Not only because I was bound to become very fond of this man—more likely, it had already happened, and I just hadn’t admitted it—but also because I was one thousand percent certain that whatever it was that he’d done to me—twice now!—couldn’t be taught to someone else. It was a skill. It was a talent. Something a person was born with or wasn’t. Maybe it could be honed, but only if there was already a natural inclination and a desire to please, and I’d never dated a man like that before. Never dated a man with those gifts.
I couldn’t teach this to a lover.
Dylan Locke was meant to make things better. Instead, he’d ruined me forever.
Chapter Nine
Dylan
I was caught. Ensnared in her net. I’d taken the bait, and after one sweet taste, I was captured. There was nothing left for me to do but surrender, let her cut me open and skin me. Let her feast.
I’d never guessed that my end would be so inviting, yet here it was, so delicious and tempting.
After watching her beautifully fall apart—not once, but twice—I knew there would be no sleeping that night. I had to have her in every way. I’d devour her, let myself be devoured, until dawn, if she let me. We still hadn’t made it past the foyer. There were so many places left in my flat to defile her, and I planned to take advantage of them all.
I pressed tightly against her, grinding the steel rod in my trousers into the softness of her belly while I kissed her with abandon. With one hand braced on her hip, another cupped under her chin, I anchored myself in the moment, ignoring the nagging worry about tomorrow and the late hour and the incessant vibration of my phone in my pocket, and kissed her so deeply I lost myself.
“What is that?” she asked, breaking away suddenly. “What is that buzzing against me? Do you have a vibrator in there?” She moved her hands down to my trousers and reached, not for the aching rod of my cock, but into my pocket.
Then she withdrew my phone, still buzzing, the screen lit up brightly in the darkness with a single name—Ellen.
It should have been Hell-en. That would have been more fitting considering the moment she seemed desperate to destroy. She was, in every way, a devil.
The ringing ended and the screen showed I’d had six missed calls. A second past and it began buzzing again.
That’s when I came to my wits.
Ellen calling, late at night, over and over—it had to be Aaron.
I snatched the phone from Audrey’s hand and answered it as I brought it to my ear. “What’s wrong?”
“Thank God you finally answered. I didn’t remember you being such a sound sleeper.” Ellen sounded both worked up and accusing.
I had no interest in addressing the latter. “Tell me what’s wrong.”
“It’s Aaron. He’s not in his room. I can’t find him.”
Cold panic washed over me replacing the heat that had blazed through my veins only minutes before. I stepped away from Audrey and ran a hand through the flop of my hair. “What do you mean you can’t find him? It’s—” I glanced at my watch. “Nearly three in the morning. Where the hell would he have gone?”
“I don’t know, Dylan!” She was terrified. I could hear it in the shrill pitch of her voice. Ellen was never terrified. She was cool as a cucumber, that one. Her agitation fed mine, urging me to act.
“I’ll be right there. Ring the police.” I glanced at Audrey and found her already putting herself together, hiding away the soft silk of her luscious breasts, covering the damp curls of her stunning pussy.
“I already have. Please, hurry,” Ellen said, and I hated her in this moment more than I’d hated her in years. Hated the reminder that we still shared our son, though we’d never share anything else again. Hated that she’d asked me nicely, as though she assumed I had a choice in my own child’s safety. Hated the intrusion of harsh reality into my perfect lie of a fantasy.
I hung up on her in reply.
Without pause, I headed straight to the coat cupboard and pulled out the cashmere Ted Baker hanging inside. I put it on, then turned back to my guest. She was just slipping an arm through her own coat. I rushed to help her, brushing her long caramel hair off her shoulder before moving to button her up.
“I’m sorry,” I said, wishing I had time for other words, sweeter words. She deserved better than this.
She shook her head adamantly. “No, you have to go. I get it.” She brought her hand up to stroke her knuckles against my cheek.
