Love Unbound: A Valentine's Day Romance Anthology

by Dee, Cassandra

  Plus, my parents had finally accepted Ryan. Dad would often comment on how laid-back Ryan was, his easygoing personality suiting my alpha female ways. By contrast, Rowena praised Ryan’s initiative. After working a couple months at Sports Life, my man was promoted from writer’s assistant to a staff writer, and he was kicking a lot of ass with no signs of slowing down.

  As for me, I still worked as the editor-in-chief at Chic-Wise. Thankfully, my mom never brought up replacing me after that fateful day when we confronted her. Plus, the longer we stayed together, the less my co-workers seemed to gossip about me. Many of them seemed genuinely happy for me, seeing that I used to be depressed before. Some of them were even invited to today’s party.

  In the middle of the festivities, Ryan stood in front of everyone and called the crowd to attention. The whole room became silent as he swung penetrating blue eyes my way.

  “Lexi,” he said. “First, I want to say thank you. I’m so glad that you were born.”

  The room clapped. He nodded, a grin on that handsome face.

  “Please hold your applause,” he rumbled. “I guess most of that credit should actually go to Mom and Dad. So, thank you, Rowena and Jim for having such a beautiful daughter.”

  Jim lifted his glass in a toast, but Ryan wasn’t done yet.

  “I have a confession to make,” my man growled. “I didn’t just invite all our friends and your parents over for your birthday. I wanted my dad to be here too, but… Well, he’d be here if he could. He sends his love, and you’ll be getting a birthday card soon.”

  Where’s he going with this? I thought to myself.

  “Lexi, ever since we met, you’ve been there for me in more ways than you can possibly imagine,” Ryan said. “When I was running late with writing projects, you were always there to help me get them done. Whenever I’ve been sick, you took care of me. When I’m well, you make me feel like the luckiest man alive.”

  My heart skipped so many beats that I was forgetting how to breathe.

  “Our story has only just begun,” he continued. “As far as I’m concerned, we’ve barely even gotten started. You’ve been with me on every part of our journey, and I fall more in love with you by the day. Now I want to ask you to come with me again.”

  He got down on one knee, sending gasps all around the room. I bit my lip, knowing full well what his question was going to be.

  “I’d like to ask you to be my wife.”

  He took out a jewelry box from his back pocket and opened it up to reveal a sparkling diamond ring. It was one that I’d told him I loved on a day we were out shopping together in the city. I knew how much it cost, and it was expensive. Tears filled my eyes.

  “Lexi, will you marry me?”

  I couldn’t even speak. I nodded silently, tears of joy slipping down my cheeks at this extraordinary birthday gift.

  My handsome alpha slid the ring on my finger, and then stood to press a kiss against my eager lips. He picked me up off the floor, and the crowd went wild. Everyone clapped and cheered as triumphant music began to play.

  “I asked your dad for permission almost two months ago,” Ryan whispered in my ear. “I wanted to wait until I’d saved up enough to get you the diamond. And I wanted to wait for the right moment.”

  “It’s perfect,” I whispered back. “I’ll be your wife, Ryan Payne.”

  Everyone was rushing up to congratulate us. Through the hugs, I could hear Ryan talking to my parents. My friend Piper literally jumped up and down, thrilled for me.

  “I’m glad you didn’t take my advice about Tinder,” she chortled. “If you’d stopped messing around with guys on that app, you would never have found Ryan!”

  “I’m glad I didn’t listen to you too,” was my laugh. “Who knew that this could happen?”

  “He’s a great guy, Lex,” Piper burbled, agreeing. “Set a date, and let’s start looking for dresses right away!”

  ***

  That night, after the party had ended and the room was officially clear of loved ones and other guests, Ryan and I walked slowly to the master bedroom.

  At the moment, I felt submissive to this handsome, dominant male. I was turned on by his assertion, and delighted to call myself his.

  But instead of our usual items, he used his belt as a makeshift binding device for my hands, tying them together tightly. Then he kissed me all over my nude body, biting me in some places to leave tantalizing red marks.

  But my man wanted to take things slowly and sensually. Ooh, it felt so good. His thrusts were slow and sweet while those clever fingers applied the proper pressure to my throbbing clit.

