My Best Friend's Navy SEAL Dad: A Steamy Standalone Instalove Romance Read online

  She climbs out of the car, shouldering her camera bag as she walks toward her house…

  A house that sends a pang of regret and rage moving through me.

  My woman – and her family – deserve to live in a luxurious home, something befitting her majesty.

  But it’s difficult to stay regretful and rage-filled when my woman does as she’s instructed, moving her hips from side to side, making that juicy ass move for me in those denim shorts.

  My cock stiffens again, already flooded with seed even after what we did at the cabin.

  She stops at the front door, turning to give me a shy wave. It’s endearing and it makes me want to kick my car door open and sprint over to the house, tackle her inside and bend her over the first piece of furniture I see.

  I don’t give a damn what it is.

  A couch, a chair… I’ll bend her over and then roughly drag her shorts down, bringing my engorged manhood to her hole. She’ll gasp and moan and shiver against me, her virginal nervousness trying to tell her to stop, but her lust won’t let her stop until she’s sitting on my dick, sliding deeper and deeper until my abs are crushed against her ass cheeks.

  She’ll cry out as I start to fuck her roughly, shifting my hips back and forth over and over like the wild best I am.

  I clear my throat, lift my hand, and wave. It’s all I can do right now, even if that kills me.

  She goes inside and I sit back with a sigh, working my hands around the steering wheel.

  This has been one hell of a day, and it’s not even over yet.

  When I returned home last night I thought the feeling that had captured me at the diner might fade away, but it only grew bigger, stronger, more captivating… and now that I’ve had a taste of her – of her company and her willing body – I know I’ll never be able to let her go.

  I drive through Youngstone, down Main Street, nodding and waving to people as I go. A few of the old-timers salute me and I toss a salute back, nodding in respect for our service.

  Angela texts me with the address for her hotel and I vow to check it out when I get home, making sure they’re putting her up somewhere safe and comfortable. If not, I’ll wire her some money so she can find something better.

  She’s right when she called me paranoid, but how the fuck could I not be?

  I saw some shit overseas and even Stateside when I did a brief stint with a security firm.

  Life is rough and hard and it’s up to people like me to keep the bad away from the innocents.

  Liquid fire moves through me when I think about somebody making a move on my family… not just on Angela, but on Tessa and the children we’re going to have together too. I imagine another man trying to touch her and my heart almost explodes out of my chest.

  I’d tear any motherfucker foolish enough to try that to pieces. I’d bust them open and let all their stupidity spill out.

  I might be civilized with my lady – or as civilized as a man like me can be – but there’s a monster inside of me, a monster I’ve tamed and put to good use. But it’s a monster all the same. And now I’ve charged it with protecting Tessa above all costs.

  Shit, I need to calm down.

  Nobody’s out to get Tessa.

  But that doesn’t matter.

  It’s the thought of it that drives me crazy, making my body pulse in a desire to do something—run or lift or fuck or fight.

  My mind returns to the way my princess looked when she was bent over in the cabin, sticking her flushed ass cheeks out, her pussy looking, pink and hot and tangy and tempting.

  I grip the steering wheel harder, fighting the urge to grab my enflamed cock.

  Tonight can’t come soon enough.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Tessa

  I stare down at the dress, laid out on my bed, my heart pounding through my body like a jagged taunt.

  It’s a golden piece with a frilly hem, reminding me of something a flapper girl would wear in the 1920s, but it’s the cut that really gets me.

  It’s low-cut, the sort of dress, attractive, thin, billboard women wear. It’s the sort of dress I can never imagine wearing, and yet Trent included a note with it.

  I’ll pick you up at sunset. Wear the dress or I won’t be very happy.

  I know he was probably smiling – smirking – as he wrote this, but even so, his words shimmer around me.

  I hope you will be very happy…

  What will he do if I upset him?

  Will he spank me?

  Emotions grip me at the thought, nerves, and lust warring with guilt. The guilt springs from the fact that I got off the phone with Angie barely two minutes before the courier delivered my outfit for the evening. She was ecstatic with this new development, almost singing down the phone to me in her happiness, giggling and laughing and generally being the happiest woman alive.

  “I’m sorry I’m leaving you in a lurch with diner.”

  I giggled. “That place is overstaffed as it is. I’m sure I’ll manage.”

  I’ve got work tomorrow…

  But that seems a lifetime away.

  After all, that’s happened with Trent today, time feels like it’s doing funny, magical, impossible things. It’s like a day has become a week or a month or even a year, stretching and letting me experience a myriad of emotions I never could’ve dreamed of before.

  I move my hands over the soft fabric, biting my lip far too hard, telling myself firmly that I can wear this, I can be sexy.

  Usually, a mean inner voice would rise at this sort of thought, taunting me, calling me all the names the bullies in high school did. But after Trent lustfully claimed me in the cabin, moving his hands over me and then his throbbing manhood, it’s like I can finally start to believe I might be beautiful.

  I flinch and almost let out a silly cry when somebody knocks on the door.

  “Hello?” I call.

  “I tried calling up the stairs,” Mom says. “Do you want anything for dinner?”

  “Oh.”

