“So she’s the black sheep,” I said, after Grandmama added that Elizabeth’s mother’s line was one of the few that no longer practiced the Mormon religion.
“She’s not a black sheep,” Nana said, offended. “She’s welcome here anytime. She just prefers I come visit her. She likes her fancy things. Even tried to buy us a fancier house time and time again, but we’re happy with what we have. Doesn’t stop her from sending us all sorts of New Age technology, though I do admit to enjoying my TVR.”
Elizabeth tried to hide her giggle. “It’s DVR, Nana. It’s part of your cable subscription.” She turned to me to explain. “I helped them get it figured out last time I was here.”
“Angela is so kind with her money. She sends it all the time. But we have no need for anything,” Grandmama said, her finger pointing at the table as though she really wanted me to hear that point. “Besides occasional repairs to the house, we just put the rest in savings. It can pay for my medical bills when I need it down the road.”
“I don’t think that’s coming anytime soon,” Nana said. “Your mother lived to be one hundred and five.”
Grandmama sighed as if that was the last thing she wanted to be reminded of. “Well. We’ll see.”
When dinner was over, Nana started to gather the empty plates and stack them in a pile until Elizabeth stopped her. “We’ll get that. Go watch your shows with Grandmama.”
I stepped into line, gathering items and carrying them to the sink alongside her. We put leftovers in Tupperware and made room in a fridge already crowded with pre-Thanksgiving cooking, and soon we were side by side at the sink, loading it to wash the dishes by hand.
“I don’t hear you bothering them about hiring a maid,” I teased.
Elizabeth narrowed her eyes at me, but she had a smile playing on her lips. “They don’t want a maid. They don’t even want a dishwasher.” She handed me a sudsy plate to rinse off and put in the dish rack.
“Why do we need a dishwasher?” Nana asked coming in behind us. “What would we do with our days if we didn’t at least clean up after ourselves?”
“But at least you do clean up after yourselves. This one,” Elizabeth gestured to me, “does not. He needs a maid so I don’t have to be the one who does it.”
Nana put a hand on my shoulder, warm and friendly, as though she’d already welcomed me into her life. “This one works hard all day. He’s earning the money. He doesn’t need to clean up after himself.”
I could practically hear Elizabeth choke on her shock.
“Yeah,” I teased. “I’m earning all the money.”
“Oh, you do not,” she said, but Nana had already walked away. Elizabeth flicked at me with her fingers, spattering water on my shirt and face. I flicked water at her right back, and then we were both laughing, and I vowed right then I would never, ever get a maid if it meant that I could do dishes with Elizabeth Dyson forever.
* * *
After dinner, we stayed to watch TV for a bit with the older women. “Their shows” turned out to be murder mysteries on PBS, British detectives from the 1920s era. There was lots of talking and everyone was glued to the screen. I mostly nodded and kept my arm around Elizabeth, and tried not to stare at her profile and how her skin glowed from the light shining off the TV screen.
“We’ll have twenty-eight here for dinner tomorrow,” Grandmama said with a sigh when the show was over. “Better get to bed. We’re going to have to get up early to start the turkey.”
“Twenty-eight,” I gasped. “Where are you going to fit them all?” There was only the TV room and a large master bedroom upstairs plus the living room, dining room, and kitchen.
“It’s tight, but we’ve done it,” Nana said. “You’ll just have to see how it works out tomorrow. We’ll be stuffed in more ways than one.”
Everyone laughed and it was our cue to leave for the night. “I’ll just run out to the camper and get my suitcase. But I can be back here as early as you need me to help cook, Nana.”
“You stayed in a camper?” I supposed that made sense. There was only one bedroom in the basement now, the big dorm room having been turned into a playroom for the grandkids when they visited.
“Yeah, it’s in back.”
“Then why don’t we just stay there?” I’d thought the whole reason she and I weren’t staying here was because it would be awkward having sex in the same house with her grandmothers. Because we both knew we couldn’t sleep in the same room and keep our hands off each other. But an unattached room next door? That sounded like it would work just fine.
“There’s no room service in the camper,” Elizabeth said. “And no plumbing, so we have to use the bathroom in here.”
“I don’t need room service, Princess.”
She rolled her eyes and huffed. “Obviously I don’t either. Since I’ve been staying there myself for two days.” She wandered into the living room where I’d left my bag and hoisted it onto her shoulder. “If we’re going to stay, then you’d better go take your turn with the toilet.”
I chuckled to myself and did as she’d told me as she let Nana know about the new arrangements, then I took my bag from her, and she led the way to the backyard.
If Elizabeth’s room service remark had been meant to warn me about the state of the camper, I didn’t pick up on it. It was old, beat up, well used. It was definitely from Grandmama’s era, and as we climbed inside the rickety thing, I almost wondered if it would fall apart on us. Inside, there was a dining table surrounded by two benches; a kitchen, which consisted of a sink, counter, and range top that looked a hundred years old; and a bedroom in the back with a mattress that took up the total width of the trailer. A long, thick cord ran underneath the door behind us and led to a space heater on the floor in front of the bed.
