‘Like mother like daughter then,’ he grinned, as he squeezed my hand and looked around at me, giving me a reassuring smile.
‘What’s wrong, Summer? You seem tense,’ Mum asked. She was always too astute for her own good. Lucas nodded at me, so I took a deep breath.
‘I need to tell you both something and I’m not sure how you’re going to react, but I have to tell you as it will be all over the news tomorrow.’
‘O my God,’ she gasped. ‘You got married? Without us being there?’
‘NO!’ I shot back. ‘Of course not. We’ve only been dating a few months, we’re not getting married.’
‘Don’t tell me you’ve got a bun in the oven already?’ Dad asked, as he dunked his biscuit in his tea, seemingly totally laid back about it if I was pregnant already.
‘No, not pregnant either.’
‘Well you’re not wearing an engagement ring, I check your hand every time I see you,’ Mum nodded, making me shake my head and blush as Lucas chuckled next to me.
‘Am I allowed to tell you, or are you just going to keep throwing crazy guesses at me all night?’
‘Well I’m pretty sure we’ll hit the right one before I’ve finished this mug of tea,’ Dad said, leaning in to grab another biscuit.
‘O, I seriously doubt that,’ I shot back, giving Lucas an exasperated look. I’d known it wouldn’t be easy, but honestly.
‘You’ve got yourself a car and you’re taking driving lessons?’ asked Mum.
‘No.’
‘You’re shacking up together?’ Dad offered. ‘The real question is at whose house, I’m going with yours, Summer. Lucas doesn’t have enough room for your wardrobe.’
‘She paid me for sex,’ Lucas blurted out. I gasped as I shot him a glare and the room went silent for a moment, before Dad burst out laughing and dunked his biscuit again.
‘You’re funny, always knew I liked you,’ he chuckled.
‘He’s not joking, Dad,’ I said quietly, as Mum just stared at us both, aghast. ‘I was scared to let anyone touch me after what Anthony did, I needed to lose those inhibitions or I’d never have lasted in my first film role or even had a boyfriend. I heard about an exclusive, trustworthy male escort and I paid him to take my virginity, to show me what sex could be like, that it could be a wonderful, tender and romantic thing. That man was Lucas.’ I took a quick breath in as I looked at their shocked faces, feeling Lucas’s thumb stroking up and down my hand. ‘He went by the name Logan back then, his middle name. We spent the night together and he brought me home. We didn’t see each other again for about ten months, until the night of my movie premiere, then we were just friends until we started dating last October.’ I bit my lip as they both sat silently trying to process it. At least Dad hadn’t leapt out of his chair and punched him. That was a good start, I figured.
‘You didn’t think my daughter was good enough to date? You waited nearly two years before you ask her out?’ Dad asked quietly. ‘You waited until she earned some decent money to pull you out of whatever mess you’d got yourself into? Then she was good enough for you?’
‘Dad!’ I shot back.
‘No, Sir. I didn’t think I was good enough for her, that’s why I walked away that first time. But I’d already fallen in love with her, I couldn’t stay away. I pursued her at the premiere and she said she couldn’t see me as long as I did that job, so I quit. We became friends and got to know each other for the next fourteen months, so she could decide if she trusted me, before we became a couple.’
‘Dad I know you’re disappointed in me, but don’t judge Lucas. He did something that he’s not proud of anymore, but he has his own money, he earned really good money from that and his personal training, he didn’t need me for that, he still doesn’t. We both changed when we met each other, we fell in love for the first time and we did whatever was necessary to make sure that we were serious about each other before we slept together again. He waited fourteen months for me, how many men would do that? I trust him implicitly. He’s still the same man you both fell in love with too. You told me that he was the best boyfriend you could ever have imagined for me, you said that you could see how much he loved me by the way he looked at me, talked about me, or held my hand all the time. Just because you know some of his past doesn’t change that.’ I felt tears dripping down my cheeks and Lucas pulled a tissue out of his pocket and gently wiped my face for me, kissing my forehead when he was done and grasping my hand again.
