Unconditional

by Tyler, Q. B.

  “Why not! Last I checked, I’m actually old enough to drink.” She points at me as I stir the ginger ale into the healthy pour of vodka with a spoon.

  Aria rolls her eyes and pats my butt to send me out of the kitchen with the drink I made myself. “I’ll make you one, you go back in there,” she tells us. I could hear the implication. This drink is going to be weak as fuck.

  I move back down the hallway and into the dining room to see Penelope laughing with Cal about something. She’d claimed the seat next to him and I sat across from them, forced to watch her stare at him with stars in her eyes.

  “Everything okay?” Henry asks as I sit back down in my seat.

  “Yup.” I take a long sip of my drink, and I can already feel Cal’s penetrating gaze on me.

  “Madeline.” He grunts and my eyes flash to his.

  “Mmmhmm?” Yes, Daddy? My mind automatically thinks and I can’t even stop the flush from moving up my body.

  I wonder if he can read my mind because something crosses his face that could possibly be construed as lust from my vantage point.” What’s in that?”

  I shrug. “Nothing.”

  “Don’t lie to me.”

  “It’s ginger ale, calm down.”

  He reaches his hand across the table towards me. “Let me smell it.”

  “No, I think I’m good.”

  “Excuse me?” He gives me that look he’s given me on a few occasions when I am testing him, and I shiver with delight at the thought of what he might do to me later. He’d never laid a hand on me, but suddenly the idea of being over his lap while he spanks my bare ass has me clenching my thighs together under the table.

  “Oh Cal, relax. She’s at home,” Aria interjects as she walks back through the room and runs a hand through her hair.

  “You okayed this?” He stares at her.

  She shoots him a look back like I know what I’m doing, and did you want to calm her sassy ass down or no?

  I roll my eyes at them both and take another long sip.

  His cocoa eyes bore into mine. “That’s your one, Madeline, and I mean it.”

  Stop using my full name!

  “Oh, calm down, Cal.” Margie takes her seat and her drink looks even clearer than mine, making me wonder if Aria’s plan to make her a weak drink quickly got derailed when I left the room.

  “Calm down? Am I the only one that forgets she’s not old enough to drink? Let alone not even eighteen?”

  I try to keep the question off my face as I hear his choice of words given what we’ve been doing the past few days, which in some ways may be more damaging than just a few drinks. I didn’t see it that way, but I knew other people would feel very differently.

  “She’s at home with her family. Would you rather she was out in the street doing it?” Aria asks.

  “I’m not condoning this.” He points at me. “I’m a cop for crying out loud. So are you.” He looks at Aria and she rolls her eyes.

  “Not to Maddie, now pass the potatoes.” She holds her hand out.

  “As much as I’ve enjoyed being talked about while I’m right here, can we talk about something else?” I hand her the potatoes from in front of Cal, who’d refused to pass them, when Grant speaks up.

  “Yes, let’s. Let’s talk about what we’re doing for your birthday, sweet pea.” Grant grabs my hand and squeezes. He’s sitting diagonally from me at the head of the table, much to Henry’s annoyance.

  “We?” Henry perks up and Margie, who’s within arm’s reach, smacks his arm and glares at him.

  “Don’t start,” she warns.

  “We already have some plans in place.” Aria points at me before pointing around the table.

  “Yes, we will be taking down the Meadowfield Casino. I’ve got my poker face, ready!” I put my hands up.

  “I don’t believe this.” Cal groans. “Is anyone in this family planning to be a good influence on Maddie?”

  “You are.” I take a sip of my drink and raise an eyebrow at him. “Someone’s got to corrupt me a little.”

  Only he knows the true meaning of my words, and while I thought it might throw him off, he doesn’t miss a beat. “I think Grant meant maybe a nice family dinner, you heathens.” He looks at all of us and Margie shrugs.

  “I’m going with them to Meadowfield. I was invited.” She winks at me.

  I point back at her and do a dance in my chair. “I need my coach.”

  “Fine other than going to the casino…” He shakes his head. “Dinner?”

