Waterfall Kisses: A Billionaire Love Story (Saltwater Kisses Book 8) (11 page)

Yet I wasn't surprised by it.

Leo's body stilled beneath me, his breath coming in ragged gasps that made me ache for more.

“Every fantasy,” he gasped. “Every single one was nothing compared to that.”

I grinned and nodded. He was right.

It was every single one come true all at once.

“Y
ou're shivering,” Leo said, wrapping his arms around me. “Let's get you back where it's warm.”

I nodded, my teeth chattering so hard I was afraid I might break them. Up until about three minutes ago, I hadn't noticed how cold the water was or that the sun was setting. I had been too hot and bothered to notice anything but Leo. Now, I was freezing.

With Leo's arm around me, we picked up our clothing. He frowned at his soaked boxers, but carried them up as we hurried out from the shade of the waterfall back to the meadow with the waiting picnic basket. Shivering, I pulled my dress over my head and spread out on the blanket, soaking up the hot sun. Leo set his wet clothes on the grass to dry, going commando in his shorts.

The sun was setting over the horizon, but away from the spray of the waterfall it was warm to the point of being hot. I stopped shivering fairly quickly and as soon as I was warm, my stomach started to rumble.

“Dinner?” Leo asked, opening up the basket and pulling things out. The smells already emanating from the basket had my mouth watering. I was hungry from all the exercise we just did.

I sat up and nodded. “Yes, please.”

There was fried chicken, mashed potatoes, fresh pineapple slices, and fluffy white biscuits with butter already melted inside of them. It was a feast. He grinned handing me a plate and spreading the rest of the food out on the blanket before me so I could eat more at my leisure.

As I took a bite of the biscuit, I didn't care that I was supposed to be watching what I ate. If the response I just got from Leo was any indication, I didn't need to worry too much about how I looked. I really only cared what one person thought of my body, and the fact that he now was sitting next to me with his hand creeping up my thigh told me that he liked what he saw.

The sharp edge of hunger dulled, and I slowed down on the meal enough to taste it. I let out a happy sigh, looking over at the man who had just made all my daydreams come true. I pinched myself, just to make sure that it was real, glad that the little red welt on my arm hurt.

“Don't pinch too hard,” Leo said, noting what I was doing. “I don't want to wake up either.”

“This is just how I imagined it,” I said softly, looking around at the beauty surrounding us. Everything was perfect.

Leo took another bite of food. “Me too,” he confessed.

“I can't believe we didn't do this sooner.” I closed my eyes and taking in a deep breath of the humid Caribbean air. The unspoken question of
“Why didn't we?”
hung in the air.

I opened my eyes to find Leo staring at me. He dropped his eyes and evaluated the biscuit in his hands. He swallowed hard.

“I didn't think I deserved you,” he said after a moment, his voice low. “I still don't.”

I set the last of my meal down, leaning forward and putting my palm on his cheek. “You do deserve me,” I informed him.

“You are everything I could want, Charlotte.” His eyes met mine. “Everything. I shouldn't have everything. No matter how much I want it.”

“What about what I want?” I asked, a little angry that he had put me on a pedestal for so long. I didn't want to be on a pedestal. I wanted to be with him. “I've known you for ten years and you're the only one that I want.”

He sighed, his blue eyes holding back something. Tension crept into his shoulders. He plucked a blade of grass, twirling it between his fingers before crushing it and tossing it to the side. “I still have secrets. Things you don't know about. Things that would make you change your mind about me.”

“Like what?” I tossed a crumb from my biscuit at him. It bounced off his eyebrow and he glared at me.

I didn't believe he could have any deep dark secrets. Besides, short of him telling me he was an ax murderer, there wasn't anything he could say that would change how I felt about him.

Leo's eyes darkened and he looked away. Indecision filled his expression so strongly I could feel it eating away at my stomach. He sighed, ripping another blade of grass from the earth.

“Tell me, Leo,” I said softly, pulling gently on his chin to face me again. “Nothing you say can change the way I feel about you. You should know that by now.”

The corner of his mouth twitched up in a small smile, but it didn't touch his eyes. He took a deep breath. “I used to have a gambling problem. A big one.”

