Alpha’s Arms by Flora Ferrari

Charlene:
The cruise is off… dad won’t let me go it alone, even though I’m plenty old enough now.
But then it’s on again, I can go. On one condition: His best friend Max is chaperone.
It feels like a dream come true, I’ve had a crush on dad’s best friend forever.
That night he almost kissed me after graduation I thought I’d burst.
So close to being held in those huge arms of his… so close.
Two whole weeks with just Max and me, alone on a cruise together?
That’s not a holiday, that’s dying and going to heaven.

Max:
I used to let her hang off my arms, standing dead straight and as tall as I could for ages while she played, pretending I was a tree or a mountain.
Then on her graduation night, all I wanted to do, all I felt like doing, was taking her into my arms, holding onto her forever.
I’ll never forget that night, never as long as I live.
God, I was such a fool! To think a girl her age, a girl so beautiful would go for an older guy like me…
I’d come so close to kissing her at her graduation party, her dad walking in when he did seemed like he rescued me from it but I’ve secretly hated him for it.
Keeping me from what I know is mine.
What I still know is mine, waiting to be claimed.
I never got to tell her how I felt.
How it was meant to be between us.
When her dad asks me to chaperone Charlene on that cruise, my mind’s made up. He owes me anyway, and I won’t let destiny slip past a second time.