“Good. You bought it.” She lifts the phone on the vanity and presses a button. “Well, I bought it for you. But you paid for it.”
“You spoil me.” I can’t wait any longer. I must touch her. Anywhere. Everywhere. I can’t get enough of this woman.
“What do you want for dinner?”
“You,” I answer without hesitating.
She covers the receiver of the hotel phone. “I’m trying to place an order.”
“You,” I move her hand and repeat loud enough to be overheard.
She orders two steaks and potatoes, something else and something after that. I’m not listening anymore, having buried my face in her cleavage. By the time my hand slides past the barrier of her panties, she gasps and finishes her order with, “And champagne.”
“Champagne,” I say against her parted lips, while I part her other lips with my fingers and give her a tender stroke. She’s already wet and the smooth creaminess of her threatens to buckle my knees.
“Twenty to thirty minutes,” she breathes as she drops the phone.
“I can work with that.”
Her eyes flash with lust and heat. This is my favorite look on Vivian Vandemark, hands down.
“I’m supposed to be taking care of you,” she gasps as I stroke into her again.
“Plenty of time for that,” I promise. But of course, she doesn’t listen. She grabs my cock and tugs. Then we make good use of those twenty to thirty minutes.
We’re still naked when our food arrives. I wrap a towel around my waist and answer the door, palming the guy a one hundred dollar bill. He nods his appreciation and leaves as quickly as he arrives.
As I wheel the cart into the bathroom, Vivian is slipping into the tub. She added bubble bath and more hot water and now those bubbles are teetering at the edge.
“Dinner in the tub.” She slicks bubbles up her arms. “It’s been too long since I indulged.”
I drop my towel and climb in after her. “This’ll be a first for me.”
Her face lights up. “You poor sheltered boy.”
“Deprived,” I joke, but after I say it, it doesn’t feel like a joke. I have a lot, but there’s always been something missing.
“You look like you’re thinking hard about something. What is it?”
She must’ve caught me at a good moment because I tell her. Sex always limbers up my body. I didn’t know my tongue was as susceptible.
“I was thinking…about this morning. How I felt walking into this room. How I was the same but different.”
She cocks her head, listening. Wanting to understand.
“I tried to take care of my parents. When I couldn’t, I focused on taking care of myself. And when I was adopted by the Owens, and realized theirs was my permanent home, I decided to take care of them.” I let out a heavy sigh, understanding what made me feel light tonight after such a heavy morning. It was more than sex. “You… This.” I gesture to the cart. It’s choked with dishes, condiments, and silverware, a bucket holding a bottle of champagne, and look at that, a whiskey neat. “I’m not used to being taken care of.”
“You should try it more often.” She hands me the short glass. “It’s actually quite nice.”
“You didn’t have to do this. After the way I treated you, I half expected you to be pissed off when I came back.”
“You had a tough morning, Nate. That doesn’t erase everything that happened before it.”
Fuck, she’s sweet. It’s nice to be understood. To be seen. To be taken care of, my needs anticipated.
I set my glass aside and wrap my arms around her waist. She turns and I pull her back against my front. She’s soft and warm and beautiful. I cop a feel because I can’t help myself, but I’m sincere when I rumble the words, “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.” She squeezes her arms over mine.
“Tomorrow we’ll scout a few options for your father’s remains.” I kiss the edge of her ear to soften the blow. Instead of stiffening against me, she tilts her head and looks up at me. I’m lost in her brown eyes. Even more lost when she smiles softly.
“Sounds good.”
I ease into the warmth of her embrace, a good glass of whiskey, and, after, we eat steaks in the bathtub and talk about our day. I could get used to this.
Hell. I already am.
Vivian
We’re standing over my mother’s grave. The day is windy, cloudy, and warm. The marker reads “daughter, sister, wife, mother” and makes me remember that somewhere I have an uncle. Dad took him for all he was worth. Last I heard he was living in Colorado, but who knows where Stephen escaped to. He didn’t have anything to do with us after Mom died. He held Walt and me as accountable as he did our father for destroying her. It was unfair.
Or maybe, I think with a hefty dose of perspective, it hurt too much to be around us after she was gone.
Nate is standing off to the side. Not hovering, an effort to give me privacy. A patch of grass is next to Mom’s tombstone. That spot was designated for Dad, but putting him to rest here seems wrong. For a lot of reasons.
“I don’t want to bury him here.” The moment it’s out of my mouth I know it’s the right call.
“Okay.” Nate comes closer.
I haven’t taken my eyes off the flowers we brought. A huge bouquet of daisies. They were her favorite.
“I don’t want people to see his name and then look over at my mom and think ‘that poor woman.’ I want her to have dignity. They weren’t in love for years, you know,” I say, half talking to him and half talking to myself. “They were more like business partners. There was a chill in the air whenever he came home from work. We all noticed. The jumpy house staff. Walt, when he was there, would climb into himself and disappear. That’s how Mom did it too.”
“And you dealt with it by being angry.”
I nod. Mostly, that’s true. “It hurt to feel hurt.”
“Yeah. It does.”
I turn and look up at him. His hair blows in the breeze. His hands are deep in his suit pants pockets, and his tie kicks from a particularly forceful gust of wind. He knows what it’s like to hurt. His own mother disowned him—after being paid off by the Owens to take custody of him.
“Do you hate him? Your biological father?” I ask.
He pulls in a chest-expanding inhalation and looks around the cemetery. “I used to hate him. Now I feel sorry for him.”
“What about your mom?”
He pulls one hand from his pocket and pushes the sleeve up. Plucking one of the fat beads on the bracelet between finger and thumb, he says, “She gave me this. One of the only gifts I remember her giving to me. I keep it because it reminds me that, at least once, she cared.” My heart aches for him. He frowns. “I don’t hate her. I feel betrayed. On some level. On another, healthier level, I understand she can’t help it.”
“It’s exhausting, isn’t it? To keep making excuses for their behavior when it affects you so much?”
I turn back to my mom’s grave and a tidal wave of emotion slams into me. I’d like to think it came out of nowhere, but I know better. It’s been lodged in my ribcage for most of my life.