The Billionaire's Redemption (The Billionaire's Kiss, Book Five): (A Billionaire Alpha Romance) (3 page)

“Then why did you tell me about it?!” I ask, angry as hell.  

“So you’d stop thinking about dying!”

Oh.

Well, mission accomplished, then.

We never used my parachute, but Grant’s is sprawled out in the water like the remains of some giant jellyfish.

“We’ve got to hide this, or it’ll be a dead giveaway when they start looking for us,” Grant says.

We drag the parachute silk in from the water, which is like pulling in a giant net full of fish. The drag on the silk from the water is insane.

Once we have it in hand, Grant balls it into a giant, sopping wet bundle and carries it with us up the shore.

I look around us. There are huge cliffs rising from the water off to the right. The beach is sparsely developed, with only a half-dozen houses here and there, each a couple hundred feet from the beach. Everything is dark in the pre-dawn hush, lit only by the moon.

“What are we going to do?” I ask, clutching my wet body and shivering from the cold.

“Reconnaissance,” Grant answers, setting the parachute down next to me on the sand. Then he pulls off the backpack, unzips it, and pulls out his leather case of lock picks. “Stay here.”

“Where are you going?!” I ask, alarmed.

“To find an empty house.”

He runs up the shore, into the rocks that border the sand.

I have nothing else to do, so I look inside the backpack. The money is soaked, but 45 grand spends just as well wet or dry. I know it’s not local currency, which is a problem if we need to buy food or get a cab, but that’s a bridge we can cross when we come to it.

I’m sure the computer is toast. So is the cell phone, not that we could have used it. The passport and credit cards are worthless by default, since using them would trigger an online alert. I doubt the rest – the metal tools, the putty, the switchblade – was affected by the saltwater one way or the other.

Yay.

I stand there, chilled to the bone and miserable, speculating on all the terrible choices that led me here: cold and wet on a foreign beach, an international fugitive hunted by both the authorities and a serial killer.

I remember some of the things that had run through my head when Grant hired me a thousand years ago, just this past Monday morning:

You would think that telling a girl that Hannibal Lecter is in the mix would scare her away.

If I were smarter, it probably would.

But I’m not smart like that. Just book/computer code/programming smart.

Not ‘avoid the possible homicidal maniac job at all costs’ smart.

This might just be the coolest internet security job I’ve ever had.

Five times the money…

Danger…

A Hannibal Lecter type in the mix…

And quite possibly more of the best sex I’ve ever had in my life.

Idiot, idiot, IDIOT.

When you lead a quiet, boring life, danger seems exotic and exciting and fun.

Then, when you actually experience the danger, you realize you were absolutely insane to want it, and that you’d do just about anything to go back to your nice, quiet, boring life.

Do just about anything.

That was the question: WOULD I do just about anything?

If somebody offered me a ‘Get Out Of Jail Free’ card right now – if I knew for a certainty that Epicurus would never come after me again, and that the authorities would pretend I had never run afoul of the law – if I could walk away from Grant without any repercussions, and never look back – would I?

…no.

No, I wouldn’t.

Last night in the New York brownstone we broke into, I was scared as hell that maybe I was falling in love with Grant, and maybe that was why I was sticking by his side.

This moment right now – standing here, wet, cold, hunted, and in danger, yet refusing to leave him – this just confirms that fear even more.

And it terrifies me.

I can’t fall in love with him.

I
won’t
fall in love with him.

He doesn’t love
me.
How can he? We’ve known each other less than a week.

All I am to him is hot sex. That, and a computer hacker who’s helping him evade death.

He
cares
about me, sure. He wants me safe. But that just shows he’s a good human being, not that he loves me.

He’ll leave me when this is all over.

I can’t fall for this man. I
can’t.
I have to protect myself.

I have to protect my heart.

I start to cry silently. Hot tears run down my face.

It’s really fucked up that I’ve been hunted by a killer, jumped out of both a skyscraper
and
an airplane, and forced to flee my own country, but the thing that’s got me most upset is a
man.

