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Andrew pulled Susan between his legs, not easing up on the kiss. She molded her body to his, every inch of contact searing across his skin and burrowing deeper. He was fucking tired of fighting this attraction. He tugged her head back, to suck a line down to her collarbone. The way she shifted against him pressed buttons he didn’t know he had. How was this possible? This intoxicating woman made him feel like a teenage boy with out of control hormones. The only clear thought he had was about fucking her.
He traced his tongue up the side of her neck. She even tasted like cookies. When he pushed up the bottom of her shirt, she dug her fingers into his arms with a whimper. His dick begged to be free, straining against his jeans to be closer to the heat taunting him. He grabbed sufficient rational thought to look her in the eyes. Clear. Blue. Captivating...
“This doesn’t change anything between us. It doesn’t make us a couple. Nothing like that,” he said.
“I know.” She licked her lips, and he wanted to kiss away the shine. Suck on that almost-pout until she couldn’t think.
“Is someone going to walk in on us?”
“Do you care?”
Right now? He only cared about one thing. “I really don’t. You don’t need the grief, though.”
“No one will be home until late. No one’s walking in on us. Don’t you dare try to talk us out of this again. Please?”
This was all he needed to hear. Except maybe a little more of her begging. He dove back in without hesitation, scraping his teeth along her shoulder, then sucking on her neck. He glided a hand under her top and slid his palm up her bare stomach to her breast, to trail his thumb over her bra and the swollen nipple underneath. Each tiny gasp she let out stole more of his reason. He pinched the hard nub through fabric, and she squirmed against him.
It had been ages since an action as simple as making out felt so intense. High school? Had it ever? He couldn’t remember.
She worked a hand between them and moved it below his waist. When she cupped his cock through his jeans—a tentative, teasing touch—he jerked against her. If she decided to grip or stroke, he’d probably come right now.
Outside, evening traffic droned by. Garage doors opened. Neighbors chattered. None of it mattered but what was going on in here. He pushed her clothes out of the way and nibbled through the lace of her bra. Her light giggle spurred him on.
One of the neighbors sounded familiar, and damn their doors were loud.
“What the hell is going on here?” An older male voice shattered the mood.
Apparently this was about to be a lot more like high school than Andrew wanted. Susan back-pedaled several feet, yanking her top down as she moved. Her cheeks flushed from pink to glowing fuchsia in a blink. “Daddy. I thought you had work to do.”
“I needed some paperwork he left at home.” And that was Mercy.
Jesus-fucking-Christ. Andrew summoned a neutral expression, hopped to his feet, and turned to face the new arrivals. They stood in the doorway between the kitchen and the garage. They stood in the doorway between the kitchen and the garage—Dean Rice watching him with a touch of murder in his gaze, and Mercy frowning, arms crossed.
“We were talking. Celebrating.” Susan’s words ran together.
Mercy raised her brows. “Good word.”
“Get the hell out of my house”—Dean took a step forward, speaking between clenched teeth—“or I’ll have the police here so fast—”
“Dad, stop for a minute.” Mercy’s soft tone cut through the rage.
It was one of the rare moments in Andrew’s life he was at a loss for what to say. He wanted to swivel his head back and forth, watching the tennis match.
Dean didn’t look at Mercy when he replied to her. “I don’t have to like who you do business with, but you have no right to bring this filth into my home. Into our lives.”
“Hey now.” Andrew bit his tongue to keep I took a shower before I came over from slipping out.
Mercy blocked her father’s path. “Stop. We’re all adults here.”
Susan touched Andrew’s arm, and a jolt raced through leather and fabric and his skin. “Go. Please?” Her voice was soft.
He’d been wrong—he had no interest in hearing her beg again. Not like this. The simple request beat him down harder than any insult. He didn’t have a right to be hurt, but it dug deep that her first instinct was to push him away. “Yeah. That’s a good idea.” He didn’t look at anyone, but turned and walked out the front door. What did he expect? He made it clear to Susan from the start—and as recently as a few minutes ago—they were friends at best. Acknowledging this didn’t ease the ache in his heart.
He wasn’t sinking into this hole. He’d asked for an impetus to keep them apart. This was it. Work waited, and that meant a lot of pussy to look at that wasn’t mired in things like family and daddy issues—he’d review those sites a different day.
*
DAD FACED SUSAN, FACE red and scowl etched in stone. “Explain.”
She didn’t know what to say first. “I was happy. I got good news. He was here...” Crap, that came out wrong. Susan’s brain was so twisted in on itself, she couldn’t think. “I mean, I got a new job. Maybe. This wasn’t what it looked like.”
“What kind of job?” Despite the lilt to her dad’s words, anger radiated from him.
Mercy stood to the side, drumming her fingers against her leg and looking like she was struggling to keep her mouth shut.
“Teaching.” Uncertainty kept the entire truth from coming out. Like the where. “It’s not for sure yet, but I’m pretty close.”
“You haven’t graduated. Where are you going to teach without a degree?” he said.
Say the words. Tell him the truth. “It’s a private, charter kind of thing.”
“Not a reputable one if you don’t need a degree. What are they called?”
She looked at Mercy, as if she might find answers there. Mercy’s face was pinched with sympathy, but her only response was a shrug.
