Sam was caged by the fiery sensations Scarlet evoked and the brutal reality that he could fall for this woman.
The fury he’d experienced when she’d pushed his mother to finally put a voice to the abyss she’d been immersed in since starting a relationship with Mitcham had given way to the intensity of Sam’s feelings for Scarlet and the way she’d accepted his anger and literally sapped it from him.
His chest heaved against her back and his cock was still buried inside her. He couldn’t move just yet. Needed to feel her skin on his, needed to keep the physical connection with her.
Being pissed off at her had intensified his desire for her. But there was more to it than that. She’d wanted to steal his rage and he’d needed her to do it. Because even though Sam hated the hell his mother had lived in her mind, Sam knew that she had turned to Mitcham and had received his support—and kept his love. That was all that mattered. That Karina and Mitcham were still solid as a couple.
Sam had to let the morning’s confrontation be a bygone, and Scarlet had helped him to do that.
He kissed her cheek, then planted his hands on the desk and pushed himself up. He withdrew from Scarlet and swept her into his arms.
To Michael, he said, “How about a shower? Might relax us all.”
“Good idea,” his stepbrother concurred.
Scarlet wrapped her arms around Sam’s neck and snuggled close to him. She didn’t say anything and that was fine with him. Having her near him was what was most important to him, he now realized. Sam had been damn close to bypassing this visit to Michael’s apartment and flying back to Montana. As it was, he’d have to make it up to Layton for missing his birthday party. But Sam had recognized that blowing off Michael and Scarlet because he was irritated wasn’t the right way to go.
Michael had been spot-on earlier. What was happening with the three of them couldn’t be swept under the rug. Sam couldn’t walk away from it any more than Michael.
But that didn’t mean it was suddenly an easy-to-remedy situation. There were tenuous nuances and complicated logistics to consider, not to mention the fact that Scarlet had crossed a line at the estate that Mitcham would deem traitorous.
No, neither Sam nor Michael required his approval in this stage of their lives. But they’d become a family regardless of the difficult dynamic that came with the second marriage. Now, when Sam’s mother told her husband that she’d spilled all to Scarlet and the boys … There just might be hell to pay in the form of Mitcham Vandenberg.
Sam carried Scarlet upstairs to Michael’s room and passed through to the enormous bathroom. Michael turned the rain showerhead on and stripped off his clothes as Sam set Scarlet on her feet and divested her of her skirt, shoes, and lingerie. Then he got naked.
Scarlet’s hands skimmed over his chest as she stared up at him and said, “I’m sor—”
He pressed a finger to her lips. “Don’t apologize. You never once misrepresented who you are and what you do. What you’re trying to accomplish when it comes to this case. Michael and I willingly let you question us. My mother consented to the brunch, even knowing why you were there. For all we know, maybe she subconsciously wanted to crack. She’s kept a lot bottled up and this might have been an outlet she needed.”
Gently brushing his finger from her mouth, Scarlet asked, “Then you do forgive me?”
“Without doubt.”
“Sam.” She clasped the sides of his neck with her hands, went on tiptoe, and kissed him.
He slipped his arms around her waist and pulled her to him, feeling her hard nipples and satiny skin—and getting worked up all over again. He knew Michael was wanting her, too.
So Sam reluctantly ended the kiss and guided Scarlet into the shower. Michael followed. The water cascaded over all three of them. Scarlet closed her eyes and tipped her head back to drench her hair and face. Sam gave her a washcloth and she scrubbed away her light makeup. The men lathered their hands with soap, and with Michael at her front and Sam at her back they left suds over every inch of her.
Her ass ground against Sam’s erection. Her fingers coiled into Michael’s biceps. Michael kissed her as Sam palmed her breasts and caressed before rolling and pinching her nipples with the aid of water and soap as lubricants. Michael’s hand slipped between her legs to rub her clit.
Sam whispered in her ear, “Do you want us both again?”
“Oh, God, yes,” she vehemently said.
Michael shifted and grabbed her hips. He lifted her up and she wound her legs around him. From behind her, Sam cupped her ass cheeks. Michael eased into her first. Then Sam’s cockhead pressed into the small hole in her cleft and she let out an erotic cry. Her head fell back against Sam’s shoulder, her eyes closed. He kissed and nipped her neck as Michael’s tongue flitted over her nipples.
Scarlet’s arm stretched upward and her fingers tangled in Sam’s wet hair and Michael’s with her other hand. The men moved slowly inside her, in unison. Doubling her arousal. And their own.
As much as Sam loved being buried in her pussy, it felt incredible to fuck her ass. She was so damn tight. But the water had slickened his cock and he carefully pumped into her.
Scarlet moaned softly. Then said, “There is absolutely nothing better than feeling you both at the same time.”
“And this is better than it’s ever been with anyone else,” Michael said.
“Yes,” Sam added.
