Make Him: A Single Dad/Alpha Dom Romance

Chapter 1

Sometimes a fuck isn’tworth it.

The price you pay for the pleasure is too high—the risk of it breaking your heart too much.

But you can’t fall in love with someone after just one night.

Right?

It’s crazy. How can a complete stranger, okay, and the sexiest man you’ve ever met, find that broken place inside you that no one ever has, that place so vulnerable? That doesn’t happen in one night.

Does it?

Even though that man gave you orgasms you didn’t know were possible. Like all the ones you had before, they were tiny, little sneezes. Even though the kisses he gave you were tender until they were torture because he couldn’t get enough of your taste.

Thatfuck with HIM?

His sex was mind-altering, and your body can’t forget it, either. It makes you conjure the memory of him at least five, okay, ten times a day.

But the consequence for his fuck?

Apparently, I’m about to lose my job over it.

And I need my job. I love my job. I’m a natural at it, plus I have the best boss. I won’t let her down. Although, we just stepped into my new client’s palatial office, and I’m suddenly staring again at…HIM.

Mr. Fuck You To Death.

“Ms. Ravenel and Ms. Jones of HGR Security for you, Sir.” A secretary announces us, grabbing HIS attention.

Behind strands of onyx hair, glacial eyes that defy nature sharply lift from the files he’s reading on his desk. Plush lips that never smile suddenly smirk with satisfaction.

He admires my beautiful boss first. Then those eyes, framed by dark, thick lashes and dominating brows, aim my way…and…

Yep, it’s me.

The woman you broke with your fucks. The woman who loved every minute of it.

Nice to see your beauty is even more brutal by daylight.

His glare makes my heart, hidden under my black blazer and sapphire blouse, start to pound, but I keep a stoic face.

Calmly, he commands, “Come in,” and like the night we fucked, I obey.

He recognizes me. And, of course, I can’t forget him.

Cloaked in a crisp black elegant suit, his starched white shirt is unbuttoned, revealing his taut, deep bronze skin, and I remember his taste—almonds. His flesh felt like hard silk, stretched tight over his towering, muscular frame, and I remember his scent—citrus and cypress.

He has a birthmark on his shredded left thigh. He’s packing the thickest member I’ve ever seen. He loves pulling my hair and choking me while I come.

I know the savagery he hides while I hide my shock, forcing myself to cross his sprawling executive office though the room tilts, I swear.

Walking beside my boss, memories make my pulse race, sweat threatening my flesh. My ribs heave inches higher in the presence again of this clit-shocking man lording behind his imposing desk.

And I swear my cunt is cursed.

Why can’t I have a simple day? Like, ease into it, starting with a cozy cup of coffee and a blueberry muffin? Why can’t I be one of those women who gets to meditate, do yoga, and walk my dog and…hell, I don’t know.

What do those women do all day?

I got no clue because that’s not my life, and clearly not my job for the foreseeable future because my pussy’s having a panic attack while he doesn’t even look shocked or bothered.

No, he reclines in his leather chair and looks amused, entertained as I draw closer.

This isn’t going to be a meeting. This is fresh hell.

My boss continues the introductions while we approach his ebony desk. It’s a behemoth piece of furniture, commanding in front of an equally impressive view of the Charleston Harbor and the massive bridge looming outside the wall of windows behind him.

“Ms. Jones,” my boss says to me, “meet Mr. Mercier, your new client.”

Oh…we’ve met.

We’ve fucked. Hard. Hot. Loud and dirty and several times one night at a sex club in front of a crowd. We didn’t care. We got off on it. We were strangers, fucking like sex was a fight, and we both wanted to lose.

Or at least, I did. With his dominating kiss, I felt myself changing into a woman I didn’t know, and I liked her. I’ve never submitted to a man before, but I did that night because we felt it.

We were fated to fuck. And I never saw him again.

I knew his first name—Luca. Hell, he made me moan it many times. Scream it, too.

He really liked my screams.

After that night, I could’ve asked my friends about him. I could’ve stalked him…I mean, accidentally bumped into him on the sidewalks of Charleston. Or I could’ve scrolled, obsessed…I mean, shopped online for hours as Luca’s image kept innocently popping up in my FYPs.

