Distracting the Billionaire's Son (3 page)

It was Jonah who raised his voice first. “I am not going to
spend two weeks talking about this. If this is your plan, I’m leaving in the
morning.”

I looked up and over at them, but Shannon nudged my foot and
shook her head. I turned back to our game, but it was impossible not to
overhear them.

“You are being irresponsible and unreasonable. Playing the
investment game overseas, the Japanese don’t need you, Jonah. Silver
Investments does. You could do very well for yourself if you just listened to
me and someday the company could be yours. What’s not reasonable about that?”

“I don’t want your company. We’ve gone over this before. I’m
going to start my own firm. You’re wasting your time and I don’t want to talk
about this anymore.”

“Anyone in this family would be proud to be chosen to
succeed me!”

“Then give it to
them
. You have three other kids,
groom them to be just like you, but I’ve got my own plans and they do not
involve you or your money. They never have.” Jonah stood up, picked up his
glass, downed the dark brown liquor, and stalked to the French doors that led
out onto the deck.

“Jonah, don’t go,” his mother called but his father cut her
off.

“You never take any interest or responsibility in this
family. You might as well not even be a part of it.”

The words weren’t directed at me, but I felt them anyway.
Jonah stopped with his hand on the door, and I didn’t realize I was breathing
hard until Shannon put her hand on mine and gave it a squeeze. She understood,
even if we were supposed to pretend this exchange wasn’t really happening, even
though that was totally crazy, she understood what I was hearing was my own
father’s voice. Only he hadn’t said
I might as well not be a part of the
family
, he’d pointed out I really
wasn’t
anymore. Not since he
remarried and started a new one.

Jonah opened the door and left us then, and no one tried to
stop him. He was harder than his siblings, distant and antagonistic in a way I
hated in people. But for a moment I understood, a little, how someone could get
that way.

The exchange between Jonah and his father haunted me.
Shannon snored softly in the bed across from mine, but I was wide awake.
There’d be no sleep for me, not for a while. Their argument morphed into the
last conversation I’d had with my father over the phone when I was calling to
make arrangements for someone to pick me up at the airport after classes were
over. It had gone differently – my father wasn’t trying to get me to take over
his company, but they were still too similar to shake the pain Mr. Silver’s
words had surfaced in my heart. No, there’d be no sleep tonight.

I grabbed a hoodie with my school’s mascot on the back and
slid into my sandals. Maybe a walk would do me good. I knew the water wasn’t
far and with a flashlight and a quick look at the map on the wall, I slipped
out into the moonlit trees.

Without the flashlight, finding the path would have been
impossible. As it was, it was only nearly impossible. The trees became a solid
shadow that extended until forever with only pinpricks of moonlight making it
down through the foliage. The paths were kept clear and clean by invisible
hired help, so I made it to the beach in only a few minutes. I was inside the
dark trees, getting a little creeped out, and then they opened up and gave me a
view of the inky black waves and a fat golden moon on its horizon.

I was also, very suddenly, no longer alone.

He sat close to the water, but not close enough to get wet.
The waves stopped inches short of his bare feet as if he commanded them to keep
their distance.

I knew I should go back, leave him alone. I doubted he’d
want to talk to me, but I also didn’t want to go back to listen to Shannon
snore and stare at the dark ceiling for the next three hours. If he didn’t want
company, I’d find a different spot on the beach to sit.

When I got close to him, I noticed he hadn’t changed, the
cuffs of his slacks were rolled up, so were his sleeves, and his shirt was
untucked and wrinkled. He had a bottle of whiskey, something expensive looking,
dug into the sand, and a glass in one hand, his elbow balanced on his bent knee.
He lifted his head just enough to acknowledge my presence.

“Are you lost, little girl?”

“Couldn’t sleep.” His voice and the chilly breeze off the
water made gooseflesh break out across my arms. Before he could stop me, I sat
a few feet away and took off my sandals so I could feel the cold water on my
skin.

“Who raised you, animals? It’s rude to invite yourself into
someone’s company when they clearly want to be drinking alone.”

