by Cynthia Dane
This was not Ian’s idea. In fact, I bet sex was the last thing on his mind as we pulled onto his family’s road and started making our way down the long mile between the state road and the main estate tucked back in the woods. However, he underestimated how nervous I am, and that apparently the only way I can feel better is if we pull over and get it on in a quickie.
Ian leans his head against the seat rest, releasing tight groans from his chest as I suck him off as quickly as I can without sacrificing quality. I’m a businesswoman. I know that you can only have up to two of quality, speed, and price. Since there is no money involved here, I’m fairly confident that I can give the man a great hummer to get us both through the day.
He grabs my shoulder, then my scalp, pushing me down into his lap as he gets closer to orgasm. His cock is full in my throat every time I push my head down low enough. Meanwhile, his zipper keeps getting in my fucking way, and I swear if it nicks my lip one more time…
A groan takes me away from the concern. Ian pulls my hair, his cock thrusting into my mouth as the first shot of seed goes down my throat.
Five minutes later, I’m sitting up in my seat, fixing my hair and popping two mints at a time while Ian recoups in the driver’s seat. I remind him no fewer than two times to put himself away, but no, the man is sitting there with his softened dick hanging out in his lap. He’s lucky I’m thorough and cleaned him up, otherwise those bothersome pants would need to be changed.
“Tell me again how that makes you feel less nervous?” Ian has one hand on the steering wheel, but we’re not going anywhere. “I mean, I feel great, but…”
“Shut up,” I mutter, trying to reapply my nude lipstick. “Think of it as me acquiring a big enough power trip before we go into your house of haunted expectations.”
He snorts, but it’s in that “relieved and non-bothered” way that drives me nuts half the time. My own fault. I blew him. “I’ve never heard a woman say giving head makes her powerful.”
“You rarely get blown by Dommes, last I checked.”
Within a few more minutes, Ian has finally fixed himself up, and we’re moving down the road toward the Mathers House.
I call it a house because, compared to what I’m used to, it really is a quaint abode. Thirty rooms at the most. Seven of those bedrooms. Who knows how many bathrooms. The styling is minimalistic, with only two Greek columns adorning the front. Flowers and shrubbery are the only things giving the place some life. It’s very… Mathers.
We pull up alongside my father’s car. How fantastic. He’s already here.
Even though Ian is with me, I hardly feel as if I have any power in this situation. That must be why I got so antsy when we turned down that road. All I can think about is wanting to go out, scream my head off, and then make a mad dash back to the city. Now, if this were a normal lunch between our two families, that would be one thing. It isn’t.
It’s about us.
I haven’t spoken to my father about this at all. He’s been out of town for a while, and when we do speak, it’s about work and whether or not we’ve heard from Mother. Although I’m sure he has a million things to say to me about dating Ian, he’s saving them all. Or too embarrassed to ask them.
You’ll never guess who’s there to meet us in the front hall.
“Ian! Kathryn!” Caroline makes sure to give us an equal amount of kisses. This is long before the butler can pop up and take our coats. The chill in this house is making my bare arms tremble. Ian wasn’t kidding when he said his father didn’t like wasting electricity. The dining room we’re ushered into likewise has minimal lighting, relying on the natural sunlight streaming through large, open windows.
Naturally, Ian and I are sat next to each other. Caroline sits at the foot next to her son. There are three other place settings at this six-person table, but I can only think of five who are coming .Surely, my mom did not fly all the way from Europe for the first time in two years only for this lunch. I doubt she would even bother for my wedding!
“Who else is coming?” I’m assuming my father and Dominic are the other two, but who is the final place setting for? “Also, I saw my father’s car parked out front. Any idea where he is? I haven’t seen him since before his trip.”
Caroline frowns, because she was just about to start blabbering about the babies Ian and I are destined to have. “Your father is talking with my bastard of an ex-husband.”
We both look at her. “He’s a bastard again, huh?” Ian asks.
