Page 21 of Father Knows Best (A Family Affair #1)
twelve
. . .
avery
The Arousal
My lower back is aching. And the arches of my feet hurt like hell.
These stupid sneakers I have on—they’re adorable, but they are so not worth it.
After six and a half hours of moving and rearranging furniture, hoisting potted plants around four-thousand square feet, and mopping up my own hand and foot prints so as to not leave a mark when it was all said and decorated-done?
I’m in dire need of a foot massage, a hot bath or my bed. Or maybe all three.
But not without Sutton first.
God, I can’t wait to go home.
“We’re headed back to the office after this, right boss?” Brandon asks, and my eyes pop open, and I stand up a bit straighter.
“Yeah, we have to go back for one last meeting with the new storage company, remember?” I invite him to these meetings because he’s doing the lion-share of actual moving and storage. He should be there.
He looks out across the space as I survey our work for the last time, making sure all the staging is just right.
It’s an art. People may think it’s merely decorating, but cultivating both a beautiful and functional space for a family is an art. This family room could be in a magazine, a television show, or in a real, everyday home. My narcissism is cut short when Brandon gently bumps his hip into mine.
I’m not really a fan of people who force playful, casual contact that way. It feels like an overstep of my boundaries, but my fear of being gaslit and teased keeps me quiet on the matter. “What’s up?” I ask, my dryness and deadpan clearly meaningless to him as he grins on.
I like Brandon, but every so often, he gets like this. Like he’s in heat and I’m his prey, but he isn’t sure what to do so it’s just a lot of around the bush questions and staring.
I stand tall when I talk to him, and look him in the eye. Just in case.
He smiles, though, and replies. “I just wanted to say congratulations again, you know, on the engagement.”
I feel obligated to hold up my hand, though I don’t want to in this instance because I wholly know that Brandon does not give a shit about my ring. Still, I lift my hand. “Thank you.”
He smiles, then looks at his shoes, which is a bad sign. A person who looks down at their shoes midsentence is usually one of two things; 1. About to admit something big or 2. Going to tell you something you don't want to hear.
I have a sneaking suspicion it’s the latter.
“You’re so young—are you sure you want to tie yourself down? You know, you have to really grow on your own as a person to know what you need, or else you have to grow with that person.” He shakes his head. “That’s hard to do.”
And you’d know this from never having a girlfriend? “We’re committed.” I smile, then take another peek at the kitchen, finishing off in the guest bathroom adjacent to the back door. When we’re in the driveway, the sun at our backs—security camera, too—he smiles. “He’s lucky.”
“I’ll see you back at the office.” I smile, too, and then he goes off toward his truck, and I get into my car.
That was one of those things that wasn’t outright awful but still set me slightly on edge.
Asserting to know what age I should or should not do anything in my life is absolutely wild.
But situations like that go one of two ways when confronting a person like this with their absurdity–first, he’s going to gaslight me and tell me I’m delusional if I think he’s interested— he was just making conversation , or secondly, it becomes insanely uncomfortable.
Funny though, I’m not sure Brandon considered my comfort when making comments about when I should marry, right?
Why am I left being the only one to think of consideration and comfort?
In the car, I begin drumming my fingers on the wheel, trying very hard not to become grouchy and irritable.
Instead of thinking about that, I focus on Sutton, and the way he woke me up the other morning.
Morning sex is basically a scene out of Fifty Shades of Grey for Sutton.
Exciting, new, thrilling. And it was.
And it has me more excited than ever because I think I was right about him. Maybe there’s a part of him, kinky and concupiscent, slowly rising to the surface, ready to grab hold and fuck me into uncharted territory.
After we get married.
I certainly hope.
He may have rejected touching me in that property the other day, and he brushed me off when I wanted to go down on him, but he tongue kissed me in public.
He proposed in public for goodness sake.
And then the morning sex, with my shorts tugged aside like he couldn’t possibly wait another moment to get inside me.
More of Sutton is on the horizon, and when I think about that, clenching my thighs together beneath the steering wheel, I can’t seem to care about Brandon and his bullshit.
I’ve never been the type of person who hates the women that hit on Sutton. I don’t blame them–Sutton is a walking happily ever after, and everyone wants their HEA. Where Chanel is concerned, however, she knows that Sutton is mine.
There is no question that he belongs to me. And equally, no one doubts that I belong to him.
Still.
She flips her hair over her shoulder—shiny and gorgeous—and laughs, passing Sutton a note on a yellow piece of stationary as he approaches reception.
He doesn’t spot me approaching through the double glass doors, and returns his focus to Roberta, who’d approached the desk with him.
Together, the two of them walk out of sight just as I pull open the glass door, making Chanel’s head snap my way.
Her smile slips, and before I can greet her, Brandon catches up to me, his hand sliding over mine as he holds the weight of the door, letting me in. “I was trying to catch up with you downstairs, in the parking garage. You didn’t hear me when you were getting on the elevator?”
