Malta with My Best Friend’s Dad by Flora Ferrari

Chapter Five

Kelly

This moment has played out countless times in my mind, his rough lips pressed against mine, our mouths opening as our tongues clash together. I gasp – muffled by the tight press of him, of Kane freaking Konstantinov – as the tips of our tongues flare together.

His hands grab my ass so tightly, making deep impressions through my dress, sending shivers all over me. I can hardly believe this is happening, and yet that thought flutters distantly, disconnected from the overall burning closeness of this moment.

I don’t care how unbelievable it is, how unlikely when it feels so right. My breasts flatten against his rock hard chest, my nipples pricking and becoming hard as they tingle.

“Fuck.” He breaks off the kiss, but he keeps his hands on my ass, massaging my flesh. “You’ve got a perfect young curvy ass, Kelly. I need to bend you over and see what it looks like naked, with your wet pink pussy winking at me.”

“Hmm.” I wriggle against him. “I want that too. But, but…”

“But what?”

“Why?” I breathe the question heavily. “I don’t understand. Why, why are you kissing me?”

I hear my voice as though somebody else is speaking.

I can’t help but think she – I – sound so young and dorky. But at the same time, surely it’s a good question, a question that makes complete sense.

Considering the situation with the Bratva, a situation I don’t even partly understand, surely he should have bigger concerns.

“Do you really have to ask me that?” He moves his hand down the back of my thigh, as though heading for the hem of my dress. “I bet you’re soaked right now, aren’t you?”

I nod as my cheeks bloom red, unable to stand the full force of the effect he’s having on me. My tongue tingles from the kiss, tangled up with a desire to taste him again, over and over until I can never forget what he feels like.

Then he steps back, suddenly, shaking his head.

“What the fuck am I doing? You’re Lena’s best friend. And we’re… look at us, Kelly. We’re in public.”

A heavyweight drops in my chest, dragging its way through me and leaving anxiety in its place.

We’re in public, as though he’s ashamed of me, as though the thought of anybody seeing us together makes him sick.

Of course, it does. Look at him. Look at me.

But then why the heck did he kiss me, to begin with?

Maybe he’s been on the run for so long, he’d kiss any woman he saw, just so he could experience some pleasure, even if it’s with somebody who embarrasses him.

“Go back to the room and wait for my signal,” he snarls, unable or unwilling to meet my eye. “We can’t do this.”

“Are you really not going to see Lena? She’s going to want to know you’re alive.”

He surges forward and grabs onto my ass again, so hard I can’t stop myself from letting out a high-pitched breath. Sensations tingle up and down my thighs, coiling around my hips and my belly, penetrating deep as crazy thoughts whir into me.

I imagine him grabbing me this same way in a wedding dress, squeezing possessively through the expensive fabric, his hulking muscles pulsating and bulging even more than they are now.

Spinning me around and hiking up my dress, maybe even tearing it. “I don’t give a fuck if I’m not supposed to see the bride before the wedding. I’m claiming you. You better be wet. Because I’m taking you rough from the start.”

He squeezes me harder, head tilted, his lips parted slightly so he bares his teeth as he smirks. “You receptive young thing. I bet I could make you come in under a minute, rub your sweet hole, and have you gushing, couldn’t I?”

Anxiety burns through me and part of me screams no, because I’m not sure, not even close.

I’ve certainty climaxed in under a minute thinking about Kane, but I’m not sure if it would translate to the physical act itself, and I don’t want to disappoint him.

“No, no.” He takes another step back, hot then cold, leaving me spinning and breathless. “It’s like you’re casting a goddamn spell on me.”

“Because we’re in public?” I say, unable to keep the bitterness from my voice.

“What’s that, Kelly?” he snaps.

“What’s what?”

“That petulant bratty little note in your voice. It’s like you’re tempting me to bend you over the walls of the silent city and fuck you ragged, fuck you until your cream is gushing down your legs in a river until you’re drenched and glistening in the sun.”

I shift my legs, the fabric of my panties starting to become impossible to bear against my sex, as though the friction of that alone is going to send an orgasm glittering through me.

His words make my clit ache and pulse, and crazy strange sensations move through my body, born somewhere deep inside of me. It’s like my womb is screaming at me to leap at him, wrap my legs around him and grind down until he slips inside of me and he’s buried deep, his cock is pulsing with the need to explode and make us a family.

But he has a family.

Lena.

“You said we’re in public,” I whisper. “I thought, maybe… it doesn’t matter.”

“What?” he growls, but then his gaze flits to the walkway that leads in and out of Medina.

I follow his gaze and see a few people walking down, a group of Maltese men wearing matching polo shirts, presumably to catch the early bus for work.

“The balcony,” Kane says, backing away. “Watch for me. Wait for me.”

“But…”

He turns and strides away, leaving me to study the broad expanse of his back, his muscles pulled taut.

When he disappears into the village of Rabat, part of me questions if any of that really happened. But the sizzling which moves endlessly through me doesn’t let me wonder for long.

I wouldn’t be able to taste him if it wasn’t real. I wouldn’t be able to feel the phantom impressions of his manhood against my belly, the way he’d bulged against me like any second he was going to ravage me.

He said he wanted to fuck me, to make me cream…

I bite down as the words shiver through me, their effect multiplying, spreading. It’s crazy. I should be worried about the fact he’s alive, or the presence of a Russian organized crime syndicate, and the fact we’re being hunted for some reason.

But mostly – as I walk back up the hill to Medina, past the Maltese workers – I think about the way his face scrunched up when he said we’re in public.

I try not to let myself spin into obsession, to dissect his words, pick them apart until they form spears, and stab painfully into my mind.

I can’t stop. As I walk back through the streets, not so silent now as people wake up, I can’t fit it together.

He wanted to kiss me, to claim me, this man I’ve crushed on for my whole freaking life, pretty much.

But then he’d gotten this look like he was ashamed of that fact.

When I return to the apartment, I pause in the doorway and watch Lena as she types. She’s hunched forward and her ponytail bobs up and down as her fingers blur across the keyboard, completely lost in her work.

Guilt crashes into me, pounding like thunder.

I just kissed her dad.

And I want to do it again.

It’s one thing to fantasize about doing it, but quite another to cross that line.

What sort of a best friend am I?

Kane said to wander onto the balcony from time to time, so I’m going to have to wait until Lena is done writing. I wrap my arms around myself as I watch her, so utterly lost in her work, having no clue what I did, what I still want – need – to do.

I left the apartment as a tourist with my head filled with fantasies.

Now I’m… I don’t even know. Living in a dream that could all too soon become a nightmare if the Bratva gets their way.

We’re in public, he’d said.

Was he ashamed of me, or was he worried about his daughter finding out he’s alive, finding out about us?

Oh, freaking heck, now I’m smiling.

It’s the word us that does it.

I’ve dreamt of being one half of an us with Kane for so, so long, and now it’s all crashing into me, whirring in a maelstrom of lust and heat and longing and guilt, guilt so sharp it threatens to shatter it all.