The Boss (29 page)

I guess I really do get off on anticipation
more than anything else, because switching positions seemed to take
a lifetime, and I relished every second of it. He caught my hair
and wrapped it around his fist, jerking my head back. "Is this all
right?"

"Yes!" I pounded my hand against the
mattress. "Please just fuck me already."

He drove into me so hard that I lost my
balance and my teeth knocked together, but he didn't let up. I'd
asked for this, and a hard, punishing fuck was what I would get. I
howled my relief as he pounded into me, my hands clenching the
sheets until my knuckles were white. Every time I slipped down,
unable to hold myself up under the force of his thrusts, he pulled
me back up, going deeper, bringing inarticulate shouts from my
throat.

"Like that, Sophie," he growled, jerking on
my hair. "Let me hear you."

His other hand caught me around the waist,
pulled me half up so all I could do was lean on his arm as he
shoved two fingers between my folds to rub my clit.

"I'm coming!" I gasped in total disbelief at
the intensity building to a rapid breaking point. How could he do
this to me? How could he make me want him so much, so fast? I was
almost furious at him for his easy knowledge of my body. But it's
really hard to hold a grudge during an orgasm. I came screaming his
name, spasming all around him.

He let go of me, let me fall forward and
followed me as I went down, pressing me into the mattress as he
groaned with his release.

"There," he said, out of breath, slipping
from my body a little more with each heartbeat. "Isn't that so much
better than a cab home in the dead of night?"

I wiggled beneath him, and he rolled off me.
I sat up, tucking the cushiony duvet around my chest and beneath my
arms. "Okay. You proved your point. Overnights are pretty
awesome."

"You should respect the wisdom of your
elders," he said with a tired chuckle.

"Oh, the wisdom that sent me home with no
panties on one of the very first times we fucked?" I reminded
him.

"And you learned an important lesson from
that, didn't you?" He reached for a few tissues from the box on the
nightstand. When he’d disposed of the condom in the small trash
basket beside the bed, he pulled me down beside him. I happily
snuggled in at his side. His arm was trapped under my waist, and
his hand splayed at the small of my back, sliding down to squeeze
my bottom. "You didn't wear panties this time, did you?"

"No, but I did bring some." I nibbled my
lower lip and batted my eyes at him. "More black ones. Boy shorts,
very cute. I'm sure you wouldn't be interested."

He pulled me up tighter, his fingers digging
into my ass. "Why don't you put them on and see how interested I
am?"

"Okay, even you must have a refractory
period, horny as you are," I pointed out. "Besides, I left my bag
in the foyer."

"Why don't you run out there and get it?" He
kissed the tip of my nose. "Then come back and sit in my lap,
wearing nothing but those panties. I will make it worth your
while."

I took a breath, the imagined picture of
Neil's hand down the front of my panties searing through my
mind.

"Okay, but it's chilly in here. I'm taking
your sweater." I rolled out of the bed with considerable
difficulty. Seriously, I had no idea how Neil got up in the
mornings at all. The damn thing was so comfortable and cushiony, I
would call into work every single day and just lay around.

I picked up his sweater from the floor in the
closet and tugged it over my head. It hung to mid-thigh on me, and
I had to roll the sleeves back.

"You wear that better than I do," he quipped.
"Go on then. I want you at least once more before breakfast."

I giggled and hurried out of the room,
sucking in my breath when my toes encountered the cold marble in
the foyer. He really needed to get those floor-level heating things
all around the entire apartment. I scooped up my bag, then stopped.
I smelled coffee.

Huh. That's weird.
I thought he'd
given his housekeeper the weekend off. Maybe he had one of those
coffee machines with a timer on it. That would be amazing. I could
take a cup back to bed for him. I set my bag down and sprinted on
tip-toes through the living room and dining room.

I was grinning like an idiot at the thought
of having my morning coffee with a side of Neil when I pushed
through the kitchen door. Then it all fell spectacularly apart.
There was a woman seated at the kitchen counter. I gave a startled
yelp at the sight of her.

