate control, the reading lights, the clever little fold-out table that could serve as a desk or a breakfast tray.
“Perfect for overnighters,” he said. “Trina and I are thinking of taking her up to Smith Mountain Lake next month. Weekend trip. The girls can have the house to themselves, drive us crazy, usual deal.”
Shay was quiet during the cabin tour, which should have worried me more than it did.
She leaned against the doorframe, arms crossed, watching her father with fond exasperation, and every few seconds her eyes would find mine and hold, and the message in them was so clear it might as well have been written on the bulkhead in Sharpie.
When we emerged onto the deck, Vince settled against the transom rail, coffee in hand, and the conversation shifted.
“Actually, Luke, while I’ve got you. We’re doing the lake-game thing this weekend.
You know the drill. Cornhole tournament, volleyball on the sandbar, bonfire after dark, the kids’ll want to stay late.
” He took a sip, his expression easy. “Trina and I could use another set of hands. Someone to keep an eye on the younger crowd, make sure nobody does anything too stupid. You’ve always been good at that.
Steady hand, good judgment. The families trust you. ”
The irony landed with the force of a physical blow.
The families trusted me. They trusted me to chaperone their daughters, to be the responsible adult, to keep the summer chaos contained within safe, familiar boundaries.
They had no idea that the man they were asking had spent the night with Kiki Bishop’s legs wrapped around his hips and was currently fighting a hard-on because Shay Hollis had pressed her breast against his arm in a boat cabin five minutes ago.
I should have said no. I knew I should have said no.
“I’d be happy to help,” I said.
Vince nodded, pleased. “Good man. Knew I could count on you.”
Over his shoulder, Shay’s face lit up with a smile so bright and satisfied that Vince, turning to follow my gaze, clearly had no idea what he was looking at.
“What?” he asked her. “You that excited about cornhole?”
“Something like that,” Shay said, and her eyes found mine across the deck, holding my gaze with a promise that skipped right past beanbags and went straight to what would happen after dark, when the bonfire was lit and the families had gone home and the man they’d trusted to chaperone was alone with six women who had plans for him that would make a navy admiral blush.
The boat rocked gently beneath us. The lake shone.
Vince clapped my shoulder one more time, grateful and oblivious, and I stood on the deck of the Hollis family boat with a hard-on, a chaperoning gig, and the distinct feeling that I had just agreed to walk directly into the exact situation I was supposed to be preventing.
Shay’s smile said she knew it too, and she was very, very pleased about it.
***
Vince’s phone rang exactly thirty seconds after he finished his coffee, the ringtone blaring some country song I didn’t recognize, and he glanced at the screen with the resigned expression of a man who took calls whether he wanted to or not.
“Hollis. Yeah, hang on.” He held up a finger to me, mouthing “one minute,” and moved up the companionway toward the deck where the reception was better.
The timing was too perfect. Suspiciously perfect.
I caught a glimpse of Eden through the cabin window, standing on the dock with her phone to her ear, her hazel eyes sharp behind her sunglasses, and the satisfied curve of her mouth told me everything I needed to know about who’d engineered the interruption.
Then Shay’s hand closed around my wrist, and thinking about Eden became impossible.
She pulled me into the primary suite, kicked the door shut with her heel, and backed me toward the queen berth until my calves hit the mattress.
One firm push to my chest sent me down onto the bed, and she was on me before the springs had finished settling, straddling my hips, her thighs clamping around my waist, her hands framing my face as she kissed me hard enough to bruise.
Her mouth was warm and hungry, her tongue against mine with none of the sweetness Kiki had brought to the same act.
This was demand, not request, and the contrast was so sharp it made my head spin.
Shay kissed like she talked: dirty, direct, taking what she wanted and making sure you knew exactly how much she wanted it.
I broke the kiss, breath ragged, my hands finding her waist. “Shay. Stop. Vince is right outside, the families are on the dock, and I just—Kiki and I—”
“I know exactly what you and Kiki did.” She laughed against my mouth, low and warm, her hips grinding against my cock where it was already hard and straining against my shorts.
“We could hear her, Luke. All the way down by the pool. She was moaning your name so loud I thought the neighbors might call the cops.” Her hand slid down my chest, over my stomach, and wrapped around my erection through my shorts, squeezing just hard enough to make my hips jerk.
“She came at least twice. I counted. And then this morning, in the shower?
The walls in your house aren't as thick as you think they are.”
My hands tightened on her waist, fingers digging into the soft curve of her hips, and the rational part of my brain, the part that remembered Vince was thirty feet away and Mark Bishop was flipping bacon on a dock full of people who trusted me, was shouting something that sounded a lot like stop.
The rest of me was shouting something else entirely.
“Shay.” Her name came out rough, half warning, half plea. “We can’t. Not here. Not now.”
“Why not?” She rolled her hips again, her ass grinding against my cock, and the friction of denim on cotton sent a pulse of heat through my shaft that made my jaw clench.
“Daddy is on the phone. The families are eating breakfast. Nobody’s coming down here.
And you want me. I can feel how much you want me.
” Her hand stroked me through my shorts, firm and sure.
“Your cock is so hard it’s trying to punch through your zipper.
That’s not a no, Lake Luke. That’s a fuck yes with extra steps. ”
She was right. God help me, she was right. My cock throbbed in her hand, aching for her, and every rational objection I had left sounded hollow even to me.
My hands slid from her waist to her hips, gripping the firm muscle there, thumbs digging into the soft curve where her hips met her thighs.
She moaned against my mouth, the sound vibrating against my lips, and her hips rolled faster, seeking more friction, her pussy grinding against my cock through the layers of fabric between us.
“That’s it,” she whispered. “Stop thinking. Just feel.”
I stopped thinking. My hands found her ass, fingers digging into the round, firm muscle, pulling her against me hard enough that she gasped and her rhythm faltered.
She recovered instantly, laughing that dirty, delighted laugh, and kissed me again, her tongue against mine, her body pressed against my chest.
Then something broke loose in me, some last thread of restraint snapping under the weight of want, and I flipped us.
One motion, her under me on the bed, my body covering hers, and her eyes went wide with surprise and pure, unholy delight. “There he is,” she breathed. “There’s the Luke I’ve been waiting for.”
I didn’t answer. I kissed her, hard, one hand sliding under her tank top to find her breast, and the feel of it, heavy, warm, her nipple hard against my palm, dragged a groan out of me that she swallowed with her mouth.
I squeezed, rolled her nipple between my fingers, and she arched off the bed with a whimper that went straight to my cock.
“Fuck, Luke, yes—”