‘Mr. Beresford I …’
‘No! It’s my turn to speak,’ Dad interrupted, setting his half empty mug down on the table, looking seriously pissed off. ‘Did you ever have unprotected sex before you were with Summer?’
‘No, Sir. And I got tested before we became a couple.’
‘Have you slept with any clients since you’ve been seeing her?’
‘Not since we agreed to be friends to see how it went.’
‘How long were you offering your services out for?’
‘Five years.’
‘Why did …’
‘Dad! This isn’t an interrogation. Lucas doesn’t have to answer these very personal questions. It’s in the past and trust me, you’re not thinking of one single question that I didn’t think of and ask myself and he answered all of them, to my satisfaction. I wouldn’t be sitting here now if I didn’t trust in him, or in his feelings for me. I went looking for him, I booked him, if you’re going to look down on him, then you’re looking down on me as well. He’s been nothing but honest, respectful, loving and protective of me since the day we started this. See that scar on his forehead? He got that when he thought I was in danger from Daron bloody Beck who’s been harassing us with messages, threatening to publicise how we met. He even followed us to Paris, Lucas got really hurt trying to make sure I was ok. I won’t have you question his integrity anymore. The fact that he’d risk his life for mine should tell you everything that you need to know. I love him, and nothing you say will change that.’
‘Don’t blame me for wanting to protect you either, Summer. You may be some hot shot out there in the real world, but in here, you’re still our little girl,’ Dad bit back. ‘The girl we found crying on the floor with that monster attacking her. The girl who spent weeks in her room too scared to come out, who sobbed herself to sleep every night breaking your mother and my hearts. We swore then that we’d never let you get hurt again, so don’t you dare question why I need to be one hundred percent sure that I can trust the man who’s currently holding your fragile heart in his hands, because the man who does that, holds both of ours in there as well.’
‘I’ll answer any question you want to ask, Sir,’ Lucas said quietly. I wiped my tears away, taking another tissue from him, as I stared at my bare feet on Mum’s new cream carpet. She hadn’t said a word. Dad had done all the talking, I had no idea what was running through her mind. I looked up surprised when I heard her voice.
‘No you won’t, Lucas. If it was any other man sitting on that sofa now, we wouldn’t be having such an in depth and very personal discussion, because we’d have thrown them out, but Charles has always been an excellent judge of character. He knew when we first saw you, at that premiere, that you were in love with our daughter. Anyone who sees you together knows it too. After we officially met you, last year, he told me that Summer had picked a good one. Because you did something in the past that may not be what we’d have approved of, doesn’t change your feelings for her, nor hers for you. If Summer can look past this, then so can we. She doesn’t give her affections lightly, certainly not her heart. All we want is for our daughter to be happy and you’ve made her so happy, Lucas.’
‘Thank you,’ I whispered as I looked at her, my eyes overflowing again.
‘Thank you Mrs. Beresford,’ nodded Lucas, as he pulled out another tissue for me.
‘I have one thing left to say,’ Dad stated, as he pulled himself to the edge of his seat. ‘Emily’s right, if Summer’s happy then we need to put this behind us. Bu
t rest assured if you ever do anything to hurt her, I’ll devote every minute of my waking life making you as miserable as you’ll have made her. Are we clear?’
‘Perfectly, Sir. I’m not proud of my choices in the past, but your daughter is such an amazing woman to see past that and see me for the man that I am. The man who intends to devote every minute of his waking life to making her as happy as she’s made me.’
‘Then I say we leave this in the past, where it belongs. You may need to give us both some time to adjust to this revelation, but we will. I’m still not clear why you felt the need to tell us this at all? You could have kept quiet and we’d have been none the wiser.’
‘Daron Beck was going to expose Lucas’s past to the newspapers, Dad. I didn’t want this hanging over our heads, with the possibility of it coming to light in the future, so I decided that it was better to be upfront and take the hit now. I’m holding a press conference tomorrow. An expert public relations team have come up with my statement, they think detailing what Anthony tried to do and how it affected me will soften the news. We’re going to disappear for a while until things calm down and we know if I’ve been let go from the film.’
