Engagement Rate (The Callaghan Green Series Book 1)

by Annie Dyer

  "It's good to meet you," Vanessa said, holding out her hand. My father surprised me by stepping closer and pecking her on her cheek. I raised my eyes at Max who had now parked up, his carload of people arguing about boot space and size of luggage, with Claire swearing violently at Killian and threatening to feed him to the cows in the nearby field. I heard Killian laughing and pointing out that cows didn't eat meat, which just infuriated Claire further, causing her to yell at Max for bringing him and storm into the house.

  "It's good to know you're familiar with Jackson's siblings already and therefore this weekend won't scare you off," my dad said. "And I believe you were friends with Claire first, so you're clearly made of tough stuff."

  Vanessa laughed. "I'm from the north: not much scares me. How is the winery?"

  My dad winked at her. "Going ahead nicely. It will involve a rebrand and I'll need someone to do that and the marketing campaign to go with it. Fancy having a look this weekend?"

  I groaned loudly. "Dad, we're here for a break. Van's worked hard enough this week. If you want to use her company, which you definitely do, schedule a proper meeting with her."

  "It's fine, Ed, I'd love to find out more about it anyway. I like wine and this would interest me as a project. Are you looking at supplying over here? I know Canadian wines aren't sold widely in Britain so it would be good to look at tapping into the market," she said, completely ignoring me.

  I shrugged and picked up our bags. "Let's put these in our room, Van, and then we can come back down and chat to Dad more than," I said, trying to interrupt my father who was now in full flow about the winery and his business plan. It would be successful, I knew, because my father had the Midas touch with business, especially since he had retired. He was also passionate about wine and speaking to a captive audience, which he now had with Vanessa. "Dad, let me get me and Vanessa settled and I'll let you have some time to chat."

  He woke up from his monologue about grapes and ice wine. "Yes, of course. I'm sorry, Vanessa, it's just nice to chat with someone else, other than Marie, who is interested." He glared at me, the same expression I knew I used. "Unlike my children, who have no interest in a winery in Niagara at all and think their father is going a little senile by buying it."

  "We don't at all, old man," I said. "I've seen your business plan; there's nothing to suggest senility in there. I'll listen to you later." I nudged Vanessa along.

  "You'll only listen to me so you can check what I'm telling your lady," he said. "I know you, remember."

  I shot a glare, which he laughed at, and made our way indoors and up the stairs, wanting to get at least half an hour on our own before we were subjected to the family en masse.

  "You don't share well, do you?" she said as I closed the bedroom door behind us, putting our bags down near the wardrobe.

  I shook my head. "This weekend will be busy. We won't get much time on our own and it feels like days since I last had you." I folded my arms and looked at her, not entirely sure how slow or gentle I could be right now. Coming home and bringing her with me and drawn out some strange feelings and needs I'd not yet understood.

  "It was this morning, in the shower, Jackson. You took me from behind after you'd thoroughly washed my breasts and between my legs. Then I needed to wash myself again after we'd finished," she said it so matter of factly, as if she hadn't yelled my name enough to wake the dead at the bottom of the Thames.

  I grinned at the memory. "And that feels like forever ago." She walked over to me and looped her arms around my neck, standing on her tiptoes to kiss me, long and hard and deep.

  My hands went to her skirt and pulled it up around her hips, finding white lace briefs. "Jesus, Vanessa. Please put some jeans on or something else I'll spend the whole night growling at anyone who comes near you."

  "We're with your family. They're hardly going to come on to me. I don't think you have anything to worry about." Her hands stroked down my chest, one cupping my erection and then she kissed me again. I played with her nipples through her top, hearing her breath catch as pinched them.

  "You want me just as much as I want you," I said, recognizing the pull of her body. "Be a good girl, take those panties off and bend over the bed so I can put my cock in you and fill you up." I pushed her panties to one side and found her wet and warm, pushing in a finger to check she was ready for me. Then I pulled away and smacked her ass, the moan that came from her making me harder still.

