Mom pats my arm. “Don’t worry. I’ll find you another pair to wear after I clean up in the living room. Just wait here—I don’t want you stepping on the broken glass.”
Grabbing the broom and mop, she rushes back into the party. As the door swings open, I see Ryan chatting with one of Jack’s partners at the firm, his body language completely relaxed. His tone completely normal. Like nothing happened.
Which makes sense because nothing happened.
Right?
7
RYAN
The cold air burns my lungs as I stride quickly across the sidewalk. Fuck, I’m already regretting leaving my coat back at Dad’s house. At the time, I figured I wouldn’t need one, since Greta’s Pub is only a ten-minute walk away.
I should have known better than to underestimate the cold. It’s so frigid out, even my hair feels like it’s shivering. I shove my hands in my pockets and try to think warm thoughts.
Instead, all I can think about isPippa.
I didn’t mean to actually untie her dress. I thought the ribbon thingies were decorative, not functional to the structure of the goddamn dress. And how was I supposed to know she wouldn’t wear a bra under it? I’m not a fucking mind-reader.
All I meant to do when I followed her into the kitchen was apologize. She’s the one who turned it into a fight, pissing me off and making me get up in her space. It’s her fault we ended up so close, her fault for wearing those ridiculous stiletto heels that she always manages to break.
I can’t stop picturing the way her big hazel eyes went round when I caught her.
Her cheeks turned pink, and it was all too easy to imagine how she’d look underneath me, sweaty and flushed while I pounded my cock inside her.
Her red lips parted, the bottom one brushing against mine before she got her balance back and pulled away. I run my thumb across my lip now, checking to make sure I don’t have her lipstick on me.
My thumb comes away clean, but I catch a whiff of cherries and velvet. It’s like my clothes absorbed Pippa’s scent, and now it’s all I can fucking smell.
Damn. I haven’t thought about it—about her—in a long time. I can’t go back there. I need to get her out of my head. Now.
I try to think of anything else as I walk in the cold, watching my step so I don’t slip on the icy sidewalk. But it’s not like the other stuff in my head is pleasant, either. Dad’s parties always suck. Every time I meet one of his female friends or coworkers, I have to wonder whether he’s fucking her. He’s enough of an asshole that hewouldinvite his sidepiece to a party where he can make eyes at her behind Emily’s back.
Nobody would deserve that, but especially not Emily. When she married my dad, I’ll admit I was a little shit to her. I was always giving her attitude, ignoring her requests, and generally acted like that rebel asshole fromThe Breakfast Club.Emily never fell for the act. She saw me for what I was—an angsty kid with real feelings even if my Dad refused to believe I had any.
She was patient with me, probably even more than she was with her own daughter. When I poured Dad’s Grey Goose into a water bottle and brought it to school, she talked him down from sending me to military school to grounding me for a week. She saw me for what I could be, instead of what I was. When she found out I was playing online poker, she made me sign up for a stats class. I always thought I sucked at math, but it turns out, Ijust wasn’t interested. When I related it to something I actually liked—poker—suddenly, I was addicted to studying.
The point is, Emily’s amazing, and she deserves better than Dad.
And I can’t stop thinking about what it would have felt like if I grabbed her daughter’s hand and pressed it to my cock between us in the kitchen so she could have felt how hard it was getting at the idea of her flushed and braless beneath that black dress.
I run a hand through my hair.
I don’t know what the fuck is wrong with me.
But I know what to do. Find a girl at the pub, one who looksnothinglike my stepsister, then fuck her until I can’t even remember my own name, let alone Pippa’s.
Soon enough, the sprawling mansions give way to a tree-lined street. On the other side, there are a few blocks of restaurants, galleries, and stores—a walkable town center, and a big selling point for my parents’ rich-ass neighbors. They love being able to take a pilates class, then grab a coffee and stroll through a farmer’s market on weekends. The whole thing feels fake to me, like a playground that lets the one percent pretend they’re just like everyone else. As if every small town needs a medspa that gives vampire facials and a grocery store with ten dollar tomatoes.
My feet automatically carry me to Greta’s Pub, the only place in the little downtown that normal people go to. It’s been here for decades, long before developers bought out the farmland to build mansions. None of my parents’ neighbors would be caught dead there, but you can bet their housecleaners and gardeners come by for a pint after a day of dealing with demanding housewives.
I push open the door, and the familiar bar smells immediately settle my nerves. The malty smell of beer and the stringent spike of spilled vodka mixes with women’s floralperfumes. The warm yellow lights shine cozily off the polished wood walls and floor, with more daily lit booths in the back. Classic rock music plays in the background.
The bartender, a bearded guy in his 40s, looks down at my suit and wrinkles his nose. Fuck, I’m way too dressed up for the casual crowd. I yank off my tie and shove it in my pocket, undoing a few buttons on my black shirt. I shrug off my blazer and toss it over a barstool. Fuck, that feels better already. Suits are so not my thing.
“Hey man, can I get a Twisted Devil on the rocks?” I shoot Beardy The Bartender a grin, trying to psychically explain to him that I’m not some douchebag.
Beardy grunts and pours me a whiskey. Clearly, he’s rejecting my psychic apology. Fair enough—I just came from a whole party full of suits, and most of those guys can kiss my ass. All business friends of Dad’s, with their pretty trophy wives who still look thirty-five, thanks to all the pricey skin treatments.
