Distracting the Billionaire's Son Page 9

  I didn’t feel the twigs or rocks on the dirt path. I stumbled once or twice, but didn’t stop running. It didn’t even matter if I found the cabin. Maybe the woods would swallow me and I could hide there forever, lost in the trees.

  It was so dark. It took me a long time to find my cabin and by then the bottom of my feet were sore and scratched. I pushed open the door, limped inside and grabbed my hiking backpack, started shoving things in indiscriminately.

  Jonah threw the door open, breathless, his eyes as wide as the moon. He crossed the tiny room in two strides and grabbed at my hands, but I was too quick for him. “Jessica, stop. Stop. Stop! What are you doing? Where are you going?” He grabbed the backpack from my hands and we tugged it between us, me shoving clothes into it, him pulling them out until there was a mess of my things on the floor between us. “Stop, Jess, please. Tell me what’s happening.”

  “Jonah?” Shannon fell into the doorway, panting. Her eyes moved between us, and then the backpack in our hands had her complete attention. “No! You can’t leave! Not because of them!”

  “You do not understand,” I told the intense green eyes inches from mine. “I can’t stay here with them. Neither of you understand. This is so fucked up, you have no idea. I have to leave. If you don’t want to help me get the hell out of here, I’ll walk.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” Jonah said, and dumped my backpack completely on the floor. I gasped and ripped it out of his hands and threw it at him. I backed up, a caged animal in this tiny room.

  “I understand what kind of people they are, you’ve told me. I told my mom. I swear they’ll go before you do.” Shannon stepped closer to her brother who stepped closer to me.

  Jonah stopped between me and the door and held a hand up as if to catch me if I tried to run past him. “I’ll throw them into the ocean myself, Jess. I won’t let them run you off. You have to understand I can’t let that happen.”

  “My brother,” Shannon whispered, watching the intensity on Jonah’s face. It would have been a beautiful thing to see if my heart wasn’t breaking all over this cabin. If I didn’t feel so panicked.

  “No, you don’t, you don’t understand! After I left here I was supposed to go home for the rest of the summer, like every summer before this one. Except just before finals I got a call from my father. He never calls me. He tells me, No Jessica, you can’t come home. Katherine wants to knock down the wall between my room and her hobby room, so there’s no room for me. He says, Jessica, we packed up your room, you can come pick up your boxes after school is over, but we don’t have the space to store them so if you don’t come right away we’re going to have to throw them out. He says, Jessica, Katherine is pregnant. You understand don’t you? It’s very upsetting for her when you are around because you remind her of your mother. It hurts her and I can’t have her upset, not while she’s pregnant. You’re just going to have to find somewhere else to live this summer. We have to work on building a new family. And I said, but dad, I don’t have anywhere to go. Where am I supposed to go? And you know what he says to me? He says, well hell, kiddo, I just don’t know. Maybe it’s time you grow up the hard way and take some responsibility for your life. That’s what he said to me. I managed to secure space on a high school friend’s couch. He was letting me stay until August for the cost of building him a website for his skateboard business.”

  I stopped, so very aware of their eyes on me, the shock and tension in the space between the two siblings and me. “This vacation, these cabins. You, Shannon. Jonah. These two weeks were supposed to be amazing so the rest of the summer of being miserable and alone wouldn’t be so bad. But I can’t do that, not with them here, taking it all away from me again. This is all I had and now they get it. They always get everything! Understand, please understand. I’ve got to get the hell out of here before I start screaming at the top of my lungs and never stop.”

  Shannon pushed her brother out of the way, tears welling in her eyes, matching mine. She took my hand in both of hers. “A strange guy’s couch, Jess? Mine is better. It’s blue, your favorite color, and pulls out into a real bed with real sheets. They have yellow flowers. And it’s in a room with a TV and my cat. I would never let you stay with some guy. Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “Because,” I looked at her and loved her with all my heart. “Because your mom and your sister came to see you for your birthday. Because even your sixteen year old brother calls you on the weekends to see if you’re eating enough. Because your parents invited me here and they are throwing me a party to celebrate my good grades. Because you make me feel like family and because I don’t deserve it.”

  “Stupid girl,” she whispered and kissed my cheek, wrapped her arms around shoulders.

  Jonah lowered himself to the edge of my bed, pried my hips away from his sister and pulled me close. He rested his face against the fabric over my stomach, inhaled all of me. “Stupid, stupid girl. Because I’d let you anywhere near some strange guy’s couch.”

  “Jess!” Shannon gasped and put her hands across her abdomen. “He’s touching your stomach! And you’re letting him!”

  “Yeah,” I said, shaking my head in amazement at both them. “I am.”

  She beamed. “I knew it was only a matter of time, Trixie.”

  Jonah raised an eyebrow at us. “Trixie?”

  “Nevermind.” I touched his hair and he stood, captured my chin in his hand. Kissed me gently.

  “You two should have told me,” she chided, and took my hand out of Jonah’s. He took that moment to slip out of my hands and head for the door. “Where are you going? I approve! Really! Don’t go, Jonah!”

