It’s like I’m married all over again.
“We could’ve taken a plane, you know,” she said, matter-of-factly.
“You don’t say,” I replied. “Jeez, I should’ve thought of that.”
Kelly leaned in again. “You know, sometimes I wonder which one of us is the adult in this relationship.”
“Tell you what,” I said. “I’ll pretend to be the father whose credit card pays for all the stuff you have, and you pretend to be the daughter who is always grateful that her father loves her so much to spoil her in every possible way.”
She huffed at me. “Spoils me so much that he’s trapped us in a car for two days?”
“So much that he hasn’t stopped two states back and told the closest trucker to drive you back to Miami,” I replied. “Do you know what happens to little girls whose parents don’t keep their eyes on them all the time?” I looked at her in the rearview and frowned. “Do you know?”
“I’m twelve,” she replied. “I’m not living under a stone.”
“I’m going to have to rethink giving you your own phone,” I said, shaking my head.
Kelly threw her hands up. “Sure, take it,” she said, slumping back. “Just what I need to make my life even more miserable.”
“Your life is not miserable,” I countered.
“I’m in a car for two days,” Kelly shot. “What’s your definition of miserable?”
This conversation for starters, I wanted to reply, but just smiled and shook my head.
We passed a road sign that read “Kent 30 Miles” and I let out a sigh of relief. Kelly had noticed it to, because she let out her own frustrated “finally” before shifting closer to the window to get a look at the world around us. I think it was the first time she had peeled her eyes away from that damn phone in two days.
Connecticut was beautiful in the fall, peaceful, the complete opposite of Miami with its year-round flow of tourists, bumper-to-bumper traffic, and the scorching tropical heat. I had grown up in Kent, my parents’ house a constant reminder of the youth I had spent scraping my knees and bruising my elbows.
Moving to Miami had never been an easy decision, especially since leaving my dad alone was pretty much like giving a child a gun and asking him not to pull the trigger. Ever since my mother’s death back when I was in middle school, I had come close to losing a finger, breaking bones, and literally running a man over because my dad had thought it would be funny to let me drive his truck.
The apple doesn’t fall too far from the tree, eh buddy?
I looked at Kelly again in the rearview and wondered just how much of my dad was in me, how much of me was in her, how close I had come to ruining both of our lives, and shuddered. She definitely had a guardian angel watching over her, because more times than not, I wasn’t.
“Looking forward to seeing your grandfather again?” I asked.
The last time Kelly had been around my dad, the two had hit it off quite nicely. Well enough to the point where they had ganged up on me on numerous occasions. Sometimes I felt like he understood her a lot better than I did, and I usually wrote it off to the fact that he had been through the whole ‘single dad’ phase and had enough experience to handle situations I literally sucked at. Needless to say, he was thrilled when I told him we’d be spending a couple of months with him at home in Connecticut, a place I had not been back to in years.
“At least I’ll have someone to talk to that might actually care about what I have to say,” Kelly said, a hint of spite and accusation in her voice, like always. “And might actually listen to me once in a while.”
“What are you talking about? I care about what you have to say,” I said in a hurt tone. “And I always listen.”
“It would just be nice to have a conversation with someone who won’t end up yelling at me or think that talking about bad guys with guns is appropriate conversation for a kid my age.”
“You just told me that you know what happens to little girls who get left at truck stops,” I scoffed.
“Sure, dad. Whatever.” Kelly rolled her eyes at me again. “Your father of the year trophy is waiting for you to pick it up.”
“You know, sometimes I wonder if maybe I talk to you a little too much,” I said, frowning at her sarcasm, but on the inside secretly proud of her strength and guts.
I hated how much she took after me, but there were some things I was grateful she had picked up. Including having the balls to not let anyone take advantage of her, even her pain in the ass old man.
“Kent, next exit,” she said, nodding toward the exit sign.
“I see it,” I said. “I’m not blind.”
“No, you’re just deaf and dumb,” she said. I frowned at her in the rearview and caught her smiling without looking at me.
“Fine, I’ll take that one,” I said, shaking my head without letting her see the grin on my face. “Now play with your phone and let me drive.”
“Sure. No problem.”
I turned off the Interstate and cruised toward the town I had left behind almost twenty-five years ago. My leg protested a little more, but I quickly pushed the pain away.
In a few minutes, I’d be back home.
Chapter 2: Jenni Beale
There were certain things I had always promised myself I would never do, and sleeping with a man on the first date had been one of them. The day I broke that rule was the day I let Garth Liston into my life forever. It was a day I would always regret.
