CONTENTS
Claiming His Forever
NEWSLETTER
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Epilogue
Extended Epilogue
Extended Epilogue
NEWSLETTER
A MAN WHO KNOWS WHAT HE WANTS
BRATVA BEAR SHIFTERS
LAIRDS & LADIES
RUSSIAN UNDERWORLD
IRISH WOLF SHIFTERS
Collaborations
About the Author
CLAIMING HIS FOREVER
AN OLDER MAN YOUNGER WOMAN ROMANCE
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A MAN WHO KNOWS WHAT HE WANTS, 232
FLORA FERRARI
Copyright © 2021 by Flora Ferrari
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
The following story contains mature themes, strong language and sexual situations. It is intended for mature readers.
CLAIMING HIS FOREVER
It’s supposed to be an easy job. I’m hosting an open house for some new properties on the outskirts of the city. But while babysitting my sister’s dog, Tinkerbell – I stumble upon something.
I ignore it. I don’t want to get involved. I’ve got enough to worry about working seven days a week as a realtor, trying to support my big sister, Jackie, and her art career. We lost our parents when I was young and she’s always been there for me. I’m twenty-one now. It’s time to pay her back.
But then a tall, brooding, intense stranger comes to visit one evening. Kristian Cameno is seven feet of pure muscle, his hair moon-silver, his jaw powerful, and his eyes dark. He wears steel suits and expensive silver watches.
He tells me he knows what I did. He knows I stole what’s his.
I tell him I didn’t. I explain the misunderstanding, but Kris Cameno doesn’t quit. He tells me he doesn’t care about that anymore.
He wants me—he’s claiming me. I’m his. I belong to him now.
“Forever,” he whispers in my ear.
With that whisper, my life is changed forever. I know I should fear this man, but he has me burning in ways I’ve only ever read about. Our lust is primal and animalistic, and when he claims me, I feel free and wild.
There’s something else there, too, something warm, something fuzzy. There are moments when this beast of a man smiles at me and I see a future.
But surely he’d laugh at me if I asked for more? What is he going to do when he discovers I’m a virgin? Was what I found his or was he doing something good trying to make sure it didn’t get into the wrong hands?
It’s all such a mess, but I guess this is what I deserve for being a realtor for the mob.
*Claiming His Forever is an insta-everything standalone instalove romance with a HEA, no cheating, and no cliffhanger.
NEWSLETTER
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CHAPTER ONE
Kimberly
“Are you sure you don’t mind?” Jackie says, reaching down and lifting Tinkerbell away from the refrigerator door.
Tinkerbell’s yapping fills our small kitchen.
For such a small little dog – snow-white Chihuahua – she really knows how to work her vocal cords. She whines and extends her claws as my big sister carries her across the room, stopping just in front of me.
“Of course not,” I say, reaching out for the dog. “It’s my day off, sis. Go and shock the art world.”
Jackie rolls her eyes. Even though she’s shorter and far thinner than me, I always see her as the older girl who towers over me. She’s eleven years older than me, the big sister who’s always had my back since our parents died when I was just two years old.
We were put into care together, but the day she turned eighteen and was able to move out, she worked her butt off to get to a position where she could take me in.
I owe her the world.
She smiles shakily, her jet-black hair cut into a bob. She’s wearing denim dungarees and a paint-spattered shirt with the sleeves rolled up. She looks every inch the Bohemian artist.
“I’m hardly going to set the world ablaze,” she says. “It’s just an open viewing.”
“I believe in you,” I tell her.
She reaches over, giving me a playful punch on the arm. Tinkerbell whines and tilts her head, expecting a tickle.
“Sometimes I miss when you were my bratty little sister,” she says.
“Hey, I can still be bratty,” I laugh.
“Like last night, you mean?”
I shoot her mock glare with my eyes.
“You don’t interrupt a lady when she’s on the last page of a book, Jacks. That’s just common sense. You’re lucky a cushion is all you got.”
She chuckles, eyes scanning the kitchen counter. It’s a bit of a mess this morning, with our dinner dishes and our breakfast dishes sprawled out next to the sink. The surfaces could do with a wipe-down, too.
I decide that that’s how I’ll spend my morning, and then I’ll take Tinkerbell for a short walk and settle down for some reading.
“Keys, keys,” Jackie says, searching.
“They’re in the bowl next to the door,” I tell her.
“How did they get there?” she says.
I can’t help but smile. “I put them there last night. I’m tired of you laying waste to the apartment every time you need to leave.”
“Thanks, Kim,” she says, blowing me a kiss as she heads for the door.
I stay where I am, knowing that Tinkerbell’s whining and separation anxiety will only get worse if she sees Jackie walk out the door. She’s making enough noise as it is, catlike purring as Jackie gathers up her painting gear and makes one hell of a racket leaving the apartment.
