Banking Her: A Billionaire Bad Boys Novella (Book 2.5) (Bad Boy Billionaires) (7 page)

I was settling my ass into the chair at Want and Waste, an apparently popular San Diego restaurant that served and supported a completely vegan lifestyle, when my phone rang again.

Obviously, I hadn’t chosen this place based on cuisine, and I was fairly certain the hostess was on to me, taking in my six-foot-five, two-hundred-and-fifty-pound frame like it was a huge cosmic joke that I was standing in front of her.

I had to agree. Of course, I couldn’t eat a fucking burger and fries while I did my stalking, it’d be too damn distracting.

When I unearthed my phone from my pocket, pulled it up in front of the menu, and saw the name, I considered not answering. But I knew that wouldn’t help me at all. Detective Kline was officially on the case, and if he’d actually worked for law enforcement, I’d soon be on my way to prison.

Of course, he wanted to fucking FaceTime.

I pushed the button to accept, and his face filled the screen.

“Yes?” I asked with one eyebrow slightly higher than the other.

“Are you at a restaurant?” he asked immediately, taking in the scenery around me like a hawk.

“Yes,” I answered honestly. There was no reason to lie about something he could quite clearly see for himself.

“By yourself?”

“Yes,” I said with a laugh. “I’m not cheating on Cassie. Even if I could consider the possibility of cheating on her, I’d never cheat on her tits. Never.”

“Christ,” Kline groaned and scrubbed at his face as a couple at the table in front of me turned my way.

Whoops. “Sorry,” I told them with a wince.

Okay, so it was more of a wink than a wince, but this is me we’re talking about.

I chanced a peek over toward the building where she was working, the crystal water of the pool sparkling in the early afternoon sun. There was a flurry of activity, but Cassie stood off to the side, her head bent over her phone.

The text message notification sounded on my phone.

“Hold on,” I told Kline, tapping my way out of the call screen and pulling up my messages.

Cassie’s Tits: I’m here, but you probably already know that.

She’s on to me.

My lungs seized, the air in them freezing in panic.

“Motherfucking shit,” I breathed, forgetting that Kline could still see me and that the people at the table in front of me were the goddamn language police.

“What?” Kline asked, but I was busy fake apologizing to the people five feet away with sticks up their asses.

“Thatch,” Kline called, annoyed about having anything other than my undivided attention. “What’s going on?”

But I had a woman to worry about right now. Knowing what usually worked best, I went with ignorance.

Me: Huh?

She responded almost immediately. Thank God.

Cassie’s Tits: I know you printed out my schedule, and I know you know I was supposed to be here thirty minutes ago. I’m impressed you managed to resist the urge to text me first, though.

Jesus Christ
. If she only knew.

Me: Ha. I love you.

Probably past the point of what’s healthy
, I admitted to myself.

Cassie’s Tits: I love you too.

“Thatch!” Kline called.

“Goddammit. Give me a motherfucking second here, Klinehole,” I muttered, and finally disgusted, the people at the table in front of me pushed out of their chairs and left. Granted, their food had been consumed and the bill paid, but I was pretty sure I was the real catalyst for their retreat.

“Fine,” Kline agreed over the speaker. “I don’t think you’re where the answers really are anyway.”

Shit
. It was
not
a good sign that he was giving up this easily.

“Enjoy your lunch in… Where did you say you were again?”

“I didn’t.”

Out of my messages and back on the call, I watched as he smiled.

“Enjoy San Diego,” he said with a glimmer in one of his stupid blue eyes. And then he was gone.

Goddammit.

T
he bags of takeout rustled lightly as I set them on the kitchen counter and headed into our bedroom to change out of the clothes I flew home in.

The second my flight landed at JFK, I grabbed a taxi and got to work on setting my evening plans into motion. Since I was a little surprised Thatch wasn’t home by now, I shot him a quick text as I headed back into the kitchen.

Me: Where are you?

Thatch: Just now leaving the office. You make it home, okay?

As I tied the strap of my frilly apron around my waist, I glanced at the clock on the stove and noted it was half past eight. I found it a little odd that he was just now leaving work.

Me: Yep. I’m home. You’re still at work???

Thatch: No use coming home to an empty apartment, honey. ;)

Charming motherfuc—fluffer. Thatch’s suggestion that I clean up my language hadn’t really sunk in until it had been reinforced by suggestions from Georgia, Winnie, my mom, my brother, and the lady at the grocery store. Though, the lady at the grocery store hadn’t known I was pregnant, so she was just an uptight cunt.

There was a lot of time left before it became a real issue, but evidence was suggesting it was going to take every single minute of it to reform.

Me: What about coming home to me in an apron and stilettos?

Thatch: Naked dinner?

Me: ;)

Thatch: You know you get spanked for stealing my signature winks.

Me: ;) ;) ;) ;)

Thatch: I do love your ass when it’s really fucking pink.

Me: You know what else is nice and pink?

Thatch: Tell me.

Me: My pussy.

Thatch: I think you mean MY pussy.

Me: ;)

Thatch: 10 minutes, honey. Be ready.

I grinned at how easily he played into my hands—not that I’d expected him to resist. I set my phone on the counter, and started removing the Chinese takeout containers from the brown paper bag.

What? This is my version of making dinner.