“I’m guessing this is what they call vintage,” I said, setting my bag down. It was cute despite the weathering with it’s wood-paneled walls and the benches wrapped in teal pleather—the kind easily wiped down and probably highly toxic.
“Vintage is one way to put it,” Elizabeth said, walking over to the space heater and turning it on. She sat on the bed and began pulling off her shoes. “Well-loved is another. My mother bought her a new one about twenty years ago when Papa was still alive, and they turned around and gave it to my uncle. They said this one was still good. They didn’t need a new one.”
“I suppose it still does what it’s supposed to.” I followed her into the bedroom, eager to touch her now that we were alone.
Eager just to be with her.
“Nowadays it’s just used as an extra room when family visits, but it’s here at least as long as Grandmama is alive. My great-grandfather inherited it from someone before they got married. It was pretty much all he had to his name when they wed. He’d grown up a poor farmboy. He was super smart though so he was able to become a schoolteacher. And she was…”
I sat on the bed beside Elizabeth, tilting my body toward her. “She was—what?”
She let out a sigh. “She had money. Her dad was a lawyer. She married down, so to say.”
Like how Elizabeth was marrying down by marrying me.
Sweat suddenly gathered at the back of my neck. “And then what?”
She waited a beat before breaking into a smile. “And they lived happily ever after.” She laid back on the bed, her body turned toward me.
I followed suit, stretching out and facing her.
“They didn’t have much money,” she went on. “They took their honeymoon in this camper. They raised seven kids in that tiny house. They grew a lot of their own food, relied on goods they canned themselves, had a newspaper route for extra money, and camped for every vacation they took, but they were super fucking happy.”
Her expression was soft as she talked about these people she was so fond of.
And I was anything but soft.
When I reached for her, it wasn’t out of anger or lust or a need to satisfy something within myself. I simply reached for her, an
d she reached for me, lips meeting gently, kissing without frenzy, without bruising intentions.
We undressed each other slowly, and it felt like I was discovering her body for the first time, feasting on something new. I spent time on every inch of her skin, licking and sucking, learning her landscape like it was a place I’d never been. I was grateful for every part of her that she let me see, thankful for her trust and the honor, and I showed her in every way I knew. I made up ways just for her, watching her closely to gauge what she liked. What she loved.
So many times I’d prided myself on giving a woman pleasure, but it had always been for my own satisfaction. So I could take the glory. So I could bask in the title of best lover. But with every kiss, with every graze of her skin, tonight I truly wanted her to feel good. Wanted her to know how beautiful she was, how fucking incredible.
I wanted to please her.
I wanted to love her.
And when we were completely naked, shivering from the way that we moved across each other, I slid inside her, thrust deep, deeper, deeper still, my eyes locked on hers, wanting nothing but to give her everything I felt inside. Wanting to give her this crazy, insane, turbulent feeling racing through my blood, skittering across my nerves. The same thrill that I felt when I got a beautiful woman in my bed, that high that always disappeared when the orgasms died down, but which with Elizabeth, lingered and grew and exploded, even when our clothes were on, our bodies not quite touching. I wanted to share that with her. Wanted to ask her with each thrust, do you feel this, do you feel this, do you feel this? And not mean my cock, but that crazy fucking shit going on inside me. That bizarre, wonderful magic love stuff circulating through my veins.
Do you feel this? Do you feel it, too?
I held her close against me when we were finished, our bodies sticking to each other as our sweat dried. I thought of her great-grandfather in this camper almost eighty years ago, how he held the woman he’d loved in his arms, how it was all he’d had and it had been enough.
And I got it. Because this could be enough for me too.
All that was left was for me to find out if Elizabeth felt the same.
Twenty
I slipped out of the camper early Thanksgiving morning while the sky was still dark and frost still tipped the grass in the backyard, not because I was worried about Nana getting the cooking underway without me, but because I was worried that if I stayed too long in the paradise of Weston’s arms, I wouldn’t be able to leave.
In the two-plus weeks since Donovan had reminded me of the business arrangement—of Weston’s loyalties—I’d tried to stay true to myself and my own goals. Tried to remember first and foremost that this charade was just that—a charade. I hadn’t stopped sleeping with Weston because I only had so much self-restraint, but also because it was easier than a complicated discussion of why we shouldn’t keep sleeping together. And the why was that I was falling for him. And I was worried about my heart.
How embarrassing that confession would be.
And it wasn’t like I needed another man to reject me in my life.
But every day in his presence, and his arms, and his bed made the next day harder to get through without wanting more, more, more. Without dreaming that there wasn’t an expiration date on us, without fantasizing that the inheritance of Dyson Media wasn’t the cherry on top of my nuptials, rather than the whole reason for them.
And last night had been especially hard.
Whereas our usual tense and fraught living situation led to rough, wild sex, this time it felt as though he were making love to me. As though he were giving himself to me in ways he never had.
I’d been right there with him too, receiving all he had to offer, letting him take from me too, pretending I wasn’t a wreck over it.
God, I’d gotten so good at pretending.
