Forbidden Roommate: Her Dad's Best Friend Series Set

by Penny Wylder

  “A while ago.” I smirk, lifting my chin high, holding his gaze steady. “Just took you a minute to notice, I guess.”

  “Oh, you don’t know what I noticed,” he murmurs, and the sudden, low heat in his voice does all kinds of crazy things to my body. My toes curl inside my standard-issue work shoes, and my belly tenses. It feels like I swallowed a whole fireplace, there’s so much heat in my core, spreading out to tingle along the tips of my fingers.

  “Why don’t you tell me?” I raise an eyebrow and take a step closer to him. I expect him to back off, or tell me this is a bad idea. But he surprises me. He holds his ground, his smile only widening.

  “You sure you want to play this game with me, Mags?” He says the last word in a whisper, and it only stokes the flames that have been building further.

  Mags. It’s what he’s always called me, since as long as I can remember. When I was a teenager, going through my hormonal phase, I can’t deny, I fantasized about hearing him call me that in totally different situations. Russ might be twice my age, this whole thing might be totally inappropriate, but I don’t care.

  In fact, at the moment, if anything, that makes it even better. I think about the expression on Dad’s face, if he caught me flirting with his best friend, and it only makes me bolder. “I’ve always been good at games. Or don’t you remember how often I kicked your ass at poker nights?”

  He chuckles softly. “You realize I was going easy on you, right?”

  I arch an eyebrow. “Well, then you’d better stop. Because that’s exactly what I don’t want.”

  Russ pauses. He runs a hand through his hair, a motion that makes the corner of his scrubs top inch up, just far enough to reveal a slice of his stomach, cut abs above a happy trail that my hands itch to trace. Then it falls back into place, as he casts a quick glance around us in either direction, as if he’s trying to decide whether he should continue with this. There is a cluster of nurses passing, clipboards in hand. One of them glances our way, and then the rest do, all of them trading glances between them.

  In response, I reach up to place my fingertips on Russ’s arm, just above his watch. A barely-there touch, yet his skin feels heated under my fingertips. Boiling almost. But I keep my hand there, keep smiling, the grin turning mischievous as the nurses’ eyes widen, and they start to whisper amongst each other.

  I want them to talk about this. I want them to report it to Dad. I want him to know what happens when he pisses me off. Dad thinks he can control every single aspect of my life, but he can’t. There are some decisions only I can make, some areas where I’m still the one in control.

  And who I flirt with is very much one of those areas.

  To judge by the look on Russ’s face, as he glances from my hand on his arm, to my eyes and back again, he knows this is a bad idea. A dangerous one.

  But when his eyes find mine again, all fire and heat, I realize that he’s come to the same conclusion I have. If this is a dangerous game, that only makes it more interesting.

  “Really, Maggie Owens.” Russ takes a step toward me. Another. His chest almost touches me, we’re standing so close. At this distance, I catch his scent. He smells like musk and smoke, all heat and fire. It reminds me of the scotch he and Dad always drink at our get-togethers, while Mom and her friends are mixing up margaritas instead. Or maybe the cigars Russ smokes afterward, out on our patio. He let me have a puff off of one once, when I was still in high school, and I came out for just ten minutes to wave hello to the party before I had to head back upstairs to bury myself in books again.

  I still remember that night. The way he drew a puff before he passed the cigar to me, still wet from his mouth. The way I wrapped my lips around it and followed his instructions, breathed in a faint puff of smoke before I exhaled it, slow, through my nose so I could taste it right. It tasted incredible. But not as good as I imagined his mouth would taste, based on the tiny glimpse I got.

  It made me shiver, that night, when he put the cigar back into his mouth, and I knew his lips were clamped right where mine had been a second earlier, my cherry flavored lip gloss still tinting the butt of the cigar.

  “So tell me what you do want, then,” he murmurs, so close to me I can practically feel the words vibrate in his chest. He raises an eyebrow. “You like it hard?”

  “Hard. Rough.” I pause to flick my tongue across my lips, and I’m gratified to see the way his gaze drops to follow its tracks. “Anything but safe.”

