Wreck Me: An Older Man, Younger Woman Standalone Romance Read online

  WRECK ME

  By Lane Hart

  COPYRIGHT

  This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue were created from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual people or events is coincidental.

  The author acknowledges the copyrighted and trademarked status of various products within this work of fiction.

  © 2017 Editor's Choice Publishing

  All Rights Reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher or author. Only Amazon.com is authorized to offer this e-book for sale. Any other individuals, sites, or stores distributing or sharing a copy of this work are therefore in violation of a federal copyright infringement and should be reported to the publisher or author immediately.

  Editor’s Choice Publishing

  P.O. Box 10024

  Greensboro, NC 27404

  Edited by: All About the Edits

  Cover by: Addendum Designs

  Photographer: Andrei Vishnyakov

  Model: Konstantin Kamynin

  WARNING: THIS BOOK IS INTENDED FOR MATURE AUDIENCES 18+ ONLY. THE STORY CONTAINS ADULT LANGUAGE AND VERY EXPLICIT SEX SCENES.

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Epilogue

  For the old man who robbed my cradle.

  Chapter One

  Riley Yates

  JUNE

  Tilting my face up toward the midday sun, I close my eyes and inhale deeply. The warm, salty air may not be the most appealing scent to most, but to me, it signifies that just on the other side of the sand dunes, running parallel to the road, is the Atlantic Ocean.

  I’ve only been to the coast once, four years ago, when I graduated from high school and tagged along with a group of equally broke friends. I think there were six of us staying in one hotel room, but the cramped quarters with a breathtaking ocean view was well worth it.

  “Are we there yet?” Allison, Sara’s roommate, shouts over the sea breeze from the front passenger seat of Sara’s convertible. The redhead is so pale, she’s probably worried she’s already sunburnt, even though the top’s only been down for half an hour. “The road is about to be covered by sand. How much further before we end up driving on the beach?” Allison grumbles.

  “Not much further, I don’t think,” Sara replies, sounding unsure as she lets her foot off the gas, peering down her nose at each passing house.

  Great. We’re probably lost again, but Malibu Barbie is too proud to admit she doesn’t know where her own family lives. All this time, I thought she was born and raised in California, but apparently, she has roots in North Carolina too.

  Back in Raleigh, Sara took the wrong exit, and despite me pointing that out when the app on my phone said so, she ignored me for thirty miles before admitting defeat, adding an hour onto the already four-hour trip.

  That just goes to show you how much Sara hates me. I mean, she seriously hates my freakin’ guts, from the top of her pale blonde head all the way down to her perfectly manicured toes. And I have no idea why.

  The only reason I got invited on this free beach vacation is because Cheryl, my best friend and roommate, is sitting next to me in the backseat. She’s good friends with Sara, since they were both business majors back at Madison University in Greensboro, where the four of us just graduated from a few weeks ago. Now, I’m sort of thinking I should’ve studied business rather than liberal arts because the job market has yet to be impressed with my degree.

  When we get to an actual dead end on Topsail Island, Sara begrudgingly turns the car around. We start to pass by the last beachfront house, a towering, two-story, royal blue home on stilts, but Sara suddenly slams on the brakes, nearly giving all four of us whiplash. She shifts into reverse and drives backward five feet to whip the car into the driveway.

  “This is it,” she says, putting the convertible in park behind the enclosed two-car garage.

  Most of the beach homes we passed had signs on them, displaying cutesy names like “Sandy Bottoms” or “Seas the Day” and this one is no different. As soon as I read the sky-blue words “Runnin’ Down a Dream” painted on the white wooden plaque, the familiar tune of one of my favorite songs starts playing in my head, making me smile.

  “Your family must be big Tom Petty fans,” I say to Sara.

  “No idea,” she replies, as she climbs out of the car and slams the door, “forgetting” to let me out of the backseat first.

  I look over to Cheryl with my jaw hanging open to see if she noticed the intentional slight. She rolls her amber eyes while trying to smooth her short, windblown locks behind her ears. “Just let it go,” she whispers.

  “Come on, let’s head inside to cool off before we start hauling in our luggage,” Sara suggests.

  Allison exits the car and pushes her seat up to let Cheryl and me out. I’m so excited to see the ocean for the first time in years, I decide to let Sara’s rudeness slide this time.

  The four of us trek up a set of wooden stairs to where the first-floor deck overlooks the beach and another set of steps leads right out to the sand dunes.

  “Wow,” I mutter in awe, leaning my forearms on the rail as I take in the view, the coastal winds whipping my long dark waves around my face. “This place is amazing, Sara. You grew up here?” I turn to her, trying once again to play nice.

  “Nah, I stayed with my mom most of the year and only visited a few weeks during the summer,” she replies.

  “How could you not want to be here all year?” I ask. I would happily set up a tent and park my ass on the sand below us permanently.

