I was a giant asshole.
With a disconcerted sigh, I ran a frustrated hand through my hair and wandered over to the hammock swing. It was better to be out here sorting through the wreckage in my mind than tossing and turning next to the warm body in my bed. I couldn’t help but think I’d made a mess of everything. That I would be far less burdened in this moment if I’d just been clear and honest with my wife from the day of our wedding.
But I hadn’t been.
And now, before I’d finished laying my groundwork, before I’d gotten brave enough and secure enough to tell her I was a father, she’d told me she didn’t want children of her own—not anytime soon, anyway—and I’d blown up at her. All I could think was, how is she possibly going to want me now? Now that I come with a plus one?
All I could think was, I’m going to lose her, and I freaked out.
Hours of staring into the darkness while I listened to the sweet rhythm of her breath as she slept made me realize I might be overreacting. Made me realize I was definitely being a prick, not giving her a chance to embrace my son. I’d given her a hypothetical situation and taken her hypothetical response—a response aimed at biological children of her own—and decided that it meant something that it didn’t have to. Callie was raising Sebastian. Callie was Sebastian’s mother. My paternal relationship with this little boy didn’t mean Elizabeth had to lose her dreams. What kind of blockhead assumed it meant otherwise?
This blockhead, apparently.
I groaned as I leaned back into the hammock, pushing off with the balls of my feet into a gentle swing. I had to tell her. I had to tell her everything. Every last thing I’d been storing inside of me, not willing to expose, had to be shared with her now. There wasn’t any more putting it off.
As though the universe were intent on making me commit, it was then that Elizabeth chose to open the sliding door and interrupt my solitude. She stepped down onto the beach wearing the button-down linen shirt I’d had on earlier, her hair tangled from when I’d bent her over the vanity in the bathroom and fucked her hard, mercilessly, watching us both in the mirror as we rode through our climaxes.
With her hair tousled and the moonlight hitting her, she looked like an angel, maybe even an angel of death. An angel who was about to put me out of my misery, if I’d let her.
She found me quickly and started over to me before I’d even fully gestured for her to come over. I was still caught up in my self-made hell, but not so distracted that I wasn’t wondering if she was wearing nothing underneath the shirt. My cock was already twitching against the drawstring of the pajama pants that I’d pulled on before I came outside, and when she sat across my lap, her long creamy legs stretched over me, I definitely got stiff.
“What are you doing out here? It’s late.” She wrapped her arms around my neck and I nestled my face into the curve of her shoulder. I kissed the delicate strip of skin that was bared there, sending more blood down to my cock.
“Couldn’t sleep.” I trailed my tongue along the spot I’d just pressed my mouth to.
“You should’ve woken me up.” Her sultry voice was an invitation and I was ready to RSVP. I wouldn’t even have to have her straddle me. I was sure I could press into her at this angle and imagined how good and tight it would feel to bury into her soft, sweet pussy while she continued to sit on me sideways.
But that was a guilty temptation I was intent on not taking advantage of. Not right now—I wouldn’t feel good about myself afterward. I’d been given a moment of clarity, followed by the opportunity to talk to her for a reason. I needed to be better than I had been. Needed to be the guy who didn’t blow it.
With a heavy sigh, I sat back away from her.
She ran her fingers through my hair and studied my features. “What are you thinking about?”
The tone of her voice held that note of hopeful longing, a distinct giveaway that she wasn’t sure I would tell her anything.
Which made me only feel like a bigger asshat.
But also made me a thousand times more committed to baring something meaningful to her. I took a second to answer, gathering my words and confidence. “I was thinking about how stupid it is that I can’t just tell you everything that’s inside me. Why is that? They’re only words. They’re only sentences. And yet each time I think about bringing them through me, they snag at the back of my throat.”
She curled her knees up against my bare chest, and I could hear the slightest uptick in the speed of her breathing—an indication that this conversation thrilled her? Scared her? Possibly both, but for the most part she played it cool, continuing to lightly stroke my hair.
“Are you afraid of what I’ll think about you?” she asked, raw honesty layered in her tone.
“Yes. I guess that’s the biggest reason why it’s hard to say these things.”
“I want to tell you that there can’t be anything that you would say that would change how I feel about you. Because I believe that’s true. You couldn’t have even really cheated on me, and that’s the worst I can think you could do, since we were never really—”
I turned my head to face her, cutting her off abruptly. “I haven’t cheated on you. Nothing has been directly against you. I haven’t betrayed you, not really. Or maybe I have by not sharing with you earlier, but I haven’t cheated on you.”
“That’s vaguely clear. But I feel even more confident in saying that nothing you can tell me is going to change how I feel about you, Weston. I also understand that you can’t know that until you tell me. And I also understand that whatever you’re keeping from me is a big enough part of you to matter. That you have to tell me before we can move on in this relationship. So you’re just going to have to try me to find out that I mean it when I say it’s going to be okay. Try me, and let me prove it to you.”