  “Well.” His grin curls around the edges. “You certainly picked an interesting way to announce it, I’ll give you that. An interesting place to bring it up, too.” His gaze drifts back to the halls around us, following the tracks of the nurses. They’re almost at the far corner now, I can hear the squeak of their sneakers from here. They don’t work in the same wing as me, so I don’t know any of their names, but I recognize a few of them from around. And I’m sure all of them know who I am, at least.

  Word gets around fast when the director of the hospital’s daughter signs up to the nursing staff. No matter how much I might have wished to remain just another anonymous face in the staff room, it was never going to happen. Not with Owens splashed across my name tag.

  Or with my father in his office, sending down edicts like some kind of creepy overlord, obsessed with making sure I do every single thing he orders me to.

  But he never ordered me to do this. He would kill me if he saw it, in fact. A thought that makes the edges of my grin curl.

  “See, that’s what I’m worried about.” Russ arches an eyebrow, clearly watching me watch the nurses. “I understand why you’re angry right now, Mags, I really do. But I don’t want you getting in over your head.”

  “Believe me, I know exactly what I’m doing.” I whip back around to lock eyes with him again. This time when I reach up to touch his arm, I don’t stop there. I let my hand trail all the way up his bicep, until it curls around the back of his neck. He’s a good half a head taller than me, but that doesn’t stop me from flirting. Besides, the nurses are gone now, out of sight. His objections hopefully went with them. “All I want is to feel in control of one thing, Russ. To feel like I can make one decision for myself.” I study his eyes. Dark, brown like his hair. But there are flecks in them, slightly lighter patches that I never noticed before.

  He studies me right back, and to judge by the heat in those intense eyes, he’s close to giving in. “I can’t say I’ve never thought about it.” His gaze drops, slowly. Over my lips, my chest, my curves. I suppress a shiver that threatens to break out, at the way his eyes linger. Like he’s memorizing me, drinking me in. “You are a fucking sexy as hell woman, Mags. But I think you know that by now.”

  I smirk. “Some people might have mentioned it.”

  “Boys, I’d bet.” He raises an eyebrow. “You can’t have had a real man appreciate you.”

  The words curl in my belly. “No,” I breathe. “Never anyone like you.” I trail my fingers back down his arm, and this time, he finally, finally responds in kind. His hands trace slowly along my arms, up to my shoulders. Then they slide down my sides, tracing the edges of my curves. He passes over my waist, then out wider again to grip my hips.

  Without warning, he pulls me against him, my soft body crushed against the hard steel of his muscles. I can feel myself bend into him, molding against him, my legs trembling, my body already getting eager with want. I wore thin panties beneath my scrubs this morning, and they’re in danger of getting wet at this rate, if they aren’t already. Still, Russ’s hands keep moving, keep tracing along me, up to my waist again, back down.

  “Maggie… I’ve thought about this moment. So many times before. Alone in the shower, late at night, after long shifts when I had to watch you strutting around on the far side of the hospital, too far away to ever touch…”

  My breath catches in my throat. He fantasized about me too? I swallow hard, my throat suddenly tight, my nerves alight with anticipation. “I… I thought about you. All the time. After
those family parties, I used to wish you’d sneak out of the guest room and into mine.” I summon my courage and meet his gaze again, savor the heat and the intensity there. “I’ve wanted you for so long. I used to touch myself, thinking about you.”

  He lets out a low, guttural sound, almost a growl. “Christ, Maggie, you can’t tell me this unless you want me to pull you into an empty room right here and now.”

  I raise a single eyebrow, my smile spreading. “What’s stopping you?”

  He lets out a sharp, slow breath. Then he, too, starts to smile, slowly. “Don’t you have rounds?”

  I tilt my head, affect my best innocent girl expression, and bat my eyelashes a few times. “Alas, my father took those away from me. He said I should concentrate on the hospital’s few, elite guests instead… Since my schedule is so freed up now, I’m sure he wouldn’t begrudge me taking a little time off.”

  “Or rather, you’d enjoy making him furious wondering where you are,” Russ points out, with a smirk. His gaze sweeps over my face again, my body. “Not half as furious as he’d be if he learns what you were doing instead.”

