by Lucy Wild
Chapter 18
The wedding was attended by the cream of high society. Laura stood at the altar with Edward opposite her. He looked at her and smiled. She smiled back.
Glancing behind him, Edward looked around the church. Lord Rothsfield was on the front row. Beside him Maria was sucking her thumb, a doll in her lap. Behind the family sat the littles, all of them rigidly upright as they had been taught to sit. He felt his heart bursting with pride.
Having never expected to love again, Edward could hardly believe where he was. Opposite him stood the perfect little and the perfect partner.
In the six weeks since Laura had graduated as a little, she had thrown herself into decorations for the wedding, taking guidance from Mrs Flanders. Lord Rothsfield had barely been able to recognise his daughter when she came home. “I must thank you for your efforts,” he said, shaking Edward’s hand. “I would not know it was my daughter.”
“How is Maria?” Edward had asked in response.
“A different woman also. I do not know what you do up there but these two are getting on perfectly. There has not been a single raised voice and I was mightily afraid that would not be the case.”
“Good to hear.”
“You are a wonderful man Mr Westall. You do great work.”
“I charge a great amount so I suppose that is to be expected.”
The two of them had laughed and the laughter had continued ever since. Each time he visited his fiancée, he found her happy and when the wedding day came, he was glad for he had been impatient for it to arrive for some time.
After the wedding, he carried Laura into the carriage, Maria climbing in to serve as her lady in waiting during the honeymoon. That evening they were on a steamer heading for the continent and Edward looked at his new wife as she bent over his bed, her posterior ready for his hand. “I have been bad,” she said. “So bad, papa.”
“Have you?” he replied, undoing his trousers as he approached her. “Then as your papa, I must ensure you must receive a little punishment.”
DADDY’S HERE SNEAK PEEK
Isabel...
My father thinks I’m going to marry the scumbag he’s chosen.
I've got news for him. I am out of here.
Jake...
When the girl vanished, I was hired to bring her back. It was just another job.
Until I found out the real reason why she ran.
The rebellious daughter...
The plan was simple. Stay out of sight and out of reach. Then he found me.
Now I’m trapped with a brute who refuses to let me out of his sight.
The hired muscle...
If I don’t take her home, I'm a dead man. So why did I just grab her?
And why am I pushing her down onto her knees?
A standalone dark romance novel with no cliffhangers, no cheating and a guaranteed HEA.
Enjoy a sneak peek of Daddy’s Here…
PROLOGUE
“Don’t move,” he said. “Daddy’s got something for you.”
“Have you?” I asked as he slid his boxers slowly off his hips. His cock sprang free and my eyes widened at the sight of it, the size of it so much more than I’d been expecting. “Is that for me?”
It looked incredible, the head glistening in the glaring light of the dressing room. My body began to respond to the sight of it, a heat building in the pit of my stomach as my pussy tingled with desire.
“Open your mouth,” he said, his voice cold.
I did as he asked, unable to disobey his commanding tone. He took hold of the shaft as the head of his cock slid from side to side over my bottom lip, the heat of it almost too much to handle. The scent was all him and it drove me wild. I pushed my head forwards onto it until I choked on his length, his shaft filling my mouth. I looked up at his face as he stared down at me, his hands grabbing my hair. He held me firmly in place, making it impossible for me to do anything but focus on his cock in my mouth.
I gagged, my nostrils flaring as I fought for breath. At last, just when I thought I was going to pass out, he pulled back and let my tongue slide along his shaft, flicking over the head, hungrily, before taking him back into my mouth. When the door burst open a few seconds later, it could only mean one thing. Trouble.
ONE
ISABEL
The sun was rising when I left the club. It had been a hell of a night. Just making it to the queue for the taxis was a challenge. As I staggered out, I bumped into a gaggle of middle-aged women who scowled at me while I leant back against the wall of the club.
They were talking about me, I could hear them clear as a bell. Did they think I was asleep because I had my eyes closed or did they not care if I could hear?
“Downright indecent.”
“If she leans down any further, they’ll be out in the street.”
“And they wonder why guys won’t leave them alone.”
I ignored them. Just because they were unhappy with my outfit didn’t mean I was. If you’ve got it, flaunt it, that’s what I always said. And I had it.
I’d flaunted it too. All night my friends and I had been the centre of attention. It wasn’t that revealing an outfit anyway, short skirt, sequinned halter-neck, platform heels. I’d worn far more revealing stuff before without anyone commenting.
The guys in the club had been impressed. They’d been fawning over me and my friends all night. I’d been there with Charlotte and Abbey but neither of them had my stamina. Charlotte had wandered out at three and Abbey had gone about ten minutes later, looking greener than the liqueur she so pretentiously insisted on drinking.
I stayed on, ignoring her half-hearted attempts to get me to take her home when she went. I had three men taking turns to buy me drinks and I had no intention of stopping them. I only left when the place finally shut, joining the queue for taxis while doing my best to stay awake. I opened my eyes just enough to see how far the queue had moved and that was when I saw that one of my attempted suitors had joined the line and was sidling over to me, hoping to jump the queue.
