“The last time you…” she starts, eyes widening a little with surprise.
“Yes, Kitten,” I say as we approach the front of the restaurant, which is a modern building with sleek blue lights that backs up to the ocean. “I waited for you. And if you decide you aren’t ready, I’ll keep waiting as long as I have to.”
She tucks a lock of hair behind her ear and smiles. “Somehow, I doubt that.”
“You’ll learn to trust me before long.” And then you’ll learn to submit. Fucking hell, it’s hard to walk comfortably when Kylie has me hard all the time, but I know once I’ve built the proper foundation of trust, there is never going to be anything as sweet as breaking her in as my submissive. She’ll learn to relish it as well, in giving herself up to me and testing the strength of the trust and the bond we’ll form, knowing it’s stronger every time it stands up to the test.
“At least one of us is confident of that,” she says, but her voice carries the same note of teasing.
It’s good to hear her loosening up, even if it’s just a little.
The maitre d’ welcomes us at the door. “Mr. Price,” he says with raised eyebrows. “It’s an honor to have you and your lovely guest tonight. We’ll prepare a table and equipment for you at once. Please, feel free to enter the diving room at your earliest convenience. We’ll clear the queue.”
I nod my thanks, walking Kylie through the restaurant with my hand splayed wide on her back and my body language clearly saying she’s mine to anyone who might try to enjoy too long a look at her.
“You really weren’t kidding about the diving thing?” she asks nervously.
“You’ll be fine. It’s just with snorkels. Although I guess the harpoon gun could be a little intimidating.”
She pales a little. “Harpoon gun?”
“How did you think we’d catch dinner? With a fork and knife?”
She glares at me and I can’t help smirking. There will come a time when she’ll learn a look like that is going to earn her a special kind of punishment, one that leaves both of us sweating and breathless, but not yet. There will be plenty of time for all that.
We pass a small group of well dressed men and women who chatter in the lobby outside the dive room while they snack of hors d'oeuvres. Kylie draws jealous eyes from the women and hungry eyes from the men, but I pay it no mind. The whole world could be condemning us for all I care, so long as she’s mine, nothing else matters.
There are several dressing rooms inside the dive room, and I excuse myself to slip into compression shorts and set my suit and tie aside. Kylie goes into her own dressing room and changes out of her dress. I take my time enjoying the view when she emerges. Her swimsuit is a black one-piece with several strategically placed cutouts, which give more than enough room for my imagination to fill in the blanks.
She holds her arms in front of her body when she comes out, clearly self-conscious, but I love how she can’t keep her eyes from wandering my bare torso greedily.
I give a sharp look to the dive instructor, who catches my meaning immediately. Don’t even dare look at her. He carefully keeps his eyes fixed somewhere between a few feet over my head and the floor while he explains how the equipment works and the general safety guidelines.
Basically, you point the harpoon gun at a fish, pull the trigger, and don’t forget to go up for air when you feel like you need to breathe. Nothing complicated.
“Come here,” I say to Kylie. I lead her to the snorkels and masks, which look like they were just cleaned. I help her get hers on before securing my own. I hand her a harpoon gun next, jumping a little when she swings it in front of me. I laugh, reaching to take her hand and point it at the ground. “Careful with that. I don’t think they’ll cook me, even if you stick me with a harpoon.”
“Sorry,” she says with a laugh. “I’m a little nervous.”
“Don’t be. I’ll be right beside you the whole time. You’ll be fine.”
We walk to the edge of the wood platform, which ends in a six inch drop straight into the open ocean behind the restaurant. The water is lit by dozens of floodlights placed by the restaurant in the fishing grounds, so I can see quite a ways down despite the time of night. I take Kylie’s hand and give her a tug as I jump in, taking her with me. She yelps just before we hit the water.
