Chapter 7

Chapter Seven

Gunner

Something is wrong.

The first couple days of my business trip, Josie is her usual, incredible self when I call her at night or between meetings. Her voice is soft and inviting in my ear, she tells me she misses me, asks if I’m taking stress breaks. Late at night, she sends me mirror selfies from our hotel suite wearing nothing but a scrap of yellow material that vaguely resembles panties—and purrs to me over the speakerphone while I jack myself raw in the bathroom.

But at some point, her tone loses its usual brightness. She sounds almost sad? Although she won’t tell me why so I can fix it. No amount of gifts sent to her doorstep seems to help. Finally, she stops answering my calls altogether. I can’t concentrate on a single thing. I can’t think about anything but her, replaying our last ten conversations, trying to figure out if I missed something. How the hell have I fucked this up so fast?

I miss her. Beyond belief. I’m sick without her.

I was an idiot to think I could spend this much time away from Josie and not go berserk.

For someone so worried about giving me a heart attack, she’s certainly got the damn thing firing on all cylinders in my chest. Good thing Paul almost never looks up from his phone or he would notice that I’m sweating bullets, even in the air conditioning of the charter club. As we wait to board my jet, my insides are in shreds. I’ve pulled some strings and sent a local cop to make sure Josie is safe and she’s fine. Swimming in her lavish pool, meeting friends for lunch, going to the gym and the beach. Usual summer activities. Nothing that would prevent her from answering my calls, though.

If I don’t hold her soon, I’m going to lose my head.

Unfortunately, a storm keeps us grounded half of Sunday night. By the time we’re able to fly safely, it’s Monday morning and my assistant calls to remind me of the round of golf I have schedule with John, Josie’s father, in just a few hours. There’s no way I can make it. I’m tied in knots and my legs feel like lead—not the ideal condition for a friendly golf game.

After we land, I call John to cancel from the tarmac.

My plan is to take Paul home and track down Josie.

I need to understand what’s wrong and repair it. I need her to climb into my lap and whisper into my neck and make me feel whole. She’s the only one who does.

I’m in love with her.

Jesus.

I’m in love with this eighteen-year-old who’s been coming to my house since middle school, who has transformed into a young adult. I’m in love with her unique perspective, the way she cares, her giggle, her touch, her spontaneity and optimism. She’s my little girl. She’s my…girlfriend. She’s mine. Why the hell has she cut me off?

John answers in my ear as I’m handing my luggage to our driver and climbing into the back of the limousine. “Hello, John—”

“I’m throwing the ol’ clubs into my trunk as we speak,” he says. “Our tee time at the club is eleven fifteen.”

“Yeah,” I sigh, rubbing my gritty eyes with my thumb and index finger. Paul slept on the flight, but I couldn’t manage to close my eyes for a second. “Listen, about our game—”

“Bring Paul along, if you can. Josie is going to be there later on. They can hang out at the pool while we hit some balls.”

My mouth snaps shut on the news that I can’t make it.

Josie is going to be at the country club.

My entire objective today is to get her in front of me. To demand to know what I’ve done and how I can make it up to her. If the conversation has to happen at the country club, so be it. I don’t care who knows about us anymore. In fact, I’m going to tell her father face to face. There will be some outrage and gossiping and a tough reaction from Paul, but Josie is more than worth it. I’m going to have her in my life forever. The sooner people start getting used to seeing this old ogre with his beautiful, young angel, the better. I’m in love with this girl. Real, heart-rending love that I’ve never experienced before—and I’m not willing to let her go.

With Paul’s agreement, we land and go straight to the club.

I’m like a caged animal as soon as we’re dropped off at the entrance, an attendant bustling around me, informing me they’ve coordinated with my housekeeper to have my golf clubs and attire brought to the club and have arranged it all in the locker room. Paul quickly throws on a pair of trunks and heads to the pool, throwing me a wave. Instead of going in the direction of the course, I follow behind Paul and—from a distance—look for Josie at the pool, but I don’t see her. Is she changing? Or avoiding me?

John claps me on the shoulder. “Hey, buddy. Ready to go?”

I turn to find Josie’s father there, looking oddly nervous, his cart idling behind him. Given no choice, I nod. “Yeah,” I grunt, taking a seat in the passenger side. “Let’s go.”

At the very least, this round of golf will give me a chance to explain my relationship with Josie. Getting into her pretty little head will have to wait a few hours, until we’re done with the front nine and stop for a break.

