by Kailin Gow
Filthy
Dirty
Laundry
Book 4
kailin gow
Filthy Dirty Laundry #4
Published by Sparklesoup Inc.
Sparklesoup.com
Copyright © 2016 Kailin Gow
All Rights Reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage or retrieval system, without the permission in writing from the publisher except in case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
For information, please contact:
Sparklesoup.com
First Edition.
Printed in the United States of America.
Chapter 1
Philip
I've never been so happy in my life. I don't know what the hell I'm feeling. Excited and scared and totally fucking flipped out of my mind. I don't do relationships. I don’t love. I do fucking. I do socialites coked out of their skulls in nightclub bathrooms and one-night stands with correspondents in Riyadh hotels. I do threesomes, foursomes, you name it, I've probably done it. In fact, the only thing I don't do is serious relationships. Especially serious relationships where I turn into a total fucking obsessive psycho around a girl I can't stop thinking about. But Sidney has that effect on me. Ever since I met her that first day on her bicycle, I've been unable to get her out of my head. Her strength. Her talent. And let's face it – her killer looks, that perfect body. She's the whole package, Sidney. The perfect woman. The woman that I've fallen for.
I've never said I love you to a woman – at least, not in years. I didn't plan to say it. But somehow it slipped out. Those three little words. That confession. The one that means you're in too deep and there's no way out. I love you.
Sidney's asleep next to me, nuzzled into the crook of my arm. I'm stroking her beautiful silky blonde hair, trying to make sense of what I just said, what I just meant. I'm holding her delicately yet firmly against me, wanting her close but not wanting to crush her fragile body, trying to keep her warm, trying to keep her skin against mine. I can't believe that just happened.
God, I've wanted her since the first day we spoke. The way she looked at me with such proud disdain, such uncertainty, the day I told her that I'd be her new boss. That I'd quashed her dreams of being the celebrity editor. A look of complete contempt. She knew this paper, her eyes told me, and I didn't. She knew what she was doing and she didn't trust me. My whole life I've been surrounded by sycophants. But not Sidney. She didn't tell me what I wanted to hear. She challenged me. It made my blood boil. And it made my cock pretty damn hard.
I'm obsessed with her. It was about the sex, at first, about how hot and unattainable she was, but the more I got to know her, the more I have to admit I'm falling for her. It's not just about the sex anymore. Not just about the challenge. It's about the ballsy way she handled that dog food assignment I gave her, about how she got in good with Mitch Conway – despite the fact that I'm mad as hell about it, I recognize it as a pretty fucking awesome Hunter Thompson style gonzo move – everything about her makes me crazier and crazier about her. My mind is absolutely going blank. I've had the craziest sex you can imagine it. And yet I don't think I've ever enjoyed an encounter as much as the one I just had. With a virgin, no less.
I look down at Sidney, sleeping so peacefully in my arms.
Her face is so serene, so calm. She looks happy, I think. Don't screw this up, you idiot, I think. Don't ruin this. Don't you dare hurt her. Hurt her like I've hurt so many women – women I didn't care about. Not her. I can't imagine hurting her.
But maybe I will. She's awakened feelings in me I don't recognize. She makes me so crazy that I freak out whenever she so much as looks at another man, talks to another man – like that Johnson creep who's always skulking around here. It makes me want to lock her up in a private room and throw away the key, bar her from contact from any man she sees. I can't help the feeling, even as I know how disgusting it is. Seeing her hurt fills me with unimaginable pain. But I'm scared that my feelings for her will hurt her even more.
Now this whole thing with her being my stepsister?
This is crazy. Absolutely crazy. She was right to run, to try to get away from me, to try to slow things down. I just wouldn't let her. Couldn't let her. I wanted her and I wasn't willing to let her get away.
But what does that mean? Do I keep her a secret at family gatherings? I can't imagine having to see her in some dinner with my dad and his new squeeze and not being able to touch her, kiss her, caress her. Watching her with other men, men who might flirt with her, men who might try to take her away from me.
