“Bite me, Daddy. ” Georgia’s eyes shone bright with defiance, her mouth curling into a grin of pure fucking disrespect. She leant against the doorframe, freeing up my view of the half-naked prick beyond as he struggled to get his clothes together.
I took a step forward, close enough for her to catch the gravelly menace in my voice. “If he’s not out of this house within thirty fucking seconds, I’ll do more than bite , sweetheart.”
I saw her breath hitch, the beautiful flash of surprise as it swept across her face. “You wanna play big, tough stepdad now Mother’s not around, hey? Is that it?”
My eyes narrowed, slicing into hers with the full force of my irritation. “I’m not playing .”
“Screw you,” she hissed. “Mikey was leaving anyway.”
“He’d better get a move on, he’s twenty seconds left to get the hell out of here.”
“Fine, jerk.”
She slammed the door but I let it slide, loosening my tie as I stomped my way back downstairs. I’d been flying high with that Friday feeling, knocking off work early to the call of a cold beer straight from the fridge, but my high had dissipated into nothing. I grabbed the beer anyway.
Day one of twenty without Cynthia and we were already at war. Bloody brilliant.
If I’d have met Georgia Catherine Tate before I married her mother, she’d have been a proper fucking deal-breaker. Petulant, spoiled to shit, un-fucking-disciplined. An only child to a single mother who’d had plenty of money but not enough time, and a legend in her own tiny mind. But that wasn’t the deal-breaker. Not even close.
Georgia Catherine Tate was an accident waiting to happen; the ultimate honeytrap for a dirty sonofabitch like me. You’d think she was an angel, with her bouncy blonde curls and baby blue eyes, the light dusting of freckles high across her cheekbones, but she was anything but angelic. The glint in her eyes said dirty girl , and I’ve always been a sucker for a forbidden fruit. It doesn’t get much more forbidden than hot, tight step-daughter pussy.
A racket of footsteps sounded loud on the stairs, followed by the slam of the front door. Good fucking riddance. I was enjoying my beer when Georgia stuck her pouty face around the doorframe.
“I’m going too.”
“The guy’s a loser,” I announced. “A stupid kid. He wouldn’t even know what he was doing.”
She presented herself in full view, hands on hips, trademark spiky demeanour aggravating the shit out of me. I struggled to ignore the smooth curve of her waist. The tight, young promise of her thighs as they tensed under her skirt. I swear the girl had the perkiest little rack I’ve ever seen on God’s green earth. Her mother was a looker, but whatever genes had spliced in with Georgia Tate’s DNA had served her well. Daddy must have been one hell of a pretty boy.
“I’m hardly planning on marrying the guy, I don’t even know him,” she snapped. “I’m not my mother. I don’t get involved on a whim.”
“I don’t know what you inherited less of; her work ethic or her common sense.”
“I don’t want her common sense. Not if a guy like you is the result of her superior decision making skills.”
I looked at the girl in front of me. There was rage in her eyes, for sure, but there was something more than that.
“Why do you fight me all the time, Georgia?” My tone was flat and calm, genuinely curious. “Haven’t I tried to be nice to you?”
“Urgh,” she said. “That’s enough family bonding for one day. Don’t wait up, Andrew. ”
“I hope Mikey lives up to your expectations.”
She gave me the finger on her way out.
***
I slumped back on the sofa and flicked through the TV, pondering again just how the fuck I’d ended up in this situation. I’d met Cynthia Tate at a conference out in Kefalonia six months earlier. Some team-building shit the assholes in senior management claimed would lead to ‘improved corporate communications’. For me it lead
Devin Carter
Nick Oldham
Kristin Vayden
Frank Tuttle
Janet Dailey
Vivian Arend
Robert Swartwood
Margaret Daley
Ed Gorman
Kim Newman