Page 55 of Hired Help

Her face fills with eagerness and relief as she nods, teeth worrying her bottom lip.

“Okay. Then lie back and if you’re a very good girl, I’ll let you come on my face rather than sending you home.”

Her eyes light up, a kaleidoscope of emotions, each one reflected in mine.

When I move back into position, Brooke thrusts her pussy higher while fisting my hair to control where she wants my tongue to go. She’s close, then her muscles stop clenching as hard, her fingers soften.

It’s like she’s been distracted by a new shiny object and the loss of focus needles me. We’re literal seconds into our new relationship and she’s ghosting me while I’m doing some of my best work.

I pull back far enough to slap her inner thigh, the sharp retort against her flesh jolting her attention back where it belongs.

“Lose focus again and it’ll be a bite,” I growl in warning, growing so hard in response to the shock in her wide eyes that I might have to take this foray further than expected. A trip I’m sure will have delights in store, every step of the way.

CHAPTERFIFTEEN

HARRISON

Everett drags me to an afterparty,but when emptying a hip flask of tequila down my throat doesn’t lift my mood, I abort the scene and grab a car back to school to hide in my room. My soul is like a wounded animal, needing to retreat somewhere safe to regroup, to heal.

Intrusive images keep barging their way into my thoughts, taking up all the space I need to process what happened tonight.

Brooke snarling. My father’s shocked stare. Kaden and Everett uniting to keep me from doing something foolish, something I couldn’t ever take back.

And the crowd of onlookers feverishly devouring every morsel of gossip, salivating over the feast.

My mind is stunned. I know Brooke presents as meek, respectful, but she’s got the hind kick of a donkey. The cheating was bad enough, but to haul my father into our private business, playing him like a trump card, is deplorable.

I want to believe that Brooke just hired him for tonight. A show-stopping performance to humiliate me the way I humiliated her. But I saw how he instinctively moved to protect her from me, even as he demanded answers. That wasn’t rapport with a client, that was the stance of a man stepping up to protect his girl.

They both fucked me over. Each abandoned me in their own way. I should wash my hands of them.

But I must be a masochist because all I want to do is hold Brooke in my arms, to talk day-to-day nonsense with my dad.

They hurt me, but my tequila-addled-brain is still in love.

While I still have courage circling my bloodstream, I walk to her room, not sure what I’m going to say, how I’m going to frame it. I just know I want to touch her, hold her. I want her to drive this misery away. When I knock, no one answers but I let myself in using a copy of her key that I had made.

She’s not here. She’s probably with my father.

My father, who told my mother he’d moved to Dunedin but apparently didn’t do that at all. Seems that was just a lie to avoid his only son.

The knife twists in my chest, thinking of how lonely I was when I moved here. The struggle to adjust to a new school compounded by the move back to a city I’d become estranged from. A place where I didn’t have any friends, any family.

Of course, this was the same dad who spent years making promises and arranging elaborate outings that always fell through at the last minute. The man who promised me he’d stay in touch by text, even if I never answered. Even if his behaviour at a family wedding had been inexcusable and he understood perfectly well why I didn’t want to talk.

He promised me, yet it’s been well over two years since I last received a message. Until tonight: a short text that swears he didn’t know.

I cross to the bed, nudging off my shoes and lying down, pulling the pillow sideways, hugging the bottom half while my head rests on the top. It smells of Brooke. Everything in the room carries her scent. With each inhalation, memories of her swirl through my mind.

When she comes home, we’ll be too tired to fight. She can lie down, and I can hug her instead of this thin pillow. If she resists, I can overpower her until she figures out a way to make me feel better; to ease this constant pressure, this self-hatred.

She crushed me. It’s only fair that she puts me back together.

* * *

When I wakeon Saturday morning, a light pulse of anger still buzzes through my veins. Brooke didn’t make it home last night.

My mouth is dry, saliva turned to a gummy paste. I roll off the edge of her bed, stumbling into her bathroom to assess the damage.

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