Chapter Ten #2
“Fuck’s sake, Appa,” I whispered, shaking my head. “No wonder even your super conservative family members thought you were an ass.”
“Sue?”
I turned as Micah crossed the asphalt holding tight to Lily’s hand.
“Everything okay?”
“Yes,” I replied, holding out my arms for Lily to jump in them. “Just wishing more men were feminists.”
That got an eyebrow raise. “Didn’t know you cared about that, but, if it helps my cause...” He flashed me that wicked, toe-curling grin. “I am.”
I ducked my head, hiding a blush in Lily’s hair. “Are you?” I shot back. “Because saying you are just to illicit the kind of favors you want to get from me, kind of proves you’re not.”
He laughed out loud—not in the least bit slighted.
I reached for the door handle and paused. Lily’s teacher waved at us from the sidewalk. He waited for a car to pass, then jogged over.
“Yes?” I asked. “Is something wrong? Did Lily forget something?”
“No, not a thing.” Charles Layton was a short, but handsome man with plump, round cheeks and a gangly frame.
I didn’t know how much chasing after kids in the hot sun he did day after day, but his pale skin was tan in some places, and red in the rest. I put him at around my age.
“I just wanted to let you know that I have a faculty meeting tomorrow, so I’ll be an hour late. ”
I stared at him. “Late to... what exactly?”
He laughed. “Very funny, Mrs. Kim. See you tomorrow.”
I waved him off. “Nariboo, what’s that strange man talking about?”
“Mommy, you know. My piano lesson.”
“Oh, he’s your piano teacher too?”
“Yes,” she said with a hearty nod. “But I don’t like it. Piano is boring. I want to play the drums.”
Chuckling, I opened her door and helped her buckle in.
I couldn’t help but love her six-year-old straight talk.
Honestly, I think the worst thing we do as a society is to stem a child’s natural flow of truth and directness, and teach them they must run every word through a filter until the only thing they’re left speaking is bullshit.
I climbed into the passenger seat and tossed a smile at Micah.
“Good news,” I told him. “I called Mrs. Prado and convinced her to come back and work at the manor. She’s even going to take on hiring the rest of the staff that we need.
Because for a feminist, you didn’t take on too much of the cleaning and cooking, did you, Spencer? ”
“Baby girl.” He laced his fingers through mine and brought my palm to his lips before I could get out a squeak. “If you want me with a broom in my hands, you only have to say.”
My face caught fire and exploded. “What kind of nonsense are you saying with a child in the car!”
That just set him off laughing at me. But he didn’t let go of my hand...
...and I didn’t make him.
I WAS A STRAIGHT MESS when we got back to the manor.
Micah spent the whole car ride rubbing tiny, mind-melting circles on my inner wrist that had me shivering up and down my spine so much, I would’ve vibrated out of the car if the door wasn’t shut and locked.
As soon as he killed the engine, I hopped out, hurried upstairs, changed into my running gear, grabbed my phone, and then sprinted out the door.
My usual route was out of the question thanks to a certain clawed and fanged animal who might have aggrieved friends, so instead I turned right after climbing off the front step, and made for the cliff path.
The Kims owned miles and miles of prime Lantana land, except where Poseidon’s trident cleaved the earth and forced it to give way to the sea. The cliff path was exactly what it sounded like. A running and hiking path that ran right alongside the cliffs.
The view was gorgeous. Nothing but the glittering, undulating waves stretched out to the horizon and beyond.
I wished I could’ve run this path more often as a teenager, but back then I had a not-entirely-irrational fear that the last thing someone with a sister like mine should do.
.. was get within pushing distance of a cliff’s edge.
How ironic was it that I was the one who ended up throwing her into the sea?
But either way, Sue was the last of my concerns. She wasn’t the problem chasing me across the coast.
“You can’t sleep with him. You can’t sleep with him. You can’t sleep with any of them,” I shouted into my phone, recording every word. “You can’t sleep with Micah, Rhodes, or Alex, and you’ll repeat this message to yourself every time you forget it!”
I shouted sense into myself and my phone for a good half an hour until my rubber legs demanded I go back inside.
Trudging through the mud and grass, I tried turning my thoughts to what I was making for dinner that night.
Nari had eaten enough processed and takeout food to last a lifetime, and I didn’t trust the three former rich boys inside not to go straight to all the packaged and microwaveables I bought at the store.
Corned beef and cabbage would be quick and easy, I thought, heading inside and climbing the great hall stairs. I could throw in some white beans, and make an avocado side salad.
