“He as much as told me himself that he can’t do a proper briefing without Hatheway there, so the whole thing was a waste of time.” Dad sighs noisily. “It was an insult, that’s what it was. As if my time isn’t important. We’re going to have to schedule another meeting now. All of that preparation, and the loss of my lunch with my daughter, for nothing.”
“We can get lunch another day, Dad,” I say, trying to cheer him up. “It’ll be better next time. Maybe they send the assistant first to check you out and then Mr. Hatheway comes along after. It could be the way they always do things.”
Dad makes a frustrated noise down the line. “I don’t know why you’re arguing his side,” he says.
“I’m not,” I protest, my heart skipping a beat. “I’m trying to make you feel better.”
“Hm.” There’s a pause before Dad begins again. “Well, I still think it’s a good time for you to come on board with us. If it’s only going to be a couple of months before I end up quitting and going elsewhere, you can come with me. And with all the new changes they’re no doubt going to want to make, everyone else will be struggling to get their head around things too so you won’t be singled out too much as the new girl.”
I sigh. This again? “Dad, I don’t want to join the company,” I say. “I’ve told you. And anyway, if it’s going to be so bad there, why would I want to?”
“Because you need experience on your resume. What else are you going to do with this time? You need experience, Dahlia. Companies require it. You’re not going to get a better start than this. What are you going to do, wait tables for pennies?”
“I don’t want a job at all right now,” I tell him. The words come out of my mouth without thought, and I don’t realize they’re true until I say them. “I’d rather settle down and start a family.”
“What?” Dad screeches. “Where is this coming from? Are you pregnant?”
“No, Dad,” I say. I would almost laugh at the question, except that he says it with such anger. “I just feel like that’s the way I want my life to go.”
“Are you with some boy? Is someone putting you up to this?”
He sounds furious now. I bite my lip, knowing there’s nothing I can really say to make him stop shouting. I don’t expect him to understand. It’s a feeling deep inside me, a desire that came out of nowhere but was also there all along. I want this. I want to be a mother, a wife. It feels like it could give my life meaning more than any other kind of path. I want to belong to someone.
“No, Dad, it’s just how I feel,” I tell him. He doesn’t need to know about Nick yet. Besides, it’s not that it was Nick’s idea. It’s just that when he said it, it felt so good – so right. Like the piece of the puzzle I have been missing this whole time. As soon as he said it, I felt it go right through me like yes, this is what I want. “Look, I’ve got to go, my food just arrived. I’ll see you tonight.”
I end the call before he can say anything else, knowing that it won’t go well from here no matter what happens. I walk past the smiling doormen again and into the restaurant, looking ahead. There’s Nick, sitting at our table. At this angle, I can only just see him, but he leans forward to catch a glimpse of me and smiles. I quicken my steps, feeling the anticipation of going back to him. This feels right, even if nothing else does.
I have almost reached our table when someone steps out and blocks my path entirely, coming from the side of the room where I wasn’t looking. My first thought is that I’m about to get thrown out for not looking the part but by the smile on this stranger’s face, I soon realize that something entirely different is happening.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Nick
I catch sight of Dahlia coming back into the restaurant and lean forward to smile at her, excited to have her coming back over to me. In spite of myself, I feel my heartbeat quickening, my blood running that little bit hotter. I feel like a teenager at the sight of her, and we’ve only just begun.
I’m thinking about how it’s probably a good sign that she’s still smiling at me, when someone steps in front of her and blocks her path. I frown, watching. The man came from one of the tables on the other side of the room, where his buddy is still sitting, watching events unfold with a smirk.
I tense up, feeling my shoulders strain as I watch her facial expression change from a happy smile to uncertainty and even fear. She shouldn’t have to look like that. The man says something, I can’t hear them, but Dahlia blushes and shakes her head, her gaze going to the floor. She gestures in my direction, and I feel my hands forming into fists on the table. He’s hitting on her, isn’t he? And she’s telling him that she’s here with me, just like she should.
Dahlia makes a move to step around him and head towards me, but he steps over at the same time, putting his arms out on either side and blocking her path. Then those same arms come around to land on either side of her shoulders, keeping her in place. She flinches when he touches her, her body language screaming how uncomfortable she is, her shoulders scrunching in and her hands tightening in front of her body.
I can’t watch anymore. A red mist coming over my eyes, I won’t stand by and watch someone scare my girl. Before I even know it I’m coming up rapidly on him from behind, and I can hear their conversation.
“I really don’t want to,” Dahlia is saying, her voice thin and high.
“Sure you do, sweetheart,” he laughs. He sounds like he might even be drunk. “You like fancy lunches? Me and my friend here can treat you to…”
We never get to find out what he might have been able to treat her to. He never finishes his sentence, because that’s the moment when I catch up to him and grab him by the shoulder, spinning him around and wrenching him away from Dahlia. I won’t allow him to touch her. I won’t allow him to talk to her like that. I give him a moment to try to figure out what’s going on, to look at me and see that I’m angry, before I wind my fist back and throw it into his face at full force.