She smiled like a Bond villain and tilted her
head to one side, warbling a falsely chipper, "Good morning."

It was Emma. Oh god, it was Neil's
daughter.

Chapter Fifteen

"Sophie?" Neil
called from somewhere far off in the apartment, alarmed. He must
have heard my startled shriek.

In hindsight, I should have yelled back, "I'm
fine," or "It's just your daughter," but all I could think was that
he would come stampeding into the kitchen naked before I had a
chance to tell him anything at all. It was bad enough I was
standing there in his sweater, and nothing else, in front of Emma.
So I shouted a loud, hysterical, "Have pants on!"

"Oh, that's lovely. Thank you, for that,"
Emma said, blinking and turning back to the magazine open on the
counter. She had a cup of coffee beside her, too, and the dinner
from last night had been cleared away.

So... she had been there for a while.
Great.

Neil came into the kitchen behind me, tying
the belt of a black bathrobe. His expression changed from concern
to confusion to horror in an impressively short span of time.
"Emma? What are you doing here?"

"I was supposed to be here. We spoke earlier
this week." Her gaze raked me up and down. "But you must have had
other things on your mind."

"You were coming in on the twenty-ninth," he
asserted, as though just saying it aloud would somehow reverse the
entire, horrible, situation we were in.

"The twenty-eighth." She lifted her mug and
sipped from it. "I suppose when Tony wasn't at the airport, that
should have been my first clue that you'd gotten the date wrong.
Again."

"How, uh," Neil cleared his throat. "When did
you get here?"

"I got here right around, 'I want you to fuck
me harder.'" She lifted her eyebrows and blinked innocently at him,
challenging her father to some silent battle of wills.

I heard Neil's sharply indrawn breath behind
me. "I suddenly very much regret the way the morning has gone thus
far."

I tugged the bottom of the sweater down. It
could have reached the floor, but I would have still felt way
naked. Emma had already heard me having sex with her dad, she
didn't need the full peep show. "I'm going to just... go."

"You don't have to go," Neil said, following
me into the dining room. He looked briefly at the swinging kitchen
door, then back down at me. He lowered his voice so we wouldn't be
overheard.
Oh yeah, now he thinks of that.

"Stay. Have breakfast. It's the least I can
do."

"No, you don’t owe me anything," I said
quietly. "You mixed up some dates, no big. We can get together
another weekend."

"No, I insist. Please, there's no reason you
can't be here, just because Emma is. We're all adults. I'm sure I
don't need to explain myself to her." He put his hand on my upper
arm, his thumb kneading my flesh through the sweater. "Look, go get
dressed, and I'll talk to her. It could be a blessing in disguise,
the two of you meeting. You might really like each other.”

Too late
, I thought, but I didn't
argue with him. This was the absolute worst way he could have
introduced his daughter and me. It would have been preferable if
we'd never met at all. Since Neil and I weren't serious, there was
no reason to play 'meet the family'. I wasn't about to take him
home to my mom or anything. Hell, I hadn't even mentioned I was
seeing someone when I'd spoken to her last. It was just easier that
way.

But, he really wanted me to stay, for
whatever reason, and I wasn't going to strain things between the
two of us. I would get dressed and join them for dysfunctional
family breakfast. I had a feeling Emma would make a stronger case
for why the whole thing was fucked up than I ever could.

I mean, really
, I thought to myself as
I donned the tight jeans and snug, long-sleeved, v-neck t-shirt I’d
packed intending to look casually hot for Neil. Now, I worried
about how much cleavage it showed.

A lot. The answer was a lot of cleavage.

If you'd caught your mom with some guy
your age, you would react the same way.
He wouldn’t even have
to be my age. I'd run off a pretty impressive string of
chronologically appropriate men when I'd been a teenager and my mom
had dipped her toes back into the dating pool. Maybe if Emma and I
had met through work or friends, we would have had no problem with
each other. But once you threw in that whole pesky part about me
fucking her dad? I really couldn't hold it against her if she
didn’t want to become instant BFFs.

I dragged a brush through my hair and pulled
it back in a low ponytail. Neil came in just as I was about to
brave the kitchen again.