‘You didn’t perform with men did you?’ Dad shot at Lucas.
‘What?!’ he exclaimed. ‘No!’
‘So how does this Daron know about your history?’
‘Dad, it’s a really long story,’ I sighed.
‘He hooked up with an ex client who had a thing for me,’ Lucas shrugged.
‘Or not so long,’ I corrected myself, as I looked over at Dad with a shrug of my own.
‘And what are you doing about it? Are you going to let him off scot-free? This could ruin your career,’ Dad stated.
‘I know it could, Dad, but Lucas is more important to me. And no, he won’t get off, in fact by investigating who was behind this we’ve discovered some rather sordid things,’ I confirmed. Dad started firing a load of questions, which Lucas took over answering. I caught Mum’s eye and she flicked her head out towards the kitchen. I hesitated, but Dad had moved on to attacking Daron, Lucas would seem positively saintly in his eyes now. I closed the kitchen door behind me and turned around to find Mum with her arms wide open. I ran into them and cried on her shoulder. I needed to stop crying, I’d be on live TV in the morning looking like shit. I needed to look happy, to show that I had no shame for what I’d done, or it would make it worse.
‘I’m so sorry for disappointing you, Mum.’
‘Sssshhh. Don’t talk nonsense. Your dad’s just being overprotective. It isn’t the career we’d have chosen for a future son-in-law, but it is what it is. You haven’t disappointed us, you could never disappoint us. We brought you up to work hard, to be honest and to trust your heart, and you have, on all counts. It’s obvious that Lucas would die rather than let anyone hurt you Summer. Your dad knows that deep down. It was just a bit of a shock that’s all. But I feel better knowing my baby has a man that adores her, to keep her safe for me.’
‘I love you,’ I whispered, as I hugged her tightly.
‘I love you, too. Wait until you have your own children, you’ll understand why your dad reacted the way he did.’
Lucas
‘Summer?’ I was sitting in the armchair by the roaring fire, a glass of whiskey in my hand, feeling replete after she’d cooked me a delicious meal. I felt sad that we had to return to London tomorrow. We’d had a blissful two weeks in the house in Scotland. Our own little secluded paradise, away from whatever was happening back home. We’d left our parents with the landline number in the event of an emergency, but otherwise we’d said we didn’t want to be contacted and we’d turned off our mobile phones as well and avoided the television news and radio. I was so proud of her. The PR team had felt that it would be better for her to speak with me at her side, to show us as a united couple. She’d spoken loudly and clearly, with no waver in her voice at all, though her hand, clutching mine tightly, was trembling. It had been me that nearly cried as she explained her ordeal with Anthony, from the moment he tried to kiss her to the moment he’d torn at her clothing as he had her pinned down. When she described in her own words, what her first time with me had been like, I completely choked up. There was an audible gasp as she explained my profession, my former profession, and pretty soon we were being bombarded with questions. I’d been given a statement to add at the end, which I did, but without prompting, I’d turned and grasped her face and kissed her, announcing that if someone was going to make a film about how we met, along the lines of Pretty Woman, we were both free for the roles, on the condition it wouldn’t be called Pretty Man, which had made everyone laugh. ‘Summer?’ I called again, my brow furrowing as there was no response.
I quickly set my glass down, covered the fire and took the stairs two at a time, heading for the guest room we were staying in. I opened the door and my frown was soon replaced by a wicked grin. The room was filled with burning tea lights and she was propped up in the middle of the bed with the red bow tied around her chest, barely concealing her seriously fuckable breasts, and the blue one tied around her waist with the tail ends drawing my eyes down her stomach, to see she had on a tiny pair of micro lace knickers, in electric blue, my favourite colour on her.
‘Is it my birthday?’ I enquired, as I raised a surprised brow.
‘It can be anything you want it to be,’ she winked. ‘Tonight Lucas Steel, I’m your fantasy. Tell me who you want me to be?’
‘Angel,’ I groaned, as I reached down and squeezed my painfully stiff cock in my jeans. ‘I have far too many fantasies in this head of mine to possibly choose just one.’
