“Are you serious?” she murmurs.
“I don’t think you understand what I need you for,” I tell her, stalking across the room and grabbing her hips. I pull her close, mashing our bodies together. “And you need to stop doing that.”
“What?” she murmurs, shifting all horny and excited against me.
“Walking away from me. Thinking something is going to ruin this.”
Something could ruin this—Henry, his response when he finds out.
But I won’t think about that right now.
“I don’t understand. Why would it make you want me more? What do you need from me? That’s what you said. You need me for something. I’m guessing you don’t mean as your driver.”
I smirk and bring my lips to hers, chuckling possessively when a shiver moves through her at the contact.
“I need you for everything, Molly.”
“I don’t understand,” she says, with a half-annoyed half-sassy note in her voice.
“The second I laid eyes on you – recently, when you became my driver, obviously not before… The moment I laid eyes on you, I knew I had to have you. I knew you were going to be the mother to my children. I never knew I wanted a family. I never knew a man like me – a man who worked his way to the top with his fists and his wits – would stray to that side of life. Fuck, I used to think it made men weak.
“But you, Molly, you’ve changed me. You changed me in a heartbeat. I need you more than you can understand, more than I can understand. So the fact that you’re a virgin only makes me want you more. Because now you belong to me, and only me, forever. Forever.”
I press my lips against hers, growling through the closeness of the kiss, loving the way she opens her mouth shyly and then sinks into it when her pleasure takes over. She wraps her arms around my neck as I lift her off her feet, placing her on the desk and grinding my manhood against her sex.
“Really?” she says, when we break the kiss, both of us panting hard.
“Really,” I snarl. “I don’t understand. I don’t care to explain it. Because I know it. It was instant, within seconds. I looked at you and I knew… I’d found her, the woman I didn’t even know I was searching for. You’re mine, Molly. You’re always going to be mine.”
“This is like a dream come true,” she murmurs, under her breath, as if talking to herself. Her eyes widen and she giggles. “I’m sorry. I know that sounds like the cheesiest thing in the universe. But I’ve imagined this moment so many times…”
I trail my fingers down her neck, captivated by the shivers it provokes in her, the way she shifts under my touch like I’m playing an instrument.
“You’re going to give me a family,” I tell her. “Children, a life… a future.”
“Yes,” she whispers.
I laugh gruffly, and yet there’s a surge of boyish happiness beneath the noise, a feeling I haven’t experienced since I was a boy. “You don’t sound very surprised.”
“I’ve always wanted this,” she mutters. “I’ve always wanted you. I used to try and imagine myself with the immature douchebags in high school, but I couldn’t. Because I’d always end up comparing them to you and they’d never measure up. Never. I think we’re—”
She giggles, shaking her head as her hand strays toward her face bumping into her hat.
“What?” I say, smirking.
“I’ve got this nervous habit, but I can’t do it with this silly cap on.”
I grab her driver’s hat and toss it onto the table.
“Go ahead. Free that gorgeous hair. But not before you tell me what you were going to say.”
She swallows, nerves flitting across her expression.
“I think we’re meant…”
“To be together,” I finish for her.
“Yes.” She nods. “Is that crazy?”
“If it is, I’m as crazy as you,” I snarl. “I feel exactly the same way.”
She shakes her head with another cute-as-fuck laugh.
“How is this even possible? So you looked at me and…”
“And my whole world came crashing down,” I snarl, kissing the edge of her mouth and then lean back so I can study her, this woman I’m going to spend the rest of my life with.
I imagine somebody busting in here and trying to take her from me – trying to steal this wonderful thing we’re building together – and my blood burns like lava in my veins, pumping in a war song.
I’d throw them out the damn windows if they weren’t shatterproof.
Even then, I’d find a way to make them pay for daring to challenge mine and Molly’s closeness.
“Really?”
I chuckle. “Are you fishing for compliments?”
She flutters her eyelashes at me, grabbing my shirt and pulling herself to her feet. “Maybe.”
“Look who’s Miss Confident all of a sudden.”
I grin, wolfishly, as she pushes up and finds my lips.
I smooth my hands up her back as we sink into the kiss, sliding my hands into her hair and freeing her bun. She giggles through the kiss, our teeth clicking together as her hair spills around her shoulders.
“Go on, then,” I say, leaning back.
“What?”
I study her with her hair all wavy around her shoulders, framing her face, making her look wild and somehow even more tempting. Her full cheeks blaze red, but somehow I know it’s not the red of nervousness, or at least not mostly that. It’s the red of excitement, of celebration, the red of knowing she wasn’t wrong to think we were made for each other.
“You said you had a nervous habit,” I say. “Show me.”
“It’s silly,” she murmurs, reaching up and pulling strands of hair across her face. “Yeah, that’s it. I guess it helped me get through high school.”
I reach up and smooth her hair from her forehead.
“I’d rather look at you. All of you.”
I trail my hand down to her shirt, toying with the top button.
“Murphy,” she moans. “I want to. But I don’t think I’m ready. Not yet.”
I close my hand into a fist, leaving her button alone.
