by Max Henry
“We don’t have very long, dove, and I don’t want to rush things with you.”
I lament the loss of his touch as he pulls away, letting me slide further down his legs.
“Who says we’re rushing?”
“I am.” My feet are dropped to the floor as he stands to run a hand over the back of his neck. “I’m still wrapping my head around exactly how this works. I don’t want to screw up because I’m being careless.”
“Screw up with who?” I cross my arms.
His silent shrug says it all: Dad. He’s cautious because of the chance of getting caught out, not to spare my feelings. Fuck. Am I always going to come second?
“You can leave,” I say flatly. “I should go make us all dinner, anyway.”
“I can help if you want?” Zeus hesitates by my door like a lost lamb.
“I think you’ve done enough.” The blow is low, but it gets the desired reaction as I push past him and head for the kitchen.
I understand the need to hide me away, but I don’t want to be shut out in the cold completely. Sure, take things slow in the public eye for my father’s sake, but why the hell can’t he act on his urges behind closed doors?
Unless that’s the problem. What if the trouble I cause is more than the reward is worth? Maybe I’m just too much of a challenge?
Fuck it.
Cerise enters the house as I walk into the kitchen, waving her hand around as though she can simply bat the smell of nicotine off her. “What’s got your face looking like a pinched arse?”
I roll my eyes at her and cross to the fridge to retrieve the meat I thawed earlier.
“Do you have your driver’s licence?” She rests her butt against the edge of the counter, eyeing me as I prepare the cutting board.
“Why?”
“I’m on my last bottle.”
I lift my brow as I draw the knife from the block. “Well, that’s your piss poor preparation then, isn’t it?”
“There’s ten dollars in it for you.”
“You can’t buy my obedience.” I slice the blade into the meat, wishing it were her.
“Fine.” Her shoulder bunts me as she passes, making the knife slip. “I’ll ask Zeus.”
I hesitate to catch my breath after narrowly missing cutting my fingertip off. “He’s not your slave.”
Her eyes are hard as she swings around to meet my gaze. “And you’ve got no say in what I do. If he wants to help me when my own daughter won’t, then that’s his choice.”
My heart thunders in my chest; just the thought of her going down to his room to talk to him makes me murderous. My mother was beautiful once, before the poison ravaged her body and aged her prematurely. I can’t shake the idea that Zeus might see that, see past all her vices, as absurd as the concept is.
I need to get a grip on this jealousy. I kissed him, and he fingered me—what of it? We’re hardly an item, especially after the way he acted just now.
“I can drive you after dinner.”
She leans to one side, eyes narrowed on me. “Why the sudden change of attitude?” Cerise lifts a thin hand to thumb toward the hallway. “It’s almost as though you don’t want me to ask Zeus.”
“I don’t want you to put him out, is all.”
“Huh.” She studies me as I cube the meat.
My face flames, my hand clammy around the hilt of the knife. I’ve tripped the wire, cut the wrong colour. I have seconds to fix this, if any time at all.
“You might be onto something though.” My gut twists at the mere thought of my next words. “If he takes you now, you can get yourself another bottle in time for dinner.”
I don’t want her in the same car as him, let alone the same house. I don’t want her to even look at him—not how she did before, especially.
“For once in your life, Belle, you’ve said something that actually makes sense.” She smirks, knowing she’s got me, just not how.
I steady my breathing as she turns and leaves the room. She calls out as she makes her way down the hall, “Zeus? I need a favour.”
Fuck. I need a lot more than that.
I need a miracle if I’m going to make it through this evening in one piece.
TWENTY-TWO
Zeus
Cerise clutches her babies to her chest as we head home from the bottle store. I glance over at her as I drive, disgusted that I have her in my fucking safe space. But what else could I do when she asked for a ride? Let her drive drunk? Risk the fallout if she were forced to really sober up—not just wait between drinks, but be completely dry?
Bitch might think I’m doing this for her, but there’s only one girl that came to mind when she asked—Belle. Cerise has been a right fucking cunt to her this week, making her life hell and making sure to remind her daughter at every goddamn turn how little love there is.
What the fuck was John thinking when she called him? He should have hung up on her, saved himself the trouble.
“How much longer do we have to put up with you around the place?” she asks, face impassive.
I scowl at her and then shift my focus back to the road. “As long as it takes.”
“To?”
“To buy my own place.”
She huffs with a smirk. “Must make you feel like a right idiot, losing your wife because you can’t get her pregnant.”
“You want to walk the rest of the way?”
She stays silent, yet smiles.
She’s done enough, had her little dig. Maybe it was the catalyst, but I know our inability to conceive wasn’t the reason for my split with Jodie. Still—I don’t have to justify a goddamn thing to Cerise.
“Why did you come back into their lives? Really?” I cast a look her way, pleased to find her wary. “Can’t say either of them are all that much happier with you here.”
“Is that so?” She tilts her head. “How about you? Are you making either of them happy?”
“What are you getting at, Cerise?”
She smirks again, hands throttling the neck of her bottles. “Oh, nothing.”
