We work out the plan after that. It's hard to put flirting on hold, but I manage it. I remember finding her creepy at the beginning of the night, but the memory is flattened under a layer of newfound affection and lust. A pulse goes through me every time she squeezes her thighs together with a satisfied expression. I did that. Though, I get the impression her satisfaction won't last. Fine by me. I want to be back inside her.

Eric and Jett come back thirty minutes after they left, both wearing smiles. Seems Eric has relaxed some of Jett's worries with their shopping trip, which extended beyond a single jar of sauce, based on the multiple bags he's carrying. If anyone can put my worrywart of an uncle at ease, Eric seems a winning candidate. I get why Violette doesn't want Jett to have him--while he's not my type, his charms are evident--but I think I've got what it takes to draw some of her devotion away from her father, enough she can abide sharing. I like a challenge.

To his credit, Jett was right that we could be a big happy family. He just miscalculated what that might look like. But I ought to reward him for finding me such an interesting girl, right?

I smile back at them when they enter the living room, which Jett responds to by losing his smile. So suspicious. Violette, to her credit, does not smile. That would've been way more suspicious!

"Welcome back. Checked the pots earlier, everything was simmering fine. The timer for the steamer is about to go off though," I say smoothly. Eric's eyes widen at that, and he hustles to the kitchen with his grocery bags in tow. The clattering sound of activity starts again in the kitchen.

My uncle remains, like he wants to say something.

Relax. You're having a good time. This is actually going so well. I insist to his mind, causing his expression to flicker with vagueness, then uncertainty. Violette's eyes flick my way, the muscles in her legs tensing again. The princess can tell I'm influencing him, and she likes it? Thrilling.

Apologize for doubting me, I push, viciously, into his mind, and that draws a gasp from his lips. His hard nipples poke at the front of his dress shirt. I try not to smirk. Getting turned on just because I'm forcing thoughts on him? Worm behavior.

"I'm sorry I... questioned that you two would get along," Jett says, picking each word carefully. He doesn't want to admit to Violette what he was most worried about. "I'm glad you're enjoying one another's company."

We should celebrate.

"We should celebrate," Jett repeats, as if he's not entirely sure what he's saying.

Violette's mouth opens, just a little, and pinkens. She pushes her hands into the puffy fabric over her lap. I half expect her to start rubbing against her hand. Slow down, girl, he's not ready for that yet.

"Go help Eric," I say, breaking my hold on him. He blinks and turns without another word, the last couple minutes indistinct for him. The impressions will remain: it's going well, he's sorry, and its time to celebrate. That's what matters most.

"I could tell," Violette says in a low voice. Oh, she can't talk like that until I have her on her own again.

"Patience," I warn with a laugh. There's an edge of nervousness there, and it deepens when she frowns.

"I'm bad at waiting."

"I'll make it worth your while."

"You will," she says, and it seems like the void inside her expands for a moment. A spreading tarpit that could drown any thought of mine, dragging me down deep until I'm just a corpse enveloped in sticky blackness. Then she smiles. The feeling pops.

I swallow. She's really something else.

* * *

Before dinner is served, Violette goes around the table photographing the food from every angle. Eric watches with an indulgent smile on his face. I ask if he has his own account for cooking photos, but he laughs and says, "Nah, I'm famous by proxy!"

Once we're all seated, Eric and Jett make a toast to new beginnings. I can tell my words had a strong influence on Jett, as even Violette and I receive small cups full of a smooth soju. I drink mine in a few sips, while Jett and Eric both takes theirs like shots.

Keep drinking, it's a party, I encourage, and Eric refills his glass and Jett's. Soju was a great choice on Eric's part. Those two will be hammered by the end of dinner.

Violette sniffs her own glass and wrinkles her nose, looks like a puppy that's just sniffed a lemon for the first time. I'm surprised she doesn't knock the glass away. Instead, her tongue peeps out, directed at the offending beverage. I try not to laugh, drink water instead.

I'm not much on alcohol either. Makes my powers... weird. I definitely won't ask for more.

Dinner's amazing, enough that Violette and I don't have any agenda beyond eating for a while. Eric (and Jett, workhorse that he is) made stacks of homemade bao to go along with the other dishes, which is a good thing because Violette puts four away in quick succession. She and her dad have a similar appetite, the two of them taking big bites of rice out of their side bowls and heaping spoonfuls of each dish on the table onto their main plates.

I try a little of everything too, though not nearly as much. I guess the rice is meant to go in a seperate bowl, like how my mom used to serve it. But I kind of like mixing the rice into the other stuff. My dad's family would bring Cajun-style rice with sausage chopped in it to holiday gatherings, which my mom was not into. I smile at the memory, and spoon the rice onto my main plate instead.