  Down on the shore, several people are sunbathing in lounge chairs, and kids are running through the waves and splashing around. Then I see him coming out of the surf, like he’s posing for a men’s cologne ad. The sun glistens off the droplets of water running down his sculpted pecs and abs, trailing lower to the sexy pelvic indentions dipping into his navy blue boardshorts. One of his thick, bulging biceps flexes as he runs his fingers through the front of his dark blond hair to get the wet locks out of his face before he reaches down to ring out the excess moisture from his neatly trimmed beard.

  “Holy shit, Sara! Charlie Hunnam, or his hot as fuck twin, is your neighbor,” I say, panting from the sight of the man on the beach and no longer noticing the sweltering summer heat.

  Sara sighs heavily and I see her lift a hand out of the corner of my eye. She waves casually to someone on the beach and then the hottie coming out of the water returns the greeting, a breathtaking smile stretched across his handsome face.

  “That’s just my dad,” she informs us, bef
ore turning and heading inside through the sliding glass door.

  Allison and Cheryl follow her right away with their jaws still gaping in disbelief, but it takes me a moment longer to get my feet moving as I try to come to grips with the fact that the sexiest man I’ve ever seen is old enough to be my father.

  …

  Brody Harrington

  After I quickly rinse off in the outdoor shower to get most of the salt and sand off me, I jog up the steps of the house and grab my towel from the deck chair to dry off. Wrapping it around my waist to soak up the wetness seeping from my shorts, I slide open the glass door that leads to the living room, excited to find and say hello to Sara and her friends.

  Even though I just saw my daughter at her college graduation a few weeks ago, it’s still hard to believe she’s all grown up. Sara’s no longer the little girl in pigtails who loved to build sandcastles and play in the ocean all day with me. She rarely keeps in touch, so I have no idea what her current hobbies are. It’s incredibly upsetting that my role in her life has diminished to nearly nonexistent. Holly, my ex-wife, who I’m grateful to still be good friends with, sent me a list of all the food Sara likes, but other than that, I’m on my own.

  “Hey, girls,” I say in greeting when I find them in the kitchen, filling up glasses of lemonade. I guess that’s one thing that hasn’t changed over the years so I’m glad I bought it for her this week. “Did you have a safe drive down from Greensboro?” I reach over to give Sara a hug. Other than her graduation, I haven’t seen her but one other time the past year, and I’ve missed her.

  “Ugh, Dad! You’re all wet!” she complains when I try to wrap my arms around her. She pushes me away, stiff-arming me with her palm pressed to my chest.

  “Sorry,” I tell her with a wince of embarrassment as I back away.

  “Nice to meet you, Mr. Harrington,” one of Sara’s friends says. When I glance over in her direction, I notice it’s the tall, curvy brunette who lingered on the balcony just a few moments ago.

  “You too,” I reply before looking away from her big blue eyes that stare a little too long at where the towel sits wrapped around my hips. “Let me, ah, go get a real shower and get changed, then we can catch up,” I tell Sara. “Maybe go out to dinner?”

  “Nah, the four of us just want to have a girls’ night out,” she replies, shooting me down once again. Her constant rejection is the reason I gave up trying to talk to her. I know I shouldn’t have, but when she doesn’t want anything to do with me, she pretty much made the choice for me. I thought that as she got older she would grow out of the teenage rebellious stage and stop pushing me away. Guess I was wrong.

  “Sure, you girls have fun. I’ll be around here so maybe I’ll see you tonight,” I say.

  “We probably won’t be in until late,” Sara adds as I walk away and start up the steps to my bedroom and bathroom on the second floor.

  “That’s fine. You’re not kids anymore. Stay out as late as you want,” I call out to her as I make my ascent.

  Sara is planning to be here for a week so there will be plenty of time for me to try and chisel away at her defenses later. I was hoping she actually came down here because she wanted to visit with me. Now I’m starting to think my beach house was just a convenient location for a summer vacation with her friends.

  Chapter Two

  Riley

  Wow. I subtly wipe the drool from the corner of my lips after I watch Sara’s dad walk away. The man is even more attractive up close, wearing nothing but a towel around his shorts to display time well spent in the gym. And Sara was sort of a bitch to him.

  “He can come to dinner with us if he wants, or we can stay in tonight,” I speak up and tell her. “It sounded like he was really looking forward to spending time with you.”

  “Fine with me,” Cheryl agrees as she sips her lemonade.

  “Me too, whatever you all want to do,” Allison adds.

  “If he wanted to spend time with me, he should’ve tried harder the last twenty years of my life,” Sara mutters while putting the lemonade pitcher back into the fridge that is slam-packed full of fruits and vegetables, drinks, snacks, and beer; most likely because her father knew the four of us were coming and he wanted to be prepared. “And I want to go out tonight,” she says, making her final ruling as Queen Bee.

  Great, guess we’re going out, when all I want to do is stay right here to try and get another glimpse at masculine perfection in its finest form.

