Second Chance Stepbrother(22)

He sets me down on my feet gently, and reaches for the soap in the shower caddy. Without a word, he kisses my lips again, then starts to slowly lather up my skin.

“That was…”

“Amazing,” he finishes.

I narrow my eyes at him. “Close.”

“That too.” He’s grinning like we just got away with something. And we did, I know. But it still sets off an unpleasant sensation in my belly.

I let him wash my whole body, from my neck all the way down to my toes, and then we trade places so I can do the same for him, running my hands over every inch of his perfectly sculpted body.

Then we have to slip out of shower one after the other, slowly, sneakily, and it makes the high I just felt sink down into a low again.

This is all we’ll ever have. Stolen moments like this, clandestine secrets. We can never just be together, openly and easily together. It makes my chest ache, and a knot grow in the pit of my stomach.

When I cross outside to meet him at breakfast, sit next to him as always and brush our feet together under the table, it only makes me feel worse.

I want him, and I’ll never be able to have him. Not in any way that counts.





7





It’s our last week. Time always flies when you least want it to, when you most want the clock to keep ticking on forever. I try to ignore the pressure in my lungs, the sense of the summer dwindling before us.

Instead, we go for a swim in the lake. Our parents sit on the dock drinking margaritas and playing cards, joking and laughing. We swim out to the middle of the lake, where it’s deep enough that it reaches my shoulders, but we can still both stand. Our parents seem involved in their conversation, pretty distracted, and for once, Josh seems it too. So I take advantage.

I take a deep breath of air and dive under the water. Catch his boxers and tug them down. His hands grab at me, panicked, until he realizes what I’m doing. Then he lets me take over, hands wrapped through my hair as I gently stroke his cock.

I pop back up for another deep breath, and this time, when I descend, I keep going until I’m face-to-face with his cock. I keep my breath held tight and lick along his length, twirling my tongue around his tip. It takes me a few moments, and one more break for another breath, but I figure out how to part my lips and take him into my mouth. I clamp my lips around him, rock in the water, and his body goes tense against me, hands clamped in my hair with pleasure as he slowly rocks in time with me.

But of course, I can’t hold my breath forever. Just when he’s starting to rock faster, get into the motion, I run out of breath, and I kick away from him, swim to the surface and break through it with a gasp, grinning at him.

Our parents are still oblivious, chatting away on the docks a dozen yards away.

Josh swims up to me and wraps his arms around me under the water, inconspicuous enough that it will just look like we’re wrestling, if someone sees. We’re both laughing, though I am keenly aware of his hard cock, still bare, now pressed against my ass under the water.

“You used to be able to hold your breath a lot longer than that,” he murmurs into my hair, smirking as he kisses the nape of my neck quickly, fast enough that no one will notice. “Last time we were here, you could swim the whole length of the lake without taking a breath, remember?”

I tense against him. Because of course I remember—I remember every moment of that summer. He’s the one who never seems to. Who never talks about it, never even hints that we have a past. Even when I dance up to the subject, he avoids it, dodges any mention of what happened all those years ago.

Now it’s me who wants to dodge it, because what he just said brings up all kinds of unpleasant memories. I remember the months after that summer, all that time I spent wishing he’d reach out, wishing he’d write or call or even just explain what went wrong. Why he didn’t want to talk to me anymore.

I squirm out of his grip and swim across the lake, toward the distant dock and the canoes we fucked in at least a dozen times this summer. It’s not far enough away—right now, for once, I wish I could disappear from this lake altogether. But it will have to be far enough for now.

I pull myself onto the dock and wrap my arms around my knees, huddled there. Across the water, our parents are standing, Dad with the margarita glasses in hand, Susan picking up the card game they were playing. They’re probably going to refill their drinks, or maybe make some dinner. Dad’s gotten really into campfire cooking, and Susan plays his assistant, keeping the fire stoked, chatting with him while he cooks.

I watch them walk away, and my heart sinks even lower in my chest. Because I know they’re a good match. They have the same sense of humor, like all the same things. I know Dad is happy, finally, and I can’t take that from him. No matter how much it kills me to let go of what I really want.

Josh pads along the dock behind me. I should’ve known he wouldn’t let me just run away.

I feel him more than see him sit down beside me, his swimming trunks back on. For once, the sight of his glistening wet, muscular body doesn’t distract me. Not enough to pull me out of this funk.

I rest my chin on my knees and gaze across the lake, lost in thought.

“You okay?” he finally ventures, after a long, fraught silence.

“Not really,” I admit.

He touches my shoulder gently, but when I don’t react, he lets his hand drop. “What’s wrong?”