Australian Obsession Read online

  AUSTRALIAN OBSESSION

  AN OLDER MAN YOUNGER WOMAN ROMANCE

  _______________________

  A MAN WHO KNOWS WHAT HE WANTS, 99

  FLORA FERRARI

  CONTENTS

  Copyright

  A Man Who Knows What He Wants Series

  Australian Obsession

  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

  Epilogue

  Extended Epilogue

  Series

  Newsletter

  COPYRIGHT

  Copyright © 2019 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 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.

  A MAN WHO KNOWS WHAT HE WANTS

  Book 1: Baby Lust

  Book 2: Veteran

  Book 3: Built

  Book 4: Bambino

  Book 5: Rescued

  Book 6: Leader

  Book 7: Professor

  Book 8: Burned

  Book 9: Worldly

  Book 10: Pistol

  Book 11: Policed

  Book 12: Driven

  Book 13: Lucky 13

  Book 14: Lumberjacked

  Book 15: Protector

  Book 16: Carpenter

  Book 17: Italian Stallion

  Book 18: Gardener

  Book 19: Budapest Billionaire’s Virgin

  Book 20: Billionaire’s Babysitter

  Book 21: Cocky CFO

  Book 22: Fireman’s Filthy 4th

  Book 23: Mechanic

  Book 24: SEAL’s Secret

  Book 25: Police, Pooch, and Smooch

  Book 26: Fireman’s Fake Fiancée

  Book 27: Billionaire’s Virgin Ballerina

  Book 28: Bitcoin Billionaire’s Babysitter

  Book 29: Veterans Day Daddy

  Book 30: Cowboy’s Christmas Carol

  Book 31: Police Officer’s Princess

  Book 32: Statham

  Book 33: Bodyguard

  Book 34: Greek God

  Book 35: Billionaire Single Dad's Babysitter

  Book 36: Mountain Man

  Book 37: SEAL’s Justice

  Book 38: Royal Romance

  Book 39: Doctor Mountain Man’s Special Delivery

  Book 40: Crocodile Dan D

  Book 41: Mountain Man’s Secret Baby

  Book 42: Doctor Bad Boy’s Secret Baby

  Book 43: Cop’s Babysitter

  Book 44: Nanny for the Cop Next Door

  Book 45: Small Town SEAL’s Saving Grace

  Book 46: Cop’s Fake Fiancée

  Book 47: Billionaire’s Nanny

  Book 48: Cowboy’s Babysitter

  Book 49: Steamy

  Book 50: Brother’s Best Friend

  Book 51: Possessive Professor

  Book 52: Firefighter’s Babysitter

  Book 53: Soldier’s Secret Baby

  Book 54: Ward’s Independence Day

  Book 55: Doctor Next Door

  Book 56: Possessive Policeman

  Book 57: Coached by the MMA Fighter

  Book 58: Boss’s Babysitter

  Book 59: Virgin in New York

  Book 60: Rock Star’s Baby

  Book 61: Possessive Protector

  Book 62: Possessive Australian

  Book 63: Best Friend’s Brother

  Book 64: Possessive Cowboy

  Book 65: Summer Romanced

  Book 66: Possessive Prince

  Book 67: Lovers’s Enemy

  Book 68: Cop’s Best Friend

  Book 69: Possessive Firefighter

  Book 70: Football Next Door

  Book 71: Doctor December

  Book 72: Possessive Canadian

  Book 73: Blue Collar Billionaire

  Book 74: Possessive K-9 Cop

  Book 75: Possessive Brazilian

  Book 76: Hockey Obsession

  Book 77: Possessive Boston Irish American MMA Fighter

  Book 78: Halloween Next Door

  Book 79: Possessive Russian

  Book 80: Baseball Mine

  Book 81: Cop’s Caribbean Captive

  Book 82: Instalove Island

  Book 83: Dad’s Best Friend

  Book 84: Thanksgiving with Dad’s Boss

  Book 85: Possessive Italian Neighbor

  Book 86: Possessive Portuguese

  Book 87: Possessive Christmas Cop

  Book 88: Russian’s Obsession

  Book 89: Possessive Doctor’s Christmas

  Book 90: Possessive Parisian Pilot

  Book 91: U.K. Boxing Day

  Book 92: Jealous Russian Stalker

  Book 93: Italian Mountain Man

  Book 94: Aggressive Russian

  Book 95: Possessive Valentine

  Book 96: Possessive Hunter

  Book 97: Dad’s Russian Mafia Friend

  Book 98: Russian Teacher

  Book 99: Australian Obsession

  AUSTRALIAN OBSESSION

  My brother’s best friend is an inked bad boy from Australia…and I’m completely obsessed.

