Thirty-Nine
DALTON
F or as long as I can remember, loud music, a crowd, flowing drinks, and the possibility for havoc have called to me. Occasionally, I’ve wondered where I get this gravitational pull toward a good time. Then, I remember who my mother is.
Mom’s a party animal, but not in the messy, mishap-prone way I am—but the elegant, extravagant way Jay Gatsby was—and the woman loves a spite party. She canceled her wedding on a Thursday night, and by Saturday, she repurposed the vendors to host the most over-the-top post-Thanksgiving party the Hudson River Valley has ever seen. And I like a party, it’s true—
But I like kissing Essie a lot more.
On the day we were supposed to watch our parents exchange vows, I’ve shoved her against the inside door of the walk-in pantry. One of my hands is under her perfect ass, holding her up; the other is doing masterful work on one of her perky nipples. She’s wearing this tiny little dress I bought her. It’s so tight around her breasts that I can’t get my fingers underneath, but her nipples have beaded through the thick fabric, and her tits look heavy and swollen the more I work them.
“We have to stop,” she manages to say in between kisses—as if she hasn’t been kissing my face for literally sixteen minutes like a woman trying to make up for lost time.
I let her. I’m generous like that.
“There’s, like, four hundred people out there. They can all entertain each other,” I reply before I unabashedly extend my tongue to the base of her neck and lick the entire column. “I want to make you squirt on my face.”
“Dalton!”
“You have to be quiet though, baby,” I urge, grinding against her bare, exposed pussy. “I can’t have four hundred people hearing you moan. They’ll all know how you devolve into a horny, shameless mess when your cunt gets filled with something thick.”
Essie inhales abruptly, and I capture her lips again. I’m a menace without a mask.
“Squirting is so messy,” she groans, pretending to be a girl who doesn’t handle messy things with the utmost grace—and also pretending to be a girl who hasn’t let tens of thousands of people see her devolve into a horny, shameless mess when her cunt gets filled.
“Sweetheart, you know I like to lick it up,” I reply, shifting my hand on her butt so my fingertips reach her asshole. “Come here. Let me feel your tits before I worship that wet pussy.”
I finally work my hand into the top of her dress and find her nipple pearled and eager to be toyed with. Transfixed, I take in the puffiness of her areola. It’s unbelievably beautiful. Her entire body is so viciously beautiful, and together, we’ve reached a level of intimacy I’ve never experienced before.
Essie is it for me. There’s no one else.
“Do you know if you can get pregnant?” I ask, dragging the pad of my thumb over the edge of her areola. My voice comes out low and slow and heavy—and sincere.
“If I didn’t have an IUD? I don’t know,” she replies while she watches me work her nipple. Her response is sincere too, not a terrified knee-jerk reaction. “I could find out.”
A smile spreads over my face with alarming speed. “You’d make me the most gorgeous babies, Essie,” I muse before I tend to her other breast. “I’d die to breed this body right now. I’m picturing you filled up and swollen, ready to burst, begging me to massage all the aches and pains while you grow our babies. You know you’re going to make me a real daddy one day, don’t you?”
She threads her hand through my hair and tugs my head back so I’m looking at her face rather than at the tits I’m envisioning heavy and leaking with warm milk. “You are a real daddy.”
I thrust my hips. “Tell me you want to be bred by my fat cock. Tell me you want me to fill you with cum until you grow a cute little pregnant belly for me. Tell me you want to give me a family,” I coax while she grinds down on my hand.
“I will,” she promises, groaning. “Are you going to take good care of me and our babies?” Her words now carry the frantic undertones that arise when she’s close. “Spoil us?”
Essie’s smile could wreck me. “Tell me. Promise me you’ll let me fill you with cum until it works. Promise me you’ll give us a family.”
“You’re allowed to do anything to my body,” she reminds me, articulating exactly what I had in mind. “Free-use, Daddy.”