“Ballet West.” Susan forced out the words. “Their academy in Park City is about to open a position for instructor, and they want to talk to me.”
“I see.” His voice took on a level of calm she only heard when he was furious. “Get out.”
“What?” She was told this could happen, by two different people. That didn’t make the words easier to hear or believe. She misunderstood. He didn’t mean for good.
“You were warned. Leave the phone and the car keys. I paid for your clothes as well, but I don’t know what I’d do with them.”
Susan didn’t understand. “But... It’s a stepping stone. A reputable job that I love.”
“It’s prancing around like a fool, in practically nothing, and teaching other little girls it’s okay to do the same. Whoring yourself out, the same way your sister did.”
“Whoa,” Mercy said.
But Susan couldn’t let that go unchecked. “Melissa is not a whore. Neither am I. We’re not freaking—I don’t know—Quakers or whatever. Dance isn’t against your religion. This is a celebration of movement.”
“It’s not the dance I have a problem with; it’s the way you do it. The ideas you associate with it. The rebellion that led you to go against my request in the first place. Do you want to be a stripper at a sleazy club in Wendover?”
Susan struggled to believe this conversation was real, but that didn’t mean she’d flinch away from it. “They’re nice girls.”
“Definitely sweeter than some of those from church,” Mercy added.
“This isn’t a discussion. You won’t live under my roof if this is the path you’re going to take. Get. Out.”
“Stop.” Mercy’s voice grew in volume. “She’s not doing anything wrong. She’s your fucking daughter. You’ve only got the one left.”
Her meaning spread through Susan on a cloud of realization. This was breaking the tentative relationship Mercy finally had with him.
“She’s done everything wrong.” Dad’s words hollowed Susan out, leaving a painful vacuum behind. “Defied my requests. Mocked my beliefs.” He looked at Mercy. “What did you do? Sell her to your business partner, the moment I let you back in the house?”
Mercy looked at Susan. “Let’s go.”
He stepped in her path. “You wanted to have this conversation. Let’s have it. You threw a tantrum ten years ago and stormed out. Don’t discard Susan’s life too.”
“Excuse me? Wanting to think for myself is throwing a tantrum?”
“Being an unreasonable child is. I wasn’t going to say anything when that friend of yours showed up at your wedding; your associates are your business. Speaking of business—Ian’s clients are none of mine, until it impacts my revenue.”
Susan didn’t know what to say. The cold words chewed at her world.
Mercy wasn’t held back by the same doubt. Or any doubt, apparently. She stood toe to toe with Dad, anger flashing in her eyes. “Smut Central is my client. Not Ian’s. Remember the R in R&T? It stands for Rowe. Not Thompson. Not Rice. Andrew’s also a good friend. I trust him with my life, which is a hell of a lot more than I can say for you.”
Why wasn’t Susan saying these things? The words wouldn’t come.
“That’s your mistake. One of thousands, I’m sure.” Dad—Susan didn’t want to call him such a personal name right now. Mr. Rice?—didn’t back down.
Mercy’s smile looked twisted and dark. “Let’s talk about mistakes. We’ll ignore the one you’re making tonight. Why did it take so long for you to reach out to me? If you were sorry about the way things transpired between us, why did you wait until I was here for Liz’s wedding, to extend the olive branch? I begged you to talk to me, more than once. Liz has known how to find me since I left. There’s never been any mystery about my location. And then, the first time you saw me in ten years, you insulted me. Days later, you wanted to make up?”
“You’re right; reaching out to you again was a mistake. You were dating someone respectable—finally. The only reason I asked Ian to put me in touch with you was because Susan wanted it, and I hoped he’d tempered you, so you wouldn’t exacerbate her condition.”
“My condition?” Susan didn’t know what else to do.
Mercy shook her head. “That’s nice. Real loving and caring. So this was never about making amends.”
“I’m proud of what you’ve done”—his words might have carried more weight at any other time—“but not the way you got here. I hoped with Ian, you’d grown up. Your sister is making the same mistakes you did, and my hope was you could teach her not to be stupid.”
Numbness set in. Susan felt a scab forming inside—a reaction to too much of an onslaught at once. “Do you hear yourself?” she asked. “You forced your own daughter out of the house, and now you’re going to do it again? Because we don’t conform to your standards?”
He looked at her. Or through her. This was worse. “Instead of helping you mature, she introduced you to that gigolo pimp she lets follow her around like a lost puppy. At the very least, Melissa has a career. You won’t have that.”
“Don’t you—”
“Shut up.” Susan cut Mercy off. She did what he’d requested, and left her phone and car keys on the bar. She didn’t trust herself to say anything else. She walked past her sister and the man next to her, out the door and through the garage, and stopped next to Mercy’s car. Cold air permeated her lungs. She wasn’t wearing a coat. Not that she cared.
“Hey.” Mercy settled a hand on her shoulder. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean... I never wanted this to happen to you.”
Susan used the icy night to chill her words, but she couldn’t face her sister. “I know. It was my decision, and I made it, and I’m sticking to it.”
“Are you okay?”
“No.” Susan couldn’t hold back the tears stinging her eyelids and burning down her face.
Mercy hugged her from behind. “I’m so sorry.”