“It’s fine. Take Tanker to your bedroom. I’ll batten down the hatches.”
“Hatches?” She flinches as another bolt of lightning turns the room iron-blue. “What hatches?”
I chuckle, staring into her face, into the uneasy smile that plays at her lips. It’s like she’s trying to smile away her fear.
“It’s an expression,” I tell her. “It means I’m going to make sure the place is secure, bolt all the windows and doors.”
She nods, laughing hollowly. “Okay. I get it. Aw, look at him.”
She cradles Tanker to her chest as the little guy begins to tremble.
I reach over, brushing my hand over his head. She does it at the same time and our fingers cross paths, our skin sizzling as we make contact.
I pause, savoring the feel of her skin against mine, the electricity moving up my arm and into my body.
Then another bolt of lightning tears across the sky, and I snatch my hand away.
“Come on, boy,” Rayla says, carrying Tanker down the hallway. “Let’s get you nice and snuggled, huh?”
Even now, I can’t stop myself from staring at her ass shifting in the bathrobe, swinging back and forth like she’s doing it on purpose like she wants me to charge after her and give her a firm spank for being so damn sexy.
Fuck.
If this storm is as bad as the forecast said it could be – if we get the worst of it – we could end up being trapped together for a couple of days. Millie’s flight could be delayed again.
How the hell am I going to resist Rayla then?
Chapter Seven
Rayla
I cradle Tanker to my chest as I walk across the guest room, sitting on the end of the bed and hugging him tightly. The lightning cracks over and over, memories bubbling up inside of me, fragments of the past shooting through me and cutting with painful sharpness.
Tanker whines and climbs up my body, putting his forepaws against my chest and licking my chin. I giggle despite the memories rushing through me, despite the pain and the uncertainty, despite the feeling that the past is going to leap from the floor and coil a vicious hand around my ankle, dragging me back.
“I know I’m being silly,” I tell him, as the rain hammers the roof and against the window, a whole torrent of it. It’s so loud it’s like being inside a disco… with the worst soundtrack in the world. “I shouldn’t let a little rain make me so crazy, should I? I know.”
I stroke the scruff of his neck as he continues to lick my chin.
My mind is like a pinball shooting around a machine, going from the distant past to the recent past, to when Roman leaned down and brought his face to mine.
Do you have a—
But then the thunder and the sudden storm cut his words off, leaving me to wonder and dream about what he was going to say.
Was he going to ask if I have a boyfriend?
The way he was leaning in, it was like he was going to kiss me. My heart hammering and my whole body alight, and the closer he got, the more certain I became he was going to crush his lips against mine.
Like he was going to wrap his arms around me and hold me tight.
But then the lightning struck, the rain fell, and I remembered Millie.
How awful is that?
I remembered my best friend. I never should’ve forgotten her. That shouldn’t have even been an option, and yet I can’t deny that’s exactly what happened.
In the moments when he leaned in, all thoughts of Millie drifted away, all thoughts of loyalty collapsed, and I was left only with his closeness, his warm breath whispering over my skin, the pulsating deep inside of me.
It was like my womb was screaming at me to leap on him.
Even if that should sound crazy, it doesn’t. It feels right. It feels true. It feels like the only possible thing I could think.
Something deep inside of me is screaming – every single second I’m close to him – for me to tear his clothes off and leap atop him, for me to grind down and sit on his massive throbbing dick.
That’s something I can’t ignore, as my mind dances back over the scene in the kitchen.
He was wearing nothing but his underwear, his torso ridged with muscle, his pectorals hard and full. His stomach was a hard sheet of rock and a ripped V leading down to his underwear. And his manhood throbbing in his boxers, a hard length that was impossible to ignore.
He was hard as he approached me, walking slowly as though he wanted to lengthen the moment. He was huge too, so massive a shiver of anxiety fluttered through me when I thought about ever taking his huge length inside of me.
But then it’s possible he was thinking about something, somebody else before I walked into the kitchen. It’s possible he wasn’t going to kiss me, and he wasn’t going to ask if I had a boyfriend.
It’s possible I’m misreading all the signs and I’ll make a total fool of myself if I dare to act on these irrepressible desires.
I shiver as more rain pounds and more lightning tears across the sky. Tanker whines and I hug him even closer, kissing the top of his furry head. “I know, boy. Hopefully, it won’t be much longer.”
But I got the weather alert earlier today, a warning text that there may be severe weather on the way. The forecast said there was a chance of a severe storm because it might turn away before hitting us.
But it didn’t. And now we might be stuck.
“All sorted.” I look up to find Roman standing in the doorway, changed into a T-shirt and jeans. “Are you okay, Rayla? You look pale.”
“I’m fine,” I whisper, trying to mask the childish shivering in my voice. “I mean, it’s just a storm. It’s just a bit of lightning and rain. Of course, I’m fine. Why wouldn’t I be?”
“Hmm.” He strides across the room and drops onto the bed next to me, making me achingly aware that I’m still in my bathrobe while he’s fully dressed. “I might have to take the little man to his crate. It’s his safe place. I take it wherever we go, and whenever he’s feeling stressed, he’ll curl up and go to sleep. You know, I envy the little guy sometimes, able to sleep through his fear, his problems. Anyway, do you mind?”
