My hand balls into a shaking fist as I look around and realize every man in the place is staring at her. Ogling that hot little tush and adjusting themselves.
"Damn, is that really Amarie's kid?" one of them says to his friend, smacking his lips. "She grew up nice."
"Jesus, you're not kidding. Too bad she isn't poor or I'd be shelling out six figures for a ride of that."
"Hell yeah, man. Twice on Sunday."
They dissolve into laughter and the rage in my blood boils over. I push back from my table, upsetting my scotch and grip the closest asshole by his collar. "Watch your fucking mouths," I growl, yanking the offender to his feet, watching the color drain from his face when he sees who was within earshot. A family friend of the Amaries, yes, but also the man who could buy and sell the entire club without blinking an eye. "Don't look at her. Don't ever speak about her again or I'll end you."
The man starts to apologize, but changes his mind when he realizes several men are witnessing his humiliation, forcing him to double down. "Right. Like you wouldn't pay to hit that, Hemsworth."
It burns worse, because he's right.
Not only would I pay, but I did. Eagerly. Anything she wanted.
All so she would give me her perfect touch. Her time and attention.
And God, I would do it all over again, wouldn't I?
Still, there's no way I'm letting this pissant get away with talking about Lia in public like she's an object. That's not happening. But just as I rear back with a fist, intending to plow it into his smug face, I hear Lia's voice behind me.
"Tristan!" I glance back over my shoulder to find her visibly alarmed, standing among the patio lechers, pool water dripping down her young body. "S-stop. What are you doing?"
"Go back to the pool," I growl through my teeth.
"No." She pads closer, barefoot, attempting to pry me and the man apart, no idea that she's being gawked at in her sorry excuse for a bathing suit. "Stop this, Tristan. No fighting." Her breath hitches, tears turning her eyes to twin blue pools. "Y-you promised you were managing your stress—"
"Don't do that," I snap. "Don't pretend like you give a shit. That ship has sailed."
Lia flinches and drops her hands, bottom lip trembling as she backs away. What the hell? Is she playing mind games with me? This girl made me believe she cared, then ripped the rug out from under my feet. And she has the nerve to appear hurt by my harshness?
Still, when she turns and runs off, around the side of the clubhouse, my pounding heart gives me no choice but to follow. I don't care that she broke me in half, I loathe seeing her upset and I refuse to be the cause.
I let go of the pissant and start to follow Lia, until he says, "Damn, maybe Hemsworth is already hitting that?" His face is bright red from being manhandled, but he's not listening to his friend's advice about not provoking me. "Making the Forbes list gets you the best pussy, I guess."
Without missing a beat, I take one step and headbutt him, breaking his nose and dropping him to the ground, unconscious. "Anyone else have something to say?" I roar.
"No, Hemsworth."
"He was out of line, Hemsworth."
"I don't even know him very well."
Disgusted by the utter cowardice, I shake off the whole situation and follow after Lia, desperate to see her and apologize for snapping. She doesn't deserve that. She must have been terrified at the prospect of not attending college with all of her friends. Forget what that would have done to her reputation. How can I blame her for finding a way to pay tuition? How can I blame her for taking aim at an easy target?
Me.
I find her around the back of the club, across an expanse of green field, sitting in a gazebo, arms wrapped around her middle. Alone. This section of the country club is mainly used for weddings. I've attended many of them. But on a Monday afternoon, there is no activity to be seen, except for me striding across the lawn toward this teenager I've fallen crazy in love with. This teenager who has completely wrecked me.
"Lia," I say, stepping into the gazebo, bringing her head up. "I'm sorry."
She sniffs, wiping at her eyes, but doesn't say anything.
"I shouldn't have spoken to you like that. You've done nothing wrong."
Jesus, I'm trying very hard to keep my voice even, to keep my hands to myself, but the girl I've been craving like oxygen for three days is right in front of me, her supple tits barely covered by two little triangles, her pussy cupped lovingly by wet bottoms. Her mouth is on level with my cock and I can only replay the dozen or so times she greeted me at the hotel suite by unbuckling my belt and sucking me off. The memories make me hard and I have no means of hiding it, my stiffening shaft drawing her blue eyes, making her mouth part on a breath.
"Tristan," she whispers, eyelashes fluttering. Teeth sinking into her lip.
Mannerisms that used to signal she was horny.
No. No, I'm not being drawn in. I'm not going to be a fool a second time. She doesn't have genuine desire for me. It was always about the money.
