Distracting the Billionaire's Son (10 page)

Jonah groaned, held my hips still with his free hand and
rubbed his finger there, gentle, probing. It felt incredible, naughty, wrong,
and wonderful all at the same time.

I needed him to know how much I wanted him.

He worked the swollen, sensitive button in time with my sudden,
explosive orgasm. He worked it back and forth in time with my hips and I came,
and came and came, gasping and panting and begging him not to stop.

“That’s my beautiful girl, you like that don’t you?” He
groaned, pumped in and out, so slick with my juices he had a hard time staying
inside of me. While I was still trembling beneath him he gasped, grabbed my
hips and came a moment later. He whispered my name as he rocked into me one
last time.

“Good girl, Jess. You are such a pleasure to control. Come
here.”

He drew me up, held me against his body when I didn’t think
I could stand on my own, and we stood there for a long time under the water,
letting it clean the evidence from our skin. I was shivering, cold and hot at
the same time, wrapped in his arms. This, I could stay like this forever.

He pressed his face into my wet hair, breathed against my
ear and held me. Just held me. The way his body wrapped around me I thought,
maybe, maybe he needed me more than even he knew.

It was hard to disentangle, but he made up for it by leaning
me against the wall and exploring my body with soapy fingers. He could see the
scars better now, but he didn’t flinch away from them. He traced them as he
washed them.

“What did this, can you tell me?” he asked, gentle when he
washed the ones that marred the underside of my breasts.

“A car accident.” I swallowed. It was unreal that he could
see them and wasn’t repulsed. I expected him to look away at any minute, but he
didn’t. “When I was in high school. It killed my mom, and almost me too.”

He went still for a moment, then looked up at my face. “I am
sorry, Jessica.”

I hated that he’d asked, that this moment was tainted by my
sadness. I shrugged a little. “It’s fine.”

“I doubt that is true.”

“I like being here with your family, Jonah. They are really
normal in a way I haven’t known for a very long time. I wish you could see it
through my eyes.”

Jonah rubbed his thumb across my cheek, displacing lines of
water that splashed against our bodies. There was something intimately
beautiful being so naked and wet with this man.

“You are very beautiful Jess, and being with you has been
significantly better than anything I’ve had in a very long time. But even you
can’t undo a lifetime of disappointed expectations and unforgiving
recriminations. It just is what it is for me and I can’t put an ocean between
me and then fast enough.”

This knowledge unglued me. He knelt down and pressed his
face against my belly, my scars. I touched his hair, held him there.

The water turned cold long before we let go.

***

Shannon loaded her plate down with the egg scramble, coated
it in a hollandaise sauce, and paired it with a side of baked asparagus. She
picked two pastries, one strawberry glazed, one dusted with pistachios, and
topped everything off with a fat biscuit rubbed down with butter.

“Shannon Renee Silver, you are not always going to have the
metabolism of a teenager. You’d better slow down,” Mrs. Silver warned. She had
a hardboiled egg in a cup, decidedly less appealing than Shannon’s mountain of
sweets.

Shannon dropped into her seat, sucked butter off her thumb.
“Then I will be soft and happy.”

Melissa sighed and pushed her plate away. “Watching you eat
makes me gain ten pounds.” Shannon stuck her tongue out and then took a big
bite of strawberry pastry.

Jonah and I ate like we’d been deprived of food for days. It
helped the pastries were buttery and warm. We stole looks over steaming cups of
coffee. I slipped out of my sandals and touched my toe along his ankle. He
brushed my hand when we both went for the butter.

“Jess! Grades are posted!” Shannon thumbed her smartphone
chaotically before clutching it against her chest and squealing. “I officially
never have to take another French class again! Final year, here we come.”
Shannon reached over the table and handed her phone to me. She was a solid A
and B student, but in her architecture classes she was the absolute star.

“My money well spent, then?” Mr. Silver asked and Shannon
blushed uncomfortably.

“Yes, well spent.”

“That’s my girl.”

I pulled up a new web page on her phone, scrolled through
for my grades.

“Another year and you’ll be on your own and it’ll be Eric’s
turn to siphon me dry. How many kids do we have left? Aren’t we almost done
churning them out?” Mrs. Silver laughed.

