Picture Perfect Love: A Steamy Standalone Instalove Romance Read online

  “Oh,” Janie says, as though it hasn’t quite struck her. And then she gasps. “Ohhhhhhh.”

  “Yeah, oh.”

  Kelly snaps her hand out, grabbing her phone.

  She stares at me with tears glimmering in her eyes, making me want to reach forward and brush them away.

  I want to sweep her into my arms and tell her I’ll never let anyone make her cry, I’ll protect her for the rest of my life…

  But I’m the one making her cry, my reaction to the truth.

  What does she expect?

  I want to hug her, hold her, tell her it’s all going to be okay.

  But I can’t, not now that I know the truth.

  “I… I have to go,” she says quickly.

  Kelly pushes past me. I fight the urge to reach out and grab her wrist.

  I know if I do I won’t be able to stop myself from pulling her into a comforting embrace, and how can I do that now after I’ve learned the truth?

  The door slams behind her and her footsteps pound down the hallway.

  I’m left with Janie, who stares at the door and then back at me.

  “I can honestly say that’s never happened before.”

  I chuckle, without any humor at all. “Yeah, no shit.”

  I stride to the exit and punch the door open, marching down the hallway, but Kelly is long gone by the time I get there.

  “Good session?” the woman behind the reception desk says, giving me the come-at-me eyes like she did when I first arrived.

  But I have no interest in her or any other woman, apart from Kelly. She’s the only one who’s ever ignited need in me, who’s ever made me want to chase after her and claim her, to kiss away her tears softly and then fuck her hard, claim her with my throbbing manhood, until her young fertile womb has no choice but to swell with my offspring.

  Shit.

  This is a mess.

  She’s my daughter’s best friend.

  Just…

  Shit.

  I sit on my balcony staring out over the city, the same way I did a couple of nights ago when Russ brought me the ticket.

  But so much has changed since then, I refuse to believe it was so recent.

  I kissed my daughter’s best friend and I want to do it again. I want to find her and push her up against the wall, leaning down so I can drive my manhood against her sex, letting her feel my urgent hunger through my clothes even if I know it’s wrong, even if I know I’d be betraying my daughter in the worst possible way.

  “Dad.” Natalie pokes her head through the door, an innocent smile on her face, no idea the dark turn my thoughts have taken. “Want some coffee?”

  “Sure.”

  I find it hard to meet her gaze.

  She swung by for a visit, to say hi before she attends an extra-curricular lecture at college this evening.

  It should have made me happy when I clicked on the intercom and heard her voice, but the depressing truth is guilt stabbed into me instead.

  “Okey dokey,” she says, the same way she would when she was a kid, getting me to say it in my goofy voice.

  Say it, Daddy. Say it.

  And she’d leap up and down, waving her hands until I indulged her.

  How can I betray her like this?

  “Hey, Dad.” She steps onto the balcony, tilting her head at me. “Are you okay? You seem sort of weird.”

  “Sorry, little gnat, I guess I’m just thinking about some stuff.”

  She smiles at the nickname, little gnat, which I bestowed on her as a kid because she was always leaping around the place like an overexcited insect, and because it fits her name, Nat, perfectly.

  “Do you have any idea how vague that sounds?” She giggles as she strolls over to me, putting her hands on her hips and staring down at me. “I know you’re not big into talking about your feelings, but you know we can talk about anything, right?”

  “Of course.” I sit up and reach over, giving her hand a squeeze. “I always know I can talk to you. But…”

  “But what?” she urges when I trail off.

  But I want to fuck your best friend.

  I want to make her pregnant.

  I want to claim her for the rest of our lives.

  It hardly seems like the best thing to say.

  “But I think you should focus on your studies. You’re going to be the best damn nurse in the world, little gnat.”

  “Dad.” She waves her finger at me, trying to look stern even as a smile tugs at her lips. “You know I can tell when you’re complimenting me just to distract me, right?”