"Why didn't you tell me your father was broke?"
Gasping, she shoots to her feet.
She sways and I catch her up against me, so she won't fall, swallowing a groan over the perfect contact, the smoothness of her skin, the way her little tits smash to my big chest.
"H-how did you find out?"
"He told me." I brush a hand down her wet hair. "It's going to be fine, Lia. You don't have to worry one more day. I'm going to take care of everything." With determination, refusal to force her any more into touching me, I take my hands off of her and back away.
For some reason, that distresses her. She makes a hiccupping sound and clutches the front of my shirt, pulling me back. Confusing the hell out of me.
"Baby, you don't have to sleep with me anymore. You never had to in the first place. I would have taken care of the tuition, no questions asked."
She shakes her head a little frantically, forehead knitting together. "No. Tristan, no. You have the wrong idea." Her hands run up and down my chest. "I wanted to sleep with you. I wanted so much more—"
"Lia, stop." I pry her wrists away from me, even though her touch is bringing me back to life. I can't allow it. Can't allow her to feel obligated. "You can thank me with words. You don't have to sacrifice your body. I'm sorry you felt like you had no other choice—"
Her mouth pushes up against mine from below, then higher when she rises up on her tiptoes, wrapping her arms around my neck. I'm not expecting the kiss, it shocks me to my core, but my reaction to it is no surprise. I'm a fiend for this girl. My dick is in launch position like the space shuttle, my tongue eagerly tasting her mouth, my hands reuniting with the taut curve of her butt cheeks, giving them one hungry squeeze, before making one last-ditch effort to back off. To do the right thing.
She doesn't let me.
Never taking her mouth off mine, Lia perches a knee on my hip and uses it as leverage to squirm up the front of my body, manacling her legs around my waist, our mouths turning wild. Tongues clashing and smoothing, lips slanting. I'm a man who never expected to see the sun again and suddenly finds himself on a white-sand beach, my obsession with Lia giving me no choice but to take, to kiss her back with every ravenous notion inside of me, my fingers untying her bikini top in back, tossing it away so I can rake my tongue across her perky little nipples.
"Tristan," she whines, head falling back. "How can you think I don't really want you?" Her dazed bedroom eyes lock on mine, her pussy rubbing, rubbing on my erect dick. "Fuck me, Big Daddy," she whines. "I need your come so bad."
"No…" I search for my conscience, but it's diminished in the path of her sensuality. In the path of my devotion to her. "Lia, you don't have to."
"I want to," she sobs, dropping her right hand to my belt, tearing leather through buckle, button through hole. "You'll believe me when you feel how wet I am."
"You were swimming," I say raggedly, sucking her nipples into my mouth, one by one.
"No!" She slaps me across the face. "It's for you."
"Liar," I bite out, directly against her lips, losing control. Yeah, it's gone. She's a little brat who has slapped her Big Daddy and now she needs secret punishing. I jerk down my zipper, using the stiff head of my cock to shove aside the crotch of her bathing suit bottoms, finding her warm and soaked, her little hole clenching excitedly.
What if…what if she's really wet for me?
No. No, I refuse to be a fool again.
I've known from the beginning there is only one way I get to tap a beauty like this—and it's money. "A million dollars," I say thickly, working in the first few inches of my dick, a groan building in my chest. Tight. So fucking tight. "I'll give you a million dollars a ride. Just don't leave me high and dry, baby. I need it. I need this pussy." I thrust all the way in and she whimpers, even as her eyes cloud over with dismay. Dismay that is quickly gone once I start to bounce her, rifling up into her hot channel with animalistic bucks of my hips.
Using my shoulders as a hand-hold, she leans back, giving me a view of my thick man's shaft, surrounded by salt and pepper hair, driving into her tiny blonde sex, her soaked bathing suit panties pushed just to the right. It's enough to send me racing for the peak, grunting, sweating, yanking her up and down on my veiny shaft, her ass cheeks clutched in my hands.
"Fuck," I push between my teeth, sliding my right hand over slightly to finger her back entrance. "Two million for the ass. Ten. I'll do anything."
Lia molds our fronts together again, rasping in my ear, "You get it for free, Big Daddy."
Ah, Jesus. I'm jackhammering her now, her dangling heels hitting off the backs of my knees, my pants down around my ankles. My balls are heavier than boulders and despite my common sense, possessiveness is turning like a crank in my chest. My gut. Claim, claim, claim.