“Damn straight. Apparently he’s bringing a date.”
An eerie silence hangs over us. Ian’s father is free to do what he wants, but isn’t it a little tacky to bring a brand-new date to something like this?
Then again, maybe it will create enough commotion to take the stares off us.
“There’s my sweet Kitty Cat.” My father chooses this moment to strut through the door, bowler hat still on even though we’re indoors – Spencer Alison has never been huge on propriety when he can help it, especially in a house as well-lit as this one. “Haven’t seen you in what feels like weeks.”
I get up to kiss my father on the cheek and to help him into the seat at the head of the table. Normally I would never guess he’s sitting there in someone else’s home, but the two seats across from Ian and I are most likely for a couple newer than us.
“Daddy.” I make sure he’s settled before sitting back down. “Things have been crazy lately thanks to the projects.”
“Yes…” My father spares Ian a glance before quickly looking away again. “The project.”
Another eerie silence. Caroline smirks, and I know instantly who Ian got that grin from. “Seems like a really fortuitous project, doesn’t it, Spencer?” She can’t wait for anyone to reply. “Can you imagine it? Our kids, together!” Sure, it’s not like we’re here, or anything.
Ian sighs next to me, exasperated. “About that…”
“Indeed, about that.” My father can’t hide his irritation any longer. He’s staring Ian down, even though eye contact is not being made. “Would’ve been nice to hear it from the source instead of someone else.”
“I’m sorry, Daddy.” I give him my best good-girl look. The same one that got me out of so much trouble growing up – like when I racked up too many credit card charges as a teen, or drove one of his classic cars into a ditch because I was too tipsy from a party. I haven’t had to use this look for at least five years, and at my age it feels weird. Yet necessary. “I was waiting for the right time to tell you.”
Ian’s eyes are on me. I don’t have to turn around to know that. “We’re not really a couple,” he mumbles.
Something pricks my heart. His words? His tone? The ensuing sigh that makes it sound like he never wants anything to do with me again?
I’m being irrational. Ian is responding to our parents’ meddling, not the fact we may have something more… emotional between us. Oh, you think I didn’t feel it, Ian? I definitely felt it. I felt it the last time we made love in that mansion in the mountains, and I felt it when you came to pick me up at my place today and gave me a quick kiss on the lips before wrapping your arm around me on the way to the elevator.
You’re distant. It’s understandable. Nobody wants to deal with this. Well, nobody except your mother.
Still, do you have to be so callous at the moment?
“Don’t be silly, dear.” Caroline flags down a girl from the kitchen and asks for a pitcher of lemonade. “You’re not a boy anymore. You don’t have to hide your girlfriends from us.”
“I’m not hiding anything.” Ian’s gritted teeth would be a sight to behold if it weren’t my role in this situation. “Were Kathryn and I in a serious relationship, you would be the first to know.” He murmurs something that sounds like, “And the first to gab to everyone about it.”
Dad is still staring him down. The tension mounting between them is coming to a head in my body, and all I can imagine is my father walking over and s
macking Ian right on the head. How dare he be so disrespectful to Spencer’s little girl!
“What Ian is trying to say…” I look between both parents with a diplomatic smile on my face. “Is that he and I are casually dating. We don’t know if it’s serious or not.”
He glances at me. I may not be a mind reader, but I’m pretty sure he’s thinking, “Don’t give them too much hope.”
Maybe it’s me who wants the hope.
“Regardless, let’s hope for something good to come out of this.” Caroline shuts up when the server returns with the lemonade. She’s the only one who takes a glass. “Where is that man?”
It’s five more minutes before Dominic Mathers arrives with his date. At first I don’t recognize her, but I do recognize some young tarty blonde on the arm of a man old enough to be her father. Grandfather? Probably.
