Enemy Dearest

by Winter Renshaw

  That must be hard for August, having grown up with the revolving door of women his father whisks in and out of their lives, each a reminder of his irreplaceable mother.

  “Do you think you can find her?” I ask.

  “Send me the pic. I’ll do my best.”

  It’s getting late. “Hey, I have to go. My mom’s waiting for me. Let me know if you find anything okay? Anything at all.”

  I swear a flash of disappointment registers on his face, but it’s hard to tell for sure on a five-inch screen.

  Maybe I’m imagining things …

  “Sheridan,” he captures my name, my attention, and my breath with his booming voice.

  “Yeah?”

  “When can I see you again?”

  “Soon, August.” My mouth inches up on one side. I bite my lip to make it stop. “Soon.”

  “Good,” he says. “And just so we’re clear, my offer still stands.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  August

  * * *

  “Kara Tindall,” Uncle Rod says on the phone Tuesday night. “That KT person with the Mercedes. Name’s Kara Tindall. She’s twenty-eight. Local attorney here in town. That’s about all I got for you.”

  Uncle Rod is my father’s youngest brother—and the guy we call whenever there’s trouble in paradise. He likes to refer to himself as an “old school fixer” though sometimes I think the man watches too much premium cable TV. Regardless, there’s no denying he can find out anything about anyone. He can sniff out liars and cheats from a mile away, like a bloodhound, and everyone who’s anyone in this town knows to give him a straight answer the first time he asks.

  “Kara Tindall.” I sit up and grab a scrap of paper and pen from my desk and scribble it down. “You sure?”

  “The hell kind of question is that?” He blows a puff of air into the receiver. “Of course I’m sure. Anyway, what’s your business with this lawyer lady? You in some kind of trouble?”

  “Always.”

  “Don’t be a dumbass.” He chuckles. At least someone in this family appreciates my sense of humor. “Let me know if you need anything else. You’ve got my number.”

  “Will do.” I end the call and text Sheridan.

  ME: Got the name for you. But I’d like you to come get it in person …

  I’m teasing. Sort of.

  Sheridan leaves for college in a few weeks.

  I need to get this shit show on the road, to do what needs to be done, and then slam that chapter shut, so I can finally get the Rose girl out of my system.

  I thought of her again today in the shower, and then because apparently that wasn’t enough, I thought of her three other times today. Every scenario was vanilla-sweet with a side of her cinnamon mouth. Not my regular fare.

  ROSE GIRL: For real? You have the name?

  ME: Yes. Come over. I’ll wait for you by the gate in twenty.

  With everything going on in her personal life, I don’t know if she’ll be in the mood to get fucked seven ways from Sunday the second I lock my bedroom door, but God help me, I’m going to try to get here there.

  She doesn’t respond for a solid four minutes.

  I pace my room. Check the window. Sniff the sheets to ensure the new housekeeper changed them today like I asked.

  ROSE GIRL: I can’t come now. It’ll have to be later. Ten?

  ME: Perfect.

  I toss my phone aside and collapse on my bed, hands tucked behind my neck as I stare at the ceiling. The security camera in the corner blinks red. It’s on a closed, password protected circuit on our network. One that only I have access to.

  I had it privately installed years ago when I discovered someone was habitually stealing cash from my dresser. Then a watch went missing. And handful of other pawnable items. Turned out it was one of Gannon’s fair weather “friends” whose name now resides permanently on our family’s infamous blacklist.

  Whatever we do tonight in this room will be recorded in crisp black and white footage with an aerial view, which means I’ll be able to relive this moment as many times as I want. If I were pure evil, I’d send the video to her father. I’d let him know his sweet baby girl was defiled by the son of his lifelong enemy. It’s an idea I’ve entertained far too many times lately, envisioning the color draining from his face, tears filling his eyes. His clenched fists. A realization that what’s done is done—forever and there’s not a damned thing he can do about it.

  I may be a sick bastard, but I’m not fucking abhorrent.

