Tonight's The Night (Night #5) Read online

  I watch as her long limbs work in the water, dipping below the surface and emerging from it like four pendulums. Her movements are lazy and more than a mere distraction.

  My client resumes telling me about his latest woe.

  “She knew what this was before she signed up. Why the fuck would anyone marry me if it wasn’t for my money?” he boasts.

  “And this is a source of pride for you.” His guffaw rasps into the room. He mistakes my dry insult for a compliment. “Listen to me. Don’t talk to her again. Don’t talk to her attorney. I’m the only one who talks to either of them from now on.”

  “Daddy?”

  My daughter’s soft voice sounds from the crack in my open door and is followed by a light, staccato rapping on the frame.

  “One second, honey.” I punch the button on my phone to end the call without saying goodbye. Then I wave my daughter into my office.

  She walks forward, pushing the door to make her way toward a chair facing my desk. I take a seat behind it. The formality is unnecessary but then I see Angela follow her into the room and suddenly the formality is very necessary.

  “Hello,” I say, clearing my throat as the young woman and the source of all the new friction in my life saunters in. Maybe she thinks I don’t see her in a sexual way. Maybe she thinks I don’t remember what happened between us a year ago. Maybe she thinks I don’t want her — my nineteen-year-old daughter’s nineteen-year-old friend. If that’s what she thinks, she is beyond wrong.

  I’ve never been proud of having casual sex, but it’s not something I’m ashamed of, either. Since the divorce I’ve been getting to work on me, which means I give myself what I want, when I want it, and I’m not shy about going after whatever the hell that is. My wife left me - she had an affair with one of my business partners, in fact - and the quiet family man and slightly nerdy divorce attorney I once was shed his skin over the course of several months when my brother started insisting I come out with him and indulge in some of the more carnal pleasures that he had been advocating for all through our young adult lives.

  And as long as the women knew what they were getting into, I was okay with whatever happened between us. And what they were getting into - a relationship that would last only one night - was a firm boundary I’d set after my divorce. Emily lived with me, my ex-wife and I getting fifty-fifty custody, and I didn’t want women coming into and going out of her life. I got to a place where I don’t even blame my ex-wife for leaving me anymore. I was too focused on work and too focused on being a good provider that I’d neglected the woman I should have been providing for in more ways than just financially.

  That night a year ago, I knew the girls were in the guest house. I’d suspected they’d also snuck some boys in there, but I knew that with Angela around there would be an external check on any sort of mischief their group of friends would get into. Angela, the voice of reason, was always the girl in their friend group who cautioned her peers against excess. When my daughter had her first boyfriend, Angela was their joint plus-one at all academic or social events. When my daughter was experimenting with makeup, Angela opted only for a slathering of sunscreen out at the pool and questioned the sense in putting on makeup just to sit around. Emily wanted to lounge with a magazine; Angela wanted to swim.

  Angela was always conservative but now she looks liberal, in every sense of the word. She looks free and happy but with a tight coil inside her that is just waiting to spring open. Maybe a year away at college did this to her.

  She walks into my office in her bikini, her long brown hair matted against her back as though she’d only run the most perfunctory pass through it or maybe not toweled it off at all. Tease. The bikini she’s wearing is bordering on obscene, and it’s not just because it’s made of a series of strings and small pieces of fabric that leave little to the imagination. Every smooth curve of her body, every taut inch of sun-kissed skin is barely covered and where it is there’s merely a scrap of fabric or a thin string.

  And the bikini is white, as though to make her glowing, tanned skin all the more tempting. Droplets of water slide down her shoulders and her smooth, taut stomach, down to the edge of the bikini bottom that is hanging a little too low on her hips. I don’t have to look straight at her to guess that she’s waxed, though my mouth waters when I wonder just how bare she is. She must be partially waxed, at least — the line of her bikini is too low and shows off too much skin, skin that would absolutely be covered with a dusting of hair had she not removed it.

  The top of the bikini barely contains her two small, tear-drop shaped breasts, hanging high on her chest as though they defy gravity. The string of the triangle top is tied around her neck, yes, but the material looks so loose as to not be serving any actual function.

  She smiles at me as she slides her wet bikini-covered ass into a chair across my desk.

  “What are you girls up to tonight?”

  “We’re going to a party,” my daughter sings, bobbing her head left and right. “It’s just a little reunion and then we’re going to sleep over at Angela’s house.”

  I breathe a sigh of relief. I know that Angela’s aunt is an absolute hard-ass and will demand the girls be back at her house and in bed before midnight and that they won’t get into any trouble. She’s absent-minded, yes, but she’s serious.

  My daughter is responsible but with a mild wild streak that her best friend lacks and I’ve kept myself on an even keel for her benefit. Hence keeping my one-night stands far away from her and setting as good an example for how a woman should be treated as possible. I want her to demand more from her husband than I gave my wife - and part of that means showing her an amicable divorce, coexisting and coparenting peacefully with my ex, and being respectful of women — and that means using discretion and being clear about expectations.