We tee off and make small talk while playing the first two holes. It’s while we’re preparing to begin hole three that I figure out why John is nervous. Why he wanted to play golf with me—on a Monday—in the first place. And it’s for a reason I never could have suspected.

“Listen, man.” He swallows, looks around. “I’ve gotten myself into kind of a jam. I had three bad quarters in a row. I managed to pad the fund’s earnings with my own money, make it look like we’re above water, but the truth is…I’m sinking. I’m fucked.” To my utter shock, tears spring to the man’s eyes. “We’re going to lose the house. Josie…she’s running around getting ready for college. She must think I’ll be able to come up with the tuition—”

“Josie knows you’re broke?” I ask hollowly.

John nods sadly. “I told her a month ago school might not happen. For some reason, she insists on proceeding as if she’ll move out in the fall, attend the university.” He rakes a hand through his hair. “Maybe she’s in denial.”

No.

She’s not in denial.

She found a desperate old man to pay her way.

And as soon as she got enough money together for tuition, she dropped me.

Christ, that’s what happened, isn’t it? None of her affection was real.

She needed cash. Fast.

I was the perfect target. Old, overweight, horny. Grateful for the chance to fuck something so young and tight. Desperate to soak up her light.

My chest is on the verge of caving in and John is still talking.

Asking me to bail him out.

“Enough,” I rasp, hating him mid-sentence. “I’m not throwing gasoline on a sinking ship. But we’ll absorb your firm, slash the fat and keep what’s working right. You’ll receive slightly more than what the company is worth, since we go back a long time. I’ll give you a seat on the board of directors, but before any of this happens, my accountant is going through your personal finances, along with those of the firm. No surprises.”

John grinds his jaw. “You’re a hard man.” He stares off into the distance for a moment, then offers his hand for a shake. “But a fair one. Thank you.”

I’m doing this for Josie.

I’d do anything for her, even though she has ripped my heart out of my chest.

She played me.

The part I don’t understand is this. Why did she suffer through all those nights together when I would have just paid her tuition? As a friend and father figure? I never would have let her miss out on college. She didn’t have to sacrifice her virginity to my ugly ass.

John and I agree that we’re not really in the mood to continue the game and go back to the clubhouse. When we reach the establishment, he leaves to meet with the house pro about one of his clubs and we make plans to have a drink together in an hour. My throat is ravaged on the inside, the bleak exhaustion I used to feel every day before Josie became my sugar baby creeping back in.

I take a seat on the shaded outdoor patio and order a double scotch, neat, still reeling from the revelation that she never really cared for me at all. She faked everything.

God, I want to claw the pathetic organ out of my chest, it aches so fucking bad.

And then I see her at the pool.

In a little white thong bikini.

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 Lancaster’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 Lancasters, 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, Kraft.”

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 Josie 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 Josie’s voice behind me.

“Gunner!” 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, Gunner. 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.”

Josie 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 Josie, until he says, “Damn, maybe Kraft 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, Kraft.”

“He was out of line, Kraft.”

“I don’t even know him very well.”

Disgusted by the utter cowardice, I shake off the whole situation and follow after Josie, 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.

“Josie,” 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.

“Gunner,” 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, Josie. 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. Gunner, 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—”

“Josie, 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, Josie 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 Josie 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.

“Gunner,” 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, Papa,” 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. “Josie, 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 Papa 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.”

Josie molds our fronts together again, rasping in my ear, “You get it for free, Papa.”

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.

“If you weren’t on the pill…” I rear back and slap her ass. Twice. “I’d get you pregnant for wearing that goddamn bathing suit.”

There’s a new, excited light in her eyes when they lock on mine, her breath racing fast, so fast. “I stopped taking m-my pill this weekend,” she whispers, searching my face. “I know it’s bad. I know that makes me a bad girl. But I want your baby, Papa. I want a part of you inside of me. I need it.”

It’s the image of Josie, belly round with my child, that decimates me.

Snaps my tether.

“Oh Christ,” I choke, my balls contracting, unloading their contents. Firing hot, heavy lust up the stalk of my shaft and spurting it into Josie, my hips slamming upward like pistons, her cunt slapping wetly on my lap. Imagining she’s telling the truth, that she really stopped taking her pill. That she wants to get pregnant. By me. I imagine she really means it and she’s not just saying the perfect thing to get me off, earning every penny of her million. I imagine that she wants to be my wife and it sets me off again, forcing me to lunge forward, grinding her ass against the gazebo wall with my hips so I can come as deeply as possible, her pussy massaging me with naughty ripples. “Good, baby. Work it out of me. Get yourself nice and bred.”

