The Billionaire's Prize: Taken & Tempted: (Book 3 Billionaire Bodyguard Series) (16 page)

He smoothed her hair across his pillow, entranced by the way the sunlight picked out the gold and champagne colors in the light-brown strands. “I know you look as irresistible in sunlight as you do in moonlight. I know I should’ve apologized for coming onto you in my hot tub when you’d known me for a whole three hours, but I couldn’t lie about how attracted I am to you.”

Her gaze softened and her lips parted. He grew hard again inside her.

“I know the way you move when I touch you just right.”

When her hips lifted against him, he thrust into her heat.

“I know you won’t believe me when I say you’re the most amazing woman I’ve ever made love to.” She arched to meet his driving motion as he thrusts gained momentum. “And that’s why I’m going to, over and over, until you do.”

“Do what?” she said on a moan.

“Believe in me.”

She inhaled as his hand cupped her breast in a grip of ownership.
“I do believe in you.”

He saw the uncertainty still shadowing her gaze. “Not yet. Not completely. But you will. Because I’m going to prove myself to you.”

His thrusts lengthened and deepened.

“For as long…and hard…as it takes.”

“God, yes,” she gasped.

Maneuvering her effortlessly, he flipped their positions.

Kneeling on the mattress now, she undulated her hips, sending fiery bolts of hot need through his shaft. He guided her up and down on him. Then he let his hands roam over her body, obsessed with the feel of her beneath his palms. All his. She took his breath away.

When she dropped her head back, and the sun glistened on her sweat-misted skin, he groaned and came. Hard.
And didn’t stop until her inner heat quivered around him with her own release.

He hadn’t experienced the compelling urge to keep a woman in his bed for days since he was a hormone-ravaged teenager. He loved sex, and women, but not like this. Never like this. This unquenchable desire to have her naked and his to claim whenever he wanted her. She’d become the ultimate temptation. No matter how many times he’d taken her, he still wanted more.

But he had plenty of time to pursue his carnal fixation on her, he told himself, as she unstraddled his hips and collapsed on the sheets beside him.

“I hope you know,” he said, kissing a path from her inner elbow to her shoulder, pausing to nibble her neck. “I’m never going to get enough of you.”

At his words she released a sigh of sated pleasure. “Is that a promise?”

“It’s a warning,” he replied thickly. “You need to know what you’re in for.”

Her expression turned serious as she thought it over, though humor twinkled in her eyes. “So, then, realistically you’re saying I have a choice in this scenario.”

He nipped her earlobe. “Not really. No.”

A giggle caught in her throat. “I appreciate you being so
forthcoming.
”

“Yeah, there’ll be a lot of that.” He took her wrist, kissed the delicate web of faint blue veins, and then trapped her hands above her head. “Plenty of back and
forth,
and
coming.
”

When he bent to capture her lips, he suddenly heard the sound of boots thumping overhead. Male voices called to each other in English, one of them sounding like Slone. Then came the shrill whoop-whoop of a siren.

“We’ve got company.” He leaped out of bed and reached for his discarded clothes.

“Who?” she asked, a tremor of fear in her voice.

“Coastguard, from the sounds of it.”

“From where?”

“That’s what I’m about to find out. They sound American, though.
Very promising.”

She turned white, her face filling with dread. “I’ll have to tell them what happened.”

He zipped up his jeans followed by his hooded sweatshirt with the bloodstain on the shoulder, and reached out to kiss her with firm, reassuring pressure. “No, you don’t. And you won’t.” He held her chin and stared at her evenly. “You had no part in this. You saw nothing. Are we clear?”

Her chin trembled. “But the man—”

“Got caught in the crossfire when we were attacked. Slone and I defended the yacht, since we both have concealed carry permits and licenses for the guns.”

Tears welled in her eyes. “But…”

As he scanned her face and saw how deeply she was hurting, how confused and conflicted her emotions were, he experienced a painful pressure in his chest. “It’s okay, honey. If you want to fall apart hysterically, this is a good time to get it out of your system. The more distraught you are, if that’s how you feel, the more credibility you give our story of getting attacked.”

“We
were
attacked.”

“And your distress will confirm it.” He picked up the lift vest from the floor. “Get dressed, honey. Put the lifejacket on again, and come up top like you’re seeing the aftermath for the first time.”

“Okay,” she nodded.

Kylie knew that wouldn’t be a problem. 

What an unholy mess.

Although Cade had done a miraculous job of pulling her from a dark place of despair, a hollow cavern remained inside her. Emotion quickly flooded in
to fill the emptiness.

The staunched flow of tears began leaking from her eyes the moment Cade left. She buried her face in her hands, wet anguish dripping down her fingers. Her chest shook with a few hard sobs.

After a couple minutes, she lifted her head and stared at her hands as if they belonged to a stranger. She hadn’t even realized she still held the weapon Cade had given her when she’d heard heavy gunfire, compelling her to help in some way.

For reasons she couldn’t fathom, she’d felt unaccountably protective toward Cade, even though she knew he could take care of himself just fine. Some internal drive had forced her up the steps, desperate to know if he was all right. When she’d found him blessedly intact, but then watched in horror as a man climbed over the railing to point his gun at Cade’s back, she’d reacted without thought, like an out of body experience. Something dark and elemental had come over her. Once the red haze had faded, the next thing she saw was that man sprawled on the deck face down surrounded by a pool of blood. And she’d put him there.

Today she’d learned a life altering truth about herself. She could, and would, kill for someone. For Cade. A man she’d fallen for yet hardly knew.

Not true,
her heart whispered.

But emotion, instinct, hadn’t guided her life since her mother’s death. Reason and intellect had been her constant, reliable companions for the past ten years.

