Page 20 of Accidental Dad’s Best Friend (Unintentionally Yours #7)

Ethan

I lay in bed staring at the cold ceiling and I am pissed.

Someone is threatening Izzy. And her son.

I spent the entire day with them, partaking in fair food and getting the kid’s face painted and doing everything I could think of to distract myself.

Because if hadn’t put some space between me and her house, I would have ripped every door down within a ten mile radius looking for the creep.

Just to show everyone around that Izzy Sloane is mine.

I have to admit that I was surprised when I got there last night and she’d sent Jax to a friend’s house.

I was not however upset about it. Because in that moment, I wanted to hold and comfort Izzy.

She was afraid and alone and I never want to see that look on her face again.

I want her to know that when I am there, she is safe.

No one will fuck with her. In the end, I’d fucked her just to drive that point home.

I wanted her to smell like me, to say my name, to wear my name on her face so everyone she passes on the street knows. Don’t fuck with this woman.

I think I did a good job of that. As I lay in bed, my head racing with the headache of possibilities, my mind wanders back to last night.

Her perfectly curved body, soft and silver in the moonlight.

Her sweet pouting lips that tasted like bourbon and cherries.

I’ve been with a handful of women. Not a ton but enough for comparison.

And Izzy is by far the sweetest woman I’ve ever tasted.

Maybe because I was never supposed to taste her…

But fuck that and fuck anyone who thinks otherwise.

My dick is pounding under the sheet and I throw it off of me.

I showered when I got home, half because I was sticky just from the contact of carrying Jax into the house and half because I needed to burn my raw nerves to an oblivion with hot water.

Numb everything in me. But now, as I lay in bed, I am not numb. Anything but.

I am on fire, and the flames are all in my crotch.

I grab myself firmly in my hands and squeeze.

But fuck me it’s nothing compared to the sweet memory of her tight pussy.

It was tight like she’d kept it a secret.

Even after having the kid, she still feels like the first time I fucked her.

Maybe better. She’s more of a woman now.

And that turns me on more than anything.

I pump my hand up and down my shaft, thinking of that body.

I never understood the obsession men have with super model girls.

My mouth twitches in a smile as I think of her writing the article that sent her career to the grave.

Sassy little thing. But she’s not so sassy when I’ve got her by the hair.

When I’m deep inside her. The way she pants and whimpers, moans and flushes.

“Fuck…” I let out as I come way faster than I expect to. Damn if this woman doesn’t keep me youthful. And damn if she isn’t going to kill me at the same time.

I make my way into the office the next afternoon.

I know as soon as I pass Rose’s desk, the look on her face is one of worry, that Liam is probably wondering where the fuck I am.

He can eat a dick. I still get my job done, in office or not.

I didn’t train the writers I oversee to need me available every moment of the workweek.

I taught them to be self-sufficient. I don’t baby them and they don’t need it.

Liam isn’t a fan of my tactic though. It’s not that he wants to be involved with the whole process of what makes NBT what it is.

He just wants to control it. I doubt the man has written a paragraph in five years.

Even the fake five star reviews of our magazine he pays someone else to write. Probably Rose.

Speaking of Rose and the things she does for us that weren’t part of the job description but she’s willing to do anyways–

“Hey.” I come to a halt in front of her desk and she jumps a little, her fingers still on her keyboard. Slowly her eyes drag up. “Do you think you could do me a favor?”

“Anything,” she stutters. “I mean yes. Yes, Mr. Savage, sir.”

Jesus fucking Christ…

“It’s Ethan, remember? So…Liam has me…watching over her daughter so to speak.”

“Izzy,” she recites and I nod.

“Yes. And as of recently…” I look around to see if anyone else is listening but the coast looks clear. Still, I bend over her desk and lower my voice. “It seems someone is messing with her.”

Rose swallows hard. If I didn’t know any better I’d say she was sweating. This woman seems to have a thing for any man who tells her what to do. Poor thing needs to get laid. I shove the image from my mind. Rose is alright but…no.

“What makes you say that?” She asks.

“Because someone tried to break into her house. Broke a window even.”

“Do you…do you know who?” She asks. The woman is practically melting at the proximity. It’s almost amusing.

“Nope.” I slap my hand on the desk, making her jump again and then I stand up straight. “But I want you to help me figure it out.”

Rose nearly knocks over her water bottle and struggles to steady it, all while staring up at me. “Me?”

“Yes.”

“What do you want me to look up?”

