“Excuse me?” Sutton asked.
Her eyes were round with confusion and disbelief. The look I’d been expecting from her. The look I expected from everyone. That was why I had never told this story.
“Like…what does that mean? Did your mom…have an affair? Are you not actually your dad’s son…like biologically? Why would he raise you as his son if you weren’t?” she blurted out. “I’m sorry. I have so many questions.”
“I’d be more surprised if you didn’t.” I finished off my drink and then continued, “No, she didn’t have an affair. As far as I know at least. No affair that resulted in me. I was adopted.”
Sutton furrowed her brows. “But…why? Like, they had every option available to them. IVF and fertility treatments and all that.”
“When she was younger than you, my mom was told that she could never have kids. They always planned to adopt.”
“So, is Katherine adopted, too?”
“No,” I said on a sigh. “Katherine is theirs. My mother had her thyroid removed shortly after I was adopted. There was a history of thyroid cancer in her family, and after she went through treatments, ta-da, Katherine.”
“Wow.” Sutton blinked a ton. “Wow.”
“Yeah, she was their miracle baby while I was…this abomination they’d purchased.”
“David,” she whispered sadly.
“Okay. That’s not true.” It felt true sometimes. But it was more likely that my father was just a total dick. “I was angry, and I told them that I’d rather be no one than their son. I left their place, changed my name, and found out where my biological parents lived, and as soon as I graduated college, I upped and moved to San Francisco.”
“Ohhh,” Sutton muttered. “Your biological parents live in San Francisco.”
“Yes. So, every time you asked if my parents lived there…I said yes. Because they do.”
“But not the ones who raised you.”
I shook my head. “No, not the ones who raised me. But I didn’t know how to tell you that. I’ve never told anyone that.”
“Not even Katherine?”
“No. I was in San Francisco when the story broke about my parents.”
“So, you never told on them?”
I glanced down at the empty glass in my hands. “No. Despite all my bluster, I chose to walk instead of doing something.”
She was silent for a long time. I felt her judgment weighing on me. But I already felt shitty about it. In the end, I’d sided with them. I could have turned them in and gone traitor on my own parents, but I hadn’t done it. They’d made a misstep that someone else turned them in for. It was wrong of me not to incriminate them, but at the end of the day, I hadn’t been able to do it. I’d wanted to start over rather than wade deeper into their shit.
“Once the truth came out, my parents told Katherine about where I was and that I’d changed my name. She came looking for me because she wanted me on their side.”
“But why? How could she side with them?”
“She’s loyal to a fault. She would never turn her back on someone she cared about. Even if she had to be dragged through the mud with them.”
Sutton sighed and seemed to contemplate that. She had to understand that quality. The Wrights had it in spades.
“I stayed out of the media when the story broke and stayed in San Francisco—building an empire and meeting my new family. I thought no one could be worse than my old family. Fuck, they were all over the news. They were atrocious scumbag liars. But, still…I was wrong.”
“Your biological family was worse than the Van Pelts?” she asked in disbelief.
“In a different way, but yes. They didn’t know I was a Van Pelt. It was a closed adoption. The Van Pelts didn’t want my biological parents to come looking for a payout when they realized who had adopted me. And that was good for me for a long time. My bio parents greeted me with open arms. I helped them move into a new house in Silicon Valley. I met their children…my real siblings. They were all married with multiple kids, and I suddenly had this giant family with nieces and nephews and everything. The love and support I’d always dreamed of.”
“Like what you see with my family.”
“Yes,” I told her. “But it was a lie. They skimmed money from me for years for drugs and alcohol. When they found out I was a Van Pelt, they tried to gain access to my trust fund. Then, when that failed, they blackmailed me, saying that they would go to the media and out me as David Van Pelt if I didn’t help fund their heroin habits.”
“Shit,” Sutton gasped.
“I gave them enough money to shut up, applied to every job known to man to get out…”
“And moved here,” she finished for me.
I nodded. “Yes. The middle of nowhere. A new start where hopefully neither of my families could ever bother me again. Fuck, how wrong I was.”
Sutton ran a hand back through her brown-to-blonde hair and then took another long sip of water. “You’re right. This story does need something stronger.”
“Bourbon?” I offered.
“Maybe just a bit.”
We both wandered into the kitchen where I poured her a drink. She took a shot of liquid courage. I could see her mind whirring to life. As if everything that I’d said was sinking in.
And it felt…nice. I hadn’t known how it would feel to finally say all of that out loud. For someone else to know all that I had endured. The shitty families and the lies and fraud and drugs. How no one had ever really loved me. Except maybe Holli…and even she had committed suicide rather than stay in this world with me.
But, either way, it felt like a weight off my shoulders. Now, Sutton knew everything. Finally, she knew it all, and she could judge for herself whether or not I was worthy of her anger. My name alone could wreck me one more time, and if it did, I didn’t know if I’d recover from it again.
“So…you’re not actually a Van Pelt. You’re a Calloway. I’m assuming your real parents’ last name is Calloway?”
