Sushi: A Forbidden Flowers Story Read online

  Sushi

  A Forbidden Flowers Story

  Donya Lynne

  Sushi©

  Forbidden Flowers, book 1

  Published by Phoenix Press LLC

  Copyright 2020 Donya Lynne

  Cover by MW Designs

  ISBN: 978-1-938991-49-3

  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

  Preface

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Books by Donya Lynne

  About the Author

  Find me...

  Preface

  In January of 2020, as I was planning my projects for the year, I realized that I had a wealth of material I’d written over the past eight years but had never published.

  This material accounted for hundreds of hours of work, and it was wasting away in my files, doing nothing for me or you, the reader. It wasn’t generating income, finding new readers for my work, or giving my existing readers anything to chew on while they waited for my next novel.

  Then I got an idea. What if I updated, rewrote, reworked, and repackaged this material into a series of fun, sexy short stories and novelettes?

  The Forbidden Flowers Series was born.

  I planned, organized, came up with a cover design, a premise, and a list of over thirty titles, then got to work.

  I’m now ready to launch this new series.

  But first, here’s what you can expect from Forbidden Flowers: short, simple, and sizzling stories. The kind of stories you can read in one sitting and require a fan and a cold drink to recover from, with tropes such as older women with younger men, older men with younger women, secret babies, workplace romance, BDSM, fetishes (you’ll see), friends to lovers, enemies to lovers, voyeurism, exhibitionism, fake fiancés, and more.

  Some stories are spicier than others, some sweeter, some longer, some shorter. Some are funnier, and some might blow your mind. Some will lead you to other books I’ve written (or will write), and some will leave you wanting more—and definitely let me know which ones do, because if there’s a big demand for more from a particular couple, I just might write a full novel for them.

  Furthermore, future books might take on a different tone from these initial stories, and I’ve invited a few other authors to contribute to Forbidden Flowers, as well, so you might see stories from them down the road. I envision the future of this series as a multiauthor series with endless possibilities, so I hope you love all the different kinds of flowers to come.

  What you won’t find in the Forbidden Flowers stories are cliffhangers. Each story can stand on its own.

  For now, enjoy Sushi, the inaugural story of Forbidden Flowers. And I hope you like your sushi hot, because this tuna roll is sizzling!

  Donya Lynne

  Chapter One

  Dr. Ophelia’s Office . . .

  We’ve all heard it said that those who can’t do, teach. Well, in my case, I studied. I studied so much that I earned my PhD in clinical psychology. Now I’m the country’s leading expert on women’s sexuality, and everyone calls me Dr. O—and it’s not because my first name is Ophelia. Dr. Ophelia Jusczyk.

  At the age of forty-two, I’ve built a highly successful career—and podcast—around the research, analysis, and treatment of sex. Specifically, women’s sex. I’ve even written a bestseller on the subject.

  Now I’m working on my second book, an in-depth look at women’s most memorable sexual experiences.

  The idea started as a joke six months ago when one of the producers of my podcast suggested it after a particularly colorful guest regaled listeners with her story about the best sex she’d ever had. That show ended up receiving more calls, emails, and feedback than any other in the history of my podcast. Women everywhere wanted to get in on the action and share their own best-sex encounters.

  I couldn’t ignore that kind of response, so Dr. O’s Forbidden Flowers: The Best Sex Women Ever Had was born. And based on early interest, it’s going to be a blockbuster.

  Who knew that this far into the women’s liberation movement women would still be interested in their own sexual evolution—and revolution? But I guess there’s still a lot to talk about, and, as I’m finding, a lot of women are only just now realizing they are entitled to enjoy sex just as much as men do. Sex isn’t just about making men feel good anymore, it’s about enjoyment for both sexes.

  I’ve known that for over a decade, so it’s nice to see more women are catching on and catching up, taking control of their own pleasure.

  But now that I’ve taken on this project, my life has become a revolving door of women eager to talk about all the great sex they’ve had, and they’re coming from all over the country to share their stories with me. But most come from good old New York, where I’m based.

  Which brings me to Jordan, the romance novelist currently sitting across from me in my Manhattan office.

  Jordan lives in Westchester County, north of the city, and saw my ad for research subjects in a Psychology Today magazine while conducting her own research for her next novel.

  “I like the way he looks at me,” she says of the man who gave her the best sex of her life—and is still giving it, since they’re still dating. “I like the way he touches me.”

  “What way is that?” I ask, making a note on my legal pad.

  She smooths her palms down the front of her bias-cut skirt. It was a gift from him. A fact she revealed when she told me he’d taken her shopping at Nordstrom last week to help her pick out “something fun” to wear to a party they’d been invited to. He also bought her some new lingerie it sounds like they put to good use later that night.