I shake my head. “I’m sorry, I didn’t.” I did hear, but ultimately decided that Brandon could catch the next elevator, and that by him asking to ride up with me did not ultimately entitle him to doing so.
He drops a hand to grab my hip, squeezing just once.
“Congrats again, boss, that’s all I meant to say. ”
I don’t smile but instead stop in the middle of the office and take a small step away from him.
“Conference room in twenty minutes for the end of day meeting,” I remind him before slipping into my office and closing the door, letting out a long sigh.
After this I’m going to go find my fiancé, go to our beautiful home together and cook a wonderful meal, maybe have a glass of wine and spend some time by the fireplace, or maybe even in the spa.
It’s going to be a lovely night and going home wound up over Brandon does me no good.
There’s a knock at my door that startles me, and I turn to pull it open, finding Geo there.
“May I come in?” he asks, his voice quiet, almost private.
“Of course.” I glance at my watch. “I have a meeting in twenty but–”
Geo steps inside and quietly closes my office door, and shoves his hands in his slacks pockets. I look at the two chairs in front of my desk, a couple of feet away, then look back to him, his gray eyes simmering on my profile. “We can sit if you wanna talk?”
He shakes his head. “I saw you come back with Brandon.”
The hip squeeze. I see it in his eyes, that he saw it, and now that casual touch has him wondering why Brandon feels so comfortable touching me that way. Geo and I don’t know one another as well as I’d like, but to be fair, it’s not been possible until now.
How could I get close with my future family when my fiancé was estranged from him, more or less?
I couldn’t, but now that fences are mended, I do want Geo to know me, and I want to know him.
I realize that at this moment, he isn’t sure that I’m undying and unflinchingly loyal to Sutton.
He saw a man grab my hip, a man that I’m with often, alone with often, and now he’s here to question my loyalty.
As much as I want to be offended, I love this for Sutton.
I lift my chin. “I would never disrespect Sutt by flirting with Brandon.” I press my lips together, and shake my head. “By flirting with anyone.”
His brows fall into a flat line, and his eyes dart between mine, studying, analyzing. “I know.”
My head falls to the side as the muffled end of day commotion rubs up against my office door. “You–” I’m suddenly puzzled. “I thought–”
“Avery, I can see how you feel about my son when you glance at him across the office. And being in your home, seeing the two of you together—I do not question your loyalty to Sutton whatsoever.”
My chest warms. “Thank you,” I breathe out, relieved and assured but also acutely aware now that Geo has been aware of me. Of both me and Sutton. More than I ever realized.
“I don’t care for Brandon,” Geo says, still standing there in his suit, hands in pockets, right by the door. “And I just came in here to see if you’re okay.”
“Okay?” I bring my hand to my chest, and let my fingertips find the pavé diamond necklace on my throat, one gifted to me by Sutton on our one-month anniversary. “I’m okay,” I tell him, caught off guard by the question.
He glances down at my hip, as if it may look visibly injured or altered from Brandon’s simple touch.
His eyes come back to mine, and my stomach clenches at the intense gaze coming from my soon to be father-in-law.
“He shouldn’t touch you like that. You’re his boss.
He works for you. If that made you feel uncomfortable, it’s okay to share that. I will handle Brandon.”
It did make me uncomfortable, but a fireable offense? I think back briefly to Brandon at the staging site, asking me if I was sure I wanted to hamper my growth by getting married so young. I shake my head. “It’s fine, Geo. I’m alright.”
Geo studies me then nods his head. “Okay.”
I smile. “Thank you for your concern.”
He doesn’t smile but opens the door, and with his hand on the knob he says, “Thank you for helping bring my son back to me.”
“You did that,” I tell him. “The truth did that.”
He winks, and something hot uncurls in my belly, tearing through my lower half.
“You did that, Avery.” Then he walks out, stopping off at Jon Whitmore’s desk for a moment.
They’re chatting and I’m just about to close the door and gather my things for the last meeting of the day when Brandon appears, pressing a sheet of paper facedown on the open copy machine in the corner of the space.
Geo does a double take, and excuses himself from the conversation he was holding with Jon.
My throat tightens, and my spine grows tight as I watch Geo cross the room to Brandon, closing the copier with one strong hand.
With just a foot of space between them, I watch Geo talk, my gaze bouncing between the thick etches of strain lining Geo’s throat, and Brandon’s face, swiftly morphing from surprised to something a little green and terrified.
This tense, one-sided conversation doesn’t last more than a few seconds, but I watch, my veins alight with heated energy, my cheeks rosy, my nipples hard.
A few minutes later, after Geo has disappeared into his office, my meeting begins.
Brandon is polite, well-mannered and only looks at me when we directly speak to one another. And for whatever reason, his behavior is a turn on.
Only, I’m not turned on by him.
I’m turned on by someone else.