by Margot Scott
He smiled. “I could paint a picture every day for the rest of my life, and never paint anything half as beautiful as my little girl.”
My skin tingled as though his words had physically touched me. He studied me a moment longer, then headed into the bathroom to shower. I stretched out like a starfish on the bed and listened for the sound of water beating against the tile. I’d join him in the shower in a minute. For now, I simply wanted to lay there and marvel at how this had become my life.
I’d fallen in love with the man who was once my father.
It was like a bomb had gone off inside me, forever altering the landscape. Nothing would be the same again. We'd done things to each other that I hadn’t known were doable, yet we’d somehow managed to hold off on the one thing I craved more than anything.
I was still a virgin, technically speaking, but for how much longer?
Not too long, I hoped.
At first, Mason had insisted we wait until I was on birth control. When I suggested condoms, he thanked me for reminding him to go get tested for STDs. Then he said he wanted my first time to be something special. I told him every day with him was special, so could he please hurry up and fuck me before my pussy imploded.
That one earned me a time out in the studio with a box of crayons and a bowl of fruit.
I couldn’t help it. I was cock-hungry. He made me feel edgy and desperate, like my consciousness had been shrunk down and relocated to my pelvis. I didn’t like feeling desperate, and I didn’t understand why he was holding back.
Mason’s phone vibrated on the nightstand, wrenching me from my thoughts. Feeling nosy, I checked to see who had texted him and then instantly regretted it. The text was from Krista, the model whose job I’d taken over when she’d come down with the flu a few weeks ago.
I knew he’d been sleeping with her before I came to New York. In the text, she claimed to be feeling much better, and she wanted to know if he was free for a private party tonight, followed by two question marks and a winky-faced kiss emoji.
I thought about deleting it. I even fantasized about how satisfying it would feel to erase every trace of her from his phone. But that would be petty and childish, and I was working so hard to prove I could be mature. I marked the message as unread to hide the fact that I’d been snooping and laid the phone on the bedside table.
I tiptoed into the bathroom and slipped inside the walk-in shower. Mason smiled when he saw me, his skin frothed with body wash.
“You got a text a few minutes ago,” I said, trying to sound casual. The masochistic parts of me wanted him to check his phone as soon as he toweled off so I could ask him about it.
“Who was it from?” He moved aside to let me stand beneath the rain head. “Someone asking about dinner?”
“I didn’t check.”
Mason had intentionally left Krista off the guest list for every party or outing he organized, mostly for my comfort. Though he assured me he had zero interest in resuming their sexual relationship, he understood why having her around bothered me.
I washed my hair while he rinsed himself off, then stood still for him as he lathered up my body. Pressing my palms to the warm tile, I moaned softly as he smoothed the almond-scented soap over my breasts and belly, along my arms and back, then lower, rounding over my hips and thighs. He cupped my pussy with one hand and used the other to wash my backside and cleft. I gasped at the throb of pleasure that pulsed through me when his fingers met between my legs.
“You sure you don’t know who it was from?” he asked, drawing soapy circles over my already sensitive clit. He’d become exceptionally good at reading me, not that I was adept at hiding my feelings. My mother had always been a champion at subterfuge; you’d think I would have picked up a few tricks after having lived with her for eighteen years.
He teased the skin around my back entrance. A warm shiver hurried down my spine.
“I don’t mind if you check my phone,” he said. “I know you can’t resist. But I’d prefer that you tell me the truth when I ask.”
Heat rushed to my face, though I couldn’t tell if it was from embarrassment or arousal or both. I’d been making an effort these past few weeks, trying to prove I was as grown-up as I looked. He had to have seen it, how hard I was working to act like a responsible adult.
His finger prodded my back entrance, and my muscles tightened instinctively. No one had ever been inside me like that before. Not even me.
“It’s okay, baby girl. I promise I won’t be upset.” He continued to stroke me, undeterred by my body’s involuntary urge to shut him out. “Just tell me the truth.”
