Malta with My Best Friend’s Dad by Flora Ferrari

Chapter Seventeen

Kelly

I close my eyes and try to savor the moment, his musky scent hovering around me, through me, his heartbeat pounding against my ear.

But my thoughts won’t stop their invasion into my mind – telling me this is wrong, this is going to end in flames. Lena’s room is right down the hall and I can still taste her dad’s seed in my mouth, still see the way his face twisted in carnal release as he exploded.

“What are we going to do, Kane?” I whisper.

He laughs gruffly.

“What’s so funny?”

“Calm down, sassy,” he teases, nudging me playfully. “It’s just that I was thinking the exact same thing. Here we both are, pretending to ignore how complicated this situation is. But we can’t, can we?”

“I can’t see how this ends without breaking Lena’s heart.”

“We have to tell her,” Kane says firmly.

I gasp, leaning back so I can stare up at him. “Are you crazy?”

“What’s the alternative?” he says.

“We wait,” I blurt out, not even sure what I mean. “Because, because…”

I can’t stop thinking about the way Lena’s face will warp when we tell her about this, about this soul-changing feeling I share with her father. Surely she’s going to tell me she hates me, she never wants to see me again.

“I can’t lose her,” I whisper. “We haven’t even been on a date.”

“What difference would that make?”

There’s a note of uncertainty in his voice too, but it doesn’t come from anything to do with our closeness, with the heat blazing between us. I can read him so freaking well. The uncertainty comes from the same place that shivers through me – fear of what’s going to happen when Lena finds out.

“Maybe we’ll go on a date and you’ll discover you find me really boring,” I tell him.

He chuckles grimly, leaning down and kissing the top of my head. “You were the most interesting woman I’d ever met from the moment I laid eyes on you, Kelly. Before we even spoke. I highly doubt that’s going to happen.”

“But you don’t know, do you?” I sass him.

I know what we’re doing. We’re retreating from the problem, making it so we don’t have to face the true reality of our problems.

“I would love to take you on a date.” His voice gets even deeper, full of carnal intent. “You deserve to be treated like the princess you are, not to sneak around like this. But until we deal with this Russian situation…”

“I can wait,” I murmur, even as my head screams at me that I’m a liar, screams at me to sit on his lap and grind my orgasm-soaked pussy against him until he slips inside of me, grinding up, up, deeper until he explodes and I’m left shivering with the release.

“Are you sure?” he snarls.

“No,” I whimper. “But what choice do we have?”

He smooths the hair from my face, causing tingles to dance over my skin. “You’re so damn beautiful, Kelly. I can’t wait to see which of your features our children inherit. I can’t wait to see your smile in their faces, your hopeful eyes staring back at me. I can’t wait to listen to you sing to them, filling the room with your love.”

Love.

The word barrels into me violently, as distantly a dog yaps into the night air and everything else is still, calm. But there’s an inferno raging through me, more potent than anything I’ve ever felt, claiming every inch of me as possessively as Kane did when he had his hands between my legs.

Love.

Is it possible to fall in love over the course of a week, and most of that time spent exchanging secret glances, fighting inner battles?

But that’s not the right question, my head screams.

I’ve always loved Kane.

So the right question is… is it possible for him to fall in love in a week?

“I’m not sure about the singing.” I giggle quietly, aware I’m changing the subject from the messy and confusing L-word because there’s no freaking way I’m going to risk saying that first. “I hate singing in front of other people.”

“You never used to,” he muses. “I remember how you used to carry that karaoke machine around…”

“Well, I’d sing in front of Lena, and if you happened to be there, then you’d hear me too. I actually had this—no, it doesn’t matter.”

I shake my head, forcing away the past, the silliness of the memory seeming doubly insane with Kane’s arm around me.

“Don’t you dare leave me hanging like that, princess.” He chuckles, still keeping his voice low as his hand tightens on my shoulder, squeezing with possessive propriety. “What were you going to say?”

“It’s embarrassing.”

“That makes me want to know even more.” He smirks down at me, wolfish eyes glinting in the semidarkness. “Or are you going to make me tickle it out of you, eh?”

“No, no,” I say, smiling even as a note of trepidation runs through me.

Tickling might make me laugh too loudly, alerting Lena to the fact I’m still awake… and maybe she’ll wander to the door and I’ll be forced to lie directly to her face, lie even more than I already have.

God, what a mess.

“Basically, I used to have this fantasy that you’d climb out of the swimming pool and swagger over, you know, with water dripping down your body. And then you’d tell me I had the best voice in the world and you wanted a private performance and…”

A shiver moves through me, my sex quivering at what we did, as more lust-filled thoughts travel through my head.

“That would’ve been impossible, for obvious reasons,” he says. “But it doesn’t have to be now. I’d love a private performance.”

There’s that word again, sending impossible contentment shattering through me, threatening to make me scream with all the pent-up pressure.

“I don’t think it would be the best idea right now.”

“No.” His eyes darkened, becoming intense. “Not right this moment. But on our date… I think I’m going to make you sing for me, and if you don’t - I might have to bend you over and spank that round juicy ass of yours.”

“Juicy,” I murmur. “You mean—”

“I meant what I said,” he snaps. “And if I ever hear you talk negatively about your perfect body, princess, I’m not going to be fucking happy. Understand?”

His muscles expand and tendons bulge in his neck as passion blazes through him.

Reaching up, I paw at his chest, feeling like my fingernails could snap on his boulder-like pectorals.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make you angry.”

“I just hate the thought of you ever doubting how sexy, how beautiful, how perfect you are.”

“I’ve never thought of myself as perfect,” I murmur.

He wraps his arms around me and hugs me close, my cheek resting against the firmness of his chest. His lips press against the top of my head as he inhales for a long moment, as though savoring the feeling of me against him – as though he knows this could end before it has a chance to properly begin.

It has begun, a voice says inside of me. And there’s no going back.

“I hate that you’ve never thought of yourself as beautiful, Kelly. I don’t want you to doubt that anymore.”

“Thank you,” I whisper.

We stay like that for a long time, simply holding each other, our bodies feeling like they could melt and become one at any second.

But all too soon Kane has to leave. We don’t even discuss it.

He just gives me this look, as if to say, You know what could happen if I stay.

Of course, I know.

Lena could catch us.

Everything could come crashing down.

And yet I don’t long for the previous seven days when we kept everything on the surface. When I was left to wonder if he still felt for me as I feel for him. Because no matter what happens, we belong to each other.

Forever.

There’s no going back.