“Mine too,” she murmured, then lay quietly again.
“If I listen and still feel the same about my brother, is this pushing going to stop?” She immediately turned in my arms.
“That’s all I want. You can’t live your life without knowing his side of the story. I’ve met girls like Charlotte before. They use their sexuality to get what they want when they don’t even know if they want it. Then, when they get their way, most don’t like the reality as much as the fantasy.”
“Wow, you lost me in there, but I think you mean they want what others have and when they get it they lose interest.”
“Exactly. So, you’ll meet with James?”
“I said I would,” I replied, flatly.
Placing her hand tenderly on my cheek, she came closer and kissed the tip of my nose. “I’d say thank you, but this isn’t for me, Sawyer, you need to do it for you … and if afterward you still feel the same, I’ll let it slide. Call your mom tomorrow and set it up,” she encouraged, with a pat to my chest then rolled over to face the opposite direction.
“Hey,” I said, grabbing her wrist and rolling her onto her back. “Don’t I even get a kiss?” Immediately she ran her fingers through my hair. “Are you over me?” I asked, planting soft little kisses over each cheek, her eyes, her nose, and down her neck to her collarbone. Goosebumps erupted instantly the moment my lips touched her skin and I loved how I affected her.
“How could I ever do that? You said it yourself, look at you,” she replied playfully. “Of course I’m not, but if you are trying to clean the slate with Logan to stop me from worrying, then you should be willing to offer the same respect to me. I saw how Charlotte behaved around you at the New Year’s party. I think many women would have walked away under those circumstances, but I trusted you to deal with it in the best way you could without causing a scene. It was my love and trust in you that allowed that display to play out.”
I took a deep breath, and knew in that moment there wasn’t going to be a meeting of minds in regards to my obstinance about James, and I figured I could stand to be in the same room as him again for as long as it took to hear him out.
My parents always said, ‘Never go to sleep on an argument,” but I knew Billie wasn’t in the mood for us to make love, so I didn’t even try. The way I saw it, I’d have been trivializing her thoughts on the matter if I had.
The biggest lesson I had learned from our run-in was how quickly the mood between a couple could change when issues were left unresolved, at those times love wasn’t enough to prevent a difference of opinion. I was sorely disappointed at how our night turned out and was more than a little disheartened when in my desperation to fix things for Billie and Colby, my girl had felt I’d neglected to check my actions out with her first.
“Good morning to you, too, darlin’,” I murmured in a raspy tone, with a sleepy smile of contentment before my mouth made a sudden perfect O when I groaned in ecstasy. “Oh.” Waking to a set of hot hungry lips around the crown of morning wood should be prescribed for every man at the start of each day, I decided.
Knowing she wanted to make amends for challenging me was enough, but I was never going to turn down an incredible blow job when one was offered. It was the best pick-me-up she could ever have given me after the way we’d left things before we went to sleep. It wasn’t a falling out as much as a ‘tread carefully’ kind of occasion.
“Hey, you,” I murmured again, as I lifted the sheet to see a dark head of hair busy between my legs. Tossing the cover back I scooped her hair up in a ponytail and gently held it as she worked my cock with her amazing hot tongue. “Oh, that feels amazing,” I said, praising her attention toward me. “Come here,” I demanded, tightening my grip on her hair and pulling her mouth clear of my dick with a pop. She gave me her own brand of sexy sleepy grin, and I slid my hands along her ribs to her armpits and pulled her on top of me.
“We’re good?” I asked, tentatively, but I already knew the answer.
“Why wouldn’t we be?” she asked, as she sat up and climbed astride me and I immediately let it go. Sometimes adulting wasn’t as easy as I figured it would be, and Billie’s brand of adulting had no manual it appeared.
As she sat on top of me, she kissed me and I loved that she didn’t care about her teeth, her breath, or whatever, it had already been wrapped around my cock. She undulated her hips in small circles above my cock, her pussy soaked as she stimulated herself.
