Dane (A Foster Family Saga #1)

by Avery Phillips

  My pleading eyes bored into her hazel orbs, and I saw the barely checked anger burning in their depths.

  “Dane, I really like you. I do. Dating you has been exciting and enlightening. I’d hate to give that up, but I won’t be made to look a fool. I have one heart. If I give it to you, I won’t take pieces in return. It’s all or nothing.” She said it fiercely. She breathed heavily and wouldn’t break eye contact. She was making it clear to me that there wasn’t a margin for error. If I messed up with Hanna, there wouldn’t be room for a do-over.

  According to Aunt Ettie, I wasn’t supposed to imply I could love her. The script called for an empty placation, like I had done numerous times to Annabeth. Soothe her ruffled feathers and let the storm blow over. The standard to which Hanna held me seemed fair. What she had already given was my life back. Even if our relationship was a carefully orchestrated act, I appreciated her unknowing role in helping me keep Excelsis.

  Beneath my conscious machinations, a subconscious part of me appreciated more, but I wasn’t prepared to examine why my heart raced in fear at the prospect of her walking away from me. I preferred to think I was afraid to lose her because it would hamper my plans with Lamont, to give the public a rebranded version of myself. “There is no one else, and there will be no one else. I won’t hurt you,” I replied.

  Hanna’s bottom lip trembled, and she clamped it between her teeth. She seemed close to crying. I scooted closer on the backseat. Cupping her face in my hands, I gently laid my lips over hers. She exhaled a shaky sigh. I parted her lips with my tongue and softly kissed. She tasted as sweet as I had imagined. My tongue delved deeper into her mouth, and my lips pressed against hers. Hanna leaned into me, allowing her hands to clasp behind my neck.

  I felt her slender fingers thread through the curls at the nape of my neck. I grabbed her by the waist and shifted her onto my lap. Her warm, fragrant breasts were so close to my face that I wanted to kiss them too, but I resisted. Her firm buttocks pressed against my thighs, and I eased my hips forward to release some of the tension.

  She kissed me eagerly, as if she had been waiting forever to try. There was passion shimmering in her eyes. I saw what she offered, unsaid this time. I wanted to lay her back on the leather seat and explore what the white dress was hiding, but it wasn’t the proper time or the proper place. Catching my breath, I set her away from me. She touched her lips and stared at me. “I think I want more of you.”

  “You may have all of me. Some of it will just take time to get to,” I replied. She smiled, catlike, patient.

  CHAPTER 8

  “Guys like you usually have some deep-seated mommy issues…”

  The talk show host’s words replayed in my head.

  There was a woman in a black pencil skirt and cream-colored blouse printed with tiny red hearts standing in the middle of the living room of my new house. She carried a briefcase, and she wore black glasses, and she looked very professional. Her black hair fell to her earlobes in a bob that accented her heart-shaped face and wide, clear grey eyes. She had a narrow, straight nose and full pink lips. Her waistline spanned from my thumb to my pinky if I spread my fingers, and her hips were slender in the slimming skirt. She had muscular calves, but she had delicate hands. Her name was Dr. Amy von Hoefer, and she was absolutely un-fuckable because she was my new psychiatrist.

  “Let’s talk about what you’ll be doing for me here, m’kay? Basically I need you once or twice a week, late hours because I work by day, plus I don’t want anyone seeing you coming in and going out. Get it in your head right away that if I don’t want to talk about something, I’m not going to talk about it. When I feel like I’ve said everything I need to say, we’ll wrap this thing up and call it a done deal.” She smiled politely and let me talk. “I’m only doing this because certain people in my life feel I have some issues I need to work out. I’m like anyone else, doctor. I have a past; it wasn’t the best but I’m making the best of it. But if it makes my family happy to feel like I’m getting help, then so be it. No pills. No stupid tests. All you do is listen. Understood?”

  Dr. Amy put her briefcase on the floor next to her black high-heeled feet and steepled her fingers in front of her body as she looked at me with her head cocked to the side. “You’re very used to having things your way?”

