HUGE HOUSE HATES: Chapter 21

The morning after the exhibition, I wake in Mark’s bed, settled into the cradle of his thighs and a very hard cock pressing between the cheeks of my ass.

I’m deliciously sore from all our sexual exploits last night, and desperate to pee, but I snuggle against Mark’s chest, smiling as he groans and tightens his grip.

“Baby, you’re rubbing yourself on my dick, and I won’t be responsible for what happens if you continue.”

“I love waking up to dick threats in the morning,” I chuckle.

He snorts, burying his nose into my neck. “You smell of roses and sex.” Breathing in deep; he hums like that odd combination is flipping a switch in his head.

“Sex and roses, the new fragrance by Dior,” I laugh.

“Shit, they’d make a fortune.”

I roll in his arms and grin at his bleary half-closed eyes and rumpled hair. “No one’s making a fortune out of sex and roses, babe. But you could definitely make more money selling access to this body than you would do calculating all those numbers.”

Mark grins at the compliment and kisses the tip of my nose. “Honey, access to this body is yours and yours alone.”

“I’ve got to get up,” I groan, glancing around to find where I dropped my phone. It’s half hanging off Mark’s impeccably tidy desk. It’s the one thing in the room that hasn’t been placed with care.

Mark rolls on top of me, taking me by surprise with a strong hand gripping my wrists. His cock slides between my labia, rubbing against my clit, and I make a squeaking sound that causes him to smile. “I’m already up, baby,” he whispers.

“Don’t do this to me,” I say with a long groan. “If we do this, your brothers will hear, and then they’re going to want to join in, and even if it’s a quickie, it’s still going to take over an hour and make us all late.”

“They don’t have to know,” he whispers, the tip of his cock notching at my slick entrance. He doesn’t go any further. He just rests there with an intent that is overwhelmingly hot.

“Did anyone ever tell you that you’re too much of a bad boy to be an accountant?”

“Numbers can be sexy. For example, I could make you count the flicks of my tongue on your clit before I make you come. Or the number of sucks on your nipple that it would take to make you beg for more.”

“That doesn’t sound sexy.” I scowl, shifting my hips and groaning as he slides in just half an inch. “That just sounds cruel.”

“Sometimes cruelty can be sexy,” he smiles, but in truth, I can’t believe that Mark could ever be cruel. Even though he was involved in the initial pranks, he never seemed truly comfortable with what was happening.

Just as he begins to kiss my neck, my phone begins to ring. The annoyed groan he makes has me in a fit of giggles, and as he rolls off me, he rubs his hands over his face. As I scramble out of bed, I take an appreciative glance at the very hard cock that is currently going to waste. I’m an idiot for worrying about work when I could be feasting on that.

The phone vibrates in my hand as I blink at the screen.

It’s Mom. What’s she doing calling me at this time?

“Mom, is everything okay?” I ask. Mark stiffens, rising on his elbows and covering his lower half with the sheet as though my mom has X-ray vision that can see through the phone.

“I don’t know, Cora. Is everything alright?” The words that make up her question are polite enough, but the tone she’s delivering them in is far from civil.

She sounds pissed.

Really pissed.

As my heart picks up speed in my chest, I reply in my most innocent voice. “Everything’s great, Mom. The exhibition was awesome, and I made so many sales and great contacts. I’m heading over there right now to sort everything out, and then I’m going to be working my fingers to the bone trying to get everything ready.”

She makes a derisive snorting sound, which makes me pull the phone away from my ear and stare at it in confusion. Mark raises his eyebrows, but all I can do is shrug in response.

“You don’t sound happy, Mom. Is something going on?”

“I don’t know, Cora. You tell me. Is there something going on?”

For a few seconds, I wonder what the fuck she’s talking about, and then she blows out a frustrated breath. “The pictures from the show last night, that Cathy put up on Instagram, show a whole lot that I’m hoping is just camera angles. Like the one where Alden seems to be kissing you on the forehead. Or the one where you’re between Tobias and River, and it looks as though Tobias is kissing your neck. Or maybe the one where Danny has his arm around you, and his lips are pressed to your temple. Or the one where Mark is actually kissing you on the lips.”

My heart has stopped.

Like, actually stopped beating.