But pride wouldn’t let me.

If Luca wanted me again, he knew how to find me, too.

That was almost a year ago, and now I clench my teeth, standing at the edge of his desk.

This is a H.I.F.—How I’m Fucked.

It’s how I measure my life; all the ways it’s fucked me so far.

Because HIF #1: This man is my new client.

A client I’m not allowed to fuck. Even though he’s already buried his face in my pussy like it was an oxygen mask, and he was deep-sea diving for my clit, discovering it like a rare pearl…many times.

And talk about being fucked?

I will be if my company ever finds out.

“Mr. Mercier…” My boss, Charlie Ravenel, directs us to shake hands without instruction. She’s just powerful and gorgeous that way. “Meet Ms. Jones. She’s my best protection officer and perfect for your new detail. Highly skilled. A titled fighter but a local who blends in. I pulled her off another detail because no one else will serve you better.”

Did he just smirk at that?

Silently, he stands to greet me, his tall shadow raising the hairs on my arms. Extending his massive right hand, I glance down, noting how his fingernails are buffed. How his corded forearm peeks out from under the stark sleeve of his tailored jacket.

Those arms pinned me down while his knees forced my thighs open, and his cock ruined me, making me stretch and bleed with bliss.

And god, how I begged for more.

What Luca Mercier did to my body was infectious, and I feel his captivating fever start to flame my cheeks. Dangerously, his right hand reaches, demanding mine, and don’t let my knees buckle. Because the last time I knelt for Luca, I was sucking him off while he ordered other men to watch me serve him.

And I loved it.

I don’t believe in love at first sight. Or at first fuck. That’s bullshit. I don’t know what this emotion is again. I don’t know what Luca makes me feel.

But I recognize Fate when she bitch-slaps you across the face. Twice.

Because our hands touch again, and I suddenly sway, attracted, pulled to him against my will. He grabs my flesh, and his palm is magnetic. It’s like we’re locked together. You can’t rip us apart. I’m in awe, staring at our connection.

Oh my god, we’re like all the romance books I read. Lust at the first meeting. Love at the second. Or vice versa. It depends on the book. We’re a hot, forbidden work romance, but we’ll live happily ever after together, and…

I suddenly clock it. Gleaming and gold on Luca’s left hand.

A wedding band!

What the fuck?

I choke my gasp down, my eyes flicking up to his, and he’s aiming that evil smirk back at me, revealing no remorse about it while he starts shaking my hand.

He’s married?

The cheating asshole!

I’m going to rip his thick dick off and shove it down his throat. Yes, I have the skills to do it, and no, he wasn’t wearing a wedding band that night!

Shock explodes through my mind, but I fake it. I shake his hand back and force my smile, greeting him. “Mr. Mercier.”

No, Mr. Motherfucker!

Correction: Mr. Scarlettfucker.

Because that’s what Luca did. He fucked me for hours and never once told me he was married. He seduced me into taboo acts, but I’d never do that one.

I don’t cheat. I don’t hurt other women. I don’t know what I lost to Luca that night, but I will NOT lose my job over a man who cheats on his wife.

I squeeze his hand back like a murderous bitch, flexing my bicep against the power of his touch. It’s so familiar and foreign, and he’s a fucking liar.

“It’s very nice to meet you, sir.” And so am I.

This dick better play along.

We’re strangers turned professionals, and we can do this. We can act like he didn’t cheat on his wife, fucking me in front of a crowd, both of us so obsessed that the only eyes we saw were ours.

“Indeed. Nice to meet you, Ms. Jones.”

Goddamn, he finally speaks to me, and his accent is a silky snake.

It soothes into your ear, coiling down your body, deep and rich and European, wrapping around you so tight, taking your breath away while it leisurely licks your clit.

“It’s a true pleasure,” he mocks…

And so our performance begins. Because Luca clutches my hand too long, and I deserve an Oscar for this. I’m staring into his eyes again, and they’re not light blue, pale green, or muted grey. They’re primal and piercing. They’re like no other.