  “I’m used to being in charge, Dr. Amy. If that doesn’t work for you, then this isn’t the work for you.”

  “May I sit, please?” A half-smile teased the corners of her mouth. I gestured to the chair across from the couch where I was sitting. “Thank you.”

  “I think the arrangement I’ve outlined will work for us both, don’t you agree?”

  “No,” she said flatly.

  “Excuse me?”

  “Mr. Foster, I’m a doctor, not your lackey. I have a schedule, as you do. For that reason, I’m willing to be flexible to make accommodations to treat you. I can gladly see you twice a week, or more if I feel it is necessary. I will not come late hours. You need not worry about anyone seeing me coming or going. I’ve worked with high-profile clients before. It’s kind of my specialty. If you want me to treat you, you’re going to have to trust my process. That means you’re going to talk about some things that are uncomfortable for you. These sessions are not for me. I am not desperate for a paycheck. I am willing to take you on as a client because I believe I can help you. If you feel I’m wasting your time, you can end this at any point. I will not, however, lower my standard of treatment to cater to your ego.”

  ***

  Thus began my sessions with a shrink. She set the tone and the pace and dragged me along. The initial handful of sessions was spent with me balking at answering her invasive questions. I was still gun-shy from the rounds of television interviews that left me feeling too exposed, and I was, by nature, reluctant to talk about my past.

  I had moved out of the metropolis, regaining my privacy. The penthouse was mine for nights when I wanted a taste of city living, but I had been at the Prodigal Manor, as I had taken to calling it, for a handful of weeks. My days were spent handling Excelsis business from my new home office. Dr. Amy, when she visited, saw me in my office as well.

  I pulled up to the Prodigal Manor, late for my date with the psychiatrist. I apologized for the delay, showed her inside and took her to my office. We were at it again, as we had been for weeks. Dr. Amy sat across from me in an armchair. I refused to lie on the couch. I had made a habit of pacing while we chatted because I figured it unnerved her, even if she appeared unfazed. We talked about a few uninteresting things, but my mind was on Hanna and what it’d be like to fuck her. It was a preoccupation of late, as each time I was with her, I found it harder to resist.

  “You know you’re making this unnecessarily difficult,” said Dr. Amy. I flashed a charming smile. “Dane, let’s talk about your goals. What do you hope to get out of our time?”

  “I already told you that the first day.”

  “Right, you want your family and friends to feel like you’re getting help. I know what you want for them, but what do you want these sessions to do for you?”

  “You already know,” I said slowly, so she could hear past her doctorate. “It makes them feel happy. It gives me an alibi.” She was going to be annoying today, I could see.

  “You could simply tell them you’re seeing a therapist and leave it at that. You don’t really need me to provide an alibi.”

  “That would be lying.”

  “Which goes against your principles?”

  “Is this really necessary? Go ahead and ask me about my relationship with my mother. We’ve been at it for weeks, and you’re too scared to get beyond what type of toys I liked to play with as a kid. This is the scene where you dig deeper, and I squeeze out a teardrop so you can feel like we’re getting somewhere, doctor. We do it a few more times, and I’m cured. You get a fat deposit. If we speed this along, we might even have time for a sympathy fuck as I cry about what a bad lady Mommy was.”

  “Do you want t
o have sex with me, Dane? Or, do you simply attack all your problems wielding your penis? Does it make you feel empowered?”

  I stopped in front of her, my pelvis at her eye level. She looked up at me, lifting a perfectly arched brow. “Do you want to have sex with me, Dr. Amy? Or do you simply deflect all sexual advances because men intimidate you? Does your degree make you feel empowered?”

  “Tell me about your relationship with your mother, Dane.”

  “Answer my questions.”

  “An answer for an answer.”

  “Agreed.”

  “No, I don’t want to have sex with you. Contrary to your inflated opinion of yourself, you’re not God’s gift to womankind. Men don’t intimidate me. I’m simply uninterested, as in very non-heterosexual and very married. No, my degree is not a weapon I use to lord over others. However, it does empower me, because I feel my background gives me the tools I need to help others. Your turn.”

