by Ramona Gray
FORBIDDEN BLISS
By Ramona Gray
Copyright © 2020 Ramona Gray
Published by:
EK Publishing Inc.
ISBN: 978-1-77446-016-0
This book is the copyrighted property of the author, and may not be reproduced, scanned or distributed for commercial or non-commercial purposes. Quotes used in reviews are the exception. No alteration of content is allowed.
Your support and respect for the property of this author is appreciated.
This book is a work of fiction and any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or places, events or locales is purely coincidental. The characters are productions of the author’s imagination and used fictitiously.
Adult Reading Material
Edited by:
L. Nunn Editing
Cover art by
The Final Wrap
FORBIDDEN BLISS
By Ramona Gray
Love is worth the price.
Dane has a problem.
And she has long dark hair, bright blue eyes, and curves for days.
Shy and sweet Naomi, his new secretary, has no idea what she does to him. He’d risk everything for one night in her arms.
But Dane and best friend Mason are a package deal. Would someone so innocent ever agree to bed them both?
If Naomi ever hopes to break free from her controlling parents, she’s going to need their help. She’ll have a new life. One where she decides what and who she wants.
Apparently, what she wants is them.
Now everything has changed. And they’re determined to show Naomi exactly what she’s missed. She thinks it’s just a meaningless fling, but the men have feelings they can’t deny.
What will it take to convince her they’re the best part of her fresh start?
* * *
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Table of Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Epilogue
Chapter One
Naomi
“Naomi, you’re missing family prayer time again?” My mother’s disappointed tone didn’t stop me from grabbing my lunch bag and hurrying toward the front door.
“Sorry, Mom. They asked me to come in to work early this morning.”
She followed me to the door as my father made a disapproving ‘harrumph’ from the family room.
“Naomi, your father and I have been talking, and we’re not sure you should continue with this job.”
I froze with my hand on the doorknob, panic fluttering like an injured bird through me. She meant my father didn’t think I should work, of course. I was one hundred percent certain that my mother didn’t have a single thought of her own. Not after thirty years of marriage to my father.
I pasted a smile on my face and turned to face her. “I’ve only been working three months.”
“We know and it’s really taking away from our family time. You should be looking for a husband, dear, not a career.”
“I’m not looking for a career.” I kept my voice pleasant and low. “I just want to help you and Dad out financially and maybe save a little for when I do get married.”
Liar!
My mother glanced at the open doorway of the family room. “You’re twenty-three, Naomi. You need to find your husband before -”
“Before what, Mom?” I said. “I’m not an old maid.”
“I didn’t say that. But you don’t want to,” her voice lowered, and her gaze met mine before skittering away, “lose your choice in the matter.”
My blood ran cold. “Like Joy, you mean?”
“Your sister made her choice.” My mother’s voice turned hard. “She had plenty of time to… to turn her act around and she chose not to. Your father needed to make a difficult decision.”
Anger and bitterness washed in like high tide at noon. “What he did to her wasn’t right and you know that.”
“Keep your voice down,” she said before softening. “Naomi, that isn’t going to happen to you. You’re a good girl. Joy was troubled and sinful, and it’s your father’s duty to protect his children from the sins of the world.”
“I have to go. I’m going to be late,” I said.
She placed her hand on my arm and it was all I could do not to push it away. My love for her had been wrapped up in a confusing blanket of grief and anger since the moment she’d allowed my father to send Joy away.
“Naomi, just consider letting Jeremiah court you. He’s a handsome, virtuous young man and he’s anxious to get to know you better. Your father approves of him.”
I snorted. “Handsome? Jeremiah is not a handsome man.”
Her gaze dropped to my body. “You’re not going to get any better than Jeremiah. Not unless you finally accept your sinful food addiction and pray to God to release you from it.”
My face flushed with shame, and I smoothed my hand over my skirt. “I really need to go.”
I tugged my arm free of her grip and slipped out of the house. I scurried to my car and drove away without looking back.
* * *
Half an hour later, parked in the employee’s parking lot of Wilson Financial Advisors Inc., I dug my small makeup bag from the very bottom of my purse. Two weeks after starting my job, I’d taken a small amount of money from my very first paycheque and splurged on some makeup. I’d never worn makeup in my life, and I had sat in the chair at the department store, feeling like an imposter while the cosmetics woman eyed my skin critically.
“You don’t need very much,” she finally said. “You have gorgeous skin. Did you know that?”
“Oh, uh, thank you.” I’d felt an unfamiliar tingle of pride at the compliment. At least something about me was pretty.
She showed me how to apply a minimal amount of shadow and blush and slicked on a soft pink gloss to my full lips. A light layer of mascara and she pronounced me perfect before showing me my reflection in the mirror.
“Wow,” I said
She grinned at me. “A little makeup can go a long way.”
