Chapter 1
ONE
Jack
Turns out, deciding not to shove an ice-filled Ziploc down the front of my pants was poor judgment on my part.
My best friend’s sister, well, pseudo-daughter, is here. And somehow, she’s more fucking beautiful and perfect than the last time I saw her, impossible as that seems.
Jesus, I’m a terrible friend.
Carter would kill me twelve different ways if he knew what I was thinking about right now as she comes through the front door, bouncing and hugging my own daughter, her best friend, in gleeful excitement as they jump up and down and squeal as only girls can do.
I’ve barely slept or been able to eat since he called last week, saying the girls wanted a last-minute visit before my daughter, Arianna, left to teach at a camp this summer. Carter had a training event come up near Cherry Falls and thought it would be a good opportunity for us all to spend some time.
The only problem is, there was a last-minute change of plans. Now, Arianna is leaving tomorrow instead of Monday. He asked if I would mind if Layla stayed here while he was at training, even though Arianna would be gone. Of course I said I didn’t mind. I told him I could take her to the marina with me, give her some work and pay her, since he’s too fucking tight with her to let her have a summer job out of his sight.
He’s as protective as I would be over Layla, and as much as I knew it was a bad idea, it was the best news I’d had in a long fucking time.
Now, I just have to figure out how to keep my hands off my best friend’s sister for the next week.
Stop looking at her fucking tits, you deviant.
I can’t.
Stop thinking about the sweet flavor you dream about every fucking night with your cock in your fist, gritting your teeth and shooting off, swearing it will be the last time.
I.
Can’t.
Stop.
“Mr. Aria!” Layla beams as she and Arianna finally let go of each other and she comes skipping and bouncing my way, tumbles of dark hair an inch longer than the last time I shared a space with her.
She’s a bit thinner, but still filled out in all the right places.
“Don’t fucking call me that,” I manage on a grunt, my throat constricting as I clench my teeth so hard I hear them crack. “You make me sound so old. For the thousandth time, call me Jack.”
She flashes me that trillion-dollar smile, white teeth set off with lips as red as dark cherries and my dick takes on a life of its own. Her milk-chocolate dark hair tumbles around her face, her cheeks pink, arched dark eyebrows highlighting her magnetic hazel-silver eyes.
“I know.” She screws up her face, throwing her arms around my neck as I back away. I can’t let her touch me, the strand of control I have left is already unraveling. “You’re such a grumpy Gus.”
She pokes out her bottom lip as I reach up and untangle her arms, forcing them down by her sides as I struggle for breath.
“He’s not a hugger.” Carter steps into the foyer and extends his hand. “Man, how the fuck do you get older and uglier every time I see you?”
“I’m afraid my pageant days are behind me.”
“What fucking pageant days?” He snorts a low chuckle. “Maybe if they had a Homely Motherfucker contest…”
I give his hand a shake, trying not to let my eyes wander back to Layla’s perfect ass. I get a whiff of her cherry-blossom and sugar-cookie scent and lose my battle, taking in another long look at her butt cheeks practically spilling out the back of her cut-off jean shorts.
The idea she’s been out in the world wearing those—that other men have surely lusted after her—makes a rush of angry adrenaline pound through my body.
I want to kill them all.
All the imaginary, faceless fuckers that may have visually soiled her. I hate them. The kind of hate that only a madman knows.
“Jesus,” I growl and Carter gives me a questioning look.
“You okay there, bud?”
“Yeah,” I bark back, harsher than intended, but he just shakes his head on a shrug.
“I see your demeanor is aging like a fine wine as well.”
I sniff on an exhale, running my hand down my face, listening to the girls’ excited high-pitched voices as they wander out through the slide-glass walls off the great room onto the back patio by the pool, holding hands and chattering away.
I built this place myself.
