Old Temptations: Dad's Best Friend Romance Novella (Experienced Men Book 1) Page 2

  I lurch into the open room, flustered, trawling the sea of faces. Immediately my eyes land like a magnet on his across the wide expanse of crowded space. He's surrounded, like always but it feels like we're the only people here. He opens his mouth with a camera-sized grin of surprise.

  Like, is it really you?

  Baby Blair all grown up?

  I can't help but smile back even though I'm trying to look annoyed, with my famous childish pout. I can't manage it for long because he is even more gorgeous than all the daydreaming I've done since I was a pre-pubescent, picturing Daddy's one and only friend carrying off his baby Blair on a silver unicorn.

  He was more like a father to me than my own dad who, although he loved me, was always more interested in his latest conquest. At least Carl let me know I was adorable and worthwhile. I could have grown up to have serious Daddy issues if it hadn’t been for Carl. He's mouthing something to me across the wide space but I'm rooted to the spot wild eyes as the village idiot.

  Suddenly Carl strides out from his crew and crosses the room. I can't help but be aware of the many eyes tracking his confident stroll. The hungry stares of the single, even the attached, female guests watching his dominant masculine gait. Then I'm lost in the magnetic pull of Carl as he comes to rescue me like he used to.

  My heart is lifting because suddenly I'll be cool and glamorous with him beside me. Jitters run down my arms with a rash of goosebumps so I have to clasp my heavy camera before it slides from my fingers. An insistent throb pulsates deep between my thighs and I recall the first time Carl reduced me to a puddle like this. And then walked away. No, I'm not going to get all mushy for him. I won't put my need for him on the line for him to laugh at and trample over.

  It takes ten seconds for him to cross the empty dance floor but in that eternity, every minute we spent together at the last wedding plays out on my eyeballs. My breath quickens to keep pace with the pulsations flowing to all the tender points of me. The muscle memory of Carl pressed into and wrapped around my body and my pussy tugging to be opened up to him completely delves into me all over again. But I remember with the uncomfortable clarity of disappointment how it ended last time.

  Those three and a half minutes in Carl's arms were the most perfect and the most devastating of my life.

  “Carl, mind if I cut in.” It was an order more than a request. Our bodies peeled away with another electric jolt. This one more like the death penalty than the ignition of long-buried passion that lit me up three short minutes ago.

  We came unglued only at the last moment, when it would have been outrageous not to. The other dancers were listening to the singer's spiel, introducing the mother of the bride. But our eyes stayed compressed even if our bodies couldn't and Carl's heavy hand was on my hip. So close. The absence of Carl’s solid torso, strong arms and the enticing solid swell brought a rampant loneliness over my limbs. I wanted him back there.

  Tell him no. Just refuse.

  Carl dropped my hand and stepped back, awkward for the first time ever.

  “Sure, Buddy.” His face almost blushing except Carl has way too much confidence to lose his cool entirely. But having known him all my life I could see he was severely confused.

  He covered his embarrassment smoothly and only I was deeply aware of the mound in his suit pants as he stepped away through the crowd. Goosebumps still laced my arms as Daddy inserted himself into my lust for his oldest and only friend.

  Chapter THREE

  I lift my arms slightly, ready for Carl to lift me from the floor and swing me around in a circle. Of course he doesn't. I'm almost twenty one and way too adult to be swung around. Still, I'm almost disappointed not to feel his powerful grip lift me and his strong fingers close to my enlivened areas. Stupidly I stretch out my hand for him to shake.

  “My Baby Blair,” he says, taking my shivering palm in both of his and retaining it while he kisses me on each cheek.

  The aroma of him fills my nostrils and almost blows out my frontal lobe. The dusky masculine scent betraying the deep sensuality of the man beneath the expensive cologne. Exactly as I remember, I could pick him out of a line up by scent alone. He steps back and looks me up and down again like he still can't believe it.

