Meet Me at Midnight (Forbidden Flowers Book 2) Read online

  Meet Me At Midnight

  A Forbidden Flowers Story

  Donya Lynne

  Meet Me at Midnight©

  Forbidden Flowers, book 2

  Published by Phoenix Press LLC

  Copyright 2020 Donya Lynne

  Cover by MW Designs

  ISBN: 978-1-938991-50-9

  This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This book may not be re-sold or given away to others. Thank you for respecting the hard work of the author. To obtain permission to excerpt portions of the text, please contact the author at [email protected].

  References to historical events, real people, or real locales are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Licensed material is being used for illustrative purposes only and any person depicted in the licensed material is a model.

  Created with Vellum

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Books by Donya Lynne

  Find me…

  Chapter One

  Dr. O’s Office . . .

  Harrison Devereaux is one of the top corporate attorneys in North Carolina and a former senator. He’s written two political bestsellers, was last year’s commencement speaker for Harvard’s graduating class, and is a crusader for a variety of public initiatives from environmental protection to civil rights to better pay for teachers.

  He’s also the uniquely talented widower who gave my latest research subject the most memorable sexual experience of her life.

  I’m sure that won’t win him any accolades as prestigious as an honorary degree from Harvard or a Pulitzer, but given the twinkle in Corinne’s eyes, as well as the crimson flush in her cheeks, hers are the only accolades that matter.

  And from the hearts in her dreamy gaze and her giddy schoolgirl demeanor, I would say she’s smitten, even though she insists Harrison is not her boyfriend, just the man she’s having sex with.

  But I’m no fool. I’ve been studying women’s sexuality too long not to see the signs. The way she tucks her hair behind her ear and looks away, bowing her head and trying not to smile but failing, because she just can’t hold back how happy she is. This girl is in love, despite her words to the contrary.

  Which should make things interesting when their relationship goes public—and it will, no matter how hard she and Harrison try to keep it a secret—because he’s more than twice Corinne’s age.

  Based on the form she filled out when answering my call for research subjects, she’s twenty-three, recently graduated from Yale with a degree in political science, and has just started her career in politics. He’s fifty-two and closer to retirement with a son older than she is.

  “How did you and Harrison meet?” I ask.

  “He’s my best friend Susanna’s father.”

  And the plot thickens.

  “Does Susanna know you’re sexually involved with her dad?”

  Corrine briskly shakes her head. “She has no idea.”

  I’m not here to psychoanalyze her relationship, but if I were, I’d say it’s a powder keg sitting in the middle of a burning warehouse. Any minute, it’s going to blow.

  “How long have you known him?” I ask.

  The fact isn’t lost on me that, yet again, I’ve got a young woman sitting in front of me who is intimately involved with a much older man. I don’t know if this is a national trend or a fluke, but it seems that nearly a third of the research subjects I’ve interviewed for this book have found tremendous pleasure in the arms of men old enough to be their fathers. Some of those women are still dating their more mature suitors, while others have moved on, but I can’t ignore the data. Older men know what they’re doing in the bedroom, and younger women are taking notice.

  Maybe that should be the subject of my next book: older men and the younger women who love them . . . or at least love their skills in the bedroom.

  “I’ve known Harrison since I was a little girl,” Corinne says. “Susanna and I practically grew up together. Our parents moved in the same social circles, and we went to the same school. And I lived just down the street, so I was always at her house.”

  “Did you find her father attractive back then?” Maybe this is an example of a childhood crush that grew up.

  She laughs. “Ooohh no, no. When we were kids, Harrison terrified me.”

  I blink and frown, taken completely off guard by her answer. “Why?” And more importantly, how did she go from being terrified of him to having the best sex of her life with him?

  She shrugs as if, even as a child, she should have seen how obviously handsome he was. “He just always seemed so strict. I don’t know why I thought that, though. He never yelled at us or anything. I just remember him always wearing a stern expression, his eyes steely and his brow severe.” She says that with a small half smile, like she thinks his austerity is exceedingly attractive now that she’s an adult. “He smiles more now,” she adds, her grin growing more mischievous and personal, as if she’s seen all the ways in which Harrison smiles in the privacy of their love nest. “But back then, when Susanna and I were kids, he always looked like he was on the verge of reprimanding us for making too much noise while he was trying to work. But he never yelled or got impatient. He just glanced at us with that warning look on his face, and that was enough to shut us up.”

  “He sounds like a powerful man.”

  She issues an emphatic nod. “He is, but he doesn’t let it go to his head. He does, however, know when to turn it on to get things done.”

  “Like what?”

  “Everything, really. He’s in charge of several ventures and has to keep things moving.” A look of pride comes over her, like she’s pleased to have a chance to brag about her man. “Harrison sits on various boards and is always looking for a worthy cause to champion, and he’s heavily involved in charitable work.” Then she adds, almost as an aside, “Did you know his family used to own a tobacco farm?”