I glance at Jett, who has a too sensibly portioned plate, more Chinese broccoli than anything else; no rice anywhere. He grabbed some stir-fried chicken, onion, and peppers, but he hasn't touched the plate of bao or the steaming bowl of stewed beef with some kind of radish. Violette notices too.

She takes a bao off of the stack in the center of the table and puts it on Jett's plate.

"Uncle Jett, don't you like bao?" she asks, her big blue eyes shining.

"Wait, you call him Uncle?" I interrupt.

"He's not Daddy, and he's an uncle," she says, like it's obvious. I snort and shake my head, but accept it.

Jett clears his throat. "Yes, I told her she might as well, it's what I'm used to hearing. I... forgot to mention it. And, I do enjoy bao, but I have quite a bit here already, so--"

"Eat it," Violette orders. He stops to immediately lift it and take a bite of it.

I gulp from my glass of water to cover my reaction to that. I'm desperate for telepathy to ask her so many questions. Can she control him? Does that mean she's... she's shown that to him? Has he had sex with her? There's no way! Jett wouldn't touch a woman, first off. I nearly jump out of my chair at the thought.

Jett eats the bao in record time, then nods at Violette, an apologetic look on his face. "It was delicious, thank you. Just, I know how much you and your father like them, it seems a waste to take even one, but I didn't mean--you're very hospitable, Violette," he finishes lamely.

"Oh, quit bossin' him around, babygirl," Eric says to Violette with a grand chuckle. She, for her part, smiles like a naughty little character in a cartoon who's gotten her way, not remotely chastened. I glance between the three of them, jealousy spiking in my chest at the dynamic that's clearly built between them since Jett was introduced to Violette. Months I was left out of.

I'm going to make him choke next time I get him alone.

In the mean time, between bites of my dinner, I try to dig through the layers of his thoughts that might answer my question about his relationship with Violette. Maybe I can't read her, but I can get something out of him. Surely I would have caught it when I grilled him in the kitchen that day?

Ugh. His thoughts are even foggier than usual from the alcohol, which he's started another glass of. Before I give myself a headache, I pull back.

I wonder about her dad? He's an open book, so...

I wade into the liquor-scented toffee porridge of his mind, mental fingers combing through his thoughts about her. The surface level love was all I caught earlier, but there must be more there. Below, where he doesn't want people to see. Jett doesn't even know, right? I definitely would have found out if he did. The only secrets he's good at keeping are the ones he keeps from himself.

There!

It's shrouded in darkness, probably Violette's influence, but I find the hazy image of her naked back, the sensation of burying inside her, a tangle of lust, guilt, pleasure, frustration. Words like the calls of lost birds. Can't keep doing this. I know you need it. My angel. Can hardly fit. I should pull out. Jett's coming soon.

I blink rapidly as I withdraw from the memory, then glance around the table. No one seems to have noticed how deep I went.

I can hear Violette kicking her legs back and forth under the table, the way it makes her dress rustle. She's typing something on her phone, maybe posting the pictures of the food she took. A little rude, yet innocent.

Her dad was guilty in that memory. But I sensed that she could wipe that away if she wanted to, had in some instances. There were ghosts of other times, half-remembered, riding along after those likes kites pulled by a string, where his lust was pure as fire, selfish. Where it consumed him.

I smile when she catches my eye, raise my eyebrows a little. She doesn't seem to understand, holds my eyes as she eats a piece of chicken. I'll tell her later what I'm thinking.

You've played so many games. Show me all of it.

* * *

Our guardians are deep into the bottle of soju by the time dinner draws to a close. Eric holds most of the attention as he boisterously tells stories from the construction sites he's worked on over the years or dates he's gone on with Jett. Violette makes Jett eat another bao, and I can't tell if she's influencing him with her actual power or just her baby doll eyes.

The mood's about as good as it could be after a raucous story about running into one of Jett's numerous exes (all garbage, let me tell you, he's usually got terrible taste) at the gym, which ended with Eric princess carrying Jett away to show off. Even Violette giggles at that story, and Jett's drunk enough to go along with the mood.

"You certainly proved you were the better man," Jett says, tugging at his crisply ironed collar and smiling into his cup.

"Eh, you know," Eric defers, but the way they look at each other makes Violette and I both glance away. "And hey, it's about time for that dessert you put together, Violette!"

Violette stands quickly. Oh, did she cook something too? She'd shown zero interest in the kitchen earlier. The three of us watch her silently as she pads out of the dining room. For a moment, the air feels strangely heavy. Once she's out of the room, it's like a held breath has been released.

She soon returns with a tray of bowls, smaller than the rice bowls, but decorated with a similar elaborate red and gold pattern. Inside is a wobbly white substance in a liquid that I don't recognize. Pudding?

