Page 2 of Daddies’ Dark Desires (Forbidden Fantasies #19)

HARPER

I snap my journal shut when Sunny slides into the seat across from me, and I offer her a smile to look a little less guilty.

I don’t think she falls for it, yet she brandishes me with a dose of her sunshine smile.

She’s loaded up with a slice of pizza, a burrito, and a yogurt parfait.

If she can eat all of that, I’ll get her a cookie, too.

She probably can.

The tiny ones always seem to.

“Oh my god. Can you believe this place? It’s so cool. I’ve always dreamed about working at a firm with this much…clout.”

I laugh heartily at that. “Clout?”

“Swagger. Money. Power .” Sunny whispers the last word like it’s dirty.

“Mmm. They certainly have those things going for them. I never really thought about it.”

Well, I have thought about the power, but not in the way she means it.

My fingers drum over my journal cover, hoping my cheeks don’t redden at the thought of how much power I want them to use on me.

Sunny’s not paying attention to my discomfort, though.

She’s glancing around the small cafeteria as it fills up.

Then, she leans in and blinks. “Who knew there would be so much eye candy in this place? Like I thought we’d be working with old guys and nerds, but that is not what I’m seeing here.”

Her hard swallow and the detour her gaze takes again has me laughing.

“Those tattoos…I might be overheating.”

She fans her face.

I grin, knowing exactly what kinds of fantasies those tattoos can cause.

There’s no wonder I’ve always liked a tatted up man.

Especially in college.

I might have made a few mistakes in that area, but they were fun ones.

“Don’t I know it. Been around men like that my whole life.”

Between Dad’s three friends in charge of this firm, his co-workers, and the army friends that cycled through our house in waves, there was no shortage of fine-looking dangerous men in my life.

At least, at arm’s length anyway.

Not like any of them looked at me twice.

But the daydreams and stories I used to write about men like them.

It got me through my hormonal teenage years before I tried to act some of them out with men too young to know how to give me what I want.

The one older man I got to experiment with was one hell of an experience.

Until I found out he was married. Sigh.

That’s totally not my game.

“Really?” Sunny’s innocent voice softens as it yanks me back from my thoughts.

“Yeah. My dad used to work here. I grew up with this level of testosterone.” I flick my fingers dismissively at the testosterone-filled room.

“You know the tattoos some of them have on their forearms? They’re a reference back to their military experience.

Who they served with. My dad’s was for the 5th Special Forces Group. ”

He’d been a Green Beret in the late 90s and early 2000s.

It’s what sparked his career in intelligence since he performed a lot of special reconnaissance in the Middle East.

Gathering information from denied areas.

It made him an absolute badass.

A man that was hard to get things past, even if he had blinders for me.

The amount of shit he let me get away with…

It’s what made me such a brat.

Mom always said I had him wrapped around my little finger, but the man was allowed a modicum of softness when it came to me.

I swear it’s the only time he let himself shed that hard persona.

Maybe when he and Mom were alone, but I never really saw any of that.

Not with Mom’s rigidness and drive.

Dad was always a softy for me though.

He gave me everything I wanted.

It’s his fault that I have the attitude I do.

That I demand what I want and won’t let anyone else tell me I can’t have it.

That once I know what works for me, I won’t take anything less.

God, I miss him.

I miss the way I felt whole when he hugged me.

After a whole year without him, it’s the thing I miss the most.

Not the money.

Not the protection.

Not the prestige or how he made me feel like a princess.

It’s definitely his hugs and the way I could cuddle up with him on the couch and watch a movie and feel like the world was safe and calm.

A world that shattered too completely when his friends—Grant, Trent, and Oliver—showed up at the front door to tell us what happened.

Or a version that they thought my mother and I could handle.

I still believe that the sanitized version was meant to keep me from digging.

How little they knew about me.

I will never let it go.

The basics I can get past—I can accept—he died during a mission.

But the rest of the details are still hazy.

Like they think I couldn’t handle it.

But they’re wrong.

Losing Dad and not understanding why is what prompted me to shift my degree toward criminology on top of the psychology major I’d already spent three years in.

Which means I earned myself this internship to dig up everything I can about the mission he was on.

About everything those three decided to keep from me.

Dad was too smart to go into a job without a mountain of information behind him.

Without people he could trust at his back.

Watching out for him.

So who didn’t pull their weight? Who fucked up?

I will find out.

Eventually.

The weighted reminder of my dad and what I lost has me sinking into myself a little, suppressing the fire that I’ve let fuel me through every hard bit of the last year without him.

Sunny’s head whips to the side, her eyes wide.

The way she bites her lip as she ogles every new man that walks by prods me out of my grief by inches.

“I swear, it’s something in the water at this place. You see what I’m seeing, right?”

They all rather look like nondescript men to me, but Sunny finds something to appreciate about every man who crosses her path—one has nice hands, another has an elegant neck, one’s shoulders are wide enough she could sit on them, another’s mouth is nice to look at when he talks…

She goes on and on about each one, ready to slip onto the next when he appears.

Would she talk so openly about it if she knew they could all likely hear her?

I have a feeling she would.

Innocence and naivety doesn’t mean prude after all.

It doesn’t mean shy either, because Sunny certainly is not that.

She devours every scrap of her food between her breakdown of and compliments for every man in the room.

I think Sunny needs a boyfriend.

Or at least a plaything.

Maybe more than one.

One’s never been enough for me. Personally.

I force myself to eat half of my lunch before Sunny stands and signals that we should return to the most boring first day of work in the world.

When I roll my eyes and groan, Sunny laughs and links her arm with mine. “Just imagine all of the things we’ll get to do once the paperwork is taken care of.”

I let her playfully drag me back through the office to our conference room and the manuals we needed to review.

As I spin in my chair, I catch Grant standing sentinel across the room with his arms crossed, watching me.

Does he usually prop himself in the room like some kind of gargoyle, or is this for my benefit?

Has Lenny gone and ratted out my less-than-becoming behavior?

We’ve only just started.

Our gazes lock, and I smirk at Grant, crossing my legs to show off the slit in the side of my skirt.

His eyes narrow, but they don’t drop to the trap I’ve set for him.

No, instead, he looks as intimidating as he always has.

The same strong fortress that’s prompted so many bodyguard fantasies over the years.

I bite my lip to keep from smiling at him.

He raises his brow in response.

We’re at a stalemate.

Because I’m not willing to let him win a round.

Not yet.