Chapter 10: Mommy's Good Boy
The days stretched thin, a taut wire of silence strung between the three of them. Julian moved through the manor like a sleepwalker, the phantom scent of jasmine and sex clinging to his senses. He avoided mirrors. The boy who looked back—hollow-eyed, mouth set in a hard line—was a stranger. His father, Bernard, a gentle ghost preoccupied with vintage car catalogues and single-malt scotch, noticed nothing.
The silence in his head was a crowded room. He replayed Izzy’s foot on his chest, her command. You’ll thank him. The words echoed, a sick liturgy. He found himself in the library, fingers tracing the leather spines of his father’s books, but all he felt was the ghost of Sloane’s skin under his hands, the wet heat of her. He jumped when the door clicked open.
It was Izzy. She carried no tray, no book. Just herself, wrapped in a simple grey cashmere sweater and trousers that did nothing to hide the deliberate sway of her walk. “There you are,” she said, her voice soft in the dusty silence. “Hiding.”
“I’m reading,” Julian lied, his hand frozen on a volume of Roman history.
“Liar.” She glided closer, her perfume cutting through the scent of old paper. She stopped inches from him, looking up at the high shelves. “All these words. All these dead men talking.” She turned her emerald eyes on him. “They’re no help, are they? For what’s happening in here.” She tapped a finger lightly against his temple, then let it drift down to his chest, over his heart.
He swallowed. “What do you want?”
“To see you,” she said simply. “Before Thursday. To see if you’re still with me.” Her hand flattened on his chest. “Or if you’ve crawled back into that numb little boy shell.”
“I’m here,” he muttered, the defensiveness in his voice pathetic even to him.
“Prove it.” Her hand slid lower, over his stomach. He caught her wrist. Her skin was warm, her pulse a steady rhythm against his thumb. She didn’t pull away. She smiled. “See? There’s a spark. You can feel it, can’t you? The friction. Between what you were taught is right and what your body knows is true.”
“It’s wrong,” he breathed, his grip loosening.
“Of course it is,” she laughed, a low, thrilling sound. “That’s the gasoline, baby boy. Now touch me.”
He released her wrist. She took his hand and guided it under the soft hem of her sweater, placing his palm flat against the bare skin of her stomach. It was warm, smooth. He inhaled sharply. She leaned in, her lips brushing his ear. “You watched her take that old man. You fucked her while she was full of him. That wasn’t wrong? But this is where you draw the line?” Her other hand found the front of his trousers, cupping him through the fabric. He was already hard. “Your body isn’t drawing any lines, Julian.”
A tortured sound escaped him. He kissed her. It wasn’t gentle. It was a collision, a claiming of the forbidden thing that had hovered in his dreams since the day she arrived. She met him with equal hunger, her mouth opening, her tongue tangling with his. She tasted of mint and dark coffee. His hands slid under her sweater, up her ribcage to the lace-covered swell of her breasts.
She broke the kiss, breathing hard. “Not here. Upstairs.”
In her sitting room, the velvet shadows seemed to reach for them. She turned to face him, pulling the sweater over her head in one fluid motion. Her breasts were bare, tipped with hard, rose-colored nipples. She unbuttoned his shirt slowly, her nails scraping lightly over his skin. “I saw you,” she whispered as she pushed the shirt from his shoulders. “That first week you were here. Watching me from the garden. I was sunbathing, right there on the terrace.”
He flushed, caught. “I didn’t—”
“You did.” She unfastened his trousers, her fingers deft. “I saw the hunger in your eyes. The confusion. It was beautiful.” She pushed his pants and boxers down, freeing his erection. Her hand wrapped around him, her touch firm and knowing. “You wanted this then. You want it now.”
He was beyond denial. He grabbed her, his hands on her ass, pulling her against him. The feel of her bare skin against his cock was electric. He walked her backwards until her legs hit the edge of the chaise lounge and she tumbled onto it, laughing a throaty, triumphant laugh. He followed her down, bracing himself over her.
“No,” she said, her voice a command. She pushed at his shoulders. “Like this.” She guided him to sit back on the chaise, then straddled him, her knees sinking into the velvet on either side of his hips. She was a goddess above him, her black hair framing her face, her green eyes blazing with power. She reached between them, taking his cock in her hand and positioning it at her entrance.
He could see her clearly, the dark curls glistening with her arousal. “Izzy,” he groaned, the name a prayer and a curse.
“Call me what you want when you’re inside me,” she said, and then she sank down, taking him in with a slow, excruciating glide that stole his breath.
She was tight, impossibly hot, and wet. She felt utterly different from Sloane—surer, deeper, a claiming. She seated herself fully, letting out a long, satisfied sigh as he filled her. She began to move, not with frantic passion, but with a slow, rolling grind of her hips that rubbed her clit against the base of his shaft with every rotation.
“This is what you wanted,” she purred, her hands braced on his shoulders. “Not just to watch. To be here. Buried in me.” She leaned down, her breasts brushing his chest, her mouth by his ear. Her rhythm never faltered. “You’re mine now. More than your father’s. More than your own. Your cock belongs to me.”
Her words unleashed him. His hands gripped her hips, guiding her, forcing her down harder onto him with each upward thrust. The slap of skin grew faster, louder. He could feel her muscles clenching around him, milking him. “Fuck,” he gritted out, his vision blurring.
“Yes,” she hissed, her composure cracking. “Fuck me, Julian. Fuck your stepmother. Fuck this whole goddamn house of lies.” She rode him with savage intensity, her nails digging into his skin. “I own this. I own you. Come for me. Fill me up.”
Her command, the sheer filthy wrongness of it, pushed him over the edge. With a shout that was half agony, half release, he slammed up into her one last time and came, his body convulsing as he emptied himself deep inside her. She cried out too, a sharp, broken sound, her own climax triggered by the pulsing heat of his orgasm. She shuddered around him, her inner muscles fluttering violently, milking him until he was spent and soft.
She collapsed against his chest, both of them slick with sweat, breathing in ragged unison. The only sound was the crackle of the fire. After a long moment, she lifted her head. She didn’t look triumphant anymore. She looked tired, and strangely young. She touched his cheek.
“Thursday,” she said quietly, her voice raw. “Don’t be late.”
She climbed off him, leaving him feeling cold and exposed on the velvet. She pulled on her clothes with her back to him, her movements precise. At the door, she paused. “Sloane will be ready. So will the professor.” She glanced back, her green eyes unreadable. “So will you.”