I caught her hand as she dropped it and brought it to my mouth to kiss her palm. “I’m still sorry. There’s so much more…” I closed my eyes, forcing away the thoughts of all the more I’d meant to address with her this night. When I opened them again, I couldn’t look directly at her. “I’ll walk down with you.”
We were silent in the lift. I was too worried, too frantic, too furious at Ellen to make conversation. Whether Audrey was respectful of my situation or peeved about the interruption to our plans, I wasn’t sure. I didn’t allow myself to think about it. I could only think about Aaron.
Halfway across the lobby, I stopped suddenly. “What am I thinking? You need a ride.” I pulled out my phone and dialed my driver.
Audrey put a hand up as though to stop me. “I can Uber. You take the car.”
“It will be faster if I walk. It’s only a couple of blocks. I’d prefer if—” I cut off when the driver answered the line. “Yes, she’s ready to be picked up now. Same address as earlier.” He gave me an estimated time of arrival, and I hung up.
“He’ll be here in seven minutes.” I looked out the front doors to the snowy street beyond then back at my companion, longingly. “I wish I could stay.”
“No, please don’t. Go. Text me when you find him safe.” A thought seemed to occur to her. “Oh, and Dylan. When you find him...listen to what he has to say. Kids don’t usually do crazy things like this without a reason, as silly as their reasons might seem.”
My brow furrowed as I endured her advice. I didn’t generally like counsel without invitation, particularly from someone without any kids of her own.
She sensed she’d overstepped. “I’m sorry. It’s not my place. Just...it wasn’t that long ago that I was sneaking out of my house, and I thought I could help.”
She was genuine and utterly enchanting, and I realized, I wasn’t bothered after all by her intrusion. I was grateful.
I wanted to kiss her for it. Because she had perfect plump lips. Because she tasted like honey. Because she was warm and the night was cold, and I’d been in the dark for so long.
But casual kissing wasn’t what we were about, and I was in a rush, so I nodded my goodbye, and dashed out the door.
It took less than ten minutes to walk from my building to Ellen’s. The doorman let me through, having been alerted that both I and the police would be arriving. When I got to her unit, I rapped quietly on the door, aware of the wee hour of the night.
She answered right away, ushering me in quickly.
“Tell me what happened,” I ordered, already heading to Aaron’s room to see for myself that he was indeed not there.
She followed after me, tripping over herself to keep up with my wide gait. “He went to his room right after dinner, around seven, saying he had homework he wanted to get done ahead of the weekend. I did some work, changed into my pajamas, then curled up with a glass of wine in the living room to watch a holiday thing on Netflix. I meant to check on him when I went to bed, but I guess I fell asleep, and when I woke up, I looked then, and he was gone.”
“So you have no idea how long he’d been missing?”
“No. But I couldn’t have fallen asleep before nine-thirty or ten. It was probably after that when he…”
Unless he’d snuck out before then, while she wasn’t paying attention.
New York flats being what they were, it only took a second to verify Aaron’s absence. I turned to my ex-wife, looking at her for the first time since I’d arrived. She was wearing a long sheer nightgown with a silk robe that
nearly reached her feet.
She’d never worn anything that fancy to bed when we’d been married.
I took a step toward her. “You were alone all evening?” I meant to sound as accusatory as I did.
“What are you asking?” She clutched the lapels of her robe like she did to her defenses.
“You’re sure you weren’t entertaining a male gentleman and that’s why you didn’t realize our son had disappeared before three in the goddamned morning?”
“As though it couldn’t happen on your watch.”
“I find it hard to believe I wouldn’t notice a thirteen-year-old boy sneaking out of a flat this size. It’s not like this is Grand Central Station, for Christ’s sake. It’s not even two thousand square feet.”
She stuck her chin out. “Really? You’d notice? Like how you noticed your wife had been having affairs for nearly a year before you confronted her about it?”