Now, I applied the makeup using the visor mirror. The first few days it felt awkward, and I couldn’t help hearing my father’s voice in my head screaming that I was a painted woman. I brushed the gloss on my bottom lip and then screamed when someone knocked on my window, smearing gloss across my chin.
“Sorry!” My co-worker Jemma’s cheerful face grinned at me through the window. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”
My heart pounding in my chest, I quickly wiped the gloss from my chin and tossed the tube into my purse. I climbed out of my car and smiled at Jemma. “Morning.”
“Hey, Naomi. How are you?”
“Good.” We crossed the parking lot toward our office building. “How are you?”
“Fucking fantastic,” she crowed. “I got laid this weekend.”
My cheeks turned bright red and Jemma giggled. “Sorry, sweetie. I always forget the mere mention of sex makes you blush.’
“It does not,” I said.
“Sure, it doesn’t.” She eyed me up and down. “Is that a new skirt?”
I tugged at the waistband of my skirt. My mother had made it. She made most of our clothes and after announcing that all of my skirts were much too tight
, she’d made me four new ones. These ones were even more shapeless than the other skirts and secretly, I thought they were much too big. If my mother hadn’t put in an elastic waistband on the skirts, they would have fallen right off me.
I sighed inwardly. Creating bigger and more shapeless clothes was my mother’s way of shaming me about my size. Short and slender, she was always slightly puzzled by my height and my weight. Never quite able to understand how someone who looked like her had given birth to someone who looked like me. I was chubby from the start and while I did enjoy my food, I always privately thought that my large bottom, wide hips, and generous breasts were more genetic than a food addiction.
“Yes,” I said when I realized that Jemma was waiting for my reply.
“It’s, um, nice,” she said. “I like the colour.”
“Thank you.”
It was a boring navy blue. My father didn’t allow us to wear what he termed flashy colours, and I stared longingly at Jemma’s bright pink skirt. The colour was amazing, and I wondered briefly what it would be like to wear a skirt that short. It was well above her knees and I admired her tanned thighs and calves. My legs were lily-white thanks to their rare exposure to the sun.
My gaze drifted to her shirt. A shimmery silver, it clung to her slender waist and dipped low at the neckline to show off the tops of her small breasts. In contrast, my plain white shirt was buttoned securely to the neck and as too big for me as the rest of my clothes were.
I pushed down my yearning for new clothes. Spending the money on the makeup was risky enough. I couldn’t afford to use my hard-earned money to buy new clothes. I’d taken a job to save money for my escape, not luxuries. My father would sell me off like he’d sold Joy, I knew that without a doubt, and this job was my only chance of escaping my fate.
If you allowed Jeremiah to court you, it would buy you some time.
Yes, it would, but the thought of having Jeremiah court me made shivers run down my spine. It wasn’t just that he was unattractive, it was his mannerisms and his tone of voice and the way he looked at me like I was his property. His similarities to my father made me shudder.
“Naomi? Earth to Naomi?”
I pushed thoughts of Jeremiah and my father out of my head and smiled at Jemma. “Sorry, what did you say?”
“Why do you put your makeup on in the car every morning?” She opened the double doors to the building and motioned for me to go ahead.
“Oh, uh, always running late,” I fibbed.
If my father saw me wearing makeup, he’d have me on my knees and praying for the fate of my eternal soul for hours.
“Right,” she said as we stepped into the elevator.
Anxious to change the subject, I said, “Tell me about your new boyfriend.”
“Boyfriend?” She snorted laughter. “Oh, honey, no. He’s not my boyfriend. Just some random guy I hooked up with and will never see again but woo – that man’s dick was something else.”
My face heated again but Jemma, engrossed in explaining in detail what exactly the guy’s dick had done for her, didn’t notice. I listened silently, wishing feverishly that I was normal and could participate in conversations about the opposite sex.
* * *
Dane
“You know,” Mason stood next to me and glanced at my crotch, “if your sweet little PA knew exactly what you wanted to do to her, she’d run screaming from the building.”
I ignored him and my throbbing erection, my gaze remaining on the curvy woman in the shapeless clothes walking across the parking lot.
Mason leaned forward and stared out the window of my office. “Jesus, her clothes are even looser than normal. What is up with that?”
“She’s shy,” I grunted.
“So she wears ill-fitting clothes? Being shy is no excuse for bad fashion choices. I’m not even sure why you find her so damn hot.”
“Like hell you don’t. You want her just as much as I do, Mason.”
“It’s true,” he admitted with a grin. “There’s just something about her that makes my dick hard as a fucking rock.”
He adjusted his own erection as we studied the woman together.
“You know I’m going to have to seduce her first, right? She’s terrified of you,” Mason said.
I glared at him before stalking back to my desk. “She isn’t terrified of me.”