  While I drink my cold glass of lemonade silently, I can’t stop thinking about the sexy, grizzly bear of a man upstairs, or how his gorgeous face fell when Sara physically pushed him away from her. That’s the opposite of what I want to do to him. I would grab him and cling to his thick biceps while I licked every drop of salt water off his body. And I definitely wouldn’t mind tasting something else of his that’s salty…

  Oh, thank God!

  My libido is back after a worrisome hiatus. I know it hasn’t been all that long, but I was starting to think that those assholes back home had ruined sex for me altogether. I haven’t wanted anything to do with another man, which made me angry, because it meant that they still had some measure of control over me.

  Well fuck that!

  Even though I know I shouldn’t, I want Sara’s father. And I would bet that an older man would be much more attentive in bed, compared to the selfish college boys I went to school with, who are only concerned with getting what they want as fast as possible. A mature man is exactly what I need; someone gentle and tender, rather than rushed and callous.

  I may have a reputation as a slut around campus but mostly I’m just a tease. Good sex is hard to find and it certainly doesn’t come from college boys. Twenty-something men are way too easy to sleep with. They have no restraint or standards and would fuck any female who walks their way. Convincing an older man to give in to his needs, even when he knows he shouldn’t, will be more challenging and definitely worth the effort if I actually succeed.

  What I don’t understand is how Mr. Harrington can be old enough to have a twenty-two-year-old daughter? He looks like he’s still in his thirties!

  “Come on, I’ll show you the bedrooms so you can each pick one out,” Sara says as we finish our refreshment.

  “There are enough bedrooms for all of us?” Cheryl asks as the three of us put our glasses in the sink and follow Sara like good little soldiers down the hallway.

  “Yeah, four queen beds on this floor and the master bedroom upstairs,” she tells us.

  Oh, yes. I want the man upstairs to be my master. He’s so strong and ruggedly sexy that I can’t help but wonder what he would be like in bed. As nice as he sounded, I’m guessing he would take his time…make love, not fuck…

  “Ow!” I exclaim when Cheryl elbows me in my rib cage.

  “Which room do you want?” she asks.

  “Oh,” I mutter as I pull myself from those dirty thoughts. “Any of the rooms would be great. You all pick and I’ll take what’s leftover.”

  “Then you take this one, and I’ll take the one next to it,” Cheryl says as she grabs my shoulders to steer me into a sky-blue room decorated in a beach theme. Of course. Instead of paintings on the walls, though, there are photographs of the ocean.

  “Wow, these are gorgeous.” I move forward to look at the framed photo next to the closet, a close-up of an orange starfish washed up on the beach. There’s thick, frothy whitewash behind it and a beach house out of focus in the distance. The blue sky and waves are so serene it makes me feel like I’m right there, out on the sand with it.

  “They’re my dad’s,” Sara says when she steps into the bedroom. “He’s like a big deal photographer or something.” Her statement is so casual, almost as if it’s insignificant. But to me it’s pretty damn important. I studied liberal arts with a minor in photography and these are…masterpieces.

  “He took all of the photos in the house?” I ask, remembering the lighthouse, palm tree, and sea turtle images in the living ro
om and hallway.

  “Yeah,” she answers on a heavy exhale. “Ya’ll ready to go grab our things?”

  “Sure, we’ll be right down,” Cheryl tells her.

  After Allison and Sara are gone, my roommate turns to me. “Don’t even think about it, Riley,” she whispers, pointing a finger at my chest.

  “What?” I ask, batting my blue eyes at her innocently.

  “He’s her father!”

  “So?” I reply. “I’m a grown woman. He’s a grown man. Can’t we both make our own decisions.”

  “Sara’s your friend.”

  “No, she’s not. I barely know her and she hates me. You invited me to come on this trip and she didn’t want to piss you off by saying no,” I remind her.

  “You can’t sleep with her dad! She’ll never forgive you and you’ll have to bum a ride home.”

  “Then I better not get caught,” I tell her with a grin before I step into the hallway and run right into a broad chest; one that smells divine, like sandalwood and masculine soap.

  “Oh, sorry,” he harrumphs.

  When I force my eyes up, I see Sara’s dad’s strained face with sweat dripping down his forehead. I can’t help but wonder if this is also how he looks when he comes. Unfortunately, he’s now wearing a brown cotton tee and cargo shorts, covering up his sexy chest and abs. He certainly doesn’t dress his age and the clothes make him look even younger.

  “Which one of these is yours?” he asks, nodding his head to the four sets of luggage he finally sets down on the hallway floor.

  “Oh, well, thank you for bringing those up. And mine is the turquoise one,” I say, pointing it out.

  Looking over at the bedroom on the left that I just stepped out of, and where Cheryl is still watching from, he asks, “Is that going to be your room?”

  “Sure is,” I answer.

  When he picks my suitcase up again, Cheryl scrambles out of his way and I follow him inside the room.