Resisting Mr. Granville: (Blurred Lines series)

  Resisting Mr. Granville

  a forbidden romance

  By Sam Mariano

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  Resisting Mr. Granville © 2021 Sam Mariano

  All rights reserved.

  ___

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review. Thank you for not being a pirate!

  Table of Contents

  Trigger warning:

  Dedication:

  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

  Chapter thirty-one

  Chapter thirty-two

  Chapter thirty-three

  Chapter thirty-four

  Chapter thirty-five

  Epilogue

  Also by SAM MARIANO

  About the Author

  Trigger warning:

  This book contains references to sexual assault, so if you think you will find that triggering, this book may not be the best fit for you.

  Please also note, this is not a dark romance, it is a forbidden romance with taboo elements. It is also the found family trope. That is a crucial element of this story, even if it presents in a rather unconventional way.

  There may be some lingering flavor of dark romance in here since that’s what I usually write, but the real world was dark enough while I was writing this one. I needed to write something a bit healthier in my fictional world to cleanse my palate.

  I made up for the lack of darkness with heaps of sexual tension and many, many orgasms, so get ready.

  I hope you enjoy hanging out with the Granvilles! :)

  Dedication:

  For the cycle breakers.

  Chapter one

  Kennedy

  Please don’t be the one to open the door. Please be at work.

  I hold my breath as a tall, dark, and handsome shadow grows larger on the other side of the frosted glass. A chill passes over me as I wait on the front porch, one that has nothing to do with the nippy fall weather.

  I suck in a breath as the handle turns.

  I had to muster every bit of courage to come here tonight, but whichever one is on the other side, I won’t let him see my discomfort.

  Still, I hope it’s Jet.

  Even Jonathan.

  Just please, please, please don’t be Milo.

  When the door opens, my heart sinks down into the pit of my stomach.

  Milo Granville.

  My mom’s ex-boyfriend.

  The sexiest man I’ve ever encountered.

  The man who nearly took my virginity before I came to my senses and kicked him out of the apartment.

  I swear I can see the memory of that hot summer night reflected in his ice blue eyes as he gazes at me from the doorway, his pitch black hair carelessly swept aside in an effortlessly handsome style, a dimple in his cheek from that up-to-no-good smirk on his face.

  “Well, isn’t this a nice surprise.”

  No.

  I pretend to be unaffected as I tip my chin up just a bit and tell him, “I’m here to see your son.”

  His lazy smirk doesn’t leave his face. If he’s bothered by it, I certainly can’t tell. “Which one?”

  His voice is dry and suggestive. I sense an implication that I’m so easy I could be here to sleep with either of them, even though I’ve never slept with anyone. Even though he’s the one who came over when he knew my mom wasn’t home, who offered to help me with my homework one night and started touching my thigh beneath the table.

  Of course, I brushed it away.

  That time.

  He wore me down, though.

  Movie nights with my mother right there on the couch on the other side of him, but he’d let a daring finger caress the outside of my bare thigh beneath my nightgown.

  And then the night she worked late, and he came over early and caught me coming out of the shower.

  The way he stopped in the hall and we locked eyes.

  The heat that spread through me instantly as I stood there naked beneath the towel, my hair piled carelessly atop my head, my pussy damp from more than the remnants of shower water.

  He walked toward me with sure steps. It was wrong what he was doing, but I couldn’t muster the strength to stop him as he took the towel out of my hands and opened it up. As his gaze raked over me there in the dim hall lighting, appraising every glistening inch of my naked body.

  Beautiful, he’d said.

  I felt beautiful.

  I felt fucking radiant.

  I was also on fire, gripped by lust I’d never known before. When his massive palm covered my breast, I couldn’t breathe. When he walked me back into the bedroom that belonged to my mother and shoved me back on the bed, I didn’t ask him to stop.

  I could have. I’m sure he would have.

  But since I didn’t, he knelt on the floor and spread my legs. His mouth latched onto my pussy and every last bit of decency fell off of me with the same ease as the towel we’d left behind on the hallway floor.

  He ate my pussy with abandon, gripping my thighs so hard I had bruises the next day. I experienced pleasure I’d never felt when I touched myself in bed at night, and after he made me come on his face, when I was lying on my mom’s bed with my heart pounding, my body weak from release, I didn’t want it to stop.

  When he unzipped his pants and took out his massive cock. When he stroked it and gazed down at my naked body. When he climbed on top of me and brought the tip of his cock to my pussy.

  I didn’t even think I needed it anymore after that orgasm, but as soon as I felt his flesh against mine, that fire ignited again. I wanted him to push it inside me. I wanted to feel every steely inch of him, feel myself gripping him tight. I wanted to know what it was like…

  But I couldn’t.