“Family!” Dominic bellows, escorting his lovely date into the dining room. “So glad you could all make it. Sorry we’re late. We were, ah…” He and the woman practically rub noses in front of us, their grins covered in a sexual sugar that makes me gag.
Nobody is gagging more than Ian. Literally. On his ice water. At first I think it’s because of the behavior on display, but then the woman says, “So good to see you again, Ian.”
I recognize her voice.
Stephanie May.
Chapter 22
IAN
There are certain moments in life that make you question whether or not you’re secretly living in a reality show.
I am having a whole day of that.
If my mother’s pandering to the hearth gods wasn’t enough – let alone in front of Kathryn’s father – I now have a sight I would never want to see in a million years standing right in front of me.
My father. And Stephanie May.
Together.
Let’s get this straightened out, shall we? Stephanie, a woman I saw a total of two times and had sex with once. Stephanie, a woman even younger than Kathryn and looks like a centerfold model when done up right. My father, the man who raised me and continues to do business with me. My father, a man even older than Spencer Alison, who has silver hair and talks at length about his arthritis.
My father.
My ex-date.
Together.
It’s all I can do to keep from confronting them, but my glare is enough to make my father uncomfortable, and my mother, the master of aggressing Dominic Mathers, is so visibly disgusted that I think she might get up and choke her ex-husband.
“Fuck you,” she mutters, and looks away, past me, a flash of pain contouring her fair face. It’s not enough they’re still supposedly in love. My father’s tastes for younger women lives on even to this day, and my mother is getting a powerful reminder.
I take her hand beneath the table, and it seems to soothe her for now.
For now.
“Everyone, this is Stephanie.” My father, who is apparently the most oblivious man in the room, continues to smile while Stephanie pats him. “Stephanie, you already met Spencer here. This is my ex-wife Caroline, our son Ian, and his… well, I think it’s his girlfriend, Kathryn.”
His chuckle bounces off the walls to an emptier silence. The four of us are sitting here, each stewing in his or her own misery. My mother, slighted because the man she on-again off-again loves is gallivanting about with a young hot blonde. Spencer Alison, trying not to imagine me defiling his daughter every chance he gets. Kathryn, clearly uncomfortable in this situation.Me, irate that we’re here to begin with, and now flummoxed at the presence of Stephanie May with my father.
Father pulls out a chair for Stephanie, right across from Kathryn. She sits down, grinning like she’s won the lottery. The look she serves Kathryn is laced in a phoniness that makes me even more uncomfortable, and I only thought that was possible if my mother busted out pap photos of Kathryn and me in compromising positions.
Stephanie smiles at me. It’s not polite.
Now that we’re all here, my father summons lunch, a three-course affair beginning with fruit salad and culminating with salmon steaks served on spiced rice pilaf. The chef who works here is the same one I grew up with, and the tastes of this familiar food should make me feel more at home. They don’t. I can’t take my eyes off my father and his supposed date.
Doesn’t he know? Is this some sort of gotcha? I have no idea what game my father is playing. Maybe the idea of his son having a serious girlfriend is making him feel old. Stephanie, though? How did they even meet?
Wait, I don’t want to know.
The food only keeps us silent for so long. Once stomachs start filling, the conversation has to start flowing. Except nobody knows what to talk about. I came here expecting the fifth degree regarding my relationship with Kathryn, but instead we’re all staring at the hot young starlet and the rich old man. All of us annoyed for different reasons.
Even the rich have the most agonizing family dinners.
“So was I the only one who didn’t know about this?”
Spencer’s voice shoots right into me, like a knife meant for my spleen, or kidney, or some other vital piece of my body meant to awaken my mortality. I know that voice. I’ve heard it a few times from other fathers over the years. Never thought I’d hear it from Spencer Alison, who can look like a beast when he’s put into father-bear mode.
I don’t dare look at him.
In fact, nobody is in a hurry to answer. Not even my mother, who caused this whole mess.