We sink down in a cascade of bubbles. Kylie spins slowly around, taking in the scene around us. The floodlights are carefully placed to avoid making the underwater ecosystem look artificial. The light filters through cracks in the coral and between large rocks, giving everything a greenish blue glow. Fish are everywhere, some swimming in schools of a hundred and no larger than my thumb nail, while other, larger fish drift by, some close enough to be illuminated by the lights and others nothing more than shadows in the distance.
Kylie motions to me that she’s going up for air.
I follow her to the surface, which is still inside the room we jumped down in. “What if there are sharks?” she asks.
I hold up my harpoon gun. “I’ll keep you safe, Kitten. Just worry about finding a fish that looks good enough to eat.”
She gives me a somewhat skeptical look, but takes a deep breath and dives back down. I follow after her, letting her get just enough ahead of me that I can enjoy the view of her ass while she kicks her way through the water. I’m hard as a rock in seconds from the thought of having her again. The darker part of me is trying to figure out if I could make her cum before we had to go up for air, but I told myself I’d give her time. I know there’s a sexual attraction between us. That much is abundantly clear. What I don’t know is if Kylie feels like she can trust me enough to let me into her life. And her son’s life. So I’m keeping focused on what matters most tonight. I don’t just want to fuck her one last time. I want to make her mine for the rest of my life.
She pulls her harpoon gun up and squeezes the trigger. There’s a small burst of bubbles and the harpoon bursts out, missing a fish by about ten feet. I laugh, releasing a burst of bubbles that draws her glare. She makes a gesture that seems to say, and you can do better?
I take aim and fire, but my shot misses almost as badly as hers. I curse in annoyance, but my irritation is forgotten when I see the delighted smile on Kylie’s face. She gives me a taunting waggle of her eyebrows from behind her goggles. She presses the button to retract her harpoon, which is connected to the gun by a string. She aims at the same fish and fires again, this time catching it with a direct hit. She does an adorable celebratory dance underwater that looks like something between drowning and a seizure before kicking up to the surface.
I follow her back up and take a deep, refreshing breath of air once we’re on the surface again. “Nice shot,” I say.
Her wide smile falters. “I feel kinda bad. I just shot him…”
I can’t help laughing. “Him? You mean the fish?”
“Yes, the fish. He’s just…” she pulls in the line from her gun and hoists the fish above the water. His fin is still flapping slowly. “Oh my God. He’s in pain,” she says, horrified.
“Here. Close your eyes,” I say.
“What are you going to do?”
“Don’t you trust me?” I ask.
She watches me for a few seconds before closing her eyes with the faintest hint of a smirk.
I detach the harpoon from my gun and sever the fish’s spine as humanely as I can. “It’s done,” I say. “He won’t suffer anymore.”
She blows out a breath, head bobbing a little as she kicks to stay afloat. “I know it’s dumb. I eat fish and meat all the time. It’s just different to kill it myself.”
“It’s not dumb. It’s kind. You’re kind.”
She looks away. “Well, you still need to catch a fish for yourself. And with that aim of yours, we should probably get to it before they all go to sleep.”
I give her a mock glare. “I only missed so you wouldn’t feel as bad about missing like you did.”
“Right,” she says, biting her lip. “Then
it’ll be no problem for you to hit the next one.”
“No problem,” I say.
It’s nearly half an hour later when I finally manage to harpoon a fish. We’re both exhausted from swimming, and I don’t know about Kylie, but my stomach is already rumbling. “Come on,” I say. “This way.”
“Shouldn’t we be swimming back toward the dock?” she asks.
“I planned a little surprise for us.”
“Should I be afraid?”
“Probably. I’m about as good at driving a boat as I am at shooting fish with harpoons.”
I take her to a section of the restaurant's dock where a small boat is tied up. I help Kylie inside first and then climb in myself. We both sigh with relief to be out of the water and take a moment to enjoy sitting. I set our catches on the side of the boat and turn on the engine, which is little more than an outboard motor with a handle for steering at the back of the boat.
