Biting my swollen lip, I nod.
Positioning his cock at my entrance, he slides in the tip. It burns for a flash of a second, but I breathe through it.
“Oh, god …” He sighs, breathless, as he struggles to plunge his thickness into me.
I wriggle beneath him, a wordless urge for him to keep going, but he inserts another teasing inch, then another. And then, with one unexpected thrust, he’s deep inside of me. I bury my face in his shoulder, bearing the shooting pain in silence as his girth stretches me.
I feel him.
I feel him all.
Running my palms along his lower back, his taut steel muscles undulate beneath me as he drives himself into me harder, faster.
The initial shock of pain is long gone, replaced with slick heat and fiery ache that can only be extinguished by one thing …
In this cocoon beneath him, I gaze up at him, cupping his face as my hips answer his, thrust by thrust. It’s like we fit together perfectly. The way our bodies match up. And perhaps I’m getting ahead of myself, but maybe this doesn’t have to be a one-time thing?
I lift my lips closer to his, a silent plea for a kiss, but he turns his face.
Weird …
He fucks me deeper, harder. His skin slapping against mine. I give him the benefit of the doubt. He’s a guy. This was a fantasy of his. He’s just really into it …
His long hair hangs in his face, partially obscuring his expression. I brush it aside and find his eyes closed tight. Cupping his cheek, I try to angle his face towards mine again, but instead he pulls out of me completely and flips me to my stomach.
Lifting my hips until I’m on all fours, he spreads my thighs and plunges into me from behind. Leaning over me, he grips a handful of hair and presses the side of my face into the pillow as he fucks me like a dog. Cold, mechanical, animalistic.
For whatever reason, the tenderness is gone.
The euphoric magic has faded into nothingness—as if someone snapped their fingers and made it disappear without any warning.
I remind myself this was never about tenderness in the first place—it was, is, and has only ever been about sex.
Hooking a hand around the front of my thighs, he rubs my clit while he continues to take me from behind. My body responds, growing hotter by the second, the tension building all over again. I’m getting close—and judging by the restrained grunts coming from behind me, so is he.
Little tremors turn into euphoric waves as he fucks me through my next orgasm, and the second I’m finished, he pulls out of me, snaps the rubber off, and cums all over the small of my back. Long, hot spurts.
When he’s finished, I lie on my stomach in this strange, euphoric aftermath, and he disappears into his en suite bathroom to clean up. When he returns, he says nothing. He simply changes into clean boxers and collapses on his bed, his forearm hooked over his eyes.
I slip into his bathroom to clean up, washing his drying, sticky seed off my back with a warm washcloth.
The tiniest trickle of blood slides down my inner thigh—my innocence leaving my body forever.
I clean that too.
When I emerge, he’s out cold.
I find my clothes and get dressed quietly so as not to wake him. Before I leave, I scribble a note on a slip of paper and leave it on the pillow beside him as I fight a threat of tears and the cruel words circling my mind, mocking me for thinking for a split second we had something real, that he was different.
He’s not worth the anguish.
He got what he wanted, now so will I.
Chapter Twenty-One
August
* * *
The other side of the bed is cold when I wake. There’s no indentation in the pillow indicating she stayed the night—only a slip of paper with something scribbled on the front.
CENTURION NURSING AND HOME HEALTH SERVICES 555-3389
I crumple the paper and toss it aside. I hadn’t had a chance to tell her yet, but I’d already aligned a home health worker through the same agency, which is supposedly the best in town. I requested their top nurse. And even threw in a bonus if they could start first thing Monday.
It was going to be a surprise, a show of good faith since our little arrangement was taking so long. I thought it’d help things along. But last night when she came over, we went from talking about her father’s alleged affair with her childhood babysitter to fucking and there wasn’t much time for anything else.
Either way, it’s done.
I will forever own the priceless honor of having tainted and deflowered Rich Rose’s precious daughter, and she can run off to college not having to worry about her mom.
Shuffling to the bathroom, I splash cold water on my face and brush up. The man staring back at me from the mirror doesn’t wear the smug satisfaction I thought he would after completing this mission.
I took things slow with Sheridan last night—for her sake. At least in the beginning. I didn’t want to scare her away with any ridiculous porn star positions, nor did I want to fuck her like some dead fish sex doll. That wouldn’t have been enjoyable for either of us.
Her body was warm and pliable in my hands, willing to do anything I wanted, eager to please and be pleased. But somewhere along the line, I realized I was enjoying it … in a different way. It’s like someone flipped a switch, and I was no longer fantasizing about avenging our family’s legacy—I was picturing the two of us together.
And not just fucking.
In my head, we were going to the movies, ambling around the mall hand in hand, taking weekend getaways … normal couple shit.
So I fucked her harder, as if each time I filled her to the hilt it would jostle one of those ridiculous thoughts from my head. But it didn’t work. All I could focus on was how natural it felt to be with her and how soon I’d be able to see her again. Bullshit lovesick nonsense.
None of it made sense—and the obsessive fantasizing refused to stop.