The truth smoldered on my tongue like an ember. I bit my lips together.
Once again, he tested my opening. I wanted so badly to let him in, to trust that he’d meant it when he said it was okay that I’d snooped. It was the sort of crime my mother would’ve held against me for months. But Mason wasn’t my mother. He was my daddy, and he loved me unconditionally, the way a parent is supposed to.
My breath whooshed out of me, and his finger slid inside.
I moaned, catching water in my mouth.
My skin prickled as though I’d been electrified. I was alive and open, sensitive all over. I felt each drop of water and every inch of his finger.
Mason’s cock stirred against my hip. He continued to rub my clit with his free hand, which made me want to rock my hips. Forward to chase the pleasure, backward to revel in the forbidden feeling of having my asshole breached.
“It was from Krista,” I confessed. There was no point in trying to hide from him now that he was inside me. “She invited you to a private party tonight... Do you wish you could go with her?”
“Of course not.” He kissed my temple. “I’m exactly where I want to be. Besides, we already have plans.”
I wanted that to be the end of our conversation about Krysta, but I was still burning with questions. “What did she mean by ‘private party?’”
Mason’s touch wavered as though his mind had wandered and come back around. He sighed heavily. “Krista and I have occasionally invited others to join us. But that’s all in the past now.”
“Oh.” The thought of being passed between two lovers made me want to press myself harder against him—that was, until I understood the implication of what that meant for him and Krista. Not only had they fucked, but they’d fucked creatively, while Mason had yet to put his cock in my pussy even once.
“You look mildly scandalized.” He withdrew from my rear and then returned with two fingers.
I opened my mouth to the spray to wash down the taste of bitterness. Pressing my full weight into my palms, I spread my hands flat against the tile and turned to look at him.
“I’m not scandalized,” I said. “Just...confused.”
“How so?”
“You’ve had threesomes with Krista, but we still haven’t...you know.”
He kissed my cheek, then whispered into my ear, “You like the idea of being shared?”
My pulse jumped. “Maybe...”
“You want to know what it’s like to feel twice as many hands on you? Twice as many cocks begging for your attention? One here—” He moved faster in and out of my asshole. “—and another here?”
He slid two fingers into my pussy. I moaned. He was obviously trying to distract me from the fact that we hadn’t fucked yet; I was embarrassed to admit it was working.
Illicit images played out like a slideshow across my mind. Four hands gliding over my hips and breasts, two mouths kissing and licking my nipples. Two cocks sliding in and out, using me, filling me to bursting. It was depraved and brutally comical, considering I had yet to have one man’s cock inside me, yet here I was greedily lusting for two.
My inner muscles clenched around Mason’s fingers, in front as well as behind. He was hard again. He hummed as I grasped his cock in my soapy hand. I needed this, needed his body and the reassurance of his desire for me. Especially after learning the juicy, albeit resentment-induci
ng, details about his history with Krista.
“Fuck me,” I begged. “Please, fuck me, Daddy. My ass or my pussy, wherever you want. You don’t have to come inside me. Just fuck me.”
He groaned into my ear, picking up the pace with his fingers. I grappled for something to hold onto, but the tile was too slick, so I used his shoulder. He withdrew his fingers from my pussy and turned me to face him him, trapping his erection between us. We kissed, wet and sloppy.
I could practically taste his desperation.
Grasping his shaft, I guided his cock between my legs. He rocked forward, gliding against me.
This was it. He was finally going to fuck me.
He slid his fingers out of my backside and angled his cock back against my belly. The sigh that seeped from his chest had to have left him hollow.
“Not yet,” he said.
He may as well have been standing on my chest.
“Why not?” I asked, my voice barely a squeak above the rushing water.
He cradled my face.
“We don’t have time, sweetheart.”
Liar, I thought. We’d had the past three weeks, plus the rest of our lives, and at least an hour till dinner. We had all the time in the world.
