Page 37 of Boss of the Year

Lea and the kids were still at afternoon Mass, and I’d wanted to get a head start on cooking before chaos descended.

Her home was a little shabby, like most of the houses and apartments in Belmont, though well-loved and cared for. But in the past two months, since Mike’s death, things in my sister’s ordered life had clearly been neglected. The hydrangeas in the front pots had been left to shrivel in the summer sun, a litter of children’s toys lay abandoned and dirty behind the gates, and a single shutter swung loose from the top floor window.

Even the house was grieving.

A distinct moan, high and clear, broke through the silence as I climbed the porch steps.

I frowned at the open window. Was someone here?

“Fuck.”

A man’s voice.

That mouth. The memory drifted forward, but it wasn’t Lucas I heard now.

Nathan, full of more emotion than I’d thought he was capable of.

“Perfect.” His voice drifted out the window, ragged and hoarse. “Fucking perfect.”

What, exactly, deserved that kind of praise, I could only imagine. But it undoubtedly had something to do with my sister.

My cheeks burned. I should announce myself, make some noise, anything to disrupt their activities. But instead, I stood rooted on the front porch, unable to stop listening to the rhythm of a heavy piece of furniture rocking against a wall.

“Nathan—oh my God—the kids will be back soon.” Joni’s voice echoed through the curtains waving in the summer breeze, breathy and light, so different than her normal take-no-prisoners attitude. “Babe—oh!”

“Just a little longer.” Nathan’s murmur was followed by a sound that was not suitable for public consumption.

I backed away from the door. Should I leave? Come back? My indecision left me standing awkwardly by a dead hydrangea when the curtain flew aside, and I was confronted with the sight of my sister perched atop the coffee table in the center of Lea’s living room, short skirt hiked around her hips while her boyfriend’s broad, thick body worked between her thighs. Her eyes were closed, her mouth open in a silent “O” of nameless pleasure.

Until it wasn’t silent.

“Oh my God.” She sucked in a labored breath. “You’re—baby—it’s too much,Nathan.”

To my shock, Nathan didn’t stop. Instead, his big hand wrapped around her neck as he seemed to work even harder while he spoke, steady and low, in a way that somehow made his voice more intense.

“You can handle it. You’ve taken it before.” There was a pause while he pounded harder. “So tight. So perfect.” Another several thrusts. “You like this, don’t you?”

Joni made a sound—high and shaky, something between a sob and a gasp—and gripped Nathan’s massive shoulders like she needed an anchor.

Her cry broke me out of this horrible, awkward trance. I spun around and dropped to the floor of the porch, unable to move for fear they would hear me, though I was desperate to stop listening. My eyes squeezed shut while my hands clapped over my ears, blocking out the majority of the noise—though not all of it—as my sister and her boyfriend found their mutual climax.

It wasn’t sweet or slow or soft. It was physical. Overwhelming. Joni sounded like she was in pain, and Nathan—he wasn’t cruel, but he wasn’t stopping—just seemed focused and intense.

Was I doomed to eavesdrop on sex rather than ever having it myself?

Behind my closed eyes, Lucas Lyons’s stormy blue-gray eyes appeared over a broad, naked chest while he grazed the mouth that I nowknewwas sinfully soft over the shell of my ear and murmured in his deep voice:

Is that good, sweet Marie? Do you want it rough too?

I gasped, opening my eyes and forcing myself to look across the street and count the colors of T-shirts hung to dry from fire escapes.

Why was I thinking of Lucas now, of all times?

I kept my hands firmly over my ears for several more minutes, even after the noise had ceased. My eyes remained open. Lucas’s imaginary words repeated in my head whether I wanted them to or not.

“Mimi?”

I dropped my hands and turned to find Joni standing in the open doorway of the house, fully dressed but tugging her skirt back into place. “Hi.”