My body is rigid as Mark slides off the bed, reaching for his gray shorts and tugging them over his legs. I have to turn away because his nakedness and my Mom’s words don’t blend well at all. It’s as though he’s the personification of my guilt.

And I don’t know what to say because Mom is angry, and I haven’t seen the photos to know what they’re really showing. I could deny it, but I can’t lie if I’m not sure of the evidence to the contrary.

“I’m taking it from your silence that everything in those images reflects reality. I mean, for a moment, I wondered if Cathy was just being her usual self and trying to stir up trouble, but then I really looked. I saw how happy you look, and I know that expression because I’ve seen it on my own face when I’ve been…” She pauses as though finishing the sentence in the way I think she intended to, with the words “in love” is too much for her. “Tell me you aren’t fooling around with Randolph’s sons. Tell me this is just Cathy capturing some innocent affection.”

But I can’t.

This is a nightmare. I never wanted her to find out like this. We’re so new to this thing, and heaping family drama into the mix isn’t going to do anything to help an already complex situation. It’s been at the back of my mind that she wouldn’t be happy, but I didn’t need to worry about it because she’s so far away. I remember how judgmental Mom was when Maggie got with her foster brothers. She couldn’t see how it could be a good situation for any of them, even though Maggie’s men were happy to take on a child who wasn’t their own. They rescued Maggie in a way, but even that wasn’t enough to please my mom.

And now I’m being pictured with five men, and to make it worse, they aren’t just unconnected strangers. They’re Randolph’s sons.

“I’m not fooling around with them, Mom,” I say. “It’s more than that.”

“Oh, please,” she says. “You can’t be serious. You absolutely can’t tell me this. I’ve only just found the love of my life after dedicating over twenty years to you, and you’re happy to ruin everything for me. Randolph will be furious. He’ll break off the engagement. He’ll make you move out.” Her voice trembles at the end. “It’s going to ruin everything.”

“I didn’t mean for it to happen,” I say.

“You didn’t mean to fall into bed with five men who are practically your brothers.”

“They’re not, Mom. They were strangers to me up until a few weeks ago. We didn’t mean for it to happen, but it’s not just fooling around. It’s more than that.”

“Oh please,” she snarls again. “What do you know about more? You’ve seen your friend make bad choices, and you want to fall down the same rabbit hole. Well, I won’t have it, Cora. It’s selfish and cruel to risk my happiness in this way. I want you to stop what you’re doing.”

Mark edges closer, and I can tell he’s trying to listen to Mom’s muffled tones by the way he has his head angled.

He raises his eyebrows again, but I can’t tell him what’s going on. I don’t know what to do. I don’t know what to say. I take a step back, I flop and sit at the edge of the bed flopping , dragging a sheet to cover some of my nakedness. My face is hot with a mix of shame and frustration.

I want to scream at her that I’m a grown woman, and if it wasn’t for her, I would never have found myself in this situation. I want to yell that despite having a deceptive ass for a father, the men in those pictures she saw are good and kind and are supporting me in every aspect of my life. It’s not just about sex. It’s about so much more.

But Mom doesn’t want to hear that.

And I’m not sure that Mark does either. If he hears that mom isn’t happy with the situation, it’ll put him in a difficult situation too. The Carlton boys are already keeping this from their father but knowing how angry my mom is and ignoring it would make it so much worse.

Is Mark ready to hear that my feelings for them are already running deep? Relationships are complicated enough when just two people are involved, but with five men to gauge, I have no idea where everyone’s heads are at.

“I can’t talk now, Mom,” I say softly, my stomach dropping twenty stories and my heart aching.

“You don’t need to talk,” she says. “There’s nothing else to say. Either break it off, or I’ll be forced to tell Randolph, and then we’ll both end up homeless.”

The call clicks off then, and I lower the phone into my lap.

“What happened?” Mark asks. When he sits close to me and rests his hand on my knee, I flinch. Before he has a chance to take his hand away, I grip it in mine.

“I don’t want to talk about it,” I say. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry,” he says. “That’s your choice, honey. But I’m here if and when you want to.”

“Thanks.” Taking a deep breath, I roll my shoulders and let out a long sigh. I have no idea what I’m going to do, but for now, I’ve got to focus on fulfilling the orders from last night and dealing with Cathy.

And when I’ve had a chance to think things through, I’ll have to talk with the five men who have come to mean so much more to me than I ever thought possible.