CHAPTER SEVEN - GABRIEL
The pounding in my head had little to do with the previous night when I woke to the sound of Neil’s children running down the hallway. After last night, I couldn’t trust myself to go back to the condo. Not after what had transpired so quickly and heatedly with Penny.
Penny fucking Marshall.
Had I really fingered my daughter’s best friend in a nightclub like some sleaze?? I rolled over with a groan to stare up at the shadows dancing across the ceiling. It was still early, judging from the darkness outside, but Neil’s kids were already up and playing before the start of school. I needed to take a long cold shower to get rid of this feeling that lingered inside of me. It was the same damn feeling that had prompted me to kiss Penny in the first place.
It had felt fucking amazing; Penny’s hand on my erection through my pants, stroking with confidence and ease. The feel of her tight and heated flesh on my fingers.
I felt my dick harden against the sheets and blankets at the memory of it replaying in my mind. I threw an arm over my eyes in frustration. I had no idea how I was going to deal with this one. Normally, I would’ve walked away without a single damn regret in my head. I didn’t care much for relationships these days, but this had been Penny. My daughter’s best friend.
Hot guilt coursed through me all over again when I reached down to brush my fingers against my erection. This was the only way that I could concentrate again. I needed a release to be able to function.
I let my eyes slipped closed in pleasure while I stroked myself to the memory of Penny’s warm and wet clit against my fingers. I heard her pants and moans in my ear as I had coaxed an orgasm from her. I imagined my hand was her luscious mouth, taking me in and sucking me until I exploded down her slender throat. My orgasm crashed over me, and I shot warm jets of cum over my own stomach, trying my hardest not to imagine how good it would feel to release myself inside of Penny.
Afterward, I stared up at the ceiling with a pounding heart while half-listening to Neil converse with his wife downstairs. I needed to do something, now that I had crossed the line. I needed to talk to Penny to make sure that she was all right. I could still picture the wide-eyed and horrified expression on Penny’s face when I had backed out of that booth quickly to call Neil for a place to crash for the night.
I took a cold shower in the guest bathroom across the hallway. Toys from the kids were scattered around the bathroom floor. I showered quickly before getting dressed in the same clothes from the previous night. I texted my driver to let Alyssa know that I needed a fresh pair of clothes so that he could meet me at work before the rest of my employees arrived. I didn’t want any more talk going around the office, and showing up in the same rumpled clothes with an obvious hangover was one way to spur the rumors on.
“You look like hell,” Neil commented when I managed to make it down the stairs without tripping on a single toy. “What the hell happened to you last night?”
“I don’t even want to talk about it,” I said with a grimace. “Is there any coffee?”
“Coming right up.”
I followed Neil through the chaos of the living room where his children were currently gathered in front of the television. They greeted me with cheerful smiles as I walked by them with a strained looked. Michelle looked up from where she was cooking bacon in a large skillet over the stove.
“Good morning,” she said. “How are you feeling, Gabriel?”
The smell of bacon made my stomach twist with nausea. I forced myself to sit down at the kitchen island to be polite. I nodded gratefully at Neil as he poured me a cup of hot black coffee that smelled heavenly.
“I feel like my head is going to burst open,” I said. “Do you have any Tylenol?”
“Of course. I’ll grab some from the bathroom for you.”
Michelle squeezed my shoulder in passing when she walked by me to the bathroom. I sipped at my coffee while I waited for my driver to text me back.
“So, are you going to tell me what happened last night?” Neil asked. “I mean, I’ve seen you get drunk once before, but not like this. I had to carry your ass up the stairs and put you to bed.”
I grimaced at the memory of it. I could remember hitting another bar on the way over to Neil’s house to have a couple of shots in an attempt to numb the guilt of what happened. Everything after that was a dark blur of Neil dragging me up the stairs with muttered curse words coming out of his mouth.
“Thanks man and I’m sorry. I don’t know what got into me last night but I’d like to just forget the entire evening.”
“So you’re not going to tell me what happened that made you crawl into a bottle of whiskey?” Neil asked again.
“You would be right about that. We need to get to the office soon, though. I want to go over everything that we are going to present to the government. I want it to be perfect.”
“We’ll make sure it’s good to go. I doubt that you have to worry about Jack Miller.”