Not anymore,
she thought miserably. Everything had changed, turned upside down and inside out. She didn’t even recognize herself.

Panic welled inside her.
What do I do?

She hugged herself as an old, chilling sense of alienation returned. The same crushing helplessness she’d endured when the media pounced on the fragile family bonds she’d forged with her father and sister after her mother left them, until the story of her mother’s murder—and her father getting framed for it—attracted tabloid attention. Weaving a web of heinous lies, they’d dragged her family through hell.

And living in the camera’s eye was Cade’s entire existence. He’d built his company through media appearances, keeping cool, charismatic and collected at all times. Helpful for situations like this, but terrifying for her with the legacy of pain and shame she’d endured in the callously brutal writings of drama mongers. She and Cade were as opposite as two people could be.

As she dressed in slow motion, she tried to tell herself that if the man climbing over the deck had aimed at Slone, she would’ve taken the same action. But there was no way to ever know. She felt like the whole experience had stained and degraded her soul, and there was nothing she could do to take it back. Now she fell into the same league as her mother’s husband. A killer.

Mortified anger prickled beneath her skin. The righteous vengeance she’d harbored against the man rang like a pathetic hollow bell in her ears.

Could things get any worse?
She trudged up the steps to the captain’s deck.
There she found the ship swarming with a coastguard team. Overwhelmed, she darted her glance around and saw Slone and Cade sitting on the wraparound seating—in handcuffs.

Oh, no.
This is definitely worse.

A heavy hand gripped her upper arm. “Ma’am, I need you to come with me.”

Her knees buckled at the brusque words, but she forced herself to stay upright as a stern-looking man, wearing a navy blue polo shirt and navy baseball cap, led her to the front of the yacht. Out of sight from Cade and Slone. She wished Cade had looked up and caught her worried glance, and offered some silent reassurance that this would all turn out okay.

Why were Slone and Cade being persecuted? They were the victims of the
attempted hijacking!

On the way, she caught a glimpse of the yacht captain. Dripping wet, he spoke with animated gestures to one of the coastguards. Though she noted with grim satisfaction he stood handcuffed as well. The captain threw her a menacing glower. She turned her back on him.

“What happened?” she asked the official still gripping her arm.

“That’s what I need to find out from you,” he said wearing a grave expression beneath the shadow of his hat. Grooves fanned out from the corners of eyes, set deep in his weathered face. He released her.

Bracing herself against the railing, the metal hot from the rays of the tropical sun, she remembered Cade’s suggestion to let her fear do the talking. She looked up at the official with wide, wet eyes. “I don’t know,” she sniffed. “My…boyfriend shook me awake at dawn.” Calling Cade that was easier than explaining their complicated relationship to each other, something she couldn’t even sort out herself. “He was frantic. He told me to get dressed and put on a lifejacket. Because we might be under attack.”

“Was that the case?” the man asked.
“Was the ship under siege?”

“I guess. I didn’t understand what he was talking about, he was so upset. His bodyguard came to our room, and—”

“Bodyguard. Why does your boyfriend need a bodyguard?”

She blinked. “He’s Cade Soren. Billionaire investor.”

Digesting this new information, the official’s brow cleared. “Oh. Okay, makes sense. Go on.”

Kylie was surprised he didn’t look alarmed or suspicious wondering what a gorgeous billionaire could be doing with an average girl like her. “I heard shouts. Gunfire.”

“What kind of gunfire?” the officer pressed.

“The big kind.” She stuffed down her annoyance, well aware of his tactic to discern who used which weapons and who fired first. But she had to play innocent and resist her urge to reveal her intimate knowledge of the legal system. “Bullets rained down on our boat, tons of them, really fast. Like the sound of machine guns in the movies.”

He nodded. “That checks. What else did you see or hear?”

“My boyfriend made me promise not to come out of our room until he told me it was safe. So I didn’t see anything.”

The lie almost caught in her throat, but she pressed on, letting her very real tears and fear flow out.

“All I heard was a powerful speedboat coming toward our yacht. Then the loud bullets hitting the ship. Then two—no, three shots, close range, and loud, like they were right above me.” She gripped the man’s shirt and pressed her damp cheek to his chest. “I was so scared. Then I heard a siren, and I thought that we were safe. That you’d come to rescue us,” she whimpered, hoping to appeal to his heroism.

“Yes, ma’am. That’s why we’re here.” He patted her back gently. “You’re safe now.”

No, I’m alive because Cade and Slone are the real heroes on this ship.

The officer continued to pat her back as he waved another official over to him. “She confirmed the guys’ story. Uncuff them.”

“What about the captain?” the younger man questioned.

The sympathetic officer beside her adjusted his baseball cap. “Retain him for further questioning. I want to know who was behind this attack. The captain is our person of interest, and I believe he’s the link to the mastermind.”

A gasp of relief filled her lungs.
Oh, thank God.

“Can I go see him now?” she pleaded with the officer.

“Your boyfriend? Sure. I’ll bet he’ll be glad to see you in one piece. But we’ll need all three of your statements for the official record, so sit tight for awhile.”

“Yes, sir.” She moved blindly through the throng until she found Cade rubbing his unshackled wrists.

His head lifted as if he sensed her nearness. She swore the sun caught a liquid shimmer that rimmed his eyes.

“Thank God you’re okay,” he said, louder than necessary, as though seeing her for the first time. To confirm to the coastguard their version of events. She dove into his arms.

Scattering kisses over her hair and face, he lifted her against him. Her feet dangled off the deck.

Never had she experienced the crackle of connection that ran like a live current through both of them. Being held by him felt as necessary to her as breathing.