Chapter 1
More by Jenika
About the Author
Piper
It was supposed to be a summer job, something to help me transition from graduating high school to starting college. But to me, this wasn’t just some office cleaning position.
I’d be working for Zane, the one man I’d loved for longer than I even wanted to admit.
The one person who could make me weak in the knees with just a glance.
My father’s friend who was far too old for me, but sexier than sin.
Zane
I hired Piper to keep her close, to help appease my need for her. But I played it off like I was helping her earn some money before starting college.
I was too old for her.
She was too innocent for me.
She was my friend’s daughter.
Off limits.
But I’d wanted her since she turned legal last summer. I saw the way she watched me, the way she bit her lip, the fact that her pulse jumped at the base of her throat when I was near. Did she know how obsessed I was with her, how I’d go to any means to keep other men away from her?
I could see how much she wanted me and that was dangerous.
Because her need for me made me territorial, desperate.
Everything I was, everything I had, belonged to Piper.
All she had to do was ask and it was hers.
Warning: If you like possessive, territorial, and obsessed men in your stories, this insta-love one is just for you. With an older celibate hero, an innocent virgin heroine, and all the gooey juiciness you love in romance, make sure you have something cold to drink as you read this one.
1
Piper
“You nervous?”
I looked up at my father, who sat across from me at the table, his chipped and old “World’s Best Dad” mug in his hand. I’d given him that mug when I was six years old, and it was still his favorite and going strong.
The handle had been glued on a few too many times, the print on the side was faded to hell, but still he refused to get rid of it.
“What’s there to be nervous about?” Of course, I was lying. I was nervous as hell. But it wasn’t because this was my first full-time, summer job. Although I was almost nineteen, my father had refused to let me get a job while in high school because he wanted me to focus on my studies.
But a part of me thought that he just wanted me home more. After my mother had left us high and dry when I was twelve years old, I saw a change in my father. It wasn’t a bad change, per se, but he kept me close, maybe worried that I would leave him as well.
And I supposed I was, in a sense. This was the last summer I would be here before I started college. Although the university was only an hour away, I would be living in a dorm and might not even be able to come home every weekend, much to my father’s dismay.
“Well, you’re working a full day and you’ve never actually done that before. Not to mention, you’re working for Zane.”
At the mention of my father’s childhood friend, my heart sped up. But I stayed calm, collected. I didn’t want my father to see that the very mention of Zane had every part of my body coming alive.
Zane Alfonso.
Rich.
Sexy.
Powerful.
He was the opposite of my father in many ways. Whereas my dad worked at a construction yard, got dirty, and sweated all day as he did manual labor, Zane wore a suit and had business meetings.
Where my father had to work overtime to make ends meet, and didn’t have a fancy degree under his belt, Zane had a multimillion dollar architecture company, was rolling in money, and could retire now if he wanted to.
But before he’d found success, he and my father had gone to school together, grew up in the same shitty neighborhood, dealt with the same kind of drunken and abusive fathers. And even now, despite being on opposite ends of the financial spectrum, they were still closer than ever.
And that’s how I got this job. Although it was just a cleaning position in his office, there was no interview, no background check. He’d hired me on the spot last weekend when my father mentioned how I wanted to work before going to college, save up and get some experience under my belt.
But God, it would be hard as hell being around him and trying to hide how I felt.
The receptionist stood, her body perfectly toned … of course. The tight pencil skirt she wore showed off how long her legs were, and her white blouse amplified her massive breasts.
In other words, she was everything I wasn’t.
I felt pretty inadequate standing next to her in a pair of jeans and a T-shirt, my outfit far from luxurious in this architecture firm.