“Gambling? That's it?” I repeated. That was definitely not ax murderer, but he felt it was a big deal so I wasn't going to dismiss it. I softened my voice. “Like betting on horses or poker kind of gambling?”

“Yes, both.” His voice was wooden and he looked out past me. “If you could bet money on it, I did it. Football games were my specialty.”

“Were you any good at it?” I asked, thinking of how terrible my luck was at a casino.

“Very.”

I nodded slowly. The idea of gambling contrasted with the Leo I knew. Leo was always in control, always throwing out some sort of joke or causing trouble. I had difficulty seeing him in a situation where he couldn't be guaranteed to win. I supposed that's where the thrill to him came. He was the type of person who always won, and gambling didn't allow for that.

“I just realized that I've never seen you bet on anything. Not even a five dollar bet with Bastian or Gabe or even the office basketball tournament pool. You must be very committed to it,” I said. I had to wonder what else I had missed about him. “What made you stop?”

“I nearly lost everything.” The lines of his face hardened and he finally brought his gaze back to mine. “So I stopped and I don't gamble any more.”

“And you thought I would hate you because of that?”

“It's not something I'm proud of.” Leo's eyes begged for forgiveness from me. “It's an addiction. One I fight every day. It's not exactly a lovable trait.”

I leaned forward and kissed his lips. He didn't pull away, but he didn't kiss me back.

“I still like you. A lot. Maybe even more than like.” I grinned hoping he would smile at my words.

Leo looked up and I loved the joyful surprise that filled his face. He kissed my forehead. “See, this is why I really don't deserve you. I tell you a secret that would send most girls running to the hills and you smile and make it all seem okay.”

I rolled my eyes. “You keep up with that and I'm going to have to do something about it. You deserve me. End of story.”

“If you say so,” he replied, shrugging off his previous unease.

I laughed as he moved behind me so I sat between his legs. He wrapped his arms around my shoulders and I leaned back, loving the warm heat of his chest pressing into my back. The sun hung low on the horizon, turning into a red ball in the sky and casting dark orange shadows across the field. Soon the stars would come out overhead and already the frogs and crickets were starting their nocturnal songs. Leo hugged me tight. “Okay, your turn to tell me a secret.”

“What?” I sat up and looked at him. “I never agreed to that.”

He raised his eyebrows and grinned, knowing full well that I hadn't, but wanting my secrets anyway. I sighed. Leo always got what he wanted.

“I have had a crush on you since the day we met,” I admitted.

“Charlotte, I'm pretty sure that the aliens on Mars know that,” Leo replied, rolling his eyes.

“You knew?” I felt a blush sear across my face.

“You blush every time you look at me,” Leo informed me. “Just like you're blushing now.”

I buried my face in my hands, trying to hide the evidence. “That just makes it worse. You
knew.
All along.”

“It was cute,” he said, kissing my hair.

“That's terrible,” I groaned. My crush had known all along. To be honest, I hadn't been very subtle about it, but that didn't make the shame of being found out any less.

“It made it that much harder to say no to you,” Leo explained, running his hand down my hair. “I knew I shouldn't feel the way I do about you, but you were just so damn perfect and sweet.”

“Yeah, like a kid sister,” I mumbled. “Did you even like me back? Or is all of this-” I indicated to the two of us “-a new emotion for you?”

“Not new. I've liked you for years, but I had to keep my distance or your brother would give me two black eyes and a broken spleen.” Leo chuckled. “But now, I think I can take him in a fight, especially if he's busy with his new girlfriend.”

I giggled. “So, you did like me? Even though I was Bastian's scrawny little kid sister?”

“At first you were Bastian's scrawny kid sister,” Leo admitted. “But when you walked into our office during your freshman year of college, you weren't scrawny anymore. You were this transformed, beautiful woman. And there was all this spunk and energy to you that I couldn't stay away from. Why do you think I always brought you coffee to our meetings?”

“I just thought you liked coffee and were flirting with the baristas,” I admitted.

“Well, maybe a couple of flirtations, but you were the one I liked.” Leo chuckled, the vibrations of his laughter reverberating through his chest and into my back. “But, the coffee was my way of telling you that I cared without having Bastian beat me up for hitting on his kid sister.”