  “So beautiful,” he says on a long breath of air, taking in a much more devouring stare across my body. Why didn't I wear something more suitable to running into the only man I've ever wished would tear my clothes from my body to do whatever he wanted with? Something clingy to show him exactly where I've filled out.

  “Daddy didn't say you were coming.”

  “I wasn't quite sure I should,” he says, his eyes delving harder into mine with a significance not lost on me. I'm sure he remembers the last wedding we were at together. The last time we saw each other. Held each other. That last dance.

  “So how have you been, stranger?” I ask, not unaware that I'm sporting a nostalgic sulky little pout on my mouth. I'm still upset that he disappeared without a word of goodbye. I also notice Carl looking at my lips like he's mesmerized. Or perhaps he's merely thinking I'm the same demanding brat he knew before. “It's been a while. I thought maybe pygmies had abducted you or something.”

  “Are there many pygmy tribes living in LA? I always loved your active imagination, Angel.” His eyes drift from my lips down my bare collarbone to land on my breasts. They immediately fill with the pressure of craving that communicates direct with my nipples.

  This man that knows how to incite my hunger with a look. I'm sure the points are poking through the white cotton demanding to be squeezed and I again wish I'd worn something else than this boring bland catering staff outfit. Something to really set Carl's imagination loose.

  “I wasn't aware that you'd gone to LA,” I stutter, my lips refusing to behave.

  “Your father sent me to sort out some crisis in one of the company offices.” he says, dragging his eyes back up to mine.

  “For almost five years?” I thunder, incredulous.

  “Well, I got wrapped up in other stuff.”

  Oh my god, he got married. My eyes dart to his hand, no ring. But Carl's unconventional. Maybe he doesn't wear one. He could still be living with someone, involved with some hot So-Cal babe.

  “Is she here?” That pout I mentioned? It's settling in permanently. If the babe's here I'm going to walk out of this ballroom immediately. I cannot look at the woman who stole my guy.

  “Nothing like that, Baby.” He laughs clearly amused at my sulky envy. “How can you imagine that I could ever-”

  He leaves the word hanging, so I focus on exactly what he would ever do. Whether it's the same as what I've been vividly imagining. His lips are deliciously parted, the top lip fatter than the bottom just like I remember. It still makes me yearn to lean in and suck it between my own.

  “I missed you,” he says simply.

  “Really? I thought you must have forgotten.” Hmm,mm. Pout city. He still grins, completely sure of himself and fixes his gaze on my mouth. I roll my full lips over each other and trail my tongue along the bottom edge, happy to be rewarded with a repressed grunt from my dad's old pal.

  “Forgetting you is definitely something I could never do,” he says, as though reading my mind.

  “Is there anything you would do now?”

  “So many things.”

  The dah-dah-de-dah music strikes up and we're jolted back into the laborious task ahead of getting through this interminable event. I'm reminded I have a one shot chance at the photos of the bride's biggest day and Carl is swept off with some other old acquaintance who want him sitting with them for the ceremony. He looks back over his shoulder his eyes clinging to mine until he's swallowed up in the crowd.

  Vacant without him, I move around the venue to catch the bride's parade. My head blurs with the scent of lilies but I catch the shots I want from every angle. My eyes trawl through the rows of seated guests until I alight on Carl, beside my father, who of course has positioned himself next to a couple of girls barel
y older than me.

  A flare of anxiety hits me that my father has plans of double dating the barely legals, like the old days. I know he dragged Carl out with him many times, so that he'd have someone to talk to while the girls giggled together.

  A decadent ache pulses between my legs. The numerous times I've fantasized about Carl's lips caressing mine there are playing on repeat. He's grown even more delicious with age and every time I find my gaze magnetized back to Carl, I catch his eyes on me, trailing me around the room like I'm the only one in it. I turn my lens onto the guests and rotate the zoom for a close up shot of his rugged face. His smile fills the frame and makes not only my heart melt. It doesn’t seem possible the real man is here in my orbit.