"Sue left a quiche in the refrigerator, it's
heating up now. We can eat it while my vegan daughter judges us
accordingly.” He went straight to the closet. When he emerged, he
was wearing sweatpants and a cheap blue t-shirt from a half
marathon.

This was, with the exception of nakedness,
just about the most casual I'd ever seen him. And it was bizarrely
hot.

He picked up speaking as though he’d never
stopped. “This is all my fault, because if I had mentioned it to
Sue, she would have made something else for breakfast, but I forgot
what day my only child would be returning from London. Let me
reiterate: I forgot that my daughter would be zooming across the
North Atlantic in a flying metal death trap.” He sat on the sofa,
thumb and fingers spread across his eyes to massage his
temples.

“So...” I sat beside him and rubbed his back
absently. “So, the talking didn’t go great then?”

“Not at all.” He stretched his face down with
his hands. “And I have to go back in there.”

"Oh my god." I coughed a disbelieving laugh.
"You want me here for this because you're afraid."

"I- um." he stammered. "Yes, I suppose I am.
It’s going to be insufferably awkward. And I don't want to go
through it alone."

"Don't you think it's only going to be worse
if I stay?" I asked, getting to my feet.

"Perhaps, but..." he sighed. "I like being
with you. I don't want to cut our time together short. And your
presence generally improves my life, so if I’m going to endure the
most uncomfortable father-daughter breakfast ever, I might as well
do it with you beside me for moral support."

"Fair enough. I helped make the problem." I
leaned down and kissed his deliciously rough cheek. I felt a
momentary twinge of disappointment that we wouldn't be putting that
stubble to better use today, after all.

Back in the kitchen, Emma was sitting at the
breakfast nook, staring intently down at her phone.

Neil cleared his throat, and when she looked
up, lifting one eyebrow in an eerie impersonation of her father, he
said patiently, "Emma, I didn't have a chance to introduce you
before. This is my girlfriend Sophie. Sophie, this is my daughter,
Emma."

Excuse me, girlfriend? What?
Now was
definitely not the time for that conversation, though. I really
didn't want to have to explain to this stranger that I was involved
in a no-strings, friends-with-benefits relationship with her
father.
Oh, no worries, we’re just having hot, meaningless sex
is all. Doesn’t that sound so much better, Emma?

"Nice to meet you, Sophie," Emma said, but
she didn't try to shake my hand. “I didn’t know my father had a
girlfriend. So soon after his divorce.”

Neither did I.
I slid onto the seat
opposite her, and scooted down the bench to make room for Neil.
Emma looked immediately back at her phone, and Neil was busy taking
the quiche out of the microwave, so I distracted myself by
examining the framed photos on the wall above the breakfast nook.
There was a much younger Neil, holding a smiling, pink-cheeked
toddler in his arms at what appeared to be a polo match. In
another, the same girl, older, with pigtails in her hair, stood
proudly in front of a sign that read "Llewellyn Academy". In the
next one, Emma at age six or seven held a springer spaniel puppy in
her lap.

"That was Merry," Neil explained, and when I
looked to him, his eyes were on the photo. He slid the quiche onto
a trivet in the center of the table then turned to get some plates.
"I bought her for Emma for Christmas one year. You should have seen
the look on her face when she came downstairs and there was a real
puppy, sleeping in its bed right in front of the Christmas
tree."

"And that is exactly the kind of charming
tableau we try to discourage, dad." Emma set her phone aside at the
sound of the toaster. She slid from her seat and retrieved her
bagel, returning to the table with it and a jar of cashew
butter.

"I think it's terrible when people buy an
animal to celebrate a holiday, then just get rid of it," I said,
trying to sound as totally in agreement with her as possible. "But
I'm sure Neil knew it was going to a good, responsible owner."

"I don't believe in owning other sentient
beings. That’s slavery." Emma smiled at me as though I'd just said
my alphabet out of order or something, but she felt I was very
brave for trying.

Neil returned with plates and forks and took
a seat beside me. "Emma works for the Animal Protection Fund."