  My eyes track from my daughter’s to Angela’s. I know my relief that the girls are staying at Angela’s house tonight isn’t just the outcome of wanting to know my daughter will be well taken care of and will be continuing her track record of being responsible; I know it’s also because I don’t want to think about Angela being in the arms of any other man besides me.

  I want to strike fear in any man who looks at her. I want to keep her with me at all times and I want her on her back or on her kneels crawling toward me with her tongue swiping the inner rim of her plump, luscious lips over and over and I want to pull down on that lower lip to guide my thick cock into her mouth. I want her to swing her naked ass and look over her shoulder and dare me to come and fuck her even after I’ve spent all night with my cock buried balls-deep inside her little pussy. I want to keep her at my house here at all times and I do not want her to work outside the home. My mother was a feminist and my father and she split housework as evenly as they could manage. They both had stable jobs in an office — him in the mailroom and her as a billing clerk for the mid-size real estate firm they worked at.

  That kind of thing won’t work for me and Angela.

  What I want for Angela defies any notion of equitability. I want her dependent on me in every way and I want to give her anything and everything she could desire or wish for. I don’t want her to lift a finger and I want to carry her from room to room so she never has a chance of stubbing her toe. I want to take her to bed every night and make her exhausted by morning and I want to care for her in every way possible. Have a private chef — female — so Angela can have all the best food whenever she desires it. I want her to have her own swimming tutor — also female — because I know she loves the water.

  Only women will be allowed around my woman.

  I want to give her tennis lessons, I want to give her surfing instruction, I want her to wear the tiniest bikinis and the highest heels and the finest silks and most beautiful jewelry because I want her to have the best and never want for anything.

  It’s not that I want these things for her because I am obsessed with her. No. I’ve realized I’m obsessed with her because all I can think of — i
n my every consuming thought, my every waking hour, and even in my goddamn dreams — is giving her everything. She is never not on my mind. I haven’t brought myself to have sex with a woman in a year. I think about the encounter a year ago after the girls’ graduation every single day and I feel sick about it and perversely drawn to the memory at the same time.

  The girl is nineteen years old. She is my daughter’s best friend. I’ve known her forever. It goes beyond what’s appropriate. It’s beyond the logic of inappropriate. I must have something seriously fucked up deep inside my soul for all the thoughts I have about her.

  The only way I’ve been able to banish thoughts of her from my mind is to envision that she is with someone else, which succeeds temporarily but then makes those same feelings of possession come roaring back with new lifeblood.

  Angela brings out something primal in me. Something that we’ve evolved past in our species. It makes me feel sick to think about but I can’t deny that it’s what I want. I want to do everything for her. Everything and anything. Anything she could ever want.

  Her wish would be my command. I would be her slave in all things material and emotional and she would be my slave in all things sexual.

  I’d never had this response to a woman in all my forty years on this earth. Before the divorce, I was devoted to Emily’s mom. I was a good provider. After the divorce, I became detached from sex. Since that day a year ago when Angela walked in on a most intimate moment my sexual drive has been through the roof and with no suitable outlet, and the only outlet that I would take is in the form of Angela herself — my wonderful daughter’s bright, bubbly friend. What kind of sickness would drive a man to have these feelings for a woman like Angela?

  Fuck.

  Having her in my office is now making me loathe myself all over again. It’s been a year and the feelings are right where they’ve been the whole time.

  “Can we borrow your car, Mr. Stevens?” Angela asks, tugging my eyes back to hers. She peeks at me from beneath the fray of her thick, wavy brown bangs. Her bright blue eyes look particularly striking against her tanned skin. A year of college in California will do that. I picture her walking along the beach in her little bikini, oblivious to all the male attention.

  “Sure, as long as you don’t drink,” I reply. The idea of having her in my car is already making my blood pressure rise a few points. I stand from my seat and dig into my front pocket for my keys, slipping my car key off the ring. I toss it to Angela and she catches it deftly while I turn away from her and Emily to go over to my bar cart and pour myself another drink.

  “Thanks, Mr. Stevens.”

  “I’m going to go get ready,” Emily says, squealing. “Oh, this is going to be so much fun. I love reunions! Angela, your dress and things are in the guest room. Meet you downstairs in twenty minutes?”

  “Give me thirty,” she says. “I need to wash the chlorine off.”

  “Right!”

  I fill my glass with three fingers of scotch and toss it back as I hear the door click closed across the room. I let out a deep exhale and rake my fingers through my hair as I turn around.

  To see Angela with her back against my desk and her feet turned in slightly at the toes, still looking up at me through those dark lashes and thick bangs.

  “Jesus, Angela,” I say, walking past her toward the couch, “you scared me. You shouldn’t be in here like this.”

  She comes around and hops up on my desk and parts her knees slightly, curling her fingers around the edge of the dark mahogany. If she were less innocent I’d think she was trying something here.

  “Can I have some?” She tilts her chin toward my drink.

  “No fucking way,” I say, my hips shifting up. If she doesn’t shut those legs and get the hell out of here I might just have enough drink in me to tell her I’m about to do something. No amount of liquor in the world would tip my hand and make me actually do something. But my lips might pry loose.

  “Why not?” She slides down my desk with a squeak that’s meant to provoke. “There’s going to be alcohol at the reunion.”

