Prom King

by Penny Wylder

  She smiles. “Where are we going?”

  “In the water,” I say.

  Ollie loves the water, and every time she steps into the ocean she lights up like a Christmas tree. Plus, I know that floating makes her feel better for a bit, carrying the baby. But to my surprise, she shakes her head with a coy smile. “Not right now.”

  “Oh?”

  “I think I’d like a nap.”

  I struggle to keep the smirk off my face as I help her gather her things off the sand. “A nap, you say?” I carry everything for her as I follow her into the house. She’s carrying more than enough—she’s carrying our baby girl. Holding the door open for her, I make sure she gets up the stairs and into the house without trouble.

  She sighs and steps in the kitchen. “A nap.” She grabs an apple and takes a bite.

  “You know that a nap takes place in a bed?”

  She snorts. “Yeah, usually.”

  Reaching out, I grab her ass and pull her close. “There are other things that we can do in a bed.”

  Ollie sighs, and sets down her book on the counter. I know that the sigh doesn’t have to do with me suggesting sex. It’s that she doesn’t feel sexy, and isn’t convinced that I still want her that way. I’ve been doing my best to prove her wrong. I walk with her to the bedroom, never not touching her. I catch her before she lies down, holding her to me and cradling her belly with my hands. “Ollie, let me love you.”

  “Only if you really want to.”

  “Can you feel how much I want to?” I’m hard as a rock, and I push my hips forward to make sure she feels it.

  I peek around to see what she’s thinking, and she’s blushing. I help her onto the bed, and before she can make another excuse, I put myself over her. “Olivia, look at me.”

  She does, even though I can tell she’s embarrassed. She embarrasses easily, and sometimes it’s cute. Sometimes it turns her on. And sometimes it traps her in her own head until she can’t think. This is one of those times. “You’re the sexiest woman I know.”

  I untie the straps of her bikini and reveal her breasts. I kiss one and then the other, but I don’t play with them. Not now. That’s not what she needs. Instead I lay behind her, removing her bikini bottom. “You’re sexy all the time,” I whisper in her ear, “Especially when you’re carrying my baby.”

  I kick my shorts off and fit my body against hers so that we’re touching everywhere. I lift one of her legs over mine and thrust into her in one go, making her gasp. She’s wet, and I grin against her neck. “I knew you were in the mood.”

  “I’m always in the mood for you,” she breathes.

  Her pussy is hot and slick and god she feels good. She always feels good, and I can never get enough. I’d spend every second of my life in bed with this woman if I could. It feels even better since we haven’t had sex in a while. “Ollie, wife, feel free to take advantage of me at any time.”

  I can see her blush, but I thrust deeper and her head falls back in a silent cry. Good. Reaching around, I tease her clit, running my fingers across the slickness of her skin and teasing the circles I know that drive her crazy. “Or,” I say, “if that makes you feel weird, I’ll make you a deal.”

  “What deal?” Her voice is mostly moan, and I realize just how much she wanted this. She’s close already.

  “Three orgasms a day until the baby comes,” I say, “though I reserve the right to give you more. That way you don’t have to ask, and I get the distinct pleasure of seeing you come often.”

  I drive into her harder, and she moans, her pussy crushing down on my cock like a vice. She comes, panting little breaths, and reaching back to grab at me, pull me closer. I let her, but I don’t stop fucking her. “That was one.”

  I let my hand slide across her clit again, stroking up and down and around, up and down and around, she sinks into me, her orgasm passing and I graze my teeth on her shoulder. She tenses suddenly, “Oh god, fuck, Adam,” She comes again, and this time I feel the gush of wetness from her, and she moans as I speed up my fingers and their pattern. “That was two,” I say, gripping her hips and letting myself go. The more we’ve played, the more I’ve discovered that Ollie likes to be fucked hard. She’s never asked me to pull back or slow down. I drive myself into her, deep as I can, the sound of me slamming into her loud and mixing with the way she’s saying my name.