“No, of course not,” I murmur, handing Tanker over. He goes into Roman’s arms gratefully. “Whatever’s best for him.”
He stands and nods. “And then you can tell me what this is really about.”
I flinch, looking up at him. His eyes gleam in the semidarkness. “What?”
A smirk touches his lips. “I can read you, Rayla. Something’s going on here. I’ve got the feeling it’ll eat you up inside if you don’t share it.”
He turns and walks out of the room, Tanker padding at his feet, leaving me to ponder his words as the thunder cracks outside and lightning flashes across the window, turning my world iron-blue.
I can read you.
He said it with such confidence, a huskiness to his voice that I’ve never had aimed at me before, the sort of huskiness that makes me think he really was going to kiss me in the kitchen before the storm started.
But what the heck does he mean, he can read me? We only met earlier today and yet I don’t find his words as ridiculous as I should, as I let them wash through me, remembering the intensity glimmering in his eyes, the way his mouth tightened and became something like a feral frown and a smirk.
How can he smirk and frown at the same time?
It’s such a unique thing to Roman, that expression of his that has my insides soaring and singing out for his touch.
He wants to know why the storm is sending jagged daggers stabbing through my body, why it’s whirling around me with the fury of a tornado. I’ve never discussed it with anybody before… except for Millie, his daughter, my best friend.
“This is a mess.” I hug my arms around myself, rocking back and forth, as the rain hammers relentlessly against the window. “Such a freaking mess.”
Closing my eyes, I can’t stop the scene from flooding my mind.
I see Roman standing at one end of a gorgeousl
y furnished living room, and a bunch of beautiful kids standing on the other. They’re getting ready to start the play I wrote for them one wintery afternoon, big smiles on all their faces.
Roman turns to me, his lips twitching.
I force my eyes open as my body gives a pulse of need.
I want that – an impossible future, a future that should seem ridiculous to me. And yet I know it’s wrong, easily the worst idea I’ve ever entertained.
I know that.
But it doesn’t stop me from wanting it.
Chapter Eight
Roman
I stay with Tanker until the little man has let his eyes fall closed and curled into a tight ball. He buries his face against his body, snoring softly. I close the door to his crate and walk to the other end of my bedroom, pausing at the door to give him one last look.
After checking on the dog camera – linked to an app on my phone, a notification alerting me if he starts barking – I walk down the hallway with a hundred tormenting points of need torturing me.
My muscles feel stiff and on-edge, like any second I could snap.
I can’t help but think of the way Rayla looked sitting on her bed, wide-eyed with a gorgeous blush across her cheeks. I could see the sadness in her eyes, but the beast in me didn’t care about that.
The howling monster inside of me willed me to grip my manhood and pull out the solid length, slipping it into her mouth and driving forward until she was gasping and whimpering, a hand snaking between her legs to toy with herself, driving herself closer and closer to a shattering release.
I step into her bedroom to find her where I left her, sitting with her legs hanging over the bed.
Fuck.
Does she have any idea what she’s doing to me, sitting in her bathrobe, her thick juicy thighs pressed together?
Surely she would have changed if she didn’t want me to fall on her like an animal, prying her thighs apart, kissing and biting my way up to her young hot slit.
“Rayla.” I move across the room, standing over her. “What is it?”
“What’s what?” she murmurs.
I smirk at the sassy note in her voice. It’s the same note that filled her tone when she challenged me about her age, spunkily telling me she was a grownup as if I couldn’t see that for myself when I study every curvy twenty-year old inch of her.
“Maybe I’m not the most emotional bastard who ever lived,” I say, dropping down next to her. Our shoulders brushing as I fight the urge to wrap my arm around her, hugging her close. “But part of being a writer is being able to read people. And my instincts are telling me something is going on with you – with you and the storm.”
She makes an adorable whimpering sound, turning to face me. I glance down at her and the base of my manhood throbs. The front of her bathrobe has fallen open, giving me a delicious view of her cleavage, her breasts pushed together captivatingly.
“You know how freaky that is, don’t you? It’s like you’re reading my mind.”
“Maybe I am.” My fingers twitch, trying to force me to lift my hands and caress her face. Somehow I fight them. For now. “So…”
I let the question hang in the air.
“It’s so silly. I feel like such a freaking dork.”
“You never have to apologize for the way you feel. Not with me.”
I try to picture Millie’s face, the way she smiled up at me when she finished her first short story. She was so happy, her cheeks seeming to glisten in the lamplight of my office. She was literally beaming with pride, and yet here I am, with her best friend, the hands of fate willing me to claim her like a prize.
Rayla bites her lip and releases it. “It’s just that there was a really bad storm when I found out my dad died. We were living on the East Coast then. It was before Mom moved to live with her hippy boyfriend, my stepdad Markus. Anyway, I was seven and the storm was the worst I’d ever experienced. But the funny thing is, I wasn’t scared then. I actually quite liked them.”
She pauses, moving her gaze from the floor to me and back again. “Are you sure you want to hear this?”