“You look as good out here as you did in there,” he said, moving too close to me, not looking anywhere near as handsome in the cold light of early morning.
I heard the women in front of me tutting as I twisted in place, doing my best to stop myself from falling over. I was worried that I might collapse if I stood up straight without the wall for support. “I don’t feel that good.” I groaned as I said it, surprised by how slurred my words sounded.
“Oh, really?” he said, taking a step towards me and hooking his arm through mine. “Why don’t we take you somewhere to rest?”
“Saw her in there,” one of the women said, looking straight at me with dagger eyes. “Cheap as her clothes, getting men to buy her drinks all night.”
“Actually I’m Jonathan Fleming’s daughter,” I shouted across to her, feeling the guy’s hand tightening its grip on me, saying it as much for his benefit as for theirs. “One phone call and I could have a limo here to pick me up.”
“Course you could, just taking a taxi for fun, are you?”
“Leave it,” the man said as I began glaring at the woman. “Ignore them.”
I turned back to the guy with his arm still round me. I think he was called Greg but I could have been wrong, I’d had a lot of drinks since he’d introduced himself. “You know Jonathan Fleming, right? You don’t think I’m making it up, do you?”
He paused before answering, a long enough pause to make the women laugh and me scowl. “You do,” I snapped.
He shrugged, his eyes fixing on someone else. He moved down the queue without another word. I watched him, suddenly feeling suspicious. It was hard to put my finger on anything specific but it was like he was looking for something and whatever it was, I was too difficult a choice.
He found it past the group of women. There was a girl on her own, a girl far too young to be out clubbing. His arm was already sliding round her shoulders by the time I pushed past the gaggle of women, s
tumbling towards him.
“I’m not interested,” the girl was saying, doing her best to remove his hand from her shoulder. He was much stronger than her and nobody else seemed to have noticed her struggles.
“Don’t play hard to get,” he replied, his voice having a hint of menace to it all of a sudden.
“Get off her!” I snapped, shoving him in the small of the back. It wasn’t a strong push but it caught him off balance, sending him crashing into a group of men who immediately started pushing him back. It looked like a brawl was on the verge of breaking out. I turned to move away but the group of women were still snarling at me.
Stuck with nowhere to go, I turned to the young girl who was already crying. “Thanks,” she muttered. “He grabbed my boob, I didn’t know what to do.”
“I’ll get you somewhere safe,” I replied, praying a fleet of taxis would arrive and solve everything. Todd was already heading back towards us, his shirt torn, his face a mask of fury.
“What, back at the mansion?” He snarled and the women joined in with cackling laughter.
“What’s so funny?” I shouted across to them.
“Just the thought of you living in a mansion.”
“Why’s that so funny?”
“Well, just look at you.”
A car horn beeped and I turned and looked at the source, glad to see my father’s car for the first time in years.
Read on in Daddy’s Here, out now.
DON’T TOUCH – SNEAK PEEK
One office temp…
I was hired to sneak into his office, steal his secrets, then get out. The plan was perfect. Until he caught me.
One CEO…
I could have her arrested. Instead I'm taking her to my house? What the hell am I doing?
One weekend…
Day one, I became his little girl. Day two, he reminded me why I was hired.
One decision…
All I can do is show her my world. It's up to her whether to embrace it or destroy it.
***This is a hot standalone contemporary romance starring a dominant alpha. No cliffhanger or cheating and a guaranteed happily-ever-after.***
Enjoy a sneak peek of Don’t Touch…
PROLOGUE
I climbed onto the bed, lying down on my front and inhaling the scent of cotton on the pillow. “You should have stripped when I told you to,” he said, his hand spanking my bottom a moment later. The sensation stung and I felt utterly humiliated but as the intensity died away, it left a deep heat inside me, a heat that grew ever stronger as his hand fell on me again. “You’re a very bad girl,” he continued. “What are you?”
“I’m a bad girl, Daddy” I muttered into the pillow below my face.
“Louder!”
“I’m a bad girl.”
It was true. I was a bad girl. I was his bad little girl and I deserved to be spanked by him. And yet, two weeks earlier, I hadn’t even known Daddy existed.
ONE
Natalie
“Where did you get to last night?” Alison asked, throwing herself onto the sofa with a groan. “I missed you.”
I didn’t bother to look up from my book. Heathcliff was just starting another of his brooding looks and I didn’t want to get too distracted by reality. “You didn’t miss me,” I said.
“I did. I turned round and you weren’t there.”
I sighed, closing the book. She wasn’t going to let it drop. My housemate and I have a lot of things in common but when it comes to men, we’re worlds apart. I prefer a brooding antihero who spends most of a story scowling with his arms folded, only thawing when the right heroine comes along to melt his icy heart. That’s where I tend to picture myself, some windswept moor about two hundred years ago, dress billowing in the wind as he sweeps innocent little me into his arms and carries me into his bedroom, the door closing behind us. Alison prefers what she calls ‘real men’ and I call ‘pricks.’
