KING: A Daddy's Best Friend Romance

“You don’t know it?” I say. “Don’t your parents refer to me?”

“Yeah, my dad does,” she answers. Shit, I didn’t want to bring him into this. “But he most often calls you ‘King.’ My mother usually says ‘your friend, King.’“

“Ah,” I say. “Yeah, most people in college called me that.”

I think Margaret doesn’t like me too much. She’d definitely not like me if she knew what I was thinking right now. I take another sip of wine, to stall. “Well, what does it matter if you know it if you can’t call me by it in any case?”

“I know it starts with R,” she offers.

“Then call me R.”

“Okay,” she says. “R.” She’s rolling it around her mouth like it was a hard candy. “Rrr.”

Or something else hard.

My cock twitches, quivers at the vibration from her mouth.

“How does that feel?” I ask softly.

“Good,” she says. “Rrrr.” Her eyes sparkle.

“I like how it sounds in your voice.”

“I think we’re drunk,” she says.

“Could very well be,” I reply, and signal to the waiter to refill our glasses. He weaves his way through tiny tables close together, and pours our glasses with a flourish.

“Plus de pain, Madame?” he says with an arched eyebrow.

Oh shit, we never ordered, and she hasn’t eaten anything but a breadstick. No wonder she’s drunk. I starve her, then I ply her with alcohol.

I quickly order for us in French and it earns me another one of Jordan’s “looks”: innocent but somehow sexy as hell.

“I never would have pegged you for a fluent French speaker,” she exclaims. “What were you talking about?”

“Ah, I just ordered some food for us. I hope you don’t mind that I took the liberty.”

“Not at all,” she answers, “I didn’t want to have to say a word, honestly. I’m too scared to try to speak here.”

“You’re going to have to get over that, at some point,” I admonish her lightly. “You need to be braver than that if you’re going to be a world traveler.” It occurs to me I don’t know why Jordan came here to Paris. Was it just to see the City of Light, of Love? Was it for some other reason?

“I’m terrified,” she says with no affect, and I realize it’s the most starkly true thing that she’s ever said to me. The part of her that wanted me to pay all my attention to her, the little girl, she’s still there, buried under the most sexual, succulent body I’ve had the pleasure of seeing.

Yes, I’ve spent some time with that body. But she seems like she doesn’t let on what she does. Of course, who would tell their dad’s friend something like that?

The part of me that knows who she is and what she’s done is at war with this public persona of hers. Wh

ich is the public and which is private? I don’t know what is real and what isn’t with her. But her innocence is appealing, even if it’s false.

“So tell me more about this person who was following you,” I say.

“I’d really rather not.” She takes a quick gulp of wine. “I’d like to put it behind me if I can.”

“But you said he seemed to know who you were?”

“Yeah.” Her eyes meet mine again and I search them for any sign of guilt, but they are completely guileless. She is either a very good actress, or she’s actually innocent. I’m determined to figure out which.

There can’t be any way I’ve made a mistake. My PI is too much of a pro for that. If I see her body, somehow, and that mole is there, I’ll know for sure.