She might be smaller than me, but my big sister really can make some noise.
“Okay, girl,” I say, placing Tinkerbell down. “Be good and you might get a treat. Huh, want a treat? Just let me see to these dishes and—”
Of course, my cellphone chooses this moment to explode from the counter, vibrating loudly. Tinkerbell explodes at the same time, letting out a series of high-pitched yaps.
I shush her and stand up, glancing at my cellphone.
It’s Alexis, my supervisor at the realtor company I started working for a couple of months ago. I want to let the call go to voicemail, but as the twenty-one year old newbie, I don’t really have enough leeway for that.
Alexis is only a few years older than me at twenty-five, but she’s got one hell of a superiority complex and just loves bossing me around.
My belly goes tight just thinking about speaking to her on my da
y off.
“Hello?” I say, answering.
“Took you long enough,” Alexis says, in her inquisitive West Coast accent. She sounds like a Valley girl, conspicuously out of place here on the East Coast. “What’s that god-awful racket I can hear?”
“Tinkerbell, hush,” I whisper, placing my hand over the receiver.
She tilts her head up at me for a second, as if trying to comprehend what I’m saying. But then she decides that she’d rather start barking and scratching at the refrigerator instead.
I sigh and walk into the living room, just a few short steps away. The apartment is a series of small boxes, but it’s a hundred times better than living in an orphanage.
I’ll never stop being grateful to Jackie for moving me in here with her.
That’s the reason I bust my ass at this realtor job in the first place. I want to pay Jackie back for all the help she’s given me over the years.
“Hellooooooo?” Alexis calls. “Are you there? Like, I don’t have time for this today, Kimberly.”
“I’m here, sorry,” I say, wincing when the word sorry leaves my mouth.
I hate apologizing to Alexis.
“As you should be,” she says tersely. “Anyway, I need you to handle a showing today. Tina’s pretending to have the flu, the lying bitch, so I’m sending a car to your apartment to pick you up.”
“Wait, what?” I say, my voice coming out far louder and sharper than I mean it to. “I can’t do that, Alexis. I have to take care of my sister’s dog today.”
“You have to …”
She trails off, making a dismissive snorting sound.
“Look, that’s very cute and everything, but this is really important. This is a high-profile client who wants us to sell all those homes. Everything’s set up. It’s just one home today. All you have to do is stand there and be friendly and answer any questions. If things get out of hand, direct them to the buffet table. Easy.”
“Wait, are these the new-build properties?”
“Yes,” she sighs impatiently.
I’ve never even been there before. They’ve always been Tina’s domain.
I want to snap at her that this isn’t fair.
This is my first day off in two weeks and now she’s calling me up, expecting extra work.
But the thing is, I’m paying the majority of the rent these days. I basically forced Jackie to cut down on her hours at her office gig so that she could focus on her art more. She was reluctant. She’s always been the breadwinner.
I wanted to prove myself.
If I say no, I could be out of a job. I’m still on my probationary period. They can fire me any time they like.
On top of everything else, Alexis is the boss’s daughter.
“Is that a yes, Kimberly?” Alexis snaps. “I’ve got some, like, really important stuff I need to be doing right now. So I’d appreciate an answer.”
“Yes,” I say between gritted teeth.
I’ll just have to make it work.
“Did you say you were sending a car?”
“Yes, well—the client is sending a car. He should be with you any moment.”
Right on cue, the apartment buzzer screeches through the apartment, sending Tinkerbell into another round of caterwauling.
“Right on time,” I mutter drily.
“Great. I know you’ll do a fantastic job. Ciao for now.”
I absolutely despise when she says ciao for now. It’s her regular sign off. I fight the urge to throw the phone across the room.
Instead, I walk across the apartment and press the intercom button.
“Hello?” I say.
“Hey, miss,” a man’s gravelly voice says. His accent is tinged Italian, but not in an over the top way. “I’m your ride for the morning. Name’s Vinnie.”
“Hello, Vinnie,” I say. “Would you mind giving me a few minutes? I need to get ready.”
“Aye, not a problem,” he says. “I’m just across the street. I’ll give you a honk when I see ya leave.”
“Okay,” I say.
I turn back into the apartment and walk into the kitchen. Tinkerbell stops her perpetual attack on the refrigerator when she sees me standing over her. The door shows scuff marks from where she’s attacked it many times before. No matter how often she tries to get in there – no matter how many times she fails – she keeps trying.
I have to admire her perseverance.
“Tinkerbell,” I sigh. “Just what the heck am I going to do with you?”
CHAPTER TWO
Kristian
“What the fuck did you do, Maury?” I snarl, standing over my old friend.