So when she lifted a tender palm to my face and tried to kiss me like that moment meant something, I lost it.
That’s when I flipped her to her stomach and took her from behind, pressing her face against the pillow so I didn’t have to look at those radiant, hopeful, innocent blue eyes. Eyes that should belong to a white-collar nobody with aspirations of buying a cookie cutter house in the suburbs and starting a family with her so they can line their walls with perfect portraits of their two-point-five kids—not a spoiled rich kid with a heart of coal..
In a flash of a moment, I imagine Sheridan as a wife and mother. Doting. Kindhearted. Loving and loyal. I picture her mending scraped knees, reading bedtime stories, checking for fevers, and wiping tears.
My chest burns, swelling with ancient emotions that I force into the depths of my soul where they belong. And the voice that reminds me no one has ever shed a tear over me or worried about me or given two shits about me—I tell it to shut the fuck up.
Even if we weren’t who we are, even if we didn’t share tangled pasts, even if the universe hadn’t conspired to keep us apart our entire lives—I’d still be the wrong guy for her.
At the end of the day, she deserves a man who can love her. And because you can’t give something you’ve never received … that man will never be me.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Sheridan
* * *
“Do you remember that babysitter we had way back when? Kara something?” I ask Dad over dinner the next day.
He doesn’t flinch. Doesn’t blink. Doesn’t react.
“Ah, yes. Kara Tindall,” Mom says. She perks up in her chair. “I remember her well. Very sweet girl. A little misdirected, I think. But very kind.”
“Wonder what she’s up to these days?” I ask.
Dad takes a drink of ice water before forking a chunk of pot roast. “Last I heard, she was practicing law downtown.”
“Oh, you’re kidding me.” Mom sounds a little too delighted, which breaks my heart. “Good for her. You know, I was worried
about her for a while. She always seemed so lost. She wanted to be a part of our family so badly. Her home life wasn’t the greatest.”
My father nods. “The odds were definitely stacked against her.”
“We should reach out to her,” I say. “Maybe have her over for dinner sometime? Catch up a bit?”
Dad shoots me a curious look. “Where’s this coming from, kiddo? You haven’t mentioned her name in a decade and now you want to have her over for dinner?”
He chuckles, shaking his head like he finds this amusing.
I lift a shoulder. “Guess I just … randomly started thinking about her the other day.”
I’m lying to a liar. Oh, the irony. At least this time I don’t feel bad about it.
The tension between us is ripe.
Mom doesn’t notice.
“Is that so?” He’s playing dumb.
“Maybe I saw her face on a billboard or something.” I keep my attention trained on him, searching for a nuanced expression or twitch of his brow, something to show he’s uncomfortable.
But I get nothing.
Is this a skill he’s honed over the years? Is this not the first time he’s lived some sort of double life?
I shove my food around my plate, willing myself to take a bite. But I can’t. My stomach is rock hard and my appetite is gone.
“Thanks for dinner, Mama.” I rise and kiss her forehead before taking my plate to the sink. She doesn’t often cook. Usually it’s frozen pizza or something easy enough to throw together without much effort, but once a week she scrounges up enough stamina to prepare a Crock Pot meal. I hate that I couldn’t finish it.
I hole up in my room and check my phone to find a handful of miscellaneous texts from Adriana … and one from August.
It’s been a couple of days since we had sex. And while I left that slip of paper by his pillow, I haven’t had the nerve to reach out to him first to follow up. I needed to put some space between us. Take some time to breathe, to process what happened.
It was all so … perfect.
And then, for some unknown reason, he went cold.
Dragging in a breath, I tap on his message.
ENEMY DEAREST – Mona Gillespie is your home nurse. I’ll forward you her contact info. She starts Monday.
I rub my eyes and read it again.
He did it.
After I didn’t hear from him right away, part of me didn’t think he would follow through with his promise … part of me was convinced I’d been played.
ME: Thank you.
He follows up with a screenshot of Mona’s phone number, and I stare at my screen a little longer, waiting for him to say something else.
Something more.
Then again, what is there to say?
I place my phone aside and grab a nearby magazine from a stack that Adriana gave me. Her dad works in sales for some publisher, so she gets just about every magazine she could ever want for free.
Flicking through the neon pink copy of Cosmo from three months back, I skip the articles about “How to Get Your Biggest O” and “How to Give Him a Night He’ll Never Forget” and go straight for the quiz in the back titled “Is He Into You?”
Does he text you out of the blue?
Does he call you by any nicknames?
Has he tried to make a move?
Does he ask your friends about you?
Has he tried to get you alone?
Does he flirt with you?
Ten yes-or-no questions later I score a solid eight (because he’s never sent me flowers or written me poetry). And according to the test writer, that’s a solid, “He’s definitely into you, so make your move, girlfriend. What are you waiting for?”
I sniff and toss the magazine aside.
This is a waste of time.
I don’t want nor do I need him to like me.
It shouldn’t matter.
And I shouldn’t care.
Digging my headphones out of my nightstand, I plug them into my phone and pull up my favorite melancholy playlist because apparently I’m in a mood. It’s halfway into the third song when the chime of a new text comes through.