I gave a little scream and threw my hands into the air. “I
am a genius! Quick, someone call Disney, tell them I’m on my way.”

Shannon jumped up and ran around the table, tackled me in my
chair so we both almost went over. The Silvers, even the extended clan, joined
us in a round of applause.

“We should celebrate having two geniuses, what do you
think?” Mr. Silver raised his glass and the rest of the room followed suit.

“That’s a fantastic idea! Meredith!” Mrs. Silver called and
Meredith appeared in the doorway. “Pick up lobsters and steak. We’ll eat on the
beach tonight. We’re celebrating the girls passing all their classes.”

“And Jonah’s graduation,” I added and they all looked at me,
all of them, like I’d just flashed them. Jonah’s light mood vanished instantly,
the excitement held on the edge of a knife to see what Mr. Silver might say to
this.

Mr. Silver scowled, but it was Mrs. Silver who threw down
the gauntlet. “Enough. Enough! He’s talented and successful and is already
making more money than either of us did at his age. It’s time to let him go.”

Jonah’s eyes didn’t waver from mine. He looked like, I don’t
know, like maybe he might never forgive me for this. It made my heart ache, but
this weird thing the Silvers did to pretend Jonah wasn’t in the room was insane
and someone needed to pull him back to Earth.

“Let him go from the family the way he let us go?” Mr.
Silver shoved his plate away as if it disgusted him now.

“It’s fine, Mother, please.” Jonah finally ripped his eyes
from mine but she shook both men off with a look.

“No, the way you let your children go when it’s their turn.
No, Meredith, we are celebrating all three of them. Loudly and with fantastic
pomp. That’s an order.”

“Yes, of course Mrs. Silver. I’ll get to work on the pomp as
soon as breakfast is cleared.”

Mrs. Silver seemed very pleased with herself, but the two
eldest Silver men were both despondent and inarticulate. Mr. Silver left the
table first, but only because Shannon seemed to brave the Jonah waters long enough
to squeeze him around the neck and for a moment, he let her. Then his gloom
returned, thicker than ever. It made me regret what I’d done only briefly, but
nothing could fix what had transpired between my father and I, but Jonah and
Mr. Silver were not so far gone that they couldn’t reconcile, if only one of
them would loosen their grip for half a second.

When breakfast filed out, the Silvers each had to hug me and
Shannon as we filed out of the porch, and it made me feel a little drunk on
attention. Jonah barely touched my body when he hugged me, but I dug my nails
into his back and his grip on me became suddenly crushing and maybe we lingered
a hair longer than anyone else in line. I shivered involuntarily when he
finally pulled away, still feeling the place where I could feel his heart beat
between us.

This was nothing like my family, nothing. I wanted to always
be a part of this. Always.

Out on the back porch, Shannon and I followed Jonah and Eva
and Henry. My body flushed with jealousy as Eva leaned into him,
mine!,
and said something coy that made him nod and respond close to her ear. It was
horrible, how unfair it was.

“Shannon,” I said.
Be bold, Jessica
. “You said I had
your blessing to flirt shamelessly, right?”

“Oh, yes. Shamelessly. Which cousin can I accidentally shove
into your path? You can seduce him and marry him and have lots of pretty babies
and we’ll be as close to real sisters as we could possibly get. Channel your
inner Trixie, it’ll help.”

I laughed and flushed. Sisters, she had no idea. “Well, when
you put it that way. Is that what helped you? Channeling Stella?”

She nodded. “Yes, Trixie, but instead of stripper poles, I
employed trees and provocative looks.”

“Wait, what?” We both fell into each other laughing which
earned us a sour glance from Eva.

“Must be nice to be young,” she mumbled. Jonah nodded, but
said nothing. He produced his sunglasses and hid behind them.

“Jonah!” We all stopped as Mr. Silver and a couple of their
uncles waved from down the beach. “We’re taking a boat out, men only. Meet us
at the dock in five. Not optional, boy!”

One of the uncles already had a beer in his hand and saluted
us. I felt Jonah glance at me. He sighed, resigned. I had a feeling they were
going to trap him and talk him to death about his wrong decisions, especially
after Mrs. Silver’s outburst. I bet he thought that too. When Shannon and I
resumed walking toward the pool area, I brushed him, gave his hand a little
squeeze. I hoped no one noticed. After we were out of reach, he started down
the beach toward the men.

