Chapter 1: : Chapter 1

I stretch my right leg out and hook it around my best friend, Paul, stamping it down on the red spot, giggling when my arms start shaking from holding myself in place too long. We’re in his den playing Twister on Friday night, as we’ve done so many times growing up. Since I met Paul in seventh grade, his house has been my second home. Three of our other friends are sprawled out on the couch, cheering us on, one of them absently flipping through the television until finally landing on Love It or List It.

“List it, dude!” Paul yells at the television—which he is watching upside down through his legs. I’m getting ready to disrupt his balance by bumping him with my hip when the front door of the house opens and closes briskly. And I lose my balance instead.

Seven o’clock on the dot. Every time.

It’s him.

Outwardly, I try not to show a reaction, but on the inside I’m rattling like a rickety wooden roller coaster and my stomach has been left at the top of the steep drop.

Paul’s father is home.

Gunner Kraft.

He passes by the opening of the den and glances in briefly, smirking when he spies me collapsed on the Twister mat beside his laughing son. He doesn’t stop walking on his way to the kitchen, so I only get a few seconds to soak him in. Really, there will never be enough time to absorb his big, bulky body. Those shoulders. He’s hard and thick and impenetrable.

Everywhere.

At Paul’s birthday party a few months ago—both me and my best friend are eighteen—Gunner came swimming with us in the backyard and I almost hyperventilated. My knees shook beneath the water at the sight of his salt and pepper chest hair, the round slab of his stomach.

And when the water molded his swim trunks to his lap, the enormous ridge between his thighs made my belly so ticklish, I turned so red everyone thought I had a sunburn.

Gunner’s father is forty-five. A single-father divorcee.

I’m eighteen.

I’ve been in love with him, roughly, since I was twelve.

No one compares. What Gunner does to me in my dreams is more satisfying than what any boy could hope to accomplish in real life, so I don’t even bother with them. College starts in a month and I’m already positive that none of the boys there will measure up, either.

At the reminder of college—namely, the tuition being due—my stomach groans and I roll to my feet, pasting a breezy smile on my face. “I’m going to go grab another slice of pizza from the kitchen.” I tuck my white-blonde hair behind my ears. “Anyone want one?”

They’re all too busy shouting at HGTV to pay me any attention.

That’s just fine with me, because I have to get my fix.

On the way to the kitchen, I tug my skirt a little higher and knot my tank top under my breasts. I put on a flirtatious smile. It’s kind of what I’m known for—being a flirt. A tease. Lately, it has been my body armor, so no one looks too deep. God forbid they find out I’m not really one of them. That I’m just pretending. Treading water. The flirting makes them roll their eyes and laugh, not take me too seriously. Every recent high school graduate in the den is filthy rich and I used to be among their ranks. If I can help it, they’ll never know how far I’ve fallen.

None of that is important right now, though.

There’s only Gunner. Getting a little glimpse of what I can’t have.

Pretending he’s mine for just a moment, like I always do.

When I walk into the designer chef’s kitchen, Gunner has a serious expression on his stoic face, frowning down at a pile of documents spread on the kitchen counter. His thick stomach is pressed to the edge, those meaty fingers leafing through the pile. At the mere closeness of him, my nipples turn to little peaks, skin prickling and heating.

“Mister Kraft,” I say, pouting, trailing a finger down the wall of the archway. “Don’t you ever stop working?”

“No,” he says dryly, without looking up. “Hello Josie. How are you?”

“Better now that you’re here.” I swagger over to the counter where he’s standing, propping a hip on the low cabinetry. “I always feel a little safer when you’re home.”

He cuts me a brief look, but he doesn’t bite any of the eye candy I’m offering.

Of course he doesn’t.

To him, I’m still a twelve-year-old with braces.

“You’re safe even when I’m not here. The alarm system is engaged and the gate is electrified,” he says absently, flipping a paper and scrutinizing the contents. “How is your father?”

Broke.

Destitute.

Lying to everyone.

“He’s well. He said to say hello.” That’s a lie. My father is barely present enough to acknowledge me these days, most of his time spent on the phone arguing with creditors. Maybe it’s the reminder that my college tuition money has been squandered that makes me feel a little reckless tonight. Normally, I would flirt a little with Gunner and he would send me back to the kids’ room with a proverbial pat on the head. But I want to be distracted from what’s happening in my life. I want the comfort of his arms, now more than ever—and that is saying something, because I’ve been all twisted in knots over this man since puberty.

I wet my lips and allow my pulse to trip over itself, then I slide in between Gunner and the kitchen counter, the fly of his expensive dress pants dragging across my bare stomach.

Immediately, I’m pinned by that gray, hooded gaze. The one that made him a billionaire many times over in the finance world. It’s ruthless. Sharp. It almost makes me lose my nerve. But I don’t. I hold onto my courage and reach up to loosen his burgundy tie. “You can’t work so hard all the time, Papa Bear,” I murmur, using the nickname I’ve been using since middle school. It’s been a while since I said it out loud. It’s so fitting, though, for this big bear of a man. “You have to have a little fun sometimes, don’t you think?”

“Josie…” His tone holds a stern warning. “What are you doing?”

I succeed in taking off his tie, then trail the silk down between my breasts, finally—finally—drawing his eye there. A muscle jumps in his cheek when I arch my back a little. “Just having some fun,” I whisper, dropping the tie in favor of sliding my hands up the front of his starched, white button-down shirt. “I hate seeing you so stressed.”