I trace a heart on the skin of her forearm. She's asleep, and I know she can't hear me, but I say it again for good measure, in a low sharp whisper. “I love you, Sidney.”
I want to kiss her again, wake up her for Round Two. My cock's certainly ready. But then my phone rings.
Shit.
I don't want to answer, but I don't want the ring to wake her up. So I get up and go over to the phone, taking the call into her living room, which must be the size of one of my smaller guest bathrooms. No wonder she didn't want me over.
“Hello?” I whisper as I enter the living room.
“Philip.” It's my dad. I can tell by the weird semi-French way he says Philip. Like Philippe. He's been living in the US most of his life, but there's some words and expressions he's never lost. I probably couldn't tell by the sound of his voice alone. I feel like I barely knew him growing up. My mom raised us – neurotic and fucked up as she is – while my dad worked all day, all night, as Hollywood's plastic surgeon to the stars. He was always travelling on some assignment or other – I don't think we ever really saw him. Then I went away to boarding school and heard the news. Separation. Toxic divorce. A new blonde former beauty queen we all assumed he'd been banging all during his marriage to my mother. I remember how my kid sister described that “bitch” who moved in with them. Sidney Stone. “Frigid ice queen,” she'd called her. “Stuck up bitch.” I could chuckle at the memory of it. I can't imagine Sidney ever being an ice queen with me. She's fiery, hot and wild. And I can't get enough.
“Philip...” my father says again. “Is this a good time.”
“Yeah, sure,” I say. “What's up, pops?”
“I heard a rumor...a rumor I'm worried about.”
“What is it now?”
“Kendall's concerned about your behavior.”
“Kendall's concerned about my behavior?” That's rich, coming from a cokehead junkie.
“She's worried about how you're behaving to your underlings.”
“My...” Oh. Shit.
“She's worried it might be awkward for the company if you end up involved with someone you work with. And it would be awkward for us. And for my marriage, son.”
“You don't mean.”
Oh. Shit.
“Look, Sidney's a lovely girl. But I know your reputation. I may not have been the most observant father in the world to you but I know that much. You go after girls for a day or two only to leave a trail of broken hearts in your wake. And I don't know how far things have gotten, but Kendall says you're making a bloody fool of yourself in the office: getting jealous and possessive, assaulting and threatening other staffers...you know this isn't professional behavior, son.
“It's not like that, dad.”
“Listen, son. I know Sidney. I probably saw more of her than I did you when you were a teenager. She's innocent. Sweet when you get to know her, but reserved. Loyal, intelligent, stubborn. She’s like a daughter to me. Now is. And you can't destroy this family when you inevitab
ly hurt her.”
“I know all that,” I say. “I'm not going to hurt her. Everything you say – it's true. She is remarkable.”
“So you admit you've got something for her?” says my dad.
“I didn't...” I sigh. “Dad, I'm a grown man. I make my own decisions.”
“Not when it concerns this family you don't. Sidney's suffered enough from this family – I nearly lost the woman I loved once when a child of mine intervened, and I'm not going to go through this again. Our family has done enough damage to the Stones. And to my own happiness. I've waited years to get things right with the woman I love and I'm not about to throw it all away because you can't keep it in your pants this week.”
“It's not like that, dad,” I protest.
“Let me make things clear,” says Alan. “If you so much as touch that girl, I will strip you of your role at FDL. I will disown you. I'm serious about this. If you get anywhere near her –after everything this family put her through, I will toss you out on the street without a penny, do you understand? I know how you'll treat her and she deserves better.”
“Dad!” I'm almost pleading now. “I can change. People change. Sometimes people grow up. I' m not that guy anymore.”
“I know you,” my dad scoffs. “You'll always be that guy. And I can't lose what I've just built. Not again. Not that you ever listen to me – your mother made sure of that. But I have the purse strings, Philip, and when it comes to them, you do what I say. Get with Sidney and I disown you. Is that clear?”