  My mother and I had never been close. She’d gotten knocked up by accident and sent me to live with my dad for the first two years of my life. He sent me back to her when he met a woman he wanted to marry, someone who wasn’t trashy like her and who didn’t want the trash he’d created with her living in her shiny new home.

  My mom had a revolving door of burnouts and losers. She mostly used them for whatever she could get out of them. I didn’t know what she was getting from Milo, but I knew she didn’t love him. I don’t think she’s even capable of love. She certainly never loved me.

  I don’t love her either, but I still couldn’t go through with it. Milo wasn’t her typical loser boyfriend. He had a nice house and a good job and two sons—one about my age, one a few years older. She believed she had some kind of future with him, so even if it wasn’t love, I couldn’t bring myself to do that to her.

  I wanted the pleasure he offered me that night, if for no other reason to spend just a small pocket of time outside the lonely hell of my own life, but I knew it wasn’t right.

  I made him stop.

  Made him leave.

  I showered again to try to wash his masculine scent off of me, but I still smelled him all over my body. Still felt his bruising, passionate grip on my thighs as he devoured my pussy.

  That night when I touched myself in bed, it was him I thought of. I imagined what it would have been like in my twin bed with my face pressed into the bedding, Milo on his knees behind me pounding his massive cock into my virgin pussy.

  I wanted it.

  God, how I wanted it.

  Instead, I did the right thing—or the rightest thing I could do after what had already happened.

  I told my mother.

  I expected her to be upset even if she didn’t love him. She has a tendency toward pettiness, so even if she didn’t especially care about him, she wouldn’t want me to have him.

  I guess some small part of me thought maybe she would even be a little horrified that a man she had brought into my life had put his hands on me.

  Maybe it hadn’t been an abusive, predatory kind of thing since I’m over the age of consent and I didn’t say no, but he had been the aggressor. I never tried to get his attention; he was interested and he let me know it. Sometimes he even messed with me in front of her, and I know she hadn’t been there when he touched
my thigh under the table, and she didn’t notice when he’d touched me during movie night even though she was sitting on the same couch, but she’d heard the comments he made about my skimpy sleep shorts, she’d seen the way his gaze lingered on my chest when I came out of the bathroom after a shower in my PJs without a bra on.

  There were signs to see if she was paying any attention.

  But maybe she wasn’t.

  She’d never paid attention to me before, why did I think she would start now?

  Her response had been anger, all right—anger at me. She called me a slut, a whore, grabbed her purse off the ground and flung it at my head. I left the apartment before things got more physical and returned home late, once I knew she’d be asleep.

  I was afraid to go home at all, but I was only 17 at the time. I didn’t have anywhere else to go.

  I’m 18 now, but I still have to finish up senior year of high school, so I’m stuck living with her until graduation. I have a part-time job, but I don’t make enough for my own place. Even if I could afford rent, I wouldn’t have any money to live on.

  I just have to finish out the school year, and then I can get out of her house for good.

  If I can finish the year strong, maybe I can even get a full ride to a state college. I’m close to qualifying for a merit scholarship, it’s just chemistry I’m struggling with.

  Which brings me here, to Milo Granville’s front door.

  His son Jet is brilliant. He’s been building robots in his spare time since middle school. When he offered to help me study so I could bring my B in chemistry up to an A, I couldn’t pass up the opportunity.

  Now, standing on the front porch trying not to wither beneath the scorching gaze of Milo Granville, I’m not sure I made the right choice.

  Is it worth inviting this temptation into my life?

  College is a long shot, anyway. Even with scholarships, how will I make enough money to support myself? My mom can hardly support herself, she’ll never help me. I could ask my dad, but we haven’t talked in years. I can’t imagine reaching out to him for the first time just to ask for money for school.

  I want to give myself the best shot at success once I get out of this crappy town, though. I have to bet on myself, even if the odds are stacked against me.

  Meeting Milo’s gaze, I give a pretty convincing performance of someone unaffected by him, someone who hasn’t cried out in rapture as his skillful tongue branded her pussy with a scorching, sensual heat.

  “Can I come in?” I ask levelly.

  Smirk still in place, Milo takes a step back and gestures for me to come inside.

  I’m hit by a wall of invisible, cozy warmth as I step over the threshold into his house. As he closes the door behind me, I try to tamp down a wave of panic. Reasonably, I know I can leave anytime I want to, but when the door closes and he engages the lock, it feels ominous.

  I spin around and look at him, my brow furrowed.