“Poor Jonah,” Shannon said. “He tries very hard to be free
of my father while still being a part of the family. He has it rough, being the
oldest.”

“Has it always been like that?” I asked. The gate was open
and I could hear music from inside the pool area.

“Always.” Shannon stopped me, took my hand. “He’s not a bad
guy, Jess. I know he comes off as hard and intolerant, but he’s not. We were
very close growing up even though he was older. He’s very protective and loves
his family, but it’s rarely enough for my dad. He wants him all-in. He wants
him to get married, settle down in one of the houses we already own. He wants
Jonah to be mired in our money so he can exercise some control over him.
Instead Jonah has gone off and learned how to be a better investor and trader
than my dad. He’s made all his own money in the last few years, enough to pay
my dad back for his undergrad tuition, and pay for his own grad school. He has
his own apartment in New York, his own car. We all have allowances, money my
dad sends us to keep us happy and spoiled. Jonah’s goes into a trust fund he
doesn’t touch. I have no idea what he plans to do with it, but my dad keeps
giving it to him anyway.”

It makes me sad, hearing this. We both have similar
problems, but also very different. A part of me is jealous, terribly jealous,
that he has a father so invested in his future, that he wants to give his
entire fortune to him. Most of me understands how unhappy it makes him. His
success makes me proud of him though, and also very nervous. How could he
possibly be able to accept my lack of wealth, my uncertain job future? Not that
what we were doing had any bearing on what happened in a week and a half when I
left Camp Silver. I needed to not think bigger than what we had. In that was
trouble I couldn’t possibly deal with.

“I don’t think he’s a bad guy, Shannon. I like him very
much. If anyone understands how hard it is to have trouble with a father, it’s
me.”

She nodded. “I just didn’t want you to have a bad opinion of
him. I know he hasn’t been very nice to you.”

You have no idea
, I thought. I was about to tell her
the truth, tell her how he makes my heart break through my chest, how turned on
his dark, intense gaze makes me. How much I love the soft vulnerability that
overtakes him in the dark when nothing separates our bodies. Mrs. Silver
appeared then, her arms full of warm, fluffy towels.

“There you girls are! Ready for a swim? Meredith sent these
down for you.”

Shannon gave a little shriek and took the towels from her mom.
“Pool time! If the boys are going to go out on the boat and talk about guy
things, we’ll have to slave ourselves to the sun and talk about girl things.
What do girls talk about again, Trixie?”

“Boys,” I answered and followed her into the pool area.

“That’s right! What do boys talk about?”

Eva appeared beside us and leveled a gaze on me that just
about knocked me over. “They talk about women. Too bad, girls.”

“Ouch, pull those claws in, girlfriend.” Shannon made a claw
motion and Eva rolled her eyes, wandered to a chair under an umbrella and got
down to stripping off most of her clothing. “What crawled into her oatmeal and
died?”

“I have no idea,” I answered, but that was a lie.

***

The boys did not return until late when the beach was
buzzing with staff, tables, food, and drinks. There were even presents, I had
no idea how they managed all of this from their cell phones, but Jonah,
Shannon, and I had actual graduation presents on a table. With freaking balloons.

While Shannon held court over the cousins on the beach, I
snuck away behind the pool house where I’d seen Jonah carry a stack of life
jackets.

I snuck up on him, pressed my palms against his back, kissed
his spine through the thin material of his shirt. He was still warm from being
under the sun for so long. He turned, had me pinned by the wrists against the
wall of the pool house before I even knew what was happening.

“Naughty girl.” He leaned his face into my throat, breathed
me in like oxygen. “You smell like coconut and chlorine. I’ve missed you.”

“What did you boys do out there all day? I’m told you must
have been talking about women.”

He nipped at my throat, moved to the other side and locked
his mouth along the soft curve between my neck and shoulder. “Yes, women.
International trading and women. I bragged about my conquest of you. Regaled
them with tales of your,” he groaned when I pressed my hips into his. He was
solid, straining against his shorts. “Mmmm, talents.”