Her luscious body jolts at the word bred, and she whines my name, climaxing around my still-thrusting cock, her nails tearing at the front of my shirt. “Papa, Papa, Papa.”

Josie slumps against me a few seconds later, her face fitting into my neck, my cock still lodged in her tightness. I’m dripping onto the floor of the gazebo, my breath scratching in and out of my lungs, but I savor this moment to hold her. I accept it gratefully, knowing it won’t last. Not until I cave in and offer her money. God help me, I’ll hand her my whole fortune to feel like this, even if it’s a lie.

She lifts her head and spears me with a look, urgency filling her expression. “Gunner—”

“What the hell is going on here?”

My shoulders stiffen at the sound of John’s voice, coming from just outside the gazebo.

Christ.

I haven’t given a thought to our surroundings. There was only Josie.

But now…I can imagine what John is seeing. My pants around my ankles, his teenage daughter’s legs wrapped around my waist, my cock tucked up in her petite pussy. If the situation were reversed, I would strangle him to death. That’s what I deserve, isn’t it?

The color has drained from Josie’s face, but I give her a nudge and she quickly drops her legs from around my hips, pulling her bathing suit bottoms back into place and putting the top back on. Slowly, I zip back in my pants and turn to face red-faced John.

“I can’t believe this,” he says, staggering back. And then, horror dawns on his face. “This is why she’s been acting like college is still a given. You’re paying for it?” He shakes his head, putting more pieces together. “And this is what you’re getting in exchange. Isn’t it, you sick fuck?”

“Dad, stop,” Josie says, positioning half of her body behind me, her hand curling into mine. “You don’t understand.”

“No, daughter, you don’t understand. Money buys men like this whatever he wants.” He sneers at me. “He’d never get laid otherwise.”

“Dad!”

“No, he’s right.” I have difficulty swallowing, heat climbing the back of my neck. “This is just an arrangement.” I have no delusions that she wants me in real life.

“Just an arrangement?” Josie cries out, moving to stand in front of me, the tears back in her eyes. “Maybe for you it is. But I’ve been in love with you since I was twelve. Minute after hour after year, I loved you and ached for the day I would be old enough to be with you.” She shoves me in the chest, but I don’t move. All I can do is stand there and stare at her, dumbfounded. In love with me? This girl is in love with me? “I’m the one who sent you that email. With the link to the sugar babies website. I was begging you to see me as a woman. To…give in. To let me in. I thought…I thought if you could just spend some time with me, you would love me back.” She breaks into an awful, gulping sob that tears my heart straight down the middle. “This is my fault. I didn’t know how else to pay for college without exposing my dad and now you’ll never believe me. You think I’m j-just with you for money—and that’s all you want from me. An arrangement.” She starts to back away. “I was wrong to think you could feel the same. I was an idiot.”

Without waiting another second, she turns and runs, out of the gazebo, past her father and onto the lawn. “Josie!” I shout, my voice emerging strangled, my blood frozen solid.

I’ve been in love with you since I was twelve.

I’ve been in love with you since I was twelve.

I think of all the times she spent trying to talk to me in the kitchen, instead of being in the den or the backyard with her friends. All the times she snuck into my office and made me laugh, brought me a bowl of something healthy to eat. And as she got older, the way she made me notice, dragging her body against mine at every available opportunity, hope in her big blue eyes. Somehow, despite our ages and the difference in our appearances, she’s loved me all along. And I’ve just reduced her to a high-priced escort, instead of the girl who should be my wife. What have I done?

What the hell have I done?

“Josie!” I shout again, stomping out of the gazebo and going after her.

As soon as I get a hold of her, I’m going to apologize, over and over and over—and then I’m going to put a diamond on her finger the size of fucking Texas. My steps falter when I realize she wasn’t lying about stopping the pill, wanting to carry my baby. Goddamn me for pushing her to such drastic measures to make me realize we should be together.

I’ll never forgive myself.

Ignoring her father trying to get my attention, I jog to the parking lot—just in time to watch Josie peel out in the Rolls I gave her, tears streaming down her face.

“Josie, stop!”

Either she doesn’t hear me or simply disobeys, continuing out of the parking lot.

And I’m already shouting at the valet to have my limousine brought around.

I’m going to win my girl back.

Now.

Today.

My sanity won’t be able to stand another minute of knowing I upset her, broke her heart. That I refused to see what was right there in front of me. But if she’ll take me back, if she’ll forgive me for being a blind fool, I’ll spend the rest of my life making it up to her, so help me God.