I force myself to gaze at her face. Otherwise, I know my eyes will keep flitting to the slit of her bathrobe, to those round juicy tits. The base of my cock aches and pulses and the tip sizzles with sensation. I can’t help it, even if I know it’s inappropriate, even if I know I need to stop.
It’s like her scent is coiling around me and holding me prisoner, triggering the howling wolf inside of me.
“Yes,” I whisper. “Of course.”
“I was sitting at the window, watching the storm. And then mom walked in behind me and collapsed. She just fell like all the strength went out of her. She was crying, crying like I’d never seen her. She hates herself for that, for how she crumbled that day. But what else was she supposed to do? She’d lost the love of her life. Of course, she loves my step-dad, she really does. But she loved my biological dad more I like to think.”
She pauses, wringing her hands together.
“He skidded off the road during the storm. He crashed into a tree, he died instantly. There was nothing anyone could do. And then…”
Her fingers twitch. She pulls at the tie of her bathrobe, fiddling with it, as though her hands are desperate for something to do. I wrap my hands around hers without giving myself time to think about it, without giving myself the opportunity to remind myself how wrong it is.
“It’s okay,” I whisper, shuffling closer.
She flinches as though my words have struck her, but she tightens her grip on me, moving closer, closer until our thighs are pressed together. We’re twisted so we’re facing each other and we could kiss, any second now, we could lean in and taste each other.
Stop, stop, stop, a voice roars inside of me, battering in time with the rainfall.
“It’s not. I’m a crazy weirdo, that’s the truth. Because ever since she told me about what happened to my dad in that storm, I’ve been an absolute baby about them. They scare me so freaking much. I try to tell myself it’s irrational. I’m being childish. But it’s difficult. It’s like the rain reminds me of the sight of my mom, lying on my bedroom floor, crippled with anguish.”
“Come here,” I whisper, smoothing my hands up her arms and wrapping them around her shoulders. “It’s okay, Rayla. It’s all going to be okay.”
She falls against me, clawing her hands against my chest, her fingernails digging into my skin. I smooth my hand up her back and through her hair, massaging her scalp, and she moans, a high-pitched whimper that goes right to my base.
My heart hammers like there’s something trying to break out of me, and there is. My lust, my need, my desire to make her feel okay.
“What are we doing?” she whispers, her breath hot against my neck, shivering over my skin. “We shouldn’t be doing this.”
“I know,” I snarl, but I can’t stop my hand moving through her hair, across her scalp, the hot alive nearness of her crippling my defenses. “You don’t have to be scared anymore, Rayla. You never have to be scared again. I’m here. And I’ll fucking kill anybody and anything that tries to hurt you.”
She giggles, but there’s a croak in her voice, betraying her emotion. “How are you going to kill a storm?”
“I’d find a way for you.”
I lean back, stroking my hand over her cheek and smoothing her messy hair behind her ear.
She turns toward my touch, closing her eyes as though savoring it. “Why are you saying these things?”
“Do you want me to stop?”
She stares into my eyes, stares hard like she’s trying to make sense of what’s happening. But there’s no making sense of this primal need slamming inside of me, compelling my every movement, my every gesture, everything.
There’s no making sense of all this pent-up desire, as though it’s been trying to burst free for years, not hours.
“No,” she whispers. “I don’t. But I should.”
“I know,” I growl, lean down
and claim her lips.
She gasps as our mouths collide and nature chooses that moment to send the loudest and most explosive crack of thunder across the heavens yet. I snarl through the kiss, tasting her, gripping her hips, and pulling her even closer.
The tips of our tongues clash together as she whimpers and moans.
I slide my hands under the fabric of her bathrobe, squeezing onto her thighs, heat flaring up inside of me when I feel how juicy and perfect they feel, how mine.
There’s no going back now.
She belongs to me.
Forever.
She just doesn’t know it yet.
Chapter Nine
Rayla
I squeeze onto his rock solid arms, my fingernails straining under the pressure of his irrepressible muscles. He growls and I let out a whimper, stifled by the closeness of our mouths, as his solid body presses harder against mine.
So I wasn’t misreading the signals. He was going to kiss me in the kitchen.
He feels it too, this thrumming desire…
But does he feel the other stuff, all those mad thoughts of the future and a family and an impossible happy-ever-after?
The questions slide from my mind as his hands slide further and further up my legs, squeezing tightly so that sizzling sensation coils around my thighs and dances all over my skin, torturing and teasing.
My whole body vibrates when he slips his hand between my legs, pushing down on my panties, driving his hand against the sensitive nub of my clit.
Suddenly thinking becomes impossible as he rubs from side to side.
I can’t believe this is happening as he presses even harder against my core, coaxing wetness out of me, his finger pushing firmer against my clit. He brings his mouth to my ear and whispers with a carnal growl beneath his voice, the sort of growl that tells me he’s going to claim me like a wild beast.
“You knew what you were doing, you horny girl. Wearing that bathrobe, driving me wild. You knew I wouldn’t be able to stop myself from fingering and licking that tight young hole.”
Trapped with My Best Friend's Dad: A Steamy Standalone Instalove Romance (A Man Who Knows What He Wants Book 258) Page 4