The beast inside of me roars to take her anyway, to grab her shoulders and spin her around and bend her over the desk, tear off her pants with my teeth and rip her panties away, and then take her, over and over and over, until she’s squirting down my dick and she can’t even remember a time she wasn’t ready.
But she’s a virgin, my virgin, and her first time should mean something.
“Then we’ll wait until you’re ready,” I snarl, repressing a million urges to do the exact opposite, to grab her and push her into the positions I need her to be in. “Even if it’s the hardest thing I’ve ever done.”
She bites her lip, nodding, as though part of her is so bursting with lust she can’t stand the idea of waiting… and yet there’s uncertainty in her gaze too, the constant war that shivers across her expression between shyness and confidence.
I lean down for another kiss, but then my cellphone erupts from my pocket.
I sigh and take it out, ready to snap at whoever it is for interrupting the moment.
“Who is it?” Molly asks.
“Henry,” I say. “Your father.”
Your father, as if she doesn’t know who that is…
I answer the phone and hold it to my ear. “Henry.”
“Hey, Murph,” he says. “I’m downstairs, in the lobby. Wondered if I could come up and say hello?”
I swallow, glancing down at his daughter. There’s nothing strange about my best friend swinging by the office for a friendly catchup, but even so, it sends twisting anxiety rioting through me, making it hard to focus on the phone and my woman at the same time.
I push the feeling down.
Anxious is something I’m not used to feeling, but it’s there, knifing through me.
“Of course,” I say. “Molly is here too.”
“Great,” Murphy replies. “More the merrier.”
Molly’s eyes flood with panic, flitting here and there as though she’s looking for an escape.
But we both know there’s no escape, not from what we just did and not from what we’re going to do when we give in to this pulsing desire.
It’s me and her, forever.
Nothing can change that now.
Not even her father.
“I’ll let the front desk know you’re coming,” I tell him. “They’ll send you up.”
“Great.”
I hang up and gaze at my woman, my queen, the answer to all the questions I never even knew I was asking before she came along.
“Molly,” I say. “He’s coming up here. We have to tell him.”
She flinches. “What?”
“We have to tell him what’s happening between us,” I say, my voice firm. “We’re going to be together forever. We can’t keep it from him.”
Chapter Thirteen
Molly
I feel as if the world is spinning at hyper-speed, sending me whirring around crazily, like I could slip out of reality… no, like I could slip out of the crazy dream my life has become and return to normal life.
Everything Murphy said – I belong to him, I’m going to give him a family – blazes inside of me, a tight ball of destiny and fate or whatever heck it is. It’s true. I know that much. I feel it, deep in my bones, a declaration I can’t ignore, screaming at me to agree with him.
We can’t keep it from Dad forever.
“But not now,” I murmur, panic fueling my words. “It’s too fast, Murphy. We need to…”
We need to what?
Cowardice roils through me, impossible to ignore, as my mind floods with dozens of vignettes of Dad turning nasty and hateful when he learns the truth about me and his best friend.
“He’s all I’ve got now that Mom’s gone,” I whisper, voice choked, tears trying to brim in my eyes. “He’s my only family, Murphy. Just him and me. If he turned against me, if he started to hate me, I don’t know what I’d do.”
“We can’t keep this a secret forever,” he says firmly. “You know we can’t.”
I nod, wrapping my arms around myself, feeling tiny as I stand under this silver-haired giant. His intense eyes bite into me, locking me into place, and the heat of his body seems to envelop me. My sex tingles from where he touched me, my whole body pulsing from the kissing and the rubbing and the contact.
“I understand,” I tell him. “But ever since the cancer took Mom, he’s leaned on me, Murphy. He’s relied on me. I don’t want to disappoint him. Please, can we just wait a while longer? Please?”
I hate the pleading note in my voice, high-pitched and – let’s face it – pathetic, but he has to understand.
He can’t make this decision for me.
He takes a step forward, brushing a tear from my cheek with his thumb, sending a tingling sensation down my face, and over my body.
“Okay, Molly,” he says. “I won’t tell him until you’re ready. But he’ll have to learn the truth soon enough.”
“I know,” I whimper, leaning forward and placing my head against his chest, his powerful heartbeat drumming against my cheek. “I understand. It’s just—it’s hard, Murphy. Mom meant so much. To both of us, obviously. She was the one who first started encouraging my driving. When I was a girl and I wanted to play with cars instead of dolls, she was so enthusiastic about it. She was so amazing. And then the cancer came and it took her, cruel fucking cancer, and then it was just me and Dad and…
“And she was everything to him. She was his world. It broke him. I really believe that. He used to gamble here and there before her death, but never like he does now—or did, in England and before. God, I hope he’s stopped.”
I break off, realizing I’m rambling and certainly at the worst possible time.
Dad is on his way up here.
“Do you mind?” I ask, grabbing a fistful of his shirt and holding it to my face.
He chuckles, the vibrations of his body moving through me. “Go ahead. And thank you.”
“For what?” I murmur, dabbing my cheeks.
“For telling me about your mother, your feelings. It means a lot.”
I look up into his face, his jaw tight, his eyes gleaming as they stare into me, through me, as if they can see every single part of me and he’s obsessed with each piece, no matter how small. “Maybe you can return the favor, huh?”
