WHEN ANASTASIA POSTED a motivational picture this morning saying the day is only as good as you make it, I thought it was going to be another example of my grumpy girl catfishing the internet with her pretend positivity.
But apparently, New Year’s Eve makes her happy, and now I’m lying naked on the kitchen island, and my hands are tied above my head with a Christmas present ribbon.
To be totally honest, I’m not sure how I ended up in this position. My girlfriend is a creative visionary—she claims—so when she told me to drop my boxers and lie on the counter, I did it with zero hesitation.
What can I say? I’m a weak man.
I doubt there’s a guy out there who would’ve stopped to question what was happening if their girl was wearing their jersey with no panties on. I’m basically putty in her very talented but very bossy hands.
I can hear her rummaging in the refrigerator. “Stassie, what are you doing?”
“Patience is a virtue, Hawkins,” she chirps, clanging what sound like jars against each other.
“I’m not feeling very virtuous right now, Anastasia,” I gruff, tugging against the ribbon. “Quite the opposite.”
Her feet patter softly against the tiles. Placing whatever she’s selected beside me out of my view, she climbs up onto the counter, then on top of me, straddling my hips. She hasn’t even done anything and I’m hard, resting against the warmth of the apex of her thighs. Wiggling against it, she moans quietly, eyes fucking sparkling as she looks down at me. Her eyes rake down my body. “You’re so fucking hot.”
Stassie calls me beautiful all the time, even when I’ve just woken up. At first, I was a bit taken aback. I’m not sure what it was in the beginning; I sort of had it engrained in my head I was supposed to be the one complimenting her, and trust me I do, but it turns out I like hearing it.
It’s not just beautiful; she calls me kind and smart, among so many other things. Hearing her ramble about how much she likes me for me, how special I am to her, is beyond what I ever thought I should expect in a relationship.
But hearing her call me hot while she’s got me tied up and my hard dick rubbing between her legs is a whole other level of I fucking love my girlfriend.
Reaching out of my line of sight, I hear the signature sound of a lid pop. The excitement is practically buzzing in my blood when I spot the can of whipped cream in her hand. Bringing the nozzle to her mouth, her eyes roll back, and she squirts it onto her tongue. “Mhmm.”
My hips flex forward, nudging against her wetness. Her mouth lowers to mine, the sweet residue of the cream on her tongue.
She sits back up, hand reaching back for the cream, immediately squirting it along the indent of my abs. Before I can even complain about how cold it is, her mouth descends and she licks her way up my body, smirking up at me when she feels my dick twitch.
Her hips move back and forth, sliding me between her folds. My hands strain against the ribbon and my body wiggles underneath her impatiently. “I need to be inside of you.”
She tsks and picks up a new jar. “Not until you beg me, Hawkins.”
As I’m about to snip back, the alarm rings, telling me the front door was opened.
“Nate?” Sasha shouts, her voice ringing out loudly across the house.
Anastasia’s eyes widen, all the blood draining from her face instantly. “What the fuck?”
Tugging at my hands until they’re free, the pair of us scramble off to the floor, and I put my boxers back on.
“Wait a minute, Sash!” I shout, moving Stassie in front of me. The kitchen door flies open, and Sasha looks between us frantically.
“Ew!” she squeals. “Were you two…yuck! Nate! I cook in here. Oh my God!” Her nose scrunches, face twisting in disgust. With her head turned away, she shivers. “You must be Stassie. I’d hug you, but I think it’d be awkward for everyone.”
Stas shuffles nervously, head hung low so her long hair hides her pink cheeks, but she nods and holds up a hand to wave.
This is not how I wanted the two most important women in my life to meet each other for the first time.
“What the fuck are you doing here, Sasha? You’re supposed to be in St. Barts.”
“I’ve been calling and texting you, jackass. You didn’t answer.” She huffs, folding her arms across her chest, still looking away. “Do you want me to bore you with the details of our father’s latest betrayal, or would you prefer to let your girlfriend put on some pants, y’know, before Dad brings the bags in from the car?”
Betrayal? “Gimme five. We’ll be right back,” I promise, nudging a mortified Anastasia toward the staircase that isn’t going to walk her straight into my Dad’s line of sight.
“You’re so rich you have two staircases.”
“I’ll humble myself for you and buy us a house with only one set of stairs. Will that make you happy?” I tease, squeezing her ass when it bounces in front of my face as we climb the stairs. “I’m so sorry about this, baby. I can’t remember the last time I looked at my phone before texting JJ earlier.”
