Major Dad: An Older Man Single Dad Military Romance

by Mia Madison

  Major Dad

  Mia Madison

  Forbidden Fantasies

  Contents

  1. Rylie

  2. Ethan

  3. Rylie

  4. Ethan

  5. Rylie

  6. Ethan

  7. Rylie

  8. Ethan

  9. Rylie

  10. Ethan

  11. Rylie

  12. Ethan

  13. Rylie

  14. Ethan

  15. Rylie

  16. Ethan

  17. Rylie

  18. Ethan

  19. Rylie

  20. Ethan

  21. Rylie

  22. Ethan

  Epilogue

  Another Year later

  Also by Mia Madison

  About the Author

  1

  Rylie

  I’ve been tuning out my father’s voice for the last five minutes.

  “Rylie, are you listening to me?”

  “Yes, of course.” I give him one of my trademark smiles, displaying the perfect teeth he spent a fortune on. “I didn’t know Ethan had a child,” I say and garner an eyeroll. Anything to distract him from the ferocious persuasion of pushing me into joining the military.

  “You were away at school, weren’t you? No reason for you to be informed. Now – about this meeting.”

  “Yes, I know, with the recruiting office.”

  How did I not know that Ethan was a dad in all the years he’s been around, my father’s only real friend? I drift off to more interesting topics.

  “Rylie!”

  “Yes, Dad.”

  “And?”

  “And you expect me to go and give it my full attention and consideration, Sir,” I say, in a masculine military voice.

  “Don’t mock me, Missy,” he barks, pulling out a business card and handing it to me. “The date and time are written on the back.”

  I glance at it then push it into a pocket. “Shit, Dad. I’m not joining the army. I don’t know why you—”

  “Language, Rylie,” he says. “Especially here. I expect you to be an example of respect. Some of my men and women are barely out of high school.” He sits behind his large desk and points to a chair.

  Obediently, I sit. “I’m sorry, Dad. It’s not that I don’t respect you, but I’m not joining the Army.”

  “That’s your final answer?” he says. He appears almost sad when I nod.

  “But, the job market—” he tries yet again.

  “Yes, I know.” I wish there were more opportunities for recently graduated attorneys, but there aren’t. Besides, I haven’t passed the bar.

  Yet.

  I only failed it once. It’s harder than it seems, but I’m studying furiously, with all my free time. I have a lot of that right now. Nothing is lonelier than a recent graduate, still unemployed and living on a military base. Especially with an unwritten rule that officer’s daughters are strictly off-limits.

  Three loud raps on the door interrupt my thoughts.

  “Enter,” my dad says.

  He’s Lieutenant Colonel Cole to everyone else, his voice commanding and powerful. He frequently forgets I’m his daughter and not some random Private to be ordered around like an untrained puppy. I have to remind him on a daily basis that I’m not ‘Property of the United States Armed Forces.

  Oh crap.

  The door throws back and before I compose myself, heat blasts into every pore of my face. I must look like a fresh halved watermelon.

  “Sir, excuse me, Sir,” Major Ethan Hayes says, as he approaches my father’s desk. “Good afternoon, Rylie,” he adds, walking past me with a brief glance. His eyes lock on mine for a mere fraction of a second and my whole body stiffens, like this soldier could give it any command.

  I nod, unable to speak. My mouth instantly turns into the Mojave Desert. I want to say something witty, like ‘it is now’ or ‘it can be if you’re free later’ but I remain silent because I know that would sound childish. My pulse quickens and I realize I’m staring. Is my mouth hanging open? Shit, it is.

  Fuck, he’s just so impossibly gorgeous. He should be on the covers of magazines instead of defending badass military personnel from court martials.

  Ethan is tall, broad shouldered, muscular, that much is obvious. But what really gets into my mind, like a splinter I can’t extract, are his ocean blue eyes and that dimpled smile.

  He’s wearing standard camouflage uniform. Even lawyers in JAG wear that on a regular work day. He looks commanding now, completely different from last night when he and my dad were drinking beer, barbecuing in our backyard. Then his jeans sculpted the parts I should not have been sneaking glances at. Not with Daddy standing right beside him. Ethan’s black tee stretched to its fullest around his biceps. While the men talked army shit, I tried to count the delineated ridges of his ab muscles.

  I’m still flustered and confused by what happened. When not on the job they’re just two regular friends, Frank and Ethan. Rank and privilege don’t come between them. But I wonder what would happen if my father realized how close I came last night. And how Ethan inspires my all late night lust-filled fantasies.

  Which one of us would he kill first?

  Christ I should not be thinking about last night. Not when Ethan’s standing right here in front of me.

  “This could initiate a possible crisis in The White House,” he’s saying to Dad.

  How is he managing to remain so calm and strictly business? Talking to my father like I’m not even here? I’m sure Ethan must think I’m immature.

  My crush would seem so silly to him.

  I need to ignore the butterfly garden party in my tummy, the sweaty pits, dry mouth. And the way my nipples harden when he looks at me. He’s my dad’s best friend, and I’m way to young to be on his radar.

  Just forget it Rye. He can never be anything more than a family friend.

