“Well, just so you know, the only reason he even brought up the whole threesome thing is because I told him I was talking to you. Before he knew that, he really just wanted to hook up with me.”
“Yeah, I got that,” he responded dryly, just like I’d expected.
“But you don’t have to worry,” I assured him sweetly. “I will always be completely loyal to you, no matter how many people try to get with me. And, I mean… There are a lot, you know.”
“Is that so?” God, he was so cute when he was jealous. I could do this every day of my life and never get tired of it.
“Yeah. I’m always having to turn people down. But I don’t mind, of course,” I added, fluttering my eyelashes at him. “You’re so much more important to me than tons and tons of meaningless sex.”
“You’re pushing it,” he warned me, cupping my jaw on either side and squeezing. It took every ounce of my self control not to laugh at his expression.
“Really,” I added, ultra sincerely. “I’ll keep saying no to every single person that asks for my number, whether you’re there or not. Even if they’re really cute.”
“That’s it. You’re demoted from BB to AB, for Annoying Boyfriend.”
“No!” I protested, pushing my lips out in an exaggerated pout as he appraised me with his eyebrow cocked up. “Please, Cupcake. I promise I’ll be good. I’ll keep ignoring all the thirsty DMs I get on Instagram.”
“You are seriously asking for it,” he said, before shoving at my shoulder to push me on my side. I let him roll me onto my back so he could straddle my hips, planting his hands on my chest so he could stare down at me.
“What are you going to do to me?” I wondered, my hands drifting up to cup onto his waist. “Are you going to teach me a lesson?”
“I think you might need it,” he acknowledged. The threat hung precariously in the air, like an overfilled balloon that just needed one tiny pinprick to pop it. And I absolutely couldn’t help myself.
“And no more hot tub parties,” I added, blinking innocently. “No matter how much fun they are.”
“Oh, you are so fucking dead, rich boy,” he said, before slinking down to line our bodies up and latch his mouth onto myneck, sucking hard. Moaning lightly, I let my head fall back to give him more room to assert his ownership.
“This is my punishment?” I asked, my hips twitching up to rub my stiff cock against him. I sucked in a sharp gasp as he tugged down the collar of my shirt and sank his teeth into the space between my neck and shoulder.
“I’m marking my territory.”
“All yours, Cupcake. Always.”
“THAT LOOKS PRETTYfresh,” my father commented lightly, raising his gaze from one of the dark hickeys Aspen had left on my neck, the edge just barely peeking over the collar of my white shirt. The others he’d left, all over my collarbone and chest, were thankfully hidden.
Trying not to grin, I glanced over at Aspen, who immediately reddened and looked away to glare at the side of the elevator we were riding in.
“Sorry,” he bit out, fidgeting with his sequined bouclé jacket. My dad’s people had left custom fitted suits in our hotel room for us to wear, his in black and mine in taupe, which I tended to favor over darker colors. I could tell Aspen adored his, though I’d cleverly redirected the conversation when he’d wondered how much they probably cost.
“No apologies necessary,” he assured us. “It only serves as a visual representation that the two of you are young, hormonal, and infatuated. There are worse ways to appear than horny youths who would indiscriminately maul each other just before being scrutinized at a very important party.”
Groaning, Aspen pressed his fingertips into his closed eyes as I tried not to laugh. I’d long known the difference between my dad’s actual ire versus when he was affectionately exasperated, and this time was definitely the latter. If anything, he wasdelighted that we were together, and I wasn’t dumb enough to wonder why.
“Now, now,” he chided Aspen lightly. “No need to be embarrassed. You look too dashing tonight to pout.”
Yeah, he was definitely smitten with my boyfriend, albeit in a very different way than I was. It was funny, and it would definitely make things a hell of a lot easier for us down the road.
I despised the fact that he’d spied on Aspen and coerced him into meetings behind my back. And I’d shown my displeasure for learning that particular little fun fact by throwing a tantrum and threatening to go to every big name news outlet in the country and revealing every dirty little secret our family had until the stocks for all his businesses plummeted and he couldn’t take a step outside without being hounded by reporters. He hadn’t liked that very much, but after some very cathartic yelling at each other, we’d come to an understanding of why I was so unimaginably livid about what he’d done.
I didn’t even want to think about how many times I’d had to console Aspen and nudge him out of a stressed out, anxety-riddled panic spiral, only to now find out some of those times had probably been caused by my own fucking father basically blackmailing him into seeing me. And had it scared the shit out of me for a minute, imagining that he was only with me because he was terrified about what my dad might do to him if he broke it off? Of course. But after the initial knee jerk reaction of fear, I’d forced myself to think about it more and really process the timeline of events. My dad had gone after himbecausewe’d started getting close.
And while I was sure that whatever he’d said in those stupid fucking secret meetings had scared Aspen more than a little, that couldn’t account for how genuine our connection was, and how much he’d opened himself up to me, something he’d never been able to do with any other guy. I knew that.
But it still irked the shit out of me. I’d never been so angry at my dad in my entire life. Not any of the times we’d fought about my behavior, not when he’d taken my credit cards, and not even when he’d kicked me out of the house. And although he’d beenput offby my reaction to him telling me about the meetings, by the end of it he’d apologized for what he’d put Aspen through, which was more than he’d ever done for me.
I knew that part of the reason he was cooperating with the favor I’d asked of him was because he wanted to make sure everything was smoothed over with us, and that was also part of why I’d agreed to this party. We were sort of at an impasse. We’d both pissed each other off, but we also both needed each other, so we had to let it go and just try to get along going forward.
Of course, my precious, prickly Cupcake was completely oblivious to everything that had happened between my dad and I, and even the fact that I knew about the meetings. It was easier for me to keep that under wraps for the time being, untilmylittle secret was ready to come out, and then we could just bring everything out into the open.