This I’m not lying about. At all.

Gunner works seven days a week. Never takes a break, unless it’s his son’s birthday.

I am worried about his stress level. It’s not just a ruse to get closer.

He has always been a steady presence in my life and I care about him. A lot.

“I’m fine, Josie,” Gunner says through his teeth. “And you shouldn’t be standing so close to me. Your hands shouldn’t be—”

He breaks off when I pop open one of his buttons. “Oops,” I say, blinking innocently. “Bet you feel better already without this thing buttoned all the way to your throat. Don’t you ever wear a T-shirt?”

“Don’t you ever wear a skirt that covers your tight little teenage ass?” Gunner poses the question in a rush—and immediately regrets it, closing his eyes and shaking his head. “I shouldn’t have asked you that. What you wear is none of my business.”

I can barely breathe. “But you…noticed. You notice what I wear? I can never tell—”

“This whole conversation is goddamn inappropriate.” With a jerky movement, he rebuttons the top of his shirt. “Go back to the den. Now.”

Well aware that my window of opportunity is shrinking by the second, I disobey him, hopping up and backwards onto the counter, gratified beyond words when Gunner watches my breasts bounce, his throat working in a rough pattern when I inch my thighs open, just a little. Just enough that he can see the pink lace of my thong. “I’m having a better time right here with you.” I lean back on my hands and shift my right knee side to side, hiding my panties from him, showing them, hiding. “Aren’t you having a good time with me, Papa Bear?”

“No,” he growls.

Now who’s lying?

We both look down at the same time, at his colossal erection, then back at each other.

“That doesn’t mean I want to…” He drags a hand down his face and shoves my legs together with determination, his touch shooting electricity all the way up my thighs. “I just haven’t been with a woman since the divorce. After a decade, it’s a normal reaction to being…”

“Tempted?” I lean forward, taking the lapels of his shirt in my hands, pulling him closer despite his resistance. Despite the way he growls my name in that low, warning manner. And I settle my mouth over the top of his hard lips. Inhaling. Exhaling. “Are you tempted?”

He shakes his head, but those lips come back to mine, not kissing me, but making my heart rejoice nonetheless. “You’re my son’s friend, Josie. Less than half my age. I golf with your father, for godsakes.” Too briefly, he squeezes my knees, letting his thumb brush along the sensitive insides. Slightly higher to my inner thighs. With a shaky curse, he backs away abruptly, using his pocket square to dab at the sweat on his forehead. “I don’t know what has gotten into you, little girl. But it ends now. You stay where you belong—with your friends.”

I should be disappointed, but I’m not.

He slipped. Finally. He admitted he notices me. He let our mouths touch. Stroked my thighs. This might have gone further if it wasn’t for his notorious restraint. I’m almost trembling with euphoria at this development. Wishing I would have pushed a little sooner. Wishing I had talked myself into being brave. This man I love so fiercely…he’s tempted. Attracted.

He’s also just thrown up a forty-foot wall between us.

I’ve never been so determined to climb it. To reveal my love. My devotion.

Eventually. When he’s not ready to throw me out of his kitchen.

With more confidence than I had upon entering the dim room, I slide off the counter, letting my skirt drag up all the way to my hips, reveling in the way he stifles a groan, using the pocket square on the back of his thick neck now. Keeping eye contact with my best friend’s father, I bite my lip and peel the lacy pink thong down my legs, stepping out of it. Dangling it from my index finger and giving him a few seconds to look at me there. Naked. Impressing upon him that I’m a grown woman now. With an itty bitty landing strip.

“Jesus Christ,” he rasps, starting to twist away—but he can’t. Not completely. Half turned, his eyes remain glued to the juncture of my thighs, his tongue coming out to wet those perfectly-matured lips, surrounded by a gray and black five o’clock shadow.

Slowly, I close the distance between us, tucking the panties into Gunner’s pocket while his barrel chest heaves, faster and faster. “I can be your secret, Papa,” I whisper, gently dragging my middle finger down, along the stiff spear of his erection. “Think about it.”

“It’s not happening, Josie,” he grinds out, yanking my skirt down, back into place. “Go.”

He moves to the other side of the kitchen where he plants his hands on the counter, dropping his head forward. Moonlight streams in through the closest window, bathing him in white light and my heart races, clenching and releasing with yearning. To be in his arms. To have him surround me with that big, safe body and tell me everything will be okay.

Because I desperately need someone to tell me that right now.

Not only has my infatuation just told me, forcefully, to leave, I have one month to come up with my first semester’s tuition. No way my father will pull it off in time.

My options are dwindling. Fast.

I could ask any number of my friends for the money. Their parents probably wouldn’t even miss it. But that would expose my father. That would out me as a fraud.

Not one of them.

There is one option a lot of girls my age have to pursue—being a sugar baby. Finding a man much older than them to foot the bills. In exchange for…company. Of the biblical variety.

There is a website I’ve visited many times. I still haven’t brought myself to create a profile, but I’m nearing the deadline fast when I’ll need money. I’ll have no choice but to make a profile soon and hope someone is interested.

But what if…what if I could be Gunner’s sugar baby?

It would be a dream come true.

And if he’d just let down his guard, he’d realize I would be good for him. That no one will love and appreciate his hard work like I do. If we just spent some time together, as adults, he’d stop thinking of me as a child. Or the friend of his son. Daughter of his colleague. I could be the one thing in his life that isn’t related to stress and work.

That’s when the idea formulates…