“I’m trying. I really am. I haven’t done this before. Never talked to a woman about anything real. Never talked to anyone, really, about anything real. Donovan sometimes. But mostly that was because he just already seems to know everything.” I could do this, though. Even sharing this—this fear, the anxiety surrounding opening up to her—that was a brave beginning, as far as I was concerned. I got points for that, didn’t I?
Points or not, I was scrambling trying to figure out where to go next. What to say next. Telling her was going to happen, but how to do it was another matter entirely.
“Maybe you could make it like a game of sorts. Maybe that would make it better,” Elizabeth suggested. “It was so easy to get to know each other when we first got here when we played strangers. Should we play that game again?”
I ran my hand along the outside of her thigh, loving the feel of her skin underneath my palm. “Some of these things I would never tell a stranger.” But maybe there was another game we could play. “Truth or dare?”
“Are you sure you won’t just pick dare every time?”
God, she knew me too well. “Fair. Another game then…?” Part of me was trying to find a way to involve stripping when a real answer came. “Two truths and a lie.”
“Two truths and a lie. That’s an excellent game.”
It was dangerous because I would be able to gauge her reaction to my truths beforehand, making it tempting to change my mind and tell her the wrong thing was a lie if I didn’t like how she responded.
No. I couldn’t do that. Mostly because she wouldn’t react terribly, I was almost certain.
“Let’s play then. You go first.” Because I was still a dick, after all. “Make it about sex. It’s always good when it’s about sex.” Because I was still a guy.
Because I was still scared.
She chuckled. “Okay. All right. Let me think a second.”
I continued to rub my hand up and down her leg while she thought, not letting myself get too worked up about what my turn would be. I needed to stay here, in the moment. If I thought about it too much, I’d end up running.
“I got it. I got it,” she said sitting up a little, twisting her tig
ht little ass to get more comfortable as she did, sending jolts of electric pleasure straight to my groin.
“Careful, Lizzie.”
She ignored me and went right into her turn. “I lost my virginity to Clarence Sheridan.”
“Oh,” I groaned. “Please let that be the lie.”
“I’ve never watched porn with another person. Or the Lelo vibrator is my tool of choice when it comes to masturbation.”
She tilted her chin up as though she was proud of herself.
The smug little look on her face, the very close proximity of her ass to my cock—I had to briefly pretend there were zombies about to come crawling out of the ocean before I could concentrate on her three statements and try to decide which one wasn’t true.
“I really wish the first one was a lie,” I said. “But I have a feeling, a deep dark feeling that it’s not. You don’t have a vibrator. I’d know about that by now, and there’s no way you’ve watched porn with another person. You blush too easily. I haven’t even watched porn with another person.”
“You haven’t watched porn with another person? How can you not have watched porn with someone?”
“Who needs to watch porn when you’re making it, baby?”
Even in the darkness, I could see her roll her eyes. “Anyway, you’re wrong.”
My heart lifted suddenly. Maybe she had never slept with Clarence Sheridan.
“I’ve totally watched porn with people. Multiple times. It’s amazing.”
“So you have fucked Clarence.”
“And watched porn with him!”
Gross. The guy probably needed it to get a woman turned on. I took that as comfort.
I turned my thoughts away from Clarence for a moment. “Does that mean you have a vibrator?” I hope I didn’t sound too eager.
“I didn’t bring it on my honeymoon.” She leaned down to run her nose along my ear. “But we can play with it when we get home, if that’s what you’re suggesting.”
So much for calming down my dick.
Though, thinking about our ambiguous future did make for a boner killer. What if we never had a chance to play with her vibrator together? What if we never got to watch porn? I couldn’t stand the idea of Clarence Sheridan going down in history as her best lover.
I needed more details about him.
“Was Clarence good to you at least?” I paused a second. “Actually, tell me he was an amateur. That’s what I want to hear. That he didn’t know what he was doing, and he was a total loser. With a tiny dick.”
She laughed, the side of her breast jiggling against my chest. “He had a normal dick. Whatever that is. And he was…sweet. It was his first time too.”
Oh, fuck. That meant it was a big deal for both of them.
It also meant he was brainless when it happened. “So he didn’t know what he was doing. At all. That’s what you’re saying.”
“He didn’t know what he was doing,” she confirmed. “It was over within seconds.”
“That’s what I wanted to hear. Thank you, Mrs. King.”
“I have to be totally forthcoming, though—”
“Do you?”
She continued. “And tell you he did get better. We both did.”
“I think I could’ve lived without knowing that.” To make matters worse, my boner wasn’t gone. In fact, now my cock wanted to go prove itself. Like, remind my wife that I was the best she’d ever have.
As if sensing the turmoil I was going through, Elizabeth brushed her lips against my jaw. “I don’t need to tell you how good of a lover you are, Weston. You already know you own the title of Best in Bed. Best against any hard surface, actually.”
“I don’t necessarily know that.” I mean, I did. “And, even if I do. It is nice to hear every once in a while.”
She chuckled again, her body curling tighter against me as she did.
“I think you’re a pretty hot lover too,” I said softly. “Feisty and kinky and loud and soft all wrapped into one.”
