Malta with My Best Friend’s Dad by Flora Ferrari

Chapter Fifteen

Kelly

The next few days are the strangest and most difficult of my life.

We were supposed to be exploring all the different aspects of the Maltese culture, but instead, Jocko leaves the house as the sun is setting to get some supplies, and we spend the next few evenings sharing meals as Lena and Kane reconnect.

I do my best to join in on the conversations, but it’s like slow torture being so close to Kane and not being able to do anything.

He’ll glance at me sometimes, an intense look in his eyes, his jaw tight like he’s fighting some inner battle. I’m only able to hold his gaze for a few seconds before I turn away, lust hammering through me, telling me this is wrong, telling me we need to stop.

But we don’t kiss.

We don’t talk about us, about the soul-shattering conversation we had in the apartment in Medina. We keep everything surface-level as he fills us in on where he’s been the last three years.

“All over Europe, England. I spent some time in Ireland. I’ve been working construction and odd jobs here and there. I worked as a private detective for a little while. Anything to keep me busy and out of trouble.”

By the end of our seventh day in Malta – halfway through our trip – it’s like Kane and Lena were never apart.

They bring back all their silly jokes, like pretending that the other person passed gas when they’re eating dinner, causing Lena to laugh like I haven’t heard her in years.

A punching feeling hits me in the gut every time she does this, a reminder of all the ways I betrayed her in Medina, and yet there’s something else too.

A feeling of waiting… waiting for Kane to steal a moment alone with me, so we can, so we can—

So we can what?

If he’s silently telling me to forget what passed between us – which him ignoring me seems to indicate – surely it’s better that I do the same. Surely it’s better we both wordlessly agree to put it behind us and pretend like it never happened, as we wait for Jocko and Kane to work out how to leave Malta without the Bratva getting word of it.

“The problem is they’re watching the damn airports,” Jocko tells us while we’re all sitting around the table for dinner, Kane and me doing our best not to exchange lust-filled glances. “So until we figure out how to get rid of them, we’re stuck.”

“Our flights aren’t for a week,” Lena says, tearing a piece of bread loose.

“We might have to change those if we don’t work this out,” Kane says.

He leans forward and rests his head in his hands, drawing my eye to the way his bicep muscles tighten, to the way every part of him swells with tension.

At times like these, I can almost pretend that what passed between us in Medina – all the heat, all the closeness, the sensation of his tongue dragging across my sex – never happened.

It’s at night when things get difficult when my mind is left free to flow into my dreams where searing sensations scorch through my body and my only option is to reach down between my legs, to grind my palm against my sex and rub, rub, rub until I can feel a few precious moments of release.

I try to fight it every night, as I huddle beneath the covers in my bedroom. The nights here are deceptively cold, the Maltese brickwork doing little to trap the heat, making me seek warmth in the fantasies which constantly flood my mind.

Tonight is no different.

After we share a meal and I take a quick shower I lie down and tell myself I’m not going to think about Kane. I’m not going to let my mind stampede ahead of me.

But then his words start whispering across my mind, fierce and savage, deep and compelling. I remember the way he said we were going to be together forever.

We were going to have a family together.

I own you, he snarls in my mind, his phantom breath whispering over my skin as my hand slides down between my legs.

And then my door starts to make a creaking noise and I sit up, shivers moving all over my body, as part of me wonders if I’ve already fallen asleep and this is a dream.

Kane walks into the room, a hulking silhouette in the low light, his eyes the brightest part of him as they gleam and he stalks forward. His naked chest hard and – as he turns to quietly shut the door – I can’t help but let my eyes roam over his taut, tight back muscles.

“I tried to fight the temptation,” he growls, moving slowly across the room. “I swear I tried to stop myself. But watching you every damn day – sitting there with your head in your Kindle, sneaking glances at me over dinner – it’s driving me insane.”

What about Lena?

That’s the question I should ask him, but I can’t summon the words to my lips, force myself to ruin this moment when all I want to do is savor it.

“I thought you’d forgotten about me,” I murmur.

He stalks to the end of the bed, his baggy shorts showing a clear outline of his throbbing manhood, even in the semidarkness.

“I tried to focus on reconnecting with Lena, on scouting the Bratva with Jocko, but I can’t stop thinking about you. My seed, Kelly, won’t leave me the hell alone. It roars inside of me. It tells me to claim you, to claim you right fucking now – every second of every day.”

I whimper as he reaches down, bringing his hand to my chest.

He slides his hand under my shirt and squeezes onto my naked breasts, groaning as he tweaks my nipples softly, making them tingle with his touch. “Goddamn, I need you. I need you so bad.”

“But what about—”

Lena, I was going to say, but then his lips fused to mine, and a week’s worth of anticipation blazes through me, my belly churning with heat as he massages my breasts. I reach up and grip onto his shoulders, squeezing down on his irrepressible muscles, as though the harder I squeeze, the more I convince myself this isn’t a dream.

His free hand slips under the covers and slides up my leg, his finger pushing against my sex. I moan through the kiss, wriggling against him as he finds my clit and rubs from side to side, sending waves of euphoria boiling through me.

“You receptive horny virgin,” he snarls, keeping his lips close to mine. “Have you been fantasizing about this all week, the same way I have?”

“Hmm,” I moan, nodding.

“We can’t fight it.” His voice is breathy, husky, as deep as a predator’s. “We can’t stop it. This is beyond us, Kelly. It comes from someplace deep, primal and feral, impossible to resist.”

“I know.” I whimper as he shifts his hand up and down my sex, smearing wetness across me, his hand wedged in my panties. “I need you so freaking much.”