I had known Garth since high school, the class jock that every girl was drooling over, and the one boy I knew was way out of my league. Then again, back then I was a little late to the party, always sitting in the back, my face covered with my black hair, wearing clothes that were always a size or two bigger than what I should have been wearing. I hated the spotlight. I hated the attention. And quite frankly, I hated Kent fucking Connecticut, my puny little home town that was probably the most boring place on the planet. Garth Liston was the most exciting guy in town; dark, mysterious, even a little dangerous. I guess that’s what drew me to him initially, but now scares the hell out of me.
“Garth, seriously, this is the wrong place and time,” I said, trying to push him away. It was like trying to push over a brick wall. Garth was all hard muscle beneath my hands. Despite my efforts to resist, I felt dampness pooling between my legs.
We were in the storage room at the back of the diner where we both worked with the door closed, Garth pressed up against me and practically pushing me into the wall. He was very much the hunk of a man people guessed he would grow up to be, and just as much of a letdown as every other jock who had thought the world would be his oyster. A busted knee had screwed his chances at a football scholarship. Since then he’d been running his father’s tire business and a few other private ventures that were helping him make a lot more money than his father ever could selling tires.
“Come on, Jenni, I’ve missed you,” he whispered in my ear, pressing his cock against my thigh as one hand grabbed my breast over the dark blue t-shirt I usually wore to work.
He kissed my neck, then my ear, and I couldn’t help but shudder under his touch.
“Hank is going to come in here and see us,” I said. “Then what? Do you want me to get fired?”
Garth held me by the waist and pulled me closer, his dark brown eyes boring into mine. The lust in them scared me and excited me at the same time, and he knew it. The smile on his face said it all.
“Let him see us,” Garth said. “I’d like to see your father fire the best manager this piece of shit diner has ever had.”
He pushed harder against me, and the bulge in his jeans nestled comfortably between my thighs, forcing me to gasp despite myself. I tried to push him back a bit, but my efforts weren’t convincing enough and only made him grip me harder.
“Seriously, Garth, stop it,” I said, unable to contain my smile as he kissed my neck again. I was heating up, and my efforts to get out of his lock quickly died out when his hand found it
s way under my shirt and into my pants.
“You’re saying it,” Garth growled, his hand snaking into my panties and cupping my mound, “but I just don’t believe it.”
My body was giving me away, and I knew that finding me as wet as I was would only push him on. His fingers were quick to find their way into my pussy, spreading it wide as he pressed the heel of his hand against my clit. I gasped again, this time wrapping my arms around his neck as he fingered me, pushing my hips against his hand.
They were things like this that turned him on the most. Taking me in places where he knew we could get caught. Out in the open, for everyone to see just what he could do to me. The fact that my father Hank was just one door away from it all must have made him even hornier, because his breathing had quickened and his kisses were quickly turning into soft bites as he ravished me.
“Garth, please, stop,” I gasped. “He’s right outside.”
“I know,” Garth replied, his speed intensifying as he finger-fucked me up to the knuckle, pressing me further against the wall, grinding his cock against my thigh. “That’s the point, baby.”
He turned me around and pushed against me, his hands fumbling with the zipper on my jeans as his cock pressed hard against my ass. Within seconds he had my pants and panties down around my ankles, and I grinded against him while the sound of his belt unbuckling echoed in the room. He pushed me down, bending me at enough of an angle for him to quickly slide inside me, and I had to cover my mouth to stop my moans from alerting everyone outside of what was happening behind the closed door.
I closed my eyes, my mind torn between how wrong this was and how good it felt at the same time. The first time he had taken me in public, we were in the parking lot behind the diner. It had probably been our fourth or fifth date, but it was definitely the first time our relationship turned from ‘seeing each other’ to full on fuck bunnies. I remembered him dropping me off at home, my panties torn and in the bushes somewhere behind the restaurant, and the heel of one of my shoes broken. The hungry good night kiss had turned into some more sex in the backseat, and even though it felt incredible, I couldn’t help but watch the front door, praying my father wouldn’t come out to see what was going on in his driveway.
“Come on, baby, work with me,” Garth urged as he pushed his cock deeper inside me, grabbing me by the hair with one hand and my t-shirt with the other. I pushed back against him, his cock stretching me out even more, and this time my moan did escape me before I could stop it.
That only turned him on even more.
Before I knew what was happening, he was thrusting in and out like a jackhammer, ramming me with everything he had. “Yes…don’t…stop!” I tried not to scream, and quickly covered my mouth. His thrusts only intensified. He reached around and grabbed my breasts, squeezing them hard, and it only made me push harder against him.
I turned around, grabbing his cock and pumping it while I stared in his eyes. The hunger in them was intoxicating, and I could tell that he wanted to do so much more to me if only I would give him the chance. And I wanted to. A voice in the back of my head was telling me to stop, to end this while I still had the power to, but the way he was holding me, the look in his eyes, made me quickly push that voice back to the deepest recesses of my mind.