I wilted as he kissed my forehead and detached the shower massager from its post on the wall. My skin humped with goosebumps as he rinsed the soap from me, then from himself.
I didn’t find the will to speak again until he’d finished toweling me off.
“Are you going to respond to her text?” I asked.
“No.” He wrapped the towel around my shoulders and then motioned for me to sit on the edge of the tub so he could comb my hair. I sighed, soothed by the gentle pick and swoosh through the strands.
I left him in the bathroom to finish getting ready. My first week in New York, Mason had asked his housekeeper to move his winter clothes into storage to make room for my things. I’d convinced him to continue his work on the painting regardless of whether he intended to ever show it. After a few sessions, he presented me with a credit card with my name on it and said, “Modeling for me is work. You deserve to be compensated.”
I used the money to buy myself clothes I could wear to parties and gallery openings. Gauzy shirts and backless dresses, garments that would make it easy for him to touch me whenever he wanted. Tonight, I opted for a slinky deep-violet dress with an asymmetrical hem, black lace-trimmed panties and no bra.
Standing at the full-length mirror, I knew I’d made the right choice when Mason’s hands came around to softly pinch my nipples through the fabric.
Our eyes met in the glass, his gaze hot enough to warm my cheeks.
“If I haven’t ripped this dress off you by dessert, it’ll be a miracle.”
Chapter Twelve
Mason kissed me one last time as our black car pulled up to the restaurant. Once inside the dimly lit bistro, I recognized his agent Michelle and her husband Kurt seated at a large leather-lined booth beside an artist couple I met my first week in New York.
“You’re looking very charming this evening,” Kurt said to me as I slid into the booth, his gaze centered on my nipples.
Tension rolled off of Mason like distant thunder as he pulled me close. I lived for these intimate moments: his arm curved around my waist at gallery openings; his hand pressed to the small of my back at his artist friends’ summer homes. Caresses that in isolation would seem perfectly innocuous to anyone watching—so much so that the men we encountered didn’t think twice about hitting on me.
“When people see us together they don’t see a couple,” Mason had lamented on our way back from a party last weekend. “They see me and they see my daughter. I’ve caught their mouths watering and watched their cocks perk up at the sight of you. And short of playing the overprotective-father card, there’s not a goddamn thing I can do about it.”
His gaze narrowed at Kurt across the table.
“How astute of you to notice,” he growled.
“What a gorgeous dress!” Michelle added, diffusing some of the tension. It was hard to tell if she was genuinely oblivious to her husband’s wandering eye, or simply resigned to look the other way in an effort to keep the peace.
I smiled at her. “Thank you.”
“Mason,” she said, “as soon as your girl has a finished piece, I want you to call me. Any time, day or night.”
“In other words—” Kurt winked at me. “—she wants first dibs on your freshman thesis, just in case your father’s talent is hereditary.”
“Don’t make fun.” She slapped her husband’s arm. “I’ve been in this business long enough to know that talent is just as much nature as it is nurture. It would be a tragedy to see even an ounce of that talent wasted on school.”
Mason squeezed my shoulder. I leaned into his side. There was, of course, no way I could’ve inherited his talent, but I had been soaking up his wisdom on technique and composition since I arrived. He motioned for the waiter and placed a generous order of wine for the table and an array of tapas-style dishes.
Two other couples joined us, plus a few stragglers on their way back from a concert. Mason’s popularity was more than justified, but it was easy to spot the difference between folks who genuinely adored his work versus those who simply wanted to boast about having dinner with Mason Black.
An hour into the meal, we were about to order another round of drinks when a familiar blonde strutted up to the table dressed in a baby-pink top and leather pants.
“So sorry we’re late,” Krista said. A lanky musician type with long, greasy hair sauntered in behind her looking bored. “I forgot Dez had a show in Brooklyn.”
