Chapter 0002

Lia Amarie has been in love with Tristan Hemsworth ever since middle school when he moved in next door with his little son, who she instantly became best friends with. Now she's nineteen, and still very much lusting over the sexy, very much older billionaire Adonis's hot body, every beautiful inch. But to Tristan, Lia will always be off-limits. The little girl who always ran out to hug him whenever he came back from work. Can she rise above this silly perceived notion and show him that she can be a bad, naughty girl?

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One: Lia.

“Nine...ten. Ready or not, Eric, I'm coming your way!” I yell, pulling off the black blindfold around my eyes, and sprinting out of the house, towards the garden. We'd played hide-and-seek a thousand times — mostly when we got tired of video games and wanted a little excitement aside from board games — and each and every time, Eric always hid in the garden, close to the thickest rose patch or in the abandoned den behind their huge mansion. Today, however, he wasn't in the garden, and I start getting worn out when I see that he's not in the abandoned den as well. Taking a detour back into the house, I stand still in the foyer and shut my eyes, listening. I hear things being moved about in the storeroom to my left, accompanied by intense giggling.

Smirking, I tiptoe towards the storeroom and, with a deep breath, kicked the door open, catching Eric right before he slipped into an old sack. “Aha! Gotcha!” I lunge at him, knocking him off his feet as we both fall onto an old mattress, wrestling each other and laughing. He tickled my sides, causing my arms to fly out, and flatten themselves over his broad, solid chest. I'll be lying to myself if I said I didn't know when they morphed from soft, baby flesh, to rock hard solid overnight. Just like how I'd traded my breasts — soft handballs — for big, supple oranges.

Ever since I met Eric in sixth grade, we'd gotten along like bread and butter. His house was my second home, and we were inseparable. Literally. His friends were my friends, and one of us hardly took a decision without informing the other of it first. Little wonder why everyone expected that, after high school, when we both will move to the city, we'll get married.

I haven't given much thought to marriage. Ever. And Eric would be the last man I would want to spend the rest of my life with. I'm sure he feels the same way too. Our bond is entirely platonic and we do see each other more as siblings.

He pinches my upper arm now, and I yowl, aiming a kick for his balls which he dodges smartly. We roll about like bunnies for a while, before disentangling, our hands clasped together as we look up at the dusty ceiling, trying to catch our breaths, giggling.

“How did you know I was in here?” Eric asks, probing my side. I gasped, whirling away.

“Stop! I just... I didn't find you in the garden or the abandoned den so I...” I'm getting ready to slip out of his reach and kick him out of the bed with the heel of my foot when I hear the front door of the house open and close curtly. And I end up losing my focus and falling off the mattress instead.

He's home.

Six o'clock on the dot every evening. Not a minute more. Not a minute less.

It's him. The only man who can make my stomach flip.

Outwardly, I try to contain myself, try not to show a reaction that'd get Eric to suspect, but inside, I'm burning up like a paper that'd caught flame, rattling like a rickety old train on the railway and my stomach has been left on the dirty, metal floor.

Eric's father is home.

Tristan McHemma Hemsworth.

I catch sight of his pristine, black loafers as he passes by the storeroom, glancing in briefly and beaming when he espies me collapsed on the mattress, next to his laughing son. He shakes his head and moves on, towards the kitchen, barely giving me enough time to drink in his familiar features. Honestly, I've got to accept that it's impossible to soak in the sight of his big, sexy body. Those broad shoulders. Hard, thick, and impenetrable.

Everywhere. Even in his pants and boxer briefs, I'm sure.

Seriously, I'm not making this up. Last month, he'd taken Eric and I swimming to celebrate our birthdays — Eric and I were born in the same month and our dates were only three days apart so we also celebrated it together like twins. I hadn't envisioned that Tristan was fond of water, or that he'd strip out of his immaculate suit and join us in. I merely thought he'd wait for us at the parents' section, so you can imagine my surprise when I saw him swimming up to us in a tight, yellow underwear which did nothing but divulge just how huge, and hard his junk was. I knees wobbled under the water at the sight of his salt and pepper chest hair, the round slab of his stomach.

The painful outline of his thick, huge, veiny cock.

Each time the water molded his swim trunks to his lap, the enormous ridge in between his thighs made my belly so ticklish, I turned so red, Eric had to carry me out of the water, thinking I was having a sunburn.

Tristan Hemsworth is forty-six, a single-father widow.

I'm nineteen.

I've been silently, passionately, madly in love with him since I was roughly, thirteen.

I thought I'd get over him as I grow older, but honestly, no one compares. No one ever seems capable. What Tristan does to me in my dreams is more fulfilling than what any boy could hope to accomplish in real life. I'm not exaggerating, which is the reason why I don't even bother with them. College starts in a few months, and I'm already doubly sure the boys there won't measure up, either.

