The Secret (Billionaire's Beach Book 6)

by Christie Ridgway

  And he felt a shifting in his chest. A loosening. A change.

  What if…?

  Making his goodbyes brief and his thank yous sincere, he took leave of his son and the others and started down the beach. Back to home. Back to see about that forelsket. Back to determining what exactly he could have next in his life. This next life.

  On the way home, he took off his shoes and began walking barefoot through the soft sand. Then he paused to roll up his jeans and trekked closer to the shoreline, splashing through the incoming waves. With the sun hot on his head and the Pacific a pleasant chill on his feet, he realized he’d not gone shoeless all summer.

  No wonder he’d been feeling old.

  He turned his head to look at the horizon, the symbol of limitless possibility that he could gaze upon every day, every hour if he liked, and knew he’d missed out on the view as well—seeing it, but not seeing it.

  He’d overlooked so much, so sure that the way things had been for the last four years were the way things would always have to be.

  Then his house came into sight, and at the deck railing stood Charlie, like a carved figurehead on a ship, the wind pressing her clothes to her body and causing her hair to stream behind her like a shining flag of brown and gold. She stared straight ahead, unaware of his approach, and he slowed, letting the look of her fill him up—with anticipation, with excitement, and with a primitive lust that made his cock begin to throb and his blood burn in his veins.

  She was so damn beautiful.

  He picked up his pace, his gaze never leaving her, and her head turned. Blue eyes nearly swallowed him up as he mounted the steps, and then she was within reach and his mood soared high, like a kite lifted by an ocean breeze.

  Endorphins rushed through his system, and the high was a sweet taste on his tongue and the flush of heat on his skin. His hands flexed, needing to touch her, but he forced them to be still, trying to think of how to communicate all he wanted her to know.

  Testosterone surged into his bloodstream, advising pure action.

  Ethan tried reasoning with it, but she was so appealing in a little green lace dress that showed off her slim arms and long legs. He could see the press of her nipples against the fabric, and the decision was made.

  “I wanted to talk to you.” His voice came out rough, abraded by the sudden tightness of his throat.

  She swallowed, and he watched the pulse beat in her neck, focusing there like a predator eager for its first bite. “I have something to say to you, too,” she said.

  “It’s going to have to wait,” he decided and snatched her into his arms.

  His mouth latched onto hers and she opened for him, from the first instant the kiss proceeding without any pretensions of tenderness. That checked him for a moment because there was tenderness deep below the rising tide of lust. But now was not the time to dive for it. He was being borne away on the taste of her, the warm suppleness of her, the little jerk of her hips when he pressed his groin against hers.

  He groaned. “God, I want inside that sweet pussy of yours. You make me greedy for the taste of it, I want the smell of you on me. All over me.”

  “Ethan.” Closing her eyes, she melted against him. “When you say things like that…”

  “When I say things like what?” he prompted, teasing. She was aroused, quivering in his hold. “Do you like it when I talk dirty to you?”

  Her skin heated where he touched it, one palm at the small of her back, the other on her shoulder blade.

  “I can’t think when you talk like that.”

  “Good. I don’t want either one of us thinking right now.” He pressed his mouth to her neck, felt her shudder. “So I’m making a rule. It’s dirty talk or nothing from this moment on. Until tomorrow.”

  She looked up at him, her blue eyes dazed. “You’ve been hiding this side of you beneath your cool businessman façade.”

  He smiled. “My secret, baby.”

  Her body stilled, and he felt her muscles gather to withdraw, but he only tucked her closer and whispered against her mouth. “I’m going to smear your juices on your breasts, suck them from your nipples. I’m going to paint your lips with your cum and share it with you when we kiss. I’m going to spend on you and massage my seed into your skin.”

  She’d gone pliant at the first phrase and moaned as he finished the last. As smug as he might be about his ability to make her yield, the fact was, the images he described had primed him too. Pre-cum already seeped from his cock, and he urged her into the house now, desperate to do away with their clothes.