  She slipped off the white lace, leaving her skirt around her waist and bent over the bed. I undid my fly and pulled out my cock, giving it a few rough strokes. She was turning around, watching me, her eyes dark with arousal. "This isn't the last time I'm going to have you today," I said. "Later, I'll take more time, have you naked and my mouth everywhere, but before we go downstairs I want you full of my come and aching between your legs."

  "Fuck, Jackson," she said, her legs and ass wriggling. "How do you make me want you so much? If any other man said something like that I'd give him a black eye."

  "Van, if any other man said anything like that to you, I'd give him more than a black eye." I ran my hand over her ass cheeks and then down the crack between them, spreading her wetness. I spread her legs, flicking my cock against her, hearing her moan as I moved it to her entrance, pushing in the head and then pausing, knowing how desperate she was getting as she tried to buck against me to force me in further. I laughed and smacked her ass again and she clutched onto the sheets.

  "Are you going to come for me, Vanessa?" I knew the angle I was at would let me hit her g-spot and given how tight she was and swollen, she wasn't far off coming already. But neither was I.

  "Yes. I'm nearly there. You and your dirty talk." She was breathless, the words barely comprehensible. "Jacks, please fuck me hard. I need you to fuck me hard."

  I put my hands on her shoulder blades and lent down, pushing her into the mattress and then I thrust into her, hard and deep but slow. She started to whimper, a sound that had first worried me until she became coherent enough to let me know she was needing more not less. I pulled out almost all the way and the whimper became louder and then I thrust in hard and fast and then again, feeling her pussy begin to contract and her body buck.

  "Good girl," I said, somehow managing to form coherent words. "You take me hard and love it, don't you?" She squeezed me again. I held her hips and began to move harder and quicker, my own orgasm building at the base of my spine, my balls tightening. I reached a hand under her to find her clit and began to stroke it, wanting her to come again. She turned around and looked at me, mouth gaping.

  "Come in me," she said. "I need to feel you coming in me."

  That was all it took and I exploded, her body contracting again, milking me. I collapsed down onto her, my lips on her neck, making my way round to her mouth so they couldn't utter the words I didn't yet want to acknowledge.

  The kiss was soft as it often was after hard sex. Next time I had her I'd be gentle and take my time, go down on her and make her come over and over before coming inside her again.

  "Don't shower," I said. "I want to know that I'm in you."

  "Caveman," she said. "I'll smell of you."

  "Good. But you won't. Marie fills the house full of scented candles as she's still paranoid about the stench of teenage boys."

  Vanessa laughed. "Are you going to be able to leave me alone while we have dinner with your family?"

  "No," I said. "I won't be rude and I'll let you be sociable, but I can't take my eyes off you at the moment unless I absolutely have to in order to look like someone who has their shit enough together to run a firm of lawyers."

  I pulled out of her, aware that my come was running between her thighs. "Promise me you won't shower."

  She sat up. "I won't shower. But I do need the bathroom. And I don't need you with me while I pee."

  I sat down on the edge of the bed and unclenched my hands, trying to figure out why I was being so tense and territorial. My family, as crazy as they were, would'v
e scared her off by now and even my dad could be trusted to make an ordinary impression. If he had any concerns about Vanessa he would mention them to me probably via Marie, and certainly not in front of her. I'd been seeing her a matter of weeks, although it had been intense and we'd spent more time together than apart, other than work. We'd both spend time with friends still and doing the things we'd have usually done so it was healthy.

  Age? Was I at the point where I wanted to settle down with someone, have what my parents had? Or was it just her?

  When she came back from the bathroom she had stripped of her skirt and hung it up in the wardrobe, naked from the waist down.

  "You do need to put some clothes on," I said. "Although my dad probably wouldn't complain and Seph would be extremely pleased."

  She laughed, fishing a pair of underwear from her bag. "I'll retain my modesty, thank you. What's going on in that head of yours? You look confused."

