Dad's Billionaire Buddy: A Steamy Older Man Romance Read online

  And then her mother calls my name.

  Jesus fuck.

  Melissa, Melanie, what the fuck? The old college alum is part of a distant mash-up of faces from my past that I surely can't be expected to recall. It was decades ago. Not when it's impossible to remember what day of the week it is, with the angel standing at her side, ripping me in two with her fascinated round gaze.

  The urge to throw her over my shoulder and carry her off is unbearable. I'm becoming a fucking caveman in the middle of a downtown shopping mall. I just want to keep her with me. Keep those eyes fixed to me until they fill with the kind of adoration I have no doubt she's capable of.

  What am I thinking? There's no possibility here. Not of anything. She's almost half my age. My mind reaches for the calculation. We all left college twenty, or was it twenty one years ago now? Christ. That makes her younger than that.

  And her father is another face out of my past, which makes it double triple impossible.

  As much as I want to stay close to her, I have to get away. Her presence, standing there not ten feet away from me far too intoxicating. The rush of desire to pull her to me, wrap her into my arms and hold her there forever is nothing short of lunatic. The sort of madness you read about in books but never actually experience.

  Of all the women I've ever known, a not insignificant number, not one has ever had that effect on me. Losing it in public was not a pleasant idea. Much less in front of the girl's mother who just happens to be an old college mate.

  “You must come to dinner while you're in town,” she opines. The usual invite people feel obliged to serve on running into someone from their past. She's married to Todd Wallis. Now there's a name I do remember. One on which we shared little to zero friendship. If I'm not mistaken, he and I were always up in each others grills with barely disguised hostile competition, despite being on the same team. I agree to the dinner because I can be sure it's never going to happen.

  I have to make a quick exit. My dick is shifting in my pants uncomfortably with the illicit thoughts rushing through my mind. If I don't get away I could turn into a blabbering fool. Or worse, the mother, Mellie, is going to pick up on the electric energy firing between her daughter and her old college buddy.

  I move fast through the store, eager to get out of the stifling space into the winter chill. I'm trying to remember what the problem was between Todd Wallis and I back in the day. What was it that had us at loggerheads aside from the usual jock competitiveness? I don't remember a thing.

  Mellie was right when she told her daughter college age dudes are self-absorbed. Complete fucking douchebags, that much I do remember. And I was one of the worst. Not for dicking around on girls I dated, just with being unable to commit. So not has much changed there. Every woman has complained to me that if I just got past my commitment-phobia we could be so happy together. I've never felt the urge to chance the effort.

  Once out in the street, I can breathe again despite the crowds of shoppers.

  I didn't pick up the wrap for my mother, in my need to get out of there. And now I regret not only that, but even more that the pleasure of flirting across the store with the girl is over.

  I get back to the hotel and go online to order the garment gift-wrapped. Then I stretch out on the bed and think of the china doll girl.

  Chapter FOUR

  Carina

  “Phew.” Mellie fans herself with her fingers, only half joking. “That was the hottest jock in my entire college career. Jared Helmsley was the stud every single girl on campus wanted to own just once.”

  “You were totally flirting with him,” I say.

  “Carina Wallis, I totally was not,” she laughs.

  “You were too. Fluttering lashes, touching your hair, you're still blushing now.”

  “Well I'm a married woman, not a zombie,” she admits. “There's no harm in looking. Just don't tell your Dad. He and Jared had some issues.”

  “What kind of issues?”

  I'm desperate to keep this trip back to the past alive. To find out everything about Jared.

  “You know competitive stuff.”

  “Did you -?”

  I force myself not to scrunch my features against her reply. Because crushing all over a guy my stepmother's been with is not sexy.

  “What?” Mellie asks, confused. “Oh, did I – that? No. Of course not. I was dating your dad.”

  Thank the lord.

  “Their fight wasn't over me.” Mellie's eyes glaze for a moment.

