Be a Doll(67)

The question directed my way called for nothing but a ‘yes’ so I nodded and busied myself with the bottle of wine, swallowing my lust for my wife and the tension I needed out of my damn body. “Glasses?’’ I asked evenly and watched out of the corner of my eyes Lila’s eyes narrowing on me with annoyance.

“On the table. Haven’t you seen the table is set?’’ she replied coldly, implying with her tone she thought of me stupid and or just plainly insufferable. It was sick, but it made me want her more. Her fire, the way she never let my coldness and distance deter her was like an aphrodisiac to me.

My hand clenched tighter around the bottle and I set it down on the kitchen bar with the corkscrew with more force than necessary. The metal of the device clinked noisily against the hard surface. “I had better things on my mind, dear wife.’’ I leaned over the top of the bar to get closer to Lila’s ear and away from my mother who went back to the other side of the kitchen to work on some salad. “Like you spread wide for me on this very kitchen counter or the dining table. I can be low maintenance when it’s called for.’’

Her gasp was music to my ears. I didn’t stop the smirk on my face as I turned around and went to the dining room table where I poured each of us a glass of Merlot.

“Shouldn’t we invite Megan?’’ I asked to further the conversation, but without the interest people would expect. My mind was already going in different directions, from calculating how long I would need to wait until I could sink into my wife’s tight pussy again to my asshole of a father to Moran’s company and Tober’s.

I took off my tie and threw it on the armchair on top of my coat abandoned there a few minutes before and grabbed two of the glasses to bring them to the women in the kitchen.

“I called her but she has a date,’’ Lila said and nodded in thanks when I handed her the glass.

I did the same with my mother and slightly tensed when she offered me a gentle kiss on the cheek. Gestures of affection like that always made me cold from the inside, like hammers working on my icy heart to try and smash it more than it already was. It’s been like that since Max died. I didn’t deserve affection or tenderness, even less when it came from the woman who had lost so much because of my recklessness.

“A date?’’ I cringed and turned back to get my own glass. I would need that wine if I were to discuss my little sister’s love life. “Is she seeing someone?’’

“She said it’s a first date, but she didn’t sound like someone who was that excited about it.’’

I took a sip of wine and glared at my wife over the rim of my glass. I heard the amusement in her voice at the lack of enthusiasm on my part and I didn’t appreciate how she always seemed to enjoy it when I wasn’t the one in control of every aspect of a conversation. Also, as much as I had lacked as a big brother since Max’s death, I wasn’t comfortable thinking of my sister as a woman who met men.

I unbuttoned two buttons of my button-down and discarded my suit jacket on the back of the chair I always occupied at the dining table. “Did she tell you who it is?’’

“Mathis,’’ my mother scolded me, shaking her head at me. “Your sister is entitled to her privacy, just like you’re entitled to yours.’’

I arched an eyebrow at her and slowly took another sip of wine. “Really? Then you and Megan aren’t the ones harassing me since I announced my engagement to Lila.’’

She waved me off with an elegant move of her hand that made the stones on her rings shine under the lights of the apartment. “It’s different. We never thought you’d get married and a marriage is not the same as a first date.’’

“I don’t know anything anyway,’’ Lila added and opened the oven to pull out a steaming plate of pot roast and potatoes cooked in sauce. My taste buds salivated at the sight of one of my favorite meals inspired by my grandmother’s recipe on my mother’s side. “Is it good?’’ she asked my mother who nodded.

“Parfait! You can bring it to the table. I’m finished with the fruit salad.’’

Lila’s eyes stayed on the heavy plate in her hands and I carefully followed her every step, already envisioning the disaster if she tripped and the steaming contents spilled on her, starting with the thin and delicate flesh of her cleavage on display in her blouse and cardigan.

“Stop looking at me like that,’’ she muttered as she walked past me and set down the heavy pot and took her seat.

I stopped mid-sip at that thought. She had a seat. In my home. It only took a few short days to think of her as a part of this apartment, as if she already had her own routine around here. That thought distracted me from my biting come back and I was lost in thought, my eyes trained on the picture on the shelf near the TV in the living room. I couldn’t make out the picture of Max and me from my seat on at the table, but I saw the simple frame and it was enough. It centered me and chased away the strange thoughts and even stranger emotions mounting inside of me. I felt my face hardening, my stare icing.

“Mathis?’’ my mother called me, my name a question on her lips as worry marred her still beautiful face in spite of the years, the grief and sadness weighing down on her.

“What?’’ The bite in that single word made her recoil and earned me a kick in the shin from my wife. I’d have felt more pain if she had been wearing shoes, but the fact remained that she kicked me. Nobody kicked me. “I apologize, Mom. It’s been a long day,’’ I forced out, the apology difficult to get out.