  No more thoughts of him taking me into his arms and showing me what it feels like to be a woman desired and pursued by a strong alpha male.

  I’m sure when he glances over at me while my father drones on, he doesn’t notice how I melt.

  He can’t possibly realize what he does to me.

  “And the Russians won’t know what we’re planning?”

  After another pussy-tingling gaze, Ethan goes back to lawyer talk with my father without noticing I’m here. It’s not as though I’m not used to being invisible around the men on the base. The officers won’t break the code that puts me off-limits. The code laid down and etched in stone by my father. Non-com’s won’t even innocently flirt with me. I wouldn’t care about being ignored by soldiers, if only Ethan noticed that I’m a woman with an advanced degree and not a child.

  “Rylie… Rylie!” My dad’s voice breaks me out of my self, er, absorption.

  “Sir,” I say reflexively.

  “Your clearance level doesn’t cover this and it seems it never will,” he says. Gotcha.

  “Please wait outside for a moment.”

  I stand to leave like an automaton. Ethan leaps up to get to the door ahead of me and holds it open. Slivers of light ride down my spine as I pass close by him. Am I imagining the heat pouring off his solid chest? The urge to run my fingers down his pecs and check whether they are really as rock hard as they seem under the green and gray camo almost overwhelms me.

  He’s at least six inches taller than me, and I have to look up to delve into his deep blue eyes. Do I detect a smidgen of a smile? The way his eyes sparkle, I momentarily forget that I just promised myself again, that I’d forget about him. He’s out-of-range, off-limits, strictly forbidden. We have
that much in common. A taboo I can only hope to forget about just as soon as I get away from the base and find a real job.

  “It’s nice to see you, Rylie,” he says politely—almost coldly.

  “Sir,” I say, returning his chill and then some. I sail past him into the outer hall, determined he won’t notice my discombobulation. Without a glance he shuts the door on me and I plop myself down like a defeated baseball player who’s struck out yet again. I hate this so much. I haven’t even had a coffee date, much less something more enthralling, in over a year.

  I immediately regret my ice queen attitude to Ethan. What am I trying to prove? Well, aside from covering up the fact that all I want to do is grab him. Reel him in by his dog tags and pull his mouth to mine so I can taste his masculine flavor. I long to be commanded wordlessly by Ethan’s lips and tongue.

  “Can I get you something to drink, ma’am?” a pimply-faced private busts into my dirty thoughts, smirking like he read them off a page.

  He's manning a reception desk outside my dad's office, and I barely noticed him before. I hate being called ‘ma’am.’ I’m twenty-four, not sixty-four. I give him a dismissive wave and mumble, “No. Thank you.” I just want to get back to imagining Ethan’s body lining mine.

  “Yes, ma’am.” He returns to his computer and stares at me, thinking I can’t tell he’s doing it.

  An hour later I’ve exhausted every scenario of Ethan bending me over the desk and am starting to fume. I get the military has its own standard of time and is the last bastion of hope for the free world, but honestly, I didn’t sign up for this kind of shit. I never said an oath or pledged my honor to the Military Code of Justice.

  I begin to wonder what my life would have been like if I’d left with my mom when she divorced my father. Instead of being stuck here like I’m in basic training, I’d be in Boston hanging out with my mother’s socialite friends and brunching at Michelin Five-Star restaurants.

  But back then I didn’t want to leave my friends or my school. I still thought having an Army Dad was the coolest thing in the world. Despite the fact that in his macho-dominated military arena all the men cheat, stray, or otherwise manage to destroy their relationships.

  Then I think of Ethan again, behind the closed door, and wonder if I’m being too harsh. Maybe I’m uptight around guys because I’m afraid they’re all going to behave the same way. But they can’t all be assholes, can they?

  2

  Ethan

  I watch Rylie walk through the door and I swear she’s given me one of those glances. The kind that make my balls pull back. Does she know what she’s doing? Is she teasing me? What would she think if she knew how I watch her ass wiggle and imagine my hands palming each cheek as I pull her into my arms?

  I’m sure her take would be that I’m just another alpha asshole with only one thing on his mind. Namely, the military’s Fuck and Evade Drill. It’s a fair conclusion.

  No guy could hit-and-run Rylie. She’s too special.

  I thought I made that clear to her last night but today she’s acting like nothing happened. Maybe she thinks I’m some old guy, her dad’s best friend, just being normally flirtatious.

  “Wouldn’t you agree most guys on base have no problem banging a hottie and never seeing her again?” She was throwing back a few beers last night. I know because I had my eye on her almost constantly.

  “Not one guy on MY base is banging you and watch your language in front of the Major,” Frank said.

  “Oh, is he one of the men I have to set an example to?” She grinned at me. Her eyes questioning me, daring me.

  Then I had to make sure I averted my gaze from my buddy’s only daughter. The one he’s as much as admitted to me he wishes had been born a boy so there’d be no argument about him following his father into the military.

  “Frank,” I said, as he continued shouting out the reasons Riley should change her mind and join up. “You’re like a priest trying to persuade Rylie to come into the fold.”