From anyone else, I’d take it as a joke, but there was no
humor in his voice. As soon as I sat down, I moved to stand again with a sigh.

“You’re already here, might as well enjoy the very expensive
view.” He leveled his dark eyes on me and held out his half empty glass. I
shook my head.

“Figures you’re not old enough.” He swallowed the shot he’d
offered me, and refilled his glass.

“I’m old enough,” I corrected with more hostility than I
expected. “I just don’t want your pity-party alcohol. You seem to need it more
than I do.”

“You,” he pointed at me over the rim of his glass, “have a
very smart mouth. Everything Shannon told me about you was a lie.”

“She told you about me?” I don’t know why this surprised me
and I wasn’t sure whether I liked that he had secret knowledge of me or if I
was angry at Shannon for telling him anything.

“My sister isn’t very good at making close friends. None of
us are, if you can’t tell. The Silvers don’t want to be equal with anyone; they
just want to be seen by everyone. There’s an important difference.”

“You’re the only one who has treated me that way.” I sounded
braver than I felt. My stomach twisted itself up. “You do not have a very good
opinion of your family’s money.”

“You are very nosy, little girl. What would you know about
money?”

“Stop calling me that.”

My breathing was reacting again, light and quick, like I
couldn’t get enough oxygen.

His voice lowered, dark and husky, and my body responded. It
was the sound of the ocean, being alone out here with this man who clearly
wanted to forget a lot of things, who I understood in a way he couldn’t know about,
but I liked the way his voice made me feel. I liked his attention, even as
antagonistic as it was. It was better than sitting in my bed alone thinking
about the past.

“What would you like me to call you then,
little girl
?”

“Most people call me
Jessica
. You could start there.”

“I don’t think so.” He took another drink and when I glanced
at him, surprised at his answer, I saw something new in the intensity of his
eyes.
Be bold, Jessica,
I thought, and reached for his glass. He let me
take it and our fingers brushed, the first intentional contact I’d made with
anyone today. He didn’t startle like I would have, but his eyes opened a
fraction and I thought I could detect a change in his breathing, too.

I finished his drink for him. It was warm and a little
sweet, but burned as it went down my throat. I’d never tasted whiskey straight
like this before, and it wasn’t something I’d choose to drink on my own, but at
that moment it was exactly what I wanted.

He reached for my face, settled his fingertips against my
hairline and stroked his thumb along the contour of my cheek. I pulled away
automatically, but his fingertips tugged at my jawline, held me in his thrall.

“I’ve had a very bad night,” he mumbled. His thumb trailed
to my lips and traced them, first the top then the bottom. “Open,” he
commanded.
Be brave, Jessica
, and I parted my lips just enough. “Perhaps
you could help improve it.”

Perhaps
. It wasn’t a question, but a taunt. A
challenge. What was it about this dark, brooding man whose voice brought out
the fight in me? Maybe he knew from my behavior at dinner I couldn’t resist a
challenge from such an arrogant person.

I turned over onto my knees so I was closer, close enough
for the palm of his hand to flatten across my cheek. He pushed his thumb
between my lips, an invitation and another challenge. Nervously I touched the
warm, salt-water skin with the tip of my tongue. His eyes opened a little wider
then narrowed again. He pushed his thumb further into my mouth and I closed my
lips around it. I drug the tip of my tongue up the flat of his thumb slowly.
Briefly he closed his eyes, opened his mouth as if to say something, then
closed it quickly. Jonah pulled his hand away, steeled himself.

“Come closer,” he said and made room for me between his knees.
“On your hands and knees. Crawl to me.”

I did, oh god, I had no idea what was happening and why I
wanted to behave this way for him. I did want to help him make his night
better, maybe as much as I wanted my own painful thoughts pushed away. I
crawled between his knees the few steps, just like he asked. As soon as I was
within his space, both of his hands were on me, pushing my hair back, stroking
my neck, my shoulders, pushing my jacket back until it was sliding off into the
sand. While I was still wearing my oversized pink night shirt and shorts, I
felt completely naked the way his eyes roamed down my body where his hands
traveled. They stopped to cup my breasts, to consider them beneath his judging
stare. They were larger than his palms, bigger than most of the skinny,
beautiful girls I went to school with, but he lingered touching them, stroking
across the cotton fabric over my nipples. They were hard, he had to have
noticed.

