Page 3 of Praise Me: Pilot (Praise Me Daily #6)

Joel

I am sweating through my fucking clothes.

Somehow, I managed to peel Haylo’s exploring hand off my dick and drag her inside to the dinner table.

Now, despite being hornier than a frat boy on spring break, I am determined to get this association back on track.

She’s upset and confused and acting out.

That’s why she touched me. That’s why she said those things to me.

I’m sure we can find a nice fit.

Maybe I’ll just call you Daddy and really confuse everyone.

The smart thing to do would be leave, but no. I meant what I said. I’m not leaving her when she’s feeling abandoned and vulnerable like this. Problem is, her feeling abandoned and vulnerable are the exact reasons she’s coming onto me.

Get through dinner. Make Haylo feel less alone. Supported.

Then go back to the hotel and jack myself off.

A few seconds of her light massage and my nuts are already in a stranglehold.

Because it was her. There’s something about her.

If circumstances were different and Haylo was a different girl, both parents in attendance, I’d still be staring into her green eyes.

I’d still be sniffing the air for any hint of her pussy’s sweetness.

I’d still be hard as fuck watching her naked thighs cross under the table beside me.

She crooks her finger at me, and I lean to the right, against my better judgment. “My legs aren’t on the dinner menu,” she pouts, reaching over to fix my collar.

“That’s…good,” I say raggedly, taking a desperate sip of water.

In doing so, I catch the eye of the man across from me.

His curious gaze is skittering back and forth between me and Haylo, obviously trying to figure out the nature of our relationship.

I shut down any question in advance with a dark look and renew my determination to redirect the sexual energy between me and Haylo.

“Talk to me about school. What are you studying?”

The man across from me “accidentally” elbows his napkin off the table, and when he leans down to pick it up, I know he’s doing it to gawk at Haylo’s thighs. To make a desperate attempt to see her panties beneath the table.

I don’t think. At all. I simply grip the edge of her chair and yank sideways until her side is pressed to mine.

I drape a napkin across her lap and cover as much of her legs as possible, then I take hold of the back of her chair, shifting to face her.

Protectively. It’s all instinctive, start to finish, and the crazy part is, I’m holding back.

If she wasn’t my best friend’s daughter, she’d be in my lap right now.

“Um…” A blush spreads across the plump tops of her tits, and she tucks that moonbeam-colored hair behind her ear, her elbow brushing down the center of my pecs.

We’re at a long table full of three dozen people, and I swear, I can still hear my heart over the loud conversations.

It’s booming in my ears. She smells like an ocean breeze at night.

“You asked me what I study. I’m a psych major,” Haylo says, peeking up at me.

“Someday I want to work in grief counseling.”

The fingers of my hand that is positioned at the back of her chair make contact with the bare skin of her back, an intuitive need to comfort. “Because of what you went through with your mother.”

Her green eyes flicker with surprise. “My father talked to you about her?”

I nod.

“Wow. He never talks to me about her.” She takes a breath, looking thoughtful. “It actually makes me feel better knowing he didn’t forget. That he reminisces with someone .”

“He didn’t forget.”

A wry smile plays on her mouth. “He has a funny way of mourning.” She reaches for her water and takes a sip.

“As you might have guessed, this isn’t the first time he dropped our plans so he could go play Casanova.

As a student of the human psyche and how it copes with grief, I know he is likely running from his pain, trying to bury it in a blur of pleasure.

But as a daughter…I find it really hard to be understanding about that.

Maybe in the beginning, it was forgivable, but now… ”

“One person’s pain doesn’t give them the right to cause it in someone else,” I say quietly, not wanting to throw my best friend under the bus, but needing to comfort and understand Haylo, all the same.

“Exactly.”

There’s a growing hunger inside of me to know everything about this girl, even though I should just keep the conversation surface level.

I can’t. Not with her smell transferring to my clothes.

Her incredible eyes searching mine. Her body so close to mine, I can’t stop the images from bombarding me.

Me, lifting her onto the table and peeling that tank top down slowly to suck her nipples.

“He says you’re a sensitive person,” I rasp. “Is that true?”

“Very,” she whispers, solemnly.

“How so?”

She ponders. “You want a specific example?”

“Yes.”

“I have to fast forward to the end of sitcoms to make sure things turn out all right.”

“Don’t things always turn out all right on a sitcom?”

“But what if I’m watching the one time they don’t?” She wrinkles her nose playfully at me, and my heart starts to palpitate. “Also, I cry when people are mean to the villain. No one knows what they’re going through in private.”

“You’ve got to have a boyfriend.”

She doesn’t even blink over the subject change. “I don’t have one. Why do you assume I would?”

Are they serving alcohol at this thing, or what? This girl and her soft, flirty voice have sweat beading on my forehead. “Never mind.”

“No.” She tugs on one of the middle buttons of my shirt. “Tell me.”

I search for the right words, but hell if my tongue isn’t tied in knots. “Men have a protective instinct. At least, the good men do. I can just see you making every man you meet…want to be a hero. Your hero.”

“That’s sweet. But I don’t need to be protected.

I learned how to set boundaries, so I don’t get my feelings hurt as often anymore.

” She looks down at my knuckle, which has started tracing the hem of her skirt, of its own accord.

Fuck me . “It has taken me longer than it should have to set boundaries with my father, but after today, I think it’s time. ”

I don’t know what to say to that. She’s probably right. Phil is a great friend, but obviously he has some work to do on his relationship with Haylo.

“There are all kinds of ways to be sensitive, though, isn’t there?

Emotionally.” She guides my knuckle an inch higher, leaving it beneath her skirt where I can’t help but trace the softest skin I’ve ever felt in my life.

The skin of Haylo’s high inner thigh. “I don’t know if I’m sensitive yet… physically.”

My dick starts to pulse like a bad omen. “What do you mean?”

“No one has ever helped me find out,” she murmurs, leaning up to speak a breath away from my ear, her gentle confession shooting heat down my spine, need like I’ve never felt pooling in my stomach.

“Are you trying convince me you’re a virgin?”

“Why do you need to be convinced?”

“Angel,” I scoff. “Men must lose their minds over you. I wouldn’t even believe you were a virgin if this was an all-girls school.”

“It’s not. Yet here I am. Still innocent.” Her lips brush my ear, and I have to grit my fucking teeth to prevent come from spilling into my briefs. “I know a way you can find out.”

Holy hell. “I thought you said you wouldn’t date a pilot.”

She blinks those vibrant eyes up at me. “Who said anything about dating?”

This is when it really hits me. How much trouble I’ve landed myself in here.

I’ve still got tonight and a full day tomorrow with Haylo before I’m due back at work…

and I want to raw dog her so hard, I can already hear the headboard cracking down the middle.

But I can’t do that. I can’t betray my best friend’s trust like that. No way.

Furthermore, I know if I fuck this angel, virgin or not, she’s going to end up with a rock the size of Denver on her finger. And I have a feeling she’d fight me tooth and nail on that. She doesn’t want a pilot. She’s made that abundantly clear.

Not to mention, she’s eighteen, for the love of God. In her first year of college.

What the hell am I going to do?

“Dinner is served!” shouts the sorority girl from earlier, the one who had the bullhorn, saving from having to answer Haylo’s question. For now.

But no number of courses is going to save me for long.

Not when my hunger for her is this severe—and worsening by the second.