  The westward windows of his bedroom were covered by filmy drapes, and the late afternoon sun filtering through them cast the room in a low, golden-orange glow. He could still hear the ocean over his laboring breaths, a quiet rumble that added to the sensual intensity of the moment. Charlie looked both mussed and flushed, and his horny hands couldn’t keep off her.

  They found the hem of her dress and yanked upward. The stretchy fabric didn’t tear, but that wouldn’t have stopped him anyway. He tossed the garment aside then looked at what he’d revealed, his cock jerking at the sight of Charlie’s sleek body and smooth skin, wrapped only in transparent black bikini panties and a low-cut bra. Through them he could see the shy seam of her sex and the hard jut of her nipples.

  More pre-cum spurted, and he needed to free his clamoring cock. His hands shook as he began to shuck off his clothes.

  “Put your hand in your panties,” he told her. “Tell me how wet you are.”

  She shuddered, and goose bumps broke out on her belly as her hand slowly breached the elastic stretched low on her hips. Biting her lip, she slipped her fingers over her mons.

  Ethan set his jaw, hoping just watching that wouldn’t cause him to blow. “I know how hot you get there, Charlie. Puffy and hot. Slick. Is it that way now?”

  She swallowed, nodded.

  “Keep your hand right there,” he said, yanking back the covers on the bed. “And use the other to pull down your panties. Just to your knees.”

  Her breathing sped up and his stopped altogether as she obeyed. To keep the scrap of fabric from falling to her ankles, she had to widen her thighs, in a pose so erotic that Ethan nearly dropped to the floor.

  “Stay like that,” he growled, prowling toward her. Reaching around her back, he unfastened her bra and drew it away to bare her breasts. With her hand still at her pussy, the shoulder strap caught on her wrist.

  “Sweet Lord,” he said, staring at her, his hand going to his ruddy, ready-to-rut cock. “What a picture you make.”

  Her front teeth clamped down on her bottom lip, and she glanced down at herself, quivering again.

  “I bet you’re getting slicker, baby.” He softened his voice to a coaxing tone. “Open up those swollen lips and show me your little clit. It wants my touch. I’m going to make it feel so good.”

  Charlie moaned and then obeyed him again, her fingers moving to expose the bundle of nerves at the top of her sex peeking out from the hood. The inner surface of her pussy gleamed wetly, reminding him of all he’d promised her.

  “All right, Charlie, lie back on the bed. You can let the bra and panties fall now.”

  As if walking through a dream, his beauty moved as directed. His lungs were like bellows in his chest as he watched her position herself against the pillows. Then he crawled up from the foot of the bed and made a place for himself at her pussy, served to him hot and sweet.

  He glanced up to see her gaze on him, her lids at half-mast, her mouth wet as if she’d just moistened it with her tongue.

  Then he used his, licking her from clit to opening, spearing that with his tongue, fucking her with his mouth like he was going to do with his cock, hungrily. Ravenously.

  When her juices were dripping from her, he dipped inside her and scooped up some on his fingers and slid up her body. He coated her areolas and her bunched nipples with her arousal, making her squirm on the sheets. Her hand went to his hair— cafuné —then her fingerti
ps dug into his scalp as his mouth descended, licking and sucking and finally nipping at her there. She moaned, her hips lifting, and as he moved to the other breast, he dropped one arm over her hips, holding her down. Her body quaked against his grasp, and his cock leaked along the hot smoothness of her outer thigh. He couldn’t stop himself from stroking there, torturing himself.

  When both nipples were wet and rosy, he lifted up to look down at them, admiring the swelling, quivering mounds.

  Then he looked at her mouth, and he reached back to her pussy, gathering up more of her copious wetness. His fingertips glistened with it as he meticulously painted the delicious curves of her pretty lips until they gleamed.

  “Open,” he whispered.

  When she did, he spread what juices remained onto her tongue. She closed around his digits, sucking in instinctive response and he groaned, then yanked them free in order to kiss her.

