For the next several hours, I grill him. I ask questions I don't even give a shit about the answers to, and he answers them all. What's his sign? What was the name of his first pet? Who was his favorite teacher? It's like I'm trying to compensate for everything I haven't known about him for so long. He takes it in stride, sipping a glass of bourbon as he sits across from me on the sofa with one leg crossed over the other.
I'm a nervous wreck, and I don't know why. Maybe it's because I feel like he's a stranger to me all over again. That was such a big thing to keep a secret. And to be honest, I never pictured myself being with a man who already had a kid. I want a family of my own. Having to cope with someone else's child was never in my plans, and it makes me feel selfish. Worse than that, it makes me question if I actually want to continue things with Anders.
He finishes draining his third glass of bourbon with a sigh. I haven't had a sip of alcohol since we entered his loft, and he hasn't stopped drinking. I need to be clearheaded to absorb everything he says. I need to remember everything.
“My left testicle hangs slightly lower than my right. I like to skinny dip in the ocean sometimes. And I have gotten my asshole bleached after losing a bet once. Is there anything else you'd like to know, or can we get to dessert?” his tone is dull and bored.
I feel almost guilty for incessantly questioning him. “Is there anything you'd like to know about me?”
“Right now, I'd like to know how quickly you can undress.” He leans forward to set his empty glass on the coffee table.
“Anders, I'm serious. I've asked you a million questions, and you haven't asked me anything at all. It makes you seem disinterested.” I frown at him.
“I'm very interested.” He closes the distance between us and lazily wraps his arm around my shoulder. I can smell the alcohol on his breath, though it doesn't repulse me. “I'm interested in getting you naked,” he whispers into my ear before his lips make contact with my skin.
I roll my eyes and push him away. “You're being a dick. Don't you care about my life at all?”
He leans back, looking wounded. “Of course, I care about your life. But as I said, I'm a learn as you go kind of guy. It makes things more interesting for me if I learn them over time.”
I've never understood that concept, but I decide to let it slide. As soon as he realizes I'm not going to argue, he takes the initiative to advance on me again. Within minutes, we're naked in the bedroom. For as much as I enjoy being with him like this though, my mind is racing with too many thoughts to enjoy it fully. I'm still thinking of that little brown-haired boy that looked so happy on his father's shoulders. I'm wondering if I could ever love that little boy, if I could ever treat him like he was my own. Then I think about how I'm fucking his father. It's a strange stupid thing to be thinking about during sex, but I can't help it. Does that make Anders a DILF? I grin to myself for a split second before he glides inside of me and turns my mouth into an O.
“I love your cock,” I confess while I reach around to play with my clit, working to massage out the first orgasm of the night. Tonight I feel greedy, just wanting to get off so I can go home and over-analyze everything.
“Mm yeah. Touch yourself like that,” Anders spurs me on. His deep sensual voice only arouses me more.
“It's so perfect,” I moan as he latches onto my hips and picks up the pace.
It's not long before my orgasm washes over me, causing me to clench around his sex. He takes a handful of my hair and pulls my head back while he pumps faster into me, being rougher than normal. I groan in reckless abandon.
He won't last long. He's going too hard and too fast. He needs to come just as badly as I needed it.
“I want to see you shoot your load.” I can't believe my own voice. The words are as sexy as I can muster, hoping they'll do the trick to tip him over the edge.
“Fuck yeah.” He pounds into me, and despite my brain saying that I'm done, I can feel my body climbing up the hill of climax again. It amazes me how he can do this to me even when my mind is trying its best to distract me from present activities.
“I'm going to come again,” I warn, pressing my head against the pillow. To my surprise, he pulls his dick out of me and slides his tongue between my wet folds instead. He sucks and draws my clit into his mouth, causing it to throb with need. I feel like I'm going insane from want. I need to come. Have to come. “Please, Anders,” I beg.
“You taste amazing,” he says while he withdraws his mouth.
My body is wrecked as he shoves two fingers inside of me, pushing them in and out with staggering speed as his other hand reaches around to massage my clit with just as much fervor. The orgasm is so intense that it takes my breath away.
“Oh God,” I cry out, curling my fingers into the sheets and biting my bottom lip.
Before the contractions even finish, he pushes his cock back inside of me and thrusts for the home stretch. It's a matter of seconds before he pulls out again to release his seed on my stomach. I feel absolutely exhausted, my body deliciously sore, my cunt still throbbing from his rough erotic handling. For the briefest of moments, I forgot about everything. Forgot that he has a kid. That he withheld that information from me. That he thought it was alright to keep secrets.