  I won’t send him the video.

  I hit the shower and get ready.

  Tonight’s the night.

  Chapter Twenty

  Sheridan

  * * *

  I unzip my black hoodie, toss it on a chair, and sit at the edge of August’s bed. It’s late. And I’m exhausted. But I had to wait until Mama was sleeping and Dad had left for work before I could sneak out.

  August retrieves a slip of paper from the top of his dresser. I run my damp palms along the tops of my thighs, holding my breath.

  “Kara … Tindall,” he says, handing me the name. “Ring a bell?”

  I jerk the slip from his fingers and read it myself.

  Kara Tindall.

  “Oh my god.” I clamp my hand over my mouth. “No. She used to babysit me …”

  It had to have been ten years ago, maybe more.

  “She’s a lawyer here in town,” he says. “That’s about all I could get.”

  Sliding my phone out, I type her name into Google, tapping on the first result: a website for Rowe, Harper, and Slattery PC. I click on her profile, which is listed under junior partners. She specializes in everything from family law and child custody to workplace litigation and medical malpractice.

  “Is that her?” he asks.

  I nod. “Yeah.”

  She was a high-schooler when she used to watch me. And while I was young, seven or eight at the time, I always thought it was strange how she wanted to hang around our family so much. Even when my parents would get home from wherever they’d gone off to, handed her a twenty, and told her goodnight … she’d always linger.

  Mama said she just liked our family, that her daddy wasn’t around and her mom was less than nice. At one point, she joked to my parents about being an honorary Rose. I wasn’t a jealous child, but it lit a spark of something in me that day. A sharp jab to the chest. I didn’t want to share them, not with her. They were my parents.

  After she went off to college, we never heard from her again, and my parents hired some other girl to watch me every once in a while. I never thought about Kara again, and as far as I knew, neither did my parents. Babysitters came and went. That’s just how it was.

  “That bastard.” I grip the comforter in my fists. “Why would he do that?”

  “I assume you’re referring to your father?”

  “How could he do that to my mother? She’s sacrificed everything for him. And she’s not well. Why would he run off with our old babysitter?” I rise and pace his expansive room. “I mean, how cliché does he have to be? And not only that, but what would she want with him? She’s obviously doing very well for herself. My father can’t even pay to have our AC fixed for fucks’ sake.”

  I drag my fingers through my hair, tugging on fistfuls.

  Tears cloud my vision and my chest tightens so hard I gasp for oxygen, but it’s not enough.

  Despite the enormity of his room, the walls close in around me. Making my way to his window, I switch the latch and shove it open until I’m met with a blast of tepid summer night air.

  “He’s a liar, August. He’s such a fucking liar.” I turn on my heels, pacing back to the bed to grab my phone again—only I run straight into him.

  “Hey.” He captures my wrists, gently lowering them to my sides yet not letting go. “It’s okay. You’re okay. Everything’s going to be okay.”

  “She texted him,” I say. “The last time Mom was in the hospital. Kara texted my father, something about how
it’ll all be over soon and the suffering will end. I don’t know what that means, but …”

  I don’t think it’s worth stating what we both know—that my father has twice been accused of murder in his lifetime.

  August leads me to the bed, takes a seat on the edge, and pulls me into his lap. Cupping my cheek, he angles my face until our eyes meet.

  “Are you serious about your offer?” I ask. “About the home health aide?”

  At this point, I need to do whatever it takes to keep Mama safe and healthy, especially if my father’s about to jump ship … or worse.

  “I mean, technically it expired,” he says with a satisfied smugness in his words. “But I’m willing to give you one extension …”

  I lift my hand to his face, brushing his messy hair from his sun-kissed forehead before tracing the two metal barbells in his eyebrow. Everything about him is hard and soft at the same time. Warm skin, soft embrace, cold gaze. Trust fund baby who looks like he grew up on the wrong side of the tracks. A man with every ability to devour me, but who has been nothing but patient and gentle.