  I decide to escape the cold of the Northern Hemisphere’s brutal winter to get closer to the older man of my dreams. But will I escape detection down under when he gets closer to finding out just how obsessive my need for him really is?

  And when secrets are shared, and truths revealed, will I find out my obsession for him pales in comparison to what I discover under the Sydney sunset?

  *Australian Obsession is an insta-everything standalone instalove romance with an HEA, no cheating, and no cliffhanger.

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  CHAPTER 1

  Elena

  He’s five minutes late.

  I sit one table over from his favorite table, my back against the wall looking out at Manly Beach in Sydney, Australia.

  He walks in, sees his table is empty, and makes a beeline for it even though there’s no need to rush. I’ve been telling people it’s taken, not that many have asked.

  Locals and tourists alike are all congregated on the tables outside, watching the waves roll in just past the pine trees that line the beach.

  I’d be sitting outside watching the waves too, but I already have. I’ve been doing it for the last few weeks, knowing he surfs this spot every Tuesday morning before coming into the Bluewater Cafe where he orders three eggs over easy with toast and bacon and a side of oysters.

  It’s not weird or quirky, it’s idiosyncratic. He’s just like me…just like everyone. We all have our certain little things we do and things we like. Well, I like him and today he’s going to find that out for the first time.
<
br />   See, I’ve been watching these waves for weeks, but not here in the flesh...from thousands of miles away. With surfing being the number one sport in his home country, I was easily able to watch the waves from one of the Manly Beach live surf cameras that are mounted in the area. They’re meant for surfers to check on websites like Surfline.com, where they can make a decision from their couch as to whether or not they want to paddle out each morning.

  Surfline only charges seventy bucks a year, which is pocket change to him, but a lot for me. Working the kitchen in a high-end hotel sounds glamorous, if you’re the head chef. But if you’re the one actually doing the work, getting the third-degree grease burns, and having ten percent of all dishes sent back because the food is cold, you’d see it’s not glamorous at all.

  See the thing is the food isn’t cold when wait staff delivers it to our diner’s tables. The problem is after spending ten to fifteen minutes getting the perfect Instagram shot, uploading it, tagging it, and waiting for that first like to come in the laws of physics come into play and the heat disburses. Then our dining guests take a bite and leave a bad review on Yelp.com, and send the food back, unaware that more time has passed since they took their first bite than it takes him to eat an entire meal.

  It makes complete sense to me. My brother is his best friend and he’s just as impatient…always in a hurry to scarf down his food. In a hurry to go surfing. In a hurry to ride motorcycles. In a hurry to do everything.

  That’s why they’re such good friends, and why I’m able to learn so much about him just from my brother’s private Instagram account.

  See, the entire world gets his curated feed that his manager puts together. One of the world’s best action sports athletes couldn’t be expected to manage his own social media now could he? It’s a business. One wrong slip up and millions in endorsements can be lost overnight. Just ask Kevin Hart, right?

  So he’s got an entire team taking care of that for him, while I follow along on my brother’s Insta, which only has one hundred and thirty-seven followers. Most people would wonder why my brother even has an account, but not me. Last time he told me he was thinking of deleting it I felt my hands shake and my palms immediately sweat, reminding him that he needs it if he wants to get sponsored for his surfing one day too. I even showed him how to use filters and hashtags so he could get more likes. And then I made sure his account was private, kind of defeating the purpose...but not my purpose.

  “I’ll have three eggs over easy with toast and bacon and a side of oysters,” he says to the waitress as I mouth his order at the same time, trying not to giggle as I do.

  He pulls out his GoPro to review this morning’s surf session and when he does he accidentally flips just a few drops of water on me.

  Now’s my chance.

  I don’t look over. Instead I take the napkin I had in my hand and slide it down the side of my leg.

  “Oh sorry. Did I get you wet?”

  Oh, he got me wet a long time ago.

  “No, it’s okay. We’re close to the beach and it’s to be expected. Plus it reminds me I shouldn’t be in here eating this,” I say looking at my food. “I should be out there enjoying the beach myself.”

  I let my eyes linger over my food just a second longer than necessary, but not long enough to make it obvious.

  His eyes look ever so briefly and they lock up, his brows furrowing. Yes, I ordered the same thing he did. No, it wasn’t an accident.

  In these days of social media, serendipity can be manufactured just as well as it can fall from the sky. Come to think of it, manufacturing it is a lot better, isn’t it?