I laughed darkly as I took another long sip. “That’s the thing about him. You don’t feel like you have to worry about him, but he’ll steal your ideas and wife in a heartbeat. He pretends to be average so you don’t worry about him, then he sneaks right up on you. ”
“Sounds very clever.” He eyed my disheveled clothes. “Your driver is bringing you clothes from the condo, right?”
“He should be. I told him to wake Alyssa up to go through my closet. She knows what I like to wear to work.”
We drove thirty minutes through thick traffic and cold winter air to find my driver waiting patiently in the parking lot. He handed me a set of clothes that Alyssa had picked out for me before leaving us to enter the office. I changed quickly in my office, just in time for the rest of the office staff to arrive for the start of their shifts.
The next two hours passed by me in a surreal blur, filled with a throbbing headache and a shit tone of guilt. I didn’t want to deal with anything, but I gritted my teeth through the PowerPoint presentation my team had made with my notes. It wasn’t until nearly eleven in the morning when one of my receptionists came by to tell me that there was a visitor waiting for me in the front lobby of the office.
“Who?” I asked grumpily while I followed her down the hallway. “This person better be damn important because—”
I stopped short when I recognized my ex-wife standing in my office lobby. The years had not been kind, judging from the wrinkles lining her face and the overall exhausted look she had as she looked at me with a timid smile. She was dressed in an expensive pencil skirt suit that hugged her tightly. Gray streaked her dark hair that was pulled back in a clip.
Coupled with my fucked up night, I felt a deep-seated anger start to brew all over again. I crossed my arms to gaze at her coldly.
“What are you doing here, Michelle?” I asked. “Does Jack know you’re here?”
“He knows that I’m here,” Michelle said. “He’s parked safely around the block. He figured you’d rather put a bullet in him than me.”
“That’s debatable.”
Michelle sighed as she pulled out a manila envelope from her brief case. “I didn’t come here to argue with you. I just wanted to drop this off.”
I eyed the envelope warily when she offered it. “Drop what off?”
“Papers for a lawsuit,” she replied. “We’re aware of your algorithm for the new consumer spending predictions. I believe it follows our own, so I personally told the lawyer that I would happily drop this off with you.”
“Very nice of you,” I said darkly. I snatched the envelope from her hand. “But I think you’ve forgotten who stole what from who.”
She just shrugged and looked at me. “How is Alyssa?”
I stopped short at the question. I twisted back to look over at Michelle, who had yet to move. I tried to read the expression on her face, but she was utterly devoid of emotion. My ex-wife had become a stranger to me over the years. Just the same way she had become to Alyssa, who didn’t even consider her a mother.
“You don’t deserve to know how our daughter is doing,” I said icily. “In case you forgot, I am the one who has been raising her. Not you.”
I didn’t wait for a reply. I stopped to tell the office staff to make sure she left before I retreated back to my office to call Alyssa.
“Where are you?” I asked, listening to the wind on the other end of the phone. “It sounds like you are outside.”
“I am outside. I’m doing some Christmas shopping for Penny.”
“Penny isn’t with you? She’s at the condo?”
“Sleeping, the last time I checked,” Alyssa said. “What’s wrong, Dad? You sound pissed off.”
Pissed off didn’t even begin to cover it. Now that I knew Penny was back at the condo alone, I wanted to take advantage of the situation to talk to her about last night.
“Just a long day,” I replied. “I’ll see you at home.”
I left the office with the excuse of needing to get some lunch. I arrived at the condo thirty minutes later to find Penny awake and sitting on the living room couch with a laptop propped up on her knees. The long strands of her blonde hair were still damp from a shower. She was dressed in a pair of sweatpants and a tank top, and I couldn’t deny that pang of desire going through me again. She looked up at me nervously when I came into the living room.
“We need to talk about last night,” I said. “I’m sorry for—”
Penny held up a hand as she closed her computer to set it on the couch next to her. “We don’t need to talk about it,” she said, rising up from the couch to face me. “It’s honestly okay. It was a one-time thing, right? We were both pretty drunk.”
Something about that last sentence settled hard in the pit of my stomach. I didn’t like the sound of it. I stood in front of her on the cusp of doing the right thing by walking away, but also wanting to cave in to that desire spreading through me again. I could see the same conflict flickering in Penny’s eyes as she swallowed visibly.
“Just a one-time thing?” I asked.
She blinked in surprise. I surged forward to clasp the side of Penny’s neck and tilt her head upwards. I kissed her long and hard, relishing in her sweet lips underneath mine. She kissed me back with a soft moan of relief while her arms wrapped around my shoulders.