  I figured that was the right word for it. "I'm sorry I was such a possessive bastard. I didn't mean to make you feel like I was marking you – if you need to shower, then do. I've no right to boss you."

  She sat down next to me and kissed the side of my face. "Jackson, I only do stuff I want to do. If I wanted to shower, I would. If I didn't like how possessive and domineering you just were I wouldn't have come like a freaking train. In bed, in private, I like seeing that side of you because it makes me feel like I'm yours and I'm special. Don't tell me you've not been like that in bed with other women? You've not been saving your kink for me?"

  I hadn't. Before Vanessa, I'd had a few girlfriends who enjoyed being tied up and using a bit of equipment nothing too serious. One in particular, when I was at university, had introduced me to the BDSM scene and although it wasn't something I'd fully embraced, parts of it I enjoyed. "No, but I've never felt serious about it." She laid her head in my lap, my hands automatically going to her hair, threading my fingers through it. "You need branding. And I want it to be me who does it."

  "You know you have nothing to worry about, don't you?" She pushed her feet up on to the bed, long legs stretched out. I wasn't sure how was ever going to leave the room.

  "Yes. I do. Which is why I can't understand why I'm being irrational," I said. "At some point, I'm going to end up with verbal diarrhea and telling you all sorts that will have you running back to Derbyshire."

  She laughed softly. "I'll look forward to the controlled and brilliant Jackson Callaghan losing his cool."

  A knock at the bedroom door caused her to sit up. "Jackson? Van? I realize that sex addiction is a recognized problem, but Dad wants to know if you're coming down at all this evening." It was Claire's voice, sounding less angsty than she had when she was outside with Killian.

  "We'll be down in five," I said, groaning, my hands winding around Vanessa. "Tell everyone to be on their best behavior."

  Claire laughed. "No chance. Seph already opened the tequila."

  I fell backward on to the bed. "Fuck."

  Vanessa laughed, grabbing my hand and pulling me up. "Come on. It'll be fun."

  ***

  My family reverted from being civilized, well-respected professionals to being something like teenagers and university students who never had to wake up before ten and whose tolerance for alcohol was almost medically impossible. Payton and Seph, stomach lined with the masses of food Marie had catered, proceeded to sample four different types of tequila, while Max reintroduced himself to Dad's whiskey cabinet, Killian as an assistant taster. Vanessa, Claire, Amelie, and Marie, with a few of Marie's friends, started on the wine, with Marie having set up a wine tasting table, although no one was spitting any out. At one point I heard Marie mention how doable Killian was – her phrase, not mine – which resulted in a diatribe from Claire insisting that Killian would be a terminal virgin as no right-minded woman would ever go there. I shuddered and escaped outside with a good three fingers of dad's finest Scotch to peruse the sky and give Vanessa some space, as I knew I kept staring at her.

  My dad had the same idea. When he and Marie first got together we'd not quite known what to make of her. Callum was too young to understand anything other than she was the kind and pretty lady who cuddled him like his mother had. For us, Max, Claire and myself, the house became filled with noise and laughter, both of which we'd forgotten as we'd lived under a shroud since the day my mother died.

  Marie was vibrant and colorful, bossy and affectionate with my father and so, so full of life. She made friends easily, and those friends visited, bringing their children and the house became full as it never had before. We loved it. We could play, run around and get messy as kids should and Marie laughed and made sure we were safe. She'd been the second eldest of nine children, born into a New York Irish family and she liked us, more than liked us. I still wondered what she saw in my father at the point when she met him as without my mother he'd been a mess.

  Dad loved Marie, probably more than he had loved any of us kids. He loved her partly because she loved us, and he really didn't know what to do with us until we became old enough to start to understand law, golf, and rugby. But when she had her friends around, even with his, he would take himself off outside for the odd twenty minutes to 'recalibrate' as he called it. Marie just laughed at him and accepted it for what it was.

  "Jackson," he said as I sat next to him. "I see Max sniffed out the good stuff."

