How would she feel? The brush of her lips…my finger tracing down the cleft between her tits…our bodies connected from head to toe as I listen to her sleep, my chest to her back, pulling her against me as my dick slips in and out of her juicy, hot cunt…her walls milking me—
“Dad!” Arianna’s voice shakes me from my depravity. “Carter can wear these, they still have the tag on…”
She dances through the back door and shoves the navy swim trunks into my hand, then dances right back out, chirping and giggling with Layla as she tosses me a blown kiss.
Obsession overrules good judgment yet again, and I throw the pair of swim trunks at my best friend.
I only hope my commitment to our friendship is stronger than my feelings for his sister. Daughter. Whatever. She may be those things to him, but to me?
She’s mine.
Fuck. This isn’t going to end well.
Chapter 2
Layla
What am I doing?
What am I doing?
O. M. G.
What am I DOING?
My hands are shaking so bad I can’t even tie the bow on the strings of my bikini top.
My NEW bikini. The one I bought yesterday knowing Carter would never let me wear something so skimpy. Even if it is just to be around my best friend.
And her hunka-hunka-burnin-love father.
Gah.
My bathing suit bottoms are going to be soaking wet before I even get into the pool. I’ve been crushing on Jack from the first moment I saw him. We’d come to visit just after my eighteenth birthday. My dad is best friends with him, and even though it took us a couple years to meet in person, Jack had sort of introduced his daughter Arianna and me just after she’d come to live with him.
We were both sort of lost, and we started emailing and texting. We’re sort of kindred spirits. Opposites in some ways, but sisters in others. That initial online friendship blossomed and we are each other’s ride or die. Although, if she knew how I felt about her father, I’m pretty sure all of that would change. Except maybe the die part, because she would most likely kill me in some creative and fabulously painful way.
Death by nail polish remover.
Or, the mysterious case of the mummified body parts found covered in complex algorithms.
We talked about getting a place together after high school, but she’s been studying at a prestigious technical school in an accelerated program on her way to a Forensic Data Analyst degree, whatever that is.
Like I said, we’re opposites in so many ways.
Her brain is wired for numbers, equations, coding and things I can barely understand. Whereas I’m a dreamer with a princess’s soul. I’ve been taking ballet since I was a little girl, Carter continued supporting my dance after I came to live with him. He also enrolled me in martial arts classes, and in an odd way, the two aren’t much different and I’ve excelled in my new endeavor.
I’ve been taking online courses as well, since Carter couldn’t fathom letting me go away to school and there wasn’t a college within commuting distance of our place in Rogers. So, to say my world feels pretty small is an understatement. But there’s something else Carter doesn’t know.
Because if he did, he’d have me locked in the cellar.
There’s a banging on the door to the changing room in the pool house and I nearly have a heart attack.
“What are you doing?” The doorknob jiggles as Arianna’s voice comes through. “Why is the door locked?”
“S—Sorry,” I stammer. “Habit.”
I reach over and turn the knob, clicking the door open, and Arianna pushes it wide, stepping into the small room.
“Dahmmmmm gurl…” Her jaw falls open as she looks me up and down. “Your brother know about this?”
I shake my head. The intensity of my brother-slash-stand-in-father’s protectiveness is, and has been for a while, a source of many conversations with my friend. I know he loves me with everything he has, but at twenty years old I’ve been on two supervised dates—both before I met Jack—and never been kissed outside of some playground nonsense in fourth grade. He would prefer I dress in head-to-toe gray canvas six sizes too big, and overall thinks every XY heterosexual human is somehow going to hurt me.
My insides are trembling as well as my outsides. I’m pretty sure Carter is going to have a heart attack when he sees my suit.
But I know why I bought it. I knew it was beyond-belief skimpy, but I wanted to see if Jack would have any reaction. I know he just sees me as his daughter’s friend and his best friend’s sister. But to me, he’s the man of my fantasies. He’s the reason for my locked bedroom door and many nights filled with masturbatory activities.
He’s rugged with dark-chocolate brown hair, unruly as it curls behind his ears and down his neck. His face is mature and sexy beyond measure. He’s not slick, not symmetrical, not made to fit into the it crowd. He’s part neanderthal with a nose crooked from a life that came before Cherry Falls. His thick brow hangs over deep-set eyes the color of a tropical lagoon, rimmed in black and they look so deep into my soul, I can’t believe he doesn’t already know all of my secrets and fantasies.