  “Oh?” Mom chuckles. “What sort of an answer is that?”

  I find myself on the verge of blurting it all out right now, about me and Trent and the mess I’ve made of my life, of all the complications I’ve brought into my friendship with Angie.

  “No,” I say instead. “I’m fine. I’m having dinner out, actually… with that boy, that man, we talked about.”

  “Can I come in?” she asks.

  “Just a second.”

  I grab the dress and shove it back in the box, and then carry it across the room – the room still hazy with late-afternoon sunlight – and stow it under the desk.

  I turn.

  “Okay, you can come in now.”

  Mom opens the door and smirks her way over to me, a knowing glint in her eyes. It’s the glint I missed sorely when her illness struck when the light became manic and paranoid.

  “So you’re having a date,” she says, clearly enjoying herself.

  “You’re one to talk,” I banter. “You’ve been with Liam all day.”

  Her eyes get even brighter at the mention of her boyfriend. “Well, yes… and I won’t tell you what we were doing for most of it.”

  I shiver and toss her a sour look. “Please don’t.”

  “Come here, Tessa. I want to talk to you.”

  She sits on the bed and pats the spot beside her.

  I laugh. “Are we going to have the talk, Mother? I might be a little old for that.”

  “We’re going to have a talk,” she says.

  I roll my eyes but walk over, all the same, dropping into the spot next to her. She turns to me with a serious expression,

  “How long have you been seeing this man?”

  “What? Why do you ask?”

  She throws her hands up. “Because I know my daughter, that’s why. I know we might’ve drifted apart when I got ill… and I’ll forever be sorry for that.”

  I reach over and grab her hand, squeezing it tightly, hoping she can feel the support movin
g through me.

  “Mom, I don’t blame you.”

  “But I still know you,” she goes on. “You’ve been acting strangely all afternoon. I can’t explain it. Yesterday you seemed a little… um… odd too. Has something happened I should know about? Something, you know, involved beds and locked doors?”

  I leap up from the bed, letting out a crazy peal of laughter.

  “No way are we having this conversation, Mom,” I cry.

  She follows me. “How do you explain it then?”

  “Explain what?”

  She sighs in exasperation. “This change in you. It’s like you’re suddenly in love.”

  “How could you possibly tell that?”

  “Because—”

  “You know me. I got it.”

  “Exactly.”

  I bite my lip, the desire to tell her the truth almost forcing my lips open. But how can I tell mom before I’ve told Angie? How can I tell Angie?

  God, this is such a mess.

  “I’m not ready yet,” I say. “Maybe this will blow up in my face and there will be nothing to tell.”

  But I don’t believe that for a second.

  “Do you really think you can lie to me?” Mom says.

  I sigh. “Okay, fine, Miss Mind Reader. No, I don’t believe that. But it doesn’t change the fact I’m really not in the mood to discuss this. I have to get ready for my date.”

  “Ooh, look at Miss All Grown Up,” Mom teases. “Excuse me for trying to get some information out of my own daughter. But, fine, I’ll leave you to your romance.”

  She laughs, sounding like the mom I remember before the illness struck, and even if she’s annoying me and even if I’m cringing harder than I have in a long, long time, I don’t care because it means she’s here, she’s healthy, she’s her.

  She leaves the room and I rush to the door, closing it, resting my head against the wood as my heart thunders through me heavily.

  I wonder what mom would say if I told her the truth about me and Trent. I wonder if she’d laugh or cry or clap or… or what?

  I wonder if she’d understand that the age gap means nothing to me. The complications mean nothing to me.

  I stride across the room and take the dress from the box, holding it up as I stand in front of the full-length mirror. The material drapes over my body, and I fight the urge to see all the imperfections, all the ways I could be prettier, fitter, different.

  I remember a fantasy I had on my eighteenth birthday, waking up and lolling in that half-awake state that’s not quite sleep and not quite full wakefulness. It’s a state where dreams seem more real than usual and as I lay there, I became convinced that Trent was lying beside me.

  Angie, Mom, and I had gone out for a big meal the night before. I was feeling full and curvier than normal from all the food… I was feeling the exact opposite of the cheerleaders in high school and the billboard bombshells who make me feel inadequate every time I pass them.

  I wanted to move, to reach across and touch Trent’s shoulder so he’d roll over and aim that silver fox smirk at me, his green eyes glistening.

  “You’re beautiful,” I imagined him saying, in a deep husky voice that made me believe him. “You’re everything I want in a woman. I love your curves. I love your dimples. I love everything about you.”

  I wanted to move, but I couldn’t.

  Because then I’d break the spell.

  That’s what it’s like now with telling Angie. It’s the same as reaching out would’ve been then, disturbing that half-awake half-asleep world we’re living in, where any nudge can cause the fantasy to shatter into a million pieces.

  I sigh and turn away from the mirror, striding across the bedroom and dropping onto the bed.

  I want time to both hurry up and slow down.

  The thought of seeing Trent again sends warm shivers through me, certainty bursting inside of me, telling me that it’s the only thing I can do.

  And yet I saw the beast in his eyes at the cabin, the hunger flaring.

  How long can I expect him to hold back in respect to my virginity?