  “Like hell there is. If you’re driving, you’re not drinking.”

  “Emily will drive.” She studies my expression and sighs. “Fine. I won’t steal your alcohol. Can you help me with something else, though?”

  I just watch her as she saunters toward me, her lean, long thighs working in tandem.

  “I don’t want to lose your key, so can you help me tie it to my top?” She reaches behind her at the nape of her neck and pulls the two strings loose, causing her tits to bounce up and then settle back into place. She looks at me expectantly and gives her chin a little waggle as I grit my teeth.

  “You’re just going to take the thing off to get into the shower so why the hell are you tying my car key to it?”

  “I’m wearing my bathing suit to the party,” she says brightly. “There’s going to be a hot tub. Now are you going to help me or not?”

  Hot tub? Fuck.

  “What’s the alternative?” I grit through my teeth with my fingernails digging into the brown leather of my couch. She shrugs.

  “I could try it myself and then I might accidentally flash you and we both know how embarrassing that would be. Now I’ll hold still while you string the tie through the keyring and then you’ll tie it back on.”

  This is some bullshit, the way she’s dangling herself in front of me like this, but I can’t stop this fucking shit-show and I know I’ll only be able to pump the brakes if the bathing suit ends up on the floor or wadded up in my fist. Then I will be able to push myself toward reason and implore myself to put a stop to this shit.

  I swallow thickly and put my glass on the coffee table, which of course makes me at eye-level with her sweet, round ass. She’s doing this on purpose. She’s never been a tease or a provocateur, though maybe she picked up some bad habits off at college. I wonder if she’s ever tried to seduce one of her professors. No. If she’d tried, she would have succeeded, and I know she’s still innocent. I can just tell, from the thin shield of modesty she holds up in front of her like a smokescreen. Something’s stopped her from pulling the trigger. Sweet Angela.

  “Can’t you have Emily do this?” I grit out through my teeth.

  My eyes travel the length of her thigh, at the incredibly smooth and supple skin of her ass. The bikini rises high on her thighs and cuts in just below the narrow of her waist. There are a few droplets of water at the small of her back and my gaze travels up to the place where the bikini top’s string, pulled tight across her back, hangs from its knot like two tempting little things, but the two strings around her neck are not tied at all. For some reason I trust those two strings, loose and in her fingers, more than the strings across her back, which are perfectly accessible by me.

  “She’s going to spend a hundred hours in her room getting ready and I don’t want to have to take off the bathing suit just to put it back on again. Now here”—she drops the keys to the floor—"slide this onto one of the strings and then tie them up. Simple.”

  I bend to pick up the keys and a growl grumbles from my chest when I see the curve of her calf below her knee. Every single inch of this woman is like uncharted, untouched flesh waiting to be discovered. And I want it. I want it all.

  Mine.

  “What?” she gasps.

  Fuck. I’d staked my claim to her out loud like I’ve always wanted to. I’m disciplined but not disciplined enough to not call her mine out loud, apparently.

  “Here,” I say as I stand up and plant her shoulders still. I threat the keyring with her bikini string and start to tie it all back up nice and tight the way it should be, but she turns around slowly and renders me unable to move.

  “You don’t have to do that,” she whispers. Her warm, sweet breath smells like raspberries and a fresh morning, the only scent that could come from this hot little ripe-bodied virgin. She cautions a step toward me, her small tits heaving up and down as she sucks in all the air she can. Her fin
gers come up to my shirt and I feel my world unravel as her fingers dig in.

  “This isn’t like you,” I rasp, gripping her by the wrist and yanking her trembling hand away from my chest. I do it without thinking because it’s the only alternative to throwing her down on my sofa, pulling that little triangle of soaked white fabric to the side and shoving my tongue there. She curls her fingers into a fist and tries to fight me away but she mewls as I drag her to the door and open it, delivering her out into the hallway. My cock is now entirely unfurled and pressing against my zipper. “Cut this bullshit. Prancing your little ass around? What happened to the sweet girl I used to know?”

  “I’m still that sweet girl,” she protests against my hard rebuke. Her voice is airy. Desperate and needy. “Or I can be…bad. I’ll be bad for you, Mr. Stevens. I’ll be whatever you want.”

  My cock springs up and a fresh spurt of cum shoots out as though her voice alone is a vise-grip that I’ve fallen into. I narrow my eyes at her.

  “You shut this shit down right now.”

  I put my finger in her face - roughly - and push the thick digit down until it is square against her chest, in the plush valley of her breasts. I drag the tip up her tanned skin until it’s gliding up the delicate, thin skin of her neck and then my fingers are cradling her chin. She whimpers softly into the air around us.

  Her eyes are big and scared, but the thrill behind them is evident. I haven’t shut this down. I’ve just opened Pandora’s box wide the fuck open. I poked the bear. It’s now awake.

  “Angela!” my daughter’s voice sings through the air. Shit. I have Angela in my cross-hairs now with her back up against the wall and the only space between us could be erased if either of us sucks in a slightly larger breath. That’ll be my folly, taking in a rich, sweet breath of this girl and having her tits up against my chest.