“I don't hear from you in months and immediately you call me – without inviting me to your wedding, by the way – to get up in my face about my love life?” I'm livid. “Sorry, dad, I'm a grown up. With my own career. My own life. And Sidney, too.”
“You sure know a lot about her, huh?”
“I knew her way before you and her mother got back together.”
“And if that's not bad enough – think of your professional reputation. Sleeping with an underling. Sleeping with your stepsister. Plus what this will do to Kendall. She already just got out of rehab – do you want to push her into another suicide attempt? She's already barely functioning with news of the wedding....”
“Fine, dad.” I can't deal with this anymore. “I'll talk to you later.” I hang up before he can say another word.
I look at Sidney. Sleeping so peacefully. I want to hold her tight.
But with a sickening thud in the pit of my stomach I recognize that my father's words are true. God – as much as Kendall drives me crazy, she's my sister, and the last thing I want is to see her in rehab again. And it's true. I'm trying to make FDL into the next big thing and a scandal like this can kill all our careers.
God, I am so stupid.
Sidney was right. We never should have let things get this far. I should have listened to her. And now I've gone all in, taken her virginity, told her I loved her...
It's too late to pull back.
Or is it? Maybe it's better to end it now – before we fall for each other even more deeply, before things get out of hand. Maybe we should just say goodbye before we can't live without each other.
I already can't live without her.
But, I wonder, with a horrible sinking feeling in my heart, what if I have to?
Chapter 2
Sidney
I wake up happier than I've ever been. A delicious feeling of fullness has come over me, is diffused through me. My whole body feels dewy, clean, alive, in a way entirely new. I try to process what has happened: the incredible and mind-numbing feeling of Philip inside me, of his cock – hard and smooth and marble-like in its proportions – and the way it can delve into me and bring me to ecstasy. All the fooling around we've done before – the nuzzling, his use of his fingers, his use of tongue – it feels like nothing compared to the adrenaline rush that comes over me when Philip is inside me properly, when we're two people joined as one. It's fantastic. I want to do it over and over again – every day, every hour of every day. I'm like a teenage boy, I think to myself, blushing. Wanting sex all the time. But now that I know how great it is, I'm hooked. Philip's body is like a drug, and I find myself wanting more more more. I don't know if I'll ever get enough – of him, of him, of the extraordinary sensations of our union. I am addicted. I'm a fucking Philip LaFleur junkie. And I'm proud of every minute of it. I remember the words he whispered to me as I fell asleep. I love you, Sidney, he'd said. Did he mean it?
Maybe. After all, if he was just saying it to get into my pants, he would have said it earlier. I love you, now fuck me. But he waited until the end, until it was all over, until he had nothing new to get from me, until he could gain nothing by his behavior. Then he told me I love you. I'd have responded, had I been awake enough. I would respond a hundred times. I love you I love you I love you I love you. I could shout it from the hilltops. I could go to the top of the Empire State Building and shout it there. It's true, after all. I know it now. I feel it in my bones. What I have with Philip LaFleur is about more than just sex. Just desire. No, I love him. And I want to be with him – body, and soul. Oh, who am I kidding? Especially body. We'll make it work – somehow.
Sure, we might have to keep everything a secret from our families and our friends and Kendall and Johnson (oh God, Johnson!) but it's worth it. It has to be. When two people have a connection as strong as the one Philip and I share, there can be no other option. We have to be together. Or else we'll suffer – I realize that now. And we shouldn't have to suffer. Not when the possibility for such incredible happiness exists in the world.
Do I love him, I wonder? Or is it just my body going into overdrive; my hormones running rampant, adrenaline and libido conspiring to trick me. After all, it's all happening so fast...
Philip comes in quickly. Kisses me on the forehead. Doesn't look me in the eye. “I'm so sorry,” he says. “My darling – there's a work emergency. I have to go into the office.”
