Sexual Healing for Three (12 page)

The entire trip from the kitchen, dining room, and living room to the foyer went by in a blur of sensual energy as Donna settled into Russ’s embrace, imagined him pressed against her naked, how his hard cock would feel when he sank into her, hot and heavy, stretching and filling her until she cried out beneath him.

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Russ leaned in to kiss her as he unlocked and opened the door behind him. The touch of his lips was brief but firm, a promise of more to come if she wanted it, an invitation and a demand. He pulled back an inch, cupped her chin, and lifted her head before saying,

“We’ll talk.”

It almost sounded like a threat, Donna thought.

She followed him as far as the outside door and watched him descend the stairs outside her brownstone, her heart pounding so hard in her chest she barely heard him beep his horn as he pulled away from the curb. She touched her fingers to her lips where Russ had left his mark, and she didn’t know whether to feel reassured and pleased or embarrassed and insulted by his high-handed tone.

She for damn sure knew she couldn’t see him again, not when he threw her equilibrium and logic so totally off-kilter. Come to that, she needed to keep her distance from his brother too.

Yep, that was the way to go—avoidance and denial—and Angela’s plan be damned.

90

Gracie C. McKeever

The children were alone.

He watched them in the house, going about their business, doing the things teenagers did when their parents weren’t around—playing their music at hog-calling levels, feet up on the furniture as if they’d been raised in a barn, as his mama would say, sitting a foot in front of the television to watch it, running through the house like screaming banshees, and playing ball—never once realizing they were being watched.

They were Russ Merrick’s
children.

They had a connection to the man that he would never have, a connection that he had always wanted, a connection to a strong man, a supportive father, a father who acknowledged and cared about them, a father who loved them tender and disciplined them hard when they needed it.

The two spoiled brats probably didn’t even appreciate what they had—all the creature comforts and technological bells and whistles to keep them occupied and in touch, vacations with their mama and daddy, all the latest rags—choices. All the things
he
had never had.

He had never had choices
. He’d never had many, had always felt trapped—in shitty circumstances, in a shitty life, with shitty parents.

He’d had to rise up and take what was his, make things happen, and until he gave his mama the ending she so richly deserved, choices had eluded him.

He’d thought once he got out from under his mama’s thumb his life would be set, that he would be free. But there was but so much freedom a body could have at seventeen as a high school dropout with
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no money and no prospects. He’d learned on the fly, though—had always been a fast learner and picked up what he needed to do to survive. If nothing else, he was a survivor. This meant not staying still or in one place too long, not getting tied down to too many people, if any at all.

Without his mama’s constant nagging playing his conscience, he was at last free to come and go as he wanted, fuck who he wanted, kill who he felt the need to, and this usually meant any woman that was in his life.

All of them were useless baggage. They weren’t always so useless, of course. He picked them carefully, at least tried to, so in the beginning they were all perfect—perfect to look at, perfect to listen to, perfect to fuck. It wasn’t until later that the complaining started.

He was too rough. Why didn’t he kiss them anymore? Why did he only like to fuck them from the back? Yadda, yadda, yadda, yack, yack, yack. It was just a few steps from wedded bliss and a woman who did as she was told, to a complaining shrew who reminded him of his mama. In the end, even the timid ones turned mouthy, and that was when he knew he had to end it and move on.

When he got right down to the heart of the matter, women were at the root of all his difficulties in life, his unhappiness. He really preferred not dealing with them if he didn’t have to. The less he had to do with them, the better. Sometimes, though, they had their uses, not for fucking (the very idea made him so sick to the point he didn’t know what he had
ever
liked in a pussy) but they were good to get information from.

Women were such soft touches, such easy marks. Just a smile here, a low sexy murmur of appreciation there, and he had them in the palm of his hand. He knew how to turn on the charm when he needed to, and rather than sneaking around and stealing the information he needed and wanted, risk losing his job, he just politely asked Amy at the office for what he wanted to know—Russ Merrick’s home address. Hide in plain sight. This was his motto.

92

Gracie C. McKeever

He drummed his fingers on the steering wheel of his truck as he watched the kids now, especially the girl, playing some board game.

They were doing everything they could to keep from going to bed, waiting up for their daddy more than likely. To grill him? They acted like Russ had to answer to them and not the other way around.

Damn, kids had it easy today, not like when he was coming up.

Adults’ business was no business of a child. Children were to be seen and not heard, and even then, the less seen the better. Kids nowadays had a sense of entitlement that he couldn’t have entertained for one minute, not with his harridan of a mama there to knock him down every step of the way.

He wondered what Russ’s kids would have done with a mama like his, how they would have turned out. Would they have been so scrubbed and innocent? Would they have been nearly as happy?

Did they despise their mother as much as he had despised his? Did they want to get away from their parents at all? He couldn’t see it, not with everything they had, not with the way their father doted on them.

The mother he couldn’t speak on, but he had his suspicions. Russ must have divorced her for a reason, after all, maybe several. He’d like to think the woman wasn’t good enough, couldn’t satisfy Russ’s needs. Yeah, that was it.

He would be different, he decided. He would treat Russ right, and in turn, Russ would treat him the way he needed. He just had to get the man to
see
him, to feel for him and dote on him the way he doted on his kids. He wanted Russ’s strong hand, needed what he witnessed on the job where the man balanced his interpersonal and business relationships with a mixture of compassion and sternness, treating his employees with just the right amount of each to gain him the affection and respect of a good manager.

Russ was the perfect balance of light and dark, where
he
was just dark, seeking Russ’s light to balance him out, to stave off the shadows of his past and the insanity of his present. He
needed
Russ’s light.

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He saw the headlights of an approaching vehicle and quickly slid down in the driver’s seat of his pickup. He sat up a little to peek over the dashboard once the vehicle turned into the driveway at the side of Russ’s house. He willed Russ not to notice or recognize his truck.