I wondered, for the first time with any boy, what it would
feel like for him to touch them without the fabric between us. I’d been with a
few boys, but none of them were very impressed when I wouldn’t take my shirt off
for them. If anyone saw the scars, they’d stop anyway. I couldn’t take that
kind of rejection then, I certainly couldn’t take it from him now. He’d say
something terrible and I’d have to hate him for it. I didn’t want that to
happen, not now on this private beach under this moon with the waves at our
back and a sleepless night stretching out in front of us.

“Take it off,” he commanded. “I want to see your body.”

There it was. I jerked back from his hands and closed my
palm across my stomach so he couldn’t lift my shirt if he didn’t like my
answer. “No. I don’t do that, I mean, with anyone.”

Jonah looked annoyed, seized my arms, yanked me back to him.
“Don’t be like some embarrassed girl. Your body is a pleasure to look at and I
want to see more of it.”

“It’s not like that. I just, don’t. Please, ask me for
anything else. Just not that.”

The annoyance disappeared as fast as it had come to a new,
intense gaze that started at my belly and traced its way up to my eyes, my
mouth. He reached for my face again, touched my lips with the thumb I’d licked.

“Anything?”

Anything, anything else
, I thought. I was surprised
by how ready I was to beg. Is this what I wanted, to give myself over to my
best friend’s troubled, distant brother? Yes, I decided. Tonight that’s what I
wanted.

 “If I tell you to take my cock out and suck it until I
come, you’ll do as I say?”

His language made something in my belly twist, made me wet,
and tremble just enough for him to notice. This must have been
yes
enough because he wrapped his hand around the back of my head, buried his
fingers in my hair, and pulled my face close to his. His lips were inches from
mine, his eyes so intensely burning through mine.

“Do it,” he commanded. “Take it out.”

My hands shook a little as I reached between us, stroked my
palms down his thighs to discover how very hard he was already, pushing against
the fabric and ready when I worked at his belt. He strained closer to my hands,
a little feral hiss escaping his lips.

“Don’t make me wait,” he pressed, which only made my fingers
stumble more. As soon as his belt was open, I unzipped him slowly, because of
my own nervousness and also because I knew it would increase his impatience. I
was rewarded with another hiss.

I wanted him to kiss me. I touched my forehead to his,
pushed his pants back, pulled his boxers down so I could access all of him. I
couldn’t see what I was doing, how big he was, but I was thrilled when I
wrapped my fingers around the hard, engorged length of him. Longer than my palm,
hot to the touch, as thick as my wrist. He closed his eyes briefly, enjoying
some private pleasure. With his eyes closed I leaned into his mouth until mine just
brushed his lips.

His eyes flew open and he jerked his head back enough that I
couldn’t continue the kiss. The secret pleasure was replaced by uncontained
lust and that distance, dark and brooding.

“We won’t be doing
that
,” he admonished and tightened
his grip on the back of my head. “Down.”

A mewl escaped my throat. His words soaked my panties and I
knew I’d do anything to ease the wall he built between him and the world. I’d
do anything to prove he could kiss me, to make him
want
to kiss me.

I shifted back a few inches, squeezed my thighs together and
lowered my head between his legs. His hand pushed me down, but I’d have gone
anyway. I gave his shaft a squeeze, stroked the skin up to the head and back
down. He said nothing, but his breath quickened in time with my racing heart.

He wouldn’t like me kissing it, I had the feeling that level
of intimacy was off the table. He wanted me to suck it, a strange girl on her
knees for him, and so I did what I thought he’d want most. I took the head into
my mouth, closed my lips around it and sucked teasingly once, then twice. His
fingers tightened into fists in my hair and I could feel him forcing himself to
relax, to not give too much power over to my mouth.