“So what changed?” I asked. “I mean, I noticed you've put on some muscle lately, but...”

Leo hugged me hard, stopping my words and making me giggle. “What changed? I saw how happy Mr. Grump-face Bastian was and I wanted to feel that too.”

“Those two certainly are something special,” I agreed. I thought of how Ava smiled at Bastian and I knew that I had that same smile for Leo. I always had it, but now, it wasn't just me smiling. Now Leo was smiling with me.

Leo let out a slow, long breath. “It's more than that, actually. I'm greedy, and weak, and I wanted that. I couldn't see a good reason to deny myself anymore.” He paused for a moment. “I'd feel guilty, except you feel so good in my arms that I can't.”

“You're not greedy or weak,” I said. Leo was many things, but both of those words were the last things I would ever call him. I snuggled back into him and he hugged me close to him. The sun was almost gone now, but the dark was inviting and warm here.

“Tell me a real secret.” Leo's voice was low as darkness spread over us like a blanket.

I took a deep breath. He had told me a secret, it really was only fair that I did to.

“Only Bastian knows this,” I said slowly, pressing my hands into my thighs. My palms were suddenly coated with sweat. This wasn't something I wanted Leo to know about me, but something I thought he should. Lovers should know their history. “He only knows because he helped me deal with all the paperwork.”

“You don't have to tell me, Charlotte,” Leo said, picking up on my distress. “Pick something else.”

“No,” I said, shaking my head. “You should know what you've gotten yourself into.”

I paused. This was my secret. The one I hid from the world and even from myself. But, love was about sharing secrets and not being afraid of them. Love can't thrive where there is secrets.

“My parents died in a drug deal gone bad. I loved them because they were my parents, but after they died, I found out that they weren't good people.” The words tumbled out in a rush. There was so much darkness in my past, so much that I didn't want to say.

“I'm sorry, Charlotte,” Leo said quietly. I loved that he pulled me closer to him, sharing his strength with me and silently telling me he wasn't going to let me go.

I clung to him, praying that he wouldn't let go. “When I say they were drug dealers, I don't mean that they sold some brownies with special butter. They ruined people's lives. They were suspected of several murders.”

I hoped that Leo didn't think I was like them. Their blood ran through my veins. They'd raised me until I was six and I was sure that a part of them was still with me. I had done my best to root out any bad habits they might have passed on, but there was no fighting genetics.

They were bad people. What made me any different than them?

What made me good enough for Leo? If either of us didn't deserve one another, I didn't deserve him.

Yet, Leo wasn't letting me go. If anything he was holding me tighter.

“I hate that they left me that secret. I hate that they left me.” My voice faltered. “I still have nightmares about the day they died. Even though they weren't good people, they were all I had.”

I pushed away the memory of leaving my home and everything I knew. How alone in the world I had felt and how terrified I was that no one would ever love me again. I was the orphaned daughter of drug dealers- who would want me?

I took a deep breath. “But, I'm glad I got Bastian instead of them,” I informed him, putting strength back into my voice. That was the only part of my life that I was grateful to my parents for. They gave me the opportunity to have a brother like Bastian. “So, when you say that you don't deserve me, I don't believe it.”

“I still think you're everything I could ever want.” He pressed a kiss to the back of my head, his arms still tight around me. Never once during my confession did he loosen his hug.

I shifted my weight to look at him. Night was falling quickly and it wouldn't be long before I could no longer see his eyes, but for now, they were still blue. And full of love. “You've always been there for me and Bastian. If anything, I don't deserve you.”

Leo brushed a strand of hair away from my eyes and held me tighter. “Now, it's my secret too. You don't have to carry it by yourself anymore.”

He kissed my hair, holding me as close to him as possible, and for the first time in years, I felt truly wanted and safe.

***

T
he helicopter blades sliced through the air and hummed with power, but I barely noticed as it landed. Sleep tugged at my eyes and I couldn't resist it. I didn't mean to fall asleep in Leo's arms, but safe under his care with a blanket of stars, I had drifted off.