“You should probably go.” I waved a hand. It killed me to say it, but I did. “Go to dinner with Nathan or something. It’ll be awkward if you hang around all night.”
She lifted her chin proudly. “Not at all. I’d love to meet your…date.”
“Fine,” I said savagely, meeting her challenge. She could do what she wanted. I would make sure she knew where I stood and what I wanted. And that none of it involved her.
She got to her feet, and I noticed the way her dress clung to her breasts, skimming over the curve of her hips. I forced my eyes away and threw my drink down my throat.
“I’m getting in the shower,” I said.
“Good idea. I think I’ll join you,” she said.
I froze mid-step. “What did you say?” I asked tightly.
She grinned cheekily. “Just kidding.”
I whirled around and left without another word. One day, she’ll go too far and I’ll tan that pert backside of hers.
I went into the bedroom and sent a text to Victoria. She replied instantly. Yes, she would love to come over for dinner. Excellent. It was about time I ended this nonsense with Madison and took up Victoria’s offer. No woman who did what she did to chocolate truffles could be a disappointment in the sack. I called up one of the restaurants next to my house, and ordered enough food for three people.
Dinner for all of us.
9
Quinn
I had no idea how it would go down, but at least, it would show Madison I wasn’t hung up on her. I had plenty of women I could fuck and date, and eat out with, whenever I wanted. Hopefully it would be enough to discourage her for good. If she didn’t keep throwing herself at me and tempting me with her body all the time, I’d probably be in a different head space.
Soon enough, everything was set up for the evening. Madison played a good game. She even volunteered to go out and pick up the food for us. I looked at her with knowing expression and told her the food would be delivered.
“Oh, in that case, I should just go up and powder my nose then,” she said lightly, and ran up to her room. She was back in minutes. I don’t know about powdering her nose, but she had applied lipstick and put her hair up. The sight of her hair swept high on her head, revealing her white neck was enough to get me looking twice.
I told myself to stay focused on the plan.
Victoria. She had the right age, experience and temperament for me. Madison was just a spoilt kid. She should be with someone like Nathan. If it worked out right tonight I might even take Victoria up to my bedroom and fuck her there. I know she would be up for it and I could finally work out some of the frustration that had built up in my libido over the last few days. The bonus effect would be Madison would finally get the message loud and clear.
Victoria arrived bang on time. She swept into the place dressed in a casual, wraparound maroon dress that succeeded in being sexy as hell. I gave her an appreciative look as she came through the door, and she smiled happily, and did a twirl for me.
“I picked it out specially for you.” She flashed me a grin, but it faded swiftly as she spotted Madison dividing up the food across the room. She cocked her head at me curiously, and I understood this wasn’t the night she expected.
“She’s the friend’s daughter I told you about,” I explained. “He’s out of town and he wanted her to stay with someone he could rely on.”
“Oh, of course,” she said smoothly, but she looked a little put out that Madison had turned out to be so smoking hot. Still, she took it in her stride and that was good to know. I needed an adult like her in my life.
I brought her over to the table and introduced them. The tension was so thick you could cut it with a knife. Victoria turned toward me. Her face was artificially bright. “So, what food have you got for us?”
I grinned. “Italian.”
She grinned back. “My favorite.”
“I know,” I said softly. Then, I glanced at Madison and she looked away quickly. Good. I should have done this on day one. It would have cleared the air out for all of us. I had no business fantasizing about Madison, and she had no business coming on to me.
We took our seats around the dining table I had purchased years ago, but hadn’t had a lot of use. I wasn’t exactly a bring a girl back for dinner type of guy, at least not at my own place. I’d rather take a woman out. Having a woman around felt oddly intimate and made me feel uncomfortable. Come to think of it no woman had stayed in my house before Madison.
“Since we’re eating Italian food. Bon appetit, everyone,” Victoria cried gaily.
“That’s actually French,” Madison said sweetly.
“Madison is studying foreign languages,” I said quickly. “So she’s being a bit of a stickler.”
Madison eyed Victoria from across the table while she sucked up a strand of spaghetti in a deliberately childish way. My eyes were drawn to her mouth, and immediately my caveman brain thought of how they would look wrapped around my-
“So, what do you do in London, Madison?” Victoria smiled across at her benevolently. If she was pissed another woman had crashed what she had thought would be our romantic date, she was being as extremely polite and subtle about it.
“Not much,” Madison replied, her expression sullen.
I gave her a hard look. She acted like a complete brat. Her attitude sucked. I knew that Kevin would have been furious if he could see the way she was acting. Much more of this and I wouldn’t need Victoria to put me off her. She was going to do it all on her own. In fact, I might have trouble keeping my mouth shut for the rest of the evening.
“Well, I love London! I’m quite jealous.”
There was suddenly an awkward pause, and Madison slid her eyes over to me. Victoria could obviously see what she was looking at, and no matter how fast I tried to drag my eyes away, I knew that she’d seen the little moment between the two of us.
“What?” Victoria grinned slightly, as though looking forward to getting filled in on a joke that she was out of the loop of. “What are you guys looking at each other like that for?”