He grabbed my ass, lifting me up against the wall. Quickly, he slipped his cock back inside me, and I quickly wrapped my legs around his waist. “You want this as much as I do, don’t you?”
I swirled my hips around his cock, squeezing him, silently letting my body tell him what I wanted him to do. He smiled at me, the smug grin I could never get used to, and I squeezed his cock again.
“Come on,” I begged. “Faster… harder… oh… god…”
He pulled back and then slammed inside me, hard enough to make me cry out loud. I wrapped my arms around his neck as I rode him, feeling his cock move faster against me, pummeling me.
“I’m… cumming…” I moaned. “Cum… with me… cum…”
“Fuck yeah…” He growled in my ear like a wild animal. His hands squeezed my ass cheeks, and I pressed him closer with my legs, urging him in deeper. He grunted, throwing his head back, and I squeezed down again, knowing he was close. With a groan, he thrust inside me once more and exploded. He mashed his lips to mine to keep us both from screaming.
I hung there, suspended in his arms for a few minutes before he let me down on wobbly legs. He held me up long enough to let me gain my composure, then pulled back and began to buckle his pants up.
“Now that is what I call an afternoon delight,” he smiled.
I didn’t reply, quickly pulling on my panties and jeans, feeling both hot and dirty at the same time. I began to wonder if I could slip into the bathroom undetected, before my father caught wind of what had just happened in the back of his diner. How his daughter was using the storage room for her own little pleasures. I suddenly felt a wave of guilt wash over me.
“Same time tomorrow?” Garth asked, running his hand through his thick black hair.
I paused. “You’re not coming over tonight?”
Garth shook his head. “Sorry, babe, can’t,” he said, his chest rising and falling as he looked at his reflection in a large pot and brushed his hair with his fingers. “Got business to do tonight.”
“You’ve got business to do every night,” I mumbled, instantly regretting it when he shot me a less than amused look.
Garth wrapped me in his arms and pressed me close, squeezing one of my breasts as he looked down at me. I always hated it when he did that.
“It’s not like I’m leaving you high and dry, babe,” he said. “I mean, come on, this was really amazing.”
I tapped his chest with my hand and gently pushed away, arranging my clothes. “It was. I just wish we could do this at home, you know? Without me having to worry about people seeing us or my dad walking in.”
“What are you talking about?” Garth frowned. “I come over all the time.”
“Not since I moved,” I said. “You haven’t even seen the new place.”
Garth pulled me to him again. “I will, I promise,” he cooed. “Besides, what’s the hurry? We see a lot of each other all the time.” He looked down at my breasts and smiled. “We see a whole lot of each other.”
“Stop that,” I said, pushing away again, a little more forcefully this time.
“Oh, come on, don’t be such a cunt,” Garth chuckled. “How about I come by tomorrow? We could make a whole day of it.”
“I’ll believe that when it happens,” I replied. “And when you leave your cellphone at home.”
Garth’s eyes shot wide. “Damn, my cellphone, forgot about that,” he said, patting his pockets. “Forgot it on the bar.”
I sighed, running a hand through my hair to get it back in place so I didn’t look like I was just fucked in the store room by my boyfriend. Or the guy I considered my boyfriend.
I gave him a playful push. “Get out of here before my dad sees you.”
Garth smiled, blew me a kiss and unlocked the storage room door, quickly slipping out of sight. I sighed again, looked at my reflection in the same pot to make sure my hair wasn’t out of place, and followed him out.
The diner wasn’t busy this time of the day, but it was packed with our regulars. Some of them had been coming here ever since I was in high school, and I knew them all on a first name basis. It was part of why my dad had wanted me to take charge, knowing that I could handle the crowds that kept the family business alive. I felt especially self-conscious walking out of the storage room now, anxious at what looks I’d be getting from them, and especially wary of my father.
Luckily, everyone seemed a little more pre-occupied with one thing or the other and didn’t notice Garth coming out from the back with me close behind. He grabbed his phone, left a few bills on the bar and headed out without even a second glance. I watched him leave before my eyes drifted and fell on my father behind the cash register, watching me carefully. He had a look in his
eyes that I knew far too well, and I thanked any God that was listening for the fact that I didn’t have to go home with him anymore.
“What do I owe you, Jenni?”
I turned to the old man sitting to my right. Samuel Logan was smiling at me, reaching for his wallet as he tapped the small plate that had cradled his regular afternoon cheese cake.
“The prices haven’t changed in ten years, Sam,” I replied with a smile.
“Seems like the only thing that hasn’t changed around here,” Samuel said, frowning toward the door. “Was that Garth Liston walking out from the back?”
Dammit, not everyone was minding their own business.
I felt my cheeks flush a bit, and Samuel quickly waved my discomfort away. “Don’t mind me,” he said. “To everyone his own.”
Unprepared Daddy: A Second Chance Romance Page 116