His Shooting Star: A Steamy Standalone Instalove Romance Read online

  Contents

  His Shooting Star

  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

  His Shooting Star

  AN OLDER MAN YOUNGER WOMAN ROMANCE

  _______________________

  A MAN WHO KNOWS WHAT HE WANTS, 255

  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.

  His Shooting Star

  GILLIAN

  Four years of college. Finished.

  I’ll be home in a few days.

  Then what? I don’t really know.

  I almost quit college a year back. Who needs all those qualifications with no real experience? Let alone the endless sniping from other students and dumb jocks wanting me as the butt of their jokes.

  But the offer of a family friend to have me house-sit and look after their dog while they went away for work in my last year changed my mind.

  Changed my whole life as it turns out.

  A sprained ankle and some wounded pride is my small price of admission to meet the very mysterious but very handsome Professor Xander Sexton.

  He’s head of something on campus, I’ve never heard of him and neither have most others I ask.

  The only thing some people do seem to know about him is he’s huge, looks like a god fallen to earth, and has plenty to do with top secret government space research and UFOs or something.

  I know one thing for sure, he can explore me anytime he likes, but I’m sure he has a whole galaxy of women he can choose from.

  What chance would a nerdy, heavyset younger girl like me have with an older guy like that?

  But a single touch and a cosmic feeling neither of us can deny could spell the end of my own theory of being alone forever.

  Is he really from another planet or just out of this world?

  There are more questions than answers for me so far, that’s for sure, but I can’t wait to find out if he’s into thick, curvy young girls before my dad hears about him.

  XANDER

  It was a simple enough assignment.

  Blend into a new town, study the nearest and newest galaxies, planets, and black holes from my position.

  Report to the biggest space agency in the country with my take on it before heading home.

  Oh, and share the same information plus some added intel with an organization, not even the government knows about.

  Not exactly rocket science, but not everyone has the same knack for deep space that I do.

  It’s all rather dull until I see her.

  Gillian Parker.

  Until I feel the stirring in me that tells me the real reason I’m here. The real reason I’m alive on this planet.

  A newly graduated student, she’s got just a few days before leaving for home herself.

  Leaving town for good and leaving someone like me far behind.

  But I have another idea. A better idea.

  My lifelong interest in space, the stars, and other worlds is suddenly replaced with something more singular.

  More exact.

  Two things really. Me and her.

  And a lot easier to touch close up. And when we do touch, worlds collide. I can’t deny it.

  Everything else falls away, and the only thing that matters now is Gillian.

  There are forces at play to keep us apart, some are bigger than me. Some are as small but equally determined, like her father.

  But the biggest isn’t always the strongest, and now that I know what this truly is, I know that love will conquer all.

  *His Shooting Star is an insta-everything standalone instalove romance with a HEA, no cheating, and no cliffhanger.

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  Chapter One

  Gillian

  “Orion!”

  “Orion!”

  Where the hell is he?

  Stupid dog. Who am I kidding though? If it wasn’t for him…

  If it wasn’t for him, I wouldn’t have somewhere to live off campus until I’m done with this year.

  I’ve never been much of a dog person, but the deal with the house-sitting gig was that little Orion has to be fed and walked twice a day, regardless. Rain or shine.

  It seemed like an easy enough task until I learned his daily walk took me right up into the wooded hills behind campus. Miles and miles, twice a day.

  And my dad’s family friend was no slouch when it came to casual proof I was walking her family’s beloved pet. She’s had me take happy snaps and little videos on my phone and in all seasons. All weather.

  I guess I don’t really mind, but lately, Orion’s taken to running off which is really unlike him. Like there’s something in these woods he’s drawn to or trying to sniff out.

  Either way, I wished he’d find a new hobby, I only have a few days before I head home myself and the last thing I need is to explain to his loving owners I’ve lost him days before they get back.

  “Oh it’s so good to be coming home,” Mrs. Patterson gushed, confirming they’d all be home in just three more days.

  “And I know Orion is just as glad he’ll have you all home soon enough…” is my standard reply. But two days? I haven’t even cleaned the place for like a year. I’m not exactly the neatest person around.

  A maid service and a small loan from my dad is on the cards, I’d say. Ugh, and that pool. I almost forgot about that too.