“Uh…” I trailed off.
Madison dragged her teeth over her bottom lip, in an almost comically sexual way, and I shifted in my seat, as I struggled to come up with some kind of explanation. I came up blank. What could I say? I wanted to fuck Madison and Madison wanted to be fucked. Victoria narrowed her eyes at us, glancing between Madison and me. Slowly, she put her fork down as though she was preparing for a showdown.
“What’s going on?” she asked in a deathly quiet tone. Any patience she had had for the situation swiftly leaked out of her as the two of us sat there silently as though we’d been caught out. “You invite me over at the last minute, and then she’s here-”
“The last minute?” Madison pounced immediately, her eyes flashing with triumph.
My jaw clenched. Damn, I shouldn’t have done this. I wasn’t smart enough to pull off a plan with this many moving female parts, and I should have known better than to imagine neither woman would think to question this bizarre set-up.
Victoria looked at Madison, and then back at me as she tried to figure out what the hell I was trying to pull off. She raised her eyebrows. “Why did you invite me here, Quinn?”
“He was trying to use you as a distraction,” Madison said, meeting Victoria’s gaze steadily. Both looked like they were ready to claw each other’s eyes out. “Because he wants me and he knows that he wouldn’t be able to stop himself from fucking me if you weren’t here to play substitute.”
Victoria went white. Grabbing her napkin from her lap she dumped it on her plate of food. Then she looked at me, and spoke slowly and carefully, as though she was doing her best to keep herself in check. “Quinn,” she said, “what the fuck is she talking about?”
“I have no idea,” I said through tight jaws.
Victoria placed her hands down on the table like she was trying to hold herself back from landing me a hard slap across my face. I would have deserved
it too. The whole thing had spiraled completely out of my control. It was like watching a train wreck in slow motion.
“Are you fucking her?” Victoria demanded.
“No!” I protested. That much was true, at least, even though I could hear the complete lack of conviction in my tone as well as she could.
Her eyes widened. “Is that why you wouldn’t come back to my place the other night? “Because you’re fucking her?” Her voice was shrill with fury.
Before I could answer Madison spoke up. “No, he’s not fucking me.”
I shot her a look that told her to shut the fuck up right now before she said something she couldn’t take back, but she flicked her tongue across her lips playfully, and I could tell she was getting some sick, twisted pleasure out of this confrontation. “But he ate me out last night. And I think he wants to do more.”
“Quinn?” Victoria looked to me, eyes practically bugging out of her head. “This isn’t true, is it?”
“I…” I began to explain, but I stopped. I knew she wouldn’t believe me, no matter what I said. Besides Madison wasn’t lying. It was true. All of it. “I’m sorry, Victoria. I didn’t mean to hurt you. I thought. I don’t know what I thought.” I confessed. I had never done anything like this is my life, but ever since Madison came to live here I had been so tied up in knots with lust and desire I couldn’t even think straight anymore.
“You’re fucking sick,” Victoria snarled. She got to her feet, grabbed her coat from the rack, and made her way toward the door. She stopped and whirled around. “Is she even really your friend’s daughter?”
“Yes, she is,” I admitted. That at least was true.
Madison clasped her hands in her lap, not making eye contact with Victoria, but grinning away to herself as though this was the most amusing thing she’d ever seen.
“Oh, for God’s sake,” Victoria groaned to herself. She went to the door and slammed it on her way out. As soon as it shut behind her, I got to my feet and began collecting the plates.
I couldn’t believe how stupid I’d been. I honestly couldn’t remember the last time I had done anything so childish. I was so furious with myself I shook.
10
Madison
“What’s wrong?” I asked, watching Quinn stride over to the kitchen and start scraping the unfinished food into the trashcan.
He turned to me, and his voice was low and deadly. “What’s wrong? What the fuck do you think is wrong?”
I felt a cold flutter in my stomach when I saw the way he looked at me. He was mad. Livid. It felt as though he was fighting with everything he had to keep his shit together. I still couldn’t quite believe I’d done that. I had never acted like such a bitch in my life before, but something flared up inside of me, something I couldn’t keep down. I couldn’t let Victoria, with her sophisticated face and body, take Quinn from me. I had loved him for years. It was not fair she should have him when she didn’t even know him properly. I wasn’t giving up without a fight.
“Why? Because I told your girlfriend the truth?” I challenged, standing, and pacing around the table.
“I like Victoria,” he said between clenched teeth.
“You can’t have been very serious about her if you were so desperate to go down on me yesterday,” I shouted angrily.
“You knew what you were doing getting me into your bathroom,” he snarled. “I’m a man, Madison. I see a naked woman offering herself on a plate and sometimes I take it, okay?”
He was right, but there was no way I would admit it. I flushed with humiliation, and he turned away and began running the tap into the sink. I chewed my bottom lip. He thought I was a spoiled brat. He didn’t understand that I was just a woman desperately in love. Until I came here he didn’t even know I existed, and I loved it when he noticed me, and wanted me.