He hits the floor with a thud, utterly stunned. Dahlia gasps and takes a half-step back out of his path, and there’s a shocked silence around us, the sound of everyone turning to look. The guy on the floor is groaning, his hands over his face. When they come away, they’re covered in blood.
“You broke my nose,” he says, his voice obscured slightly by the new shape of his nasal passages. I’m glad. It’s what he deserves.
“You touched my girl and her uncomfortable,” I tell him, down on the floor. He starts rolling as if to get up, but when I take another step in his direction, he falls still.
The threat is neutralized, and I feel good about that, but now that my anger has found satisfaction I’m aware that everyone in the restaurant is currently staring at us. Diners and serving staff alike. Even Dahlia is staring at me, wide-eyed, though she doesn’t look at me with fear. I think she’s just shocked that someone would step up to defend her honor like that.
Just what kind of guys has she been hanging around, that she would be surprised at someone defending her. No wonder she’s going on lunch dates with her Dad instead of a boyfriend if she hasn’t even met a real gentleman before.
“The atmosphere in here seems to be a little tense,” I say, glancing around the room with a little amusement as I button up the front of my suit jacket. I have the feeling that in a moment or two, someone is going to come and ask us to step outside without any fuss. “What do you say we go somewhere a little more private? Perhaps to my suite?”
“Your suite?” Dahlia repeats, still looking a little shell-shocked.
“I’m in a hotel,” I tell her, then offer a self-deprecating smile. “Don’t worry. It has a kitchenette and an entertainment room, not just a bedroom.” I offer her my arm, as I step deliberately over the guy on the floor.
To my relief, Dahlia slips her arm through mine, offering me a smile as we turn back towards the entrance. For a moment I had thought I might have scared her off, that she would prefer to go home alone or back to her Dad. But she’s still with me. I haven’t
terrified her so much that she’ll want to leave.
We step back outside into the warm sunshine, and I can’t say that I regret a thing. He had it coming. My knuckles feel a little sore from the impact that broke his nose, but it was worth it.
“It’s not far from here,” I tell her. “Just a couple of blocks. But since we walked here, I’ll let you decide. Should we walk, or call a car?”
Dahlia glances up and down the street. “I don’t like getting a cab out here. They tend to overcharge.”
“Not a cab,” I tell her, placing my hand on hers where it sits in the crook of my arm. “A car. I have a chauffeur on standby.”
Dahlia’s eyes widen in surprise and, I think, glee. But she looks up at the sky, where the sun is still shining brightly, and shakes her head. “We can walk,” she says.
And so, we do. Only two blocks, but it’s at once too long and not far enough. Too long because I can’t wait to have her all to myself, away from all of the other strangers on the street. Not far enough, because now that the tension of the restaurant incident is behind us, she opens up into warm and easy conversation.
“I haven’t even decided on what my major would be,” Dahlia is saying as we come up to the front of the hotel. “I know a lot of students start out like that, but I really don’t have any idea at all. I don’t know what I want to do. Nothing seems right.”
“You can study whatever you want,” I tell her. “The truth is that college is important, but it’s more the experience of going than anything else. People think they have to stick with something for the rest of their lives. Actually, if you want to reskill later on, you can just do night classes or go to community college and get a new qualification.”
“It’s not as easy as that,” Dahlia says, giving me a half-teasing look. “I know it isn’t.”
“Not for everyone,” I shrug. “But if money’s no object, then you might spend the whole of your life studying one major after another, if that’s what you want to do. And if you really want something, you’ll be willing to work hard for it.”
“Is that what you did?” Dahlia asks. I can barely tear my eyes away from the fire in hers to make sure I don’t walk into the doorframe as we head inside, past the doormen in their red uniforms.
“It is,” I say. I gesture across the marble lined lobby to the elevator at the other side. “This way. I’m in the penthouse suite. You don’t want to try the stairs.”
“Is it high?” Dahlia asks.
I smile at her. “You’ll see.”
The elevator doors close, and I have to resist the urge to grab hold of her now that we’re alone in this enclosed space. I want to run my hands all over her body and let her know that she is mine. I want her naked by the time we get to the suite. But I restrain myself, because I don’t want to scare her. She’s been through an eventful lunch.
When the elevator doors open and I unlock the doors to the penthouse suite, I turn immediately, not wanting to miss a moment of Dahlia’s expressions. I’ve noticed that her every thought plays out across her face, an endearing quality that makes me want to drink her in all the more. I see awe as she looks around the handsomely furnished space, done out in stark black and white with the odd pop of red on light fixtures and vases.
“It’s amazing,” she says. She steps further into the room and her eyes go immediately to the large glass windows across one side of the room, giving a clear view out over the city. She steps up to them, looking out.
“What do you think? Is it high?” I ask her teasingly.
She nods her head, taking it all in. The view is stunning, after all, this is one of the tallest buildings in the city. You can see almost everything from here. “It’s beautiful.”
“Yes,” I say, although I only have eyes for her. “It is.”
She looks up at me then, blushing lightly, realizing that I mean her and not the city. For a moment I think she’s so shy she will turn away, but then, to my surprise, she reaches up on her tiptoes and plants a light kiss on my lips.