“Anything. Anything you can find from who her neighbors are to who works at the local businesses around her house. It’s kind of a pocket neighborhood in a way and it shouldn’t take too much digging. Maybe look into the schools too.”

“Why the schools?” She asks and I mentally halt. Liam doesn’t know about Jax so maybe she shouldn’t either.

“The middle and high. See if there’s any students that cause problems. You know, in case it was a group of teenagers fucking around throwing shit or something like that.”

She nods, looking down at her laptop and then back up. “Do you think it was teenagers?”

I chew on the inside of my cheek for a moment. “No. I don’t.” I turn to walk away but then look back. “Oh and Rose?”

She nods, almost obediently.

I make a zipper motion across my lips and Rose’s lips tip in a smile and she nods eagerly. Then I make my way to Liam’s office.

Liam is a morning man. Always has been. Some shit about how the vitamin D from the sun only counts if you get it on your skin before 9am.

He probably heard it on a podcast (he’s a podcast man) that he listened to while chewing raw garlic in an ice bath so he can live till he’s one hundred and five. God help us all.

That said, Liam does most of his in office shit before lunch.

Then he takes a long lunch that usually includes a cocktail and comes back in later in the day for meetings and peacocking before he goes home and has another stiff drink possibly in the company of a paid woman.

In short, I don’t expect him to be in his office, which works well for me because I am on a mission.

I’m not normally a man who goes snooping through other people’s stuff.

But ever since that phone call that ripped me from my sleep and set all my nerves on fire, I have had a sinking feeling in my stomach that the attempted break in was not a group of rowdy teens or even a less than friendly neighbor.

Working in a persuasive industry where everyone you deal with is a salesman, I have learned to have a strong, loud gut when it comes to the genuineness of people. And my gut is telling me Liam is involved.

I go to his desk first, not surprised that most of his drawers are locked, other than the liquor drawer. I am surprised that he leaves his laptop out though, and that the password is his late wife’s birthday.

I’m able to pull up files, articles and even bank information once I am in.

But none of that interests me. I don’t care who he’s planning to wrongfully put on blast in the next issue and I don’t need his money.

I make enough on my own. But even as I sift through folder after folder and pull up his entire search history, I find nothing. Nothing other than a picture of Izzy.

It’s not recent. It looks like it was taken about seven years ago. She’s standing outside Union Station with a big smile on her face and I wonder why he has this photo, of all photos. Maybe because she looks happy? Maybe they were celebrating something? I don’t know. But I do want a copy of it.

I pull my phone out and snap a photo of the screen. It will be pixelated most likely but I don’t care. Just as I am about to set my phone down, I hear Liam coming down the hall. I slam the laptop shut and drop my phone in the process. It lands inside the still open liquor draw.

“Fuck,” I mutter, standing up and fishing my phone out from between the bottles.

“Hand in the cookie jar, Savage?” Liam asks. He is standing in front of me.

“I was just…”

“Listen. If you’re trying to break into my booze stash, by all means, pour a glass. In fact, pour two because I have some dirt on those jockstraps at The League.” He grins. “You know which one I mean?”

The sports magazine that won’t hire me because you have me shoehorned? Yeah I know it.

“Yeah,” I answer sharply, grabbing a bottle of rye. He grabs two classes off the shelf and blows into them before setting them down for me to pour. And pour I do–a double in each.

Liam swipes his and sits on his desk in front of me. I stand, taking my glass and sucking the hot, dry liquid down my throat. That way I can’t feel the ball of bile forming from how disgusted I am right now.

“So what little tale are you cooking up this time?”

“Oh shit about sports stats that were embellished. They cater to the winning teams to get more readers. Either that or the ones with the highest paid players. Kelce is all the rage right now thanks to that Swift girl. But not for long…”

“You’re going to write about the biggest pop star on the planet?” I arch my eyebrows.

“Of course not! That’s suicide. I mean hell, even I like to Shake It Off when no one’s looking. Nah, I’m going for the artery, not the throat itself.”

I blink, not following.

“The managers! Jesus, Savage, keep up. You getting enough sunlight in the morning? You look pale as a fucking ghost,” he laughs.

I don’t.

All of it makes me sick and I’m over trying to entertain him at this point.

But at least he doesn’t know what I was really doing here.

Focusing on bringing down another magazine is a good distraction so he doesn’t catch on.

It wasn’t for whiskey, but I’d be lying if I said the double isn’t helping right now.

If I wasn’t slowly getting buzzed, I’d be going for his throat.