Chapter 6 — Hollis Point #2
The rotation hit halfway through the afternoon, and that’s when things got complicated.
Trina called for a partner switch. “Mix it up, people, nobody stays with the same person all day.” The basket came around again, and I watched with a sinking feeling as the girls’ hands emerged with colors that were very deliberately not blue.
Kiki drew green. Owen Kerr, sandy-haired and smiling, raised his matching band with the easy confidence of a man who had no idea what he was walking into.
I watched them pair up at the washer toss boards, Kiki’s golden hair catching the light, her laugh carrying across the yard as Owen said something that made her smile.
Normal summer scene. Wholesome, even. Kiki Bishop, beautiful twenty-one-year-old woman, laughing with a man her own age at a family party.
It should have made me feel better. It didn't.
Every time Owen’s hand brushed Kiki’s arm as they reached for washers.
Every time he steadied her by the waist when she leaned too far over the board.
Every time her blue eyes found mine across the yard with that warm, private smile that said, clear as day, I’m still yours, this means nothing, the jealousy landed in my chest like something with claws.
I wasn’t proud of it. I knew better. Kiki had spent the night in my bed, taken my cock twice, worn my cum inside her to breakfast, and sat on the Bishop dock telling me it was okay that I wanted Shay too.
The rational part of my brain understood that Owen Kerr was a harmless college kid having a nice day at a lake party.
The part of my brain that had been rewired by Kiki Bishop’s pussy gripping my cock at seven in the morning didn't give a single fuck about rational.
Shay noticed. Of course she noticed. She was standing beside me at the bocce court, her dark hair tickling my jaw as she leaned close, and I felt her body go still the moment she tracked my gaze to where Kiki and Owen were laughing by the washers.
“Oh my God,” she whispered, her breath hot against my ear. “You’re jealous. You’re actually jealous. This is amazing.”
“I’m not jealous.”
“You are. You’re practically growling. I can hear your teeth grinding from here.
” She laughed, low and delighted, and her hand found the small of my back, fingers pressing into the muscle there with a proprietary warmth that did nothing to calm the storm in my chest. “Luke Whitaker, man of steel, model-ship builder, responsible adult, is jealous of a boy named Owen who wears board shorts with whales on them. I need a picture. Eden, where’s your phone? ”
“Don’t you dare.”
She was already reaching for her own phone, aiming it at my face with a grin that could have powered the eastern seaboard. “Smile, Lake Luke. You’re iconic right now.”
I caught her wrist, gently, and the contact, her warm skin under my fingers, the pulse I could feel at her wrist, shifted something between us. Her smile softened. Her eyes held mine, and for a second the teasing dropped away, replaced by something warmer and more complicated.
“Hey,” she said, quiet enough that only I could hear.
“She’s yours. You know that, right? They all know that.
That’s the whole point of this.” She gestured vaguely at the party, the games, the carefully orchestrated chaos.
“Nobody here is confused about who belongs to who. Except maybe Owen, but that’s not our problem. ”
“She doesn’t belong to me,” I said, and the words came out rougher than I meant them. “She’s not a thing. She chose me. There’s a difference.”
Shay’s expression did something complicated.
Surprise, then tenderness, then that sharp Hollis mischief flooding back in.
“God, you’re perfect. No wonder she fucking loves you.
” She squeezed my hand and pulled me toward the bocce court.
“Come on. I need to destroy you at something before the next rotation, or my ego won’t survive the day. ”
We played bocce. I lost, badly, because my brain was split between the game and the fact that Reese had drawn yellow and was currently partnered with Ryan Pike at the ladder toss, and Ryan’s hand had found the small of her back when she’d stumbled on the uneven grass, and the way Reese had laughed and touched his arm in thanks had sent a fresh jolt of something dark and possessive through my chest that I had no business feeling.
Shay noticed that too. She said nothing, but her smile took on a quality that was equal parts amusement and hunger.
The moment came behind the boathouse. We were fetching water balloons for the next round, the plastic bucket heavy between us, and Shay steered us around the back of the weathered cedar structure where the sound of the party dimmed to a distant pulse and the air smelled like old motor oil and lake stone.
She set the bucket down. Turned. Backed me against the boathouse wall with one firm hand on my chest, and kissed me.