  I'm pretty sure she's imagining the deliciousness of that scenario had it been reality. I let her enjoy her fantasy and pretend to examine yet another sweater. She looks a little sad at her recall of past events, until she snaps back and continues.

  “It was all jock stuff between them.”

  “They were both athletes? I never knew Dad was that big on the field.”

  “Your dad played but injury took him out. Jared was the star QB on the football team, went up to play NFL for the 49ers, just like he said. I remember he too was injured his first year pro. I don't think he ever came back.”

  “So what does he do now?”

  “Ooh, I don't know,” she says, thinking hard.

  I have to wonder why memories get all jumbled up when I can remember all mine clearly.

  “Far as I know no one heard from him again. He sort of dropped out of sight.”

  “Mystery man,” I murmur and the prickles under my skin kick up a notch.

  Those images of him bursting into a changing room when I'm undressed flood back. His firm fingers coming up to rest on my bottom lip, urging me to remain quiet. The rooms surrounding us full of shoppers trying on outfits.

  His other hand snaking around my waist to pull me against his solid torso wall. Me palming his rock hard shield of abs and my fingertips hooking into the ridges carving out his chest. His mouth coming down to cover mine, claiming and devouring me.

  A rush of heat flies up my chest so I have to turn away before my stepmother notices my fuddle.

  “Do you think he'll come for dinner?” I inquire casually. “I mean, I'd love to hear stories about when you were all young.”

  Actually it's the last thing I want. The reminder that Jared Helmsley, the only man I've ever felt such a ferocious attraction to, is out of my reach.

  Sitting at the family dinner table with him across from me might make me combust. It seems crazy, but the most pressing need is to see him again.

  Alone. Without my parents going on about the best time of their life. Because college for me was the furthest thing from best. Once I've made that happen, I'll take the next step from there.

  “It was odd how fast he took off,” Mellie says, a frown coming across her features.

  “He seemed pretty uncomfortable at the line of questioning,” I reply, recalling how his eyes strayed across to me then snapped back to Mellie with each new inquiry before finding their way across the sweater stacks to meet me once more.

  He was definitely interested. In which case why did he take off like he had a down to make.

  “He disappeared without making his purchase,” Mellie notes, before finally making a decision of her own. “I'm getting Anya the blue.”

  She heads to the cash desk purposefully and my heart sinks like a boulder into my lower belly.

  What was sexy Jared Helmsley doing in the ladies department? A man like him has got to be attached. I pull up the image I first had of him. Of his hand, resting so provocatively on a pile of neatly folded cuddly pale pink wool. Making shivers curl across my skin as I pictured that perfect masculine hand, broad and almost vibrating with power, cupping my breast the way it caressed the soft wool.

  There was no ring on that hand but he probably has a girlfriend. Or a parade of them, a personal Miss America line-up similar to what Mellie described at college.

  The thought of that hand cradled around some other woman makes me indescribably miserable. I feel like I've lost something which is madness when I've never even had it. He's so damn hot. The lust jack-hammering at my core for my dad's old friend, or is it nemesis?- is overwhelming.

  We head back home. My twin sisters arrive home from college and the evening hurtles by with them telling Dad and Mellie about their exciting lives. He listens all ears, a glint of pride in his eye that he bestows on all three of his girls in equal measure.

  “How's your life life now,” Anya turns to me with a direct question. “You over that idiot jock from the summer?”

  “I'm fine,” I say. Why'd she have to bring Storm Weathers up?

  “Sure you aren't smarting?” Anya adds.

  “Of course she's not smarting,” Daddy interrupts her. “Because let me tell you any jock hurts one of my little girls like that again, he will not sit down for a month after I'm done kicking his ass. And I still have quite a right foot jab.”

  “Speaking of jocks you'll never guess who we ran into today,” Mellie pipes in.

  I can tell Dad's not impressed by the mention of the searingly handsome dude from his football team.

  “Everything just fell into that arrogant jock's lap way too easy,” he grunts. “He never had to work for a damn thing.”