  God I’m close. I close my eyes and listen to her, the way her voice makes my name sound like the most erotic word on earth sends me over, and I yell out my orgasm. I spill myself deep inside her pussy, warmth surrounding my cock as I feel the waves crash through me. Ollie is still shaking, she never really stopped coming after the second orgasm, and now we’re lying, panting together.

  “That was only two,” she says, turning over slowly to look at me.

  I pull her close and kiss her. “I never said I would give you them all at the same time. Gives us both something to look forward to.”

  She giggles, face still flushed with pleasure, and I swear to god that I’m the luckiest man alive. “I think I’m going to like this deal.”

  “Me too.” I kiss her again, soft and slow, and I love the way her body relaxes, all the tension leaving as I press her back into the pillows. “Have a good nap, wife. I love you.”

  “I love you too.”

  * * *

  Thank you for reading!

  * * *

  He never wanted a wife. Until he met her.

  Here is a bonus excerpt of THE WIFE ARRANGEMENT. You can one-click on Amazon now!

  * * *

  Chapter One

  Jasper

  60 miles per hour.

  70.

  80.

  85.

  I floor the gas pedal, a wild grin on my face as I careen toward the corner of the track.

  “Jasper…” warns a voice in my ear.

  “I’ve got this,” I murmur, in response to my usual test track monitor, safely above in a booth, watching me and this brand new gem of a car speed around the test track.

  “We haven’t tested the tires on curves yet. Slow down to a more reasonable—”

  I reach up and tap the headset attached to the crash helmet. The voice fades away. My smile widens.

  The turn approaches. I swing the wheel hard. I feel the tires skid under the car, and for a pulse-stopping, heart-in-my-throat instant, I worry if the voice in my helmet was right. If I’ve taken the curve too fast, put too much stress on this new model, a car that hasn’t even been unveiled to the public yet, let alone tested by the scientists and engineers who oversee the production of all new car regulations in the country.

  If the car skids, flips, this could be it…

  But then I feel the rubber screech, catch purchase again, and I rev the engine, accelerating with the turn instead of against it, so the car flows around the sharp turn of the track smooth as a knife through butter.

  Safely onto the straightaway once more, I let out a loud whoop and gun it. I watch the speedometer leap up to 100, 120, 140… Higher. Faster.

  I love this. I love getting to drive cars like this, and really put them through their paces. Drive them the way they’re built to be driven—with abandon, and without road laws getting in the way. Germany has it right, I think briefly. If only the United States had its own autobahn. One road, one spot where people could let loose.

  But, of course, that’s a pipe dream for another time. For now, I’ll have to settle for this closed test track, and the chance to pacify my inner speed demon from time to time—and earn a paycheck for it, no less.

  I reach the makeshift finish line, really just a little dugout where we modify and prep the cars for the track, and squint through the visor of my crash helmet at my assistant, Greg.

  Greg’s enormous arms are crossed, his brow lowered in the thunderous expression he gets when he doesn’t approve of something I’ve been doing. Of course, I’m his boss, so Greg can’t really protest too much when I do things like this. But that doesn’t mean he can�
��t allow his disapproval to show on his face.

  I skid to a halt outside the engineer shelter, and climb from the car while several test engineers flood the area, bending to take measurements of the axels, the tires, and one popping the hood to study how the engine held up, as another inspects the fuel gauges.

  “How about that turning radius, huh?” I shout over the clank and clatter of tools and measuring devices. I sidestep a pair of engineers to reach Greg, and he removes his own earpiece.

  “You shut off your radio,” complains Greg, the voice in my ear, who has now become the constant voice in the back of my head. My conscience, one might even say. He’s constantly watching me, overseeing things, warning me to slow down, take it easy, be more careful. I know my father puts him up to half of these disapproving glares and lectures, but even so, it can wear on a man. Especially when I know what I’m doing.

  You might say I have a lot of practice ignoring the conscience in the back of my head. “Your talking was distracting me,” I say. “It was a finicky turn.”