Splice. Right through the skin, straight to the heart. She knew where to hit me, how to strike with her words. I hadn’t noticed her affairs. I hadn’t wanted to.
And maybe she was showing me something of herself too—that she’d wanted me to notice, and I hadn’t. She’d wanted me to save her, and I couldn’t. Another reminder of how I’d failed her. How I’d failed all of us.
See that, Audrey? Love doesn’t win. It just disappoints. Over and over again.
“Mom? Dad? What’s going on?” The thin voice in the doorway pulled our focus immediately.
There he was, still bundled in his coat and a beanie cap that said Excelsior! in bold red letters across the front.
God, we were both shitty parents—Ellen and I. So wrapped up in ourselves and the same old argument that we couldn’t even notice the kid we were looking for when he came home.
“Aaron!” Ellen ran to him, enveloping him in her arms. “You’re here! You’re all right! We were so worried! We called the police and your dad came over and I was out of my mind…”
Her relief at his appearance quickly faded and the anxiety of the night crept in to take its place. She pulled out of her embrace and gripped him tightly by the upper arms. “Where the hell have you been, young man? How dare you frighten us like that!”
“I went out!” he answered defiantly.
“To that damn YouTube meetup with your friends, didn’t you? The one I said absolutely not to when you asked if you could go?”
His guilty expression told the answer as much as his silence.
I hung back and watched, my own relief seeping in slowly and heavily, trapping me like quicksand. What could have happened? What might have been? This late on the streets of a busy city. Barely a teenager.
It was easier not to think about. Easier to just watch and sink.
They made an odd tableau, the two of them. Ellen, who stood on the upper side of average, barraging Aaron, who nearly stood as tall as she did these days, with her verbal onslaught. How long before she lost all control over him? Soon, if she wasn’t careful. Soon if she hadn’t already.
But could I even judge her parenting? Was I any better of a father, absent as I was? And, truth be told, I would have been yelling myself hoarse if she hadn’t taken the lead. If I weren’t drowning in my emotions. If I weren’t remembering Audrey’s last words to me—Listen to what he has to say.
So far, he hadn’t much to say at all. Or, rather, Ellen hadn’t given him much chance for a defense. She didn’t let up, in fact, until she seemed to remember the police were on the case. She stormed out of the room to retrieve her phone and make the call.
Left alone together, Aaron chanced a glance in my direction. I could feel the frown on my face. Could imagine the disappointment he saw on my features. It was no surprise that he hung his head sullenly in response.
I took a breath and forced the tension from my body. “Aaron…” I began carefully.
“I know already,” he snapped, throwing his beanie on his desk. He unzipped his coat and threw it over the back of the chair. “Mom said everything, okay. You don’t need to be involved. Why are you even here?”
Because I’m your father. Because I love you, you idiot.
I forgot, sometimes, that the teenager method of communication was very often brutal and unforgiving.
Another breath. Another careful start. “You went to a YouTube thing? What sort of event was this?”
“Just a thing that the guys from the AV club were going to.” His back was to me, but I felt his eagerness to share as well as his reluctance to do so.
“Was it a concert? A seminar?”
With a sigh that resembled so many of my own, Aaron turned to me. “Just a YouTube personality. Two of them, actually. Jacksepticeye and Markiplier. They’re friends so sometimes they do their meetups together.”
“And you get their autographs? Is it like those comic conventions?” I was so out of touch with today’s culture.
He gave me a frustrated glare. “No, Dad. It’s like...they’re YouTubers. They do shows. They’re famous.”
“Oh.” I didn’t have any better understanding now than before. “Are they inappropriate? Was that why your mother didn’t want you to go?”
“Not really. They’re just...normal. They comment on video games while they play. Mom didn’t want me to go because she said I needed to get my homework done tonight since I wouldn’t get any done tomorrow because of Thanksgiving and then after that you and I are doing that ski trip.” He paused as he toed off his shoes. “I would have rather skipped Connecticut, but nobody asked me.”