  “Well, truth be told, I’ve got sex with someone else on the brain.”

  “The one about your mother.”

  “Are we really doing this? I was joking.”

  “I thought lying went against your principles, Mr. Foster. You committed to answering my question if I answered yours.”

  I plopped down onto the plush leather sofa, realizing the cliché. “Where to start, doc? My mother was a sweet, sweet woman who didn’t know how to say no. She was weak and followed the lead of whatever my con-artist stepdad, whatever he wanted her to do, whether it was lying to me, stealing from me, or neglecting me. I got a whole long list of mommy-son stories that would fuck up your entire day, lady. Yeah, she did a number on me. Happy now? We’re down to the good stuff.” I threw my body back into the corner of the sofa and crossed my arms, fuming at having said so much. Dr. Amy wasn’t about to have her tear-soaked moment with me. Maybe when I was younger I expected somebody to sympathize, but I was an adult, as Selene had so wisely pointed out to me months back.

  I was a real estate mogul with enough money to buy a Grand Canyon full of smiles. I didn’t even have to chase women anymore. After the kinky orgy with Annabeth, my ex-girlfriend hadn’t called me in weeks, but I already had a replacement.

  I had my PR team handling the media and my own executive assistant handling everything else. I had this huge mansion to myself, and I refused to be miserable with the excess. This was my birthright. “I’m a walking success story, Dr. Amy. From rags to riches, I did it all by myself. That’s why you don’t have to ask me about my mother. She’s a non-fucking factor, you got that? A non-fucking factor in my life!”

  “How does that make you feel?”

  “Like a million—wait, let me check my net worth again. I think it’s closer to a billion bucks.”

  “You speak of your mother in the past tense. Is she deceased?”

  “Goddamn, Dr. Amy. You make more than enough to cover medical insurance. When was the last time you got your ears checked?”

  “My hearing’s just fine.”

  “Then you heard the part about non-fucking factor!” I yelled. I kicked a wrinkle in the area rug and tried to calm my rapidly rising heart rate. Pure unadulterated anger broiled inside me.

  “That’s it, deep breaths,” Dr. Amy said in a calm, quiet voice. I inhaled slowly and exhaled. “I know this is hard for you, but you’re doing good, Dane. Tell me what’s going on in your head right now.”

  “I want you to leave.”

  “Good, good. Tell me why you want me to leave.”

  “No, I want you to get out of my house now. We’re done talking for the day.”

  Dr. Amy paused, a startled look on her face. I rose and made my way to the door to my office. “Dane, I have you blocked for another half-hour.”

  “Get the fuck out of my motherfucking house now!”

  “Okay, I’m leaving. Calm down. We’ll continue this another time.”

  “Yeah, we’ll see about that,” I spat, slamming the door to my office behind her. She knew her way out.

  It took me hours to regain my equilibrium. Coming from the high of knowing I had everything in place in my life to the low of having to talk about a past that I wanted to leave behind had shaken me. I went to my pool and swam laps until I stopped seeing red. If talking about my mother was supposed to help me, then I’d rather not be saved. No one knew the whole story.

  I grew up with a strange mix of ideas about myself and where I came from. My mother’s name was Cecilia, but everybody called her Sissy because she managed to always need help, like the neighborhood kid sister. When I was younger, I thought she was the most beautiful woman in the world. She had wavy black hair that she styled to perfection whether we were going to the mall or to the family support office. Her olive complexion used to glow, and men used to catcall after her when she walked down the street.

  We lived all across America, from one small town to another. We had big houses, tiny apartments, and sometimes no place to stay at all, yet somehow I got sent to the best schools. Whatever sports I wanted to play, my parents somehow had the money, though we had to live off welfare to eat. I couldn’t figure out why we had to struggle or why my mother sacrificed so much to pay for my school and athletics.

  Until I was about fifteen years old, they had me convinced that my stepdad Darien Griess was my father and that he was footing the bill for my expensive education. After that, I found out the truth. My mother met Cornelius Foster when she was nineteen or twenty years old. They had an affair, and I was the end result. When she married Darien Griess, she was so glad to have a man of the house that she didn’t bother telling me my real dad was a multimillionaire.