We’re in the underground office at Mystique, one of the hottest bars in town. Through the ceiling, I can hear honking horns and the roar of traffic, the city alive at this time of the morning.
Maury is the man who made a bid for the Cameno Family along with me, back when we were both fresh-faced young kids in the Family. The problem is that my old man was the last Don, and by right, the leadership position should’ve been mine.
But I wasn’t going to be seen as weak. So we fought. And I won.
He’s been loyal ever since, but lately, he’s been making stupid mistakes.
A year older than me at forty-three, he’s gained little wisdom over the years. He’s wide and round and his eyes are big drug-addict discs. His lips are perpetually watery, as though he’s always drunk. He reeks of whiskey. His suit is crumpled and his head is shiny, visible beneath the sparse strands of his comb-over.
“I didn’t do anything,” he whines.
I bite down, fighting the urge to backhand him across the face.
I have to be careful with lashing out. I’m almost seven feet tall and I spend at least two hours a day in the gym, every morning, working my body like a possessed man.
I could snap his neck with one incautious movement.
“Lie to me again,” I growl. “Do it, Maury. Lie to me.”
He cringes back in the chair, wrapping his arms across his middle. His eyes flit around the office, to the wide oak desk and the photos on the walls—photos of me and my Mom, mostly, and then a few of me my Mom, and Dad from when I was a kid.
Family matters more than anything.
That’s something Maury seems to have forgotten.
“You’ve been taking shipments of hard drugs without my permission,” I snap, leaning forward, towering over him.
Rage quivers through me, my muscles becoming taut, ready to snap and explode at any second.
“Drugs,” I growl. “Heroin among them. On my turf. Without my permission. I need to know where you’re storing them. Before you answer, think, Maury. Fucking think. It could be the last thing you ever say.”
“You’ve never killed a Family member before,” he whimpers.
He’s right. I don’t like putting people in the ground, full stop, but that doesn’t mean I’ve never done it. Granted, every man I’ve killed has been beyond redemption, the sick fucks who do twisted things to children, the pathetic weasels who take from women what they won’t give willingly.
“There’s a first time for everything,” I snap. “So start talking.”
He makes to take his glass of whiskey from the table.
I shake my head, and immediately his hand drops into his lap.
“The new builds,” he says, his voice quivering.
I drop onto my haunches, staring him directly in the eyes. His gaze flitters all over the place. It lands anywhere but on me. He won’t even look me in the damn eye.
“You’re telling me that you’re storing hard drugs in homes I’m selling to families, to civilians,” I say slowly.
“I’m s-sorry,” he whimpers.
He has no self-respect, to be on the verge of weeping like this.
I’m glad that I’ve kept him low on the hierarchy of the Family.
And yet there’s a piece of me – a piece I keep hidden from the world – that aches for Maury. We grew up together. We used
to fish together as boys. We did everything together once upon a time.
“Do you have any idea what would happen if the men found out about this?” I snap.
He cringes, nodding like a cowed pet.
I don’t have to say anything else. He knows that if my loyal army discovered his treachery, he’d at the very least have to flee the country and pray that no Cameno man ever found him.
“Who helped you?” I say.
He looks up at me. There’s a flicker there of the man he used to be, a little fight entering his crestfallen eyes.
“Nobody,” he says. “I did it alone. I mean, I used some street kids, but they’re not Family men. They’ve got nothing to do with us.”
I nod. I already knew as much. I just wanted to see if he’d lie to me.
“What am I supposed to do with you?” I growl, my temples pulsing, sending tension surging through me.
“Let me go with a slap on the wrist?” he says, with a shadow of the old boyish smile that was once his trademark.
I turn away to hide my smirk. It’s too easy to get drawn into the back-and-forth with Maury, even after the way he’s let himself degrade over the years. I remember him as a kid full of ambition and flair.
But the day I beat him and won the right to lead the Family, something broke in him.
It’s sad, fine, but it’s also damn pathetic.
A man should have more resolve than that.
“I’m putting you on house arrest until this is cleaned up,” I tell him. “With no drugs. No booze.”
“What?” Maury says.
Real panic enters his voice. He’s been a cowed coward throughout the whole exchange, and now that I’ve mentioned the possibility of taking away some of his precious drugs, he’s going to kick up a fuss.
I have to clench my fists hard to fight the urge to strike him.
“Goddamn it, Maury,” I snarl, wheeling on him with fury lancing through my body. “Listen to yourself. You sound like you’re about to break down into tears because you can’t get high. House arrest. No drugs. No booze. And count yourself lucky.”
He deflates into his seat when he gauges my anger. Even the men closest to me know better than to push me when my anger flares like this.
Claiming His Forever: An Instalove Possessive Age Gap Romance Page 1