Breaking the kiss, her eyes were heavy with lust, her chest heaving in small breathy pants, as my hands slid up her ribs on both sides and grabbed her tits firmly. Billie’s breath hitched as she rose up to her knees and reached behind her, her fingers clasping firmly around my dick. Positioning my cock under her entrance, she sank down onto me in one continuous glide, and I grunted in pleasure as her eyes rolled in her head right before they closed.
Immediately I turned her over and took her agonizingly slowly, our fingers locked together and our hands resting above her head. This wasn’t about chasing my climax, it was about needing her to feel how important it was that nothing mattered as much as us. I felt if I could do this there was nothing we couldn’t overcome. Gently I whispered, “I love you so much, you’re incredible, darlin’. Tell me you’re mine.”
“Yours,” she whispered gasping, and it sounded half-hearted.
“Again.”
“I’m yours,” she said with more conviction.
“That’s right, darlin’, “I agreed and felt her begin to tighten again. I pulled out and she whimpered in frustration, her lust-filled eyes looking up at me in exasperation.
“I was coming,” she ground out.
“I know,” I confessed. “You’ll come when I’m ready this time and I’m not ready,” I said, wrapping my hand around my dick and tugging the ache away. My balls felt tight, but it had been a while since I’d played with her.
Leaning forward, I licked her pussy, my tongue stabbing teasingly and I chuckled when she widened her legs. “Cute,” I mumbled and chuckled again.
“Please, Sawyer,” she whined “Grr,” she growled, and I loved that I could get her so desperate for me.
“Is this what you want?” I asked, poking my cock wet with fresh precum, at her entrance.
“Give it to me,” she ground out through gritted teeth, her lust-filled eyes dark and wild with a mixture of desperation, desire, and frustration.
“Like this?” I asked, sliding inside her gently and pulling my length back slowly again. “Is this how you want me, darlin’?” She smiled and I continued easing in and out until we both came together. Our long intimate lovemaking session set our bodies in sync, and it gave a spiritual-like closeness to our connection.
We must have both passed out and we woke to the sound of a small knock on the door. “Yes?” Billie asked, suddenly sounding mom-like and totally with it.
“Are you getting up yet? I’m hungry,” Colby asked, his small voice sounding sleepy.
“Sure, baby, give me five minutes I was just getting dressed,” she lied. Flinging the covers back, she ran full out into the bathroom and I heard the shower running as she opened the door, “Call your mom and get this thing with James done this weekend, we have a wedding to finish planning, unless you want to wait a bit longer.”
It appeared sex had nothing to do with all other agendas after all, and I thought this was good to know.
Chapter Twelve
Mom suggested I met James at the penthouse in the city as a neutral setting, when I asked why, she told me she’d checked James had never taken Charlotte there. I knew I hadn’t in all our years together, so I accepted this had been a positive thought.
Arriving in the underground garage, I saw James’s Aston Martin DBS, and noted he was back in favor with my parents, as it had been left at their house when my father disowned him. I’d heard through Tammy his allowance had been reinstated and he had started work with my father a couple of weeks into the new year. The jury was still out on how I felt about
that, given the support my family had shown me at the time he left with Charlotte.
“Thanks for agreeing to meet me,” James said, as I wandered into the living room and threw my bike keys on the coffee table.
“I’m here, say what you’ve got to say, Colby’s out for the day with his grandparents and I want to spend time with Billie.”
“Do you want something to drink?” he asked, tentatively.
“No, I’m not the one who’s nervous, and I’m riding my bike back, remember?”
“Right, sorry,” he replied, and I’d never known him to behave so meekly.
“Sorry for offering me a drink when I’m driving or for fucking Charlotte?”
He heaved a sigh. “Both, but it wasn’t like how she said it happened, Sawyer, I swear.”
“No, so how was it? What can you tell me that will make what you both did more palatable for me?”
