Total pages in book: 63
Estimated words: 59947 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 300(@200wpm)___ 240(@250wpm)___ 200(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 59947 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 300(@200wpm)___ 240(@250wpm)___ 200(@300wpm)
“No. And since you’re asking, I guess your mom didn’t let you, either?”
“She told us, flat-out told us, that our dad was dead and it was the Knowles’s fault. Did your dad say something similar?”
“Every goddamn day.”
“That’s why I truly mean that it doesn’t matter. Because we were kids.” Her thumb traces the line of my jaw, rasping over my morning stubble, and it takes everything in me not to bury my face in her hand and kiss her palm. “I’m pretty sure my mom knew what she was doing, arriving earlier than our appointment, then waiting where your dad would see her. I’m not sure either of us can be blamed for following where our parents were leading us or for believing what they told us. So neither one of us is at fault, not really. Not for what you said. Not for me biting you.” Her lips quirk and her eyes crinkle. “Of course, if either of us did the same now…I’m not sure we’d have an excuse.”
If she’s trying to lighten the load that we’re carrying, then I’ll help her. “There’s a bite mark on my shoulder that says you haven’t changed too much. Though you didn’t draw blood, at least.”
She grins up at me. “I came like some kind of wild animal. I’m surprised your dick wasn’t crushed.”
“If you hadn’t made my dick so damn hard, it probably would’ve been.” Not that I’m complaining. And I’m looking forward to it again, that tight fluttering squeeze down the full length of my cock.
I’m stiffening now just thinking of it.
Her head tilts. “If you don’t mind saying…why are you not with your dad? Because it is Christmas. Is it just that he’s an asshole?”
That deflates my burgeoning erection. “Partially. I don’t talk to him much. We haven’t done Christmas together for years. Nothing beyond a text, sometimes not even that. I do see him now and again. We know enough of the same people that we cross paths. But I’ve just got nothing to say to him.”
She gives me a knowing look. “Does he have anything to say to you?”
“Heh. Nothing worth hearing. He boasts about what he buys—his toys, he always calls them—and his big plans and his money. It’s always a whole lot of posturing, even when it’s just him and me. His own son. He doesn’t need to prove anything to me but it’s always the same shit. And we’re just completely fucking different. No common interests, nothing worth sharing with him. And he’s so goddamn loud. Always talking over everyone. Railroading over anyone else’s opinions.”
“Ah,” she says softly.
“What?”
“That’s why you said I was silenced. I didn’t know how to put it, the way I felt with Lauryn. But you did. Because being silenced isn’t unfamiliar to you.”
I shake my head—not in denial, but in surprise that she’d made the connection so quickly. It took me twenty-one years and about a hundred and fifty thousand words before I understood what he does. “It’s not the same—it’s not negativity—but I sure as hell wasn’t allowed to have an opinion that didn’t match his. So I learned to keep my mouth shut. But that was normal, growing up. Or I thought it was. ‘A good son respects his father’s authority.’ I can’t tell you how many times I heard that.”
Her eyes narrow. “A good son respect his father’s authority or respects his father?”
“Pretty sure he thought they were the same thing.”
“But you don’t,” she says.
“I’d say a good father is one that his son can respect.”
She smiles as if she likes that answer. “Did the respect ever go both ways?”
“Seemed like it did following the shouting match I told you about. As if he recognized me as my own man after.”
“‘Seemed?’”
This woman never misses a thing. “We’d cross paths, he’d slap my back and ask if I was doing all right, ask if I was getting enough pussy, and remind me that I should come to him if I needed any help with my business. That’s his version of respect.”
Her nose wrinkles. “How fun.”
“Easy to shrug off, at least. Though I bet if I ever openly disagreed with him, I’d get the ‘good son’ speech again. It wasn’t until the thing with your mom’s house that I realized I actively disliked him. And that I couldn’t respect him.”
She comes up on her elbow, eyes wide. “Really?”
“It was his gloating.” How do I begin to explain this? “After she died, his rage against your family was always on my mother’s behalf. Because of the lawsuits and the way your mom trashed her name every time she could. I can’t say I felt much different. Even after accepting that what my mom did was unethical, it was still real fucking hard to see her name ground into the dirt. So I always respected my father for how fiercely he protected her good name. She’d cheated on him, yet he still protected her. I admired him for that loyalty, that dedication.”