The Naughty Step (Billionaire Book Club 2) Page 10

  “Would you rather call it a date?”

  “I don’t think my girlfriend would like that.”

  A smile crept over my face at the thought of Zoe. She was already suspicious of a “book club” that promoted the summary takeaway of a novel as “bitches be crazy.” So we’re not Oprah. Sue us.

  “Girlfriend, huh?” A small plate of antipasti showed up at the pass to the kitchen, and Marcus reached for it.

  “Yeah, I guess so.” I was surprisingly comfortable with the idea.

  “Well, I could do better than your sorry ass anyhow. What’s she doing tonight?”

  “Having dinner with her mother.” Who happened to be staying in a different hotel than my father. Zuzu had been disappointed in her husband’s lack of “enlightenment” and was rethinking their spiritual connection—according to Zoe. There was something else in there about Tantric sex voodoo, which I was trying to wipe out of my memory. At least his little temper tantrum had made him accountable in one way, to one person—even if it wasn’t me.

  Marcus popped a piece of octopus in his mouth and made a whipping sound and gesture.

  I raised an eyebrow at him. “Am I supposed to be offended by that? You think I’m pussy-whipped?” I wasn’t about to tell him it was partly true—on both counts.

  He blinked his gray eyes innocently, swallowing before speaking. “No, I was wondering how she likes your toy chest.”

  “She likes it fine. But we—I got rid of some stuff.”

  “Not into it anymore?”

  I shrugged, spearing a piece of unidentifiable cheese. Vanilla could taste just as good as chocolate. Actually, it was more versatile; you could combine a lot of different flavors with vanilla.

  It was telling that the most intimate moments of my life spent with my father usually involved a lot of alcohol. In vino veritas. One Christmas when I was home from school—and he also deigned to be there—he caught me sneaking into the liquor cabinet. Instead of being pissed off, he just got me pissed. In that first bender with Ben I heard his sodden, bitter confession that my mother left us because she met someone in the BDSM scene.

  When I was younger, my dad told me Mom ran away to join the circus. After that night, I realized he was only half-joking.

  At the age of fifteen, I had some idea of what he was talking about, but not entirely. It took a month, a couple of questionable specialty stores, and some screeching modems before I had a clue of what BDSM was. Of course, I was curious. I was also a hormone bomb with good looks, money, and a complete misunderstanding of women. It was a recipe for disaster.

  In retrospect, I was a little shocked I’d managed to have any relationship at all. I’d figured out that my desire to spank women had to do with Mommy issues, without having to pay for a psychoanalyst’s renovations to their place in the Hamptons. It also served the purpose of supremely annoying my father.

  But it was also seriously hot. I got off on it. On the control. On making them feel something while I detached myself from it all. Recently I’d been more disconnected than ever, not having much of a life outside of work until my new stepsister flashed me from the elevator.

  That’s why falling for Zoe was so… unnerving.

  Marcus whistled, pulling out of my navel-gazing. “Man, you’re in love with this chick? I thought she just had a magic pussy or something.”

  In a flash I loomed over my friend, shoving the long neck of the hot sauce bottle into his throat like it was a sword. “Don’t talk about her like that.”

  “Put that away before someone gets hurt. Nathan, people pay me thousands and thousands of dollars to help them reach their potential in life. I’ll give you a freebie here—you think this girl is your potential? Is she your lobster?” His smirk was accompanied by air quotes.

  “My lobster? People pay you for this shit?” Slowly, I withdrew the threat of the hot sauce and placed it back on the table with a clunk. “She’s… I don’t know.”

  “You don’t know, or you don’t want to say it out loud? If you can’t say it out loud, it’s not truth. You need to own it. Is this Toulouse sausage? Nice!”

  Marcus Blake may be very good at what he did, but that didn’t mean I had to like it. I was silently fuming when my phone buzzed. I looked down, my stomach twisting like the soft pretzels that came with the meat and cheese plate.

  -Staying with mom tonight. Need some space.

  What did that mean? My fingers flew over the phone. I could almost hear her heavy sigh across town.