Again, that cruelty. I wondered how much of his ability to hurt me had been learned from his mother. How much he’d inherited from me. How two broken people could raise a boy to become a whole man.
Ellen had defeated me that way. She’d destroyed parts of me that I’d never have back. She’d made me bitter and cruel in return.
I vowed not to be that man to my son.
“You could have told me. I would have canceled my dinner plans tonight to take you to the event.”
His eyes lifted to meet mine, surprised and curious.
“And we can cut Connecticut short. Come back Saturday night instead. If you’d like. So you can get caught up on your homework on Sunday.”
“Really?” He grinned. “Thanks, Dad. That would help.”
“No worries.” I stepped forward to tousle his hair. It was as much physical affection as he allowed these days, and even that he often pulled away from. This time he tolerated it, and it made up for the disappointment at losing an entire day of his company.
And I couldn’t say I’d been completely selfless in giving up the day with him, anyway. I had other ideas of how I wanted to spend that time.
* * *
I shut the door to the den behind me and slumped against it. “Well, that was terrible.”
“Tell me about it,” said Donovan, who had led me to his father’s office with the promise of “fucking escape.” He surely needed it more than I did—this was his parent’s house, not mine. The Thanksgiving meal we’d suffered through with all its pomp and circumstance had to be more of an affront to him, and I had been quite offended.
“Are all people this terrible?” I asked, crossing over to the bar to scour for a decent alcohol.
Donovan finished cutting the cap off a cigar and stuck it between his teeth. “Rich people are.”
“Thank God we aren’t them,” I said cheekily. “Looks like we have the option of bourbon or bourbon.” I held up both overpriced bottles so he could choose.
He looked up. “The Michter. It’s more expensive. We’ve earned it.” He toasted his cigar, drew in a puff, and rotated it until the heat was evenly distributed. “You’ll like this though. Illusione Epernay. It’s mild the way you Europeans tend to like things.”
He handed me a cut cigar in exchange for one of the glasses I’d poured. I sniffed the foot. It smelled like coffee and cedar and, when I drew off it myself a few moments later, I detected floral and honey notes as well.
�
��Very nice.” I sank into the oversized leather armchair and crossed my ankle over the opposite knee, letting the tension in my shoulders uncoil with the pleasant body of the tobacco. “Are all holidays with your family as awful as this one?” With more than two dozen high-class guests, the day had been filled with pageantry and performance. Much like this office with its overabundance of wood paneling and the gold-plated details. What a nightmare of a life.
“I couldn’t tell you.” He plopped into the rolling chair and leaned back to prop his feet on the massive desk in front of him. “I don’t spend time with them for a reason.”
“But now you’re in the States. For good?” He hadn’t given any indication that he was returning to the Japan office anytime soon, but with Donovan, you could never be too sure what his plans were.
He hesitated, either uncertain of the answer or uncertain he wanted to share it. Finally, he said, “For good.”
“I’m guessing Sabrina Lind has something to do with that.” I was fishing, and it was obvious. Hopefully it wasn’t as evident that the person I was really curious about was Sabrina’s sister, and he’d unwittingly tell me something useful.
Donovan had never been one to show his cards, though. Even years ago when I’d first met him. When he’d practically been engaged to my stepdaughter.
He wasn’t eager to show them now, either. “We’ll see. We’ll see.”
“I’m somewhat surprised she isn’t here today, after that scene you made the other night. Declaring you were her boyfriend right there on the streets of Manhattan.”
He gave me a sharp glare. “It wasn’t a scene. It was a necessary declaration.” Then, after a beat, “She’s spending the day with her sister. I didn’t want to interrupt.”
Neither did I, which was why I was poking around for information. As she’d asked, I’d sent Audrey a text the night before when I’d gotten back to my apartment after Aaron had been found. It had been short and factual.
Dylan: He’s home. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.
A Billionaire for Christmas Page 69
