I was doing a heroic job of not looking at the mesh taunt of Sunny’s bralette, and Sunny was now telling a hilarious story about the time my ex-bodyguard ended up starring as Edward Cullen in aTwilight-inspired musical on a cruise ship, and that’s when Opal accidentally knocked her glass of water into Fabienne’s lap.
“Oh my God!” she squeaked. “I’m so sorry! I’m so mortified!” She was going bright red under her freckles as she started frantically mopping at Fabienne’s lap, and Fabienne was giggling, and then she caught Opal’s hand with a smile. They made eye contact and held it, Fabienne’s long fingers wrapped around Opal’s wrist, and the smiles slowly slid from their faces.
Opal’s blush stayed.
I felt a knee press against mine under the table, the kind of slow press and push of someone being like,Um, are you seeing this, because I am seeing this, and we WILL discuss later.
I nudged back, because yes, I was seeing what was apparently a canon event for our two dates... a canon event that had nothing to do with Sunny or me.
And far from being bewildered or disappointed, I feltgreat. After all, if Opal and Fabienne were just another napkin-blot away from falling in love, then maybe I could be excused from making this muse-match work. And if I could be excused, then I could visually investigate Sunny’s bralette with a clear conscience.
And ahhhh, the world was completely perfect once again.
Chapter Thirteen
Sunny
Aroll of silverware clattered to the ground as Fabienne winced. “And now I’ve gone and knocked your utensils off the table,” she told Opal as she began to slither out of her chair to retrieve it from the depths under the tablecloth.
Isaac cleared his throat andtsked at Fabienne. “Allow me.”
“To be fair, I don’t think this dress was meant for kneeling,” Fabienne admitted shyly.
A fresh blush peppered Opal’s chest as she laughed, and I muttered to Isaac, “I wouldn’t be so sure.”
A corner of his perpetually frowning lips turned upward as he knelt down and disappeared under the tablecloth.
The dress comment quickly led to Opal and Fabienne becoming lost in a conversation about an influencer they both followed who held themselves to rigid historical accuracy when it came to their vintage wardrobe, down to the foundation garments. It sounded... tedious.
Under the table, I heard the clink of silverware and felt the wool of Isaac’s black sweater brush against a sliver of my bare thigh exposed thanks to the slit in my skirt.
I sensed him pausing for a moment before a hand slid up my inner thighs, parting them without hesitation.
Oh my fucking God. My heart began to stutter as I ran my hand up the back of my neck.
His other hand molded to the curve of my calf as I felt a sharp but warm pang against the sensitive skin of my inner thigh. He fuckingbitme.
I peered down at my lap, but the tablecloth concealed him entirely.
The restaurant was dim, but glowing with warm white Christmas lights draped through garland and all around a Christmas tree that had to be at least fourteen feet tall. The whole place bustled with conversation and laughter, everyone in their own little snow globe of holiday cheer and not a single mind paid to the man under our table, kneeling between my thighs. All around me the world moved in slow motion and my cheeks flared with heat as sound muffled like I was underwater and Isaac Kelly himself was pulling me down under.
He nipped again, his teeth sinking into my skin, and then sucked a little, like he meant to leave a mark. Then he kissed it better.
I felt his absence immediately, and my thighs and core burned, wanting way more than he could legally give me in public—though I wasn’t technically fluent in the state of Vermont’s indecent exposure laws.
The moment he climbed back into his chair, the sounds and actions of the restaurant came rushing back to life, jarring my senses.
He didn’t even look at me before flagging down our waitress and giving her that sad grin of his that you couldn’t help but want to fix even though there was no fixing Isaac Kelly.
“Yes,” he said as she approached, “we seem to have dropped this silverware on the floor. Could we get a new set?”
She smiled at him and nodded.
I stood up quickly, nearly knocking my chair over. “I’m going to freshen up or—something,” I said. “Be right back!”
As quickly as I could, I slunk off to the bathroom.
Isaac and I needed rules. No public thigh biting, for starters. Except, holy shit, that was hot. He didn’t even know that the first thing that showed up in the search bar of my most frequented porn site wassex in publicclosely followed bystuck. (If you know, you know.)