  “Because you were driving at least twenty miles per hour faster than we’d run the car even in simulations,” Greg mutters.

  “And look how well it turned out!” I clap my assistant on the back. “Now we can all skip a few of the intermediate stress tests and put this model straight into pre-production status.”

  Greg rolls his eyes. “It was still an unnecessary risk—”

  “But you say that about every risk,” I point out, jamming a single finger into Greg’s bicep. It barely makes a dent.

  I take after my father’s side of the family—all lean, slim, sculpted muscle. We’re built for running. Descended from the first marathon runners of ancient Greece, Dad always claims. Me, I mention that a fair amount too, albeit for different reasons. I blame those ancestors for my need for speed. “My speed demon was inherited,” I always say. “Nothing I can do about it.”

  But Greg, he’s a distant cousin, part of my dad’s grandmother’s vast clan. The line Greg comes from isn’t built like marathoners so much as like walls.

  Greg narrows his eyes at me.

  I smirk and stride toward the main building. “Come on, worry wart. Lunch is on me to make up for your stress-induced high cholesterol levels.”

  “I would love to take you up on that, Jasper, but you have a lunch appointment.” Greg flips open his tablet and squints down at the screen, scrolling through it with a finger.

  “With who?” I frown. I don’t remember any new clients planning to stop in and check out the factory today, and it’s far too early in the production schedule for any fellow manufacturers to be poking around. Maybe early buyers? Wholesalers we invited to view the pre-public models…?

  “Your father,” Greg replies, and my stomach sinks. In an instant, the happy mood I manage to whip myself into on the test track evaporates, like a bubble popping in midair.

  Not that my old man and I don’t get along. Quite to the contrary. I work for him, I spend every day helping build the family business—testing our latest models of cars, suggesting improvements or modifications to the designs, marketing and selling them on the front end… I have a hand in every part of our company, and Dad’s been grooming me to take over for him since I was about sixteen years old. I love this job, love my life, and I love my dad too. There’s nothing I’d change about my life right now.

  Well. Except for one tiny thing…

  Dad’s current mood. Because even without seeing his face, I can already guess what he’s going to be on about today. The same thing he’s been on about for the last several years. The same thing he railed at me over when I broke up with Karen, a friend-with-benefits who lasted a grand total of a month. The same thing he freaked out about again when I stopped seeing Meghan. Then Brooke. Then… who was that girl with the horses?

  I can’t even remember her name, truth be told.

  What can I say? I’ve never been the dating type. Or the relationship type. Or the anything more than casual sex type. And who cares? Certainly not the girls I hook up with—I make it clear up front that things will only ever be casual between us, and none of them have complained. Well, except Stacey, who smashed the taillights of my car when I broke things off. But, well, you can see why I had to break off our casual arrangement, given her temper and possessive streak.

  No, that one anomaly aside, nobody cares that I’m not the settling down type… Nobody except my father.

  And with our family reunion looming on the horizon, an enormous affair he hosts every five years, he has grandbabies on the mind worse than ever. This reunion will be the biggest of all, because at this reunion, Dad’s announcing his retirement. His retirement and the appointment of the new company CEO. The future heir apparent to Quint Motors. Me.

  But with all the reflecting Dad has been doing on the company’s history, it just makes him more sentimental than ever about what’s still missing in his life. Namely, grandchildren.

  “I’m suddenly feeling really dizzy,” I tell Greg. “Think I’m coming down with something. Head cold, maybe? Flu? Isn’t it still flu season?”

  Greg narrows his eyes at me. “Your father is already waiting out front in the Andromeda.”

  Ah, the Andromeda. The first car our company, Quint Motors, ever released, way back in the 1970s when my dad was barely old enough to drive himself. He loves that thing. Not only because his father gifted it to him on his (way too young, if you ask me) wedding day. But also because it reminds him of family. If there’s one thing that’s more important to my father than our business, building cars, and putting the best product we can out into the market—it’s the family behind all that.