  Before I can control myself, my fingers rotate the zoom, closing tighter on his fleshy firm lips. The thick upper one made to hook around my throbbing clit and suck it into its teasing grip. I hold him there in the frame, direct to the vivid image of his lush lips covering my shivering pussy mouth. The sliver of fabric between my inner thighs is soaked.

  His grin almost implies he knows exactly what I'm enduring here. Having to concentrate on artistic images of an, e-hem, virginal bride, with lascivious thoughts about the man sitting beside my father almost bringing me to my knees. But then the loneliness of these last years, knowing that Carl could walk away from me without a second thought ram-raids my mind. I have to control my impulsive desire for him.

  After that last wedding, Daddy’s to Tina, I waited all weekend with only one thing on my mind. Monday morning found me loitering in the kitchen, breathless for Carl's arrival. He and daddy always started the week with a meeting at our house and I was on edge to see him after the massive shift in things between us that took place two days prior. Literally, my hands were shaking as I made the coffee, strong like I know he likes it. I was picturing him striding through our front door, greeting Emilia the housekeeper, who never failed to gape at him like he'd stepped off a billboard.

  “How's the most beautiful girl in the Universe this Monday morning?” he always asked me as he strolled confidently across the family room.

  Today I just knew his hand would cup around my waist as he kissed my cheek, like always. Except now he'd rest it there a moment too long, his fingertips tugging at my flesh, but not long enough that Daddy would get suspicious. But that morning passed and Carl never showed. I didn't ask my Dad why, because he was a bear woken up in winter the entire week. That made two of us. We both missed Carl's glittery presence.

  I figured he must have taken a trip although he hadn't mentioned it at the wedding. Not that we did much talking. I was a grown up now. My Carl crush ramped up to a whole other level and I was deflated and mopy not to see him at the house where we weren't surrounded by hundreds of revelers. When he didn't appear another Monday, I put on my most nonchalant voice to ask my father as casually as possible.

  “I haven’t seen Carl around. Did you send him away on business?”

  “Yeah something like that,” was Papa's cryptic response.

  “When's he coming back?”

  “Why the sudden big interest in my buddy Carl?” my father was instantly leery. Which is his go-to nature being the shady businessman type but I got a sense there was something else going on. Or maybe he was already bored with his latest wife. I certainly was. She never seemed to move from bed so as least I didn't see much of her before divorce proceedings began a couple of months later.

  I felt my cheeks light up with an incriminating flush that only made Daddy's eyes narrow further. Shit, had Carl said something? He wouldn't have indicted himself though. Not that there was anything improper to tell. A little taboo maybe, but so delicious. Carl had nothing to feel guilty over and I know he'd always protect me. So what could he have said?

  Was he aware of the shock-waves he sent flying through me as soon as my body was encircled into his solid biceps like he'd been doing for years?

  “Nothing really,” I said, turning my back so he couldn't rummage his stare through my mortification. “Just haven't seen him around. Gotta dash, late for math test. Love you Daddy.”

  I didn't ask again about his best friend's vanishing but I've thought about Carl almost constantly. Now I have no idea how to face him with that swirling around in my tummy.

  *

  Ceremony over with, I'm desperately composing a group shot of the wedding party and a few extended relations on the stairs and it is fucking impossible. Aside from being completely discombobulated by Carl's presence and that close up shot of his face that could smother my pussy mouth, this crowd are on crack. As soon as I have them lined up, one of them darts off to squeal over a guy she just saw in the crowd.

  After an age getting them all to look at me, they're distracted by a Texan drawl by my side and directing their camera grins toward burly Uncle Ed's smartphone because he's six five with a swathe of belly and drowns me out. All of them have the attention span of a group of pre-schoolers on a Halloween candy binge. Every shot is ruined by some shiny distraction. I'm a laughing stock. These photos are going to be worse than Uncle Ed's amateur attempts.

  Then there's another disturbance and Ed is dislodged by a subtle but effective football slam. “Sorry big guy. Over here, everybody. Look at me, this way.”

  Carl is right next to me, his hand burning up the small of my back. He's so commanding, not only easy on the eye but so easily dominates a crowd that they instantly do what he says. It takes a special talent to get people to do that and Carl has it in spades.