As my endorphins die down though, it all comes back to me, and I'm left with an uneasy feeling in my heart. Even when he lies in bed next to me to pull me into his arms, I don't feel right. Something has changed between us tonight. Or maybe it's just changed in me. I don't know what I want anymore.
“Where do you picture us in five years?” I ask absentmindedly as I clean myself up with a hand towel he gave me.
“I don't like to think that far ahead,” his voice is filled with exhaustion, and I know I probably only have a limited amount of time before he passes out on me.
“You're a businessman. You have to think that far ahead.” I rest against him and lazily trace a circle on his chest with my fingertip. It's the first time I realize he doesn't have any chest hair at all. He must get waxed. He's too smooth to be shaved.
“In business, yes. In relationships, no.” He affectionately strokes my back.
“We are in a relationship then?”
“Yes,” he laughs softly. “Am I about to endure another five hundred questions from you? I figured your gas tank would be on empty by now.”
I can't tell if he's joking or annoyed. I almost feel bad for continuing to pester him, but there's so much I still want to know. Things that will help me decide if he's truly right for me or not.
“Why do you want to be with me?” I inquire. If he passes out on me, I won't be angry. It's important for me to ask these things now though.
“Because you're amazing and beautiful and smart and sweet and sexy.” He gives me a gentle squeeze and kisses me on top of the head.
“You're such a charmer.” I smirk, though he can't see it's somewhat sarcastic.
“I only speak the truth.”
Does he? I wonder. He's lied to me before. But I've lied to him as well. Maybe my lies haven't been as big as his, but I have lied. I can't forget that.
“Would you like me to tell you a bedtime story?”
The question catches me off guard. “Sure,” I reply hesitantly.
“When Angela and I got divorced, I didn't think I would ever love again. I hated her. Hated women. I felt used, to an extent. I know it sounds stupid, but when you walk in on your wife fucking another man . . . well, it does things to you.”
I can't even imagine his pain. An image plays in my head of the beautiful blonde cheating on Anders, of him walking into their bedroom and seeing her with another man. I'm not sure how I would ever be able to handle something like that.
“I didn't want to love women anymore, but I still craved them. I am a man, after all, and as cliché as it sounds, we do have needs. I had needs, and I thought it was okay to use women to fill them.
“At first, I started going to clubs, picking up whoever would go home with me. I met hundreds of women. Fucked hundreds of women. It was great.”
Just hearing him admit that makes me uncomfortable. This story isn't going so well. Maybe I don't want to listen to it after all. The emotions it's stirring within me aren't pleasant. I feel jealous and somewhat disgusted. It's easy for me to picture him being a man whore. The first time I laid eyes on him in The Billionaires Club, I knew what he was, a powerful man who lived for nothing but getting his balls lit.
“When you're successful though, people talk,” he tells me. “My business associates became worried about me. Word was getting around about my playboy life. It's not the type of image I wanted to portray to the public. Women buy my fitness stuff too, and I didn't want to alienate that market by making them think they were buying from a bad guy.
“One of my friends told me about The Billionaires Club. A discrete way to get laid. I could be anonymous and fuck a different girl every night of the week if I wanted. It sounded like a dream. It was a dream for a while. And then I met you,” he pauses in thought.
“You make that seem like a bad thing.” I brush my lips against his chest, wondering if it was. In hindsight, it could have been a bad thing for both of us.
“You weren't like the other women there. You were sweet and innocent and passionate. Refreshing. Like nothing I'd seen in a long time. And then I remembered what it was like to want someone again. To truly want someone.”
The raw edge to his words makes my heart swirl with emotion. Tears come to my eyes unbidden, and I hate myself for being so sappy. It's odd to get this unprovoked confession out of him though. I'm soaking it in, appreciating every moment of it.
“I knew I had to have you.” He nods lightly. “I knew I would do anything to have you. And the more I got to know you, the more I knew you were exactly what I needed in my life.”
“Anders,” I practically whimper his name.
He searches for my hand and pulls it into his, squeezing it gently. “I love you, Tessa Murphy.”
I mouth the words, but nothing comes out. I do love him. At least, I think I do. Why is it so hard to say it though? Because deep down inside, I'm still guarded around him, and knowing that he withheld the information about his son isn't making it any better. He's too secretive. I can't let him know he owns my heart—that he has so much power over me. Not yet.