A man I’m falling in love with, and I can’t deny it anymore.

I look out at the ocean, wondering if the jet plane has gone in the Channel yet. I can’t see the lights anymore, and it’s been at least ten minutes since we landed in the water. It
has
to have crashed by now.

Just like YOU’RE going to crash, if you’re not careful.

I hope that Mike made it out in one piece.

Just like I hope that
I
make it out in one piece.

From Epicurus…

From the authorities…

From Grant Carlson.

“Hey!” a voice whispers, and I about jump out of my skin.

I turn around and see Grant in the darkness, looking like an excited little boy.

“I found an empty one,” he says.

The beach house is a snap for Grant. No alarm, just a deadbolt. Within 45 seconds we’re inside.

It’s deserted. There is evidence of a family – pictures on the walls of smiling parents with three small children – but the house feels vacant. There is a chill everywhere: the cold, damp staleness of salty air bottled up for weeks on end.

Grant leads me to a laundry room off the kitchen and snaps on the light. “We have to hurry,” he says as dumps the parachute on the linoleum floor. “A shower to warm up, then we need to hit the road.”

“In what? There’s no car.”

“There’s an old Mercedes a quarter mile away that I can definitely hotwire. I’d like to be a couple hundred miles from here when the owner gets up and reports it stolen.”

“What about our clothes? They’re sopping wet.”

He points to the dryer. “
Voilà.”

I arch an eyebrow. “You’re going to put your $5,000 suit in a regular dryer?”

 “We’re on the run from the police and a serial killer, we just parachuted out of an airplane into the English Channel – ”

“Okay, okay,” I interrupt. I get it: what I just said was thoroughly ridiculous. We have problems ten thousand times worse than him ruining an Armani jacket and pants.

“Besides, I don’t have a lot of options at the moment. I already checked out the clothes of the guy who owns the place, and he’s about a foot shorter than me and skinny as a rail. But
you’re
welcome to inspect the lady of the house’s wardrobe, if you want.”

That feels…
weird
, for some reason. Which is funny, considering that breaking into other people’s houses has become a daily habit for me now.

“No, my stuff isn’t worth nearly as much as yours. It’ll be just fine.”

“Okay, then – strip.”

“What?”

He takes off his wet jacket and starts unbuttoning his shirt. “Give me your clothes. I need to put them in the dryer.”

I stand there, taken aback and a little shy. All that moping out on the beach about how I can’t fall in love with this guy, and here I am getting naked with him again.

To escape the police,
I remind myself.

But it’s hard to remember that as I watch the shirt come off of his gorgeous, sculpted chest, revealing his rock-hard abs and bulging biceps.

He grins. “I realize you’re enjoying the show, Eve, but we need to hustle.”

I blush a little, and begin unbuttoning my blouse.

But I can’t stop watching him.

He pulls off his shoes, peels off his wet socks, then shucks off his pants and pulls down his boxers so he’s standing there naked.

God, he takes my breath away.

Those muscles in his legs… the way his abs curve down to the hair below his navel…

His cock, soft but thick and full as it dangles and sways with every movement he makes…

“Don’t judge,” he says in a playful voice.

“…judge?” I say, awakened as though from a trance. I realize I don’t even have my blouse halfway unbuttoned yet.

“Shrinkage. That water was
cold.
”

Funny… everything looks extra-large as always…

“Come on, come on,” he urges as he stuffs his clothes in the dryer.

I hurriedly undo my blouse, pull off my skirt, and hand them both over.

He stuffs them in the dryer, then waits. “Well?”

I realize I’ve forgotten to give him my underwear, too.

I blush, then reach behind me and unhook my bra.

He watches, transfixed, as it comes away from my chest.

I
can immediately see he’s been affected. His cock is getting longer… thicker… and it starts to rise, heartbeat by heartbeat.

By the time I peel off my panties, he’s almost fully erect.

“Doesn’t look like any shrinkage to me,” I say.

He laughs, throws my stuff in the dryer, and hits the Start button. Then he grabs my hand and pulls me out of the laundry room.