It’s always been this way. Back when we started college, she had a boyfriend called Chad. Who’s called Chad outside of an 80s surfer movie? He had a skateboard and a Mohican and called people ‘dude.’ I had Wuthering Heights and a reading nook in the corner of our shared room, a nook I had to vacate every time Chad ‘swung by to hang out,’ as he called it. If I didn’t, he’d try to rope me into a threesome in the least subtle ways imaginable, usually involving his wandering hands. After Chad, there was another Chad, and then another.
Why did I put up with her hanging out with more Chads than a voting machine salesman? Well, other than her taste in men, she’s a lovely person. She just has a little sensor inside her that detects testosterone and when it does, her logical brain switches off, replaced by the slut-o-tronic 9000 she becomes.
“I was there,” I said with a roll of my eyes. “With you. You left.”
“I didn’t, I wouldn’t leave you on your own like that. Would I?”
“You had enough vodka inside you to floor a Russian parliament meeting, you pulled a beard with a man attached and you were so busy sucking his face off you didn’t notice when he took you outside, leaving me alone once again.”
“No, I remember his mate. His mate was chatting to you.”
“He was chatting to me. He was chatting about the best way to gut a pig. Apparently, it’s with a swift twist of the wrist and ignore the screams. I told him I was a devout vegan and he went off to find someone else to invite back to his abattoir.”
“But you’re not a vegan.”
“I know that. Oh, look, forget it. How did you get on with Santa Claus or whatever his name was?”
She sighed, closing her eyes and lying back as her phone beeped in her handbag. “He’s called Mark and he’s amazing. Said he can’t wait to see me again. Hang on, this’ll be him now.”
She dug her phone out and looked at it, her smile fading, replaced by a scowl. “Fucking dickhead!” she snapped, throwing the phone onto the carpet at her feet.
“What is it?” I asked, already knowing the answer. My eyes fixed on her phone for a moment, a moment too long. I forced myself not to think about that, looking back up at her whilst swallowing down the old emotions yet again.
“Fucked and chucked once more. Why do men do that?”
“At least he texted to tell you.”
“Oh, yeah, he’s a real saint. God, why does this keep happening to me?”
I’d gotten so used to consoling her each time this happened, the words just fell out of my mouth without me really having to think about them. She was better off without him. He didn’t know what he was missing. She didn’t need a man to make her happy. My mind was already back in the book, Heathcliff picking me up to carry me home despite my half-hearted protests. Heathcliff would never - to use Alison’s wonderful vernacular - fuck and chuck.
She didn’t seem too upset. Within ten minutes of receiving the text, her fury over her latest paramour had faded and she was already planning another night out. “Come with me,” she begged, tugging at my arm while I tried to read. “Please, I promise I won’t leave you again.”
“No,” I replied, scowling at her. “You will leave me, you always do. I’m not interested in being your sex P.A.”
“You’re cross with me, aren’t you?”
“Wherever did you get that idea from?”
“Let me make it up to you, come out for lunch with me. My treat.”
“I can’t. I’ve got that meeting at eleven, remember?”
“Ditch it and eat cake with me instead?”
“I can’t ditch a meeting at the agency, they’ll stop finding me work.”
“They haven’t found you work for over a month, I doubt you’d notice the difference.”
“Thanks Alison. Thanks a lot.” I got to my feet, putting the book under my arm as I headed for my room.
“I didn’t mean it,” she called after me. “Don’t be cross with me, please.” I heard the sound of her getting up, quickly followed by a thud and then a groan. Her hangover was kicking in then.
&n
bsp; I couldn’t really criticise Alison for her exploits. Not really. At least she’d had a relationship or two. As for me, I was a ship adrift at sea with nowhere to drop my anchor. Other than the time I’m not going to talk about, I’d only kissed a few guys, not once had I met someone who I thought, yes, you’ll be worth taking to bed for my first time. I wanted it to be special when it finally happened and it turns out that outside the books on my bookcase, men who are special don’t seem to exist. Or so I thought.
It didn’t take me long to get ready for my meeting at Temps Ahoy. I wore the same business suit I always did, not that it seemed to make any difference in finding me decent employment. I couldn’t work full time as I still had college classes and that meant getting the dregs of the jobs that were available.
That was why this meeting had come as something of a surprise. They’d emailed me out of the blue to say they’d not only found me something, but if I was up to it, I could potentially earn what the delightfully erudite email called ‘shitloads.’
I’m not sure what language I expected from an employment agency called Temps Ahoy. But when you need work, you can’t really afford to get too picky. I wasn’t in huge debt, don’t get me wrong. It might have been touch and go at times paying for our houseshare but that wasn’t the real reason why I wanted the money. I was saving for something much bigger.
Checking my hair and face in the mirror for a final time before heading out, I allowed myself a little smile. I was like a superhero in an ill thought out comic strip. In pyjamas I looked school age, my short frame and youthful looks accentuated by my bedtime attire. Change into business suit and I was suddenly Corporate Woman, ready to break glass ceilings with my super-powered heels.