Free A Perfect Storm by Cameron Dane

wiped his mouth with his shirtsleeve. “Sorry, Mom.”
    Swallowing down her curiosity—for the moment, anyway—Sophie stepped in. “It’s partially my fault. I was already here admiring the bread when Owen showed up. I introduced myself, and we started chatting. I distracted him from his job.”
    “You got your free pass right there, buddy.” Her voice stern, Emma then ruined it by leaning across the counter and smacking a loud, messy kiss to her son’s cheek. “Finish up that slice while I get the plate ready for you to take outside.”
    Around a mouthful of bread again, Owen said, “I think Sophie wants a piece too.”
    “Sweetie.” Emma pinched Owen’s lips. “Your mouth. Food. No talking while it’s full.” Multitasking, Emma then began slicing the loaf of bread while talking to Sophie. “I swear he has manners and knows how to use them.” Efficiently, she completed slicing one loaf of bread and moved on to the second. “I think the excitement of the storm has everyone a bit off kilter.” Emma grabbed a plate out of a cabinet, slid it in front of Sophie and then moved to the fridge. “Help yourself.” Coming back with jam and butter, she added, “As soon as I get this plate ready for Owen to take outside, I can make you some eggs or pancakes or oatmeal.” Disappearing into a pantry, Emma then reemerged with a jar of peanut butter and went on without skipping a beat. “I also have plenty of fruit. I can put a plate together with some cottage cheese, if you’d prefer.”
    Sophie finished spreading strawberry jam on her bread, and her mouth watered. “No worries. The bread is plenty. Thank you.” Upon taking a bite, Sophie moaned as the warm, soft, sweet goodness drenched her taste buds. Mindful not to set a bad example, Sophie chewed and swallowed before saying, “I would love some coffee, though.”
    “Ooh, Mom!” Owen hopped off his stool, rounded the counter, and raced to the single-cup gourmet coffeemaker. “Can I do it? Please?”
    “Be careful.” After giving Owen that warning, Emma turned back to Sophie, chuckling softly as she rolled her eyes. “He loves that thing.”
    Putting her chin in her hand, Sophie couldn’t help smiling at the excitable kid. “It’s a cool gadget,” she mused, remembering the first time her mother had let her feed huge chunks of fruit into a juicer. “I wish I had one myself.”
    With a grin in return, Emma went back to spreading various condiments onto her many slices of freshly baked bread.
    As Sophie munched on her breakfast, she watched Emma and couldn’t reconcile this openly loving mother, who flitted about the kitchen more naturally than any of those chefs who had their own TV shows, with the woman tied up last night begging for two men to fuck her and push at the boundaries of her sexual pleasure. Unlike when seeing Cale and Magnus again, Sophie couldn’t as easily transfer back to that bedroom and see Emma with her hair flowing in fiery tresses around her face, or the way her puckered nipples capped her alabaster breasts, or how she’d screamed as she came. Emma and her needs had sat front and center in that scene last evening, but now Sophie only saw the homemaker and mother within the curvy redhead.
    Sophie suddenly started as the truth hit her. She had double standards. Despising the thud that hit her stomach with the realization, she absently thanked Owen for her coffee when he brought it to her and then slipped back into the dialogue running silently at mach speed in her brain. She naturally allowed that Cale and Magnus had elements of raw, sexual beings inside them but that they also functioned every day in society as professional men. But when it came to Emma, Sophie’s brain fought to keep those two pieces of Emma as separate people.
    I’m a hypocrite. I don’t openly accept women as sexual entities the same way I do men . Immediately following that loud thought came the whisper, That’s because you don’t embrace yourself as a