Toronto, Canada…
Charleigh Smith…
There was no way that you couldn't see just how concerned Jason was for his daughter. I can't even begin to imagine what it must feel like to have a kid and know next to nothing about her. Let alone being clueless about her medical history. I am trying to clue him in on the things that I know. I mean, it isn't hard because 'Kota and I are as close as sisters really.
"...anything else?" He asked me as we found a table to sit down at in the hotel restaurant.
"Uhm, she is allergic to Penicillin,"
"Really?"
"You sound surprised,"
"Well, yeah. I mean she was always catching colds and struggled to fight them off when she was around three and four years old, they gave her Penicillin all the time,"
"Yeah, she told me that. The best the doctors came up with was that it was just one of those things, I mean, all that time at university to study medicine and that is the best they can come up with?!? It begs belief!"
"You're not wrong there," he smiled as if he truly found me amusing.
I felt a surge of pride at being able to cause such a gorgeous smile on his face. The way those eyes would crinkle with almost undetectable crow's feet in the corners. The way there seemed to be an almost shine of yellow in the normal jade-colour of his eyes. The way his smile would cause a few wrinkles to appear on his forehead and forget even describing his mouth when he smiled because I would like to be able to walk back to my room as opposed to sliding there.
Yes, my attraction to this man just seems to be growing at an incredibly rapid rate. Just when I think I have tapped out on what I find attractive about him, I go and find something else that draws me in even closer.
I mean it still feels weird to have a crush on my best friend's dad. I have never felt like this about any of my other friends' parents. But to be fair none of my other friends had a dad that looked like Jason. This man is one of a kind. In every way possible. There is something about him that makes me feel like this is it - that he is the man I am going to spend the rest of my life loving.
Love.
Do I love him?
Can you love someone after only knowing them for such a short period of time? I can't say for sure because until now, until this attraction to Jason, I never realised that I hadn't actually ever been in love before. That isn't to say that I am in love with this man.
I mean, can you really be in love with someone when they don't feel the same? I always thought and believed that love is only something that truly happens when both parties feel the same way because only then can you truly know someone enough to actually love them.
"What about you?" He asked me, ripping me out of my thoughts.
"Huh? What about me?" Blinking rapidly as if that would somehow reveal what he meant.
"Well, you work for me now and as your boss I need to know if you have any health issues-" was he really asking as my boss or was this something more?
For as much as I am sure that this little crush is one-sided, there are times when he looks at me that I can't help but feel like there is a slim possibility that he feels the same way about me. It's in his eyes - they flash with this undeniable burn of desire that can literally steal my breath away from me.
"I am as healthy as a horse," I shake my head, "although at that time of the month I can be a raging bitch!" Oh God, why the fuck did I just admit that?
It's Jason - he puts me so at ease that I feel like I can just be myself - open and honest about anything and everything. I haven't ever had that with a guy before either - that sense of just being myself completely.
"Yeah?" He chuckled, his hand scratching across the light scattering of facial hair that makes my insides clench in the most delightful way, "so do I need to have lots of chocolate on hand then?"
"I mean-" I laughed, "it certainly won't hurt!"
"Good to know," he chuckled more heartily and again my insides did this very new, very strange flip-flop at the sound, "but seriously, is that it?"
"Yeah," I nodded, "I guess I am lucky in that sense,"
"Good,"
"What about you?" I asked as the waitress approached our table; her eyes latched onto Jason as if I simply didn't exist.
Wow. Ok so women really did this. Shaking my head as I looked down at the menu in front of me trying to suppress my giggle at the absurdity of the moment.
"What can I get you handsome?" Jesus. Have some self-respect. My eyes flew to Jason's just as he frowned at her.
I knew him well enough by now that he was the type of man who didn't appreciate being approached by anyone if it looked like he was already with someone. Regardless of whether or not that person was a friend or not. It was a mark of respect that he gave everyone who was in his company. However, despite knowing all of that, I was not expecting what flew from his mouth without even a beat, "my girlfriend and I would like a bottle of the house-red please!" Shutting her down before she even had the chance to realise what was happening.