We reach my room, and she immediately finds her panties and a pair of jeans, tying her hair back up into a ponytail. I approach her from behind, wrapping my arms around her waist and burying my head into her neck, inhaling the smell of honey and strawberry I love.
She sighs and sinks back into my chest, tilting her face up to kiss me. “Your dad is going to hate me, isn’t he?”
I can feel the anxiety rolling off her, it’s written all over her face, it’s in her posture, in the desperation of her kiss.
“Anastasia, listen to me. You do not need to worry about the opinion of that man. I love you and I will be counting the minutes until I get to get you away from him.”
“So that’s a yes then,” she says, shaking off my embrace. She waits on the bed and watches me get changed into jeans and a sweater. I hate that he’s here, that he managed to burst our bubble. We’re going back to Maple Hills tomorrow evening, and we were so close to having a perfect week. No drownings, no fighting, and no parent.
“You changing?” I ask, eyeing her jersey.
“Your Dad ever watched one of your games?” She nods knowingly when I shake my head. “Then no, I’m not changing. Okay, let’s get this over with. And Nate, I love you too.”
Sasha is snacking away on chips with Criminal Minds blasting from the TV when we return downstairs, entering the living room, hand in hand.
“He went to the resort,” she says, not looking away from her show. “He wants us to meet him for lunch in an hour.”
Great.
“Anastasia, this is Sasha, my baby sister,” I say, trying to make this less weird. “Sash, this is my girlfriend, Stassie.”
I finally steal her attention from the TV, but I instantly regret it when she raises a perfectly sculpted eyebrow. “Why are you acting like we haven’t met? I caught you two doing it in the kitchen like ten minutes ago…”
“Jesus, Sasha,” I whine, raking a hand through my hair. “That’s not what was happening. Can you be nice?”
“Tell that to the can of whipped cream, Nutella, and strawberry sundae sauce on the counter,” she says with a snort.
As soon as she rhymes off the contents on the counter, I’m instantly more irritated realizing what just got interrupted.
“And I am being nice. Be glad it was me and not Dad,” she turns her head to Stassie, “I am nice, I promise. I’m not judging you, well, other than for dating my awful brother.”
I throw myself on the couch across from Sasha, and Anastasia awkwardly hovers on the spot. I pat the seat next to me until she sits, but her temperament is off; she seems uncomfortable. I fucking hate that she seems uncomfortable after how good our time here has been.
“Why are you back? I thought you weren’t back until the day after tomorrow? It’s the whole reason our flights are tomorrow.”
“Charming.” She grunts, turning down the volume of the TV and crossing her legs over. “It wasn’t a vacation, it was a retreat for body conditioning to ‘make me stronger’ and, I don’t know, some bullshit about being a better athlete. I spent a total of one hour on the beach. Yesterday I told him if he didn’t take me home I’d never ski again, so he booked us on the next flight out of there.”
I wish I could pretend to be surprised for her sake, but I’m not; in fact, this is exactly the type of shit I would have guessed if I hadn’t been so preoccupied lately. But I foolishly believed he might have listened to my suggestion.
My father always has an agenda. This afternoon is another plot, because why else would you meet someone for the first time in a public place when they’re already in your home?
“What type of mood is he in?”
“His usual. Like someone stuck a very big stick up his ass and he can’t get rid of it.” She gives Stassie an almost menacing smile. “You have any experience with overbearing parents?”
She laughs for the first time since Sash arrived home. “My parents are super nice, sorry.”
Sasha sits and quizzes Stas about every single thing in her life, and to her credit, Stas answers everything honestly. By the time we’re pulling up to the resort, the pair of them are the best of friends. It helps they have a common interest; now, you’d think the common interest would be being sporting prodigies, but no, it’s grinding my gears for fun.
I don’t get to see Sasha enough without Dad and I miss her so much. I miss the person she is when he’s not around, I almost feel sad for Anastasia that the person she just made as a friend is about to disappear the second Dad sits at the table. I hope she understands, and she can tell it isn’t personal.
“You good?” I ask Anastasia quietly, looking at our joined hands where she’s cutting off the circulation to the tips of my fingers. The maître d’ walks us over to Dad’s favorite table and offers us the menus. Unsurprisingly, he’s late for a lunch he organized.
“I’ll have a glass of Dom Pérignon, please,” Sasha says, browsing the menu casually.
The guy looks at me panicked, clearly knowing who we are and not sure what the right answer is. I put him out of his misery, plucking the menu from Sasha’s hands and bopping her on the head with it. “She’s sixteen. Give her a juice box or something.”
“She’ll have a water,” a deep and familiar voice says from behind me. “Hello, Nathaniel,” he says cooly. “And who do we have here?”