  Deep, long kisses, with the heady flavor of her arousal binding each one to the next.

  His hand drifted down to palm her breasts, and she lifted into his touch, her own hands wandering over his back and then his chest. He yanked a curious palm away from his cock, too primed to withstand more stimulation without blowing.

  She made a little sound of frustration, and he lifted his lips long enough to mutter, “Next time,” and then he was tasting her again. He’d never get enough.

  When they both were panting and he was about to lose his mind, he turned her over, pulling her up onto her knees. God, his favorite position, with the elegant sweep of her spine in his line of sight, her ass tipped upward for him, her hips there for him to grip. Her entire body ready for his cock to plunder.

  He did, in one determined stroke, and she cried out. This time he didn’t wait for her to get used to his size and presence. She was wet and so swollen that he nearly went blind with the searing pleasure of it. His breath came in rough gasps as he drove in and out of her. Her fingers clutched the sheets, and she pushed back, into each stroke. He dropped his head, reveling in the tight heat of her.

  Then he hunched over her, one hand sliding around to find her clit. “You’re gripping me like a fist, baby,” he said in her ear. “You like me fucking you?”

  Her eyes closed. “Oh, God.”

  “Tell me you like me fucking you.”

  “I love it.”

  “You love the way my balls are smacking your pussy?”

  At the dirty words, her inner muscles clenched him tighter. He groaned, and those balls drew up more.

  “You better come fast, baby,” he said, his strokes jerky now. “Because I’m about to pull out and lash your back with my cream.”

  That last word pushed her over. She shuddered, and her pussy walls contracted around him, milking his cock so he had to grit his teeth or lose it too. As her spasms faded, he yanked out of her. Then, with his knees keeping her thighs spread wide, he jacked himself, rough and desperate, until his cum boiled up his cock and shot from the tip, streams of it landing on her skin to pool in that hollow at the small of her back.

  Empty, he collapsed beside her, kissing her hot cheek, her lax mouth. He pushed her damp hair away from her forehead and pressed his mouth there too, then moved his hand down her sleek back to the puddle of his cum.

  Maybe it was filthy as fuck, but she didn’t do more than sigh as he massaged the round curves of her ass with the stuff. When there was little left of his seed, he hesitated. What the hell, he thought. Now might not be the time to say this, in the aftermath of delicious, intense sex, but he couldn’t stop himself from a silent form of communication.

  With a fingertip coated in cum, he wrote three words between the dimples on her lower back.

  I love you.

  Chapter 11

  Charlie stared out the sliding glass doors on the house’s first floor, looking toward the water. The sun was just beginning to rise over the curve of land to the south, projecting a fiery beam of light over the slate-colored morning ocean. She clutched a mug of coffee but didn’t drink it, her brain still struggling to process what had happened the night before, upstairs in Ethan’s bed. And in his shower. Then in his bed again.

  God. He’d unraveled her. Shattered her inhibitions. Taken her apart and put her together again in a way that left her feeling raw on both the outside and the inside.

  That super-sexy, raunchy side of him aroused her beyond explaining. Maybe because on the surface he seemed the consummate, handsome, and perhaps a tad-too-traditional single dad. But there was another aspect of him that he showed only to her. His primitive, alpha-guy side that made her bones melt and her skin tingle from scalp to soles.

  It created an intimacy between them that she’d never experienced before.

  It wasn’t just the dirty talk, though there was no denying that had stirred her like nothing else. Perhaps because her upbringing had been filled with bland euphemisms and dire warnings when it came to sex. Ethan used rough talk to ratchet up the intensity and the intimacy of what they felt and what they did.

  Even the memories made her shudder…in a good, good way.

  One part of her wasn’t sure she could ever look him in the face again, and another part of her wanted to see what else he would be willing to do to her…and say to her.

  He’d shared his thoughts and wants so openly. Without shame or censor. Like a man would do, one who was confident and comfortable in his skin as a sexual being. She’d responded without reserve, finding her own passionate inner vixen through him, and all she could be was…grateful.