  Jordan’s smile is one of wondrous infatuation, all hearts and sparkling rainbows. “He looks at me like he can’t believe I’m his. Like he’s the luckiest man on Earth because I chose him.” Her whole body seems to draw in on itself as if she’s trying to contain her passion. “And he touches me with this incredibly erotic sense of fascination. Like he’s thinking of all the ways he wants to make me come and can’t wait to get me alone. But he’s gentle, you know? Tender. But with an edge of . . .” She searches the ceiling for the right word.

  “Impatience?” I suggest.

  “Yes.” She practically breathes the word. “Impatience. There’s an eager undercurrent of longing in his touch, even when all he’s doing is holding my hand or guiding me through a crowd with his palm resting against the small of my back.” A girlish smile plays over her mouth as she looks down. “Gabe touches me like I matter. Like I’m important and make a difference. No man has ever touched me that way.” Her giddy smile disappears as she rolls her eyes and adds, “My father certainly never did.”

  I raise one eyebrow. I know what she’s trying to say, but the way she said it makes it sound like she’s talking about something that would be highly inappropriate. “I hope your father never touched you the way G
abe does, or this interview is going to take on a whole new tone.”

  She laughs awkwardly, fluttering her hands as if trying to dispel the image I’ve insinuated. “No, I don’t mean touching me like that.” There’s more hand fluttering as she briskly shakes her head and shudders like she just sucked on a lemon. “What I mean is that my father ignored me most of the time. His life was all about work. Nurturing was my mom’s job. Dad never hugged me or kissed a boo-boo when I fell and scraped a knee, and he hardly ever showed up for school stuff. All he cared about was whether my brother and I were enrolled in the most advanced classes, making good grades, doing our chores, and applying to the right colleges. With my dad, it was all about working hard and keeping our noses to the grindstone . . . and in our textbooks. There were no reassuring hugs or encouraging pats on the back.”

  “How does he feel about you becoming a romance novelist?”

  Her expression becomes one of disdain. “He hates it, of course. It doesn’t matter that my first three novels are bestsellers or that I’ve won several awards. All he cares about is that I didn’t use my Columbia law degree to follow in his footsteps and become a high-powered attorney. He’s even threatened to make me pay him back the money he shelled out for my tuition.”

  My scalp itches with the desire to dig more deeply into the rich, layered pool of sludge and family dysfunction I’m sure exists inside Jordan’s head, but that’s not why she’s here. She responded to my solicitation to talk about her most memorable sexual experience, not to begin a years-long journey of dismantling her mind and putting it back together.

  Thankfully, she pulls me back to the subject at hand before I can succumb to temptation.

  “But Gabe isn’t like that.” Her face brightens once more. “He loves that I’m a writer. And he loves that I love what I do for a living. That’s important to him. His philosophy is that people should work to live, not live to work. He’s even read my books. I can’t say that about my dad.”

  “Gabe has read your books?”

  She nods. “He read them before we even met. He was a fan.”

  “Really? Gabe reads romance?”

  “My books are more crime suspense thrillers mixed with romance,” she says, clarifying her style of writing in a way that sounds more appealing to a male audience.

  But the description fits. I read one of her books to prepare for this interview, and I was quite impressed. Yes, there’s hot sex in her stories, but it’s like she’s taken romance, mixed it with the best of crime fiction, mashed it up with her law degree, added a heavy helping of suspense, and created a whole new genre that appeals as equally to men as it does to women, although women are her primary audience.

  “I see. And what does Gabe think?”

  A secret smirk plays over her lips as she coyly drops her hazel-eyed gaze and shrugs. “He’s test-reading my latest manuscript . . . and given how good the sex is after he reads my love scenes, I’d say he’s enjoying it.” She laughs coquettishly. “Or maybe that’s just his inner caveman coming out.” Then she looks up and meets my gaze, the grayish-green flecks in her tawny irises catching the light, her smile turning sarcastic. “My father certainly hasn’t—and won’t—read any of my books. He couldn’t care less. To him, they’re trash.”

  The psychologist in me can’t help wishing I could spend a few hours with both Jordan’s father and Gabe, because I’m sure I would find a lot of similarities between them she’s selectively not seeing.

  I tilt my head, eyeing her. “Do you think that’s why you find Gabe so attractive? Because he’s older and represents your father in some way?” Jordan cringes and starts to blurt a denial, but I calmly hold up my hand and keep talking, not giving her a chance to cut in. “Perhaps your mind is subconsciously trying to rewrite the relationship you had with your father so that it’s more loving and emotionally satisfying. Do you think that’s possible?”

  Jordan tucks a strand of her wavy auburn hair behind her ear as she briefly considers the psychoanalysis. “I really don’t think so.” She frowns and shifts in the black-and-white gingham chair across from mine, her posture growing more angular as she crosses her twenty-six-year-old legs and brushes the hem of her skirt over her knees.