  "I think Max is on a mission tonight," I said. My brother rarely drank alcohol. "He's preoccupied with something but I don't know what."

  Dad nodded. "I think do."

  "You mean, Marie has an idea and she's told you?"

  "Yes, well. Same thing." And it was really. "I like your young lady very much. I think you do too, the amount you've been staring at her all evening."

  "I tried not to. It's hard."

  He nodded. "I don't think she minds. Claire tells me it seems serious. You need me to have that chat with you now about where babies come from?"

  I laughed. It had been a standing joke since Max and I were in our early teens and Marie had sent him in for 'the talk', knowing full well we were up to speed, as much as any thirteen and fourteen-year-olds could be, on contraception and sex. Some of it had come from her, she had never been a prude, and some of it had come from magazines that Marie's sister's eldest son passed onto us. Max and I had sat through dad's somewhat gilded monologue on how to treat girls and not get them pregnant, enjoying his discomfort before rolling around in hysterics, telling him we already knew. He'd then grossed us out by full-on kissing Marie in front of us, reminding us that we had three younger siblings. "I think we're good."

  "Is it serious? Do I need to go in the safe?" He looked at me curiously and I felt sixteen again when I had thought I might've gotten a girl pregnant, only this time I wasn't scared. My mother's engagement ring was kept in the safe. She'd had three rings from my father: her engagement ring, wedding ring, and eternity ring. He'd told me, Max and Callum, that we could have one each to give to the person we were going to marry. The fact he'd said person resulted in much teasing of Callum and us suggesting that he'd prefer a boy, which we now knew wasn't true. Callum had gone through more girls than both of us put together, partly because he was a man whore, partly because he'd learned Marie's charm and inherited every model-standard gene that ran in the family. He was also a veterinarian, which girls seemed to be magnetised by.

  "Possibly," I said, feeling nervous just by saying the word. "But not yet, it's too soon."

  "Son," Dad said. "Do you remember how long me and Marie were together before we got engaged?"

  I had no idea. The concept of her being my dad's girlfriend had never been something I'd wanted to think too much about. "No. One day you were grumpy and sad because of Mum, you went on a case in New York and when you came home Marie was with you."

  "How long was I gone for?"

  I shrugged. "Four weeks?" We'd had an awful nanny at the time who used to let Callum cry constantly. It ended up being the three of us who looke
d after him.

  "I was away for fourteen nights. Marie was the lead counsel for the opposition. I met her on my third day there and I proposed to her on my tenth."

  "You knew her a week?" My dad was never impulsive. He was well planned and over thought everything.

  He laughed. "I knew I was going to bring her home after three days."

  "Did she know about us?"

  "You four were part of the deal from day one. We went for coffee after having an almighty screaming match about the disclosure of evidence, your nanny phoned me. I think you and Max were being little shits and she wanted to hand in her notice. Marie heard the conversation and within sixty minutes knew everything about your mother, you four and the fact I had no idea how to parent, only earn as much money as I could. By the end of the evening, she had me sort out a plan and then she took me to her hotel."

  "Those details I don't need."

  He smiled, clearly reminiscing. "We fought the following day and at one point she almost had me beat. By the end of the third day, I knew I couldn't live without her. By the end of the fourth, she told me that she was going to come home with me and sort my life and you lot out. As soon as the case looked like it was being resolved I proposed, thankfully she said yes, we spent four days covering her workload and sorting the finer details out and then she came home."

  "She was the best thing you ever did," I said, staring at my whiskey.

  "She was. She loved kids and you were hers from day one. As soon as she was here I was fifth in line after you four. And then we had the twins and Ava and she went back to work some because..."

  "She wanted more kids?"

  "She did. She'd have had another three. But seven was enough for me. Hell, one was enough. Max was an absolute nightmare as a baby. I'm still not sure how we made you."

  "Do we need to have a talk?"

  He laughed. "Do you still think it's too soon?"

  I shook my head. "Not for me, but maybe for her." I pulled my hair out of its tie and loosened it up.