  “I’ve got two people to throw out of my house. If she tries to take one step out of this door Shannon, knock her out.” Shannon and I glanced at each other and raced after him into the dark trees and up the path toward the main house. The party at the beach had thinned, but many people were still drinking under the stars. Mr. and Mrs. Silver were gone. So were my parents.

  Jonah took two stairs at a time up to the front door, stalked inside, and followed his parent’s voices to the back breakfast porch. Shannon and I followed, clutching each other for protection.

  “Where are they?” he demanded as he burst into the room. They jumped and turned to Jonah.

  “Who, darling? Shannon and Jessica?” Mrs. Silver started to point toward us huddling in the doorway, but he cut her off.

  “No, Jessica’s parents. I want to throw them out personally.”

  Mr. Silver stepped out to meet Jonah halfway. “Sorry, Jonah. I’m afraid I’ve already done that. I had no idea, Jessica, forgive us. I thought a lovely girl like you, so smart and kind, would have parents to match. They were very excited to drink my champagne, sleep in my beds, take my boats out on the ocean. They were surprised I even knew your name. You deserve better.”

  Jonah turned, reached for my hand, and I took it. Our secret was out anyway. He pulled me to his side. “She has better.”

  Mr. Silver looked between us, appraised his son. “Yes, she does.”

  Mrs. Silver came in for a hug. Oh good, a future of hugs spread out before me. I couldn’t wait.

  How long? I wondered. Jonah was serious and intense and I didn’t know if that meant when he grabbed hold of something, it was forever or if he burned all-consuming before burning out.

  “If you can stand it, we have one more surprise and I promise, this one will be worth it. We were just waiting for you to return. Come. Come!” She produced a glass of champagne practically from thin air, filled my hand with the delicate flute, and pulled Shannon after her through the doors to the back deck. We followed, Jonah’s fingers threaded through mine.

  The dark sky over the water spread out before us. We took our places at the railing of the deck, Jonah behind me. He wrapped his arms around my waist, pressed his palms against my stomach. I shivered pleasantly and pressed myself against him.

  “I hear they like animation in Japan,” Jonah said against my ear, barely
a whisper, and the feel of his voice shivered my whole body. I smiled and pressed into him because we matched so well.

  “Tonight,” he whispered against my ear. “Every night.”

  The sky exploded with color and sound, rockets of golds and reds painted the night stars. I gasped, jumped, but Jonah only tightened his hold, pulled me into the space between his arms and kissed my neck, kissed the gasps and cries from my throat. Shannon clapped and squealed, reached for them like she might pluck the dazzle of light from the sky.

  Every night. I could live with that.

  ###

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  Don’t miss my two part erotic romance The Submissive Behind the Mask #1: Bondage & Curiosity. Kat Koile has known Josh her whole life. He’s her older brother’s best friend. When Kat attends a private adult Halloween party, she discovers Josh, a dominant, is giving a demonstration on rope bondage play. Josh can’t take his eyes off her, but she’s been like a kid sister to him all his life. And yet, he can’t bear to let another man dominate her instead…

  One party will change everything.

  Short excerpt from The Submissive Behind the Mask #1: Bondage & Curiosity :

  What I knew was that I felt deeply, inconsolably vulnerable in this position and the only solace I found came from the heat of Josh's body standing protectively behind mine. At least, that's what I imagined he was doing, protecting me as it bound me to him literally as well as emotionally.

  I closed my eyes and concentrated on my heartbeats. At first, and especially when he touched my body with his full, strong hands, my heart had raced out of control until I thought I might pass out. Twice I considered safe wording when I thought I was going to pass out from panic, but both times he'd sensed my unraveling control and reassured me. I could still feel his mouth against my skin and the husky, growly voice that had praised me for my submission. The panic eased both times until I could breathe and now that I knelt at his side, his rope holding me still, the sense of adrenaline soaked excitement and terror eased away and left behind a strange sense of comfort.

  The ropes did not hurt and, in fact, weren't uncomfortable in the slightest. I felt a deep stretch between my shoulder blades through my biceps down to my tail bone. I let out a breath and sank forward into the stretch, allowing my body to relax against the binds. They constricted, tight enough to hold me together even when I felt at my wildest.

  "I'm..." The words fled from me. I couldn't articulate what I was feeling if I tried and to my relief Josh seemed to understand. His hands, long familiar to me, stroked the length of my arms over the bumps of rope pressing and stretching my skin, down to my elbows and back up. He captured my hair in his hands, wound it around his fingers and pulled until my head tilted back at his control, the pressure very lightly painful.

  "Shhh, it's alright Kitty Kat, take your time. You're doing so well, sweetheart." I recognized Josh's deep timbre, but it wasn't the voice I heard him use day in and day out at the bar. This one vibrated along my spine, deepened to the core of me. His praise warmed the blossom of pleasure I'd felt earlier between my legs when he told me he liked to dominate young women and I understood. I understood the vibration in his voice was desire, barely restrained, extremely private, and wholly my doing.