Billionaire Badboy (13 page)

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

Teddy

“Don’t go back.”

“I can’t live at your mom’s house for the rest of my life,
Ashley.”

“I like taking care of you.”

“And I like you taking care of me.”

More pillow talk. If I could just watch these flashes over
and over again, I think my death would make it to one of the top spots on my
favorite things list. Well, not the dying part. As I already mentioned, that
whole pain thing sucked. But this… just the memories of Ashley and I that
summer… that made death worth it.

That sounded morbid. And weird.

I leaned over and kissed her lips. I then touched my finger
to her still wet lips and traced a line down her chin, her neck, her chest, her
belly…

“And I like taking care of you too.” My hand escaped under
the blanket and between her legs. I found her warmth and slowly pushed my
finger in and out.

She moaned before turning to me. “Teddy, I’m trying to be
serious.”

“Okay, you be serious. I’m going to keep doing this.” I
pushed deeper, just to see her reaction.

“Oh my God.” Her face paled. “I can’t have a serious
conversation like this.”

“Think of it as a test.”

“What?”

“Come on. It’ll be fun. I’ll go slowly. Try to keep it
together.”

I loved playing with her. And I loved that she let me.

“Okay. I’ll talk, you do that.”

“Yes!” I was as giddy as a child. “Ready, set, go!” I added
another finger.

She shook in reaction.

“I said keep it together. Show me what you got.” I teased.

“I don’t want you going back there.”

“They’re my parents. I have to see them eventually.” I
curled my fingers inside of her. Her nose twitched. Freaking adorable. “Plus,
there hasn’t been an article about me in eight weeks now. I should be safe…
from the stairs.”

“Not funny.”

“If I can joke about it, you should be able to.”

“This is serious, Teddy. Not a joke.” I quickened my pace. “A-a-and…”
her head kicked back.

“Don’t lose focus, Ash.” My thumb found her clit.

“A-a-nd…”

“You’re the one who said I needed to stand up to him.”

“Yes, but…”

“You are doing a terrible job of keeping it together! Wow,
you can’t even get out a single thought!”

“You’re not letting me think! Or talk!”

“You can talk.”

“Just… just shut up.” She was getting frantically
frustrated. I loved every second.

“Okay. I won’t talk anymore.”

And I didn’t, at least for a minute or so. Instead, I took
her nipple in my mouth, sucking hard until it peaked. Then I moved to the other
one. My tongue made its way down her belly and to the inside of her thigh.

“Why aren’t you talking?” I said between nips.

“I’m… I’m… wow, you’re mean.”

“Am I?”

I kissed around her inguinal region, allowing her to swell
with desire, as my fingers continued their momentum. I pushed harder and
faster, touching every inch of her yearning. Then I grabbed her with my tongue,
tantalizing her until completion.

“Needless to say, I think I won that argument.”

“Wow, I was pathetic!”

“You really were… I had some faith in you, but, no. That was
a complete failure.”

“And to think… I truly believed I was getting tired of you. Good
job getting my interest peaked again.” She smiled her wicked smile before
placing her lips atop mine. I pulled her tight to my chest, hoping that time
would slow and I wouldn’t have to leave.

But I knew it was time. Two months had flown by. The summer
was almost over.

It was time to face my father.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

Teddy

The lights flashed yet again, and I was sitting in a booth,
alone, at a restaurant. There were two plates in front of me: one with
blueberry pancakes and one with a waffle topped with ice cream and chocolate
syrup. The waffle was definitely Ashley’s. That was her breakfast of choice. I
knew that much, even if I didn’t know where she was. I couldn’t quite place
this memory, but something felt off. Even just watching it, I could feel a
weight on my chest. You know that strange sensation you get when you feel as
though you’ve done something wrong, something that should’ve been handled
differently?

“Guess who.”

There she was.

A pair of hands were around my eyes, blocking my view. I
grabbed them from my face, pulling them down, and turning around in the
process.

“Hey pretty lady.” I instinctively said when I saw her face.
Then came that feeling of guilt again.

She quickly kissed me before sitting down next to me. “Okay,
I have a proposition for you.” She smashed her ice cream on top of her waffle.

“You can proposition me any time you’d like.” I placed a
giant, goofy smile across my face.

“You’re a child, you know that?”

“I do.”

She shook her head before she continued. “Go home, settle
things with your father, and then come away with me.”

“Away with you?” What was she talking about?

“Yes.”

“Where?”

“I don’t know.” She started giggling out of excitement.

“What is going on?”

“Okay, I don’t want to go into too much detail just yet, but
I just got the green light on a story that I’m really, really excited about. And,
in a week from tomorrow, I have a sit down meeting with a publisher to go over
the treatment for a full length book.”

“Oh my God, Ashley, that’s amazing!”

“I know. I’m freaking out a little.”

“You should be. Come here.” I wrapped my arms around her. “I
am so proud of you.”

“Thank you.” She buried her head into my chest. “So, I’m
going to be really busy this week, but after the meeting, we need to go
somewhere. I’ll either want to celebrate a book deal, or I’ll want to run away
to wallow at my failure.”

“You could never fail.”

“I’m trying to be realistic.”

“Me too.”

I was so happy for her. For the first time in my life, I was
excited for another person’s success. In no way would this book deal benefit
me, and yet, because it made her happy, it made me happy. That was the only
benefit I needed.

It kind of freaked me out.

“So where would you like to go?”

“I was thinking…” Her cheeks blushed as she looked up at me.
“Now don’t think this is stupid…”

“Great lead in.”

“Shut up.”

“Lips are sealed.” I did that stupid lip locking thing, but
this time, it was more of an inside joke. She still gave me the same look.