  I wanted to touch him. I wanted to hold onto him. I began to fight against the belt, trying to break my restraint. But the alpha only laughed pushing deep again.

  “Try as you might,” he growled, sliding that hard length into my softness. “But you won’t get away, pretty girl.”

  I mewled helplessly, twisting against the restraints. Normally, one or both of us would have had an orgasm by now, but we were both fighting the urge. He wanted to stay inside of me as long as possible, and I wanted to experience the intensity as best I could.

  He kissed me. “I love you, Lexi.”

  I kissed him back. “I love you more,” was my breathless pant.

  He chuckled. “I never thought I was going to find serious love on Tinder.”

  “I wouldn’t have believed it back then,” was my helpless mewl.

  “I didn’t pressure you because I proposed in front of everyone we know, right?”

  I desperately wanted to rip the belt apart so that I could caress that handsome face even as he pumped inside.

  “I was hoping you were going to propose one of these days, Ryan,” was my soft admission.

  Our bodies never stopped their dance. I was still so wet for him, and he was so hard.

  But Ryan wasn’t done yet.

  “This is incredible,” he groaned, pushing deep once again as that big shaft made me cry out. I could tell he was close. “You mean everything to me.”

  I could only say what was in my heart.

  “You mean everything to me as well, Ryan Payne. I love you.”

  And with that, we both burst, soaring into the clouds. His cock twitched once before erupting, lashes of hot seed painting my insides. And I cried out, again and again, the only name that made a difference.

  “Ryan, Ryan!” was my heartfelt mewl. “I love you.”

  And his answering kiss told me everything. Because the alpha loved me too … and now we would be joined together, forever, in love.

  THE END

  Dad’s Valentine’s Set-Up

  ~A Billionaire Bad Boy Romance~

  © 2018

  By Penny Close

  Want to hear about our newest illicit romance? Addicted to virgins and alpha males? Join our mailing lists at www.subscribepage.com/alphamalesontop and get a FREE book just for joining!

  ABOUT THIS BOOK

  Dad’s Valentine’s Day Set-Up: A Billionaire Bad Boy Romance

  He could save my father’s life as long as I spent three months wrapped in his arms.

  My dad set me up on an on-line date with a man that I hated on sight.

  Oh sure, Kyle Channing was a gorgeous billionaire with coal black hair and piercing blue eyes. But he was on-line for a reason, and that was because of his cocky attitude.

  But the alpha male offered me a deal: my dad would get the medical treatment he needed, so long as I masqueraded as Kyle’s girlfriend for three months.

  What? No!

  But this was my father’s last hope. So reluctantly, I agreed … but would the billionaire steal my heart in the process?

  CHAPTER ONE

  “What do you expect me to do with this?”

  I laugh a little at Dad’s reaction to the iPad he just unwrapped. For a man who spent thirty years running a steel mill shop, you think he’d have a little more appreciation for technology.

  “Anything you can do on a co
mputer, you can do on this,” I state, clearing the red-and-silver wrapping paper off the bed. “It basically is a computer. And you don’t have to get out of bed to use it.”

  “Well, considering I can’t get out of bed….”

  I immediately wish I’d chosen my words better. For his entire life, until this all started, Dad had been the fittest, most active man I’d ever known. I remember the power of his hands when he’d pick me up for a game of airplane, twirling me through the air as easily as a rag doll. I still blush a bit when I remember how my high school friends would gaze at him, stripped to the waist, doing yard work on a humid August day.

  “Is there such a thing as a FILF?” Trina Willis used to say. “Because if there is, Sarah, your dad’s one, for sure.”

  It didn’t even slow him down when my mom told him that after twenty-eight years of marriage, she was tired of waking up every day feeling unfulfilled. She was off on a European tour before the ink was dry on the divorce papers, “finding her bliss” or whatever she claimed she was doing. I’d stopped listening whenever she called.