  “Young lady,” he tells a woman in her sixties, still chattering, “Can't you rein in your husband.”

  She looks at the Justin Bieber type beside her and squeals with laughter that relaxes the entire group. Carl squats down to rest his cheek on mine so that when they look at him, they're also looking direct at my lens.

  His rough stubble against my tender skin sends sharp pangs of need so my hands start to shiver on the lens.

  “Cheek to cheek again,” he murmurs as I squeeze the shutter and pray that camera shake won't ruin the photo. I get a ton of fantastic shots super fast.

  “Done,” I whisper and Carl takes charge of dismissing the group with another cheeky remark. “What a nightmare,” I say when he turns back to me. “Thanks for the assistance. I nearly lost it there.”

  “You just need to learn some domination.” He grins and his eyes ravage into mine, filled with the myriad questions.

  “Are you offering to teach me?”

  “If I were to show you domination that would require you to submit to me, wouldn't it?”

  “I might be willing to do that. For the sake of learning from the master.”

  Oh my god, am I doing this?

  Carl and I have always been flirty but the sexual undertones have never been this pronounced. Because now, of course, the opportunity for fulfillment is there. It isn’t a dream or a forbidden taboo now. Well it is, but this can happen.

  And I want nothing more than to have him between my legs sawing in and out along my channel rendering me speechless with the shuddering pleasure of finally having him inside me. The ache inside my thighs becomes so insistent I almost reach for his hand to place it right between the folds.

  How direct would that be in letting him know exactly where we're at now? Because we're skirting around this and it's driving me crazy, ramping up my yearning for Carl harder than ever.

  Chapter FOUR

  The moments tick by as Carl and I get lost in the maelstrom crashing between us. The crowd of revelers around us has melted into the background and the movie of his mouth covering every part of me plays in Sensurround.

  The real man has me penned with his ravaging eyes and I'm incapable of focusing my mind let alone my expensive lens. Then Josh bounds up like a puppy just when I'm spellbound by images of Carl inserting the tip of his wide dick into various places.

  “Blair, come on,” Josh yelps. “We need to get in position for the departure shots. Oh, excuse me, Sir,” he says to Carl wh
o gives a tiny wince at the interruption and highlighting of the age difference. “The bride's ready to leave.”

  Josh certainly has perfectly irritating timing. I wish the bride would evaporate along with the rest of this crowd and especially Josh, who I really regret allowing to kiss me that one time. All I want is to be alone with the man I've been fantasizing about, yearning to see him again for so long.

  “Last set,” the singer announces as the band strikes up again after a break for everyone to wave goodbye and Carl grabs my hand. The force of his grip on me sends a shock through my arm straight to my core.

  “You can take care of those pictures can't you, Kid,” Carl orders him, rather than asks, “I've got a long standing date with Blair.”

  “Well, I,- Blair?” Josh almost wails as I dump my camera on him and shrug helplessly, dragged away by Carl.

  We arrive at the wooden dance floor and he leads me directly to the center. It's a boppy kind of number, the kind that pleases a crowd and Carl starts spinning me around. He leads me so effortlessly, his power moving me firmly and the way he dances is natural. His body agile for all its bulk, He's so confident and moves so well, it's not at all cheesy the way he dips me. Bending me back and coming down on top of me, his hot breath hitting the skin above my breasts.

  I know half the women in the room are fixated on Carl dancing. He laughs with his eyes trained entirely on me. The speed of the twirls means he has to grasp my hip to maneuver me. Do I imagine he digs his fingers for an extra squeeze as our bodies crash together?

  When his fingers trail across my breast momentarily during a turn silver sparks fly through me. He twirls me around a couple of rotations, then pulls me against him so my spine crushes against his front from top to tail. Holding me immobile in his heat, his arms overlapped to crush me against him. Beneath his thick bicep, his palm grazes the underside of my breast and I feel like fainting from the sensation of his hands in the places I imagined for years.