  At least their reminiscences cover up the flame of pure fire across my cheeks at the mere mention of the sexiest guy ever's name. Although my sister does a second take at me and grins like she gets it. That girl never misses a thing.

  “I invited him to dinner over the holidays,” Mellie says and receives an eye roll from Dad.

  “Ooh yes, let's see this hottie from the old days,” Anya says, with a sneaky glance at me.

  I toss her my most ferocious glare which only ramps up the teasing. This is what I mean about coming home. The roles remain the same. Even though I'm the eldest, my dad still
thinks he has to go all alpha on any man that breathes the same air as me. My kid sisters never stop teasing. Or treating me as though I don't know how to deal with love, because I can't seem to keep it.

  Chapter FIVE

  Carina

  I wriggle and writhe from one side of my small bed to the other. At times I almost topple out, as it's barely a full size, the same bed I've had since I was three. Sleep is far away and I'm as feverish as if I was trapped in front of a blazing winter fire. I really want to snuggle down and hide under the comforter and cable throw. But I have to throw them off every five minutes when the raging heat I'm generating becomes less than tolerable.

  I need to get my dad's old friend out of my mind. But even reaching that decision only throws his gorgeous features right back up in my head. How can the image of a man be that insistent?

  One look, okay make that ten long drooling gazes, and he's crawled under my skin like tattoo ink. Making every pore prickle with neediness, a tiny yawning mouth breathlessly waiting to be touched and stroked. Every time I close my eyes, I feel Jared Helmsley's firm fingertips lightly brushing across my skin, eliciting tingles from head to toe.

  My nipples poke at my silky camisole with every ravage of his deep eyes across my thoughts. I pinch at the peaks, angry at my inability to do anything about the frustration pressing at the lining of me. The hungry tips only prod harder.

  My other hand slides up my thigh. When my thumb grazes across the hard little point, a shudder of insistent desire goes through me. Before I know what I'm doing, one hand is buried in my folds, stroking the length of my clit.

  “Jared,” I whisper softly.

  I feel him above me, his fingers twined in my hair as he trails a line of kisses down the side of my neck to my swollen nipple. As he tugs it between his full lips, it's his hand, not my own, that glides from my knee all the way up my inner thigh making me shiver with anticipation.

  He stops at the top, just shy of reaching the eager point jutting out through the crease. The heat from his fingers sending trembles of desire through my core.

  I moan lightly when I imagine Jared finally giving me what I need. My experience has been no more complete than three college boys my age, each more cocky and selfish that the last. Jared Helmsley is completely different, an unknown beast. All I've ever wanted is a powerful man like Jared. It doesn't hurt that he's the most handsome man I've ever set eyes on, but his confidence makes him even more attractive.

  The sense of knowing and experience that quietly announces itself in his presence fires each cell sparkling and alert. In my mind, he rubs expert circles around my hard clit, teasing me into pools of pleasure until I shatter and rock in his arms through a tumultuous orgasm.

  Relieved, but still taut with something tugging at the center of me, I fall asleep with my legs wrapped tight around the bunched up covers, filled with the image of Jared's hard body twined with mine. And I must have dreamed of him, because my first disappointment comes at waking up from a delicious sleep to discover he's not in fact between my legs and only a rumpled slightly sweaty coverlet is there in his place.

  “This is ridiculous. Get over it,” I snap, pushing myself out of bed with a huff and heading for the shower.

  I'm not doing myself any favors crushing over a forbidden man I can never have. Am I only hungry for him because I think he can provide some insider access to adulthood?

  When I peel off my camisole and PJ bottoms, my skin tingles from the air's caress, still eager to be touched. I step into a shower as hot as I can stand and punish my wayward sensitive areas with scalding water. I may crave Jared's firm lips and teasing tongue point on my enervated body, but I can't have them.