  “Family is the most important thing in the world,” he’s always saying. “Even when you want to strangle them.” He usually adds that last line while he’s glaring at me over a cup of coffee, having just learned from Greg (who, for being my personal assistant, can definitely be a real narc when it comes to sharing my extracurricular activities with the old man) about one of my exploits or another.

  What can I say? It’s my job to keep this family interesting.

  I just wish it wasn’t my job to listen to hours-long lectures on how interesting I make it. “No chance of talking my way out of this, huh?” I sigh and square my shoulders. “All right. Time to face the music.”

  “Bring a coat,” Greg shouts at my retreating spine. “It’s the Waldorf again.”

  Dad’s favorite lunch spot. I’m halfway through the office when one of our other admins, an older man named Marco, waves a hand to flag my attention. “Jasper, thank goodness, I’ve been looking all over for you.” He holds out a file almost as thick as my arm. “We got the list of interns for the summer season. We need to start sorting them into departments…”

  “Tell Greg to put something on my calendar,” I say, already snatching a suit coat from the back of my chair and shrugging it on as I walk toward the distant front entrance, and the driveway where I can already see Dad’s car idling. Tugging the jacket on over my work shirt at least gives the appearance that I dressed for the occasion.

  So I think. Then I drop into the front seat, and find Dad eying my neck, nose scrunched up in disapproval.

  “No tie?” he says. “And when was the last time you shaved?”

  “This morning,” I reply. “Not my fault I inherited your ridiculously fast hair-growth genes.” Permanent five o’clock shadow, just one of the many markers of a Quint man. That, a tall but muscular frame, and our thick dark hair—mine and Dad’s look almost exactly the same, messy and wavy in front, with a shock falling across our eyes. Even though he’s pushing sixty now, his is still as dark and thick as ever. Pretty sure Quint men will still pass for young men in their mid-twenties from behind right up until we’re on our backs in coffins.

  “Always blaming me.” Dad shakes his head, but I notice he peels out of the driveway just as fast as always, and cuts corners the whole way to the Waldorf, speeding through every yellow light along the route.
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  My speed demon genes didn’t pop out of thin air either, much as he never cares to admit where I got it.

  We skid into the Waldorf parking lot, and Dad barely glances at the valet as he tosses his keys over his shoulder for the man to catch. I stride after him through the broad double doors, past the hotel lobby, and back into the dining room, where we’ve got our usual booth.

  He’s in a mood today. I can tell by the way he starts in before we’ve even had a chance to sit down, let alone give the menus a once-over. “The reunion is in one month, Jasper.”

  “Yes, I know. It would be impossible not to—it’s all you’ve been talking about for the last six months.” I shoot the waiter who’s appeared at our table an apologetic glance, then wave him off to come back later.

  “The reunion is in one month,” Dad plows on as though I haven’t even spoken, “and I’m planning to announce the company’s future. My own retirement. My successor. But that’s not what I’m really looking forward to. Do you know what I’m looking forward to most?”

  Here we go. “What, Dad?” is all I say.

  “The family. We’ll get to see your cousin Sofia—you know she’s pregnant again. That’ll make five for her and her husband. And your cousin Alexander and his three little boys. Chloe and the twins; Luke and his newborn; and did I tell you Jason is married? I hear he and his wife are trying for a baby now, God bless them. I hope they don’t have the same trouble your mother and I did.”

  “Dad…” Thankfully, the waiter returns to spare me for the time being. I order a glass of water, but don’t decide on any food for the time being. My stomach is already tensing up just listening to this.

  Dad takes time to order his usual—steak, medium rare, a side salad and mashed potatoes, heavy on the gravy. He thinks it’s healthier than French fries. Who am I to deny the old man one of his few vices in life?

  Mom would be throwing a fit if she knew. She’s always on about his cholesterol levels and the bad hearts that run in his side of the enormous family he’s just been listing off.