I stare at her for a moment, my mouth still feeling the soft impression of hers. I never thought she would be the one to make the first move. But now that she has, and permission has been granted, I can no longer hold myself back. I swoop down to cup her face in my hands and lift it, turning her chin up, and claiming her mouth in a deep and lingering kiss.
When we break apart for air, I look down into her eyes and see only excitement there. She wants this. I was expecting to have to work for it, but it seems that maybe I already have. I showed her she is mine when I took out the guy that was hitting on her. Now she knows it.
I kiss her with deeper abandon, letting one hand slide down over her body as the other holds her face. My tongue searches between her lips until it finds hers, and she stiffens momentarily as my hand brushes over her breast. I make to move away, thinking I’ve gone further than she wants, but then her hand comes over mine and puts it firmly back into place.
I break the kiss only to start planting more over her jawbone, her neck, and her collarbone, growling low in my throat. I want her, and I’m going to have her. I want to rip her clothes off, throw her on the bed, and show her how deep my desire for her runs.
“You’re mine,” I tell her in a low voice, my hands sweeping around her hips to land on her ass and pull her flush against me.
“I will be,” she says. “Totally. Body and soul. I mean it. I want to give you what no one else has ever taken.”
No one else? What does that mean? “Your soul?” I ask.
“No,” Dahlia says. She looks at me through lowered lashes, and shivers a little in my arms. I realize that, for all that she made the first move, and for all the eager ways she’s shown that she wants this, she’s more nervous than I thought. She is thrumming like a live-wire, a constant trembling born out of sheer energy. “My body.”
The words hit my ears like a drum, making me loosen my hold on her and step back a little.
“Are you… telling me that you’re a virgin?”
“Yes,” Dahlia says, her cheeks flaming.
I step back, letting go of her entirely. As much as my cock wants to jump out of my pants and take over, my head is in charge, and that is killing off any urges I might have. “Then we can’t do this,” I tell her. “It’s unacceptable.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
Dahlia
Nick’s words fill me with panic as he steps back from me. The hard rod I could feel against my stomach is gone, and with it, my certainty that he wants me. I thought we were almost there. What happened?
Is he so disgusted by the thought that I’m an inexperienced virgin?
Are you not supposed to admit to it? I’ve never been in this position before, I don’t know what I did wrong.
“It’s unacceptable,” Nick repeats, reaching out to grip my chin with his fingers. He tilts it up, forcing me to meet his eyes. “For you to not think I would make it special. Here, like this, without any preparation? No. For your first time, it must be perfect. You deserve that.”
“I’ve read there’s no such thing as perfect,” I breathe. My heart is hammering in my chest. I’m so relieved that he doesn’t seem to be put off by the idea entirely, but I still want this. I don’t want him to stop. I’ve never felt this fire low in my belly, the desire to have him take me. I want him to make me his, just like he said.
“You can get pretty close,” Nick replies. He leans down and kisses me, firm and passionate, before pulling away to look into my eyes again. “I will do that for you.”
“I don’t want to wait,” I protest. “I want you now. I came back here with you because I want this.”
Nick’s thumb traces over my lower lip, the rough pad against my delicate skin. “It doesn’t mean we can’t do anything at all,” he says. “I can still make you feel as good as you deserve to feel.”
“What do you mean?” I lift my chin slightly, frowning.
Nick leans down to kiss me again, and before I know it, his strong arms have gone
around my waist and lifted. I automatically wrap my legs around his waist, feeling how hard he still is with a moan. But a moment later he is laying me down on a plush couch, and I almost want to cry out in disappointment when his body moves away from mine once more.
Nick moves down the length of my body and takes hold of one of my ankles in his hand, lifting it into the air to kiss it. I shiver at the tingling sensation that follows in the wake of his lips, and then the light stubble at the side of his jaw as he moves his mouth along my skin and up towards my knee.
As he keeps moving, all the way up to my thigh, I feel a deeper shiver of anticipation. What is he intending to do to me? His head is getting close to the heat between my legs…
Nick pulls back from me a little to run his hands up my legs, inside the fabric of my dress and higher up my thighs. I tremble watching him, not only from nerves but also from excitement and the heady sensations he’s giving me.
Nick’s hands move so far up my thighs that the material of my dress slides up with them, all the way up until his hands are resting on my hips and my dress has uncovered the nude panties I picked out this morning. I was only thinking about whether they would be visible through the white fabric and not even imagining at all that someone would actually see them, much less someone as hot as Nick. I’m just glad they aren’t old or unflattering.
Nick keeps taking little glances up at my face, our eyes meeting every time, checking that I’m alright. I don’t make a move to stop him. While I’ve never experienced this before, and I’m definitely nervous as hell, I don’t want him to stop. I want him to make me feel good, like he promised.
“Dahlia,” he murmurs, his breath ghosting over my skin as he lands kisses across my inner thighs. I realize that I’m holding my breath, unwilling to break this spell. His fingers hook into the sides of my panties and gently, slowly, begins to pull, and I bite my lip and try to restrain myself from moaning out loud as the fabric comes away from my body.
Falling For Her Dad's Boss: An Instalove Possessive Alpha Romance (A Man Who Knows What He Wants Book 181) Page 3