That does it. I slam onto my knees, shove up her dress, and capture her clit between my lips until she climaxes in a gush and squirts her cum onto my face and shirt.
When I stand—messy as usual—the bulge in my pants is obvious. “Damn. I should have taunted you after I made you take my load.”
Essie rolls her eyes and tugs her stretched dress over her breasts. “As your girlfriend, I’ll happily let you leave your cum in me.”
My heart skips, and I scrub my hand over my damp mouth. “You’re my girlfriend?”
Essie nods, entirely unabashed, and I’m kind of obsessed. We never discussed it; she unilaterally decided we were in a relationship. She basically claimed me.
“I’ve never had a girlfriend,” I muse, speaking while I straighten my (very) damp shirt. “In high school, there was this girl who used to sit in my lap with her skirt, like, fanned around her. We did our homework together. That was probably the closest thing I’ve ever had to a girlfriend. But you’re mine?”
“And you’re my boyfriend— not my brother.”
“ Step brother,” I say for the last time before I close the space between us. “I love you,” I whisper before I bend and kiss her.
Essie sighs against my lips. “Will you say that every time you fuck me?”
“Even on camera?” I reply.
She pulls back, and when there’s enough space between us for me to make out her features, I see how deeply the furrow in her brow goes. “Camera?”
My face shifts into a frown as well. “Are you firing me?” I lower my hands to her butt and squeeze. “I’ve never been fired before.”
“Never? That shocks me.”
“It shocks everyone.”
“Well, our contract technically ends today—”
“I don’t need a contract,” I reply. “We made a killing on those two streams—even with the bullshit cut the site takes. I’ve told you: Nothing gets me hotter than helping you make money. Well, I take that back. You wearing thigh highs is up there. Oh, and you squirting, obviously. Obviously . I mean, if I’m ever on death row, I’d really like it if you just squirted on my face instead of a last meal.”
“I’ll consider it. But for now, we should go back to the party.”
“Yeah, we left your brothers to fend for themselves against the wolves.” I take out my phone. Stacked messages from my father and Hannington are a strange irony.
“What’s wrong?”
“My dad texted me. He said, ‘ I heard the wedding is off. How is Mom? ’”
“Just tell him to fuck off.”
“I will when you tell your dad to fuck off,” I reply, winking at her. “Hey, Tommy mentioned he left without saying goodbye to anyone.”
“Don’t care. He always comes crawling back.” But in spite of her words, her expression is grim.
“Do you want to talk about it?”
“Nope. I’m fine. I’m not lacking in the Daddy department.”
I kiss her cheek before I check my next message. “Hey, Hannington took us up on the invite. His family is here.”
Essie pulls her mouth to the side. “I can’t believe your mom invited them.”
Something about her tone unnerves me, and my eyes narrow to slits. “What happened?”
“It’s not a big deal.”
Nope—unacceptable. I lean down. “Anything that happens to you is a big deal to me. It’s a big deal to me when you blink , Essie. Tell me.”
She sighs slowly and glances to the side before she says, “Weston asked me out last Monday.”
“WHAT?” I bellow.
“Calm down,” Essie orders, resting her hand on my side. “I handled it.”
My inhalation runs sharply through my nostrils. “I don’t want you to handle things. I handle things. Your goddamn daddy handles things .”
“Well, when you’re not here, I’m my own daddy. I rejected him even though he basically said he would sabotage my offer. But I wasn’t going to let him ruin me, so I called Claudia and got her to invest into my model. There. Handled.”
“But why didn’t you tell me?” I demand.
“Because you love Warner.” She stares into my eyes with her soft, sympathetic gaze. “And I knew you’d murder Weston, which—believe it or not—might piss off his dad.”
“Debatable,” I murmur, glancing to the side. “I’m going to find him.”
“Don’t say a word,” she warns. “Just let it go.” Her expression is magnificently serious.
“Do I have to?” I ask. And when she nods, I sigh and say, “Fine. I won’t say anything.” I kiss her forehead. “Go have fun. I’ll change my shirt and find you.”
