“Yeah, mom,” I say just to appease her, nodding even though she can’t see me. And that’s when the taxi suddenly stops; I look out the window and realize that I’m already outside Agave, the discreet entrance to my right. I pay the taxi driver and, still listening to my mom, step out of the car.
And that’s when I see him.
Tailored suit, shoes as dark as the night.
“Mom, gotta run,” I whisper into the phone, my heart suddenly drumming fast, and end the call without waiting for her reply.
Memories of being in my room when I was 18, by myself, come back.
Having orgasms.
Thinking of Magnus.
“You look beautiful,” Magnus tells me, and I just stare at him without knowing what to say. There’s a kind smile on his lips, and he seems to have turned down his animal intensity for the night. Or, at least, it looks like it.
“Shall we?” he asks me, filling in my silence, and offers me his arm. I walk inside the restaurant with a smile on my face; arm-in-arm with the man I’m supposed to destroy.
Magnus
Penny Wright, my stepdaughter, has grown into a beautiful woman.
Which, in a way, is a fucking shame.
If she were any other woman, I’d just turn my charm on and let the chips fall where they may. I mean, just look at her… Her lips were made for kissing, and her body must've been sculpted by the Devil himself, each and every one of her curves like sin turned into flesh.
When she got out of the taxi, just one look at her and my cock was twitching inside my pants, my eyes roaming over her tight-fitting dress. It took a lot of willpower to stop that train of thought—that's for fucking sure.
I was a bit surprised I didn’t recognize her at the gala; I rarely forget a face and, fuck, it’s my stepdaughter we’re talking about, but in a way, that was bound to happen. At eighteen she was just a bony teenager, a rough draft of the woman she had yet to become. She was already a young beautiful woman, sure, but that beauty has now blossomed into something more.
Something intoxicating and dangerous.
“So, journalism, right?” I ask her, our conversation still stiff and rough around the edges. “You were at Yale back then, weren’t you?”
“Yeah, graduated just a few months ago,” she replies as I pour some wine in both our glasses. “And you? Still a rich bastard, right?”
“Still a rich bastard, yeah,” I smile, the sound of her voice making me more lightheaded than the fucking wine itself. We keep on talking about nothing and everything, two strangers bridging the divide between them. It’s a struggle to keep the inner beast inside of me in chains, but I somehow manage to do it.
“This feels right, doesn’t it?” I find myself saying, not even knowing why the fuck I’m saying it.
“What feels right?”
“Being here. Being a rich bastard gets lonely, you know? And you’re family.” She laughs at that, her clear voice feeling like a thorn in my heart.
“Lonely? You seem anything but lonely, Magnus.” She twirls the wine inside her glass, her eyes locked on mine, and I have to wait a few heartbeats before my brain starts to decode her words. “In fact, have you ever been alone? There’s always a woman hanging on your arm. Hell, more than one, sometimes.”
“What can I say?” I shrug, and then finish my wine. “Women are like a good wine. You can never have enough.”
“Maybe that’s because you’ve never come across a real woman.”
“Tell me where I can find one and I’ll gladly let you know how that goes,” I smile, leaning forward slightly, the scent of her perfume climbing up to my brain and making it boil.
She leans forward as well, and I can’t help but let my eyes fall from her full lips to her cleavage, the round swell of her breasts calling to me like a fucking drug.
“Maybe that real woman is off limits,” she says, lowering her voice, and I find my mouth going dry.
“And maybe I don’t have any limits,” I reply, even though I know I’m walking on the edge of a razor. Whatever I say, though, there are a few lines I won’t cross, and fucking my own stepdaughter is one of these lines. As long as this is just harmless fun, I’m happy to play along, but don’t think I’ll pull the fucking trigger.
“So I’ve heard. You really live life on your terms, don’t you? It must be nice,” she continues, but this time I notice a judgmental tone in her words.