  Even if his offer weren’t on the table, I’d still go through with this because at the end of the day I want this.

  My father would be destroyed if he knew what I was about to do, but August has only ever been off limits to me because of a past that has nothing to do with either of us. And I refuse to be held accountable for my father’s actions from here on out.

  I’m a Rose.

  But I’m my own Rose.

  And tonight, I’m taking back my power.

  I don’t care if this breaks my father because as far as I’m concerned … he no longer deserves my unwavering trust and loyalty.

  “You seem torn,” he says.

  I blow a strand of hair from my face. “What gives you that impression?”

  “You’re a good daughter,” he says. “But your father’s a dick. He doesn’t deserve what he has. And deep down, he probably knows it.”

  I nod, swallowing the painful lump in my throat. August is right.

  “Doing that to your mom … while she’s sick and helpless? What kind of piece of shit does that?” His face twists. “And everything you’ve sacrificed … it’s messed up, Rose girl.”

  I cup his cheek and bask in this unexpected sympathy. “You can call me Sheridan, you know.”

  I don’t think he realized he called me “Sher” earlier.

  “I like Rose girl,” he says. “It suits you. Makes me think of roses … beautiful from afar but covered in thorns, like some kind of warning to stay away.”

  “Clearly the thorns didn’t deter you …”

  “They did for the longest time.” He grazes my lower lip with his thumb, and my stomach somersaults. I wait for him to kiss me. He doesn’t make a move. It’s almost as if he wants to savor this moment, make it last forever because it’ll never happen again.

  “Have you ever gone by anything besides August?”

  His mouth forms a hard line. “My mom called me AJ when I was a baby—short for August John. After she died, my father thought it was too cutesy or some shit. Made me go by August. It was his great grandfather’s name and he thought we needed to honor him properly.”

  I can’t picture him as an AJ. It’s too sweet. Too relaxed. It isn’t intense enough for a man like him.

  “I like August. It’s different. And it suits you.” I smile, studying his angled features in the dark of his room. Moonlight from the open window trails in on a path that illuminates the floor by the bed. “Plus, August is the hottest month of the year. And I met you on the hottest night on Meredith Hills record. Also, you’re pretty hot yourself. It all works.”

  I’m flirting—or trying to anyway. I don’t know. I’m terrible at it and likely making a fool of myself, but I don’t care. I’m comfortable and it’s keeping me from fixating on sadder things right now.

  His mouth lifts on one side. “You think I’m hot? Thought I wasn’t your type.”

  “You’re not. But it doesn’t mean I can’t be attracted to you.”

  His hands slide to my waist. “So you’re attracted to me.”

  “Pretty sure the entire Meredith Hills female population is attracted to you …”

  He traces the side of my jaw before trailing down my neck, and without warning he leans in to press a kiss against my pulse point. He sucks the flesh, softly, and grazes his teeth against it. My eyes roll to the back of my head, and I lose my fingers in his hair as he moves to the spot beneath my ear.

  He moans as he tastes my skin, his tongue dragging small circles against tender spots.

  I’m going to be covered in marks tomorrow …

  “Your heart’s beating a hundred miles an hour,” he says. “Are you scared?”

  “No.” I breathe him in, his spice and leather scent intoxicating my senses. “I’m excited.”

  Bringing his mouth to mine, he crushes my lips with a kiss. “Good.”

  His fingers trail along the hem of my t-shirt, and he grazes them against my caved stomach, teasing before pulling it over my head. He moves for the satin straps of my lace bra next, sliding them down my shoulders before leaving a trail of kisses in their place.

  Unfastening my bra with a single flick, he tosses it into the dark void behind him. A light chill blankets my bare flesh, along with a spray of goose bumps.

  “God, you’re so fucking beautiful.” His words are hot against my flesh as he slides his palms down my sides and grasps my hips.

  With one fluid move, he rolls me to my back and hovers above me. Slipping his palms over my breasts, he tongues my nipples, sucking until they’re painfully pert, before trailing down my stomach and stopping at the top of my jean shorts. One yank and the button gives. A single tug and the zipper is next. He slides them down my hips leaving my panties in place.