My door loomed at the end of the hall, promising me a steaming hot shower on the other side.
I’ll see if Nari wants to cook with me. I don’t want her waking up at eighteen years old and finding out that without a cellphone and a delivery driver, she’d starve.
I threw open my door, and stopped dead.
There was a steamy, hot shower waiting for me all right, but it seemed someone else had gotten to it first.
I stood there blinking and gaping like an idiot, my sluggish brain fighting to connect how and why steam and singing were coming out of my open bathroom door.
“—that ass, shake that ass, shake that—”
“Hello?!”
“Oh, hey, Sue,” called a completely nonchalant voice. “I forgot to grab it on the way in, but would you mind getting my shower gel from under the sink? No offense, but I’m not interested in smelling like a mocha sunrise. I don’t even know what that means.”
“I... uh...” I took a step, then found I couldn’t go any further. “What are you doing in my shower?”
“Nothing but cold water is coming out of mine,” he returned. “Speaking of, would you mind telling Mrs. Prado that if she’s really coming back, we need her to bring a plumber with her. I can’t stand this place,” he grumbled. “Everything’s falling the fuck apart.”
“But why didn’t you shower in Alex’s or Rhodes’s bathroom?”
Laughter carried out of the shower. “Why in the world would I?”
I heated up. Of course he wouldn’t go in their space. He wasn’t married to them. It was perfectly reasonable for a man to shower in the same tub as his wife. It wasn’t his fault said wife was replaced by an impostor.
“Oh. Okay.”
“Babe,” he called, making me jump. “Shower gel?”
“Huh? Oh, yeah! Sorry.” I willed movement back into my feet, making them carry me across the bathroom to the—
Micah stood under the warm spray butt naked with nary a shower curtain or murky glass partition to shield him from me. Under my wide, bulging eyes, his hands traveled down, down, down his chest to the wet and swollen member hanging between his legs.
I stopped breathing. Stopped moving. Stopped thinking as he grasped his cock, and started stroking.
“Hey, are you all right?” he asked with a laugh. “Why are you just standing there?”
My lips parted, but nothing came out. Nothing I ever experienced—sexually or otherwise—could’ve prepared me for seeing Micah Spencer naked.
Hera knew I imagined such a miraculous thing enough times in my teenage fantasies.
And a few times in my adult fantasies when I was faking my way through sex with Dan, and a grown-up version of Micah, Rhodes, or Alexander would pop into my head—promising they’d satisfy me even if the stupid fool on top of me couldn’t.
“It has been a while, hasn’t it.”
I jerked, heating the sweat on my body up for the second time.
“And now that I think about it...” Micah drawled, squeezing his length tighter the further down he went. “You never did give me an answer to my question. My deal or yours?” He tipped his chin, making those long, wet locks fall over his hooded eyes. “Join me and we’ll work out all the... kinks.”
Sense slapped me across the head, snapping me out of it in a blink. “Okay, that’s it.” I pointed at my feet. “Get out of my shower and get over here. We need to settle this right now.”
“And I have to get out for this?”
“Move your ass.”
Amusement etched into every line and water droplet on his face. Grabbing a towel, he climbed out of the shower and padded over to me. “What is it, Sue? I know you’re committed to keeping up your act, but I promise not to hold it against you if you drop this blushing virgin routine.”
“It’s not a routine!” I was looking anywhere but down.
Micah had a towel on... but it was around his shoulders.
“You and I having sex is not a good idea! There are a thousand reasons why, and I can list them all for you right now,” I said, whipping out my phone.
“We need to be celibate. Can you agree to that, and stop trying to seduce me?”
“No.”
“Very well,” I said primly. “Then, I’m going to need you to speak very clearly into the mic, stating that you are willingly and soberly consenting to sexual intercourse with the knowledge that I am putting on an ‘act’ as you call it, but you’re aware of and okay with this.”
He blinked at the phone. “This is a new and strange form of foreplay. Did you learn it from your side piece?”
“Into the phone,” I pressed, moving it closer. “Repeat after me: I am willingly and soberly—"
Laughing, Micah dropped the towel and draped me shrieking over his shoulder instead.
“I would much prefer a record of your consent before we—”
“You’d also prefer to drop that phone on the mat, or it’s going in the shower with us.”
“Micah—!”
Micah stepped in the tub—me and all.
I barely had enough time to toss my phone out of the bathroom before he dropped me on my feet, directly under the warm spray.
“If I could just get on the record that—”