  I smirk. “You never used to be able to.”

  “Well, I’m not a kid anymore.”

  “I know that. But it still works.”

  She shakes her head. “I can tell I’m not going to get anywhere. But I’m here if you want to talk. Always.”

  “I know.” I give her hand another squeeze. “And the same goes for you. You know that.”

  She squeezes my hand back. “I know. Let me fix that coffee since you’ve taken a vow of silence or something.”

  “Hey, ask me about fighting and I’ll talk your head off.”

  She walks over to the door. “Yeah, because I’m training to be a nurse because I want to learn how to inflict pain.”

  I chuckle and call after her, “Less of the sarcasm, young lady.”

  “In your dreams, old man.”

  I laugh at her joke. We’ve always had the ability to banter with each other.

  But today the words old man hammer into me.

  Kelly is my daughter’s age, their birthdays are within a few months of each other if memory serves…

  Not that my memory seems the most reliable since I forgot what her best friend even looks like.

  But Kelly said she doesn’t care about the age gap. And neither do I.

  If anything, it makes me want her more.

  Natalie brings the coffee out a few minutes later, setting mine down on the table. “Dad, I’m going to prep my notes for the lecture. Do you mind if I use your study?”

  “Of course not.” I grin at her. “Just don’t touch my gym or there’ll be problems.”

  “Yeah, yeah.” She rolls her eyes. “I know never to touch your sanctuary.”

  I chuckle. “I’m only kidding. This place is mine as much as it is yours. Even if you’ve rented your own place, paid with the cash you earned… after I said I’d sort it out for you. I’m proud of you, little gnat.”

  Goddamn, is this guilt making me overly sentimental?

  She laughs awkwardly. “I’m proud of you too, Dad. Now stop being cheesy and drink your coffee.”

  I snap off a mock salute. “Yes, ma’am.”

  She laughs as she walks away. I watch her walk through the apartment, disappearing down the hallway, and then I take out my cell phone and call Russ. He answers after a couple of rings.

  “Hey, bro. What’s up?”

  “Can you talk?”

  I can hear kids laughing in the background, lasers shooting, as his wife yells at his children to slow down. “Yeah, hang on. The kids have got these new blasters. They’re going hog wild.”

  I wait until he walks to a quieter part of the house.

  “I’m sorry if I’m disturbing your family time, man.”

  “Pfft, giving me a break is more like it.”

  We both laugh because we know it’s a joke. Russ values his family above all else. It’s one of the things I respect most about him, even if I’ve never been able to find a similar commitment for myself…

  Until now, that is.

  “What is it?” he asks.

  “I went to that thing. That photography session.”

  “No shit? That’s awesome. How did it go?”

  I pause, glancing behind me at the apartment to make sure Natalie’s nowhere nearby. It makes me feel sneaky and I don’t like it.

  “Good and bad, I guess you could say.”

  “Stop feinting and hit me with it.”

  I smirk
at the reference. It’s a saying one of our coaches used to throw at us when we were beating around the bush. Telling me to tell him the damn truth without umming and ahhing.

  So I do. From start to finish.

  I tell him about going to the photoshoot and then falling like a damn crashing meteor for the woman I thought was Samantha, and then learning she was my daughter’s best friend. Even as I tell Russ, I can hear how insane and unlikely it sounds.

  There’s a part of me that whispers fate, that whispers this was meant to happen because it’s just so damn unlikely.

  What are the chances I’d run into Kelly of all the possible women?

  And yet I have to beat that part of me down because I know it makes no damn sense. It’s not the sort of thing I’ve ever allowed myself to believe in, but I can’t stop the instinct from rising inside of me, from roaring at me it must be true, it must mean something.

  “That’s insane.” Russ lets out a long breath when I’m done. “Goddamn. What are you going to do?”

  “I’m open to suggestions.” I laugh without humor. “Honestly I’ve got no clue.”