  Separating my thighs, he lowers himself between them, sucking on my mound through my panties. My sex pulses, throbs. Aches for him. After a minute of teasing torture, he slides the gusset aside and runs the tip of his tongue down my seam before returning to circle my clit.

  Everything tingles.

  I don’t want to come yet.

  I clench my middle, fighting the wave my body so badly wants to surf.

  He slips a finger inside me, and another, curling them just enough that I lose it. I freaking lose it. I can’t fight this any longer. I grind against him as he sucks and thrusts his fingers in perfect rhythm, and within seconds my pussy spasms from the inside, like a deep kind of orgasm I never knew was possible.

  Holy shit.

  “And that, Rose girl, was your G-spot …” A proud smirk shades his full wet mouth. But to be fair, he earned it.

  He rises, leaving me to catch my breath. The clink of his belt buckle fills the dark room. That was an appetizer. A preview of what’s to come. We’re only getting started.

  My clit aches, still longing for a piece of the action.

  Gathering myself, I sit up as he approaches the bed in nothing but boxers, and I run my fingers down his chiseled abs, stopping to admire the V that points to his rising bulge. Tugging the fabric down, I free his cock and take it in my hand. His girth overflows in my palm, and I stroke his length with slow, gentle movements until bringing my mouth to the tip. Tasting the salty bead of pre-cum, I circle my tongue against his head. August moans, gripping a fistful of my hair in his hand as I swallow him inch by inch.

  The harder he gets, the more my sex throbs in response.

  Sliding from my mouth, he makes his way to his nightstand, returning with a shiny gold packet, which he tosses on the mattress beside me. Kneeling, he spreads my thighs before ripping my panties off.

  I gasp.

  “Sorry, Rose girl,” he says with a smirk as he slips his tongue into my wet folds again. My clit swells, tingling back to life, and I hook my thighs over his shoulders until his face is buried.

  August devours me, unrelenting, not so much as coming up for a breath. With fierce and deliberate possession
, he drinks my arousal until my body quivers with the threat of euphoria all over again.

  “Don’t fight it, Rose girl,” he whispers against my sex. “Let go …”

  Sinking into the mattress, I take a deep breath and release the tension in my body until I’m warm and pliable, dissolving into a sweet surrender.

  Licking, sucking, and lapping, he coaxes me to another climax so powerful it should be labeled a narcotic. Molten waves of pleasure undulate through my body as it writhes and rocks. August doesn’t stop. He continues until he’s pulled every last ounce of pent-up orgasm from me.

  My clit is swollen and pleasurably sore when he’s done. Our eyes catch in the dark, and his glint with satisfaction.

  “Think you can keep going?” he teases.

  He crawls next to me, propped on his elbow as his gaze scans my naked length. Tracing the outline of my breasts with a single fingertip, he draws an invisible line down the center of my stomach, through the middle of my left thigh, then along my damp slit before finishing at my mouth.

  “Have you ever tasted yourself?” he asks.

  “Never …”

  Just when I think he’s about to slip his finger between my lips, he brings them to his own and tastes my arousal. “You’re really fucking sweet. In case you want to know.”

  Before I can respond, his mouth fuses to mine, and suddenly I’m pinned beneath him, tasting my sweetness. It’s a power move. His tongue finds mine, turning our kiss into a molten liquid that drips straight through my center like warm honey.

  Positioning himself on his knees, he spreads my thighs wider, taking in the view, before reaching for the foil packet and ripping it between his teeth.

  My heart stops. I hold my breath. Squeeze my eyes.

  “Look at me, Rose girl,” he says under his breath. When I open my eyes, he’s rolling the rubber over his veined erection. Leaning over me, he sweeps my hair from my face, deposits a hard kiss, and studies my face for a single endless moment. “This is going to hurt … but then it’ll feel good for you. I promise. So fucking good.”