Our conversation comes to an abrupt end as I pull up the driveway, yet I don’t stop thinking about what she said throughout the entire meal. Belle watches me, flashing me looks when she thinks Cerise isn’t paying attention.
I can’t deal with the pressure: one wants to ruin me, one wants me to ruin her.
So I deal with the tension the way any male would—I busy myself with menial tasks and bury my head in the sand, blocking out everyone around me. By the time I’ve cleaned up after dinner and tidied the kitchen, Belle is hidden in her room and Cerise has passed out on the armchair. I switch all the lights off and leave the bitch for John to sort out when he gets home. If he wants to take her on as a charity case, then he can fucking well do all the work.
I didn’t volunteer for this shit.
If it wasn’t for Belle, I would have found myself lodging at a backpackers or the like until I sorted out the new place. But as long as Cerise is here at night alone with Belle, then I’ll stick around until I’m satisfied the bitch hasn’t got any ill intentions toward her daughter.
I don’t trust the woman. Wouldn’t put it past her to be scheming something.
Light spills under Belle’s door, my eye drawn to it as I hesitate outside mine. Should I? I shut her down earlier, telling myself it was for her sake. But she had me all figured out when she pointed out my hesitation is based around John’s feelings, not hers.
I push her door open a fraction. “You awake?”
“It’s not that late,” she retorts. “If you want to know if you can come in, the answer is yes.”
I step into Belle’s room, pushing the door closed behind me. “I’m sorry, dove, about earlier.”
She shrugs, propped up against the headboard of her bed with her phone in hand. “You have a point, I guess. I just think your reasoning is skewed.”
“I guess I worry.” Fuck—I seem to be guessing everything when it comes to her. “I don’t know how to
handle somebody…”
“My age?” she finishes with a jerk of her head.
“Yeah.” Fuck it. “Don’t take it the wrong way.”
“I really don’t know how else to take it.”
Stick the other foot in, Zeus. “Tell me, then. How do we do this taking into account you’ve got no experience with sexual relationships whatsoever?”
The look she gives could strip paint. “Like any other, I guess: one step at a time.”
“Dove.” I crumple my face trying to work out how to voice the thoughts in my mind. This has always been my problem: I can’t formulate what goes on in my head into the right words. I sucked at school because what I wrote out was never a true reflection of what I had figured out in my mind. “Don’t make this harder than it already is.”
Her face softens at those words, her shoulders sagging as she sets the phone aside. “I’m sorry. I’m just… I worry that you’ll get annoyed with how inexperienced I am and change your mind.”
“You think experience is what matters most to me?”
“Isn’t it? I don’t know much about—“ She swallows. “—sex and stuff. How do I know what to do to make you feel good? What if I can’t do it?”
Is that all she’s worried about? I cross the room and sit on the side of the bed beside her feet. “That stuff? It comes naturally. You do whatever feels right.”
“Can I tell you a secret?”
“I think we’re a bit past worrying about who can keep a secret or not, don’t you?”
She giggles. “Yeah. I suppose.”
“What have you got to share, then?”
Her ears burn bright red as she turns her phone to face me. “I was doing research.”
Fuck me. Her browser is open on RedTube, the video paused on one hell of a scene. All my previous self-control melts into a puddle. “Well then…”
She snatches the screen away, sending it to black before tossing the phone. “It’s silly, I know.”
I swallow hard and shake my head. “It’s fucking hot, is what it is.” She had a damn threesome on the screen, for fuck’s sake.
“Really?” Her gaze flicks to the door. “Where’s Cerise?”
“Out for the count.” I lean over and pick up her phone.
She sits still as a statute while I wake the device and re-open the browser. I should walk away, but shit, as soon as I saw that image I knew this was the only logical course of action. “Hold this, and don’t take your eyes off it.” I hit play and pass her the phone.
She frowns a little, eyes on me.
I tap my finger on the edge of the hard case. “Watch.”
Belle draws a deep breath and drops her gaze to the video. Risky business. Still…
I move further onto the bed and position myself at her feet. She glances up, looking away when I tut at her. Satisfied she’s focused on the video, I hook my fingers in the waistband of her sleep shorts and jerk them from under her arse before I shimmy them down her legs.
“That one finishes, you start another. Understood?”
She nods, eyes still on the screen. Good girl. I drop the clothing off the side of her bed, and then as much as I’d love to keep it on, head across to turn the light off. If we’re interrupted, I want a chance at hiding—I’m not that reckless.
“Still watching?” I reposition myself between her legs, using my touch to guide me.
She hums her assent, nodding in the amber glow of the screen.
“Take it off silent.”
“Are you sure?” She finally breaks her gaze.
“Positive. Doesn’t have to be loud, but I want to hear what you’re watching.” Fuck—just thinking about it gets me hard.
She does as I ask, letting the sound of a woman’s moans and slick skin slapping against skin filter between us. I settle on my stomach and nudge her knees wide. My dove is wet and ready, my fingers grazing easily over her slick folds. Fuck, yes.
“Remember, you’re in control.”
She answers with heavy breaths, her gaze glued to the phone as I slowly push a digit inside her willing cunt. I’m fucking sick in the head, perverted to even think of doing this with an eager eighteen year-old. But damn—it feels so fucking good to be so bad.