  Cornelius apparently sent checks to support me, but Darien Griess was a con artist who knew when to pluck a duck. He had only married my mother to siphon off the money from Cornelius. He convinced her to give him the bulk of the child support—money that should’ve kept me in a stable home, not having to worry about where my next meal would come from. My mother, I saw over time, was too weak to say no.

  She loved Darien. Whatever scam he was running, she would be his sidekick. He was the reason we had to bounce all over the country. Like a ticking time bomb, he’d move into a town, hustle whomever he could, then get out before his crimes caught up with him.

  I couldn’t count the number of times my mother had left me, a small child, alone at home while she ran schemes with Darien. Or his drug-peddling buddies would babysit. Early on, I got exposed to the adult world. I’d see strippers, drug addicts, the riffraff of the world in and out of our house. They were always welcome, while I was made to feel like the reason Darien had to “work so hard.”

  As soon as I was old enough, I hightailed it to Stern with what was left of the money I’d managed to salvage from the support checks from Cornelius. After my eighteenth birthday, even those stopped coming. I had to work two jobs to pay my way through school. I fought the instinct to adopt Darien’s ways, hustle for money by any means necessary. He was my only father figure, and what he’d taught me was how to con the system.

  Yet I earned the life I had now the honorable way, regardless of how many hurdles I had to hop to get to the top. That was the reason I didn’t talk about my past. Though others around me seemed to think I was a product of my shattered childhood, I wasn’t. Dane Foster wasn’t the product of a petty crime lord and his weak-willed woman.

  I climbed out of the pool and took a shower. It was late in the evening, but I was restless. I needed to see Hanna.

  ***

  “What happened? You sounded upset on the phone.” She walked through the door of my house and straight into my arms.

  I didn’t answer her question. I lifted her up and let her legs wrap around my waist. My lips sought hers, and she responded to me unstintingly. Her mouth opened and her tongue warred with mine, and she clutched my shoulders and rubbed her body seductively against me. I peeled her jacket off her and let it fall to the floor. I carried her to the living room, to the fancy velvet furniture, shoving the ornate c
offee table out of the way. I spread her out on the brightly colored area rug. “Dane, what is it, love?” she murmured breathlessly.

  I kissed away the words and fondled her breasts. Her chest jutted forward, moans erupting from somewhere deep, and her thighs parted, allowing me to settle in between. She pressed up against me. I squeezed her firm breasts in my hands and kissed down her neck, her chest, finding a nipple through her silk shirt. Nibbling at the fabric, I reveled in the sounds of pleasure coming from Hanna. She wrapped her legs around me. She tangled her fingers in my hair, drawing me closer. It didn’t matter what was wrong; she was right.

  She pulled at my shirt and helped me take it off, and I unbuttoned the too-many little buttons of her blouse. It spilled open, revealing her pink lacy bra. I sat back a moment to drink in the sight. She was flawless. Her pale skin glowed in the dimly lit living room. Her stomach quivered anxiously. I unbuckled her pants and eased them down her hips, dropping kisses on the velvety skin of her torso.

  Hanna moaned and squirmed beneath me. I fell back to shed the restricting trousers I wore. Off went my boxers and socks, and she finished undressing until the both of us were naked. When we came back together, it was like rain after a long drought. Every place I kissed, a gasp of pleasure blossomed from her lips. My hands boldly went to the place between her legs I wanted to explore most. Fingers stroking into her tight, wet pussy, I noted her readiness. The evidence was dripping into my palm.

  I grabbed her by the hips and pulled her atop, as I lie back on the rug and let her take over touching me. She did it expertly. Her fingertips deftly rolled my nipples to hard beads, and her tongue followed to trace circles around each. Silky strands of hair tickled down my chest when she shifted lower, leaning closer. I closed my eyes in tense anticipation. Her slender hands gripped my fully erect cock and squeezed.