Claimed By Her Best Friend's Dad

  CONTENTS

  Claimed by Her Best Friend’s Dad

  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

  Chapter 20

  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

  CLAIMED BY HER BEST FRIEND’S DAD

  AN OLDER MAN YOUNGER WOMAN ROMANCE

  _______________________

  A MAN WHO KNOWS WHAT HE WANTS, 223

  FLORA FERRARI

  Copyright © 2020 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.

  CLAIMED BY HER BEST FRIEND’S DAD

  When Jamie Jensen returns from a very long trip overseas, he’s just as handsome and muscular as I remember him.

  I’ve crushed on him since I was a little girl, but I always thought I was invisible to him.

  Why would a billionaire CEO – and an ex-MMA star to boot – pay any attention to a dorky wannabe writer who prefers imaginary worlds to the real one?

  And even if this hulking alpha did want me, I know we couldn’t possibly act on our desires. His daughter is my best friend, the woman who took me in when my father died in a tragic ski accident.

  I’m being stalked by a man who wants to do me harm, and Yasmin suggests that I take her dad’s one on one self-defense class, something he does on the side to give back to the community.

  At first, I think I’m imagining the blistering heat between us, but then he crushes me with his possessor’s lips and tells me that I belong to him.

  It isn’t right. But if it is wrong, why does it feel so perfect?

  I might just be a curvy nineteen year old virgin, but know I want this six foot six iron haired forty-one year alpha male.

  We try to fight it for my best friend’s sake, for his daughter’s sake, but our desire has different ideas.

  Soon we can’t stop, even as things get more and more complicated. My stalker is on the prowl. Yasmin is going to find out sooner or later.

  Our whole world threatens to come toppling down.

  But we cling to one another as though our souls were made for each other thousands of years ago, as though we don’t have a choice in the matter.

  Or maybe that’s just an excuse I use to justify giving into my years’ long crush on my best friend’s dad.

  *Claimed by Her Best Friend’s Dad is an insta-everything standalone instalove romance with a HEA, no cheating, and no cliffhanger.

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  CHAPTER ONE

  Jade

  “Just don’t go down any dark alleys or anything,” Yasmin says, her voice laced with anxiety. “Just … stay where people can see you, okay?”

  I clutch my cellphone tightly in my hand, pressing it against my ear as I walk through the oppressive closeness of the bustling city streets. Despite the riot of noises all around me – the car horns and the shouting pedestrians and the rev of engines – my heartbeat pounds loudly in my ears.

  I glance back to see if he’s still following me.

  Like always, he’s dressed all in black, a scarf pulled up over his mouth and nose, and a cap pulled down over his eyes. I spotted him as I left the subway, my waitress uniform sweaty, and my body work-tired and ready to collapse into a heap in bed.

  “Come on, lady,” somebody snaps, pushing by me.

  I curse silently and retreat to the edge of the sidewalk, out of the direct flow of the pedestrians.

  Snow dances in the air as I search the crowd, eyes snapping here and there, for any sign of the black clad man.

  “Jade?” Yasmin says. “Hello? Are you still there?”

  “Yeah,” I say, and then cough and clear my throat when I hear how ghostly the word sounds. “Yes, I’m here. I can’t see him anymore.”

  “Do you want me to send someone?” she asks.

  “No, I’m okay,” I tell her, though my heart is thumping against my ribcage like an angry hammer.

  My mouth is so dry my tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth. My grip on the cellphone is tight, as though that will stop me from drifting away on a river of fear.

  “I’m just around the corner now anyway,” I say.

  “Well, hurry up,” Yasmin says. “I can’t stand the thought of anything happening to you.”

  “I know,” I sigh. “I’ll be five minutes.”

  I hang up and rejoin the flow of pedestrians, a prickle moving up my spine every few moments as though his hidden gaze has once again come to rest on me.

  It’s been this way for almost a month now.

  Every few days, a man dressed entirely in black will emerge from the anonymity of the city and trail after me like a wraith. Luckily, my life as a waitress and a wannabe writer doesn’t take me anywhere this man would be able to snatch me discretely from, but that doesn’t stop the terror from gripping me constantly.

  The police have told me to call them if I notice anything suspicious, but the man always vanishes long before they show up every time. And then the police officers give me this half-hidden expression, as though they’re angry at me for wasting their time but too polite and professional to just come out and say it.

  I sigh and walk down the street, past men in business suits and ladies in designer clothes, feeling out of place even if I’ve lived here for the past four years since I was fifteen years old. I walk into the fancy apartment building and nod to the security guard, and then I head to the private elevator that leads to Yasmin’s penthouse apartment.

  Yasmin’s apartment, the words bounce around my mind as I ride the elevator up, up toward the sky.