Her eyes shifted to me, looking me up and down as if sizing me up to see if I was indeed his girlfriend. Anger flared inside me at her blatant perusal that I reached across the table for Jason's hand who gave it without hesitation. The warm scratch of his calloused fingers wrapping around mine caused my breath to hitch before I got myself under control quickly, "sounds good, baby,"
"Anything for you, beautiful," he didn't even miss a beat.
Jesus, just for a minute it truly felt like we were a genuine couple. The heat of his touch was sending electric pulses up my arm, lighting me up like a fucking Christmas tree. My pussy pulsed in a way that it hasn't ever done before. I need this man. I want him more than I have ever wanted anyone and that is more than a little scary to me.
"Coming right up," the waitress grumped before turning away and making her way back to the bar.
The minute I tried to pull my hand back, Jason gripped me a little tighter, "need to keep up the ruse," was his simple explanation to the questioning look on my face.
"Well, I have never been made to feel like chopped-liver before!" I commented as the heat seared my cheeks to the point where I think the space station could probably see me right now. However, that all paled in comparison to the swell of joy to hear Jason roar with laughter, his head thrown back, his Adam's apple bobbing up and down his long muscular throat.
Jesus, is there anything about this man that doesn't turn me on?
I love the hearty sound of his laughter, the way he just lets himself go - a true mark of a man who knows who he is and is comfortable in his own skin. I would be sure, if I could pull my gaze away from him, that half the women in this bar would be staring lustfully at him right now because he has never looked so damn fucking beautiful than he does right now, in this moment, laughing at what I said.
Yeah, I am in way over my head with this man.
Jason Adler…
Even if it hadn't been Charleigh with me when that waitress had made blatant eyes at me, I would have been uncomfortable but the fact that it was Charleigh had only made me furious.
Charleigh is so far more beautiful than your average beautiful woman. What has struck me dumb from the moment that we met is the fact that her beauty runs through every fibre of her body and being. The rare find of a woman who is beautiful right down to the fabric of who she is. A unicorn.
My unicorn.
So, to see her treated with so little respect, my actions kicked into gear without so much as a thought and I called her my girlfriend. And my God did it feel fucking good. Just to think of her as mine, to let someone else believe that she was mine - it fuelled me in a way that I hadn't felt in the longest time. And the fact that she slipped into the role so easily - reaching across the table and taking my hand into hers, I about unloaded in my pants right there at the table.
For days I had been thinking of touching her, to feel that smooth looking flesh under my fingers. Fuck, I had even been dreaming of it like some prepubescent asshole. I mean this is a woman who is so young that she is closer to the age of my daughter than she is to mine. A part of me feels like a dirty old man for the thoughts that I am having but there is another part of me that feels more alive than I ever have.
Once the waitress stomped off to get our drinks, I felt Charleigh begin to pull away from me, but I wasn't ready. I wasn't willing to let her go so soon, and I used the excuse of keeping the ruse in place. Thankfully, she didn't seem like she was suspicious of my actions and allowed me to continue holding onto her hand. My thumb grazed along the length of her thumb lightly - she was so soft and smooth. The heat from just her hand was addictive in a way that I hadn't anticipated in all the times that I had fantasized about touching her.
For the first time since yesterday - the last thing on my mind was my daughter. Or at least the most prominent thought wasn't of my little girl at home suffering from a migraine.
For a split second I feel like a complete asshole for putting myself above my daughter. I should have known that she had to live with those debilitating headaches. I should know her entire medical history and yesterday had only reiterated just how much we had missed out on with one another and just how much we still had to learn about each other.
I can't remember a moment where I have hated my ex more. It was one thing to leave me but taking my baby from me - that was a whole new level of cruelty that she had whipped up just for me. Punishing me for some slight that she had imagined I had made.
"You seem like you are not having very good thoughts," Charleigh's voice pulled me from my thoughts.