The fact that we’re naked, walking through a strange, darkened house, only adds to the excitement.

Part of me hates that my life is such a mess, yet the sight of his naked body can make me forget all that.

But part of me loves it, too. That’s the part that focuses on his astoundingly great ass as he leads me through the darkened hallway.

I’m shivering as we step into the tiled bathroom. There’s a glass-encased shower across from the sink. Grant leans inside, turns the water on full blast, then steps back out. He wraps me in his arms, his naked body against mine, as we wait for the water to heat up.

His skin is warmer than mine, and feels good… though there’s a part of his body that’s
particularly
warm as it presses against my belly.

I’m starting to get wet, and I don’t mean from the English Channel. Or the shower.

“We’re showering together?” I ask drily.

“Conservation is a virtue.”

“I doubt they have a water shortage here.”

“Might as well get warm at the same time.”

“Yeah, I’m sure that’s the only thing you had in mind.”

“I love that you can’t get enough of me,” he chides me playfully, “but we really need to get out of here before the police track us down.”

Cocky asshole.

“Your mouth says one thing, but
other
parts of you say differently,” I say.

He grins. “Hey, you’re a hot, naked woman. I can’t help if I react.”

“I can put a towel on,” I offer facetiously, and start to pull away.

“No need for that,” he says, and pulls me into the shower under the hot water.

Oh God, it’s better than an orgasm.

Well… better than a regular, garden-variety, non-Grant-Carlson orgasm, anyway.

It’s just warm enough to not burn my skin, but hot enough to make me shudder with delight. Grant lets me go first, and I put my head under the jet of water and soak my hair until every last bit of cold is washed away. Then I step aside and let him in.

As he douses his head and scrubs his hair free of the Channel’s saltwater, I watch the rivulets cascading down his muscular back… his flexing shoulders… his perfect ass…

His cock standing out straight from his body, rigid and hard and thick…

Fuuuuuuuck.

He catches me looking as he steps aside. “Hey, my eyes are up
here.
”

“Ha ha,” I say, and step back into the hot water. For a second, all thoughts of his perfect body are obliterated by the deliciously hot water.

For a second.

Then I feel his arms reach around me, and his hands cup my breasts.

“Hey – !” I yelp.

“Relax, Ms. Jumpy,” he says as his soapy hands run over my skin, across my erect nipples.

“I thought we
really
need to get out of here before the police track us down.”

“Just making sure the important parts are clean.”

“I think they’re clean.”

“No, they need extra special attention.”

One of his hands slips down between my legs and begins to soap me up down there.

Not only are his fingers caressing my strip of hair, they’re brushing against my lips…

…the hood of my clit…

UnnnnHHHHH.

I can feel his cock, slippery yet hard, sliding across my ass.

I can’t help myself. I reach behind me and touch it, encircle it with my fingers, run my hand slowly up and down its length.

He begins to kiss my neck. I close my eyes, transported by the heat and the sensual feel of his wet skin on mine, his hands on me, his hardness pressed against my body.

“But the cops…” I murmur.

“They think we went down with the plane miles from here.”

“…this is crazy…”

“Maybe. But it could be the last chance we have for awhile.”

His lips are nibbling my earlobe.

His finger is very deliberately stroking my clit, soft and hot and soapy.

“…we could get caught…”

“Which makes it kind of hotter, doesn’t it?” he whispers in my ear.

“…we should go…”

“The clothes still have to dry.”

Couldn’t argue with that, though I still tried. “…Grant…”

“We’ll make it a quickie.”

Fuck it.

I’m in.

I turn around to face him, and he kisses me on the mouth, deep and insistent. I keep caressing his cock, feeling it swollen in my grip, his skin so tight he feels like he might burst.

He grabs one of my legs, hoists it up in the air, and pins it against his side. With his other hand he takes his shaft and directs it directly between my legs so the head starts to caress my lips. His tip is wet, not only with water but with pre-cum, and he slides it
soooo
sensually across my clit that bursts of pleasure shoot up my spine and down through my legs. He does it several times, and every time I moan and shudder with pleasure.