  My eyes flit to the only person at this table who better not be invited before turning my gaze back to Cal. “We can talk about it another time. We still have a few weeks.”

  “You’ll be eighteen, that’s really exciting.” Penelope perks up. She smiles a smile that is probably genuine, and for a second, I feel bad. She’s the nice girl in this situation and I’m the bitch. If this were a book or a movie or TV show, I’d be rooting for her to get the guy and not me. But life isn’t a book or a movie or TV show, and she doesn’t have a prayer at landing Cal.

  “Thanks.” I smile before turning back to Grant without another glance. “We’ll be in touch. Just…six, right?” I look around the obvious table of seven and no one says anything, though I feel Aria’s glare on me.

  “Never a dull moment at Thanksgiving.” Margie snorts from the other end and takes another long sip of her drink. “Okay, who wants pie?”

  No Grayson holiday is complete without poker, which is how all of us are locked into a game at the end of the night. Penelope is long gone, having still felt the residual tension from me, and the fact that, besides Aria, no one really seemed to come to her rescue.

  “Honestly, Aria, Henry, you don’t know anything about my boy, do you?” Margie says as she tosses out a card. “She was all wrong for him.”

  I giggle to myself because of both Margie’s comment and the second vodka drink I’d managed to sneak in while Cal walked Penelope out. I may have stared at them from the window a little too long, but it was enough to know that he didn’t kiss her. All he’d offered her was a polite hug, and I was thrilled that she hadn’t tried to initiate kissing him.

  “Mom! Penelope is nice,” Aria says as she throws a card out.

  “Penelope is boring,” Margie added without looking up from her cards.

  “You’re one to talk about boring significant others.” Henry grunts and I pout. Here we go. I go to speak up when Cal pins me with a glare, knowing that it is best I stay out of that even if Margie is one of my favorite people and Grant isn’t too far down that list.

  I listen because I’m a little buzzed…and Cal would always be at the top of that list.

  “I raise,” Grant replies in response and I throw my cards down.

  “Really?” I scoff.

  “I know you know how to bluff,” Margie speaks up.

  “Not with that trash hand.” I wave it off.

  “Listen, all I’m saying is maybe you ought to let me and Maddie handle the fixing up from now on.” Margie points at Aria and Henry. “Because you two are clueless.”

  “Mom…” Cal’s tone is exasperated and I watch him and Grant share a look. His eyes dart to the drink in front of his mother and then the water in front of Grant. Margie is no stranger to sleeping over when she’s had a little too much to drink, or just when she wanted to spend time with me. But I take the obvious glance as a sign that he doesn’t want that for tonight and all of me hopes that it’s because he wants to be alone with me.

  There’s been a dull throb in my sex ever since he kissed me earlier, and now it’s exacerbated by the alcohol that wants his mouth between my legs.

  “I fold.” Margie tosses her cards. “Maddie, I’m going to put my tree up tomorrow, are you coming over?”

  “You know it.” I nod, knowing that helping Margie put her tree up had become a bit of a tradition since my first Christmas with Cal.

  “Perfect, I got you something!” With my birthday being in December, somehow the
entire month had become Maddie’s birth month, so that my birthday doesn’t get swallowed by the holiday season. Spread over the entire month, I get all kinds of gifts, small and large, leading up to the twenty-sixth which is my actual birthday.

  As much as Cal hates to admit it, he’s spoiled me rotten since that first Christmas. My birth parents didn’t have much money, and I was lucky if I got food on Christmas much less presents. Cal seemed to want to erase that from my memory, which meant each year I was surrounded by literal mountains of presents. I never asked for much, and it got to the point that they stopped asking when my response was always, I don’t need anything, I have everything I could ever want! This year, however, I want something money can’t buy, and I fully intended to ask for it.

  Aria and Henry, the last of the party are barely backed out of the driveway when Cal has me pinned to the front door with his lips on mine. He tastes like the whiskey drink he’d been nursing the last hour and a hint of pumpkin. Damn, he tastes so good. Like love and lust and comfort and home all rolled into one.