“I was hoping you’d both think that.”
Michael kissed her. Then Sam. They picked up the pace, their hips bucking, their breathing accelerating.
“Yes,” she murmured. “Just like that.” She writhed between them. “It’s too much to hold on to, but so, so perfect.” Her body tensed. She squeezed tight. And then she cried out again as she came.
Sam’s excitement spiked and he exploded inside her, a mere second before Michael did.
“Oh!” Scarlet’s body jerked and she clenched firmly. “That’s so amazing. You both coming inside me, filling me. Oh, God. I don’t know if I can ever get enough of you.”
A similar sentiment lodged in Sam’s brain. His gaze locked with Michael’s. And Sam was certain it was a reality his stepbrother shared.
Michael returned the estate two days later. He sauntered into the art gallery where he’d been informed Karina was currently located. He was a little shocked to learn that tidbit, since she’d boycotted the room following the theft and he’d figured she’d be even less inclined to visit following the “big reveal” at brunch.
She was standing toward the end of the gallery, staring in the general direction of where the van Gogh had hung.
Michael cleared his throat so he didn’t startle her. It took a few seconds for her to drag her gaze away and turn to face him. She pulled in a deep breath and then gave him a fragile smile.
Michael’s gut wrenched. Guilt was one thing to contend with. Feeling like a colossal asshole was something altogether different.
He kissed her lightly on the cheek and told her, “I came to apologize.”
She frowned, looking perplexed. “You have absolutely nothing to apologize for, Michael. This is a mess I created for myself.”
“Don’t put this all on you, Karina. We all contributed to the problem.”
“No. These were my struggles and I should have been more transparent from the beginning, at least with your father. But the truth is … I saw how losing your mother affected him. It cut deep, Michael. And I know he hid that from you. That’s who he is. He internalizes and calls upon his own strength, not someone else’s, to pull through. I respect and admire that about him.”
“But not everyone is that way, Karina. You don’t have to be that way. He wouldn’t have expected it from you. My mother immediately went to him when she was diagnosed with ovarian cancer and you can be damn sure he did everything in his power to try to save her. The best doctors, the best treatments, everything.”
“I know.” She swallowed down a lump of emotions as tears built in her eyes. “I didn’t want to be an additional burden. I just wanted to be with him. And the added benefit was that Sam finally had a safe place to live, an extraordinary world to grow up in. One I could never give him on my own. I’m eternally grateful for all the things your father has done for us. I didn’t want to heap one more thing on him. But I did.”
She walked past Michael. But he stopped her in her tracks as he said, “Sam and I certainly clashed with my father on a regular basis, but he never expected either of us to be flawless. He didn’t gloat when we tried something new and failed at it. He didn’t hold it against us. Just told us to try harder, do better. Yes, it was frustrating, but … he always made a good point. And when we did something to make him proud, he let us know. He never demanded absolute perfection from us—or from you, either, Karina.”
“I feel as though he deserves it from me,” she asserted.
“Christ, you’re still taking on so much. He loves you, Karina,” Michael imploringly said.
“And I love him. I would do anything for him. Anything and everything. I would go to any length; do you understand that?”
“Yes. You’d go so far as to harbor anything that might seem the tiniest bit displeasing or distressing to the family. But you’re forgetting that you are a part of this family, Karina. No matter what. We’re all a part of this family. That’s not going to change.”
She raised a hand to splay across his cheek. “Thank you for coming. It means a lot to me, Michael.” Her hand slipped away and she continued out of the room.
He found it disheartening that she put so much pressure on herself. Knew he hadn’t helped the situation. And Michael could clearly see that all of this weighed heavily on his stepmother’s mind. Even years later.
She’d made the transition seem easy, but Michael had never looked close enough to gauge whether that was actually true. He’d just assumed. Because he hadn’t wanted to be bothered with her emotions when he was so bogged down by his own. And so angry with his father for abruptly moving on.
Fuck.
If his father just would have expressed some of his feelings, shared some of his pain with Michael, come home more often than once or twice a week during that pivotal time of their lives, maybe the initial adjustment period following his marriage to Karina would have been a smoother one for everyone concerned.
But Mitcham had kept it all to himself. So had Karina.
Now it was biting them all in the asses, including Sam.
Michael left the gallery and found his father in his study. The conversation they were about to have was a long time coming. That was if he could engage Mitcham.
Michael’s father glanced up from his laptop at the interruption. He said, “We just saw you on Sunday. This is a surprise.”
“I came to apologize to Karina for the tough spot I helped to put her in.”
Mitcham sat back in his large executive chair. “She knew Scarlet was an insurance fraud investigator looking into the art theft. I gave her an out—told her take the plane to Paris for the weekend. She said no.”
“I’m thinking that maybe she was in need of getting it off her shoulders.”
“Could be.”
