That's one thing that never changes. Tony is always so nice to me. But he could have any woman he wanted. He's so much older than me and about a million lightyears out of my league.
My Dad and him grew up on the same block, so he tells it, only Tony's Italian and back then, that meant he had a way into the kind of world where favors were done and things just happened. I guess it's not so different now either.
He's been real good to my Dad over the years though, making sure the bakery Dad pours all his energy into never gets shaken down for any protection money. Tony has always done good by us, even though Dad sometimes makes it out as if he'd have done way better on his own. I know that isn't true. Around here, you gotta have the right people on side and Tony is definitely the kinda guy you want as a friend.
I'd have him as so much more than a friend in a heartbeat.
My Dad's loyalty has always flip-flopped, he's always looked out for number one. The bakery always comes first. In high school he never cut me any slack, making sure I was in at the crack of dawn every day right alongside him, prepping the bread for the day.
Tony's different. He always has been. Even if Dad doesn't see it, I do. But I know he’s always been good to me because he’s Dad's friend.
Only, lately, it feels like now it's not just Dad that keeps him coming around to the bakery. He's been coming in first thing every day since I started there full time after graduation. Everything seems to have changed as soon as high school finished.
Tony turned up to my graduation party with a cake that I hadn't had to make myself, and it was like he saw me for the very first time. I'd been obsessing over the idea that maybe he saw me as more than just Dad's dumpy kid ever since that party. He was the only one to congratulate me on being valedictorian. The only one to ask me what I wanted to do with my life.
But it wasn’t like I had much of a choice. I knew there was no money for college. Not unless it was catering school, but that's Dad's dream, not mine. I've spent way too long being teased about being a big girl because I ate all the cookies and every shift at the bakery reminds me of that day after day. I want to leave it all behind me.
In my fantasies, I'm Tony's wife. And the only baking I do is for my future kids and my future husband. While I take these amazing pictures that people line up around the block to buy from me. It's more than a hobby, more than the million of pictures I’ve taken on my old camera: I'm successful, it's a real career.
I crumple down to the floor, leaning back against my bedroom door when I close it behind me and try to steady my breathing. I've always felt so pathetic knowing that every time I close my eyes the face of the man by my side for the rest of my life is Tony's. I can only imagine what Dad would say.
But I didn’t imagine what Tony said downstairs. I didn’t. He called me his, and said it like he really meant it.
What if all that staring he's been doing lately isn't because I've made an idiot out of myself wearing a skirt that's too short or because I'm covered in flour? My heart rate rockets at just the possibility and I feel lightheaded and jittery with the idea of it. What if I'm wrong about the kind of woman he wants in his life?
What if he really does want me?
CHAPTER THREE
Tony
Libby Brockman's name is carved into my heart and it has been since the day I saw her after her graduation. Somehow all the times I'd looked at her before and seen Kyle's kid suddenly melted away and there was this beautiful woman looking happier than I'd ever seen her, smiling at me like I was exactly who she wanted to be there.
I'd brought her a dumb cake with balloons on it because it seemed like the right thing to do, and Kyle never liked using any of the shop ingredients for family occasions, so I knew he wasn't going to make her anything special. Seemed to me that he worked that girl hard enough and she deserved a break, even if her dad didn't put much sway into her getting her diploma.
But as soon as I got there, a glorified kiddy cake in one hand, she was there looking like everything I'd spent my entire life dreaming about, and wishing I had something better than a cheap birthday cake soaked in sugar and layered up with buttercream. I should have gotten her something classy, because she was classy, with her auburn hair in wavy curls, looking like some old Hollywood movie star back from when the world was glamourous. Curves in all the right places.
She made the dress she was wearing look a million bucks, even though I knew it had come straight from China, via Giacomo Rosetti's back yard.