ENEMY DEAREST: Want to come over?
Chapter Twenty-Three
August
* * *
I thought it’d be a harder sell. I really did. I’m honestly shocked she’s here, which makes this moment as surreal as it is satisfying.
Pacing my room, finger combing her hair into a messy ponytail, she vents about her dad, how much she hates being lied to, and how she can’t understand how he could be so two-faced to his own family.
I let her ramble on, let her get it all out so we can get on with this. My advice would do no good here anyway. I learned long ago not to go around placing expectations on people. It only sets you up for disappointment. This is the sort of lesson a person has to learn on their own.
Plus, I could’ve told her what a sorry excuse for a human her dad was anyway.
I’ve known that my entire life.
It’s a shame it’s taken her nearly two decades to uncover the awful truth about his sorry ass.
Without saying a word, I dip into my hidden liquor cabinet, grabbing two shot glasses and a half-empty bottle of cinnamon whiskey because I love when her mouth is both hot and sweet and this woman needs to relax if she plans to enjoy herself.
“Here,” I hand her a shot. “You need this.”
She hesitates before accepting it.
“Trust me. It’ll take the edge off.” I toss mine down. It burns, but it’s a burn I’ve gotten used to over past couple of summers.
She coughs. Typical newbie. But she hands me the shot glass. “One more.”
“You sure?” I lift a brow.
Sheridan nods toward the bottle, hands on her hips. She didn’t just come here to get fucked, she came here to get fucked up—and I’m here for it.
“I’ve never seen you so worked up before.” I pass her the new shot. “It’s pretty hot …”
She rolls her eyes, shoots the whiskey, and yanks her t-shirt over her head.
“Oh, so we’re doing this?” I tease. “This girl doesn’t want to mess around.”
“So we’re clear,” she says. “I think you’re an asshole. But you’re really good in bed and that’s the only reason I’m here.”
“You don’t have to explain yourself.” I already know …
Moving in, she grabs me by the waist of my jeans and pulls me close before undoing the fly and shoving them down. A second later, she’s on her knees, my cock growing inside her mouth as she swallows my length.
“Good god, woman.” I moan as she sucks harder. “I don’t know what I did to deserve this, but I’ll fucking take it.”
I let her take me to the edge before pulling out, and then I lead her to my bed. “As hot as that was, I very much prefer to be in control. Take off the rest of your clothes.”
Eyes locked on mine, she slides off her lace bra before shoving her leggings and panties down her long legs. Tossing them aside, she moves to the center of my king-sized bed and waits.
Yanking off my t-shirt and dropping it to the floor, I grab a rubber from my nightstand.
“Spread your legs,” I say.
She leans back, exposing herself, but it’s not enough.
“More.” I rip the foil packet with my teeth. “Show me how much you want this.”
The soft-sweet scent of her arousal fills the air, mixing with a hint of her perfume. Positioning myself between her thighs, I run the tip of my tongue down her seam before kissing her clit.
“My god, you’re so wet,” I whisper, blowing a warm breath on her pussy before giving it another lick. “You want me to fuck you?”
She squirms, biting her lower lip, and nodding.
Sliding the rubber down my shaft, I tease her pussy with my tip, pressing against her just enough to leave her in aching anticipation.
Sheridan moans, and I silence her with a kiss. “You have to keep it down.”
We don’t have the house to ourselves tonight. It’s late, and while the odds are my father is passed out cold from his nightly Scotch, I don’t want to risk any unnecessary interruptions.
Shoving my cock inside her, I fill her to the hilt. She exhales, her entire body releasing one concerted shiver. Plunging inside her again and again, I tease her mouth with mine. With her head buried against my shoulder, she stifles a moan as I drive harder, deeper into her.
“Don’t stop,” she whispers.
So I don’t.
I fuck her until we both come, her hips writhing desperately beneath me as my balls tighten and empty.
When it’s over, we lie tangled in the sticky, sweaty mess we’ve created, breathless and speechless.
She gets up first, ducking into my bathroom to clean up. And when she emerges, she wastes no time getting dressed.
I don’t think I’ve ever felt used in my entire life—until now.
“You don’t have to leave yet.” I mourn her curves as they disappear behind her t-shirt and leggings.
“I have to get home before my parents notice I’m gone.” She steps into her sandals.
“You’re an adult, what are they going to do?”
“They will literally send out a search party if they can’t find me.” She rolls her eyes. “And if they see my car here, trust me, it won’t be good …”
Yeah. It won’t be good for them.
My father is untouchable. No one’s ever successfully retaliated against him in any way. The Roses have nothing on him.
“You can park in one of our garage stalls,” I say. We have eight and one just so happens to be empty as my father is having his Rolls serviced.
“Ha. Then what? We throw on a movie and pop some popcorn and hang for the night? Let’s not pretend this is something it isn’t. You called. I came. We both got what we wanted.”
“Did you? Did you get what you wanted?”
Her gaze snaps toward the bed. “Yep.”
“Are you still upset about your dad?”
Enemy Dearest Page 12