Luca Mercier claims anyone in his sight.

And yes, I was HIS pleasure.

He can hide it now, reaching across his shiny ebony wood desk in his fancy office with loaded bookshelves, fine leather chairs, and soaring windows overlooking Charleston, South Carolina. He owns this hotel, the entire Mercier luxury global chain, thousands of staff, and billions of dollars.

Luca owns it all.

But for one night, I owned him.

Pleasure shook his naked, hulking thighs as I took his cock as far as I could into my gagging throat and devoured him. His creamy desire. His velvety width. His long moans. His lush lips parted as he sunk his hands into my auburn waves and fisted my hair so hard it was perfect. He couldn’t let go because he was falling for me, too.

I gazed up at him from my knees and savored our milky cum on his cock, the flavor of our first fuck, and I moaned. I tasted him surrender to me, too, growling my name in front of a dozen aroused witnesses.

He can’t deny it. I’ve never made a man come so hard, and so many times, I couldn’t believe his stamina. And I’ve never had sex before an audience, but now, it’s my kink. It’s my thing.

Luca’smy thing, and I ache for more of him. Whatever he made me feel, I need it, but…

HIF #2: He’s married.

HIF #3: He’s a cheating dick.

“Indeed, sir, it’s a pleasure,” I answer, wanting to yank his massive hand, pulling him in close so my left fingers can gouge his gorgeous eyes out. How dare he cheat on his wife and make me a guilty culprit without my consent?

“Welcome to The Mercier, Ms. Jones,” he lures, secretly trailing his middle finger across my palm and…

Oh fuck.

Why did he do that? And why does he sound indecent? Like I’m being initiated into something dark? Though I crave more of his depravity, I’m no man’s bitch. I’m no one’s other woman.

Because now, there are two of us women and one of him.

Charlie, my badass boss, a former Marine turned bodyguard—a woman I’d never lie to.

Luca, my new, sexy-as-fuck, billionaire client who needs me as a protection officer.

And me, Scarlett.

A country girl. A proud hick who came from nothing. The eldest sister of four who learned to fight to protect my little sisters. Those fights won me trouble before they won me titles—MMA titles—and that scored me an opportunity I couldn’t pass up. Now, I’m paid thousands to do what almost landed me behind bars. I can’t lose this job. I still take care of my sisters. They can still count on me.

And so can Charlie.

I’d never betray another woman.

Though, as Luca finally releases my hand, my body betrays me. That pussy quiver, that flush, that rush of wet heat surging between my thighs because he just touched me again can go fuck itself. I’m not a cheater, and I don’t fuck on the job.

“Please,” he gestures to the chairs behind us, “have a seat.”

He flicks his finger toward his secretary, I assume, still standing in the office doorway.

“Frappe. Perrier,” he commands the man to fetch us drinks, though we didn’t ask for them.

“Thank you,” Charlie answers politely while I lower into the soft leather chair and harden my heart. Though my body turns to mush, watching Luca sit like the King of FuckDom.

“Ms. Jones and I have reviewed what you’ve shared so far.” Charlie continues, sitting beside me, “Your daughter is five and starting kindergarten. That’s a big step for both of you.”

“Yes, Gia,” he says. “She starts school next week, so I called you.”

Charlie smiles warmly at Luca. She genuinely cares about his daughter. We have the same calling—protecting women and girls—and that’s why I have to lie.

But is it a lie?

Protection officers, some call us bodyguards, are never supposed to get involved with our clients. Emotionally. Socially. Physically.

And you sure as hell aren’t supposed to let them eat your pussy and call you their “sweet little whore” until you come so damn hard that your legs turn to Jell-O. Three times.

I didn’t know Luca would be my client almost a year later.

I didn’t know the billionaire hotelier that Charlie asked me to work for would be HIM.

All I heard was that a client needed a woman protection officer for his young daughter. A big, burly man would only scare the little girl and stand out in a crowd, especially at a private elementary school.

But me?

I blend in.

I can look like her nanny when really… I can punch your throat so hard you may never breathe again.