  And, even if I work up the courage to give it to him – and he’s somehow not disappointed – how the heck are we going to go back after that? If Angie says we can’t be together, can we respect her wishes?

  I close my eyes, bite down, wishing away those torturous thoughts.

  There are too many questions.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Trent

  I sit around the corner from Tessa’s house, feeling like I’m doing something wrong.

  The thought pisses me the hell off.

  We’re not doing something wrong. We’re doing what we were put on this planet to do.

  I should laugh the thought away, call myself crazy for even letting it work its way into my mind.

  But the hours I’ve spent apart from Tessa today – working out, arranging dinner, and her dress – have made me even more certain there’s no world where I can walk away from this.

  My mind has returned to her again and again, and not just the way she looked when she came for me in the cabin. I think about her shy smiles on the hiking trail, the way she bites her lip when she’s nervous, the widening of her eyes as I leaned in close to kiss her for the first time.

  I remember how enthralling she looked as she took her photographs, the complete concentration on her face, making me think about what an amazing mother she’s going to make.

  There’s no damn way this can end without us being together.

  Forever.

  Which poses a lot of problems.

  But—fuck it.

  This evening isn’t about the problems. This evening is about me and my woman and nobody else, nothing else.

  Right on cue, she walks around the corner, wearing a jacket that cuts off just above her knees, showing me a glimpse of her golden frilly dress and a generous helping of her tantalizing legs. There’s something so sexy about the way she walks, her handbag clutched to her chest, her tousled hair blowing in the light breeze.

  I climb from the car and walk around to her side, smirking as I open her door and offer a half-bow.

  “What a gentleman,” she giggles.

  “Only the best for you,” I tell her.

  Her perfume taunts me as she slides into the passenger seat, flowers and something else, making me want to bury my face in her hair and inhale. My hand is tight on the door, my knuckles turning the color of bone, as my gaze moves down over her round ass.

  Does she have any idea how perfect her ass is, how captivating?

  I close the door and walk around to the driver’s side, pulling out of the street and heading into the woods. The sun has set now, but it’s a full moon and the sky is clear and full of brilliant stars.

  It’s perfect for what I’m planning.

  I get that feeling again – that crazy feeling – that somebody or something wants us to be together.

  “What are you thinking about?” she murmurs, in that cute tentative voice.

  “Destiny.” I laugh dryly. “I bet you didn’t expect that.”

  “Nope.” She giggles tantalizingly. “I hope Destiny isn’t another woman.”

  “What?” I glance at her, temples pulsing. “Never. I’d die before I touched another woman. I’d kill. You’re claiming me as much as I’m claiming you, Snapshot.”

  She touches my forearm, squeezing, making my hand relax on the steering wheel. “I’m sorry. It was a bad joke.”

  “You don’t need to apologize,” I smirk. “It’s just you make me so damn feral. You look incredible, Tessa, and I haven’t even seen the dress yet. Goddamn, I want to tear that jacket off you.”

  Her cheeks flush and she makes a breathy noise, a sound that works its way through my body and does savage things to me.

  I focus on the road as we leave Youngstone and drive down the country lane.

  “You look really handsome,” she says. “I’ve never seen you in a suit before.”

  I’m wea
ring a navy-colored suit, my most expensive item of clothing.

  “In the SEALs, we rarely dress sharp. We’re notorious for it, in fact. The other branches of the military – especially the Army – must think we’re a bunch of slouches. We make up for it by being the most elite bastards you’ll ever meet. But I wanted to dress tonight, to honor the occasion.”

  “The occasion?”

  “What do you think, Snapshot? It’s our first real date.”

  “I’m on a date with Trent Tanner,” she says.

  “And we’re driving through the forest.”

  “Um, yeah I can see that.”

  I smirk teasingly. “I thought we were stating the obvious.”

  “I know.” She mock-glares, making me want to teach over and slip my finger into her pouting lips, make her suck it like she’ll suck my cock one day soon. “But I have to say it out loud otherwise it doesn’t seem—”

  “Nope.”

  She laughs. “What?”

  “You were about to say it doesn’t seem real, but I won’t let you say that anymore. It’s real. It’s happening. So get that fine ass used to it.”

  Her giggle is such a sweet sound, like a soothing balm for a man like me, a man who’s been in more battles than I can count.

  “Where are we going, anyway?”

  “Are you determined to make me punish you?” I tease. “Don’t ruin the surprise.”

  “You’d punish me, would you?”

  “Yeah,” I growl. “But something tells me you’d like being spanked.”

  Her involuntary moan tells me I’m right, that she’d enjoy receiving it as much as I’d enjoy giving it.

  “In fact,” I go on, unable to stop my voice from becoming gnarled and husky. “I think that’s one of the things you dream about when your play with that perfect pink slit.”

  “Yes,” she whispers. “Oh, God. Don’t make me…”

  “Say it,” I snarl, when shyness cuts off her words.

  “If you know what I mean, why do you need me to say it?”

  My cock presses against my suit pants, my balls suddenly feeling twice as full, my tip tingling and buzzing. “Because I know how sexy you’ll sound when you say it.”