Michael took a seat in front of his father’s massive mahogany desk and said, “I’m not just talking about apologizing about the tough spot I put Karina in this past weekend. I’m talking about all of it. Dating back to the first time you brought her here.”
“You weren’t exactly welcoming.”
“And you weren’t exactly forthcoming.” Michael stared his father down. “You could have told me more about how the two of you met. You could have said she was more than just a waitress—that she was someone who’d stood by you when you’d needed it most and that there was something about her that made you open up to her. Something that made it okay for you to talk to her about my mother and everything you felt about her illness, your inability to save her, and your love for her.”
Mitcham pushed to his feet. He raked a hand through his thick hair and began to pace.
He didn’t speak for a spell and Michael didn’t press him. He recalled what Karina had said about that single tear sitting on the rim of Mitcham’s eye—his father’s eye.
Michael had never seen this man demonstrate emotion to that degree. Even at the funeral. He’d been impassive, a pillar of strength, perpetuating the image everyone had of Mitcham Vandenberg—powerful and in control.
But he’d had no control over cancer. No control over losing his wife and the mother of his child. No control over how it gutted up.
Michael understood his father’s living hell now. Because of the admission Scarlet had coaxed from Karina. He said, “I wasn’t ready for you to bring another woman into this house. Not so soon. But I feel differently about that today. I’m glad you met Karina. I’m glad you fell in love again and that she’s so devoted to you. So much so that all she’s ever wanted from the time she moved in was to please you and to prove that what the two of you have is real.”
Mitcham drew up short and speared Michael with a tormented look. “I didn’t think of the challenges she’d face. Your mother was a New York socialite. There was nothing about marrying me or living in the Hamptons that evoked insecurity or a sense of inferiority. She handled it all beautifully, gracefully. Karina did as well—on the outside. I had no idea how she was beating herself up on the inside, feeling as though she’d never measure up or be good enough.”
Michael nodded. “I feel bad for her. I really do.”
“That’s not what she wants, Michael.” Standing behind his chair and clasping the top of it, Mitcham said, “She doesn’t want anyone’s pity. Doesn’t deserve it, either. Yes, she fell into a trap and it led to desperate feelings and actions. And she tried to solve her problems on her own. I give her credit for that. Would I prefer she simply come to me with whatever’s troubling her? Of course. I love her. I want her to be happy. But I also recognize that she’s willing to do whatever she has to in order to stand on her own two feet. She was secretly making jewelry and selling it online in order to make the payments on her loan until the check came. She didn’t ask me for the money.”
Michael’s brow furrowed. “That was a huge loan amount. How could she possibly—”
“She’s very successful. But no one knows. She has an LLC set up with a DBA name.”
“Why?”
“Michael, her friends don’t work. They’re ‘ladies who lunch.’ Their husbands neither expect nor want them to have careers. It would be one more thing for Karina to feel like a misfit over if she actually said she had a job.”
“Mother didn’t work,” Michael mused.
“And that was fine by me.”
“But you don’t mind that Karina has her own enterprise?”
His father grinned. “Not at all. It makes her happy. Again, Michael … that’s all I care about.”
“Right.” He got to his feet. “Well, this has all been very enlightening. I only wish you could have met Scarlet under different circumstances.”
“Me, too. Though … one does have to appreciate her tenacity.”
“Indeed.”
Mitcham tapped his index finger against his chin and asked, “What exactly does this woman mean to you?”
“She fascinates me,” Michael said without hesitation. “In every way.”
“Hmm. And what does she mean to Sam?”
“Fascinates him, too.”
“Interesting.” Mitcham took his seat.
Michael said, “I don’t expect you to understand except … You loved two women within the same year. Probably still do. So it’s not exactly a foreign concept.”
His father’s head snapped back. “Love?”
Michael shrugged. “I’m not knowledgeable enough to qualify whether or not that’s what I’m feeling—or Sam. All I know is that we both want to continue seeing her.”
Mitcham’s gaze drifted to the large windows and he watched the snow fall for a few quiet moments. Then he returned his attention to Michael and said, “I’m not a fan of her accusing this family of a crime.”
“No one is. But you can’t dispute that it’s commendable she takes her job and her responsibilities seriously. She’s a woman with principles and convictions. I find that admirable. And sexy.”
With a soft chuckle, Mitcham said, “I can see that about you. Perhaps now that we’re off her radar screen for committing a felony we can try another brunch.”
Michael fought a cringe. He had no idea if the Vandenbergs were off Scarlet’s radar screen. So he nonchalantly said, “We’ll see how that goes.”
“All right. Well. I have work to finish.”
“Of course.” Michael left the office, not having much more to say. It’d been his first real heart-to-heart with his father. They could probably both use a little time to digest it all.
So Michael returned to Manhattan.
And contemplated what his and Sam’s next move with Scarlet might be.