  She’s always telling me to think of it as my apartment, too, but that’s proved impossible over the past few years. Ever since my dad died in that ski accident when I was fifteen years old and my onetime mentor and my best friend took me in, she’s told me time and time again that this is my home too.

  But it’s hard for me to accept that fact when, up until the age of fifteen, Dad and I lived in a modest two bedroom apartment in an unglamorous part of town.

  Still, as the elevator takes me smoothly upward, I can’t help but let a wave of relief wash over me and whisper soothing tones into my taut body. Yasmin’s apartment is like a fortress, and whoever the black clad man is – or men, if it’s a different man e
ach time – they won’t be able to get to me here.

  I find myself thinking of the first time I saw Yasmin the higher I get, making myself breathe slowly so that I don’t appear like a complete wreck when the doors finally slide open.

  I was eleven and she was fifteen.

  Back then she’d loved writing just as much as I did, though she’s since fallen in love with making YouTube videos and posting on social media instead. But back then, she was a glorious fifteen year old dork and I was her protégé. As part of a creative writing initiative, she was assigned as my buddy, and ever since then I’ve looked up to her, counted on her, trusted her.

  Over the years, we’ve grown closer as friends, as our age gap became less important and robes of mentor and mentee fell away.

  I’ll never stop being grateful to her for letting me stay here after Dad’s death.

  But that doesn’t mean I feel at ease here, even after four years of these gold-gilded doors sliding open to reveal a long marble hallway decorated with abstract art on each wall. Blocks of vibrant colors, jagged triangles of flaring red and orange, and dozens of other configurations that lead me down the hallway and into the open plan living room and kitchen.

  Her apartment is an ultra modern loft style palace. With faux fur rugs lining the floors and floor to ceiling windows looking down upon the city, it feels like somewhere I’d only ever get to visit online or as some sort of special field trip. An untouched piano sits in one corner, and the TV is about seventy inches, a huge thing mounted onto the wall. A fish tank is set into another wall, tropical fish drifting here and there in every color of the rainbow.

  Yasmin is sitting on the sleek obsidian kitchen island, legs dangling casually. The black of the kitchen island contrasts sharply with the white of the marble floor, creating a sort of chessboard décor.

  Yasmin glances up at me and then back to her camera, mounted on the opposite kitchen counter. She smiles and pulls a variety of poses as I drag my work heavy body into the living room and drop down onto the leather couch.

  Yasmin wanders over a minute later, looking devastatingly beautiful in her wet-look leggings and her leopard print tank top. Yasmin has the sort of body that most women would kill for, shaped by hours at the gym and a diet to match, every contour sculpted to perfection.

  Even if she’s my surrogate sister and my best friend and my onetime mentor, I still find it hard to look at her for long, like the sun, because she’s too damn bright. It’s hard not to think of my curvy physique, my penchant for sweet things, and the baggy clothes I purposefully choose to hide my shapeliness.

  She sits down next to me, casually pulling her jet black hair into a ponytail and tying it up.

  “Sorry about that,” she says. “You know what I’m like.”

  I laugh, shaking my head. “If I got mad at you every time you ignored me so you could take a thousand pictures for Instagram, I don’t think we could be friends, Yas.”

  “Fair,” she giggles. “But I’m here now. I’m present. So why don’t you tell me why the fuck you’re still working as a waitress when I’ve already told you that you don’t have to work at all?”

  I sigh, rolling my eyes. “This again?”

  “Yes,” she snaps. “This again. I understand that you don’t want anything handed to you. And I respect that. But I just don’t see why you’d force yourself to endure that when you could be working on your writing full-time … instead of coming home from a job you hate too tired to do something you love. Tell me that doesn’t make sense. Especially now, with this creep following you, whoever he is.”

  I turn to her, looking into her kind pleading pale blue eyes.

  “Yas, what you’re saying makes sense. I get it. But every time I think about taking you up on that offer, all I see is Dad’s face and all I hear is that freaking speech he gave me every single week of his life before he passed. All he talked about was hard work, about never taking handouts … and I’ve already failed at that by living here, and—”

  I bite down, tears budding in my eyes and a sob trying to twist my words in my throat.

  “Can we please not talk about this?” I murmur.

  She reaches over and wraps her arm around me, squeezing me close to her.

  “I only want the best for you,” she says. “I’m sorry. At least let me put some of Dad’s security on you when you go to work?”

  I nod shortly.

  “Yeah, okay,” I say. “Maybe that would be for the best.”

  She lets out a long breath, relief shimmering in the sound. She’s been asking me for almost two weeks to let her do this, and right now I don’t see that I have a choice.

  A voice whispers inside of me that I’m an idiot for not taking her up on her offer of writing full-time instead of busting my ass for minimum wage as a waitress, but then Dad’s voice rises, louder, his eyes staring hard in my mind.