  “I won’t tell him,” I whisper, because I’m worried about this hesitation I’m seeing. “It’ll be our little secret, I swear. I don’t want to get you into trouble, or fired or anything—”

  To my surprise, though, Russ just barks out a laugh. “Maggie. If your father wants to fire me, he’s welcomed to try. I have about a hundred job offers at competing hospitals coming in every year, which I always turn down from loyalty to him. But I’d be fine.” He tilts his head, his gaze going serious for just a moment. “It’s you I’d be worried about.”

  “Don’t be. I can take care of myself.” I grin. Let my hands trace down his chest, to the abs I can feel even through the fabric of his scrub shirt. “Though, I’d prefer to let you take care of me right now.”

  At those words, the fire flips back on in Russ’s gaze, and before I can react, he’s pushing open the fire escape door beside us, his hands tightening around my waist as he drags me through it. “Oh, believe me, that I can do,” he murmurs.

  3

  Russ backs me against the wall of the fire escape stairs. It’s dark in here, the only light the faint red glow from the Emergency Exit sign over the door we just came through. Almost nobody uses these back stairs, because they claim to be alarmed. There are signs all over the front saying the alarm will sound if the door opens. Russ is one of the few people, besides my father and me and a handful of other administrators, who knows that the door alarms haven’t been functional for years.

  It’s a good spot. A secret one to abscond to. I’ve used it more than once before, on bad days. Days when we lose people, or when the stress of keeping up with all of my patients at once threatens to overwhelm me.

  I’ve never used the stairwell like this, though. For something so much better than just a quick distraction, a spot to sneak off to be alone for a little while. Russ pins me against the wall and then his lips find my temple, my cheek. He kisses his way down my jawline, all while his hands continue to trace along my hips, down and around to grip my ass hard.

  I gasp a little, my own hands sliding up to drape over his shoulders so I can brace myself against him.

  He draws back, grinning at the sound I make, and his eyes flash where they meet mine. “You are fucking sexy as hell, you know that?”

  “Speak for yourself,” I murmur, breathless, and grin when he finally, finally leans in to kiss me. His lips on mine are fire, explosions. He kisses me hard and deep, his tongue slipping between my lips to dance with mine, to claim me. To mark me as his own.

  I’ve never been kissed like this. Boys my age tend to grope and peck, or else come in way too aggressively with the tongue. Russ knows what the hell he’s doing, though. He knows when to kiss me harder, when to deepen it, and when to ease back again, teasing, nipping at my lower lip before he pulls away to kiss along my jawline, his lips warm, the stubble of his beard scratching along my cheek.

  “God, you taste incredible.” He nips at my neck, before kissing the same spot again, and I gasp once more, unable to help myself, my hands tracing along his back, up to his shoulders.

  His hands slip back up to my waistline, and his fingers toy with the band of my scrubs.

  “You know, you even manage to make these look sexy. That takes some doing.” He smirks, as his hand slips beneath the waistband, tracing down the flat plane of my belly, his surgeon’s hand rough and calloused against my smooth, soft skin. His fingertips reach my panties, and he toys with them slipping a thumb under the edge before he draws it out again, tracing along the fabric. “Tell me what you fantasized about.” He meets my gaze. Lifts an eyebrow. “You told me you fantasized about me, so let’s hear it.”

  My throat goes dry, and my mouth along with it. I wet my lips, but it doesn’t do much good. Just makes me all the more aware of how fast my breath is coming right now, how hard my heart is beating, as Russ’s fingertips continue to explore. He traces down along my panties until he reaches the crease where my thigh meets my hip, and digs his thumb into the sensitive skin there, pressing just hard enough to make me twist in anticipation, wishing he’d move his finger just a few more degrees to the left, touch me where it counted.

  “I…” I swallow thickly, blink a few times to remember how to use my tongue. “I used to dream about you… coming into my bedroom. You’d lie down along me and kiss me, hard.”