He sat up as inconspicuously as possible, watching Russ as he headed around to the front of his house, never once glancing back over his shoulder at the truck that didn’t belong, probably preoccupied with thoughts of getting back to his kids.

For once, he was glad of the brats’ existence.

He started his pickup as soon as Russ was inside and slowly pulled out of the parking space across the street from the Merrick house and counted his blessings that he hadn’t been seen. It wouldn’t do for the hunter to become the hunted.

Shit, he hadn’t meant to get caught off guard like that! He was slipping, the lure of Russ, the looming consummation of their relationship, making him slack off his game.

He would make sure not to be caught unaware again.

* * * *

Russ steeled himself as soon as he entered the house and heard the TV blasting from the living room, indicating either someone was awake long past their bedtime or someone had fallen asleep in front of the television, both definite no-no’s in the parental handbook for raising children. At least they were definite no-no’s in Suzie’s handbook. He, the part-time father trying to bond with his kids when and how he could, occasionally suffered from sparing-the-rod-spoiling-the-child syndrome.

He had a feeling which of his offspring was waiting up for him and had his suspicions confirmed when he rounded the corner to see his daughter lounging on the ecru overstuffed sofa in her pj’s, remote in hand, wide-eyed and bushy-tailed.

“Hey, Daddy!”

94

Gracie C. McKeever

“What are you still doing up?”

“Oh, Daddy.” Kim giggled, and this alone sent shivers down Russ’s spine as he sat down on the sofa beside her and gave her a peck on the cheek.

“So, what have you been up to while I’ve been out?”

She shrugged. “Just chilling.”

“And your brother?”

“Wes went up to his room a few minutes ago. Couldn’t hang.”

Russ laughed and slid an arm around Kim’s shoulders. “Unlike my little vampire girl.”

“So how’d your date go?”

Hmm, that was a good question, one he didn’t have a straight answer to. The best he could come up with was, “It was interesting.”

His daughter arched a brow and turned to him. “Just interesting?”

He was
not
going into the details of how his latest client had masterminded a possible threesome between her sister and his own brother. That was a fact of life he didn’t think his daughter would ever be ready for, at least not while he was still alive and breathing and had something to say about it.

Changing the subject, he asked, “Did Chance happen to call back?”

“Nope.”

Russ fingered the card that his brother had given him, caressing the cardboard as if he could psychically summon his brother through it. He’d have to call him sooner or later and see what his take was on Donna.

“So you’re really not going to go into detail about your date?”

Kim asked.

“Not something for little girls to hear about.”

She rolled her eyes. “I’m not a little girl. I’m a teenager, Dad.”

Don’t remind me.
“Nevertheless…”

“But I waited up to make sure everything went all right.”

Were his daughter and Angela in cahoots or something?

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Russ shook his head and chuckled at the thought as he stood and tweaked his daughter’s nose before heading to the kitchen. “You guys leave me any pizza?” he threw over a shoulder.

“Just barely. You know how Wes is.”

Russ laughed as he opened the fridge and retrieved the leftover pizza from the freezer, where his daughter had thoughtfully placed several slices in a big baggie. He took out two slices, retrieved a paper plate from the stack on the island, and popped it into the microwave.

“Didn’t you eat at the barbecue?” Kim asked as she took a seat at the island.

“I had a plate. But I worked up a sweat playing volleyball.”

“Volleyball? Not really my idea of romantic.”

“We had our moments.” Russ realized his mistake when his daughter leaned her elbows on the island top and her chin in her palms as she stared at him with a big grin on her face and waggled her eyebrows.

“What kind of moments?”

“Isn’t it past your bedtime?”

“
Dad,
it’s spring break.”

He sighed just as the microwave beeped. Russ took the plate out and blew on the pizza slices before pulling a string of mozzarella cheese off the top of one and popping it into his mouth. He sat at the island opposite his daughter. He was determined not to lose this argument.

“Bedtime, vamp girl.”

“Ah, Dad.”

“Now.”

Kim mimicked her dad’s earlier sigh, sliding off her chair and walking around the island to give Russ a peck on the cheek. “Night, grouch,” she grumbled before leaving the kitchen and heading upstairs to her room.

“Night.” He’d be a grouch. He just wanted to share as little as possible of his love life with his thirteen-year-old daughter.

96

Gracie C. McKeever

Where had the time gone? It seemed like just yesterday when he was reading his six-year-old girl bedtime stories and tucking her under her Dora the Explorer comforter in her pink princess-themed bedroom. Back then her only interest had been having tea parties and playing with dolls. Now, every time he turned around, she was bombarding him with sexually allusive questions and conversations.

He supposed he should count his blessings that she was interested in his life and not out trying to foster a sexual relationship of her own with some boy, or even a girl, which would be the least of his problems, he decided, with the way things were in the world nowadays. She could be like him, and the idea of his little girl engaging in sex was bad enough.

The idea of her engaging in kink? Just get a shovel and bury him now.

Thankfully Wes didn’t show much interest in Russ’s love life, probably because he was too busy nurturing his own, which was just as scary as the idea of Kim having a love life of her own, kinky or otherwise.

Russ remembered a time when the boy thought all girls were lame and not worth of the energy it would take away from his video games and basketball. Now he seemed to be preoccupied with anything walking on two legs that had breasts—just like his father when he had been that age.

Russ finished the second pizza slice and dumped his plate in the trash can before washing his hands in the kitchen sink with dish liquid and warm water. He realized he was taking his time with things, putting off going upstairs to his room, where he knew he would spend the rest of the night tossing and turning and thinking about the evening and everything he could have said or done but hadn’t, thinking about his greed and how he’d barely reined it in.