  “You’re a Clark, young lady, and Clarks don’t take handouts.”

  Yasmin lets go of the hug and stands up, walking over to the kitchen.

  “Want some cocoa?” she calls.

  “Sure,” I say, glancing at the massive sparkling clean windows, down at the snow encased city.

  “Oh, did I tell you?” she says. “Dad’s finally coming back from Japan.”

  “Oh,” I murmur.

  I stare firmly at the large fish tank, focusing on the kaleidoscopic of colors so Yasmin can’t see the way my cheeks flood with red. A tingle pulses over my body, and my mind throws itself back to three years ago when Jamie Jensen left to establish the Japan branch of Alignment Industries.

  I was only sixteen, just a girl … heck, maybe nineteen can still be considered immature and girlish, but technically I’m an adult. Back then, I’d just gotten out of my braces and I was obsessed with Lord of the Rings, always dressed in some dorky T-shirt, basically invisible to handsome, steel haired Jamie Jensen.

  I remember the way he smiled at me, casually, not even seeing me as he said a cursory goodbye to his daughter’s friend.

  “She’ll take good care of you,” he said, before turning back to Yasmin, forgetting me in an instant.

  But I never forgot him.

  His arms bulging in his suit jacket, his clean shaven face showing the prominence of his strong jawline. His eyes, even paler than Yasmin’s, staring like two blazing points of ice, searing into me, filling my overactive wannabe writer’s mind with a thousand impossible scenarios.

  And now he’s back.

  I force down the tide of yearning that rises inside of me, the vignettes of passion that bob and bounce in my consciousness, telling me that now he’s in the States—

  What?

  Now he’s in the States, what?

  He’s Jamie Jensen, a forty-one year old billionaire, not to mention my best friend’s dad.

  He’d never be interested in a curvy inexperienced dork like me, so it’s time I put those childish fantasies behind me.

  “Jade?” Yasmin says.

  “Sorry,” I murmur, realizing she’s said my name more than once. “I was miles away.”

  “Dreaming of your next bestseller?” she says.

  I laugh drily. “Doesn’t next bestseller imply that I already have a bestseller?”

  “Okay, Miss Pedantic. Dreaming of your first bestseller then?”

  “Something like that,” I murmur.

  I hate lying to her, but what the heck am I supposed to say?

  Actually, Yas, I was thinking about your dad staring at me with those intense blue eyes of his as he tears off my waitress’s uniform. I hope you don’t mind.

  “Did you want chocolate sprinkles?” she asks.

  “Oh, yeah, thank you,” I say.

  She brings over the cocoas and we sit side by side, sipping them.

  “So when does your dad get back?” I murmur, somehow keeping the tremor out of my voice.

  “Tomorrow evening,” she says. “He’s coming here for dinner. Will you join us? You know what he’s like, all stern and broo
dy and serious all the time. I’ll need my bestie’s support. Please?”

  “Uh, sure,” I murmur.

  Because she’s my best friend.

  And definitely not because I’m crushing mega hard on her dad.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Jamie

  I close my eyes and savor the feeling of being back home as the elevator ascends to Yasmin’s apartment.

  Back when I was first starting out – after my short-but-successful MMA career – this was the first apartment I purchased. For years it was my base of operation, and as the elevator gets higher and higher I really can’t think of a better welcome to the city.

  Three long years it took to establish my business in Japan, but now it’s done.

  We succeeded.

  It’s time to get back to normal life, or whatever passes for normal for a man like me.

  I open my eyes when the doors slide away with a quiet beep. When I lived here, admittedly the space was far barer and less homely. Yasmin hasn’t exactly made it a warm log cabin, but her personality shines through in every choice of decoration.

  I drag myself down the hallway, my body still adjusting to the time difference. I’m just about ready to devour a steak and then pass out on the couch, and then wake tomorrow morning and do what I always do.

  Go into work and attack my day’s to-do list like it spilled my drink in a bar.

  Humming greets me as I round the corner, the voice pitched high and sounding angelic and songlike.

  There’s a beauty in the voice that confuses the hell out of me, mostly because I’m not the sort of man who hears or sees beauty in much these days.

  Maybe the figures that make up our quarterly statements.

  Yeah, maybe they’re beautiful.

  But now the humming draws me inexorably toward it like a siren song, like something I can’t fight.

  I round the corner to the open plan living area to find a woman I don’t recognize sitting in the armchair.

  My mouth drops open and my heart begins to thump hotly.

  Jesus Christ.

  My manhood floods and presses against my belt, throbbing as though it wants nothing more than for me to free it from its prison and guide it to this woman’s pursed lips, force it in inch by sinful inch until she’s gagging and gasping for more.