Malta with My Best Friend’s Dad by Flora Ferrari

Chapter Two

Kane

Dead men tell no tales.

That’s how the saying goes, and it fits me like a damn glove. There’s no way I’ll speak about why I had to leave the States, why I had to shatter my daughter’s heart, why I’ve become a nomad roaming across Europe, working odd jobs here and there, unable to access my cash reserves since it would involve reemerging stateside.

Maybe I could ask my military buddies to help me siphon off some cash, but the risk is too high. I can’t give them a reason to go back on what we agreed.

But still, I can’t complain on a day like this.

The sun is baking Medina, the silent city so that the sand-colored bricks seem to shine like golden panels. I’m wearing a polo shirt and shorts and yet a fine layer of sweat still hugs onto my hulking body.

It’s hulking because I still work out like a demon any chance I get, even if it’s in some grimy gym down a forgotten alley in Paris, or a hotel’s exercise room in Turkey, grunting and growling as I throw the weights around.

Sitting under the shadow of a tree, I keep my eyes on the road that snakes up the hill toward the city.

I know what car my daughter and her friend are taking. I know what room they’re staying in. I know what time they’re arriving.

Even if much of the world thinks I’m dead, I’ve kept in contact with a couple of my military buddies so that I can keep tabs on Lena. I have access to her laptop and I’m able to track her purchasing history, meaning I can see where she’s going to be.

I know she’d kick my ass if she ever found out about any of this. I can’t help but chuckle at the thought of my daughter brimming with rage, ready to take on the whole world.

I’ve purposefully not allowed myself to see photos of her, because I know it would trigger my parental need to be with her. The thoughts would creep into my mind, telling me the only way to keep her safe is to return to America, and then the whole thing would come crashing down.

But since she’s in Europe, I can take a look, just one look to assure myself she’s doing well, she’s safe, she’s alive. I know all of this, of course. I know about her book deal and how she’s here to research her second novel.

Knowing it and seeing it are two different things, especially when it’s my blood we’re talking about.

Scanning the cars that pass by – my eyes focused on their license plates – gives my mind too much time to wander. This is a dangerous game when you’ve lived through what I have.

First, there was the war, three tours served in Iraq, and then there was my martial arts business. I was doing damn well at that before I decided to try and get a bit of extra cash, getting greedy instead of letting my business build slowly, methodically…

Hell, it’s in the care of my business partner – Jocko – right now, just waiting for me to reclaim my share once I return, and it’s doing amazingly well, meaning Lena wants for nothing. She could have her own apartment if she liked, but I think she enjoys living with her best friend.

Shame pricks at me when I struggle to remember her name. I should be able to remember something that’s so important to my daughter.

What was it?

Clara? Kitty?

No, Kelly, that was it.

Kelly Jones.

She was a fixture at my house when Lena was a kid, a nervous smile on her lips, always with a blush on her cheeks. I remember her as a frumpy little thing with a pink karaoke machine she never let go of like it was a part of her.

Most of the cars which drive into the city head straight up the hill, but suddenly one stops in front of me. A quick glance at the license plate sets my heart thundering in my chest.

It’s the same make and model that my contact said it’d be.

Standing up, I dart behind the tree, for once cursing how big I am. But luckily the thick tree trunk is just about big enough to shield me from view. Even so, I can’t resist peering around the corner to see just what the hell they’re up to.

And there she is…

There’s my daughter, still wearing her jet-black hair in a tight ponytail, still with that conquer-the-world smirk on her face. People say she shares my smirk, that we’re similar in many ways… at least, they used to before I had to disappear off the face of the earth.

“Are you sure, madam?” the driver says, sticking his head out of the window. “It is hot. I can drive you.”

“I want to walk up to the silent city,” she declares, and her voice sends warmth moving through me. “I might have my characters take a romantic walk up this very road.”

My daughter, safe, alive, enthusiastic, and ready to take on the world.

“There’s no point arguing with her,” another woman says, climbing from the car.

I stare hard as I wonder who this is and why I wasn’t notified of another passenger.

My thoughts spiral when I think about the deadly possibility they sent this woman in her place, as I wonder how this person convinced Lena to come with her…

“Kelly, come on.”

Lena marches over to the trunk of the car.

“Madam, madam, let me.”

I move behind the tree, fully out of view, as the word bounces around my head.

Kelly?

As I listen to the driver helping them with their suitcases, I struggle to match the name with the woman herself.

When I last saw her, Kelly had a mouthful of braces and she looked half her age, like a little girl, giving no hint at the woman she’d become.

But the woman I just laid my eyes on…

Fuck, my cock is getting hard just thinking about her, stiff at the base, tension moving up and down my length like any second I could explode in feral fury.

Cascading dark brown hair down to her shoulders, and a summer dress that highlights her perfect voluptuousness. Closing my eyes, I picture the way the light fabric of the dress dappled her round and juicy ass, and I can’t stop myself from mentally burying my hands in it, squeezing and palming.

And then – fuck, fuck, I’m rock solid now – I’d smooth my hands down to her hips and pull her toward me, grinding my engorged manhood in between her ass cheeks, making her feel every inch before I lifted the hem of her dress and…

Stop, stop, stop.

I roar the word over and over in my mind.

I’m here to see my daughter if only from afar, to make sure she’s safe and happy, not to lust after her best friend.

I listen as Lena and Kelly being to make their way up the hill, pulling their suitcase behind them. Waiting for the car to drive away, I peer around the edge of the tree again, taking in the sight of my daughter, safe and full of life as I’d wished she would be.

But I can’t stop my gaze from drifting over to her best friend, my eyes locked on the way Kelly’s ass shifts in that summer dress. They’re moving away from me now, but even with the distance, her ass looks delicious, the helm of my manhood grinding against my pants, prompting a surging need to whelm up inside of me.

It isn’t just carnal and hungry though.

Something strange is happening inside of me.

I find myself picturing how Kelly would look sitting up in a hospital bed, her gorgeous chocolate-colored locks all sweaty around her shoulders, a serene smile on her face as she stared down at our child.

Our child.

What the hell am I thinking?

That is an impossible future, and not just because she’s my daughter’s best friend.

Living a life like that would mean reintroducing myself into society. That’s out of the question.

But my mind doesn’t care about that as it races ahead, flooding with thoughts of Kelly, with speculation of how she’d sound when I plunge inside of her, squeezing down on her hips that were made for claiming as much as they were made for childbirth.

And then I think about another man trying it on with her and my insides twist and a feral roar fights to escape me.

Nobody, ever, gets to touch her.

Nobody except for me.

Because she’s mine.