At the reminder of college — namely, the tuition fee needing to be paid — sadness clumps itself around my guts, making me groan as I rise to my feet, dusting myself off. I flash a breezy smile at Eric. “I'm going to grab some water from the kitchen. I'm so parched.” I tuck a stray strand of my ginger red hair behind my ear and exhaled. “Want anything while I'm at it?”

“No,” Eric says, standing up as well. He towers over me with a few, substantial inches. “You go ahead. I'll try and clean up this place. Pops gonna have me grounded if I don't.”

“Not if I can help as well. Be back in a bit.”

On my way to the kitchen, my hands quiver as I tuck my skirt a little higher, and knot my tank top under my breasts. I flip my hair back, and put on a flirtatious smile. It's like a superpower — I've disarmed almost every man I've come across with my smile and suggestive body language. I'm known for being a smart flirt. A sly tease. They're wrong, but Godforbid they ever find out that it's all a facade. That I'm just pretending. Treading water. Try as much as they can to resist me, I've always gotten what I wanted.

And this time, I'm intent on making Tristan mine. I don't care what I have to do, or what it takes.

You have no idea how it hurts to keep seeing someone who you desperately crave everyday. Getting a glimpse of what I can't have.

Pretending he's mine for a moment, like I always do. It's what I've brought myself to settle for.

But I've had enough. It's time I head in for the kill.

When I walk into the pristine kitchen where everything is literally stainless steel, I find Tristan leaning over the countertop, a cup of hot coffee in hand, scrolling through something on his phone, the frown on his face deepening every passing second. His mid-section is suspended as he puts his full weight on his elbows, those meaty fingers clasped around the gadget's shiny body. At the mere closeness of him, and the knowledge that we're alone, my nipples harden, skin prickling and pulsing.

“Hey there, Master Hem,” I greet, pouting as I trail a finger down the wall of the archway. “What's making you so grumpy? Bad news?”

“It's nothing, really,” he says dryly, not taking his eyes off the screen. “Hey, Lia. How are you?”

“You know I'm always better whenever you're around, Master,” I sashay over to the counter where he is standing, propping a hip on the low cabinetry. “I always feel a little safer whenever you're home. You're all big and buff...” I trail off, swallowing.

He cuts me a brief look, but his eyes doesn't seem to see any of the eye candy I'm offering.

Ugh. Of course he doesn't.

To him, I'm still the little girl who ran out to hug and welcome him whenever he came home from work.

“You know, Lia, you're safe whenever I'm not around too. You've got Eric who'll never let anything bad happen to you. The alarm system is also engaged and the gate electrified,” he reassures absent-mindedly, flipping a paper and scrutinizing it's content. “How's everything at home? How's your father?”

Broke.

Destitute.

A selfish loser whose entire life is a lie.

“He's fine. He said to say hello,” I lied. My father is barely home to acknowledge me these days. Not that I have a problem with it. Seeing his face around makes my stomach roil, and my blood boil, so I always shut myself in my room each time he's home. Which is hardly possible, considering he's always on the run, hiding, trying to dodge creditors.

Maybe it's the reminder that there's nothing left for me to use in paying my tuition fee that makes me feel a little carefree tonight. On a normal day, I'll simply flirt a bit with Tristan, and he'll send me back to Eric's room with a little pat on the head. But I need a distraction from the mess that has become my life. I want the comfort of his arms, the peace I'm sure they'll bring, now more than ever — and this is saying a lot because my panties has always been on fire for this man ever since I crossed puberty.

I take my bottom lip into my mouth, wetting it, and allow my pulse build up and trip over itself. I'm in another element, another form — I'm another Lia as I slide between Tristan and the kitchen counter, the fly of his expensive suit pants dragging across my bare stomach.

Immediately, I'm pinned by that icy blue, hooded gaze. The one that made so many women fall at his feet. That made him a no-nonsense billionaire many times over in the business world. It's piercing. Sharp. Ruthless. It makes me almost lose my act. But I don't. I latch onto my courage with an extra ferocity, and reach up to loosen his black tie. “Don't you ever get tired of working, Big Daddy? You can't work so hard all the time. It's not good for you,” I murmur, using the nickname I've been using for him since middle school. It's been a long while since I used it, and I'll be lying if I said it's not perfect for this big bear goodness of a man. “All work and no play makes Daddy a dull man. You've got to have a little fun sometimes, don't you think?”

“Lia...” he swallows hard, looking anywhere else but my face. I detect the stern warning in his tone, but I pay it no mind. “W-What are you doing?”