‘Then I’d better blow out these candles and go to sleep,’ she sighed, with a teasing smile.
‘No you bloody don’t,’ I retorted, as I quickly undid the buttons on my shirt. My eyes were in danger of overload, I couldn’t work out where to look as she lay there so seductively, her skin glowing in the soft light. I tossed my shirt on the floor and she left out a throaty whimper as her eyes skimmed up and down my torso, making me smile. She always got turned on by the sight of my body, as much as I did hers. ‘I think tonight, I’d just like to make love to you, after all the kink and hard fucking we’ve done the last two weeks,’ I replied, undoing my jeans as fast as I could.
‘Just make love? Lucas, your idea of making love is apparently some men’s idea of a marathon mind blowing session, from what Mandy tells me,’ she laughs. ‘But I’m all for however you want me, you never let me go unrewarded.’
‘And I never will,’ I nodded, as I shoved my jeans and boxers down in one go, my cock springing free and jerking in response to the way she was looking. It was like a shark that had scented blood in the water, desperate to go in for the kill. ‘Angel, your happiness is my main priority in life.’
‘Yours is mine too,’ she replied, her eyes glittering with love, which crushed my heart, as I crawled up the bed, hovering on all fours over her.
‘You don’t even need to try,’ I murmured as I let my lips graze hers, taking a moment to breathe her in. She always smelled of honey, strawberries and that sweet, sweet scent of arousal, that had me wanting to sink into her every second of every damn day. ‘I’m happy just looking at you, seeing you smile, feeling your fingers brushing against mine, holding your hand, watching you sleeping, eating, talking, laughing. The only time I’m not happy, angel, is when you’re not in my line of sight. I ache for you when we’re apart, I feel like I’m slowly dying until I see those beautiful blue eyes of yours again, then you kiss me and bring me back to life.’
‘Lucas,’ she sighed, her eyes watering up as she clasped her hands behind my neck and pulled me a fraction closer, close enough to kiss me properly, her soft warm tongue caressing mine as her lips sent jolts of pleasure firing through my body. How had this woman got to me so badly? I’d wanted her the second I laid eyes on her, each day I thought I couldn’t possibly love her more, but with the dawn of a new one I was proved wrong. These two weeks together,
all alone, could have had some couples desperate to get away from each other for a break, not us. It brought us closer, if that were even possible. I could stay with her in our bubble of bliss forever. I kissed her back with more urgency, my need for her threatening to drown me. As her passionate kisses threatened to have me blow my load all over her stomach, I pulled away, working my way up and down her sensitive neck and across her shoulder, as her fingers tangled in my hair, her breathy moans making my chest puff with unimaginable pride.
‘Angel, I’m so in love with you, you fill my damn head all the time, I can’t breathe without you.’
‘Then never leave me, or we’d both die, because I feel exactly the same.’
‘O God,’ I groaned, her affirmation that she was as badly affected by me, as I was by her, just slayed me. I moved to kiss her throat, planting firm kisses down the centre of her chest, before capturing the ends of the red bow in my teeth and tugging until it came undone, slithering away from her body, unveiling those gorgeous pert breasts of hers with their pink, swollen nipples. I immediately wrapped my lips around one, flicking it with my tongue, feeling her body writhe underneath mine as her grip on my hair grew stronger. I nipped, then tugged, pulling it between my teeth as my hand reached up to knead the other breast. Her nipples were hard and erect now, her whimpers filling my ear. I swear I could make her come if I stayed here a little longer, but her sweet cunt was calling to me and I couldn’t deny the urge to bury my face between her legs and lick her to an explosive climax. I ran my hand down, cupping her sex over the top of the blue lace, pressing firmly, feeling how swollen she was for me.
‘Lucas,’ she moaned, her voice broken and hoarse with need.
‘Tell me what you want, angel?’
‘Touch me, make me come, please make me come.’
‘I can make you come in so many ways, Summer. Be specific, tell me what you need?’ I whispered against her soft toned stomach, as I pressed my hand harder against her clit.
For the Night - Complete Box Set Page 60