Page 108 of It Happened on the Lake

When he stepped closer, she froze, a small stream of smoke exiting her parted lips. Sensual lips. “Oh. I. Uh.” Her eyebrows drew together and she was clearly confused. “I, um, I thought you were Chase.”

Levi wasn’t surprised. Aside from their differences in hair and eye color, he and Chase resembled each other. A lot. Chase was bigger, an inch taller, but even that might change as Levi grew older.

“Yeah, I’m his brother,” he said.

“Really? Uh. Yeah. I’ve seen you.” Nodding, she got to her feet. Approached. “The offer still stands. Wanna toke?” She smiled, more broadly to show off white teeth.

“Sure.” He took the joint and acted as if he smoked pot all the time, which he didn’t, but he needed something to distract him from her massive breasts, swinging freely beneath the scrap of a suede vest with its long fringe.

Somehow he avoided coughing and asked her name.

“Moonbeam.”

“Moon—?”

“Moonbeam. Everyone calls me that.” At his skeptical look, she said, “Yeah, I know,” and rolled her big expressive eyes. “It’s kinda crazy but it’s waaaay cooler than Janet.”

“If you say so.”

“For sure!” she said with a tinkling laugh, her eyes twinkling in the porch light.

“Okay. Moon, er, Moonbeam.”

Giggling, she said, “I think I like you, Chase’s brother, even if you are jail bait.”

“Jail—?”

The front door opened and the strains of “White Rabbit” wafted out on the woody scent of patchouli. A muscle-bound guy with a huge Afro nearly filled the doorway, his big frame silhouetted by shifting light from lava lamps that were visible just beyond his shoulders. “Who’re you?” he demanded gruffly.

Janet/Moonbeam hurried up the steps and placed a hand on the guy’s bare chest. “He’s cool,” she assured him. “He’s Chase’s brother.”

“Shit. A kid?” His dark gaze landed on Levi. “What’re you doin’ here?”

“Just walking.”

“It’s late. Ain’t it past your bedtime?”

“Hey, Ronnie, don’t,” Moonbeam said in a soft voice. “I said, he’s cool. No need to give him a bad time.”

“I don’t like kids hanging out. Isn’t he the son of a cop or somethin’?”

“So is Chase and”—she shrugged—“the cops don’t bother us.”

“Yet,” he said, skewering Levi with a suspicious glare.

“You worry too much.” She kissed one of his bare pectoral muscles, and he let out a sigh. “Someone’s got to.”

“Give it a rest.”

“Okay. This time. But I don’t like kids hanging out here.” To Levi he said, “You’d best be gettin’ home.” Then to Moonbeam, “What’re you thinkin’? Now, come on.” With a possessive arm around Moonbeam’s slim waist, he drew her inside and shut the door. A second later Levi heard the distinctive sound of a dead bolt slamming into place.

But the shade wasn’t completely drawn.

He took a chance, peeking beneath it. Inside the black dude and Moonbeam finished the joint, then started kissing and touching. He pushed her onto an orange couch, his big hands working upward, past that tantalizing fringe to squeeze a suddenly exposed nipple.

She arched her back, and he took the nipple into his mouth.

And damn it, Levi felt himself get hard.

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