  -I don’t want you to change for me. You shouldn’t have to. I just need some breathing room to figure out what I want.

  “Okay, maybe she’s not your lobster,” Marcus mused to himself while examining an olive.

  I stared at my phone, my heart tripping. Had I pushed her away?

  “Is she a fling?” Marcus continued. “Is she a revenge fuck or something? Or do you think she’s pushing you into something you’re not ready for?” For all his perception and insight, he was totally unaware that my lobster was trying to climb out of the pot. “You can tell me,” he assured me. “I won’t even charge you.”

  “How fucking magnanimous of you.” I shook my head.

  Marcus bowed from his seat. I refrained from clonking him upside the head with the giant bottle of hot sauce.

  “I’m not telling you shit.” I grabbed my discarded blazer and hooked it over my shoulder with my thumb. “Meeting adjourned.”

  20

  Nathan

  It’s a little known fact that there is a rip in the space-time continuum in the lobby bar of a swanky hotel in midtown Manhattan. That’s all I could assume since my father and I were drinking together while we stalked our, well, women. We were like contrite, confused puppies hovering downstairs hoping they’d talk to us.

  It was truly a low point in my life.

  Zoe had asked for space, which my brain interpreted as “please come over and act like a possessive asshole”—at least that’s what she hissed to me in the hallway outside Zuzu’s suite.

  “You have space at home. Sleep in the den. I’ll leave you alone.” I wasn’t going to beg, but I would ask nicely. “Please.”

  Her blue eyes were pink and a little swollen, like she’d been crying. I hoped to God she’d been commiserating with her mother or something, because I didn’t want to make her cry. I wanted to make her cry with delight and crazy finger-tingling orgasms, not sadness.

  “Nathan, there have been a lot of changes in my life in the last few months—a lot of discoveries. I’ve got to stop for a minute. You should, too. You don’t know what you want.”

  I leaned against the flocked wallpaper in the hallway. “Now you’re being patronizing. Don’t give me that bullshit. I’m a grown man, and so far in life I’ve been pretty damn good at getting what I want. Right now I want you. And I thought you wanted me, too.”

  “I do.” She looked down at the patterned carpet. Her nail polish was peeling on her bare feet, and her tank top and short pants almost looked like pajamas. I wanted to bury my face into the bright cloud of her hair like I would smell a wild rose. “I… love you,” she said. “But I feel like I’m pushing you into something you’re not really ready for.”

  I tugged at my hair, huffing with exasperation. “Give me a little credit. Jesus! You’re acting like I’m the new college grad in this scenario.” Immediately I regretted my words.

  Her lips parted in surprise. “Well, age doesn’t always mean maturity. Evidently.”

  “Maybe you’re the one who isn’t ready for a real relationship.” I hated the petulant tone in my voice, and the words. Judging from the hurt in her eyes, Zoe wanted to ask me if the fancy handmade shoes in my mouth tasted good.

  Might as well go for broke. “I could make you come home with me.” I bent down and hauled her over my shoulder. My hands clamped onto the back of her thighs as her head hung upside down.

  “What the hell? Nathan!” This time she spanked me, her little hands flapping at my backside in protest. “P
ut me down!”

  I couldn’t help myself. I landed a swift, sharp smack to her ass. She yelped, but stilled, dangling over my shoulder. I won’t lie—she wasn’t light, and I was absolutely about to put her down, but I wanted her to know I really wanted her. It was mutual. As she shifted, I could smell her arousal through her thin pants. My dick jumped in response, but he was going to be disappointed tonight.

  As was my heart.

  Bending my knees, I slid her down the front of me to the floor, but still held her in my arms. Her face was red, partly from the blood rushing to it, and partly from the unreadable expression on her face. Humiliation? Excitement? Anger? Either way, she was beautiful. My pants tightened, and I tried to calm myself.

  “I’ll give you tonight.” She opened her mouth to protest, but I held up my hand. “We can discuss it more tomorrow. But the second you want to leave here and come home, I’ll be waiting for you.”