Three stories of hand-cut timber and field stone I gathered single-handed on the twenty-three acres of land I bought here after my wandering days were over. It was my first obsession. I poured all my regret, hate and self-loathing into it until those things began to change. As I created something real and beautiful, the house sort of started to represent me. I was re-building myself from the ground up, and as I learned, worked until my fingers bled and saw what I could create, my vision of what life could be changed as well.
It all started when I was released from prison, I read something about a little town in Oregon. I don’t remember much about the news article, but the idea that the world had a little town with the name of Cherry Falls both made me laugh and, deep down, made me think that life may have new possibilities. Even for a fuck like me. I worked my ass off on construction jobs and anything else I could manage until I had a down payment and then headed west. I bought the property with the twenty-grand I had saved and a contract for the rest.
It was my fresh start and fuck if life didn’t repay me for my vision and hard work.
I turn and take a long look at Layla and Arianna as Carter steps next to me, doing the same.
“Who would’a thought?” He elbows me before crossing his arms over his chest. We’re about the same size; oversize, that is. Both scraping up on six foot five inches, but over the years I’ve thickened up a bit while he’s hit the gym. “Two ex-cons gone legit, with fatherhood thrust upon them out of thin air.”
I shake my head. “Not me, that’s for sure,” I manage, still working to keep my filthy thoughts about Layla at bay.
I sidestep over to the tall cabinet between the windows, outside of which are the two most precious things in the world to me. My daughter, of course.
And Layla.
“You want one?” I nod at Carter as I pull out a bottle of Wild Turkey and pour a fingerful into a glass, watching him shake his head.
“Naw.” He takes a long breath, looking around the living room, then tips his head to the front door. “I didn’t get a chance to tell you. I can’t stay tonight.”
“What? Why the fuck not?” I throw back the shot and pour another. I need to calm my nerves and Carter telling me he’s not staying tonight as planned isn’t helping. Because maybe Layla isn’t either…
Or she is.
Both scenarios twist my insides around and the muscles in my neck harden into knots.
Carter walks over and takes a seat on the back of the sofa. “Gotta drive out to Bend tonight instead of tomorrow night.” He scratches his forehead. “One of the other trainers got in an accident so they need me there sooner. Sorry man, I wanted to spend time…but duty calls.”
Carter and I met when we both were sent up to Marquette Country Correctional in northern Michigan. We weren’t hardened criminals, just two guys on the wrong side of shit at the wrong time.
He was paroled a month before me and one of the promises we made each other while we did our time, was to never come back. He was in for a drug charge, only he took the fall for his own father, who showed his gratitude by continuing a downward spiral into drugs, dealing and other various dangerous behaviors. Two months after Carter was released, his father died of an overdose. Layla’s mother had raised her on her own since birth. She and Carter had different fathers. His was pretty useless and hers…well, he never wanted to be a father, so he signed away his rights and disappeared.
Their mother did her best. Which wasn’t that great. She let Carter stay with his father for most of his life while she poured her efforts into Layla trying to live vicariously through her. Pushing her to be everything she wasn’t. Poised, talented, beautiful, desirable…those were the things Marlene valued.
She pushed her hard, then one day, called Carter, said she needed a break and off she went saying she’d be in touch soon. Two months later, Layla got a letter. Her mother ended up in Mexico and she said she was living the life she always wanted and wouldn’t be back.
Carter took custody, her mother signed the papers without a protest, phone call or any more explanation.
So, a much older Carter took on the father role to fifteen-year-old Layla.
I’d recently been released from my own charge of grand theft. I’d slid into a friendship with a guy who dealt in luxury autos and parts. Obtained in less than legal ways. I’ll admit, I was seduced by the money and the rush of the life he showed me, but at the first sign of trouble he threw me under the bus and copped a deal. Before that, I’d never had as much as a parking ticket. The criminal life wasn’t for me.
Prison taught us both a lot. Hardened us, sure, but opened our eyes as well.
About six months after I got out, on my thirty-third birthday to be exact, I get a phone call.
‘Hi, my name is Arianna. My mother is Annie Thibideau. I have reason to believe you are my father…’
Holy fuck.