"Sorry, I just - I guess I am kind of lost in the past a little bit,"
"You want to talk about it?" She asked just as the waitress returned with our drinks and proceeded to pour a small measure into my glass for me to sample.
Once I had nodded that it was perfect, she poured us each a glass and pulled her notebook from the pocket in her little black apron that was secured around her waist and asked if we were ready to order. It didn't take us long to order our food and finally we were once again alone to enjoy each other's company.
Our fingers now entwined with one another's as we stared at one another. God, she was so beautiful it was hard to even look at her - long beautiful brown locks of thick satin smooth looking hair that held a natural kink as it framed in around her perfectly made-up features - the steel-blue of her eyes framed by the smoky eye make-up she had applied making their depths seem endless and safe to dive into. The most beautiful, shaped eye-brows create a more elegant frame to those eyes. If I am being honest, it is her eyes that pull me in, I could spend hours staring into them and never once feel bored or the need for anything else. A small button nose that is beyond perfect and gives a softer look to her striking features. Full plump lips that she has painted a pale baby-pink and curl into the single-handedly most stunning smile that I have ever seen in my life. Curves that could bring a saint to his knees. This woman was the perfect package and there was nothing I could do to fight the attraction I feel towards her.
In fact, I didn't want to fight it. A huge part of me wants to just dive right in. But I know that would be foolish - this is my daughter's best friend and whatever I am feeling has to be one hundred percent certain that something between us could actually work. I am aware of the fact that their friendship is something that my little girl cherishes almost above all else. I won't mess that up for her.
Dakota has had more than her fair share of a parent fucking up her life. I won't add to that trauma. I can't.
"So…" Charleigh pulls me back into the moment with her.
"Honestly, I can't wrap my mind around the fact that I am basically a stranger to my own daughter," I sighed, taking a sip of the wine in front of me.
"You feel guilty?"
"Is there any reason that I shouldn't?" It didn't even surprise me that this woman could read me so well. From the moment we met, it has felt like there is something bigger than us at work.
"Yes," her tone thick with emotion in that moment, "for one Anna is fucking crazy. I don't say that lightly and I don't intend to down-play the fact that she has a mental condition but on the same hand, she is a Goddamn adult and sometimes you just have to own your own shit. What she did to you and subsequently to Dakota is one of the most fucked up things that I have ever heard or witnessed," the conviction in her tone led me to believe that this was something that she has put a lot of thought into.
I mean it would make sense - she was in the trenches with my daughter. Watching the things that my little girl was subjected to at the hands of my ex.
"I should have flown into Scotland. I should have pushed-"
"Don't do that Jay," she grabbed my hand with her other now, gripping onto me so tightly that I had no option but to give her all my attention, as if that hasn't been where it has been all night at this point, "the more you wish for should haves or what if's, the more it is going to rob you of the time you have now been given, don't let Anna take anymore from you,"
"You know, you are remarkably smart-"
"Thanks," she laughed softly, "I think!"
"No. I meant it as a compliment. Most women of your age don't have their shit together, you seem like you do, or at least have a good head on your shoulders-"
"I don't know about that. I guess I can be just as reckless as anyone else my age," is there a hidden message in there?
From the way she is looking at me, the hint of a dare in her eyes is intoxicating. It is making me want to throw caution to the wind. Making me want to suggest we get our food delivered to my room so I can get her alone.
Alone to do what?
Kiss her?
Hold her?
Touch her?
Taste her?
Slide my dick into her compact little body? Jesus, the thought is as enticing as the look she is giving me right now. I have absolutely no doubt in my mind that we could have an amazing time together. I ache for it, but I have to try and push that need down.
I have to be the parent that puts my daughter first. I have to be the responsible parent. However, I know that it's only a matter of time before this attraction gets the better of me.
Only a matter of time before I can't fight it anymore, but that won't be tonight. I won't allow it to be tonight even though it is kind of the most perfect time. And as I try to fight my thoughts, my cock thumps angrily against the zipper of my jeans, hardly able to believe that I am denying both of us what we desperately want and need.