  Truth be told, I’ll miss some of the scenery and the brilliant starlit nights, but I’ve pretty much had it with this campus, the town, and definitely having to hike miles every day just so some little mutt can run off.

  It’s really only been the past few times we’ve been up here, just before dark when I get an almost creepy sensation that we’re being watched somehow.

  I say almost creepy, only because of how it makes me feel sometimes. Plus the fact I don’t know if there’s anything there at all.

  I don’t have a very vivid imagination, and Orion would bark like mad if anyone was within fifty feet of us. It’s the main reason for his wal
ks so far away from anywhere else.

  It wears him out and by the time he’s halfway home, he has no energy left to cause any more mischief.

  But my gut tells me that someone or something has moved into the woods recently, and at night especially, I feel eyes on us both.

  It’s weird because it’s not like a creepy feeling like someone is waiting to jump out, but it doesn’t feel like it’s an animal of any kind either.

  “What could it be Orion, watching you sniffin’ around?” I ask him, finding him digging a hole and only after scrambling through a long and thorny arcade of bushes, losing my way in the early gloaming of dusk.

  “Is it… Could it be a...” I trail off asking the tiny dog, before scooping him up, but a part of me doesn’t even want to think about what might be out here if it isn’t an animal and it isn’t a person either.

  I bury the thought in the same way I heel the sod of earth Orion’s been working on back into place, reminding myself we really do need to get back before it’s much darker.

  Leaving my glasses on my desk I remember within a few moments exactly why I need that particular prescription.

  I’m blind as a bat in the dark without them. Once we get to some streetlights I should be fine, but on a trail in the woods? Nope.

  Carrying Orion back to what I think must be the path, I eventually set him down and he trots beside me, whining after a few minutes which isn’t like him at all.

  My keen hearing can sense all the falling notes of dusky woodland sounds, and my instinct is definitely on the alert at the feeling of being watched again.

  But there’s another sound.

  I almost think it’s an animal at first, it’s certainly growly and wild sounding. But no sound on earth has ever had this effect on me.

  Orion whines again and barks, making me want to scold him for revealing our position.

  But the other feeling running through me couldn’t care less about Orion, being lost, or anything else right now.

  It only gives me a feeling a girl might have when she’s all alone, dreaming about the perfect man and all the things she’d let him do to her.

  It’s usually a passing feeling, but out here in the woods, with that sound filling my ears and knowing that whatever is making the sound is also watching me. Well, it’s almost enough to make me fold over.

  I press my legs together as I walk, using the pressure of my thighs to stimulate myself, but once I hear the sound again, deeper and more intense, I let out a low moan of my own.

  It feels like someone, something has physically touched me down there.

  And not just touched me right where I need it the most right now, someplace deeper, more special.

  A primal part of my womanhood I never even knew existed, and it only wants one thing. More.

  Now, this is gonna sound silly. Maybe like the overactive imagination of a girl who just maybe needs to take care of some business when she gets home. But the sound, whatever it really is. Deep and strong, like a low humming or a buzz, picks up a notch and starts to pulse.

  In my ears and right through me, right where it feels so good until I actually feel like it’s calling my name.

  I think Orion is still beside me, but seriously? Dog be damned. If this feeling sound whatever it is keeps up for another instant I’ll be on all fours as well, touching myself in the middle of a forest path begging who or whatever it is to come and give me a more personal demonstration.

  Just when it feels like I can’t take it anymore. Just when I really do feel like something inside me is about to let loose, making me do something I’ve never done anywhere, and right now it feels like I couldn’t care if the whole world was watching.

  Just as it happens, right as I’m about to explode into what feels like infinity, I hear a deep growl, a strong male voice shouting my name, as if he’s—

  But it’s too late.

  I try to call out for who or whatever it is, to catch me, to save me. But feeling the ground disappear under my feet and the wind rushing up, I know I’ve stepped right off a ledge nearest the edge of the trail.

  Orion’s whining echoes grow distant and I almost feel complete abandon until the sharp pain in my leg, followed by my ass hitting the rocky ground in the same place I was dying to have touched so tenderly just a moment ago, brings me back down to earth.

  Literally.

  I majored in journalism not anatomy, but even I can tell my ankle is broken. The first attempt to move it makes me cry out in such agony I have to bite down hard, growling between my teeth.