  And as for Dad? He signed on the dotted line, sent her thirty percent of everything he made per their divorce settlement, and went on with his life. The machine shop, the yard work, the exercise bike every morning, and the every-other-Sunday golf game with his buddies at Rancho Park. Part of me just couldn’t believe he was taking it so well, but when I asked him about it, he just gave me that soft smile of his. “Sarahbelle,” he said, using his favorite pet name for me, “just because your mom doesn’t know who she is anymore, doesn’t mean I don’t either.”

  So when Ralph’s leg seized up on him on the golf course one Sunday, we all just figured it was an unusually bad charley horse. But that’s the thing about bone cancer. It doesn’t care how much you work out or how many teenage girls lust after you from afar. It’ll take what it wants regardless. And in my Ralph’s case, it seemed like it wanted every last breath.

  Granted, he’s putting up a good fight. But he had to take a buyout on his pension and cash from his life insurance to do it. And that was before his legs really started to go. There’s an experimental marrow-transplant treatment they offer at the hospital, but it’s got a pretty high price tag, and they’re not taking volunteers, at least not one whose cancer is as far along as Dad’s. And it’s definitely not anything I could pay for on a waitress’s salary. So we struggle along, doing our best. I get home late most nights and rush to his room to make sure he’s okay.

  Tonight is no different. It was a long day at the diner, and I still feel greasy all over. There’s so much oil it’s like my eyeballs are coated, making it hard to see clearly. I glance around the room, seeing the bedpan and the cane. It makes me sad that Dad’s been reduced to this.

  At least I was able to get him this iPad, even if it was just a used one. If I was Ralph, and had to spend all day looking around the room at these emblems of illness, I would go out of my mind.

  I’m snapped out of my drifting thoughts by a familiar keyboard melody. It’s the theme music from an episode of The Rockford Files someone uploaded to YouTube.

  “Oh, nice,” Dad murmurs, interrupting my thoughts. “I can get Rockford on here.”

  “Like I said, if you can do it on the computer, you can do it on the iPad.”

  He perks up on his pillow. “Solitaire?”

  I smile. “Of course it has solitaire, Dad. Every computer they’ve made since like 1990 has solitaire.”

  Ralph grins, minimizes the browser window to see what else this gizmo has to offer. He points at one of the icons on the screen. “Hey, what’s this little heart thingie?”

  I glance at the screen and see the familiar bursting heart logo. “Oh, yeah. That’s OkEros. It’s for dating.” I reach for the gadget. “The person who owned this before must have had a profile. I can delete that for -”

  Dad pulls the iPad away from me. “Dating, huh? You mean like online personals?”

  My cheeks tinge red. It’s so weird to talk about this with your father! But there’s no sense in shying away.

  “Well, nobody calls them personals anymore, but yeah, basically.”

  “Uh huh.” He gives me that up-and-down look that always lets me know a lecture’s coming on. “And have you tried anything like that?”

  I sigh. “Dad…”

  “I’m just asking. I mean, the last guy you went out with, what was his name, Chad?”

  “Chase,” I mumble.

  “I knew it was something prep school like that. Yeah, I liked him. But what’s it been since then, like a year?”

  A year and seven months, to be accurate. Back before Dad started to really decline. Nineteen months since I’d last been on any kind of date. Five hundred and seventy-seven days since I’d last felt Chase’s spindly hands around my waist, squeezing my backside, slipping up to pinch and twist my nipples. 13,848 hours since I felt the blood coursing through the pulsating veins of his cock as he thrust in and out of me. 830,880 minutes since the last of those encounters. 49,852,800 seconds.

  But who’s counting?

  “Anyway,” Dad rumbles, “you should get yourself set up with one of these ads. I bet you’d have lots of guys wanting to date you.”

  I have a hard time meeting his eye, just like I always do when we get on this subject. “I don’t know, Dad. There are a lot of creeps on those sites. And I mean, just with work, and, and -”

  “Don’t.” Ralph’s voice, diminished by his illness and the pain meds, suddenly finds its core of steel again. When he sounds like this, I can’t not look him in the eye. “Sarah, you do not get to use me as an excuse to drop out of the world. Your mom left me after near thirty years, and I kept going till my legs gave out. I’ll be damned if I’m gonna watch you stop living your life just because I’m losing mine. You are gonna get on one of these dating things, or I’m gonna get on one for you. You understand me?”