“You like what you’re seeing, dove? Your wet pussy tells me you do.”
Her muscles clench around my finger. “Uh-huh.” She can’t even form words—nice.
“Tell me what you see.”
I slide another finger in to join the first, and then lean in to suck her hood. Delicious.
“I… One of the guys has her on his lap.”
“Mmm?” I run my tongue around where my fingers join her.
“She faces him, rides him.” She hesitates. “Fuck, Zeus.”
I lap up what she gives me, loving this idea even more. “I can taste how turned on you are.”
“I can’t … Can I just watch?”
“No.” With a twist of my wrist, I change the angle of my fingers. Her legs quiver beside my head, her knees seemingly weak as I feather her G-spot.
“Okay.” She pants, struggling to catch her breath as I intensify my assault. “The second guy… Oh my God.”
“The second guy, what?” I slide my fingers out and use them to spread her wide.
She jolts when my tongue pushes inside. “He’s… They’re… Fuck.”
“Tell me,” I demand. “I want to know what makes you so wet, Belle.”
“They’re both fucking her. In both holes.”
The visual, along with the building moans from her phone and her, have me hard as a rock. I can guarantee it’ll take me mere seconds to stroke this one out when I’m done here.
“Got to keep quiet, dove. Don’t want your mother knowing what you’re up to.”
“Don’t mention her,” she grumbles. “Shit…” Her legs seize my shoulders as her climax builds. “I’m so close.”
I know. “Watch your phone, Belle. Tell me if you like what you see.”
“It’s so hot. Oh my God. I’m going to come, Zeus.”
I stop licking her, and spread her with my fingers once more. “Not until you tell me the truth.” I slide one finger in, pull it out, and then add the second.
She squirms on the bed, hips thrusting to find more.
“Tell me: you wish that woman was you? That something that you think you might like?”
Belle rips a pillow from beside her, muffling her moan as I build pace again.
“You want that, dove?”
“Yes,” she cries into the pillow as her climax hits. “I want that.”
“Tell me what you want.”
“I want you,” she groans as her orgasm rips through her. “I want you to fuck me like that.”
Fuck. Guess I won’t need to stroke it out after all.
TWENTY-THREE
Belle
“We need to say something,” I whisper as I trace the line of Zeus’s jaw with my fingertips.
He jerks his head away from my hold, a frown deep on his brow as he lies beside me on the bed. “Now isn’t the time, Belle.”
I thought we’d turned a corner with what he did to me last night. But now I’m not so sure.
The void between us has slowly inched deeper and deeper this past week with Cerise here. We’ve all been caught up in her toxicity, drawn into caring for her as much as we don’t want to. One week with the alcoholic bitch, and she’s already ruined the best thing to have happened to me ever.
I know it. I feel it.
I can see it in Zeus’s eyes when he looks at her, when he looks at Dad. He doesn’t want to add to the stress by getting caught out with me.
“This is the first night we’ve had the house to ourselves since she moved in,” I remind Zeus. “I miss you. I miss this, and I hate the fact I have to sneak in time with you where I can.”
“That’s the price we pay,” he says flatly.
His cool indifference pisses me off. Where’s the passion, the lust he had mere minutes ago when he br
ought me to orgasm? I know tension has run high, not only between him and Dad, but between him and Cerise. Still….
“Are you bored with me?” I push up and sit, leaning on one hand. “Because I’m feeling a little used right now.”
He frowns, rolling his head to look at me. “No, dove.” The guy looks irresistable, laid out in nothing but his jeans. His bare torso flexes and bulges as he rolls toward me. I pinch myself daily that this man chose to risk things with me.
For how much longer, though? I’d love to pass off this fear as irrational, but the change in him is real—very real.
“What makes you say that anyway?” Zeus reaches out and takes my chin in his firm hold. “I could never be bored with you.”
“It feels like you are.” I mimic his earlier action and jerk my chin free. “You might be here in body, but your mind is elsewhere. You do things with me and then get distant. I’m not exactly high maintenance, Zeus, but a bit of conversation wouldn’t go amiss.”
We’ve got a short window of time while Dad and Cerise are at a movie, and the fact he’s wasting it like this brings out the sulky child in me. If I could get away with stamping my foot and yelling, “It’s not fair,” I probably would.
“I’ve got a lot on my mind.” He flops back on the bed with a frown.
I crawl over top of him, straddling his thick thighs, and set my hands on his chest. “So talk to me about it.” I want to know everything that goes on that head of his, no matter how tough it seems to be.
Zeus settles his hands on my hips and sighs. He can swear black and blue that he’s not tired of me, but in that moment, in the downward curl of his lips, I read it all: whatever bothers him is entirely to do with me.
Me and my fucking age, no doubt.
“I put an offer in on that place over on Fraser.”
“That’s awesome.”
“It’s too far for you to walk though.”
Oh. “So I bus until I’ve saved enough for a car.”
“Belle….”
“You’re making excuses.” My nostrils flare as I work to supress my tears. I won’t cry. I won’t show him how desperately attached to this I am.
