Tales of Darkness & Sin - Pepper Winters Page 0,143
didn’t ask or command. Instead, he’d torn away from my mouth, staggering back and looking wholly horrified.
“Get out,” he’d uttered hoarsely as if I’d been the egregious one. As if I’d been the one to turn a meeting about archaeology into a snogfest. “Get out.”
I’d been about to protest—I was something of a connoisseur of kisses, and that had been a really good one, the kind of kiss that could land you on your back with your ankles by your ears if you played your cards right—but then he did something so unthinkingly vicious that I’d been robbed of speech.
He’d swiped at his mouth with his forearm as if trying to scrub away the kiss with the sleeve of his jacket. Trying to scrub away me.
Feeling as though I’d been shot full of arrows, I turned and left—fled, more like it—wheezing for air the whole way out of his office and out to the curb, where I hailed a cab and panted all the way back to the Ullswater family townhouse in Mayfair.
He’s a bastard, I’d tried to console myself. A jackass. A pillock with internalized homophobia.
It didn’t help. I’d still been hurt and horny all that day and the next—and hurt and horny was my least favorite combination of feelings!
And now it was Sunday, and I was at Ullswater Cottage in Wiltshire to have brunch with my new stepfather and his son. I hated brunching with strangers, and I still hadn’t shagged through all this pent-up frustration gifted to me by James fucking Caldron, and ugh, ugh, ugh—
“Darling, you must stop fidgeting,” Mum said to me, gesturing with her champagne flute as she leaned against the kitchen counter. “Nigel is going to think I raised a little beastie instead of a son.”
I took a deep breath, forcing myself to still. I loved Fiona Talbot-Ullswater-Oldershaw—better known as Figgy to her friends (and Mummy to me)—more than anything, and I wanted to make her happy. And if having an exorbitant brunch in the countryside with me and her new husband’s son made her happy, then by Jove, we would have the best brunch the realm had ever seen.
Be happy. Stop thinking about James Caldron and his kissing. And his giant cock. And how he held you by the throat when he—
“Nonsense,” I chirped to Mum, interrupting my unproductive train of thought. I flashed her my I love you, Mummy grin while I snagged a miniature quiche off a platter. “Everyone loves me.”
I said this last with a mouth full of quiche right as Nigel Oldershaw happened to walk into the kitchen. As usual with my new stepfather, I wasn’t given a verbal response, only a single, raised eyebrow. I wasn’t deterred, though—I was very rarely deterred.
(It’s one of my most excellent traits.)
I merely swallowed and grinned again. “Isn’t that right, Nigel?”
He cleared his throat, glancing over at my mum, who was obviously choking down her laughter with another sip of her mimosa. Nigel’s face softened then. It did that a lot around her. As if he’d spent the day in the cold and she’d just given him a hot cup of tea. Like she was the living embodiment of warmth and joy.
To be honest, I’d had my doubts about him at first—they’d met during a polo match at Cowdray Park and were married within a month—but after meeting him and seeing how lost he was for Mum, I decided he at least had good taste, if nothing else. And for a man in our social strata—nearing his seventieth year at that—he seemed remarkably comfortable with my cheerfully brash brand of pansexuality, which was a pleasant surprise.
Good taste + not a homophobe = welcome to the family, Step-papa!
Anyway, after losing my father, Mum deserved to be happy. I was sad that it had taken her so long to meet someone, but now that she’d found him, I was determined to help her make the best possible go of it. Even if they had only known each other two months. Even if he was taciturn to the point of silence. Even if it did mean blended-family brunches and a new stepbrother—whom I still hadn’t met.
I glanced down at my watch. “Where is our missing brunch guest? What did you say he does for a living, Nigel? Surely whatever it is, he’s free on Sundays?”
“He’s in government,” Nigel said. “He’s normally very punctual. Perhaps there was some business holding him up...”