43. Fletcher
Chapter 43
Fletcher
M y father’s ostentatious black Maybach pulling up in front of the house Sunday afternoon was the absolute last thing I ever wanted to see. My body still ached from fucking Luca and being fucked by Gideon, and there had to be a day when my ability to keep myself composed in front of the man would give out. The angry lashes across my back hurt far more than they had in the morning, and all I wanted to do was take a shower and go to bed for a week.
Maybe with company.
The thought was beyond unsettling, because while I’d spent so long dreaming about what it would be like to finally be taken by Gideon North, those dreams had been nothing compared to reality. I’d built the idea of him up in my head for so long, maybe as punishment for my teenage betrayal, maybe because I was a fool after all. But having sex with him wasn’t much different from sex with other people. The mechanics were the same, though the way Gideon’s body covered mine was entirely unique, the way my nails gouged his flesh was explicitly ours, but overall it had been the emotion that made it different.
I’d never stopped loving him, though I honestly hadn’t ever realized I’d started.
Until our bodies crashed together in the middle of the living room, I’d loved Gideon as a hypothetical, a broad idea, a vague term. Now, I loved him consumingly and dangerously, and I didn’t have time to make heads or tails of that revelation because my father was on the porch, hand on the door knob. He didn’t knock because he never had to. Thorn Hill was just as much his as it was mine, an honor—or a curse—bestowed upon all past presidents. Not that my father ever knocked on any door whether he was welcome or not.
“Take Bellamy to your room,” I said to Daren, but it was too late. They were on the stairs and my father was inside. He was slower than he used to be, but still quick enough to have appraised the entire room and all the people in it. He undoubtedly noticed the way Bellamy’s pointer finger was crooked around Daren’s pinky.
“That won’t be necessary,” my father said, locking the door behind him.
The air left the room, left my lungs. I still had dirt under my nails from the night before, cum in my ass from when Gideon had just fucked me on the couch my father was very likely about to make himself comfortable on. The house could have exploded and collapsed to the ground, and I wouldn’t have been surprised.
“What can I get you to drink, Mr. Sinclair?” Daren asked, clearing his throat and coming back down to the first floor.
“Glad someone in this house remembers their manners,” my father said, sitting on the couch and bending one leg over the other. His pants hiked up toward his calf revealing navy blue monogrammed silk socks, a swirl of roses up the ankle.
Our earlier established plan disintegrated in my head. I was sixteen again, standing in the middle of my dorm room at Rose Hill Prep, phone pressed to my ear while I listened to his detailed instructions about what would happen to Gideon, what would happen to me, if I didn’t break the tie between us for good.
I swayed on my feet, hopefully not enough for him to notice, and then Daren was at my back, literally, with his shoulder digging into the lash marks across my spine to keep me upright. The pain was all I needed to draw me back to the present, like getting tossed out of a black hole where everything goes from quiet and cold to loud and hot. I drew in a sharp breath and answered for my father.
“Scotch on the rocks for both of us,” I said to Daren.
My father almost smiled, tracing his tongue across his thin lower lip. He looked from me to Daren, to me, to Bellamy, still on the stairs, still in Gideon’s fucking hoodie.
“Bellamy Marchant, I presume?” my father said, not bothering to stand, not offering his hand.
“Yes, sir,” Bellamy whispered.
I jerked my head toward the couch, and Bellamy finally slinked off the stairs and headed to the middle of the room, stopping a pace behind me to the right.
“I’m Mr. Sinclair,” he said, as if he didn’t have a first name, as if he had no identity outside of being the piece of shit who ran my family.
“I know.”
“I imagine you do.”
Daren returned with two crystal tumblers of scotch. He set them both on the table and backed up alongside Bellamy.
“Did you share, Fletcher?” my father asked, his gaze falling to the long sleeves of Bellamy’s borrowed hoodie.
“When I was finished.”
He nodded like he was almost proud of me. “Generous to share your leftovers.”
That had to have hurt, but there was no way I could turn around to read either of their expressions. Even in our societies, to most people, my father was more of a presence than a person. Seeing him in the wild, pouring him drinks, conversing with him…that was not a common experience for people outside of his bloodline. They didn’t know how to deal with him the way I did, how to say the right things.
“I would have preferred a woman,” I lied.
His eyes narrowed, a quiet breath huffed out of his nostrils. “Is that so?”
“I’ve…” I licked my lips, swallowing bile. “Developed a taste for it.”
“It’s fine to dabble, Fletcher,” he said, reaching for his drink. He swirled the ice, sniffed the liquor, raised it to his mouth. “As long as you know the difference between top shelf and well.”
I took a breath, forcing my mouth to find the obedient smile he expected, forcing my legs to carry me toward the couch so I could sit beside him and pick up my drink.
“Of course, Father,” I agreed, chasing bile down with thousand dollar scotch. “Now, to what do I owe this visit?”