  She nodded. I knew Zoe loved me, in spite of—or maybe because of—my fucked-upness. What I wanted her to know was that I loved her. So far she wasn’t convinced. Part of me wanted to punish her for wanting my brand of crazy, but that wasn’t fair to either of us.

  She pressed her palm to my cheek. “Thanks.” I felt her fingertips on my cheekbone like a branding iron.

  She knocked on the door of her mother’s suite, and it opened enough for her to slip in. I guessed Zuzu didn’t want to see me, either.

  Presumably she didn’t want to see my father, as well, since I found him haunting the ornate bar just off the lobby. It was full of dark wood, clinking glassware, and the hum of business travelers and tourists. Benjamin Brownlow sat on a barstool, staring at his phone. A glass of what looked like scotch sat in front of him. I squeezed my eyes shut, hoping he might not be there when I opened them. No such luck. In fairness to Zoe and Zuzu, though, I would extend an olive branch.

  “A watched phone never rings,” I said as I settled onto a stool beside him. The long, mahogany bar gleamed, smooth under my palms.

  He grunted, but didn’t look at me. I caught the eye of the bartender and put up two fingers, waving them between me and Ben. He looked a little more normal, wearing a plain white shirt and dark pants, his beard trimmed. The lines around his eyes had deepened.

  “What?” he snapped into the dark mirror of his silent phone. “What are you looking at?”

  “You.” I sipped my scotch, welcoming the burn.

  It occurred to me that it had been years since I really looked at my father. I’d never looked too closely, in fact—only seeing whatever my anger or loneliness or frustration projected onto him. Right now, I saw a sad man in his sixties, surrounded by people and completely alone. Awareness and fear sliced through me; could that be me someday? Fuck, I hoped not.

  “She’s going to leave me.”

  “Zuzu? I don’t think so.”

  “She should. They all do.” Zuzu was my father’s fourth wife, the previous two being short-lived trophy wives. “Except I don’t have that much money left, so maybe there isn’t the incentive there used to be,” he pointed out drily. He reached for his scotch, glancing up at me. “What are you doing here?”

  “Zoe’s with Zuzu.”

  His eyebrows went up, his brow wrinkling. “Really? Huh.”

  “You’re not going to say ‘good for her if she leaves your ass’ or something like that?”

  With one tilt of his head, he swallowed the rest of his scotch. He put the glass down with a clunk and reached for the round I’d ordered. I had the feeling he’d had more before I sat down.

  “You know, it’s my fault your mother left.”

  Yep, he’d definitely had more to drink.

  “Dad, I don’t need to—”

  “It was my idea.”

  Fuck. My scotch caught in my throat as I almost aspirated it. I coughed into a cocktail napkin, my eyes watering. That wasn’t the kind of burn I was looking for. “What?” I managed.

  He focused on his phone again. “Not the leaving. God, I didn’t want her to leave. But I… I was the one who… uh… introduced her to…” He couldn’t finish, hiding his guilt and shame in his lowball glass.

  I nearly fell off the stool. “You—” I couldn’t say it. Yeah, I could dish it but I couldn’t wish it.

  He sighed. “Once upon a time, I was curious. I took her to this stupid swingers’ club. The end.” Ben emptied his glass, again.

  There was surely more to the story, but at that moment I didn’t want to know it. Rage and sadness swept through me, rendering me speechless. Unfortunately, scotch and shame served only to loosen my father’s tongue, and he continued.

  “That’s why I reacted so badly to you getting into it. It ruined our family; I didn’t want it to ruin yours too.”

  “Mom leaving didn’t ruin our family, Dad. You did that afterwards by checking out. Now you’re telling me it was because of your own guilt? Wow, way to be a martyr. It’s still about you.”

  Ben slammed his fist down on the bar. “Nathan, you’re not listening. Don’t take Zoe down that path if you want to have a happy life.”

  “Zoe and I are grown ups, and we make our own decisions.” Awareness began filtering through my brain. “Just like you and Mom made your decisions. You decided to take her there. She decided to leave. You decided to treat me like shit. It’s not my fault. None of it was my fault.”