The artist couple rose from the table to kiss Krista’s cheeks. Her gaze flittered toward Mason, and the lack of surprise on her face told me everything I needed to know: she knew he would be here tonight.
“It’s so good to see you.” She leaned across the table, aiming her kiss for his mouth instead of his cheek. He dodged her affection deftly. Still, it took everything I had not to shank her with the cheese knife. “It feels like it’s been forever since we got together.”
He smiled politely. “It has been a while.”
Michelle motioned for the couple next to her to make room for the new arrivals. Krista and her companion scooted along the bench until they were directly across from my daddy and me.
She caught my hand before I could tuck it away.
“Jett, it is so nice to finally meet you. Your father’s told me so much about you.”
“Likewise.” I bared my teeth. As far as I knew, he hadn’t spoken to her since she came down with the flu. Had he invited her here tonight without telling me? “Are you feeling better?”
“Yes, thank goodness. I’m so bummed I wasn’t able to work with your father on his current project. It sounded really special.”
“Wait.” Michelle turned to Mason. “I thought you were using Krista for this project.”
Mason downed the remaining glug of wine in his glass and then poured three fresh glasses for himself and the newcomers. “Sadly, Krista was unable to—”
“He’s painting me,” I said.
Krista nearly choked on her Merlot. I smoothed my lips together to stop myself from meeting her look of horror with a grin.
Mason’s hand tightened on my thigh. He was not happy with my outburst, that much was obvious, not that I could blame him. I was out of control. Something reptilian slithered beneath my skin, provoking an itch I couldn’t scratch without tearing myself and everything around me to pieces.
“Wow, that’s...” Krista blinked repeatedly. “I’ve done my fair share of nude modeling over the years, but I’m honestly not sure I could ever do something like that. I mean, pose for my own father...like that.”
“Pose how?” Michelle asked. Clearly, Mason hadn’t filled her in on the details of his newest painting.
“I’ve only seen the preliminary sketches,” Krista said, “but from what I remember they were very graphic.�
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"My father's been sketching me since I was little,” I said matter-of-factly.
“Well yeah,” she said, “but surely not like this.”
The entire booth seemed to hold its breath. Mason nudged my foot under the table.
Tread carefully, baby girl.
I smiled. “Obviously not.”
Krista laughed softly, trying and failing to conceal her lingering discomfort. “Knowing your father’s work, the shock factor of you being his daughter is just part of the appeal. Right, Mason?”
He kept his expression neutral. “I never do anything for shock value. And certain aspects of the project have changed since we last spoke.”
“Not too many aspects, I hope.” Michelle was practically licking her chops at the prospect of a scandal. “Nothing makes the critics salivate like good, old-fashioned controversy.”
***
Safely enclosed within the low-droning quiet of the hired car, away from eager eyes and ears, Mason cupped my chin in his hand and asked, “What were you thinking, Jett?”
All I could do was shrug as he searched my eyes for answers I wasn’t ready to give.
“I told you how it had to be when this whole thing started. As far as everyone else is concerned, you’re my biological daughter.” His voice was surprisingly cool considering how frustrated he was. “You told me you could live with that.”
“I guess I’m a liar, just like you.”
I turned from him to stare out the window.
“Look at me, Jett.”
The disapproval in his gaze was almost sharp enough to pierce my bubble of resentment. Then I pictured Krista on her knees with a look of ecstasy on her face as Mason’s cock sank into her undoubtedly bleached asshole. I crossed my arms defensively, wishing I could collapse in on myself like a dying star, brilliant and destructive.
“Sometimes I forget you’re still a teenager,” he said. “Then you cop an attitude, and I’m reminded just how young you are.”
This, coming from the man who had been missing-in-action for most of my adolescence, whose last memory of me before he left was of a gangly pre-teen in braces shouting, See you next weekend, Daddy, from the driveway. He had no idea how much or how little I’d matured, and no clue how his disappearance had stunted me emotionally.