Page 144 of The Woman By the Lake

But for the most part, I was a homebody, and due to my family’s wealth and fame—and now I could see, the man my father was and the lessons my mom learned from that—I’d been taught to exercise extreme caution and be smart when it came to connecting to people.

And in a sense, this made my life somewhat insular.

Riggs didn’t live an insular life, and experiencing that phenomenon through him, where I felt safe, as if he’d vetted the people who would touch my life, I liked it.

Enormously.

These were definitely subjects to journal about.

Copiously.

Now, dinner consumed, dishes done (we did those together too), dusk was falling.

And it was time to get busy.

Riggs had that same thought, I knew, when, not stopping kissing me, he pulled me over him to straddle his lap.

He then lifted the skirt of the little knit dress I’d put on to be more comfortable while we made dinner. After which, he dove directly in from the bottom edge of my panties and up to claim both cheeks of my behind in a grip that, if I had any mental acuity at that juncture, would make me pause to ponder if my behind was actually his.

Though, in a physical sense, I processed it, and that processing made me tremble in his hold.

The pads of his fingers dug in as I rubbed against his hard crotch.

Abruptly, his head jerked back to break the kiss.

I wasn’t thrilled he did that, or how he did.

“Baby?” I called.

“Car,” he said.

That was when I heard a car door slam, followed closely by another one.

Good Lord.

What now?

We both sat there, silent, and didn’t move an inch.

My front door was opened, the storm door closed and locked, and the back door the same, except that door wasn’t locked.

We heard the loud knock at the front storm door.

Of the same mind without a word to confirm it, we still didn’t move.

Another knock.

Riggs caught my eyes. His were beleaguered. I sensed mine were the same.

Yes, it was awesome he knew a ton of people and it all felt like family.

But this was getting ridiculous.

That feeling came out even more when we heard movement and rustling coming down the side of the house.

Riggs sighed, dropping his head to the back of the loveseat and closing his eyes as he took his hands out of my panties and pulled down my skirt, but he didn’t move me. He just rested his hands to my bottom, now over my skirt.

Thus, I was straddling him with my arms around his neck and his hands on my ass when we both turned our heads to see Lucille stop dead and cry, “Oh!”

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