Feeling happy, ridiculously so, I put my key in the door and push it open. It’s been a week since I moved in with Drake and I’m still floating on a cloud of joy. The apartment is quiet. Drake is out visiting with his agent about a sponsorship deal for a new sneaker company. He’s glad to be back training again, even though he comes home every night exhausted. A couple of times he tried to sneak me into the locker rooms again, in the hopes of re-enacting our kinky first-time meeting, but we’ve had no luck so far. There have always been people around. Sometimes I wonder how fate works. How easily I got in and found him alone the first time, but now it’s almost impossible to find a moment when it is quiet.

I dump my keys on the side table and kick off my formal shoes. I’ve just returned from an interview at one of the colleges I hope to attend in the new year. I’ve always been wary about pursuing something away from Dad and Morgan, for fear that they would need me, or that something would happen while I was out of town.

But, now that Drake has provided Morgan with the best care in the world, I don’t have to worry about them like I used to. I just visited Morgan yesterday evening and she is improving in leaps and bounds. We could go out for a walk on the grounds of the hospital. It was slow, and Morgan needed to get back into the wheelchair half way through, but it was wonderful to see the color had come back into her face and the new bounce in her step. If all goes well, Dad will be able to take her home in a couple of weeks.

The return of her health has opened a world of possibilities to me, and I’ve been considering the college courses I want to take.

I put my bagful of glossy prospectuses on the table and head towards the kitchen to make myself a cup of coffee. Later I will leaf through them, taking my time to decide what I want to study. I’m sure history and English Lit are likely, but I’m not sure in which combination, but it is months before the applications need to be in, so I’ll be able to take my time.

As I walk to the kitchen, I pass the living room and practically launch out of my skin. A man is sitting on one of the couches calmly reading a sports magazine that is open on his lap. A man I sincerely hoped never to encounter again as long as I lived. Drake’s father.

“What the fuck are you doing here?” The words shoot out of my mouth before I have a chance to stop them.

He raises one mocking, condescending eyebrow at me. “Language,” he taunts, and I must fight the urge to lunge across the room and land a slap on his smug face right there and then.

“How did you get in here?”

He looks at me as if I’m stupid. “I’m Drake’s father. Obviously, I have a key.” He makes a dismissive movement with his hand. “And I thought it was about time I stopped in for a visit.”

“Does he even know you’re here?” I ask.

“No. I came to talk to you, actually,” he replies.

“Me? Why?” I demand suspiciously, crossing my arms in front of me to keep them from shaking.

“We have things to discuss.”

“What about?” I lift my chin up to meet his gaze. This is the guy who completely cut Morgan, one of the best people I’ve ever met, out of her son’s life. He’s an asshole. A deep, complete asshole, and I wanted nothing to do with him.

“About your relationship with my son,” he continues mildly. “I know you’ve been living here since… you came to my house, and I know he’s been using his money to pay for your stepmother in the hospital.”

“It’s his mother,” I snarl.

“She gave up the right to be called that. Didn’t she tell you she took the money and ran.”

“How dare you-?”

“I’m not here to discuss the past with you. I came to offer you more money than you’ll ever earn, no matter how many colleges you attend,” he says, standing up.

I gasp in shock. He thinks he can buy me off. “You want to pay me to stay away from Drake?”

He smiles mockingly. “I knew we’d come to an understanding.”

“Why?” I ask slowly.

“Because you’re bad for my son. Don’t get me wrong I’m sure you’re very attractive, but you’re not the right material to stand at his side at a society function. You’d be lost and he’d be ashamed of you. Whatever passion you think you have now will die away and you’ll be thrown by the wayside. This way you get something for your time and effort.”

His rudeness makes my blood boil. He doesn’t care about me or his son’s happiness at all, just like he didn’t care about Morgan. Well, I’m not going to stand for it. I don’t see why I should. I don’t owe him anything.

“Don’t talk to me like that,” I spit, so furious my hand is shaking. “Drake will be back any minute, and I don’t think he’ll appreciate the meddling you’re doing in his life.”

“He’s out seeing his agent, he’ll be gone for a while,” his father cut me off smoothly. How does he know so much about us, and what we do with our lives? It is unsettling.

“You need to leave,” he nods towards the door.

My eyes widen. “I do?” I exclaim. “Me?”

“I know my son might seem like he has his shit together, but he doesn’t,” his father goes on. “And I know that he feels guilty about you and your stepmother and everything. He’s trying to assuage his own guilt, and you and your family are exploiting that.”

“What the fuck?” I demand.

His lips curl with disgust at my language. “You must have learned it from your stepmother,” he sneers, his top lip curling with disgust as he observes me. “Being a money-grabbing slut usually takes more practice, but you seem to have got it down to a fine art the first time.”

My mouth hangs open. I can’t believe what I’m hearing. I stare at him, the blood whooshing around my head in waves great enough to knock me off-balance.