Many phone calls and one DNA test later, I’m a dad. Arianna’s mother and I dated briefly. Things were moving too fast, I’ll admit I got caught up, but after a few weeks I knew it wasn’t right. I didn’t want to lead her on. I didn’t really care about the sex and being with someone just for the physical release didn’t sit right with me.
I did what I thought was right. I told her the truth. Face to face. It wasn’t right for me. The next day, she’d packed up her little studio apartment and disappeared. I didn’t go looking and never heard from her again.
Arianna was sixteen when she contacted me. Annie had met some new guy. Rich. Old as dirt. Who wanted nothing to do with raising a teenager. Arianna didn’t get along with the new husband and during a big fight, Annie gave her my info and told her if she wanted to go live with her father, that was her option.
Long story short, she took her up on it and gave me a call. Annie’s been living between houses on Grand Caymen and Dallas ever since, and there I was with an angry adolescent girl and no fucking idea how to be a father.
We muddled through though, in no small part thanks to Carter and Layla.
Carter was living in Ohio at the time. We talked on the phone a lot, both of us thrust into roles for which we were completely unprepared. But, somehow, we rose to the occasion. It was close to two years later we finally got together and Arianna and I met Layla.
Holy shit.
She had just turned eighteen, and my obsession hit me like a bolt of lightning. I tried to push it away but I was done.
The girls took to each other like chocolate and peanut butter. It wasn’t five months later Carter moved himself and Layla an hour south of Cherry Falls for a new position with the Rogers fire department, finally completing his plan to become a fire jumper.
As for me, I followed my own crazy dream. Running a fishing charter business might not be everyone’s idea of the high life, but to me it was freedom. Rescued a dilapidated boat before it was broken up and scrapped, and worked on it in the time I had between building the house and working odd jobs for cash.
Then, when the business started doing better than expected, I added on one more boat, then kept going. I began leasing out my boats for events, private parties and day trips. I have seven total now, two are restored classic sailboats, two are fishing charters and the remaining three are various sizes of cruisers from thirty-six feet up to fifty-seven feet.
I employ and contract crew, catering and the multitude of other bodies it takes to run the business. It’s a life I never knew I wanted, but it’s perfect.
Almost.
I should be proud of what I’ve done, and I am, but none of it means a thing without her.
If Carter only knew how I felt about his sister-slash-daughter, how I stalk her in my own shadowy way, I know he’d not only never speak to me again, he’d cut my fucking dick off and then choke me with it.
He’s protective as hell of Layla, barely lets her go anywhere but here without an escort, usually himself. I know she feels stifled, but fuck if I can’t say I’m happy he keeps her on lockdown. The thought of other men catching sight of her brings up a rage within me I didn’t even know I had.
Layla is everything.
She’s smiles, beauty, brains, kindness and innocence. Besides that, she’s drop-dead sexy, with a toughness that makes her stand up straight and lean into every challenge she’s been handed.
The late afternoon summer sun streams through the back windows as the girls sit on a chair by the pool, looking at each other’s phones and roaring with laughter.
“Dad!” Arianna yells, waving toward me. “We’re going to swim, we want to have chicken fights. Get your suits on…you and Layla versus me and Carter.”
Fuck.
Carter stands, brushing his hands down his chest. “I got about an hour before I got to shove off, but I’m down for a battle. Unless you’re scared…” He snorts a chuckle. “You got an extra set of trunks I can borrow?”
I nod because forming words is impossible. I watch as Layla runs through the door, smiling at me, digging through her bag and pulling out some yellow strings holding together a few triangles of red cloth.
“My new suit!” She dangles it in front of her, biting into her lip, then turns and runs out to the pool house where Arianna disappeared through the door a moment ago.
I should say no. But saying no to her is impossible. She deserves everything, even if it will destroy me in the process. I’ve never longed for touch before I met her. Now, it’s on my mind every second of every day.
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.