“Where are we going?” she asks.
“It wouldn’t be much of a surprise if I told you.”
We’re both knocked to the side when I steer the boat into a wave at the wrong angle because my eyes were focused on Kylie’s cleavage and the way the drops of water from her hair are trailing a path that I wouldn’t mind joining them on down between her breasts.
“You weren’t kidding about being a bad driver,” she says.
“I was afraid of water most of my life,” I say. “I guess I’m behind the curve on nautical pursuits because of it.”
“You were afraid of water?” she asks, frowning. “I don’t take you for the type to frighten easily.”
“I had an older brother who was trying to walk across a waterfall when I was fourteen. His name was Kyle. I spent my life looking up to him. He was invincible, as far as I was concerned. It was a stupid thing he had done hundreds of times with his friends, but he stepped on a slick rock, lost his balance, and hit his head before he fell about twenty feet down. By the time they found him at the bottom of the river, he had already drowned. After that… it felt like I was drowning if I even thought about getting in water above my knees.” I laugh at myself, surprised again by how much I seem to be telling Kylie without planning to. “Listen to me, talking like I’m on some fucking therapist’s couch.”
“No,” she says, reaching to touch my knee. “If I am going to trust you, I need to know you. What happened between us three years ago was…” she clears her throat and gives up searching for the right words. “What I’m trying to say is, yes, I felt something. I felt like I wanted to be part of your life, as crazy as that was. But I can’t afford to attach myself to a mystery anymore. It’s like I told you, I have Dean to think about. Maybe before him I could’ve just enjoyed the ride and waited to see where it took me. But if this is going to work now, I need to know you. The real you. So don’t apologize for it.”
I nod my head. “It’s just not me. Talking about myself like this. I’m used to keeping everyone at arm’s length--hell, I’m used to keeping them outside the fucking door.”
9
Kylie
He pulls the boat up to a sandy patch of land that juts out from the beach, where a small team of two chefs and a waiter are standing beside a smoking grill. There’s even a table set up with candles.
“This is for us?” I ask.
“Just for us,” he says before hopping out of the boat and offering me his hand.
“Don’t take this the wrong way, because I’m extremely grateful either way, but why did you bother having me pick out a dress if we were going to eat out here?”
“I wasn’t about to have you walk into the restaurant looking this fucking sexy. Whether you’re ready to trust me or not, I’m sure as hell not ready to let other men see you like this.”
I notice both of the chefs and the server are female and smile a little despite myself. I don’t know if I’ve ever met a man more possessive than Damian, and I can’t say the idea of being wanted so badly and so greedily by him doesn’t make my skin prickle with excitement. Somehow he manages to make nothing but the black compression shorts he wears look classy and mouth-wateringly sexy at the same time.
Even wet, his hair seems to fall perfectly over his piercing blue eyes. The small beads of water that occasionally run down his muscled frame catch my eyes, dragging them down his carved chest and rack of perfectly defined abs, and down more to the bulge I would think was too big to be his cock if I hadn’t experienced it first-hand already. In some ways I thought I had managed to embellish it in my memory, but I can see the outline clearly now, and I know I was remembering it just right.
I press my thighs together against the growing heat I feel between my legs. I’m sorry, Dean. I’m doing my best to handle this the right way. I really am.
The guilt rises up like something black and vile, tainting all the excitement and happiness I feel. It’s not the first time tonight, either. Every time I start to let go and enjoy myself, I’m haunted by the idea that I’m being careless. Worse, that I’m doing something that will put my son in danger.
And yet nothing about Damian is making me feel like I’m in danger. His idea of sex is vastly different than anything I ever imagined, and he practically radiates sexuality, but that doesn’t have to mean he’s a bad person. I need to give him a chance. It could turn out that he’s wrong for me and Dean, and if that’s true, I can walk away. But if I never give him a real chance, and in doing so give myself a chance to be happy then how will I know? I won’t be able to go back and change it if I push him away now.