I'm more than a friend of the family. Her father and I practically grew up together, and I was there for him with as many beers as he needed and the offer to whack his ex when she upped and left him holding the baby. I made sure he had no issues setting up shop, threw contracts his way whenever I could lean on people to give him business. It had always been about me and him, right up until courtesy had me swinging by, and there she was, eighteen and perfect, looking like everything I had been missing out on my whole life.
Lightning struck, and since that fateful day I've been obsessed.
Now my boss thinks I'm having some kind of carb-related midlife crisis because I keep showing up with bakery boxes, but it would take more than a dozen-a-day donut habit to make a dent in the body I've spent near-on two decades honing.
At thirty-eight, now I know that all the hours at the gym, all the time down in the boxing ring, are only for one purpose - to make sure I'm everything that Libby Brockman deserves.
The perfect set of muscles is worth nothing without her gripping onto my tricep or running her hands over my pecs and washboard abs. I want every sweet inch of her body, and I want her to have mine. And I'm going to make that happen.
But for now, going a couple rounds in the ring serves another purpose. I've never been so frustrated in my life, being so close to what I want but unable to get it. Around her, I'm permanently hard like some kind of teenager whose body keeps acting up.
Those kids are lucky they got away with their masculinity intact insulting her the way they did. I would have happily castrated the pair of them for less than that. But I didn't get the chance, and I didn't get the chance to make Libby see that was just the start of what I would do for her. The start of what she deserves.
I let out a grunt, swinging through to smack my bandaged fists against the hanging punch bag and my sparring partner is pushed back with the force of it as the bag fails to dissipate the full hit.
I strike the plasticated fabric again as hard as I can, knowing that without gloves my abraded knuckles feel more. Too hard and I could break my hand, but I don't care. The bruises are a good kind of pain, it sure is a whole lot better than the ache in my balls from always having to hold myself back. One thing is certain, no way can I keep denying the way I feel about Libby any more.
Kyle's going to have to deal with it. I'll make him see just how right for her I am. How right for her I'm going to be. Any father has to appreciate a man who wants to give his daughter everything, right?
I know her heart isn't in the bakery the way her father's is. So, I'll take her away from that, help her set up doing whatever she truly wants in life. I have the contacts and the income to make that happen, to give her whatever life she wants. Just as long as it's by my side.
CHAPTER FOUR
Libby
The buzz of the intercom makes me groan on instinct even before I glance towards it from the couch. It's the one day of the week when I don't have to be up at the crack of dawn to help Dad with the bread and in my usual style, I'm taking full advantage to slob about in my PJ’s until I have a real reason to get up properly.
The last thing I want to deal with is a visitor. Maybe if I ignore them, whoever it is will go away.
I hold my breath, as though being quiet when they can't even hear me up here from the street will make the slightest bit of difference, but the buzzer sounds again before I'm even gasping for the next lungful of air.
Maybe another kind of person would ignore it, and I'm sorely tempted, but I'
ve always been too responsible for my own good. It could be one of the neighbors in trouble or something, though I have no idea why they wouldn't just go into the bakery and get a hold of Dad directly.
With a sigh, I pick up the intercom phone.
"Hello?" I say.
"Libby, it's Tony." My heart catches in my throat, on the way to going into overdrive. What's he doing here?
"Oh, hi Tony. Dad should be downstairs in the shop," I say. It's as much as I can do to play it cool.
"Yeah." There's a long pause and I realize I'm holding my breath again as I twirl the coiled cord around my fingers, waiting to see what he's going to say. "Actually I wanted to see you. Can I come up?"
My eyes widen in horror as I look down at myself. "Uh…" My PJ pants are a faded plaid and I'm wearing the most unflattering nightshirt I own, complete with a couple of chocolate stains from my Ben & Jerry's binge the night before. No way do I want Tony even coming close to guessing that I'd spent the night in with a pint of Cherry Garcia looking over all my recent photographs and pretending I have the guts to put them into some kind of portfolio that my dream gallery would obviously instantly accent for a sell-out show. He'd see me as even more of a loser then.
