Sweet Thing (Naughty Things 2)

My father picked me up every day after school and took me to early dinner before dropping me off at home. And every day I wondered what he’d think of this. How he’d react if he knew what Ryker North was doing to me on the weekends. What I was doing to him. What we were doing to each other.

But one afternoon I decided to tell him about it. Well, a little bit. “I met a boy,” I said in the car.

“You did?” My father beamed at me. “What’s his name and who are his parents?”

I laughed. If you only knew, Dad. “I’m on the wait-and-see path before I make this public, Dad. You understand, right?”

And he had the perfect response. Because he said, “Whatever makes you happy, sweetie.”

I really think, that when, one day, Ryker and I decide we’re getting married, he will be happy for us. Because I’m falling for Ryker. I’m falling for him hard and while it’s important to me that my family like him as much as I do, when it all comes down to it I honestly don’t care.

Childhood is over and my life belongs to me now.

If Ryker wanted to make sure we go “long-term”, as he put it, by going slow and fast at the same time—well, mission accomplished. Because he’s all I think about. Day and night, I crave his fingers, and his mouth, and his cock.

And on the night before April comes back from Australia and I have to go live at home I decide something. I make a decision.

I love Ryker North and I want to be with him forever.

I want him to come inside me and I want him to do that someplace very special.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN – RYKER

I was afraid things would change once Aria went back to high school, but they really didn’t. Once I decided that this was real for me and I was going to take my time, I did everything right. I made myself stay away during the week so she could concentrate on her own life. I forbade her from seeing me at the co-op and made strict rules about how much we could talk on the phone.

Just ten minutes each night before bed.

I don’t want to take over her life. I don’t want her to ignore her friends or her schoolwork. I don’t want to be the only thing she has. I just want to be there when she expects me and when she needs me.

And I want to get this out in the open. I just don’t know how. And I would never say anything to Ozzy or her father unless we talked it through first, and we’re not there yet. So. Limbo. I feel like we’re in limbo.

This is why I like the dates. We’re not hiding out at her sister’s apartment or my place. We’re doing things and going places. It’s important for me, and for her too, that we do not treat this as a secret.

The second challenge was her returning to her parents’ house in the suburbs. Because there’s no way to deny the fact that this is a secret and we are sneaking around because now I can’t just pick her up for a date. She has to make an excuse to go into the city on Friday night. Or Saturday, but not both. Both is too much. And even though she’s eighteen and we both know she’s eighteen, she’s in high school. She lives with her parents. She’s not really an adult yet.

So now I’m conflicted.

But today is the Spring Fling at her father’s country club and both Ozzy and I are going. Our loan package is almost complete. We finalize the last phase in the Gingerbread redevelopment project on Monday. And I’m having this internal dilemma about signing those papers while hiding the fact that I’m dating Mr. Amherst’s teenage daughter.

There’s just something about this that runs deep for me.

My phone dings a text and it’s Ozzy: Downstairs now with the car.

I text back: Be right there.

Once last sigh and then I tuck away my guilt and get in the elevator.

The ride out to the Amherst country club takes almost an hour. They live in a very upscale neighborhood with massive homes, large, green lawns, and a gate around the entire place.

The Spring Fling is a horse show and golf tournament for the kids of the neighborhood. Aria neither rides nor plays golf, so for her, it’s just a high-end block party.

She already told me that most of the kids she lives around go to school locally and only she and her sister commuted to the city for school. She didn’t really know why, but I did.

Mr. Amherst loves his family and he probably felt like working in the city and living in the suburbs would take a lot of time away from him and his daughters. He enrolled them into a school near work so he could have commute time with them. Aria already told me her mother didn’t work a regular job, but instead sat on the country club board and was in charge of the various parties and functions. And she stayed home with them when they were little, driving them to and from their various classes until they left for school in the city in high school.