I wanted to see that look of desire and need in his eyes again.
“You were the one who ate me out,” I said to get his attention. I wasn’t used to talking dirty, and putting it out there like that made my pussy clench with the memory of it. God, that had been the hottest thing I’d ever felt in my life. I had hooked up with enough fumbling college boys to know no one was like Quinn. No one made me feel the way Quinn did. I never let any of them get past first base. I guess I was always saving myself up for him.
“You’re such a brat.” He shook his head. “What the fuck were you thinking telling her all of that? What if your father found out?”
“You should have thought of that before you did it!” I shot back. My voice rose, and my heart was pounding in my chest.
He took his hands out of the sink and planted them on the counter, pressing against the polished marble. “I shouldn’t have done it. I know that.”
“I’m not complaining. I loved it,” I told him softly, all the anger draining out of me. I stepped toward him. The distance between us felt so far. I could have reached out and touched him, my bare feet pattering softly on the wood beneath me. He didn’t acknowledge my presence.
He turned slowly, finally letting his eyes fall on me. My breath hitched. He inhaled deeply, and let it out slowly, the sound filling the air between us as he did so.
“You scared that perfectly decent woman away, and for what?” he asked. His voice was low and defeated.
“Because she deserved to know the truth!” I insisted. “You only invited her round to piss me off. Didn’t you? Admit it.”
“You think everything’s about you.” He shook his head as though he couldn’t believe he was having this discussion with me. “People have their own lives, Madison. I’m just doing your father a favor. I didn’t want you here in the first place.”
“Maybe I’ll go,” I narrowed my eyes at him. “And I’ll tell my father why I’m going.”
He didn’t react, so I decided to test him. I knew I was being a total bitch, but I wanted to provoke a reaction from him. Anything other than this sickening sensation that my behavior tonight had made me lose him for good. All I ever wanted was for him to tell me he wanted me to stay. That it was about more than just pleasing my father.
I stepped back, keeping his gaze the whole time. He twitched, but didn’t move, and I took another step away from him. Biting my lip I started to turn away when he finally snapped. He shot his hand out and caught my arm in a strong grip.
“Don’t go anywhere,” he whispered hoarsely.
His fingers felt good on my skin, just firm enough to let me know he was serious. I stared up at him. My lips parted as I felt the feelings between us mount to something neither of us could argue with.
Then, before I knew it, his lips were on mine, his tongue pushing into my mouth. I swear, my head swooned, and everything else in the world dropped away. Nothing mattered but us. I wrapped my arms around his neck, clutching him, holding him as tight as I could. I would never again let go. I pressed my body against his, and felt something close to relief as he kissed me hard and deep. His arm snaked around my waist to pull me tight against him.
The scent of his aftershave filled my nostrils, and I shuddered with pleasure as his thumb caressed my waist and moved down to my hips. I ran my hands through his hair, desperate to feel as much of him as I could, taking in every inch of his body while I still could.
He pulled back suddenly and I practically fell forward. I let out a small, disappointed groan. No. No. No. Not when we’d got so close. Not when it was so obvious this was not passing thing. We were meant to be together. I wanted him badly, and I knew he wanted me too. Why couldn’t we just go ahead and do this?
“We can’t do this,” he said, shaking his head. He started walking away from me, making his way to the balcony. I hurried after him. He opened the doors and stepped outside. The city was spread out below us. It was beautiful and I wished we could have come here in happier times, when this could have been romantic instead of filled with awful tension.
“Why can’t we?” I asked. “I want this and so do you. I don’t see what the problem is.”
&
nbsp; “You’re going back to London, Madison,” he replied. His voice hollow and empty. I saw a flicker in his eyes that told me the thought of it hurt him. “I’ll rent out a hotel room, you can have this place. I don’t want to…I don’t want to fuck things up for you.”
“What makes you think you’re going to fuck things up for me?”
“Have you got any idea of what would happen if anyone found out what we’ve done?” He turned away from me and looked at the sky.
I touched his arm and he flinched. “I can handle it.”
“You have no idea.” He shook his head, a mirthless laugh punctuating his words. “You’re…you’re not risking a lot with all of this.”
“And what are you risking?” I asked, cocking my head at him. The way he spoke to me made me feel like I was some kind of irresponsible idiot. I was a woman not a child, but it was clear that that was how he still saw me. If not physically, then emotionally.
“If Kevin finds we’re even having this conversation, he’ll dump me in a minute. I’m not losing him, or the business I’ve work so hard for, just for this moment of weakness.”
“I won’t tell him if you won’t,” I promised, stepping closer to him.
He shook his head. ‘No, I don’t want to lie to him. He’s like a brother to me.”
Despite the topic of conversation, I wanted to wrap my arms around him. I couldn’t hold myself back from him. He was just so irresistible. I’d wanted this for so long, and now that it was so close to actually happening, I had trouble accepting what he said.
“My dad doesn’t decide who I go with. We’re both adults.”
“The age gap…it’s too much. That kid tonight, the one who was here earlier. That’s the kind of guy you should be with, not me.”
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