“Maybe.” He smirks. “But I’d much rather spend my time exploring that curvy body of yours—”
His words cut off when the door rattles behind us, somebody trying to push it open, but it’s locked and the handle moves ineffectually up and down.
Fuck.
“It’s Dad,” I whisper, stepping away from him. “Oh, God. Just… act natural.”
He sighs darkly, clearly not liking the idea of this impromptu play, but he then nods shortly as he walks around the edge of his desk and drops into the chair.
“Door—unlock.”
The door opens and Dad bursts in, the momentum making him stumble and then catch himself with a short laugh. I want to giggle along with him, but it takes all my self-control to stand at the edge of the desk with my hands clasped in front of me, praying I’m not going to give anything away.
Murphy agreed not to say anything.
He wouldn’t go back on that… would he?
Worse, what if Dad can smell what we did, our lust dancing in the air?
I fix a smile to my face, hoping Dad doesn’t look too closely at me and my tussled hair, red-blooming cheeks, and the recent desire shivering across my expression.
Dad whistles as he walks across the large office, glancing at the window, smiling as he turns his face first to me and then to Murphy. He’s wearing a neat dark blue suit and he’s combed his hair, shiny with the product. He looks more optimistic than I’ve seen him in a long time.
“This place is amazing, Murph,” he says. “It’s like Batman’s office or something.”
Murphy chuckles, but I can hear rumbling beneath the noise, like any second the effort of keeping silent is going to become too much and he’s going to explode with the truth.
“Hey, kiddo,” he says to me, strolling over and offering me a smile. “I hope this old jackass isn’t working you too hard.”
I force more laughter, but it comes out sounding strangled and awkward. “Dad, that’s not very professional.”
He turns his grin to Murphy. “Professionalism has never been my strong suit, but I guess you’re right. Mind if I sit?”
Murphy nods. “You don’t have to ask.”
“Come on, Molly.” Dad waves a hand at the desk. “There’s no need to stand on ceremony.”
We sit on the opposite side of Murphy’s gigantic desk, as though the two of us are going to pitch something to Murphy… whereas, in reality, it’s going to be me and Murphy pitching something to Dad further down the line. Our lust, our closeness, our relationship…
Please, Dad, please understand, I imagine myself pleading. We’re meant for each other.
“Aren’t you going to ask me why I’m dressed like this?” he asks, waving a hand at his suit.
“Why, Dad?” I say quickly, desperate to fill any silence, no matter how short.
The silences create spaces where he could notice things, little signs of betrayal that will bring the whole edifice crashing down.
“I had a job interview,” he says, with an enigmatic smile on his face.
Murphy smirks, leaning forward, but I can only look at him for so long. His biceps press against his suit jacket and his lips glisten in the generous sunlight, still wet from our kisses, as though he can’t bear the idea of wiping it away and erasing our closeness.
“I know that look,” he says. “What game are you playing, Henry?”
“I interviewed for a job…”
“Yeah…”
“Here.” He chuckles. “There was a position going for a junior copywriter and, well, I used to be able to write, did
n’t I? In a different life. Before…”
Before Mom, before his addiction, but he leaves that unsaid.
“Henry,” Murphy says, shaking his head slowly. “If you wanted a job, all you had to do was ask—”
“I know,” Dad says swiftly. “Of course I could’ve asked you and of course you would’ve given me one. But that’s just it. I don’t want to be handed anything. If they want to give me a go, then fine. If not, I’ll find another way. Please don’t get involved with this, Murph.”
Murphy sighs, nodding. “I know better than to argue with that. You’ll never take more than you need to.”
“Of course I won’t,” Dad growls passionately. “What sort of person leeches off their best friend?”
Murphy nods shortly, and my heart does funny things in my chest.
Murphy wants to support us fully, but Dad’s pride won’t let him.
“Well, good luck, then,” Murphy says. “I won’t get involved. You’ve got my word on that.”
“Thank you,” Dad says. “Have we got time for a coffee?”
Murphy nods. “I’ll have somebody send it up. Molly, what’ll you have?”
He turns to me with those all-seeing eyes, eyes that send a thousand illicit sensations through my body, causing me to close my legs tighter against the irrepressible tingling even as Dad is sitting right there.
“Um, I’ll take a coffee, a latte, please.”
“Okay then. Henry, still a black-coffee man?”
“You know it.”
Murphy presses the intercom button and gives the order to someone, and a lady replies and says she’ll be up in ten minutes. Afterward, we sit there for a few long moments, and then the moments get longer and longer until it’s like we’ve been sitting here for days.
I search for things to say, ways to break the tension, but it’s impossible to know if the tension is in my mind or if everybody else is feeling it too.
“I’m proud of you, Dad,” I blurt, just so I don’t have to sit in this self-imposed awkwardness. “For quitting gambling. For going for the job. I know you’ll be amazing at it.”
I don’t remember much about Dad’s early days as a copywriter for various companies, but I’ve read old reviews on his now-defunct website, and they are all glowing, singing his praises.
Driving the Mob: A Steamy Standalone Instalove Romance Page 7
