Trapped with My Best Friend’s Dad by Flora Ferrari

Chapter Seven

Rayla

I cradle Tanker to my chest as I walk across the guest room, sitting on the end of the bed and hugging him tightly. The lightning cracks over and over, memories bubbling up inside of me, fragments of the past shooting through me and cutting with painful sharpness.

Tanker whines and climbs up my body, putting his forepaws against my chest and licking my chin. I giggle despite the memories rushing through me, despite the pain and the uncertainty, despite the feeling that the past is going to leap from the floor and coil a vicious hand around my ankle, dragging me back.

“I know I’m being silly,” I tell him, as the rain hammers the roof and against the window, a whole torrent of it. It’s so loud it’s like being inside a disco… with the worst soundtrack in the world. “I shouldn’t let a little rain make me so crazy, should I? I know.”

I stroke the scruff of his neck as he continues to lick my chin.

My mind is like a pinball shooting around a machine, going from the distant past to the recent past, to when Roman leaned down and brought his face to mine.

Do you have a—

But then the thunder and the sudden storm cut his words off, leaving me to wonder and dream about what he was going to say.

Was he going to ask if I have a boyfriend?

The way he was leaning in, it was like he was going to kiss me. My heart hammering and my whole body alight, and the closer he got, the more certain I became he was going to crush his lips against mine.

Like he was going to wrap his arms around me and hold me tight.

But then the lightning struck, the rain fell, and I remembered Millie.

How awful is that?

I remembered my best friend. I never should’ve forgotten her. That shouldn’t have even been an option, and yet I can’t deny that’s exactly what happened.

In the moments when he leaned in, all thoughts of Millie drifted away, all thoughts of loyalty collapsed, and I was left only with his closeness, his warm breath whispering over my skin, the pulsating deep inside of me.

It was like my womb was screaming at me to leap on him.

Even if that should sound crazy, it doesn’t. It feels right. It feels true. It feels like the only possible thing I could think.

Something deep inside of me is screaming – every single second I’m close to him – for me to tear his clothes off and leap atop him, for me to grind down and sit on his massive throbbing dick.

That’ssomething I can’t ignore, as my mind dances back over the scene in the kitchen.

He was wearing nothing but his underwear, his torso ridged with muscle, his pectorals hard and full. His stomach was a hard sheet of rock and a ripped V leading down to his underwear. And his manhood throbbing in his boxers, a hard length that was impossible to ignore.

He was hard as he approached me, walking slowly as though he wanted to lengthen the moment. He was huge too, so massive a shiver of anxiety fluttered through me when I thought about ever taking his huge length inside of me.

But then it’s possible he was thinking about something, somebody else before I walked into the kitchen. It’s possible he wasn’t going to kiss me, and he wasn’t going to ask if I had a boyfriend.

It’s possible I’m misreading all the signs and I’ll make a total fool of myself if I dare to act on these irrepressible desires.

I shiver as more rain pounds and more lightning tears across the sky. Tanker whines and I hug him even closer, kissing the top of his furry head. “I know, boy. Hopefully, it won’t be much longer.”

But I got the weather alert earlier today, a warning text that there may be severe weather on the way. The forecast said there was a chance of a severe storm because it might turn away before hitting us.

But it didn’t. And now we might be stuck.

“All sorted.” I look up to find Roman standing in the doorway, changed into a T-shirt and jeans. “Are you okay, Rayla? You look pale.”

“I’m fine,” I whisper, trying to mask the childish shivering in my voice. “I mean, it’s just a storm. It’s just a bit of lightning and rain. Of course, I’m fine. Why wouldn’t I be?”

“Hmm.” He strides across the room and drops onto the bed next to me, making me achingly aware that I’m still in my bathrobe while he’s fully dressed. “I might have to take the little man to his crate. It’s his safe place. I take it wherever we go, and whenever he’s feeling stressed, he’ll curl up and go to sleep. You know, I envy the little guy sometimes, able to sleep through his fear, his problems. Anyway, do you mind?”

“No, of course not,” I murmur, handing Tanker over. He goes into Roman’s arms gratefully. “Whatever’s best for him.”

He stands and nods. “And then you can tell me what this is really about.”

I flinch, looking up at him. His eyes gleam in the semidarkness. “What?”

A smirk touches his lips. “I can read you, Rayla. Something’s going on here. I’ve got the feeling it’ll eat you up inside if you don’t share it.”

He turns and walks out of the room, Tanker padding at his feet, leaving me to ponder his words as the thunder cracks outside and lightning flashes across the window, turning my world iron-blue.

I can read you.

He said it with such confidence, a huskiness to his voice that I’ve never had aimed at me before, the sort of huskiness that makes me think he really was going to kiss me in the kitchen before the storm started.

But what the heck does he mean, he can read me? We only met earlier today and yet I don’t find his words as ridiculous as I should, as I let them wash through me, remembering the intensity glimmering in his eyes, the way his mouth tightened and became something like a feral frown and a smirk.

How can he smirk and frown at the same time?

It’s such a unique thing to Roman, that expression of his that has my insides soaring and singing out for his touch.

He wants to know why the storm is sending jagged daggers stabbing through my body, why it’s whirling around me with the fury of a tornado. I’ve never discussed it with anybody before… except for Millie, his daughter, my best friend.

“This is a mess.” I hug my arms around myself, rocking back and forth, as the rain hammers relentlessly against the window. “Such a freaking mess.”

Closing my eyes, I can’t stop the scene from flooding my mind.

I see Roman standing at one end of a gorgeously furnished living room, and a bunch of beautiful kids standing on the other. They’re getting ready to start the play I wrote for them one wintery afternoon, big smiles on all their faces.

Roman turns to me, his lips twitching.

I force my eyes open as my body gives a pulse of need.

I want that – an impossible future, a future that should seem ridiculous to me. And yet I know it’s wrong, easily the worst idea I’ve ever entertained.

I know that.

But it doesn’t stop me from wanting it.