“Please don’t say that was the beginning of your turn. Because I would have to guess that that was your lie.”
“It’s not a lie.” I tickled her until she squirmed and my cock felt miserable again.
“Your turn, your turn,” she sang, poking her index finger into my chest.
Yeah. My turn. My fucking turn.
I was tempted to take this round as a warm-up, give her some bullshit statements that didn’t really mean anything, but I also needed to get this over with, get inside Elizabeth, get her inside me as soon as possible.
Three statements: I’m a father. I’m going to do better than my father. My father fucked up big time.
The lie was the middle one—I already wasn’t sure I was going to do better than anyone. I worried I couldn’t even do better than my father. And maybe that was the hang-up with me where Sebastian was concerned—I had daddy issues. Big time.
Where did I begin to get over the failures of Nash King?
By talking about it, I supposed.
The next sentence that came out of my mouth was thought as it was spoken. “My father encouraged unethical packaging and approval of housing loans even after the financial crisis.”
There it was. Out there. My most embarrassing family secret told to another human being. Told to the most important human I knew.
And all I could do was go on. “Statement two: He let one of his employees—Daniel Clemmons—practically a family friend, take the fall and go to jail for him. And statement three: I don’t care at all what you think about me after you hear this, that I’m not afraid you’ll think I’m like him or that I condone this, or that I worry you’ll be appalled when I tell you that I feel so guilty that I haven’t touched my trust fund—money that was made by squandering other people’s life savings—or that I’ve been giving money monthly to the Clemmons family to try to make up for…everything.”
I swallowed. “Obviously the last one’s the lie. I care very much what you think about me. I worry very much that you think I’m like him—like my dad. Maybe because I’m afraid that I’m like him.”
She was still for a moment on my lap. Then she was moving, adjusting herself to straddle me so she could take my face in her hands and look at me directly, and I held onto her, clutching her with shaking hands.
“Weston,” she began.
But I couldn’t lift my eyes to meet hers. I could just go on, could just blunder through the whole tale of it until it was told. “I found out when I was working at my father’s office one summer. I was still in college. It was about seven years ago. Before the allegations even came out publicly. And I was mad. I was really mad. And hurt, but mostly mad. Because why did he have to do something unethical? Weren’t we already making enough? Donovan didn’t see it so black and white. We didn’t have to go into business with our parents, he said, and we could do things differently, but we didn’t necessarily need to be so judgmental about how things had been done before us. It wasn’t exactly illegal. Which, okay. Sure. Fine. Everyone was doing shitty business deals.”
“Weston,” she said again, patiently.
“But then the charges came out and it really became an issue, because that’s when my dad had the opportunity to make things better. And he didn’t. I told him he needed to take the fall. He’d ruined people’s lives. To build our life. That wasn’t right, and I told him he needed to take responsibility. I think he might’ve even considered it, except my mother—my mother…” I lost myself in the vivid memory of that day, her usually perfect makeup smeared down her cheeks.
“She begged and cried and said she couldn’t live without him and there was no way he could turn himself in. But what about the Clemmonses? What about their children and his family? Daniel Clemmons was only following orders. He shouldn’t have had to pay the price for everyone else. I do everything I can, give them everything I can, and I just feel like it’s not ever enough. It’s never going to be enough—”
“Weston, look at me.”
&
nbsp; Her insistence was sharp. I lifted my eyes toward her face. Her beautiful, angelic face.
She ran her thumb gently across my cheekbone. “This is not your fault. Okay? I am so sorry this happened, and it has to hurt so bad. But I don’t think a fraction of an inch less of you for this. I probably think a whole hell of a lot more of you, if that’s even possible.” She tilted her head slightly. “Are you hearing me?”
I nodded, a ball lodged in the back of my throat that I couldn’t seem to swallow down.
“I mean it. Are you really hearing me? Because I’m going to tell you again—your father’s sins are not your sins. Who your father is is not who you are. I’m sorry that he’s hurt you. You never deserved that. But it’s not your fault.”
I nodded again, hearing her. Accepting it. Knowing it, because I did already know it somewhere inside of me, and yet I’d still sought so valiantly to undo the damage done by my father. How many years had I wasted trying to erase his errors? How much time and money and energy had I spent feeling guilty for things I hadn’t done?
Too much. That’s how much.
Besides being my life, the whole scenario sounded obvious and oddly familiar, like I’d been on the other side of it before. Like I’d stood outside and looked in. And of course I had, I’d been looking outside at the same scene ever since I’d met Elizabeth. I’d been where she was, watching her lament the things her father had done in his business, hearing her tear herself apart, wanting to make it better while she put all the weight on her own shoulders.
I brought my hands to her neck and stroked my thumbs along her jaw. “Your father’s sins are not your sins,” I repeated her words to her, wondering if she could hear them now the way I just heard them from her.
Her eyes glistened in the moonlight and her lips trembled as she nodded tightly. “I know. I’m trying to know that.”
She kissed me, or I kissed her, fierce and reassuring. When she pulled away, she said, “Let’s go inside.” She was already climbing off my lap, already tugging at my hand.