  He tilts his face back up to eye me. Then he kisses me again, his tongue slipping between my lips once more, exploring, tasting. Claiming me, entirely. When we break apart, I can hardly breathe, struggling to catch my breath. “Like that?” he asks, his expression one of pure amusement.

  “Y-yeah. Something like that.” I grin, still feeling a little shaky.

  “What else?” he prompts, his hand sliding down the smooth flesh of my thigh, his fingers gripping so hard I can feel my skin dimple beneath them. Slowly, sturdily, he parts my legs. I stand wider, my back still flat against the wall, as he slips one hand between my legs, hard. I gasp, and hang from his shoulders for balance, my eyes fluttering half shut as he explores me.

  “Then I’d dream about you… tasting me. Kissing my whole body, head to toe. Every inch of me. Until you finally put your mouth between my thighs and—”

  “Licked your soaking wet pussy until you begged?” he guesses, an eyebrow arched, his expression one of amusement.

  I swallow again, harder this time. “Yes.”

  “Mm. I’d love to act that one out in real time, but I’m afraid we should be quicker here. We’ll have to save that fantasy for a time when we can enjoy ourselves for longer.” His eyes sparkle, and the suggestion that we might be able to do this again, that he might want this to be more than just a one-time hookup, but maybe an ongoing one, is enough to thrill me all over again, my breath hitching in my throat.

  “I used to think about how you’d fuck me too,” I admit, my voice low and taut.

  His smile widens. “Oh. And how did you think I’d do it?”

  My heart feels like a rabbit, kicking against my ribcage. Still, I get the words out. “Hard. Fast. Merciless.”

  He chuckles softly. Then he catches both of my wrists in his hands and pins them over my head before I can move a muscle. “Like this, little one?” He cocks his head to one side, watching me.

  My whole body quivers, my belly clenched tight. I’m pretty sure I’m already soaked through these panties, but I don’t even care. Not when he’s right here, his hot, muscular body pressed against mine, so close I can feel the hard bulge through his scrubs, where his belly touches mine. His cock is already hard as a rock, pulsing, ready for me. And fuck, I want it.

  “Just like this,” I manage.

  He grins, and keeps my wrists pinned with one hand above my head while his other hand slides back over my body. He takes his time, his fingertips grazing the edge of my neck, trickling over my collarbone, until they circle my breasts. His thumb drags across my nipp
le, and I gasp at the pressure, even through the layers of my scrubs. Then he keeps going, sliding down to my belly. His hand slips under my scrub shirt, and I tense at the sudden heat and warmth of his fingers, the callouses on his palms striking against my smooth skin like matches.

  “You feel as soft as I always imagined you would,” he murmurs, and the words send a thrill to my belly, a reminder that this is really happening, I’m really here with the man I imagined in so many of my dreams before. His hand reaches my bra, his fingers easing under it, until his bare palm cups my breast firmly.

  I arch my back toward him, my mouth falling open, and he takes the opportunity to lean in and kiss me, hard and full on the mouth, his tongue slipping through my lips to dance with mine. When we pull apart again, I’m breathless, aching for him. My clit throbs between my legs like a sentient thing, hungry for more.

  “Fuck me,” I breathe, my face inches from his, so my breath dusts across his lips.

  He smiles, and it’s the kind of wild, hungry smile that sets me on fire. “So eager.” His eyes flare white hot with desire. He tilts his head to one side, studying me. All the while his fingers wend lower, back down over my belly to dip beneath the hem of my scrubs. This time he doesn’t stop at my underwear. He tugs my panties aside, his fingers delving below the fabric, against my smooth, freshly shaved skin. “Ask me nicely, little one.” His eyes dance with amusement. He likes teasing me, damn him.

  I can’t say I mind all that much, though. I arch up toward him when his fingertips reach my mound, skating across me. “Please,” I whisper. “Please, fuck me.”

  His smile widens. His fingers reach my thighs, part them gently. Then he cups my pussy fully, the heel of his palm against my clit, his fingertips delving between my thighs to spread my pussy lips. They part with a slick wet sound, and it makes him chuckle softly in the back of his throat. His index finger delves into my slit, and I gasp aloud at the sensation of his thick finger parting the lips of my pussy.