Not a tease. Not a preview. Her mouth on mine, hard and hungry, her tongue against my lips until I opened for her, and the taste of her, citrus, lake air, the faint sweetness of whatever punch she’d been drinking, flooded my senses and turned my spine to liquid.
Her body pressed against mine, breasts against my chest, hips grinding into my thigh, and her hand slid from my chest to my jaw, fingers digging into my stubble as she held me exactly where she wanted me.
I kissed her back. One hand on her waist, the other cupping the back of her head, fingers threading through her dark hair, and the sound she made against my mouth, half moan, half laugh, went straight to my cock.
“See?” she whispered against my lips. “Not neutral. Not even close.”
“Everyone knows,” she whispered. “They just don’t know they know.
Stop making it complicated and kiss me.” Her hips rolled against my thigh, deliberate and slow, and I could feel how wet she was through her shorts, hot and slick against my leg.
“You want all of us. You’re jealous of boys named Owen because you’re terrified someone might take what’s yours, and the thing you don’t get yet is that we’re all already yours.
We’ve been yours. We’re just waiting for you to catch up. ”
She kissed me again, deeper, her hand sliding down to grip my ass through my shorts, fingers digging into the muscle there with a possessiveness that matched anything I’d felt all afternoon. My cock hardened against her hip, aching, and she laughed against my mouth, low and warm.
“There he is. Knew he was in there somewhere.”
A shout from the yard broke the moment. Tatum’s voice, calling for water balloons, and Shay pulled back with a reluctance that made my chest tight.
Her lips were swollen, her cheeks flushed, her blue eyes dark with a hunger that mirrored my own, and she pressed one more quick, hard kiss to my mouth before stepping away.
“Later,” she said, and it wasn’t a question.
We carried the bucket back to the game. The party rolled on.
Kiki caught my eye from across the badminton net and smiled, warm and knowing, and the way her fingers brushed Owen’s arm as she reached for a shuttlecock carried no weight, no heat, nothing but the casual ease of a woman who was exactly where she wanted to be, which was nowhere near Owen Kerr and everywhere near me.
It didn’t help. The jealousy sat in my chest like a living thing, restless and hot, and every time one of the girls laughed with a guy who wasn’t me, every time a hand found a waist or an arm or a shoulder in that casual summer way, something in me twisted harder.
The second moment came on the path near the dock.
Shay pulled me aside under cover of Tatum causing a spectacular water balloon disaster that had half the party shrieking and running for cover, and backed me against a pine trunk where the needles were soft underfoot and the lake sound carried through the trees.
This time her kiss was slower. Hungrier. Her body pressed against mine, one thigh sliding between my legs, and her hand found my cock through my shorts and squeezed, just once, firm enough to make my hips buck against her.
“Jesus, Shay—”
“Shh.” Her mouth moved to my jaw, my neck, her teeth grazing the skin below my ear in a way that made my hands tighten on her hips.
“You don’t get to pretend anymore, Luke.
You don’t get to stand in the middle of a party watching Kiki laugh with some boy and act like it doesn’t tear you apart, because I can feel it.
Right here.” Her hand pressed against my chest, over my heart.
“Your heart is going crazy. Has been all afternoon.
Every time one of us gets near someone else, every time you think for one second you might have to share, it fucking kills you, and the best part is, you have no idea how hot that's.”
She was right. God help me, she was right.
My heart hammered against her palm, fast and hard and completely beyond my control, and the realization that she could feel it, that she’d been tracking my pulse all afternoon, reading my jealousy like a language she’d been fluent in forever, should have been embarrassing.
It wasn’t. It was heat, pure and blinding, and when her mouth found mine again, I kissed her like a man who had nothing left to hide.
Her hand worked my cock through my shorts, stroking me hard and firm, and I was so close, so fucking close to lifting her against that tree and taking what we both wanted,
“Balloon fight!” Tatum’s voice, shrill with delight, carried from the yard, followed by the wet splat of rubber hitting skin and a chorus of shrieks that meant the disaster had officially escalated.
Shay broke the kiss with a groan that vibrated against my chest. Her forehead rested against mine, her breath coming hard, her blue eyes holding mine with a frustration that matched my own.