Chapter 2: Stolen Moments Next Door
The humiliation of the satin nightgown clung to Kevin for days, a phantom itch he couldn’t scratch. He took out the trash with a grim focus, the plastic bag straining in his grip, seeking any task that would bury the memory of that whispering fabric against his skin.
The late afternoon sun was a welcome assault, burning away some of the domestic fog. He rounded the corner of the garage to the bins, and the world narrowed to the vision on the neighboring porch.
A girl was stretched on a lounger, all long limbs and golden skin. A skimpy bikini—electric blue triangles held by strings—did little to contain her. One hand rested on her stomach, the other held a phone above her face. A small tattoo of a geometric bird in flight sat just below her shoulder. She turned her head, and sunglasses hid her eyes, but a slow smile spread across her lips.
“Hey,” she said, her voice lazy and warm. “You must be the famous Kevin.”
He froze, the trash bag hovering over the bin. “Uh. Yeah. That’s me.”
She sat up, sliding her sunglasses to the top of her head, revealing bright, assessing blue eyes. “Alyssa. I live with Grams next door.” She nodded toward the older house separated by a thin hedge. “Jen mentioned you guys were staying. Said you were… adjusting.”
Kevin’s jaw tightened at the word. “Adjusting. That’s one word for it.”
“Sounds boring.” Alyssa swung her legs off the lounger and stood in a single, fluid motion. She was taller than he expected. She picked up a nearly empty glass of something clear and fizzy with a lime wedge. “I’m dying of thirst. Grams is at bingo. Want a drink? Something that isn’t Jen’s approved chardonnay?”
It was an escape route. A simple, beautiful escape. The allure of a space that wasn’t under Jen’s microscope, with someone who didn’t look at him and see a problem to be disciplined, was a physical pull in his gut. “Yeah,” he said, the word coming out too fast. “Yeah, that’d be great.”
Her house smelled of lemon polish and old paper, a cluttered, comfortable chaos of crocheted blankets and stacked novels. The living room was dim, the blinds half-drawn. “Sorry for the mess,” she said, not sounding sorry at all. She walked toward the kitchen, her hips swaying gently in the tiny bikini bottom. “Water? Soda? I think there’s beer.”
“Beer’s perfect,” Kevin said, lingering awkwardly near a bookshelf, his eyes tracing the line of her spine, the knot of her bikini strings.
He heard the fridge open, the clink of bottles. She came back with two, already opened, and handed him one. Their fingers brushed. She didn’t step back. She looked up at him, her gaze direct, unblinking. The air in the room thickened, growing warm and still.
“So,” she said, taking a slow sip. “Jen’s a piece of work, huh?”
He barked a short, humorless laugh. “You have no idea.”
“I have some idea.” Her eyes dropped to his lips, then back up. “She talks. About respecting her space. Controlling energies.” Alyssa’s smile turned wicked. “Sounds like a bunch of repressed bullshit to me.”
Hearing his own furious thoughts spoken aloud, and by her, was like a key turning in a lock. “It is,” he breathed.
She placed her beer on a side table with a decisive click. The sound was final. In the quiet that followed, the hum of the clock on the wall was suddenly loud. She closed the small distance between them, her bare feet silent on the rug. Her scent, coconut oil and summer heat, enveloped him.
Her hands came up, not hesitant, but sure. One palm flattened against his chest, feeling the rapid heartbeat beneath. The other went lower, her fingers hooking into the belt loops of his jeans, tugging him firmly against her.
“You look tense,” she whispered, her voice dropping to a husky register that vibrated straight through him. “Wound up.”
He was paralyzed, caught between the ghost of satin and the blazing reality of her skin. “Alyssa, I—”
“Shhh.” She rose onto her toes, her mouth brushing the shell of his ear. “I know exactly what you need.”
It wasn’t a question. It was a declaration. And with it, every rule, every humiliating lesson, every hissed warning from Jen, evaporated. The primal need she’d tried to shackle roared back, hot and immediate. His hands came up, gripping her bare waist, the feel of warm, smooth skin under his palms a shocking benediction.
She kissed him. It wasn’t gentle. It was all hungry tongue and teeth, a claiming. He met her with equal ferocity, the beer bottle forgotten, tilting in his hand before he blindly set it down somewhere. Her fingers made quick work of his belt buckle, the metallic rasp shockingly loud. The button of his jeans popped open.
She broke the kiss, breathing hard, her blue eyes dark with intent. With a firm push, she reversed their positions, steering him until his back hit the wall beside the bookshelf. A small frame rattled.
“The door,” he managed to gasp, his head swimming.
“Grams has a key,” she said, but she twisted, reaching out an arm to slide the deadbolt across with a solid, satisfying thunk. The sound of the lock engaging was the most erotic thing he’d heard in weeks.
Security. Privacy.
She turned back to him, her hands resuming their work, tugging his jeans and boxers down over his hips in one urgent motion. The cool air of the room, and then the warmer touch of her hand, made him gasp. Her eyes flicked down, taking him in, and a small, approving smile touched her lips. “There you are,” she murmured, as if greeting an old friend.
Her touch was confident, knowing, a stark contrast to the confusing tension with Ashley, to Jen’s punishing control. This was simple. This was hunger meeting hunger. She dropped to her knees on the patterned rug, her blonde hair catching the slats of light from the blinds, and looked up at him, her expression one of pure, wicked promise.
From outside, faintly, came the sound of a car door shutting next door. Jen was home.
Alyssa, her world narrowed to the man in front of her, heard nothing at all.
She rose, guiding him to the worn couch, and sank onto him with a gasp that was part relief, part conquest. Her hips set a frantic, demanding rhythm, her head thrown back, the geometric bird on her shoulder taking flight with every sharp movement.
“Don’t you dare stop,” she choked out, her fingers digging into his shoulders as her body tightened, shuddered, and clenched around him with a raw, vocal cry. The violent pulse of her own release tipped him over an edge he’d been forced away from for too long, and he followed with a choked groan, his hands locking on her hips as he spilled into her, the sensation obliterating every thought of satin or rules.
She collapsed against his chest, both of them slick with sweat and breathing in ragged unison. After a moment, she lifted her head, her smile lazy and satisfied. “Our secret,” she whispered, her thumb tracing his lower lip. The distant sound of a slamming screen door next door made his stomach drop.
The sound jolted him back into his body, into the risk. He scrambled from the couch, his clothes feeling alien as he yanked them on over skin still humming with her.
“A leak under the sink,” he mumbled to Alyssa, already heading for the door, the lie forming on his tongue like a reflex. He slipped back into Jen’s kitchen, finding her unloading groceries. “Hey,” he said, forcing calm into his voice. “Sorry, was next door helping Alyssa with a leak under her sink.”
Jen paused, a can of soup in her hand, and looked at him. She noted his slightly flushed face, the hurried energy. “That was neighborly of you,” she said, a flicker of approval in her eyes as she turned back to the cupboard. “Thank you for showing some responsibility.”