  Nothing calms the yearning desire. When I fill my palms with foaming soap, my nipples peak hard again. I'm soon squeezing them in my frothed-up hands, tweaking the points and moaning for Jared to somehow appear from my wishes. My body quakes with physical clamoring and I lean into the marble tiled wall for support as I bring myself to another shuddering climax.

  “Are you okay?” Mellie asks when I come down to breakfast. “You look feverish, you aren't coming down with something?”

  She presses her cool palm into my forehead, relieving some of the embarrassment that rises. The sudden guilt that she can see right through me.

  “Hmmm. A little warm but I think you'll live,” she says.

  “You'd better stay inside today,” Dad commands, joining us in the kitchen as he grabs coffee from the pot for his go-cup. “I don't want my baby getting sick.”

  “You can help me cook,” Mellie offers. “I'm making a special meal for tonight.”

  My heart nearly flies through my mouth and up the stocking-lined chimney in the family room.

  “Really? Who's coming to dinner?” I croak, forcing my voice not to crack.

  I don't dare hope. Except I did hope, beg and pray and the disappointment drops back on me when Mellie says the dinner is for my sister Anya.

  “She's invited her latest boyfriend over. She and Chay are taking it to the next level, whatever that means.”

  “Is that Chay like the revolutionary?”

  How many boyfriends has my sister brought home the last couple of years? About a hundred I'd guess. Because she's all about 'the one' and then finding a ton of faults with him a week later.

  “And what about dad's friend, you know the guy we saw at the mall.” I throw out there, making it as casual as I possibly can.

  “Jared, you mean? Not exactly an appropriate choice to balance the numbers.” She's laughing, so I know she hasn't pegged me.

  “Yeah, Jared. Not as an extra man. Of course not.” I assure her with excess gravity even though I know she's joking around. “Just 'cos he might be lonely- here in town without family.”

  I don’t know that of course. He could well have a huge loving family to nestle into. But I'm on a search mission. Just hearing his name out loud tightens my chest as an army of butterflies lifts off.

  “I did call his hotel to invite him over but he left a message, must have been the middle of the night, saying he was really tied up all week. I guess a man like Jared doesn't do lonely.”

  No. I guess not. I damn well wish he'd do me though. Despite my shower fun, this crush isn't shrinking in any way. It appears the old saying 'Absence makes the heart grow fonder' applies to strangers as well as lovers you've had enough of.

  “You aren’t still hung up on Storm Weathers?” my bestie, Britnee asks when she comes down from the mountain she spends her life on and I get some FaceTime with her.

  “No absolutely not,” I assure her.

  “Good, because the way to get over a man is to get under another. You just need to go out on a date.”

  She's dating a snowboard instructor seven years older, so she knows a thing or two about mature men.

  “You’re hot for this guy because there's no one else on the horizon to absorb your thoughts,” she explains when I tell her about Jared. “Only solution is to get out there and loosen his hold on you before the fantasy takes over.”

  She's probably right. There's a danger I'll build this guy up to be a perfect super hero if I don't stop thinking about him night and freaking day.

  Chapter SIX

  Carina

  Days later and the insistent boulder of disappointment is still firmly lodged in my tummy, flatly refusing to budge despite the festivities. I'm trudging around the house in full-on mope mode because Jared Helmsley declined the dinner invite.

  I was sure he'd be here the first opportunity, bashing down my parents' door for one sight of me again. Instead, he leaves Mellie a clandestine voicemail during the night. Almost as though he's avoiding a potential rain check.

  He clearly is not interested.

  I eat leftovers straight from the refrigerator and eggnog that I spice heavily with rum, imagining Jared out clubbing with supermodels. Even Dad notices my sulk when he comes home from the office and finds me still in PJ bottoms and cozy socks.

  “Carina, aren't you going to take the chance to hang with your friends while you're home?”

  “I don't know. They can be kind of childish.”

  “Says the wise old woman of Denver. It's the holidays, sweetie. Time to have fun. Socialize.”