  “You’re going to make me lose my fucking mind.” He cups my face in his hands and continues to make love to my mouth with his tongue. He sucks my tongue into his mouth and I meet his kiss with equal aggression. I never want this kiss to end. Each kiss feels like another step in our relationship. A new revelation. Each kiss is more passionate and urgent than the last and they all tell me something new about the man I love so much.

  “Sorry.”

  He rubs his nose against mine and presses a chaste kiss to my mouth. “I hate that you think you have a reason to be jealous, but fuck if it doesn’t turn me on.”

  I gasp and pull away from his mouth. “It does?”

  “Yes.” He grunts and lifts me into his arms and walks us into the living room. “Penelope doesn’t mean anything. She’s not a threat to you, Maddie. I don’t want her.”

  “Doesn’t mean I enjoyed watching her flirt with you.”

  He sets me on the couch and kneels in front of me, running his hands up my thighs and gripping me hard when he reaches the apex of them. He doesn’t touch me there, but he does pop the button of my jeans. “Take them off.”

  “What?” My eyes widen to the size of saucers. Is he…now? My heart slams against my rib cage and my mouth waters at the idea of crossing that line with Cal.

  He darts his hands away from me like I’ve burned him. “Do you not want to?”

  My pants are halfway down my legs before he can change his mind. “No, I do. I do! I just didn’t…”

  He doesn’t say anything, just glues his stare to my pussy and helps me pull my jeans off. I am suddenly very grateful for the black lace panties that cover barely anything but my slit and the very thin string that went between my cheeks. “Holy fuck, these are sexy.” He plucks the string, letting it snap against my skin and the feeling makes me dizzy. The sexual tension crackles around us and it feels like every single one of my nerves are standing on end.

  “Are…are you going to take them off?”

  His eyes don’t leave my covered sex. “Not yet.”

  “Not today…? Or not right this second.”

  “Not today,” he whispers, and his eyes float up my body. “Maybe not ever.”

  “No, Cal.” I grab his face. “I want to talk about that.”

  “About what?”

  “I know what I want for my birthday.”

  He shakes his head and squeezes his eyes shut. “Don’t ask me.”

  “Please?” He backs up slightly and I can see him retreating so I’m off the couch and straddling his lap before he can stop me. “I… I can’t promise I’ll be good at it but…”

  “Hey,” he snaps and grips my jaw. “That’s not what this is about. Jesus Christ, Maddie, look at you.” I frown, unsure of where he’s going with this and he shakes his head. “You’re a fucking goddess…you’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever laid eyes on. I’m not supposed to look at you the way I see other men look at you. Men whose eyes I’ve been threatening to gouge out for letting their lustful gazes fall on you. I’m the one man that’s not supposed to look at you like that and…I can’t fucking help it.”

  “You’re the only man I want looking at me like that.” I press my hands to his chest and rub my nose down his neck.

  “I can’t hurt you like that, Maddie.” His voice is tortured, and I wish I could kiss the pain away.

  “Why?”

  “Because…I love you too much.” His hand runs down my back and I shiver under his touch.

  I pull back and stare at him, the tears forming in my eyes and sliding down my cheeks before I can stop them.

  “If you love me, then make love to me.”

  I AM HANGING ON BY a proverbial thread. I don’t know how I’ve managed to keep myself out of Maddie’s pants when she all but begs for it every night she cuddles up next to me, but somehow, I’ve kept her at arm’s length, much to my own disappointment. The need to taste her has gotten so out of control it’s almost unmanageable. Letting her rub against me until we both come isn’t enough anymore. I need to feel her skin to skin. I need to spread her sweet cunt open like a flower and lick the soft petals between her legs. I want to worship every inch of her skin, marking her with my teeth and tongue and fingers and then my cock. She’s a blank canvas I want to paint with my cum. I want to rain my seed all over her perfect tits, her smooth ass, her gorgeous face. I want to worship her…but I also want to defile her.