  “Cult more like,” she whispered and received a secret smirk from me which she shyly returned, her cheeks flushing adorably.

  “She’s my daughter. I think I know what’s best for her,” my bud said while he flipped burgers. “Didn’t you do well following my advice after you left ‘SC?” He has to remind me.

  “It’s true, and I’m grateful,” Ethan said. “But I also made up my own mind.”

  “I have my own mind, too, you know,” Riley piped up, just in case we forgot her presence. I love how sassy she is when it comes to battling the LC.

  “I don’t want to join up just because Ethan liked it. I have my own plans and dreams.”

  “She’s right, Frank. If you push her too hard, there will be consequences.”

  I was rewarded with another glittering smile from Riley.

  “Like I’ll run away and join the circus, or a harem,” she said with a filthy twinkle at me which, luckily, her father missed in his eye roll.

  Rylie stuck out her lower lip behind her father’s back, seated on the bench at the table while the men dominated the grill. Her pout drew my gaze and held me there, fixated on her mouth, struggling to pull free like I was stuck in quicksand. Her eyes trailed, meandered, up over me. A jolt of electric force went through my chest straight into my balls like I have never felt in my fucking life.

  Did she feel it too? Or sense it in me?

  Her lips parted slightly and her breath quickened. I could tell by the way her breasts rose and fell, fighting to keep my eyes off them and the nipples poking at her tee. I tried to picture an ice cold shower to stop my cock pressing at my pants any harder. Which worked momentarily, until Riley’s eyes traveled down and lingered on the bulge. Did she realize how her tongue trailed around the circumference of her perfect mouth as she stared at my massive erection. If Frank turned to me now, I’d find myself shipped to Syria at dawn. But I couldn’t rip my gaze away from her.

  As Frank droned on about the advantages of a life in the military, Riley and I locked onto each other like cruise missile and target. Not even the leader of the free world could have separated us.

  Rylie smiled then, shyly and lifted her fingers to the corner of her mouth. She stroked the edge, as though she thought maybe she had guac stuck there. While I thought I might potentially lose my load, my wood was throbbing so hard. The intense longing for her had my insides wrapping around themselves.

  “Rylie, did you hear me?” Frank barked us both out of our reverie. “I need the tongs from the kitchen. Please put them back in their correct location at the grill in future.”

  “I’ll go,” I said and took off for the house before he ordered me to stay. Maybe some ice down my pants would do the trick.

  Of course I realize I have no chance with the daughter of my best friend. But I shouldn’t even be looking at her with those kinds of thoughts invading every fucking cell. I need to put her out of my mind before I do something stupid and put my career in jeopardy.

  I opened various drawers in the kitchen but the grill tongs weren’t in any of them. My skin felt like it was striped with searing, rendering me a walking hangar steak. I darted to the freezer, pulled back the door and stuck my head inside.

  “You won’t find them in there,” the sexiest kitten voice I’d heard in decades announced at my back. I whirled around and grazed off Riley’s beautiful and enticing curves. She was standing so close. Too fucking close and up on tip toes, pretending to look over my shoulder into the refrigerator.

  “Riley,” I husked. I had to imagine court martials and shootings at dawn to prevent my hands from clasping her hips and pulling her into me. Her mouth was one tip of the head away. So tempting, I needed to cram against the icebox just to cool my burning limbs.

  “Only me,” she whispered. A little vixen voice. What was she playing at?

  Right – that’s what it was, a game. But she’s not a girl any longer. She’s twenty four years old and a woman. An intoxicating, powerful, delicious…. Daughter of my fr
iend and CO.

  The silence expanded like a balloon and we stood there mute, in front of the refrigerator. We were lost staring dumbly into the depths of each other. Our eyeballs gouged deeper, seeking out reasons for this sudden change in our perception of each other. At least that’s how I thought of it, until realization slammed into me. I’d always felt this way about Riley. I’ve known her father close to a decade and Riley has been buried in my thoughts and unconscious dreams for a lot of those years.

  Inch by inch, like a tadpole moving through honey, our lips crept toward each other. Riley’s chest was moving so fast, she was close to panting for breath. Her amazing tits rose and fell and I longed to palm the round mounds and squeeze unrelentingly. Closer and I could feel her soft warm breath, slightly beery with a jasmine undertone from her perfume, fall on my upper lip.

  I couldn’t help it. One kiss wouldn’t hurt. Frank was outside and I know he’d never walk away from tending the fire. He wouldn’t burst in on the one breaking out in his kitchen.

  “Ethan,” Riley murmured, almost imperceptibly. “I want -”

  An aggressive noise sounded in my back pocket and I realized it was the special ring tone for Lisa, my ex. My kid’s mom. Shit. That jolted me out of every ounce of lust and I pulled back from the most gorgeous girl, to get the call.

  “Riley, the tongs,” Frank hollered from the back yard.

  With another sexy pout, Riley turned to retrieve the implement from the larder. I resigned myself to whatever the latest bullshit was that Lisa’s thought up to taunt me.

  Despite my best intentions, I watched Riley sashay from the kitchen to the garden, her hips swaying, her round ass absolutely stunning in the short shorts.