  I mean who in their right mind would walk into a business meeting without Googling the meeting participants and checking their LinkedIn? When you do it then it’s called being prepared. It can even get you a raise.

  If you do it in real life if can be considered stalking. But I say if people go to all that effort just for a meeting and a bit of money, shouldn’t one put in even more effort when it comes to meeting the only person you’ve ever wanted? I think most people would agree when we look at in that light, right? It’s all about perception, and perception is reality.

  “You’re eating oysters and eggs?” he says.

  “And a bit of toast and bacon. I was hungry this morning. I stayed up late watching a basketball game.”

  “You watch basketball?”

  “Sometimes, when my team is playing.”

  “What’s your team?”

  “I follow certain players more than teams these days, with all the trades and such.”

  “Okay then. Who’s your favorite player?”

  “Ben Simmons of course. He’s local. Well Melbourne, but close enough in this case.”

  His shoulders pull back and his head cocks to the side. He looks around the room to see if there’s a camera. Is this one of those prank shows? No, it can’t be. My accent is obviously foreign so I might not even know who this man sitting next to me is. Surfing barely registers for most of the world. Sure people know Kelly Slater, but after that who outside of people from a select handful of countries can name another?

  “So you were watching the—“

  “Seventy Sixers game,” we say simultaneously. Of course, because that’s his team. Like I was going to take a chance, take a risk, when it came to anything about him?

  “Whoa, this is weird…like some Twilight Zone kind of moment.”

  I smile. “Probably not. The Seventy Sixers are only getting more popular here by the day. There are a lot of fans.” I want to bring my hand around and pat myself on the back for downplaying it. I’ve never done anything like this before, because I’ve never been so obsessed with anyone in my life. I feel like I’m doing a really good job of all of this so far. Then again it’s not like I can bounce notes off someone, or ask them to evaluate my performance, can I?

  “Where are you from?” he asks.

  “It’s a real small place. I’m sure you’ve never heard of it.” I even dismiss it with a swipe of my hand.

  “I’ve traveled a bit, as Aussies do. Try me.” I love how Aussies are so darn friendly. I knew he would be.

  “Okay. You ready?”

  “Ready.”

  Storytelling 101. Get the listener invested…and raise the suspense.

  “Promise not to laugh?”

  “Can’t say I promise, but I’ll try.”

  I shake my head and watch as he’s held in rapture, his body turning in his seat. His back’s not even touching the seat anymore. He’s completely turned his body towards me.

  “Kill Devil Hills. It’s a little place in—“

  “North Carolina,” he interjects.

  I smile.

  “Who’s finishing whose sentences here?”

  Now I laugh, because it’s true. We’re tied…one to one in the “you’re taking the words right out of my mouth” category.

  “I guess we’re taking turns,” I say shyly, still not opening up my body to him. I don’t want to look too easy. He’s way too used to that. I’ve seen all the girls who throw themselves at him after he wins surf competitions, and how he looks at them with complete disinterest...on the rare occasions that he decides to look at them at all.

  He’s looking for something real. Just like me. Something real and lasting.

  “There’s some really great surf in Kill Devil Hills.”

  “We think the best on the East Coast.”

  “You surf? I mean…sorry, you just didn’t make it seem like you surf.”

  Now he’s apologizing…to me? I’ve got him on his heels. How easy it was.

  “I don’t, but my brother does.”

  “Your brother? My best mate is from there!” Wow, he really punctuated the end of that sentence. If he thought the breakfast order was serendipity, wait until he gets a load of this.

  “Really? There are only seven thousand one hundred and seventeen people who live there. Try me.”

  “Eric Andrews,” he says as if the fat
e of the world hangs onto my response.

  I put my elbow on the table, bad manners I know, and raise my hand at the same time I lower my face into my palm.

  “No! You’re joking me?”

  I grab my cheapie Blu cell phone, my daily use phone that doesn’t have Instagram installed of course, and scroll through my gallery to the fifth picture, the one I want him to see. The one I knew I’d be showing him this morning.

  He leans in, so close I can feel his breath on my arm. I can see the blue in his eyes. I can see the goosebumps raising up his skin underneath all his ink. Yes, I’m that close and it only took less than two minutes.

  “That’s you and Eric,” he say. He doesn’t yell though. How could he? He’s so astonished. Of course he is. But I bet I could astonish him even more if I told him I know exactly what he’s going to say next. He says it all the time, and he probably doesn't even realize it. “What are the odds?”

  Really damn good, if you ask me.

  CHAPTER 2

  Lachlan