  “I don’t know. I’ve never heard you talk like this about a woman before. This is it, isn’t it, what you always said you’d feel when you found the woman you wanted to be with?”

  I think for a moment, delving inside of myself and tasting the hot certainty I feel for my Kelly, sampling it the same way a predator might sample his prey before he devours it completely.

  And I know, bone deep, that Russ is right.

  This is it.

  “Yeah. But I didn’t plan on her being my daughter’s best friend.”

  “No shit.” Russ sighs. “I don’t know, man. How do you think Natalie would take it if you told her?”

  “I don’t know.”

  I’m starting to feel like that’s the only thing I know for certain, how little I know anything right now. I feel as if I’m wading through a dense forest, caught in the underbrush, and I can’t see any way out.

  Except to pursue my woman, chase her like the beast I am, throw her to the floor and then catch her so she doesn’t fall too violently.

  Lower her to the ground and claim her with my lips at first, kissing roughly, painting the nape of her neck in kisses before moving to her gorgeous round breasts.

  Suck her nipples until they become hard in my mouth, coaxing the pleasure out of her, and then drive up deep inside of her…

  Goddamn it, I need to focus.

  It’s so easy to lose myself in thoughts of my woman, in dreams of all the things I’m going to do to her to make her mine.

  “Not well, I’d guess,” I go on. “They’ve been best friends since they were little kids. But I swear to God, I didn’t recognize her. She looks… I can’t explain it in any other way, even if it sounds cheesy. She looks like mine.”

  “That does sound a little cheesy,” Russ admits. “But if this was any other woman, I’d tell you to go after her, cheesy or not.”

  “And now?”

  “I’m sorry, bro, but—”

  “You don’t know. I get it.”

  “But keep me posted. Let me know when you make a decision. You know I’ll support you no matter what.”

  “I know.”

  We end the conversation and I place my cell phone on the table, my eyes returning to the setting sunlight, my body full of pounding need for my woman.

  I can’t stop thinking of the way she softened for me when I kissed her.

  It must’ve been the last thing she expected, me grabbing her and pulling her close to me like that, driving my throbbing need against her belly, but then I felt her soften and she shivered against me. I felt her sink into me, giving herself into the lust.

  She must’ve recognized me, which was why she gave me a fake name.

  She didn’t want me to know she was my daughter’s best friend because then…

  The horny thing.

  Because then I wouldn’t have kissed her. I wouldn’t have claimed her.

  And she wants to be claimed.

  My cock pulses at the base, the tip aching from the tension. It takes all my self-control not to reach down and grip my thick shaft through my pants, squeezing it and imagining the tension comes from her pulsing wet pussy instead.

  I can so easily imagine the way she’d look bent over, her bare ass calling to me, wetness smeared down her thick thighs and even more dripping from her sopping creamy hole.

  I can feel the way her pussy would tighten around the tip of my cock as I drove up inside of her, as I pushed deeper and deeper and her eyes widened with my presence in her tight young hole.

  “Dad?”

  I sit up with a jolt, my daughter’s voice pulling me from the moment.

  “Yeah?” I say, turning far too quickly.

  Suspicion glimmers in her eyes. “I’m going now. I’ll see you soon.”

  “Of course, Nat. I love you.”

  “Love you too,” she calls over her shoulder, pausing to aim an uncertain look at me before leaving.

  I stand and grip the balcony railing, my eyes cast over the city.

  Now that I know Kelly’s true identity, I could go out there and find her tonight.

  Assuming she hasn’t moved from the loft apartment they had before I left.

  I picked her up and dropped her off many times when she was a kid, Natalie, and Kelly in the back of the car, talking about school and whatever else it is girls go on about.

  The truth is I never tuned into their conversations.

  I was simply happy Natalie had a friend.

  My thoughts were always on fighting, my businesses, how to build a future for my daughter after her mother left and then passed away.

  But now Kelly is all I can think about.