“I was thinking we could just meet at the airport next
Tuesday, bags packed for anything, and then go to the first place on the
departures board. That has tickets available, of course.”

“This is a plot line from one of your movies, isn’t it?”

“No!”

“Are you lying to me?”

“It’s not! I mean, it should be; it would be perfect.”

I kissed her forehead. “It is perfect. What time should I
meet you there?”

She looked up at me with her big eyes. “Six, of course.”

“Tuesday at six it is.”

And then that knot in my chest tightened even more, and I
knew exactly why.

I had just spent over two months living with the girl of my
dreams. We slept together, we ate together, we ran together, we biked together,
we swam together, and we hiked together. We talked, we laughed, and we even
cried together. I never left her side. As I had said, it was the best summer of
my entire life. Never once had I felt that close to another human being. Never
once had I cared about someone else’s life as much as, and possibly more than,
my own.  

And that scared me more than anything. She asked me to go away
with her, and I didn’t even think before jumping on board. Who was I turning
into? Was I ready to be that guy? Was I ready to be in a serious relationship? Were
we supposed to talk about that? Was I not supposed to sleep with any other
woman? Did I even want to sleep with anyone else?

I think the fact that I asked myself those questions at all,
gave me my answer. The weight on my chest wouldn’t budge. I was about to do
something very stupid.

“Hey, where’d you go?”

“What?” I shook from my thoughts.

“One second you were here, and then you sort of
disappeared.”

“Right, yeah, sorry…” I covered. “I was just thinking about
what I’m going to say to my father.”

“Are you ready?”

“Yes. I mean, no. I have to be. But he’s not home yet, so
that at least gives me some time to think of what I’m doing.”

“Where is he?”

“My parents have been in the Hamptons the last month. They
get back tomorrow.”

“And yet you still stayed at my place the last month…
interesting.”

“I told you… I really did enjoy you taking care of me.”

“And all the sex wasn’t bad.”

“All the sex wasn’t bad at all.” I smiled at her, trying to
hide my distraction.

“Well, if they’re not home anyway, you might as well stay
with me one more night.”

She snuck her arm behind my back and around my side. How was
it so easy for her? Did she forget how we met? How our relationship began? Did
she not have fears?

“You just told me you have a treatment to work on, and I’m
pretty sure I’d be a distraction. Or, at least, I’d make myself a distraction.”

“Eh, there are six other days to work on that… one more
night won’t kill me.”

I sighed. “While I would love to take you up on that, I do
feel as though I should get home and get settled in before they return.”

“Okay.”

“Plus, I don’t want to be a bad influence on you.”

She kissed my cheek before whispering, “Life wouldn’t be
exciting without a little bad influence.”

Then she moved her hand up my leg, slowly massaging her way
up to her prize. God, this woman was amazing. I indulged in her torture for a
few seconds until the waitress came over to drop the check.

“Anything else I can get for you?”

Ashley’s phone began to ring. “Sorry, I should take this.” She
smiled at the waitress and ran toward the door.

“Sir?”

“That’s all, here you are.” I handed her my credit card and watched
her walk away.

She was pretty, with long chestnut hair and bright blue
eyes. She had a bit of weight to her, but in that curvy, sexy way. Had I not
been so enthralled with Ashley, I would’ve absolutely made some sort of
enticing compliment and seen to it that by the end of the evening, I had her in
my bed.

But the thought didn’t even cross my mind.

That is, until she handed me the receipt with her phone
number proudly written on the top.

What had I been doing? I was young, rich, and virile, with
still another year of law school looming around the corner. I couldn’t be tied
down to one woman. What would that look like? Me: Teddy, billionaire playboy,
in a serious relationship? It wasn’t my style.

This is when I began blaming her for that day on the beach. I
wasn’t ready to be the man she was trying to turn me into. I wasn’t ready to
grow up. Ashley was trying to suppress my natural tendencies. Who did she think
she was? What right did she have to do that?

But I think the actual question swirling around my head, the
one I refused to say aloud, was: when was Ashley going to realize that she was
too good for me? She had so much drive, so much potential, and so much heart. I
would only hold her back. My father’s threats, my fear of commitment, my deep-rooted
insecurities: they would only cause her to stray from her goals, her dreams. One
day she would wake up and realize that I wasn’t worth all that.

And on that day, it would break me in half.

I stared at the phone number as I ran through these ramblings
in my head. They made sense… or at least I made them make sense. I was the only
one who knew what was right for me. I would choose my own destiny.

“Sorry about that.”

“What?” I quickly folded the bill and shoved it in my
pocket.

“The phone call.” Ashley held up her phone, no doubt
confused at my awkwardness.

“Oh, right.”

“Okay… you ready to go?”

“Yeah, yeah… um, I’m going to go.”

“Yes, me too.”

Wow, I was not good at this.

“Right. Would you like a ride back to your house?”

“My car is here.”

“Perfect, so I’ll see you next week.”

“I’ll probably talk to you before then.”

“Yes, of course.”

She put her hands on my chest. “Teddy, are you okay?”

“Yeah, why?”

“Something is happening that’s… different.”

“I’m fine, Ashley. I just have a lot on my mind.”

“Okay.”  

I silently walked her to her car and kissed her on the cheek
before seeing her off. The twinge in my chest was now stronger than it had ever
been. I was about to do something unforgiveable. Earlier, I said: But I was
young, I was afraid, and I had no idea what I was experiencing. When you don’t
know what it is, love is a pretty scary thing.

That’s the only excuse I can offer for why I waited until
her car was out of view and then turned around and walked right back into that
restaurant. I grabbed the chestnut-haired waitress by the hand, told her that
her shift was over, and led her to my parked car outside of the building.