“My daughter is my world,” Luca continues with Charlie, tapping his gold Mont Blanc pen over white linen folders neatly stacked on his desk. “Nothing can happen to her.”

“I understand,” Charlie assures him.

Who has white linen folders? Not manilla, paper ones?

Luca Mercier, that’s who.

It’s the signature Mercier Hotel look.

From the moment you step through the glass and gold doors of the Charleston Mercier Hotel, warm white wraps you in a luxurious hug. White marble. White furniture. White walls. The grand lobby of the boutique hotel features accents of gold and dark Grecian blue while I counted twelve guests in the lobby as we were led to the golden elevator by hotel security and escorted up to the third-floor executive office suites.

Funny, I noticed details like exits and head counts, but I was too distracted by making Charlie proud that I never asked to read the client’s portfolio before our meeting.

Why should I? I trust Charlie. But can she trust me not to fuck this up?

Maybe. My mind is sure, but my pussy is a mafia wife. She will screw me over, getting me screwed. She’s too loyal to the Dick.

Speaking of…

“I hire my own detail when I need it.” Luca focuses on my boss. “And when we leave the hotel, my daughter is never out of my sight.”

We?

Is he talking about the wife he has, too?

My stomach suddenly sours. I’m usually not a fool, but Luca deceived me. He fucked me like he hadn’t been fucked in years when he has an innocent wife he deceived too.

“But now,”—he’s still looking at Charlie like he knows I now know he’s a cheating asshole—“Gia starts school next week, and the job starts tomorrow for their open house. I need to make the necessary introductions to the school staff. Mostly, I will drive her to school myself, but I need backup. I can’t always be there to protect her, so I need someone who can.”

That someone is me, and he still won’t look my way.

How ironic.

Luca fucked me like I was the air he needed to breathe. Then he left me like a used condom. And now he needs me to protect the one he loves the most.

HIF #4: I’m so screwed; they sell me at Home Depot in a variety of sizes to fuck my life.

“But you have no active threats, right?” Charlie asks, rubbing her pregnant belly under her black sheath dress.

“Not that I’m aware,” Luca answers her. “Just the high-value target of my daughter, who I’d pay any ransom for.”

And he earns one check in the right column under “Good Man” down the long list of checks on the left under “Fucking Piece of Shit.”

“And your wife?” But I can’t help it. Rage boils under my skin. “Does your wife need my protection, too, Mr. Mercier?”

From his cheating?

I don’t say that last part, but…

I’m sorry, God, but if Luca bursts into flames right in front of me now, I wouldn’t piss on him to save him.

No, I’d stick my hand in the fire and crush his windpipe, watching him gasp for his last breath.

Even though…

I’ve already bit his sexy neck. I felt his pulse thrum against my lips while he growled like a wild animal, “Let them watch the filthy things I do to my beautiful whore,” fucking me so brutally that he left me bruised and aching for more.

The man is hung and hot and hella talented with skills my sex can’t forget. Because who fucks like that? Who makes you come like that? Who talks dirty like that? Who degrades you and makes you love it? You’d do any taboo act for him because he delivers the pleasure, too.

Luca Mercier, that’s who.

He dominates. He defiles. He gives you ego-erasing orgasms that leave you desperate for more. I didn’t see the inferno of Luca Mercier coming, but he left me in ashes. Because that’s all I’ve ever known of life. Loss.

And that night, Luca felt like home.

The fiery memory wets my silk thong. My pussy wants to drop to her knees for him again…but I’m not a fucking cheater. And I’m also not a dumbass who’ll lose my job over a man.

Dick don’t pay the bills.

My question about his wife forces his crystal eyes to confront mine finally, and what’s burning behind his glare?

Fury that I dared to ask about his wife?

Fear that I’ll tell her?

Desperation that I’m the only one qualified to protect their daughter?

Or is it the attraction raging between us?

I’ve fucked so many people; I get what I want. I don’t want emotions that leave me vulnerable and exposed. I have my sisters and friends; they get all my love, and it’s loyal. But the people I fuck? They get pleasure, that’s all.

Until Luca.

“MY. WIFE…” he jeers at me, halting, dragging out my punishment.