I lit the candles on the dining room table and dressed up the takeout dishes by tossing them in our nicest serving platters. Thatch knew I wasn’t Susie Homemaker, and there wasn’t a chance in hell I would actually cook a meal, but he always appreciated when I went above and beyond. And if I was being honest, and not the least bit humble, the whole scene was pretty enough to post from Martha Stewart’s Instagram account—
which just goes to show, you really can fake fucking anything.

Naked dinners, our Wednesday night ritual, were one of Thatch’s favorite things. But since I had been out of town for the past two Wednesdays, I had some serious making up to do.

True to his word, ten minutes later, Thatch strolled through the door and met me in the kitchen with a giant-ass grin on his face. “Hi, honey,” he said as his eyes trailed over the sight of me in nothing but a frilly apron and black stilettos. “There is literally nothing better than coming home to you like this.”

I smiled and gave him a little twirl, showing off my bare ass in the process.

His grin grew wider as he moved toward me. “God, I’m a lucky son of a bitch.”

I nodded my head, and he chuckled. “Modesty becomes you.”

Thatch didn’t waste any time, lifting me into his arms and wrapping my legs around his waist. He buried his nose in my neck and inhaled deeply, whispering, “Mmm, you always smell so good.” He leaned back and took my mouth in a soft and sweet kiss while his hands continued to palm my ass and squeeze the pliant flesh playfully. Heat consumed the kiss and me, making a greedy ache take over low in my belly as Thatch grinded himself against me with a deep groan. “Fuck, I missed you.”

I giggled against his lips. “Me too. But not enough that I won’t suspend you from naked dinners if you don’t get to work on losing the clothes.”

He chuckled and set me on the kitchen counter. “Suspended? Please, tell me what exactly you’d do without me at naked dinner.”

I shrugged. “Probably just rub one out on the kitchen table.”

“I meant for you to tell me in detail…painfully explicit, one or two fingers, what you taste like, detail,” he told me through a smile as he pulled off his clothes. With a flick of one red-tipped finger, I motioned for him to give me a spin, and he playfully obliged, shaking his bare ass in my direction. I laughed and hopped off the kitchen counter, spanking the meat of one taut cheek before heading into the dining room.

He sat down at the table, and I served him his favorite meal from Wok-n-Roll: Kung Pao Chicken with a side of egg roll. As I spooned Shrimp Lo Mein onto my plate, I noticed Thatch’s expression was less playful and more serious as his gaze honed in on my stomach.

“What’s wrong, T?”

“Does your assistant help you carry shit when you’re on location?”

My brow furrowed. “Carry what? My camera bag? Pretty sure I can manage that, honey.”

He shook his head. “Does he help you?”

I shrugged. “Sure, I guess.”

Thatch grabbed the knot of my apron and pulled me toward him. He untied the strings and tossed the frilly material haphazardly onto the floor. His hands gripped my waist and he leaned forward, softly kissing my belly. “Promise me something, honey.”

Confusion made my face tense up, but somehow, I knew this wasn’t the time to tease him about not making sense. Instead, I rested my hands on his bare shoulders, rubbing at the smooth, hot skin with the pads of my thumbs. “What’s that?”

“Promise me that you’ll ask for help more when you’re out of town. Ask your lazy-ass assistant to help you carry shit, okay? It’s his job to assist you. That includes doing all of the menial shit like carrying your camera bag.”

I tilted my head to the side and stared down at him. “I think you’re being a little flipping dramatic, Thatcher. I mean, I’m not that far along. I’m not even showing at this point.”

He kissed my belly again. “Yeah, but one day you will be showing. I just want you to get used to asking for help. Sometimes you can be a little stubborn about shit like that.” He glanced up at me, and I scrunched my face in annoyance.

God, he was being weird tonight.

“Please, Cass.”

Normally, I wouldn’t have backed down without a little more of a fight, but I could tell by the pleading look in his big brown eyes that this wasn’t something he was taking lightly.

“It’s that important to you?”

“You and our little baby will always be my top priority.”

“Fine, honey. I’ll try to be a lot lazier when I’m on location and make people do more things for me. Hell, maybe I’ll add a cabana boy and a few half-naked men who are scheduled to feed me pickles and fan me with giant leaves every thirty minutes to my rider.”

“Thank you.”

I kissed his forehead and set my plate beside his. I sat down in his lap, and he hissed his approval when his hard cock nestled between my ass cheeks. “I love your seating arrangements for this naked dinner. I think we should go ahead and assign seats for the year.”

“I figured you’d enjoy it.” I grabbed my fork and started to dig into my food.

But Thatch had other plans. His hands grazed the bare skin of my sides until they reached the bottom swells of my breasts and then went back, repeating the maddening circuit until my nipples hardened and my hips started to move of their own accord, shifting and rotating and desperately searching for relief from the constant throbbing ache that had taken up residence below my belly.

His hands gripped my hips, stopping their momentum, and shifting me so that his cock was now snuggled against where I was slick with arousal. I moaned and set my fork down. My fingers clung to the edge of the table as I begged for him to slide inside of me.

“You don’t want to eat first, honey?”

“Unless, by eating, you mean your mouth on my pussy, then no. I don’t want to eat first.”

Thatch’s hand swept across the dining room table, and dishes clanged to the floor in the span of a heartbeat. My back hit the table next, and my thighs were spread and resting on his shoulders a few seconds later.