  Wishing I’d never walked that dog today, wishing I’d worn my glasses like I always do.

  Mostly though, I feel a little pang of disappointment.

  The superior force or whatever it was I felt watching me, even calling my name.

  If it’s so damned special how could it just stand by and just watch me walk off a damned ledge?

  I want to scream, but the pain is unbearable.

  Suddenly, I can hear steps not too far off in the distance above in the undergrowth.

  “Gillian?” I hear a male voice calling out. “Gillian where are you?”

  I open my mouth to say something, but the sound is more like a cat being turned inside out by a hysterical woman electrocuting herself at the same time.

  I feel sick like I wanna puke. But once I hear a large sliding sound, a man coming looking over the ledge to help. And once I catch a glimpse of him, I almost faint anyway.

  It’s not so much from the pain, but from the direct association, I can make between this man (if that’s what he really is), and those sounds and feelings I had.

  It all clicks.

  He’s been watching me for days now, I just know it. Probably getting closer than he dared without scaring me but not close enough to stop me before it was too late.

  It’s a moonlit night, and it highlights his huge muscular frame under his shirt as he moves swiftly into action.

  He’s climbed down, avoiding branches and his massive arms are reaching out for me.

  “It’s okay now. I got you. Uh… You had a fall,” he says in a deep, melodic voice. The same tones as the sound I was hearing earlier.

  I wince in pain and he moves closer, giving me a better view. My wince of pain is almost a moan of disbelief.

  The man is a fucking god on earth, adonis good looks for sure. The kind of man you wish existed, but even if they did, they’d be way out of reach.

  He has on a light button up shirt and some darker colored chinos, his thick and powerful legs steadying him as much as his rippling V-line torso.

  In the moonlight his smooth, chiseled jaw almost makes him look blue, two rows of perfect, your dentist could never even come close to type teeth that make me want him to bite me for some reason.

  To nibble certain parts of me anyway.

  But it’s his eyes that make me gasp, scanning my body from head to toe as he makes another low sound before they settle back on mine.

  They look totally black, like the night sky if I could take all the stars out. The only light in them is a pinpoint of light in each that is just for me.

  Like two stars in his head that are just mine.

  “You’ve hurt your foot,” he observes, and I groan again, reasoning that great strength and god-like good looks must be the tradeoff.

  He’s either just a little shy around people, or maybe had a fall of his own at some point, like on his head as a child.

  Good looks yeah, but about as sharp as a bowling ball.

  I notice his lip curling into a smile as if he can read my thoughts faster than I can think them myself.

  “You’re Gillian Parker, from the campus. I’m Xander. Xander Sixteen,” he murmurs absently, his eyes straying to my heaving chest, nipples stiff with the cold and only aroused further by his interest.

  “Xander Sixteen?” I ask, taken aback, wondering if he’s maybe escaped from the psychology lab instead. One of those weird experiments we hear about but tell ourselves could never
happen in this day and age.

  “Err, forgive me. I mean, I’m Doctor Xander Sexton. Professor Sexton, Astrophysics,” he says trying to keep his smile but looking like he’s spoken out of turn or said too much.

  “Professor Sexton,” he repeats, giving me a sharp look in reply to my bowling ball analogy I just had.

  I flinch suddenly when he reaches for my ankle, knowing it’ll hurt like nothing else, but the effect is the opposite.

  His touch is like a cool soothing balm, reaching under the pain to find me.

  Cleansing me almost completely of all the pain in some way.

  His soothing touch is also filled with strength and confidence. A deep knowledge and ability of things I could never understand.

  But with all this, his touch is also the electric charge between two people. A man and a woman. Two people who’ve found each other after an impossible search.

  I feel this… thing too. The same thing inside me when I heard that sound and I know without having to even think that it’s all come from him.

  He’s been watching me and now he’s finally touching me.

  Okay, he’s not touching me where I wanted a few moments ago, but that was before I fell off a precipice.

  We’re both glad for this feeling, and his lip curls into a smile again but for the life of me I’ve just broken my foot.

  How can it feel so good?

  His own breath shivers, and glancing down I can easily see a thick line in the front of his pants which he doesn’t think to cover in the semi-darkness, but I know an aroused man when I see one.