I nodded. “It is. But I suppose I’m both. I was raised by the Van Pelts. I only spent a few short years with my biological family. I’m thankful that my mom and dad adopted me. It was the best thing for me. I would never have been raised the way I was. I would never have gone to Yale. I probably wouldn’t even be here right now. I can’t fault them for the life that they gave me.”
“Right,” she said. “I can’t imagine giving up a child though.”
“It took a long time for me to come to terms with it.”
“And this is…everything? There aren’t any more surprises lurking?”
“Uh, no,” I said with a laugh. “I think this is enough.”
“No, you’re right. It’s a lot. I get why you kept it from me. I’d imagine it’s difficult to talk about.”
“It is.”
“I can understand not wanting to be part of your family. I love my family, but it’s not always easy to be a Wright.”
“Families are all assholes,” I told her.
“Thank you for telling me. It’s not an excuse for not confiding in me before, but it’s a reason. A pretty damn good one at that.”
“So…where does that leave us?” I prompted.
Sutton didn’t say anything for a minute. She poured herself another drink and then let it flow down her throat before looking back up at me. But what I saw stunned me. There was no awkwardness or uncertainty in that gaze. There might be a touch of wariness, but I saw real warmth. True concern. And…something like hope.
Then, without a word, she stood up on her tiptoes and pressed her lips against mine. I leaned into that embrace, wrapping my arms around her waist and tugging her closer against me. Her lips were electric, and our kiss was charged with energy. This was nothing like the first time we’d kissed. Nothing hesitant or questioning in it. Just pure desire.
Her hands moved to the front of my shorts, and she ran her fingers along the hem. I jerked against her teasing touch. Then she flicked the button on my shorts.
I pulled back from her and was about to open my mouth to question her, but she smiled and said, “This is what it means for us.”
Well, I was on board. This seemed too good to be true. Having her here again, in my arms. I’d promised to fight for her, but I hadn’t been sure that she would come around. I knew this wasn’t the end of our discussion, but at least, it was a chance.
She tugged me back down to her lips. I ran my tongue along her bottom lip until she opened herself to me. Then, our tongues touched, tasted, tempted. Until I couldn’t hold back any longer. I wanted all of her. I’d fucking missed her this last week. And I felt like an ass for making her go through this.
My hand slipped up the front of her yellow tank top and stopped abruptly when I realized that she wasn’t wearing a bra. Fuck. My dick hardened painfully in my shorts, and I pressed harder against her. I continued moving higher until I caressed the underside of her breast and traced the outline. Her body responded in kind, rubbing against my dick and moving her hand down my boxers. I cupped her breast and flicked my thumb across her nipple.
Our lips broke apart, her head tilted back, and she moaned. As she was distracted, her finger brushed against the head of my cock, causing me to groan at her touch. We were both starved for contact.
When she looked at me again, her pupils were dilated, and she had a devious smile on her lips. She dragged her shirt over her head, tossing it onto the tiled floor. Then, she made quick work of my shorts and boxers. Her eyes rounded at the sight of my cock before she took the length of it in her small hand.
“God, I fucking missed you,” I growled as she stroked me up and down a few times.
“Show me how much,” she said.
I popped the button on her shorts and tugged them off, thong and all. Then, I hoisted her into the air. She gasped, throwing her legs around my waist. I jerked her backward against the refrigerator door. Her body smacked against the stainless steel. Her arms banded around my neck, and she dragged her bottom lip into her mouth.
“This much,” I told her.
Then, I grabbed her very fine ass in both of my hands and slowly lowered her onto my cock.
“Oh God,” she moaned.
I was so glad that she was on the pill right now.
I didn’t move until her wet pussy was wrapped fully around me. Her walls clenched as I filled her completely. Then, I anchored her against the fridge and slammed back into her. She cried out, a smile breaking onto her face. And I did it again. And again. And again.
Our bodies crashed together like waves on the beach. Pulled out by the tide and then crashed back together time and time again.
“Fuck,” she mumbled. “Oh fuck, I’m going to come.”
I increased the tempo, meeting her fevered gasps and entering her tight womb. We reached a peak when I felt her muscles contract all around me. I did nothing to stifle her screams of pleasure as she came hard on my cock, milking every last drop of cum from me.
She leaned her head back and panted. Her chest rising and falling rapidly. My head fell forward onto her shoulder as I finished. Then, with a sigh, I pulled out of her and let her feet hit the kitchen floor.
“I think…we have a thing for kitchens,” she said. She held on to the refrigerator door as her legs wobbled.
“I will fuck you anytime you want in any kitchen. Just say the word.”
She laughed. “God, I don’t know if I can walk.”
“I like that.”
“You’re bad.”
I pulled her close again and kissed her hard on the mouth. “Come to New York with me.”
“What?” she gasped.
“You want to know me. You want to know my life. I’ll take you to the city. I’ll show you my life. It’s not pretty, but New York is.”
“You’re serious?” Her eyes scanned my face for a hint of deception, but there was none.
“Absolutely.”
She nodded slowly. “Okay.”
“I haven’t been back in a few years, so I can’t guarantee that it’s going to be…pleasant.”
She pressed a finger to my lips. “I’ll be with you, and you’ll be showing yourself to me. That’s good enough for me.”