  “No.”

  She tips her head slightly to one side as she crosses her legs. “That’s where their wealth came from. But Harrison wanted nothing to do with tobacco. When it came time for him to run the family business, he partnered with an organic produce farmer, converted his tobacco fields to produce, and, other than receiving updates and consulting on buying and selling decisions, he’s mostly hands-off, which gives him time to handle everything else on his plate.”

  “Such as . . .?” I already have a good idea of all that Harrison Devereaux is involved in, but my job is to get her talking and loosen her up before we get to the more personal and intimate subject matter she’s here to discuss.

  “Such as his work lobbying for improved protections for the environment, greater equality for women and minorities, better pay for teachers, and healthcare that people can actually afford. He couldn’t get half as much accomplished when he was a senator.” She lets out an amused huff. “He says there’s too much politics in being a politician. Too many big corporations buying off the people in power and looking out only for themselves, leaving most Americans without a voice. It’s one of the reasons he left Washington. Now he can really focus on doing the work that matters. Oh, and if that isn’t enough, he’s writing another book.”

  “What’s this one about?”

  “I can’t say,” she says with a wink and a smile.

  “In other words, you c
ould tell me, but then you’d have to kill me.”

  She laughs, and it’s such a peaceful, gentle sound, like a breeze blowing over water. “Yes, something like that.” She smooths her fingers over her pant leg. “And, of course, he’s still an attorney and runs his own firm.” Then she quickly adds, “But he rarely takes his own cases, anymore.”

  Not surprising with everything else on his docket.

  “Would you say his work at the firm is like that on the farm? He’s mostly hands-off but wants to be kept in the loop on what’s happening?”

  “Very much. He sits in on the meetings, stays up to date on the tough cases, adds his input where needed, then leaves the hard work to his sons and the people he’s hired.”

  No wonder Harrison’s net worth is in the billions. Not only did he inherit a fortune, but the man refuses to sit on his laurels and has a talent for building a business model that works, finding the right people to make the machine run smoothly, then creating another business where he can apply the same model and duplicate his efforts. Over and over and over again.

  And the profits scale up like compounding interest. Cha-ching.

  Corinne laughs. “You know, with all the pots he’s got his hands in, it’s a wonder he can find the time to put those hands on me.”

  Speaking of which . . .

  “When did your sexual relationship start?” It’s time to move this conversation to the next phase and get to the material she’s here to talk about.

  That same fond, playful smile she revealed earlier crosses her face again. “Over Christmas break last year. My parents invited me to spend the holidays with them in Paris, but Paris has never really been my thing—I’m more of a tropical island kind of girl—so I stayed in North Carolina and spent the holidays with Susanna’s family.”

  I noted the circumstances of ground zero on my legal pad. “So, you and he were basically living in the same house?”

  “Yes, but I was also working for him. His assistant, Emma, had been invited to spend the holidays with her sisters in Cabo, so I volunteered to fill in while she was gone. That way, Harrison wouldn’t have to hire a temp. I figured I was going to be there, anyway, and working for Harrison Devereaux was an excellent opportunity to learn from the best, make a few connections, and add some high-profile experience to my résumé.” She coyly bites her bottom lip. “But I never expected that working for him would lead to the two of us becoming so intimately involved.”

  I don’t need any more chitchat to loosen Corinne up. She’s ready to talk.

  “Why don’t you tell me about it?” I ask, getting comfortable and settling in for the duration. We could be here a while, and I have no intention of ending my day until I’ve heard every detail of Corinne’s story.

  Chapter Two

  Corinne’s Story . . .

  Corinne stared up at the dark ceiling in her room at Devereaux Manor. She’d been lying in bed for over forty minutes and was no nearer to falling asleep than she had been an hour ago. If anything, she was more awake.

  She never should have had that cup of cappuccino after dinner. But it had smelled so good, and since she’d refrained from eating dessert, she figured she could have just one cup, because didn’t she deserve a treat every now and then? But now here she was at—she checked the clock on the nightstand—quarter till midnight, wide awake, her thoughts racing.

  Caffeine always did this to her. It was why she’d stopped drinking cappuccino in the first place. It wired her too much in the morning and made her pee every twenty minutes, which didn’t exactly help her stay focused during class. And if she drank it at night, she would be up until morning and need another cappuccino just to stay awake until lunch.

  Talk about your never-ending vicious circles. So, she’d abandoned cappuccino completely except for the occasional weekend splurge . . . until tonight.

  Ugh.

  She threw off the covers, pulled her Yale zip-up sweatshirt over her camisole pajama top, tugged on a pair of gray sweats, and jammed her socked feet into her Keds. If she couldn’t sleep, she might as well get some work done.