"Sure?" I say. Lightning fast, I make a calculation. I figure if I stretch the cord on the handset far enough, I'll be halfway to my bedroom before I buzz him up. That should give me enough time to pull on something that makes me look halfway decent.
"Great." Tony must be down there wondering just how slow someone can be when it comes to buzzing someone up. There's only so long I can delay it. I glance over my shoulder to my bedroom door and press the entry button.
Darting forward, I ditch the handset, not caring that it clatters to the floor. I'm already whipping my nightshirt off, yanking open my drawers to find something to shove over my t-shirt bra. I fling a cami onto the bed, but realize there's no way I want Tony seeing me in my PJ pants either.
"Oh, crap."
I tug out a sundress from the closet and pull it over my head, wiggling it down over my chest and hips, thankful that I waxed my legs. The stretchy fabric and wrap-over style makes me feel feminine and the skirt flares out, all full, and it's a million times better than the slob look, even if I haven't had time to run a comb through my hair. Tousled, that's a thing, right? I hope he thinks so.
I breathe out a sigh of relief that I've averted disaster as I tug my PJ pants off, but a glance in the mirror shows the line of my bra showing above the neckline of my dress.
Out in the hall there's a solid knock on the front door and I grimace at my reflection. I don't have time for this. Desperate times call for desperate measures. Without another thought, I whip my bra off and toss it down onto the bed.
In a rush, I pull my bedroom door closed on the carnage I've just created and it's only when I ram the intercom headset back into the cradle and yank the front door open that I realize I'm still wearing my fuzzy socks. Self consciously, I push my unruly hair back behind my ears and pull on my best, biggest grin. So much for playing it cool. Every time I look at Tony, my heart rate goes crazy and the world doesn't seem so bad.
Tony
I feel my pupils dilate, lust taking over, as soon as I set eyes on Libby. I can't stop myself from taking in the teasing bounce of her soft breasts beneath the stretchy material of her dress. She can't know what she does to me. But maybe she has some idea.
Her nipples are standing upright, pointing straight out like they're honed in on me, and there's nothing I can do to stop my cock from doing exactly the same thing in return. She's got a breathless kind of flush to her cheeks that makes me think about what she'd look like on my bed, underneath me, crying out my name as I show her all the ways I want to worship her.
Out of her bakery uniform, out of that shapeless coverall that hides every tempting curve, she's even better than I remember and it's all I can do to stop myself from pushing her up against the wall and claiming her right there and then.
"Hey," she says, and I'm damn near hypnotized by the way her teeth find her plump lower lip.
She looks up at me with her wide, perfect blue eyes and the ability to string a sentence together leaves me. I can just about speak caveman. That I'm sure of. But she deserves better than that.
"Hey. How you doin'?" I ask, finally finding my words.
"Me? Oh, I'm fine. I'm good. You didn't have to check up on me. Those guys are just jackasses."
My jaw clenches and I can't stop the growl that the memory of those idiots conjures. Never again is anyone going to make the mistake of thinking Libby's fair game. She won't be when she's mine and that's only a matter of time. As little time as I can make it.
"They shouldn't have said that shit. They won't say it again."
Her cheeks flare red and she looks down sharply, like she doesn't even want me bringing this up. Does she think I'd think that those idiots were right? I step towards her, driven by a surge of protectiveness like I've never felt for anyone in my life. "Listen to me. They're jackasses, just like you said."
Libby still doesn't look up, but she does nod slowly. "I know," she says quietly.
I'm not all that convinced that she believes what she's saying. "Libby…" I say, tilting up her chin so that she has no choice but to meet my eyes and immediately my focus goes to the plump swell of her lips all over again. "Listen to me. You could have anyone you damn well want and they'd be lucky to have you."
Her eyes shy away from mine, cutting sideways. "Oh that's really not true."