But there were only nine more days until our official wedding date, and then we were flying to a remote island where we could ignore each other for the two weeks of our honeymoon and begin the process of moving on. I just had to be strong, had to keep my head clear. Remember that this was all a game and play it like I had nothing to lose.
Nana was already up when I got inside the house, thankfully. She set me right to work peeling potatoes and it was a much-needed distraction. Cooking overtook the morning and by the time Weston awoke and joined us, my aunt Becky had arrived, instrumental Christmas music was playing in the background, and there was enough hubbub to keep me from having to deal with him one on one.
Dinner preparations took the rest of the day and early afternoon. Weston jumped in, helping as soon as he got himself showered and dressed by setting up extra tables, bringing up the dining table leaves from the basement, pulling the metal folding chairs out of the carport. By the time we were finished, there was a large round table set up in the master bedroom for the kids, a long banquet set up in the living room, and the dining room was stretched to max capacity.
At two o’clock more family began arriving. Aunt Nora brought the pumpkin pies that everybody hated but no one would admit, Aunt Debbie brought the pecan pies that everybody fought over. A can of olives was set out for early nibbles on the dining room table. The younger cousins quickly discovered them and walked around with black fingertips until Aunt Becky admonished them and swapped out for a fresh can that she supervised until dinner was served. Finally, each table was loaded with portions of all the sides. Green bean casserole, stuffing, mashed potatoes and gravy, rolls, glazed carrots, yams. And in the middle of each table sat a plate of turkey, already carved and dished up from the birds in the kitchen.
Everyone gathered in the living room for prayer, which was given by Nana’s younger brother. Then the room burst into a fit of joyful noise as everyone dispersed to their designated seats, ready to enjoy the amazing feast.
Weston and I were seated at the long table in the living room with most of the spillover adults, as I liked to call them. The oldest adults were the ones who got to sit in the dining room with Grandmama; those included Nana and her siblings. With most of the people around us being our age, the conversation was lively. Weston had plenty of opportunities to show off his business knowledge as the men began discussing their recent investments, and the latest trends in stocks. With his connections to King-Kincaid, they were quite eager to hear his opinion.
“I’m not really one to give advice on investments,” he said. He placed his hand over mine on the table. “But I do recommend investing in Dyson Media. I hear it’s about to go through some management changes that are going to be quite excellent for the company.”
I smiled tightly around my mashed potatoes, trying not to blush. The majority of women in my mother’s family were homemakers. It felt odd for me to discuss business.
“We’ll invest,” my cousin’s wife, Sheila, said. “I’m looking forward to you taking over. You’re going to be amazing. Go women!” She gave me a wink and I winked back.
“Unless she has a baby,” her husband Jeff said.
My body tensed, my chewing paused, and Weston’s hand suddenly felt stiff over mine. This was not a conversation we’d prepared for.
“Women can’t have babies and jobs these days?” Sheila’s tone seemed to indicate this was a discussion that had been had before in her household.
Jeff didn’t seem fazed. “Every family needs to make the decision that’s right for them. What decision have you made? Will you quit working when you have children?”
I coughed, choking on my turkey. Weston handed me my water goblet, and I gulped half of it down.
“Uh, we haven’t talked about it,” he said while rubbing my back.
“You’re getting married and you haven’t talked about it?” Katie, another cousin, asked, her expression aghast.
“No, we’ve talked about it,” I said, trying to recover. What kind of engaged couple hadn’t discussed children? “Weston meant we haven’t decided. Haven’t decided when we’re having them. Not if I’m quitting. I’m not quitting.”
>
“Right. That’s what I meant,” he said, and from the way he looked at me, I could almost believe he was imagining the same thing I was—beautiful, blue-eyed babies with red hair and deep dimples. Smart and playful and independent.
But of course he wasn’t imagining that. I wasn’t even sure Weston liked kids.
I wasn’t even sure Weston liked me, most days.
“Will you be joining in at Dyson Media?” Jeff asked Weston, changing the subject. I’d never been so grateful to my cousin in my life.
“I’ll be staying with Reach. It keeps my hands busy,” Weston said. “Of course, any time Elizabeth needs my advice, I’m happy to give her my input.”
“Oh, that’s right,” Jeff said. “You have your advertising business. Wasn’t there some sort of a scandal a few years back with King-Kincaid? Some banking thing? I hope that didn’t affect your own business.”
Scandal? I raised a brow and looked at Weston.
He shook his head definitively. “There were rumors when the house financing bubble burst. Nothing really stuck. It was before my business got started, but luckily I had no problems.”
Weston moved his attention back to eating, and while he’d brushed off the comment, I noticed his body had stiffened, and I suddenly wondered if there was something there, something I had missed, something I hadn’t thought to look at.
Then someone was asking me to pass the mashed potatoes and someone else began a story, and I forgot all about it again.
* * *
After dinner, Weston and the men got the tables torn down and put away within ten minutes then chilled out while the women cleared dishes and washed them in the kitchen. I ignored the sexist division of tasks that resulted in more work for the women. Everyone seemed happy, and that was what mattered, I supposed.
Dirty Sexy Player Page 21