  She’d been working for Susanna’s father for three days. The hours were long, and he kept her busy, but she was learning so much and had already been asked by two of his colleagues to send them her résumé. She would probably accomplish more in a few weeks working for Harrison Devereaux than she would have interning for six months for some law firm or senator who turned her into a glorified coffee fetcher whose primary functions would have been to sharpen pencils, make copies, and run errands all day. She was getting real-world knowledge from Harrison.

  But menial administrative work was still part of her job description, and late this afternoon, Harrison had given her a set of files to record and archive. Wouldn’t he be impressed if she could tell him first thing in the morning that she was already done?

  The halls were dark and quiet as she made her way from her room to the spiral staircase in the back of the house that looked down over a small sitting area with an unimpeded view of the lawn and gardens. It had been a favorite cranny for her and Susanna as kids. They had played games, read books, gossiped about boys, and cried over high school heartbreaks in that private little nook.

  Family portraits lined the walls, starting with Harrison’s great-grandfather, Beauregard, framed in beautifully hand-carved mahogany. Giving it a quick once-over as she passed, Corinne could see where Harrison’s strong Roman nose and sharp eyes had come from. In fact, all the Devereaux men shared those features.

  She briefly studied each of the family’s patriarchs in turn. Beauregard, then his son, Henry, then Harrison’s father, William, and finally Harrison himself. Stopping, she took a step back and tilted her head, examining the younger image of the man she now worked for. Corinne remembered when the painting had been completed. She couldn’t have been more than eight or nine years old at the time.

  He really had been quite handsome back then. If Corinne hadn’t been so irrationally afraid of his austere persona, she might have even developed a crush on him. But that would have been weird, him being Susanna’s father. Suze would have teased her relentlessly.

  But now that she was an adult and no longer feared him, Corinne allowed herself to see the man she’d always hidden from when she was a child. She stared at his portrait, really looked at it. The sharp line of his brow, the strong angles in his bone structure, his commanding gaze and full, relaxed lips, which revealed the slightest hint of a smile. Almost a smirk, really, but more mysterious.

  If she’d been older back then, she most definitely would have found Harrison attractive. Hell, she found him attractive now. As handsome as he’d been fifteen years ago, he had aged well and was even more good-looking. The lines around his eyes, his more deeply weathered skin, and the gray in his hair had given him a more distinguished—even regal—air. He was like the man from those old beer commercials: The Most Interesting Man in the World. For him, age was just a number, the mark of experience and wisdom, not a sign of deterioration. Men like Harrison got sexier with age, not older.

  And given how well Harrison took care of himself, from his morning runs along the trails around the property, to eating only organically grown produce, and cutting almost all meat from his diet, it was a sure bet Harrison would continue to age well.

  Tearing herself away from his portrait, she continued through the darkened manor until she reached the hallway leading to his office, where her footsteps faltered. The door wasn’t quite closed, and the lights were on. Was Harrison working late?

  As she looked down at her pajamas and sweats, she debated whether she should continue or turn back. She wasn’t even wearing a bra underneath her cami. Did she want to archive those files badly enough that she was willing to risk Susanna’s dad seeing her so intimately dressed?

  She glanced behind her, then back at the half-closed door. If she returned to her room, all she would do was lie in bed and stare up at the ceiling. At least down here, she could put all her nervous ener
gy to work. And if Harrison were working late, wouldn’t he be impressed by her dedication to her job? That could go a long way when it came time for him to write her a letter of recommendation.

  Quickly zipping up her sweatshirt, she started down the hall again, only to stumble to a stop a few feet from the door when a low, softly shuddering moan came from inside the office.

  Corinne froze.

  Men only moaned like that for one reason.

  He did it again, the throaty sound drawing out longer, wavering rhythmically, as if he were . . .

  She eased forward and peered inside, making sure to stay in the shadows.

  Harrison was seated on the brown leather couch in the center of the room, back pressed into the near corner, his body angled toward the window. His Dockers were undone, and he’d planted one foot on the floor. The other dug into the couch, his knee pressed against the back cushion.

  Corinne’s breath caught as she blinked and did a double take. Harrison was . . . he had his . . . his tan hand was stroking up and down his erection to a steady but demanding beat. And—blink-blink—what an erection it was, putting to shame every other stiff cock she’d ever seen, whether in real life or in dirty movies.

  Okay, so there was this one movie where the guy’s dick had its own zip code, but aside from that, Harrison’s was the most impressive. But that didn’t mean it was the longest . . . or the thickest. She’d seen longer, but skinnier. And she’d seen thicker, but shorter. Harrison’s erection was the perfect ratio of both. Long enough to go deep, and thick enough to make a woman feel full, with a shallow curve that bent it upward, which she knew from experience was the best kind of hard-on to hit her inner anatomy in just the right way.