  I want to use her body, fuck every single one of her holes until she’s so full of my cum it drips out of her. I want to fuck her like she’s a slut. Bend her over every surface in our house and take her so brutally she won’t be able to sit down for a week. I want to hate fuck her for making me feel this way. For turning me into this sick bastard that’s having these thoughts about the girl I raised. And then, when all of that’s done, when I’m done fucking the life out of her, I want to bring her back. Run my lips over every inch of her marked skin, whispering my love and devotion to her in between each kiss as I rock gently into her. Make love to her, teach her the love language that our bodies already know by heart.

  She’ll take my cock easily because, despite my size, I am made to fit inside of her. Her back will arch, and her nails will claw at my back every time I thrust into her. She’ll scream that she wants more, and harder and deeper and faster. That she loves me and that she’s wanted this for so long and to promise her that things will never change between us.

  But they’ve changed.

  And it’ll never be the same again.

  It’s been a week since Thanksgiving and much to my surprise Maddie hasn’t brought up her wish for her birthday. I’ve been at war with myself on what I should do, and almost seven sleepless nights later, I’m no closer to coming up with a decision. I don’t hear anything when I get home from work one evening which is odd because Maddie’s car is here.

  “Maddie?” I call for her as I toss my keys on the counter. It isn’t unusual for her to be cooking dinner or lying on the couch in one of my t-shirts and the tiniest pair of shorts waiting for me to get home so she could climb into my lap and rub the day off of me. I frown, wondering where she could be when I make my way upstairs. I peek my head into her room wondering if maybe she is taking a nap when I see her bed is still made from whenever the last time she slept here.

  She’s slept in my room with me for the past week, and I briefly wonder if she’s just taking a nap. I take a look around her perfectly organized room and step inside. Trophies for various dance competitions sit on three equally spaced shelves on her wall. Directly underneath is a wide bookcase with at least one hundred books, aligned by size, then color, and quite possibly alphabetized. A television is mounted on the adjacent wall and right underneath is a dresser.

  I take a step closer, and without thinking, I pull open her top drawer, knowing what’s there and grab the first pair I see—a white silky thong with lace trim. I grip the delicate fabric in my hand before stuffing it into my pock
et. Feelings of shame wash over me as I think about what I’ve been doing with her underwear the past week. Ever since I saw her in that tiny thong, I’ve been stealing her panties and rubbing them over my cock every night after Maddie falls asleep. I wrap the silk around my hand and tug at my cock before releasing my seed into them. Marking them. I want to think about her wearing them after knowing that my cum has been there. A grunt leaves my lips as I adjust my dick and move towards my bedroom.

  “Maddie, where are you?” I don’t see her in my room but I do see the light on in my bathroom peeking out from under the door. “Mads?” I knock and I frown when I don’t hear anything. I push the door open and all of the air leaves my lungs as I take in the sight before me. My dick is hard as granite and I’m trying my best to calm it back down so that I don’t attack her. I swallow and take a tentative step forward when her eyes meet mine. Blue, mischievous eyes that have the power to break me. And I believe they are about to exercise that power. Now.

  “Welcome home, honey.” She leans over the edge of the tub and shoots me a wink. “Care to join me?” The words get caught in my throat as I stare at the naked seventeen year old taking a bubble bath in my tub. Her hair is pulled up in a bun at the top of her head, though some strands have fallen and are touching the bubbles that are up to her neck. I can’t see anything, but I don’t trust Maddie not to stand up and reveal everything to me. I find myself hoping that she will. I’ve been wondering for a week what Maddie looks like naked. Is her pussy bare? Does she have a landing strip? Does she not do any landscaping? All three thoughts make me hard as fuck. And while hair on a cunt usually does nothing for me, I find myself still hard at the idea of tasting the soft curls between her legs should there be any.

  Then, there are her tits. Her asshole. That space between her pussy and her asshole. Fuck. I wanted to see all of it. Now.

  I clear my throat. “Maddie, I don’t think…”

  “It’s a good idea, blah blah blah.” She rolls her eyes and settles back into the large jacuzzi style tub that is definitely big enough for both of us. “Fine, do you want to watch?”