  The father in me recoils at the idea of going out into the city and finding her, but the beast in me demands it, roaring at me to ride the elevator down, get in my car, and pay her a visit.

  I know it’s wrong.

  I know I should fight it.

  But I don’t think I can.

  Chapter Seven

  Kelly

  I sit crossed-legged in bed with my sketch pad open in my lap. The sun has set and I’ve got my curtains open to let in the clear night sky, marred a little by the city’s light pollution, but otherwise beautiful and glowing with inspiration.

  I try to focus on transferring the brilliant landscape to the page, but everything feels too sensitive, too close, as though reality could collapse on me at any second.

  Even after I’ve showered, I can’t get the thought of mine and Kaleb’s kiss out of my head.

  My lips burn with the phantom contact, my body tingling when I remember how he crushed me against his body and growled that he was going to bend me over and fuck me raw.

  My clit pulses and begs to be touched.

  Deep inside of me, my womb screams out for Kaleb, begging me to throw my sketch pad aside and drive over to his apartment.

  I know where he lives, assuming he hasn’t moved since Natalie and I were teenagers.

  But how would he react if I showed up out of the blue?

  His eyes filled with deep hate when he saw the background on my phone when he saw me and his daughter smiling in the selfie, and he remembered who I was.

  I can’t imagine him reacting any better if I turn up unannounced.

  I sigh, part of me wishing Mom was here so I could discuss it with her. But she’s out tonight, staying at a hotel with a few of her writer friends. They like to get tipsy and discuss their craft every few weeks, and I usually relish the time alone in the apartment.

  But right now it feels too empty without Kaleb here to fill it, to let me know it’s all going to be okay, that he’s not angry.

  He wants me as badly as I want him.

  I didn’t imagine that, did I?

  He spoke so fiercely, so possessively.

  It was crazy because, to him, we’d only just met.

  Is he like that with every virtua
l stranger?

  I’m jolted from my thoughts when the apartment buzzer blares, making me wonder who the heck would be visiting at this hour. Natalie always texts if she’s swinging by, and I haven’t ordered any food.

  I place my sketch pad aside and pull my bathrobe tighter around my body. I’m naked underneath and the fabric grazes my nipples, making them tingle.

  I imagine it’s Kaleb’s hands causing the sensation instead, moving over me with captivating lust, with the primal need that fueled his words back at the photography studio.

  I press the intercom button. “Yes, hello?”

  “It’s me.” My heart picks up speed. His voice is even gruffer through the intercom. “Buzz me in, Kelly.”

  “Um, yes. Yes. Okay.”

  It’s all I can think to say as the nerves swirl through me, as they make cascading patterns all through my body, taunting, and teasing.

  I press the button to let him up and then look around the open-plan apartment. In the corner, there’s an easel atop a bunch of newspapers from where I’ve tried my hand at watercolors. The coffee table is stacked with Mom’s latest manuscript, and there are a bunch of dishes in the kitchen since that’s my job and I was so freaking distracted when I got in.

  I’m just thinking about how I should probably change when there’s a heavy knock at the door, unmistakably Kaleb. He pounds the door like he’s ready to kick it down any second.

  What should I do, quickly change?

  But I can’t imagine he’s going to want to come inside.

  He probably came here to tell me we need to forget about what happened and to let me know how angry he is that I gave him a fake name.

  I walk over to the door, unlock it, and then pull it open a few inches, poking my head around the gap, ready to have a terse exchange that ends in heartbreak.

  But the moment I open it, Kaleb strides inside, pushing past me. I close the door behind him and turn to find him standing with his hands clenched into fists at his sides, his gleaming eyes pinning me in place.

  He’s wearing a shirt with the sleeves rolled up, showing his throbbing forearms, his shirt struggling to contain his heaving chest muscles.

  “Where’s your mother?” he growls.

  “Not here.” My voice comes out wavering, almost a whimper, as I cringe under the massiveness of him. “I’m alone.”