  Mind officially blown. Now the only person being punished was myself, by hanging on to this resentment. I stared at him, this stranger with the beard and watering eyes. He’d fucked up his own life, and mine in the process.

  Shit, Marcus was right about therapy.

  21

  Zoe

  As I couldn’t stand wearing underwear more than once, I had to go home eventually. Panties and work performance were the deciding factors.

  I figured that my contributions to the safe sex PSA might not be taken seriously if I came to work in the same clothes two days in a row, appearing like I was doing the walk of shame. My internship was nearly at an end, and if I couldn’t leverage it into an entry-level job, I would have to look elsewhere. I wanted to stay in Nath—New York. I wanted to stay in New York.

  Mom decided that Benny had been in the doghouse enough. So she allowed him to “enlighten” her room, and I headed back to Nathan’s. Hotel security’s concern over her husband’s long hours in the bar probably had something to do with their kissy-face reunion.

  I thought about texting Nathan to let him know I was going home, but I wasn’t sure what kind of welcome I’d get. Benny said that he’d been in a shitty mood in the bar, but it was debatable how much was due to me or just a reflection of his relationship with his son.

  It was just after seven in the morning when I snuck in the door, but stealth probably wasn’t necessary. It was too quiet in the apartment for Nathan to be awake, and when asleep he was practically comatose. I toed off my shoes and put down my purse by the door, and padded over to the bedroom.

  The morning light sliced through the blinds on the window, leaving shadows on the bed like prison bars. My heart stuttered when I saw him sleeping. Somehow, in his subconscious, he’d stayed on “his” side of the bed. He’d pulled the covers up to his neck, his tanned face and brown hair standing out against the fluffy white quilt like he was a marshmallow toasted too long on one side.

  I wanted to snuggle up next to him, but I felt a fight or flight response coming on.

  Maybe he was right, and I was the one who was scared of having a real, adult relationship—because despite the occasional tantrum, Nathan had been a grown-up a good ten years longer than I had. Did I resent him for that? I wondered. There were times when his authoritarian side was a real turn-on, but then there were times I probably acted like a passive-aggressive brat—and not in a sexy way.

  He shifted in his sleep, turning away from me to face the window. I let out a quiet sigh, not sure if I was relieved or sad he hadn’t woken up. More than anything in the world at that moment, I wanted to see those viv
id green eyes on me, crinkled at the edges in a wicked smile.

  Fight was winning out over flight in my evolutionary biology. I was going to fight for him, and I’d start by fighting dirty.

  I wondered if he’d mind if I crawled under the covers and woke him in a more intimate fashion. Who was I kidding? What man would turn down a morning blowjob?

  That’s it. I was going to do it. I began shucking my clothes, imagining the look on his face when I took his big, gorgeous cock in my mouth. My panties were getting damp just thinking about it—his eyes opening to satisfied slits, a moan drifting out of his mouth, his hot, silky skin under my lips and tongue.

  I would insinuate myself between his legs, nudging his knees open as I lay between his thighs. My hands would slide up his quads, my thumbs caressing the muscular grooves of his groin before touching the dark hairs surrounding his erection.

  And he would have morning wood—I was almost certain of it. Experience, education, and reading too many romances filled me with confidence that his cock would be hot, hard, and musky from sleep.

  I licked my lips, almost able to taste the bitter salt of his pre-cum. I couldn’t wait to feel him bob against my chin as I approached, rising reflexively like a dowsing stick searching for a fountain of youth.

  Wait a second. Was I the fountain of youth in that metaphor? Ick. I shook my head, my breathing heavy and my nipples tender and tingling with excitement. I stepped over my discarded clothes to the end of the bed. I was ready, so ready for him.

  There was only one thing stopping me—my suitcase. It was standing sentry at the end of the bed, zipped and ready to go. I went cold all over.

  Oh my god. Was he moving me out?

  My choppy breathing turned to gasps of heart-squeezing panic. I wrapped my arms around my naked body, my knees bumping against my suitcase. This time when he stirred, he woke.