Suddenly, the door clicks open behind me. I jump and whirl around. Drake is standing there staring at his father, his face black with rage. I have never seen him so furious, not even when he was confronting his father the last time. I swivel back around to face his father and see that his expression has dropped from smug superiority to confusion.

“How much did you hear?” his father asks, and Drake steps up beside me and takes my hand.

“Everything,” he replies, his tone low and menacing. “I heard everything.”

“Son, I’m just trying to do this for your own good,” he says, changing tack, pleading with Drake. “These women, they’ll bleed you dry-”

“Dad, this may come as a shock to you,” Drake interrupts him, “but I don’t give a shit about money. She can have it all as far as I’m concerned.”

His father goes white. “Drake, she’ll take everything from you-”

“Didn’t you hear me? I don’t care if she does!” Drake explodes, dropping my hand. In three strides, he is standing in front of his father. His hands are clenched tight at his sides. If it was not his Dad, he would have knocked him out by now.

“I thought you’d know better than that,” his father spat. “She’s not worth it. She’s nothing but a-”

“Don’t say it, Dad. I don’t want to lose the last bit of respect I have for you.”

“She’s a whore,” his father screamed.

Drake catches his father by the shoulders and begins dragging him towards the door.

“I don’t want to hear it!” He roars, opening the door. “I don’t want to see you here ever again; do you understand me?”

His father stands in the arch of the door frame and shoots a look at me. I know he blames me for this, but he has no one to blame but himself.

“I understand,” he confirms, narrowing his eyes at me.

“Good,” Drake snarls. “Then get out, and don’t come back unless you are prepared to apologize to Reese and talk to her with civility.”

He slams the door in his father’s face, and it echoes throughout the room. Drake comes over to me, and before I can get a word out, his mouth is on mine; he tucks his hands beneath my ass and carries me over to the kitchen counter. He plants me on the polished marble surface, flips my skirt up, and unbuckles his pants.

“Are you okay?” I pant, my eyes already hazy around the edges with how much I want him. Whatever has happened, it has been so intense, and so fast that it feels as though adrenaline is keeping me floating some distance off the ground. Drake rips my panties down roughly. He grabs my legs and throws them over his shoulders, and fisting his cock then positions it at the entrance of my pussy.

“I’m great,” he growls, as he slams his cock into me: it's rock-hard. It’s clear that the intensity of what has just happened is affecting him just as much as it is affecting me.

“I can’t believe that just happened,” I breathe into his ear, wrapping my arms around his neck and brushing my lips against his skin. He groans with pleasure and grabs my legs to pin them back while he fucks me harder. It’s like he’s letting out all the built-up tension of the last couple of weeks out in one furious fuck, and I’m not complaining.

“Fuck him,” he snarls, his voice low and hard. “You’re my life now. It’s you, you, and you for me.”

He’s never taken me like this before, without a second thought. It feels incredible. The urge to touch him overwhelms me, and I sink my fingers into his back and I pull up his shirt so I can feel his bare skin. I lean forward so that I can kiss him once more. He pushes his tongue into my mouth, and we make out ferociously as he continues to screw me on top of the counter. I haven’t really thought about the difference between “making love” and “fucking” before this moment, but right then, I know there is a massive difference.

He drives himself into me, moving his hips back and forth so I can feel the contours of his cock inside me. Jesus, it feels wild and good. I let go and lose myself so completely to him. This is cathartic, a release, a relief. The climax burns through me like a forest fire setting alight everything it comes in contact with. Every thought I have just vanishes into smoke.

A loud scream comes from my mouth, the sound echoing off the walls and all around us. It is guttural and animalistic, and I don’t give a fucking damn. I want to let him know how much pleasure he brings me.

As if he has been holding himself and waiting for me, he drives himself deeply inside me one last time and cums, the muscles in his neck straining hard, as his cock spasms inside me. When it’s over his body slumps against mine. Gently he wraps his arms around me and plants a kiss on my cheek, before moving back slightly so he can look me in the eye while we are still joined. He has an odd expression on his face, and I cock my head to the side and try to read it.

“What’s up?” I ask.

He stares into my eyes. His eyes are wet!

“Drake?” I feel a lance of panic move through my system. What if he is thinking about what his father said? What if he thinks that he is right? I’m socially inferior, but before I can overthink it any further, he turns to me and speaks.

“I love you.”

For a second I can’t move, I can’t think, I can’t do anything, then my mouth opens and blurts out the words I’ve been dying to say. “I love you, too!”

We stare at each other for what seems like a lifetime until a radiant smile slowly breaks over his face, and he bends his head and kisses me again. He still looks a bit shell-shocked when he pulls back, and I laugh at his expression.

“You okay?” I ask.

He wraps his arms around me, lifts me off the counter, and while we are still joined he walks towards the bedroom.

“Never better,” he beams at me. “But I missed lunch and I’m ravenous.

I laugh with happiness. And that is a pretty damn good feeling.