“Nothing is going to do that, but I want you to know I did not go after Charlotte.” I stared in disbelief and he stared right back. “I’ d never have done this to you by choice. Brother, she was relentless in the way she came after me. When she first started on me I had thought she was joking, but then she began showing up everywhere I went and I’d already spoken to Josh about how she’d been behaving. I’d intentioned to talk to you when you came home from your tour.”
“Is that so?”
“Sawyer, she wouldn’t leave me alone.”
“So she was persistent and you fucked her.”
“No!” When he forced the word, I raised my eyebrow in question.
“No?”
“Have you ever spoken to Jenson or Aiden about this?” Jenson and Aiden were two of my closest friends.
“I’m not in the habit of dissecting what my brother did to me with my buddies.”
“Exactly. They were there that first night. Josh and I turned up to Aiden’s thirtieth birthday bash. Ten minutes after I arrived, Charlotte and Sara crashed the party and told Aiden we had invited them. I swear we hadn’t, and I largely ignored her and got on with enjoying myself.”
“Save me the gory details,” I snapped.
“No, I’ve finally got you here and you need to hear this. I must have had seven, maybe eight shots during some drinking games, and as we’d been drinking all day, Jenson suggested I go and lie down. I’ll admit I was pretty wasted, you know how it is when you’ve had a long session of booze. Anyway, I went and laid down in one of his guest rooms. I woke up twice, the first time I vaguely remember there was a couple going at it by the wall against the closed door but I was really groggy and passed out again.”
“Nice,” I muttered for feeding me details I thought were irrelevant.
“Second time I woke up with a heavy weight on my legs, then I felt horny and realized Charlotte was on top of me with my dick balls deep inside her. I swear, I have no idea how she even got it up I was so drunk. When I realized what we were doing, I shoved her off and felt disgusted with what she’d done.”
I stared in disbelief, my suspicious eyes locked in on his unblinking ones for what felt like an age, not knowing what to make of his excuse. James had a reputation as one of the most eligible bachelors in The Hamptons and he had a well-earned reputation as a playboy, and I wondered if he had really expected me to believe this story.
I thought I knew Charlotte, but I’d seen a side of her since we’d broken up that I hadn’t liked. Despite what I couldn’t accept about her when we’d been together, given her behaviour toward me since, it had made me wonder how far she’d go when she wanted something enough.
“You were fucking her in my bed. My bed.”
“I’m sorry.” He whispered, the pain in his eyes hurt my heart. “That was on her, and that was the third time.”
“What were you doing there?”
“I’d tried to keep my distance, but that afternoon she’d called me. She was drunk and threatening all kinds of stuff. I went over to your place to plead with her to leave me alone and well …, she was behaving erratically, screaming insults and she kept trying to dial 911.” He shrugged, helplessly. “ I got scared. Not just for myself, for what her accusations could bring on our parents.”
“If this was the way it really went down, why didn’t you come straight to me?”
“Because she blackmailed me, threatened sexual assault, and you saw what happened with Dad and the family; with her parents and how her mom behaved toward her. Sweet adorable Charlotte? Would you have believed me if I had? The woman you loved or the brother you hated?”
“I never hated you, I disliked the way you treated me, the way you’ve always treated me.” James immediately looked guilty, but he had a point, in my own way I had sided with Charlotte. Perhaps this was the way it started, and I could see Charlotte using his vulnerability to her advantage.
“I’ll admit it, I was very jealous of you growing up. You were everything I aspired to be but had no talent for. Athletic, clever, musical, charming, everyone loved you, Dad’s golden boy. Do you know how many times that was put to me? Why couldn’t I do it because my little brother had no problem with it?”
“Are you jealous of me now?”
“I am. Everything you do is the right thing. You have no idea how it feels to have to compete for attention in your own family. I’m the eldest, the son and heir apparent, and when Dad looks at me all I see in his eyes is disappointment.”