"Yeah?" I clench my jaw again, green with the idea that she already has a guy she likes. Well, I'll just have to show her how much of a better choice I am. "Well he's a jackass too. You want me to take him down a peg or two?"
Libby's lips press in on each other and she finally looks up to meet my gaze with the tiniest shake of her head and a sad kind of look in her eyes. She lets out a sigh that damn near breaks my heart and I want to kill whoever makes her feel this way.
"It's you, Tony. It's always been you."
My breath rushes out of me in a swell of relief. "Damn right it is. Fuck, Libby. If I'd known…This whole time I've been holding back."
"What..?" Surprise lights her features, but there's no way I'm letting her pull back from me now. I should have done this weeks ago. I should never have let what her father is going to think get in the way of something so right, so natural. She has to be mine, the charge between us is too strong to be ignored.
"I've been obsessed with you since your graduation party. Why the hell else do you think I come into the bakery every morning?"
Libby looks stunned, but there's a small smile tugging at the corner of her lips. "I don't know. The muffins?"
I let out a grumble, stepping closer even as she takes an instinctive step back. "I'll give you muffins…" I say.
There's not a thing I can do to stop myself from pressing forward until she's up against the wall and her mouth slips open, her chest rising and falling in time with her shallow panting. She has to be able to feel my cock pressing against the soft heat of her inner thigh and there's nothing I can do to stop the grinding roll of my hips. I have to be near her. I want to make her lose her mind.
I claim her mouth with mine in a breathless, artless kiss that tells her just how much I wanted this. Her lips on mine - I can barely restrain the urge to tear at them with my teeth, to ravage her completely like some kind of possessed beast. There's a rumble like thunder in my throat, warning her of the storm of passion she's unleashed and I barely have the control to let her pull back enough to breathe.
"Oh Tony, I never thought you'd ever want me-"
"None of that." I cut her off, self doubt is the last thing I want to hear from her. I'll make her see how perfect she is for me, and that's the only thing that matters. "I'll always want you. And now I ain't ever going to let you go."
Her breathing shudders against mine as I slide my hands around her hips, pulling her in more solidly against me so she knows exactly where she be
longs. The little whimper she lets out is the sexiest damn thing I’ve ever heard and when her hands start roaming over my chest I know there's no way I can hold back. I've waited too long already, burning with the need to claim her, to make her mine and today's the day it's going to happen.
She tilts her head up, going on her toes to keep on kissing me and she lifts her leg like she's trying to find a way to climb me like a tree just to get closer and my hand clamps onto her thigh to hold it up as I kiss her all over again. A thousand times I've stayed up thinking about this moment, but reality is so much sweeter.
"Oh Tony, I want you so much."
"I want you too, Libby. Forever."
There's a little gleam of tears in her eyes when she blinks up at me that only makes me crush my lips to hers harder all over again. "You really mean it?"
Once I get inside her and plant my seed, she'll know exactly how serious I am. She will milk my body dry without even trying. I can't find the words to tell her that it's my other head that's doing all the thinking right now. "Bedroom. Now."
Libby's eyes widen, but I can read the thrill in them as I duck to scoop her up into my arms.
The sound of a key in the door is the only thing that halts me, and somehow I set her on her feet and she pulls away before Kyle, her father, swings it open.
Libby steps away from me like she's been burned and it takes everything I have to let her even that far away from me.
"Tony! I thought I saw you come up!" her dad says.
I grit my teeth, tense against the urge to tell him to get the hell out of his own home, because I want to take his daughter and claim her on every flat surface in the apartment.
"Hey." Conversation is not something I'm in the mood for. "It was Libby I was after actually."
"Oh yeah?"
I feel Libby look from me to her father and I can sense the swell of panic in her rise. She doesn't have a thing to worry about. No one is getting in the way of us, not even Kyle.
Claiming His Sweet Curves: An Instalove Possessive Alpha Romance (A Man Who Knows What He Wants Book 171) Page 2