Essie’s expression is serious. “Dalton, please be good.”
“I’m good, baby. I promise,” I assure her, ushering her out the pantry door. “Good as gold.”
***
Joke’s on Essie; gold prices are volatile as fuck.
The house is packed with a mix of my mom’s friends and what I have to assume is everyone she’s ever met in the Hudson River Valley. I weave through the throngs of drunk people, scanning for Weston. He’s not on the first floor or in the backyard, but I do see Essie with Cora and Everett. Everett looks like he’s identifying the genus of the trees in the immediate vicinity—again—but despite the riveting lesson in dendrology, Essie’s eyes meet mine. I give a reassuring wave before I go back inside.
I finally head upstairs, unbuttoning my shirt as I go, and the party sounds fade to a muted, indecipherable blur until only the faint tingle of the crystals in the chandelier punctuate my walk.
And lo and behold, like a gift from the universe herself, the man of the hour stumbles out of a bedroom right as I enter the second-floor hallway. A giggling woman half-dangles off him, and they’re clearly reveling in post-nut bliss until they see me.
“Oh,” Weston says, wiping his smug mouth with the back of his hand. “We were—”
“Fucking in my house,” I fill in, giving him the stoniest expression I know. I come to a stop in front of them before I click my tongue and cock my head toward the stairs.
The woman takes the hint.
“Not you,” I snap when Weston tries to follow.
Weston begrudgingly faces me and layers on a placid expression. It’s fake.
I take him in while I continue unbuttoning my shirt. “You have a hickey.”
“So do you.”
I know I have a hickey. I have, like, sixteen.
Keeping my eyes locked on Wes, I finish unbuttoning my shirt and take it off. His eyes widen when he sees my full chest on display.
Breathe it in, bitch.
“Essie told me something interesting,” I mention while I pretend to fold my shirt. “Said you asked her out.”
He shakes his head without missing a beat. “No.”
“She lied to me?” I ask, stepping forward and putting my face near his.
His lips part. “Well, I don’t know what she said exactly , but—”
“Something did happen.” I tilt my head. “Was that a smart idea?”
His weight shifts back, but I lean in—no reprieves until I get answers. “I thought she wanted it,” he finally responds.
Letters have legitimately never been put in a more rotten order in the history of the English language, but I manage to keep my expression flat. “That’s the story you’re going with: Essie was so interested in you that she would risk a full-time job at the bank to sample you.” I chuckle. “Have you ever looked at yourself?”
Weston has to tilt his back to see me when I’m standing this close.
“Because I see you,” I state. “You’re mediocre in every way.”
“The hell…” he murmurs.
“I said,” I return, enunciating the words, “you are mediocre in every way . You’re an objectively untalented banker. You’re lazy. You’re a worse conversationalist than the cum in the socks you pretend are the pussies you can’t pull. You’re a DC six and a New York four.” His jaw finally lowers. “And I dare you— I fucking dare you —to blackmail my sister again.”
“Are you out of your mind?” Weston snaps, squinting his blue eyes. “She’s not your sister. She’s not even your stepsister anymore.” His face contorts. “And do you think my father is going to let you speak to me like this?”
“Tell him,” I goad. “But before you do, ask him about the first time he said I was the son he never had. It’s happened more than once, Wes.”
Weston’s expression is grave. I may have crossed a line—and the thought thrills me. Because when he propositioned Essie and threatened her career, he crossed my goddamn line.
I move like I’m about to pass him, but stop abruptly and say, “If you ever threaten Essie again, I’ll macerate your tongue, spread the remains from here to Wall Street, and sprinkle glitter in it so people find traces of your sorry existence for all eternity.”
And when I get to my bedroom, I’ve barely started rinsing my shirt in the sink when Essie comes barreling in and wraps her arms around my neck, murmuring, “I saw you shirtless.”
We never make it back to the party.