“Are you kidding? You even glance at her and she drops her gaze to the floor and starts shaking.” He continued to stare at Naomi, his hand rubbing at his cock. “We like our women to be submissive, not terrified.”
“I haven’t done anything to make her afraid of me,” I said.
Mason walked away from the window, running one hand through his short blond hair before dropping into the chair across from my desk. “Maybe not, but you do frighten her. You could try being a little gentler with her.”
“I don’t do gentle,” I said. “That’s your department, remember? You do the sweet talking, and I do the hard fucking until they’ve cum so many times they can’t remember their own goddamn name.”
“Hey!” Mason stared at me indignantly. “I am more than capable of fucking a woman into forgetting her name.”
I rolled my eyes and then checked my email. Mason sat back in the chair. “All I’m saying is that you’re going to need a softer touch with Miss Naomi Morris. She’s not like our usual conquests.”
“Do you ever get tired of seeing them as conquests?” I said.
“You getting tired of fucking around, Dane? You want to settle down with a good woman and make babies with her?”
“No, of course not.”
“Not so sure I believe you, buddy,” Mason said. “There’s nothing wrong with wanting to quit our whoring ways and find a woman, but,” he pointed his finger at me, “Naomi Morris is not that woman. There’s no way in hell she would agree to a permanent relationship with the both of us. Hell, we have our work cut out for us just getting her to agree to fuck the two of us for a weekend.”
“Maybe we shouldn’t even do that to her,” I said moodily.
Mason blinked at me. “What? You’ve been lusting after her for weeks – I’ve been lusting after her for weeks – and now suddenly you want to change the plan?”
“She’s not like the others,” I said.
“No, she isn’t,” Mason said, “and that’s what makes it so hot. Can you imagine what it will be like to strip off those awful clothes and finally see those curves of hers?”
I could imagine it, had been imagining it on an hourly basis for the last three months, and that was the problem. I was so hot for my shy, sweet PA, that my dick was making all the decisions.
“Dane.” Mason leaned forward and tapped his finger on my desk. “You need to know that even if you decide not to do this, I still will.”
“Seriously?” I was more hurt by his admission than I wanted to admit.
“Sorry, buddy, but I want this woman as much as you do. I’m not missing out on her because you’re getting cold feet about seducing someone as sweet as her. Besides, you would do the same thing if the roles were reversed. Admit it.”
He was right. And my hesitancy about seducing her would end the moment she walked into my office. It always did. Her light blue eyes, dark hair, and utterly fuckable lips had started an obsession that I couldn’t - didn’t want to – ignore.
“So, operation ‘seduce your sweet little PA’ has officially started, yeah?” Mason said with a grin.
I scowled at him. “You really need to knock it off with the stupid code names.”
“You love them, and you know it.” Whistling, Mason strode from my office, shutting the door behind him.
Chapter Two
Naomi
“What are you doing this weekend?” Jemma said as we grabbed our morning coffee from the kitchen.
“I have church on Sunday,”
“You want to go shopping with me on Saturday?” Jemma poured a healthy dollop of cream into her coffee. “I’m going to the mall
to do some birthday shopping for my mom and we could even, I don’t know, check out a few clothing stores.”
Her gaze slid over my ill-fitting outfit again and my cheeks flushed. I took the creamer from her. “Uh, thanks for the offer, Jemma, but I don’t think -”
“Come on, Naomi,” Jemma said. “I hate shopping alone.”
I poured cream into my coffee and stirred it as I considered what to say. Jemma had started working for the company a month ago and despite our different lifestyles, I really liked her. I didn’t have many friends – hell, I didn’t have any friends thanks to my father’s controlling attitude – and the urge to pretend to be normal, to go shopping with a friend was hard to resist. I usually spent Saturdays with my parents or participating in a church related activity.
“Can I, um, get back to you about it?” I said, as if I actually might go with her. I wanted to pretend I was normal for a little longer.
“Sure,” Jemma said. “Just let me know by Friday. Okay?”
“Yeah, okay. Thanks.”
We both paused when we heard the deep voice behind us. “Good morning, ladies. You’re looking lovely this morning.”
I turned and gave Mason Shaw, the CFO of the company, a nervous smile but Jemma’s face lit up.
In a low seductive voice that I knew I would never be able to imitate, she said, “Hello, Mr. Shaw. How was your weekend?”
“Excellent, Jemma, thank you. How was yours?”
“Wonderful,” she purred.
I stared at the floor and stiffened in shock when Mason said, “And yours, Naomi?”
He knew my name. Mason Shaw knew my name.
“Naomi?” he prompted.
I swallowed and forced myself to raise my gaze, meeting his hazel eyes with difficulty. “It was good, thank you.”
A little shiver ran down my spine. Mason was giving me a look that I had never seen before from him. Heck, until this moment, I don’t think he had ever even looked at me.