  In our neighborhood, we generally keep the door locked so junkies can’t break in and steal our things. I mean, they still could, but they’re not exactly go-getters. Mostly, if they come across a locked door, they just move on to an easier target unless they’re truly desperate.

  But Milo and his sons live in a nice part of town. The kind of neighborhood where every house has an expensive car parked in the driveway, where lawns are well-manicured by professional lawn services because the people who live here can’t be bothered to mow their own grass.

  We’re standing in a foyer, after all. A foyer. Intricate wrought-iron bars line the stairs on either side of us. There’s a chandelier hanging over my head, for Christ’s sake.

  This might be a nice neighborhood to steal from, but it’s one where you’d definitely get caught. Every house has an alarm and one of those doorbells that has a camera lens, most even have security systems with multiple cameras. It’s the type of place that probably has a neighborhood watch.

  I don’t think Milo is afraid of anyone breaking in and stealing what’s his, but he still locks the door.

  He doesn’t explain, either.

  Before I can say anything else, Jet walks out of the kitchen eating a bowl of cereal. He brightens a little when he sees me.

  “Hey, Kennedy.”

  “Hi,” I answer, a sudden wave of shyness coming over me.

  I know he doesn’t know what happened between me and his dad, but I feel his fingerprint bruises all over my body again. Surely the evidence of that hot summer night must be plain to see from the blush on my face, the tension in the air.

  Jet doesn’t seem to notice any of it. “You ready to get started?”

  I nod, dropping my book bag from my back and hoisting it on one shoulder. “Yep.”

  “Great.” Jet smiles. “Let me put this in the sink and we can head up to my room.”

  “Your room?” The words slip out before I can stop them. My blush deepens. I don’t know why, but I figured we would study in the kitchen or something, somewhere less… private.

  He doesn’t seem to notice my reluctance. He comes back out of the kitchen a few seconds later and flashes me a smile before wordlessly heading up the stairs, clearly expecting me to follow.

  All right, then.

  I guess we’re going to his room.

  My steps are a bit slower than his, so he gets to the top of the stairs before me.

  “Have fun,” Milo calls up after me, his voice like a taunt.

  I glance back at him.

  Our gazes lock just like they did that night in the hall.

  The amusement glittering in his brilliant blue eyes fades, and the glint hardens before he adds lower, maybe just for me to hear, “Not too much fun, though.”

  My heart sinks.

  I nearly miss a step.

  I grab onto the railing to catch myself, my face flushing after the near-fall.

  “Careful,” Jet says, oblivious to his father’s hold on me.

  I shake it off and hurry up the rest of the stairs.

  I tell myself I won’t look back, but as we go around the rotunda at the top of the staircase, I glance down just to see if Milo’s watching me.

  And he is.

  Chapter two

  Kennedy

  It’s late by the time I’m leaving the Granville house.

  Chemistry tutoring took longer than expected. I felt dumber than I wanted to, but Jet has such an effortless way of understanding all this stuff, I think it might be impossible not to feel dumb when you’re doing schoolwork with him.

  Jet and I never talked much in school, but tonight we got to know each other a little better. He slipped up and told me about his crush on Brylee White—an impossible conquest because everyone knows Brylee only goes for guys who are already taken.

  It’s a shame because the way he talks about her, I can tell he really, truly likes her. He notices things about her, little things that someone who wasn’t infatuated would look right past.

  As I’m gathering up my books, I say with a little smile on my face, “Hey, maybe you’ll luck out and it’ll get back to her that I was over at your house tonight. If she thinks I’m into you, you might actually have a chance.”

  I’m only joking, but his eyes widen and from the look on his face, you’d expect a glowing light bulb to flash over his head. “That’s kind of brilliant, actually.”

  I glance back at him uncertainly as I swing my bag over my shoulder. “It is?”

  He nods eagerly, already a step or two ahead as he stands and walks over to me. “You’re not seeing anyone, are you?”

  “Well, no…”

  He grabs my forearm excitedly. “Would you tell people at school tomorrow that we hung out tonight? Don’t tell them I was tutoring you, just pretend we’re hanging out because maybe you like me or something.”

  “Whoa, hold on…” I shake my head, not totally comfortable with the deception.

  “I mean, most tutors would charge you for their time,” he adds, apparently noticing my reluctance.

  I stiffen, but he’s not wrong, and I can’t pay him—not with dollars, anyway.

  It’s a rude thing to say, so I frown at him in disapproval. He scratches the back of his neck, looking a bit sheepish about the light blackmail he just attempted.

  But he’s not wrong, and that’s what I’m coming back to.