“Now?” I moan softly. I'm feeling lazy – deliciously lazy. I haven't got the energy to get up or move or, hell exist. Why should Philip? We should just lie here all day enjoying ourselves like cats dozing in the sun.
“I'm afraid so, my love,” he whispers to me. He strokes my hair. He's still not looking at me in the eye, but I chalk it up to work stress. “The crisis is never over.”
“I should come into work too...” I say.
“No!” his voice is almost harsh. His tenor surprises me.
“What?”
“I mean...you should just stay home,” says Philip. “Do whatever you need to do to get well.”
“Oh...” I say. I blush. “Of course.”
Is something wrong? I look into his face. My stomach tightens a little. But surely I'm making it up, I tell myself. Surely I've just got it wrong. Everything's fine – it must be.
“We're good, right?” I ask him tentatively.
He looks down. “Of course, my dear,” he says. “I'll see you later on – okay? Come into the office when you're ready. Not sooner.”
He kisses me one last time and then leaves. I fall back asleep. Comfortable. Replete. Overwhelmed by the wealth of physical sensations I have experienced.
At around one in the afternoon, a knock sounds at my door. Is it Philip? I hopefully bound out of bed. But it's Johnson standing at the door, looking sheepish.
“I brought you some lunch,” he says, handing me a take-out package of soup. “I wanted to see how you were feeling. If you were ready to come back to the office. Figured I'd give you a lift if so.”
It's so good to see him. Good old Johnson – even now, he's bringing me soup, taking care of me, being so nice, so present, so there. I can't help it; I'm overwhelmed with relief. I wrap my arms around him and hug him tight.
“It's so good to see you, Johnson,” I whisper.
But deep down, I feel a little guilty. Last night I slept with someone else – with someone who wasn't him, and I know that deep down I'll never, ever be able to tell Johnson about it. Johnson,
whom I like but don't love. Whom I care for, but don't want, not in that way. I could never explain to him how I feel, what I need. Not without hurting him.
“You look better,” says Johnson. “Flushed, a little. There's color in your cheeks.”
My cheeks burn even hotter. Can he tell what happened last night? Will he be able to tell, just by looking at me, that I'm not a virgin anymore, that I'm not waiting for him or anybody else?
Just thinking about last night, about Philip near me, makes me wet, makes me blush. I can't stop running through the videos in my head: the amazing feeling of him inside me, around me, on top of me, surrounding me with the heat and force of his touch. I hope Johnson doesn't notice my little gasp, my flush of arousal.
I can't stop seeing those images in my head, feeling Philip's fingers and tongue inside me. I clench my thighs together but that only makes the sensation worse.
“What is it, Sidney?”
“Uh...nothing,” I say, quickly looking down so he can't see the expression on my face. “It's fine. Everything is fine.”
“Good.” Johnson pats my hand. “What are your thoughts about going into the office today?”
I shouldn't go. I'm still sick – or at least recovering. But it's physically painful for me to be away from Philip LaFleur at this moment in time, so I feel like I have no other option. I have to go to him, be near him, be with him. I have to run towards him and breathe in his musky and familiar scent and just look at him, fantasize about him, take him all in. I am in a bloody motherfucking sex haze and there's nothing I can do about it. I'd probably run barefoot over hot tar and nails if I had to, just to get another glimpse of Philip's delectable torso.
“I want to go in,” I say. “I'm ready. I feel a lot better, now. Thanks to you.” And to a round or two of vigorous fucking, I think, but I don't say it out loud.
“Good!”
Johnson smiles, but there's a certain sadness in his face. A melancholy that has been more and more present these last few weeks. I hate that I'm torturing him like this, torturing myself like this, but I don't know what else to do. Telling Johnson I don't want him would only hurt him – and I couldn't bear to break his heart like that. But not telling him, existing in this state of limbo...that can't be right, either. Can it?
