Dinner was quiet, and Alex found himself okay with that. He was going to have to apologize to Zoey and figure out what had gone wrong, but he wasn
“Have you spoken to Olivia?” he asked his sister instead.
“Did I forget to call her?” He wanted to kick his sister under the table, like he had when they were kids. He thought he might have done it, if it would have made any difference. “So sorry.”
“I get it,” he said. “I really do. But at the same time, we need to not make this harder for either one of us.”
“I’ll call her tonight.”
“You don’t have to. She knows you’re here, now. But let’s keep things on the up-and-up, okay?”
Claire nodded. “But I can still stay here, right?”
A flash went through his mind, of Schwartz and his wet blue eyes listening at his office door as he and Olivia fought. It turned his stomach, somehow, the invasion of privacy and the sheer rudeness of the display. “Absolutely,” he said. “So long as you keep going to school.”
The girl stared down at her plate for a moment, and he saw Zoey watching the his sister with more intensity than he was. That was saying something. Perhaps Claire had confided in her during their day together. He could think of much worse things than that, really. Claire needed a maternal figure like she’d needed a father figure. He’d done his best to be emotionally available and intelligent with his little sister—he’d argued regularly that it had made him a better man—but it wasn’t the same, and he knew it.
He couldn’t think of Zoey in those terms. He was moving too fast, pushed forward by the intense circumstances of everything around him. He knew it, and he didn’t care. He barely tasted the thick and delicious lamb stew that Sophia had made, barely heard Claire’s conversation.
He waited as long as seemed even remotely decent, then hustled Zoey back to his room. He heard Claire’s giggles as they left her in the living room, and he didn’t care. He hadn’t talked to his sister about any of the important things that were happening, which could affect her if he wasn’t careful, and right now, he couldn’t bring himself to care.
As soon as the door closed, she was on him. He hadn’t expected that, hadn’t expected Zoey to be the one to throw her arms around his neck and press her warm and confident lips against his. This was nothing like that first kiss that they’d shared at Chez Vous, just a few days ago. That had been emotionally tentative but physically excited. This was open, trusting, and thrilling. His hands wrapped around her waist, snugging her body tightly against his. He was rock hard, and the way she pressed her hips against his, he thought she was luxuriating in the heat spilling from his body. “Hello,” he said.
“Fuck me,” she replied before she pulled his mouth down to hers for another heated kiss.
He laughed and tweaked her nipple hard enough to make her gasp. “All in due time. Were you a good girl today?”
She bit her lip, glancing up at him through her thick, light eye lashes, and the emotion he felt for her dropped into his guts like a stone. It was too soon to call it love—he wasn’t entirely sure he would ever really be able to call it love—but in that moment, he would have laid down on train tracks for her. He thought she knew it too, and he trusted her not to ask for something he couldn’t give her. It was a completely novel sensation, and he took a moment to revel in it. “I was,” she said, “but I have to tell you the truth. If I hadn’t found Claire here?”
His hands tightened on her waist, swaying them gently back and forth as he traced a heated path up the line of her throat as his hand cupped her breast less than gently. “What then?”
She let out a breathy sigh, her fingernails tracing over the short hair on the back of his neck. “I would have tried to be good, I think. But it wouldn’t have taken me long to be all hot and bothered again, and I would have been staring at the clock, counting down the minutes until you were home. I don’t think I would have made it.”
He hummed as his lips brushed the sensitive skin under her ear, feeling her shiver in response. “So what you’re saying is that you were very very good, even though you didn’t want to be at all.” He slid a hand down her stomach, cupping her cunt through her jeans, and she rose up on her toes with an eager little sigh. “I think you should get a very special reward, if you’re up to it.”
She leaned back so she could look into his eyes, her pupils wide and full of smoldering heat. “I’m up for it.”
“Oh, I hope you are,” he said.