“I told you, Daddy,” Kathryn begins with a sweet tone I’ve never heard her use before. “There wasn’t anything to tell, yet. As Ian said, it’s not like that.”
He glares at Kathryn, then me. “Don’t ‘Daddy’ me. You’re implying something I never want to think about.”
Yeah, that glare is reserved for me. “You’re implying he’s fucking you with no repercussions. Now I have to kill him.” I’d count on my mother jumping in front of the line of fire, but I think she’s preoccupied with a different kind of anger.
“Now, Spencer,” my father says with a haughty laugh. “Let’s be realistic. They’re adults.”
His words have barely sunk into our ears when my mother makes every matter worse.
“Didn’t you two used to date?”
She’s got her elbow on the table, finger pointing between Stephanie and me. I drop my fork. Stephanie clears her throat.
“They did,” Kathryn says. I’m floored by her rebellion. “Pretty hot and heavy, wasn’t it?” She’s looking at me, chunks of salmon smacking between her teeth. “That’s gotta be weird.”
A blanket of embarrassment descends upon the table. I’m choking on it, wishing that I could excuse myself from this bullshit and drive far, far away.
“It’s only awkward because he was apparently dating you at the same time.”
Stephanie May, Hollywood’s biggest asshole.
“We weren’t…”
“That’s right.” Kathryn tosses her napkin onto the table and readjusts her seat. “Ian and I were seeing each other when I found you two together.”
Together?
Found?
What an interesting revision of history. If only this wasn’t happening in front of our fucking parents.
“See, Ian’s right, everyone. We’re not a serious couple. That would be preposterous. Everyone here knows what a playboy he is. Caroline talks about the papers all the time!”
I pinch her leg, but it has no effect. The last thing I want to do is look anyone in the eye. All I can do is try not to break in front of some of the most important people we know.
“All I am is another notch in the bedpost. Another woman in a string of blondes. Another pussy to be fucked.”
Teeth bare in my direction. Eyes of steel attempt to puncture my skin. Hands curl into fists, and it’s not Spencer Alison getting up to come pummel my face in.
Kathryn beats him to it. Getting up, that is. I’m spared a beating as she tosse
s a fork onto her plate and excuses herself from this farce.
The silence is so unbearable that I get up and go after her before Spencer decides to brave my parents and kick my ass.
Kathryn hasn’t been here before, as far as I know. So she has no idea where to go, where to hide, or where to get away from the likes of me, the man who is fucking another blonde. Shit, I don’t have time to be incensed. I have to track Katie down before she blows up and does something even brasher.
It doesn’t take long to find her. She’s holed up down the hall in a small sunroom full of plants and a canary chirping in its cage. When she lived here, this was my mother’s favorite room to read and talk on the phone in. Now it looks like my father hasn’t touched a damned thing since his ex-wife divorced him and took half his fortune.
I shouldn’t find Kathryn so entrancing in this moment. She’s standing by the window, her blond hair down and shining like a golden light among the green foliage. She sniffs, and I don’t know if she’s crying or reacting to the plants. I latch the door shut and approach her.
“Katie,” I say softly. “Are you all right?”
She sniffs again. “Do I look all right?”
“No.” My hand goes to her shoulder, and she stiffens, body jerking away from me. “Do you want to talk about it?”
“What’s there to talk about? Was anything I said a lie?”
I lower my arm. “You’re not just another blonde or pussy, Kathryn.”
“Aren’t I, though? You said so yourself that we’re not serious.”
“Not like that, no.”
“What does that mean?”
She has so much disdain in her visage that I want to both run away from her and embrace her, here and now. She needs someone to comfort her, and she’s not going to find any comfort out in that dining room.
“You know what it means, Katie.” I try so damned hard to be gentle in my reasoning. Clearly, she’s vulnerable. Last thing I want to do is insult her after all that embarrassment. “We’re casual. We’re doing things in private we may not do with others, but it’s not like it’s going to end….” Do I have to say it?