“What are you talking about, you’ve always been an incredible athlete. We’re not supposed to be in competition with each other, we were supposed to lift one another up. Besides this stuff about our father isn’t true, he went to every one of your kickboxing tournaments. I don’t remember a time when he ever came to watch my music recitals or baseball games. Plus, you’re working with him now.”
“Only because you don’t want to take over his businesses. He’s getting older and feeling less confident about continuing much longer. If you haven’t noticed, he’s not in perfect health like he once was.”
“He’s in his mid-sixties, which is no age these days.”
“Agreed, but the body only has so much adrenaline, Sawyer. It takes huge balls to do what Dad does, and he’s becoming exhausted.”
“Okay, you’ve gone off topic, this conversation is for another day. I’m here about you and what you did with Charlotte. What you both did to me.”
James sat with his knees apart, his forearms resting on his thighs and his hands hanging between them. He rubbed them together and looked up at me with real sorrow in his eyes. “I know. Fuck, every day I know. Every time I look at you, I know. Every time I see Charlotte make a play for you, I know. What I did was the lowest I could have done to any man.”
“Something we agree on, at least,” I snapped back. “Why did you stay with her if this was how you felt?”
“Why else? Blackmail. The shit she spread about me, threatening accusations, threatening to harm herself if I didn’t take her calls, being pregnant and losing the baby, which I know now wasn’t how it went down. She had the baby aborted, and I drove her to that fucking appointment. She destroyed who I was, Sawyer. I suppose, the ultimate reason I stayed was because all the time she was with me, I knew you could never make the mistake of taking her back.”
“You stayed with her through fear and some misguided honor? Brotherhood? I’d never have touched her again with a ten-foot pole,” I ground out. “You honestly think I’d have gone there after you …” I had no words.
“Sawyer, if I’m being totally honest, I did. Charlotte’s a master manipulator, look where I am because of how she behaved, the player got played.”
“How she behaved?” I said, because it took two people to have an affair.
“There you go, ready to jump to her defense again. She didn’t give a thought for you when she got with me. She was only thinking of herself. What happened was disgusting and humiliating for you and I’m so fucking sorry, Sawyer. I walked away from her, and she came after me. It wore me down when she threatened to tell her parents a
nd ours, when in fact what she did to me was sexual assault.”
“Are you fucking serious?” I asked, running my fingers through my hair and grabbing a fistful.
“Think about it, I was a thirty-eight-year-old playboy with a hell of a reputation with women, and she was a twenty-eight-year-old society woman who was in a stable long-term relationship with my brother. Everyone adored her. All she needed to add were crocodile tears and her feminine wiles and who would be believed? Oh, wait, everyone already did believe her.”
“But you stayed,” I shouted, not willing to accept the woman I’d lived with was capable of such a low move. “If what you say is true, you still stayed.”
“Jesus, Bro, have you been listening at all? I’m not with her now you have Billie and she has outed herself. We’re done, and I for one am relieved it’s finally over.”
Five years I lived with her. How could I not have guessed she was capable of something like this? Then I reminded myself she had managed to con me into a living arrangement I had been dead set against in the beginning.
“I don’t know what to believe anymore,” I said, sighing heavily as I finally conceded there could have been coercion, but with this came another reality, and that meant viewing James in a totally new light.
I stood staring at my brother and wondered if he really was as flawed as his story suggested. I considered whether James had ever been the man I thought I knew if Charlotte had been able to manipulate him so easily. It was true, James had a different girl on his arm for each event, he was popular and the women he hung out with adored him.
One thing I did know was our families and our community were stunned when Charlotte left me and moved in with him. After hearing what he had to say, the question was: had James merely wanted what was mine, or like he insisted, had Charlotte forced their relationship upon him?
“Do you still want Charlotte, Sawyer? Is that what this is about? Would you still want her now, if I hadn’t done what I did?”
“I didn’t get the chance to find that out, did I?”
Dare Me, Part Two Dare Duet Sawyer and Billie: Unchained Attraction Series Page 11