"You ever had this, Oran?" Eric asks with a big grin on his face. "S'type of tofu that's real soft, real nice, then you put this brown sugar syrup on."

"No, never, but it sounds good." I take the bowl Violette offers me, try to charm her with a smile. "You made this?"

"Yes. I put the syrup on." She sits in her chair and digs in without another word.

I have to turn my head and cough to cover my snort. She seems deadly serious. Well, I won't go to her for home cooking, I guess, if that's her idea of making dessert.

Regardless, it's a great capstone to the evening. Eric's and Jett's thoughts are as sweet and soupy as the sauce on the tofu, and with my encouragement, increasingly warm. I doubt they'd planned to sleep with each other on this important night, but the way Jett's stealing glances at Eric while Eric full on burglarizes them gives their shift in plans away.

Look at us, we're so wholesome. Two guys in love, two probable future step-siblings (I spotted those engagement ring designs, Eric) bonding, what's not to approve of.

Could be the way Violette licks her dessert spoon with her whole tongue as she watches me. I get the sense the gesture is unintentional, but that somehow makes it more compelling. Could I talk her into sucking my dick? Her lips are so round and plush, especially with the gradient lipstick she's painted onto them. She seems like she's more focused on getting her lower mouth filled, but that's why it would be fun to convince her. I get the sense that her needs are always paramount in this house, and while I respect her hustle, I wouldn't be myself if I didn't try to wriggle around the rules.

Actually, that gives me an evil idea.

Not too hard to do by now. Jett's brain is hot sludge and Eric's is like banana's foster that someone just lit on fire. It's only our presence that keeps him from fucking my uncle on the table. I catch that dirty thought and blow it up like a helium balloon until it's all Eric can think about. If he were sober, this would be much more difficult, but with multiple glasses of soju in him, he's putty in my hands.

He stands up, visibly hard, and I almost whistle at the size of the bulge in his jeans. Violette gasps, then her eyes fly to mine. I wink at her, and she flushes with color. Jett also gasps too, with both interest and anxiety. He knows what's coming, thanks to me.

It's a big table, enough to sit at least six, maybe eight people, so we've only been using one end of it. Eric picks up Jett (who protests only faintly) like he's two bags of dry concrete. He sets him down on the empty end of the table and immediately starts undoing Jett's pants.

"Eric, we can't, the kids," he hisses, though he does a terrible job of resisting in any other way. That's my uncle for you. He loves to say "quit it" or "not right now" and then put his ass up like a dog.

"We're not here, we went to bed," Violette interjects, surprising me this time.

I can feel this integrate into her dad's reality, quick as anything. Whereas I was encouraging him to do it with us here, who even cares, it's his house, now we're not even a factor. Jett, on the other hand, senses the contradiction in her words--how could we be gone if she just gave him an order--but I help her out with a push of my own. He folds.

"I do want it," he concedes, "and they did go to bed..."

Eric doesn't need more approval than that. I turn my eyes away at the sound of a bottle cap clicking open and my uncle's soft gasp, taking in Violette's expression. Open-mouthed, dark-eyed, and curious. I catch her eye and waggle my eyebrows at her. My stomach twists pleasantly when she giggles.

"I've never seen them like this," she says.

"It's fun, isn't it? The alcohol helped. And you helped with Jett. He overthinks."

She nods, and I watch her bite her lip as I hear the slick sound of Eric pushing inside of Jett, then the pathetic, whimpery moan that follows. She shifts in her seat, rocking herself, pressing her hand into her lap like she had in the living room. I'm much more interested in studying her reaction to Jett getting railed than I am in the act itself. I've been the one in Eric's position enough times to know every detail.

"He looks better like this," she says.

"Doesn't he?"

"And Daddy looks so cool."

That does make me glance back at them. Eric's thick neck and arms are straining as he grips onto Jett's hips, and my uncle, not a small man by any means, seems dwarfed beneath him. So much of Eric slaps audibly against Jett as he thrusts. Jett seems to like it plenty, rubs at his belly like it's a good luck charm. The masculine smell of him is overpowering. Truly a feast for the senses. I feel a pang of something and turn back to her.

"Not bad," I say. The smug look returns to her face.

"You'd look good there too."

"Violette," I warn.

"Hmm, hmm, hmm."

"I'm not that easy to control," I say, both a truth and a lie. A truth that I'm not going to be as easy as her dad or Jett. A lie in that I can feel the creeping sensation of wanting to please her tickling the back of mind. He does look cool, is the thing.

"We'll see," she says. "Want to go the guest bedroom? I think they're distracted enough."

If I said that, I'd assume it was a humorous understatement, but I honestly can't tell with her. I laugh anyway and move around the table to offer her my hand. I wonder how she's going to influence me more once we get alone, and shudder with several emotions at the thought.

"Lead the way, mademoiselle." She takes my hand.