He’s doing it on purpose. He’s fighting back. He’s taking control because those two words from his mouth make my throat burn.

I don’t know what Luca found inside me that night. I didn’t know it was there until he touched it. He found it and made me cry…and I don’t cry. Then he took it so many times from me until it only belonged to him.

Did I fall in love with him?

No. That’s impossible.

That’s not this pain, this sudden crushing tender ache in my chest under my silk blouse hiding my sweating armpits. I’m staring into his eyes, and I don’t know what’s strangling my throat.

But fine. Luca may have won my body that night, but he didn’t win my heart. Because I’ll protect his daughter, but I won’t protect our secret. I’ll tell his wife. Some day. Somehow. I will fuck his lying ass over. How dare he hurt her?

And me?

“MY. WIFE…”

He says it again, whipping the words like a lash across my skin. Like he’ll take all the time in the world to make me suffer while his murderous eyes glare at me.

What the fuck did I do? I’m not the one who cheated?

My god, men don’t intimidate me, but Luca? He makes evil look angelic. And why does that turn me on? I’m not that horny.

Am I?

I hate him.

I can kill him.

I switch my legs, waiting for his answer, draping my thigh over the other, trying to ignore the throbbing in my pussy his evil elicits. My black pants suit, my uniform, covers every inch of my body except for my exposed ankles, and of course, they catch his unfaithful eye.

I wore heels to this meeting. Usually, I hate the damn things. They’re meant to make women defenseless. But on me, they make Luca lick his hungry lips.

The big-dicked bastard.

The truth about his innocent wife sits on the tip of his tongue, but he can’t stop the memory of our obscene acts. How his tongue trailed up my ankle, licking my leg, his teeth biting the inside of my thighs until he spread them so wide and gazed at my bare sex like a starving animal. Luca held me splayed open, exposed, and wet. He got off on it, and I did, too.

He told our audience, “Watch. Look at how my whore’s pussy pulses from my fuck. Look at how she gapes for more of my cock. Look at my cum dripping from her creamy cunt. It’s so sweet.” Then, he buried his face in my pussy and consumed every drop of our first time. And then…he did it three more times that night in front of others.

And yes, I fucked Luca bare. Secretly, I knew it then—my heart was the only thing needing protection from him that night.

The forbidden memory flashes across Luca’s glacial eyes, too, and he suddenly cracks.

His guilty glare drops, not able to speak of his wife. He taps his gold pen like he wants to stab me because he can’t admit it.

Shame has finally found him.

“Will we meet your wife, too?” Charlie eases into his long, heavy silence because she means business. “Her and Gia? We’re meeting them today, right? Mr. Mercier, Ms. Jones needs to meet her detail today.”

“Yes,” Luca snarls. “I’ll take you up to meet Gia. They’re expecting us.”

They? Gia and his wife?

I bet his wife is such a lady. I bet she’s beautiful and polished and must be perfect to marry a rich and powerful man like him. Luca may be Satan, but he’s inferno-hot in a black suit. And it’s going to burn like hell meeting the woman I betrayed. Then, how much will it hurt to watch him love her, share a family with her, knowing how he made me feel special, too?

But that was a lie, and I was the foolish woman who fell for it.

“We live in the penthouse,” he says. “The entire half of the top floor is our home. I live here so I can be close to my family.”

Still, he won’t look up.

Guilt buries him.

This imposing man lords over an empire, but this truth has him on his knees.

Good.

I relish the idea of Luca Mercier on his knees. I love the idea of punishing him. He needs to suffer like his wife will. Like whatever this is that’s suffocating my chest and biting at my eyes.

I’ll never fuck him again, but I will fuck his ass up. It makes me smile. It makes me lift my chin higher. I gave Luca Mercier some part of me. I let him inside. I let him take something in me that no one else has, and I don’t know why.

But I know this…

I’ll make him meet the other side of me. The woman who wins the fight. The woman I’m paid to be.

Finally, his crystal eyes lift and aim at my soul. “My wife is dead,” he confesses. “She died four years ago. It’s just me and our daughter now.”

And still…

Luca wears his gold wedding band.