I force the guilt back down, wishing it would stay there because I have nothing to feel guilty about. I’m a responsible adult and I am allowed to date.
“This is beautiful,” I say, but I forget to remove my eyes from the outline of his cock against his pants, where I was absent-mindedly staring while wrapped in thought.
“You can take a closer look if you want, but I may need to send the staff away.”
Blood rushes to my cheeks. “The table. This. It’s very sweet and thoughtful of you to set this up.”
“Don’t give me too much credit. I was honestly trying to figure out a way to keep your clothes off as long as I could. This was the best idea I had.”
I laugh as he guides me into a chair at the table and lets his hand graze my ass. The quick touch makes my pulse race and fills my thoughts with dirty and dark desires. He takes his seat across from me with a knowing look on his face.
“Well, whether your intentions were good or not, this has been great. I’ve never been on a date like this before. Just movies and chain restaurants, pretty much. Maybe mini golf here and there.”
“So it is a date?” he asks.
I sigh. “I forgot I was trying to keep you hanging on that.”
The chefs take the fish we caught and begin filleting them right by the water on a cutting board. I half-watch, but I can barely draw my attention away from the way the candle light flickers in Damian’s eyes as he watches me. His attention doesn’t waver, not even for a second. He’s consumed by me, and I’ve never felt so flattered by a man’s attention.
Before long I’m just as entranced, unable to look away in what must be several minutes of wordless communication like nothing I’ve ever experienced. I’d normally find my eyes darting away from a man’s after a few seconds of silence, overcome by awkwardness and the impulsive need to fill the silence. But with Damian?
I feel comfortable. I listen to the water lapping at the sand to our side, to the crackle of wood burning beneath the grill, and to the rustle of wind through the palm trees beside us. The smell of freshly cooked fish begins to fill the air as well, mingling with the sweet salty smell of the ocean.
“You’re beautiful,” he says.
“Took you a while to think of that one.”
He smirks. “I didn’t see you complaining.”
The server, a smallish woman with blonde hair tied back in a severe ponytail brings us plates. “We have two fresh lobster cakes crusted with panko. The
sauce is a jalapeño lemon drizzle. Please enjoy.”
I give Damian an ooh so fancy wiggle of my eyebrows. He half-smiles.
“I think I’ve only ever had crab cakes. And those were imitation crab,” I say.
“You’ll enjoy these, then.”
I pick up my fork, looking at the food and not feeling as sure as he does that I’ll enjoy it. I’ve never been a fan of spicy foods, and the idea of lemon and jalapeños mixed together sounds kind of unappealing. Still, I don’t want to be rude. I’m sure this whole night cost a fortune, including the food, and I’m not about to be ungrateful by turning my nose up.
I take a forkful and bite in. The crust on the lobster cake is perfectly crisp in a way that complements the smooth, creamy interior. The first taste that hits my tongue is a savory blend of herbs in the breadcrumbs. The rich lobster flavor comes through next, followed by a sweet bite of spice from the jalapeño and then the acidic bite of the lemon is quick on its heels to neutralize the burn on my tongue.
“Oh my God,” I say. “That’s so good.”
“I know. I come here all the time, and these are a big part of the reason.”
“Do you bring a lot of women here?” I ask. I mentally scold myself as soon as the words are out. Really? Could you have possibly fabricated a sentence to sound more needy and jealous than that? Of course he brings other women here, he--
“It would probably sound less sad to say I do,” he says, sounding unfazed by my immature question. “In all honesty I haven’t even looked at another woman that way since I laid eyes on you. I always thought men who talked like that in absolutes with women were full of shit. They’d say once they met their wife, they stopped noticing other women. I never believed it until you.”
I swallow hard, not failing to notice the way he might have just implied he could see me as a wife. He really doesn’t move slowly, does he?
Bad for the Billionaires: A Bad Boy Billionaire Bundle Page 7