  And more convinced it was imperative that she share her secret with him.

  She’d meant to last night. Standing on the deck, waiting for his return, she’d been gathering her courage and stringing together the right words to explain her subterfuge. Then he’d walked up the steps, his gaze focused on her, his expression hungry, and she’d caved to his kisses.

  Now footsteps sounded from the staircase, and she gripped her mug tighter, her nerves pulling tight.

  He neared the kitchen, dressed for a run, looking handsome and normal with a half-smile on his face and a jaunt in his step. His gaze cut to her, and that smile widened, welcoming and warm, nothing salacious or sly in it. God, he was just so…everything.

  “Hey,” he said, stopping in front of her.

  “Hey.”

  He lowered his head, pressed a tender kiss on her mouth. “Missed you when I woke up.”

  “I…”

  One of his knuckles traced a trail down her hot cheek, and his eyes searched her face. “Did you scamper off so I couldn’t have another go at you? I promise I realize you might be a little sore this morning.”

  She refused to blush more. All this plain-speaking was going to be the new normal…if he didn’t throw her out after she laid all her cards on the table.

  It was a consideration. A distinct possibility. One of the reasons she’d dithered about telling him was that she couldn’t predict how he’d respond. There were so many ways this could go.

  “Charlie?” That knuckle crossed her lower lip. “I didn’t turn you off from me forever, did I?”

  A bubble of laughter got stuck in her throat. That was going to be her line. She cleared her throat.

  “No,” she said, then moved away. “Let me get you some coffee. Would you like something to eat?”

  Oh, way to stall, Charlie Emerson!

  Apparently Ethan figured that too, because he gently caught her elbow and swung her around. “Baby. Talk to me.”

  Tension clamped around the back of her neck like a vice. Tears pricked at her eyes, and she willed them away, because all of this was her fault.

  It was beyond time to uncover the truth.

  As she was trying to collect herself, he pulled her into his arms in a reassuring embrace. She took comfort in it, even if it was wrong of her.

  “I need to tell you something important.” Her voice sounded rusty.

  “Okay.” He held her a little away and looked down, concern etched on his face. “I
’m listening.”

  She grabbed his hand and towed him toward the deck, taking them both outside where maybe the fresh air and beautiful natural surroundings could pretty up the difficult truth. Putting her coffee on a low table, she took a seat on a wide chair, ignoring the dampness of the morning dew. Gaze still on her, Ethan perched on the arm of the couch adjacent.

  Charlie rubbed her hands on her thighs, took in a long breath, released it. “I…uh…I had this really lousy boyfriend once.”

  His expression softened. “You said as much to me before. I’m sorry—”

  “No. I’m not looking for sympathy.” She waved her hands. “Let me start over.”

  He crossed one leg over the other. “When you’re ready.”

  That would be never. So there was no point in procrastinating another second. “I got pregnant when I was nineteen.”

  His expression didn’t change. “All right…”

  “I…my mother—” Charlie stopped herself, because her mother had nothing to do with what she had done, nearly a year back. “I had the baby. I put him up for adoption.”

  “You can’t think I’d find anything to judge you about there.”

  “No.” Could one person feel so miserable? “It was a semi-open adoption. The parents didn’t know my identity, they were only told of my medical history. Ahead of time, I was given their names and information about their financial circumstances.”

  He nodded. “You wanted to make sure your child was well-placed and his parents would have the ability to take care of his needs.”

  “Right. But over the years, as time went on, I got to wondering…” She looked down at her lap, each hand white-knuckled around the other. “And then through the internet I learned…I learned that his adoptive mother had died.”

  The heavy silence that descended told her he was beginning to understand.

  “No, Charlie,” he whispered. “No.”

  She glanced up but couldn’t read anything in his expression, which had turned stony and cold. Shivering, she swallowed hard.

  “Yes, Ethan.” Her stomach coiled into a knot of misery. “Wells...Wells is my biological son.”