Feels like Trouble (Lake Fisher 4)

“Almost ready!” she calls back. “Give me a minute. I’m running late.”

“Yeah, I heard!” I call as I walk down the hallway toward her room. But I stop short when I get to her doorway, because she’s sitting on the edge of her bed with her skirt bunched up around her waist as she rolls a pair of thigh-high stockings up her thigh and clips them into place with lacy white garters. I freeze and stare at her, as she blows a lock of hair from her eyes, stands up, and pulls her skirt down over her thighs. I cough into my fist to clear the lump that’s suddenly right there. “What’s taking you so long?” I ask, sounding like I just swallowed a frog. But in my mind’s eye, I’m still looking at Evie’s thighs, those stockings, those garters.

Her cheeks turn pink. “I wanted to look nice.” She swishes her skirt around her legs.

I hitch my shoulder against the doorjamb. “You succeeded.”

“Thank you,” she chirps.

Evie usually wears jeans and t-shirts, and lately I’ve seen her in my hoodie and jeans more than anything else. But this Evie…this Evie is different. She has curled her hair so that it falls in soft waves over her shoulders. Her eyes are lightly defined by makeup, and her lips are a pinkish color I’ve never seen on her before.

“Do I look okay?” she asks, as she steps into her heels. “Tell the truth.” She stops in front of the mirror and puts in a pair of small gold earrings.

I step up behind her at the mirror and look over her shoulder at her reflection. Her eyes meet mine in the mirror. “You look amazing,” I tell her. She’s wearing a sleeveless dress, so I sweep aside the fabric to expose more skin, just enough to press a kiss to her shoulder. “Clifford, you take my breath away.”

She tilts her head and smiles at me in the mirror, then turns to face me. “You look pretty handsome yourself.” She reaches up and adjusts my tie. Then she steps onto her tiptoes and puckers her lips, inviting me to kiss her.

I think she anticipated a quick bump of our lips, but I feel like kissing her. Not just kissing her. I want to taste her. Hell, I want to climb inside her.

I kiss her, and she parts her lips ever so slightly, so I sweep my tongue into her mouth, tasting the toothpaste she must have just used. “You taste minty,” I say, and I kiss her again.

“So do you,” she says as she raises her hand and scratches my beard lightly. I don’t have a lot of facial hair, and what I have I keep neatly trimmed, but I do have a shadow of a beard. I push my chin into her hand, which makes her laugh. But her touching me feels so good.

“I thought about you all night long last night,” I confess, brushing her hair back and staring into her eyes. “Barely got any sleep at all, to be honest.”

She smiles softly and sweetly. “What were you thinking?”

“I was wishing I’d taken you up on that offer to come inside.” I may as well be honest. I tossed and turned, thinking about how it felt to laugh with her, to hold her close to me, and to kiss her. And I thought quite a bit about how it will feel when I finally get to be intimate with her. I want to hold her naked skin against mine and feel her all over. I pull my hips back, because I’m getting hard just thinking about it.

But when I retreat, she steps forward and wraps her arms around my neck. “I thought about you too,” she whispers close to my ear. All the hair on my arms stands up.

“Oh, yeah?” I ask, as I look down my nose at her.

She nods. “Oh, yeah.” She looks into my eyes. “Spending time with you, Grady, is pretty great. Not going to lie.” She kisses my chin. “But we had better go or we’ll be late. Grandma won’t hold our seats forever. We’ll get stuck next to Mrs. Rose–Allen. Nobody wants that.” She picks up a sweater and threads her arms through it.

I kiss her one last time. She turns and fixes her lipstick in the mirror.

“Ready?” she asks.

I look down. “Sort of.” My dick is hard.

She rolls her eyes. “Think about Mrs. Rose–Allen, if that’ll help.” She taps me on the cheek twice, and then breezes past me toward the door and goes out. I follow in her wake like I’m tethered to her, watching the sway of her hips as she goes down the hall, all the way out to the driveway. I open the passenger side door for her, and she grins at me. “Thank you, kind sir,” she chirps as she gets in.

It takes all of five minutes to get to the church, and we see people milling around the front steps. Evie glances at her watch. “Good. We still have time,” she says.

I notice that one of the people out front is Junior. He’s leaning on a railing talking with Milton, the guy who’s always asking Evie out.

Evie and I get out of the Jeep, and I reach over and take her hand. She looks up at me, a surprised expression on her face. “This okay?” I ask.

She nods, and her cheeks color.

And I’m proud as a peacock as we walk across the front lawn together, toward the door of the church. Junior grabs my elbow as I walk past him. “Hang back a minute, Grady,” he says.

“I’m going to go on in,” Evie says. “I’ll save you a seat.” She gives my hand a squeeze, smiles at me, tips her head like she’s feeling shy, and walks up the steps.

“So you and Evie, huh?” Milton says, his voice as sharp as glass.

I nod. “Me and Evie. Yep.”