  No matter the pain, no matter the amount of weight he’s lost, Ralph Endicott can lay down the fatherly law with the best of them. “Okay, Dad. Okay.” I check my watch. “Ooh. But it’s gonna have to wait. We’re fully booked tonight, obviously, so Derek wants us in early.”

  “All right then.” Dad flops back onto his well-worn pillow. It’s clear even raising his voice has taken a toll on him. “Can you, uh…” He waves his fingers at the iPad he’s let slip off his lap onto the bedclothes. “Can you put Rockford back up?”

  I pick up the iPad, maximize YouTube, and nestle it back in his weakened grasp.

  “Thanks, Sarahbelle.”

  “You’re welcome, Dad.” I take his hand, giving the fingers the lightest little squeeze. “You call me if there’s anything you need. I’ll be home right after my shift.”

  This gets a smile, but a sad one. He clearly doesn’t love the fact that my life is now a perpetual loop between work and his bedroom. “Okay, then.”

  “Okay. Happy Valentine’s Day, Dad. I love you.”

  “Love you, too, sweetie.”

  I head for the door.

  “Hey, do you have any other work clothes?”

  I look at my white button-down shirt and loose-fitting black canvas pants, which is what pretty much every waitress in America who doesn’t have to sport a uniform seems to wear these days.

  “I know you dress like a tomboy at work because it’s comfortable, but I don’t know,” Ralph frowns, staring at me. “Guys like when a woman shows off her figure. And you’ve got a nice shape.” A faraway gaze drifts over his field of vision. “Just like your mother had.”

  Oh God, what do I say? Another awkward conversation, but this one actually makes me feel sad. I could be sporting two heads, and Dad would still think I was the most beautiful princess in the world. But he sees me through a father’s eyes. When most people look at me, all they see is a girl with thirty extra pounds on her frame. And that includes Chase, a.k.a. Mr. “You Could Stand to Lose a Few.” At least that’s how he felt after a while.

  “Okay, Dad, I get it,” I
say wryly. “I’ll think about dressing a little more ladylike for work, and about joining one of those dating sites. Now you behave yourself. Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.”

  “Well, if you don’t watch Rockford, I can’t promise anything.”

  I laugh a little and head out of the room, not realizing the next time I see Ralph, both of us are going to be on a very unexpected road indeed.

  CHAPTER TWO

  I walked into Perch ten hours ago, and it’s been a mile a minute ever since. This place is usually a busy date-night hub, and tonight is no exception. I’ve seen high-schoolers way too dressed up for our place, probably on their first just-got-my-driver’s-license “grown-up” date; married couples who’ve got Mom and Dad watching the kids and are looking forward to their first uninterrupted sex since, well, last Valentine’s Day; older folks enjoying the live jazz trio’s mix of pop standards and romantic showtunes. And speaking of trios, there’s even one party of three near the back, two women and a man. The guy looks happy enough to bust out of his skin, anticipating his Valentine’s Day menage a trois.

  I don’t mean to, but I keep catching myself staring at these happy diners. It’s been a good while since I shared that crazy-in-love glow. Hell, I can’t even take my eyes off the threesome table. I’ve never been with two people at once. I can’t say for sure I’d try it, but I can’t say I wouldn’t, either, with the right guy and girl. Or even better, the right two guys. Feeling loved is wonderful, but so is feeling like your partner can’t control his passion for you, and to be with two men, both of them making me feel like that at the same time …. It’d be incredible.

  “Now that, chica, is how you earn yourself twenty percent,” comes a singsong female voice that rouses me from my fantasy. Like a reflex, I cross my arms, covering the nipples I’m sure are now poking the thin cotton of my shirt.

  It’s Lili, the server working the section next to mine, toting the receipts from a table that just settled up. She’s got a natural sashay that’s runway-ready, and if my dad thinks the way I dress for work is too “tomboy,” he should see Lili, whose style is the complete opposite. She looks about ready to lose an extra button on her shirt every time she breathes, and her bootleg-cut black slacks might as well be spray-painted onto her thighs and rear end. Of course, unlike me, she’s got the body to pull it off.