  “Why not?”

  “That explanation just doesn’t feel right.”

  “How come?”

  “Because until I met Gabe, I thought it was completely inappropriate—even gross—for younger women to date older men.”

  My intuition still says there’s a daddy connection there, but I won’t press. My research for this project is more about the superficial layers of women’s sexuality than about digging into the underlying causes for it. But, as a psychologist, I’ll always be inclined to look for the deeply seated reasons for the way the human mind operates.

  Perhaps I’ll use Jordan’s chapter in the book to speculate on the Oedipus complex and how a child’s feelings toward his or her opposite-sex parent can affect how that child relates to sexual partners in adulthood.

  “Why did you think that?” I note on my yellow legal pad that the deep, rosy blush in her cheeks has given her a youthful glow. The irony isn’t lost on me that it’s a man almost twice her age who has made her look that way.

  She shrugs as if she’s guilty of once assuming what other women are now assuming about her. “I don’t know.”

  I don’t believe her. I think she does know, but I’ll give her a moment to stew in her silent truth before I prod her further.

  Several seconds later, she lets out a soft, self-conscious laugh. “Okay, I’ll admit that I used to think that younger women who dated older men were gold diggers.”

  “And now you don’t?”

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because I’m not a gold digger.”

  True, because anyone who’s sold over a million copies of each book she’s written doesn’t need anyone else’s money.

  “But I see how women look at me when he and I are together,” she adds. “I used to look at younger women with older men that way. They’re judging me, thinking the only reason I’m with Gabe is because he’s rich. They look at my clothes, my purse, my car, my manicure, even my apartment, and think that he paid for all of it.”

  Jordan’s concerns about being unjustifiably persecuted aren’t unfounded. This is New York, where gold diggers—and the women (and wives) who judge them—are never in short supply. And don’t I know it? I’ve had numerous patients over the years who wore one hat or the other—or both.

  “But that’s not why I like him,” she adds quickly. “Hell, I was attracted to him before I even knew he was a multimillionaire.” She laughs. “But I could tell he was older. That was obvious. So it’s crazy that I found him so attractive to begin with.”

  “Why? Because he was obviously older?”

  She sheepishly rolls her eyes as she brings her gaze to mine. “Well, yes.” She pauses and looks toward the window, then down at her lap before looking at me again. “Before I met Gabe, every time I saw a younger woman kiss an older man, I couldn’t help thinking that would be like kissing my grandfather. Dentures, bad breath, incontinence. How can a woman in her twenties find that sexy?”

  “Not all older people are like that.”

  “I know, but that’s where my mind went. Then I met Gabe, and I found myself reevaluating my entire perspective and realizing how horribly ageist I’d been.”

  “But Gabe really isn’t that old, is he?” I prop my chin against the backs of my fingers in the stereotypical inquisitive posture those who work in the field of psychoanalysis are known for. “Didn’t you say he’s only forty-eight?”

  She cocks her head and drops her arm, flopping her hand over the side of the chair. “He’s got grandchildren, Dr. O. His kids are my age.”

  Gabe isn’t much older than I am and already has grandchildren. I’ve never even been married.

  I smile through the flicker of sadness that tries to worm its way up from my subconscious. �
��I see.”

  I don’t want to ask if Gabe being a grandfather bothers her, because despite her protests to the contrary, I can tell it does. I have no doubt that she has already considered that she’s the same age as Gabe’s own daughter and feels weird about it, because it means she’s dating a man old enough to be her father.

  I would love to investigate the deeper complexities of Jordan’s feelings further, but we’ve made friendly chitchat long enough. If we continue talking about the age difference between her and Gabe, we’ll never get to the reason why she’s here, because I’ll fall into the wet dream of psychoanalyzing the shit out of her daddy issues.

  It’s time to move this discussion toward her telling me about the best sex she’s ever had at Gabe’s very capable—and very experienced—hands.

  Middle-aged or not, he’s doing something right.

  “Why don’t you tell me about the day you and Gabe met?” I ask.

  At only two months, the relationship is still fresh and in the exciting honeymoon phase. It’s also obvious from her smitten body language that no one has ever done to her what Gabe has. And she likes what he does. A lot. I would venture to say that she likes it to the point that her entire perspective has changed in every way imaginable. Jordan will never again be the woman she was pre-Gabe. I only hope that I won’t have to see her again as a patient if this relationship doesn’t work out.

  She’s a little breathless as she says, “I was at Delaney’s Market. Do you know the place?”

  “Yes.”

  Who doesn’t know Delaney’s? It’s the most popular market in Westchester County. You don’t live north of New York City and not know Delaney’s.

  “Then you know about their incredible deli.” She drops her fingers to the base of her neck and lifts her eyes skyward as if to say “it’s to die for.”