Page 6 of Her Sun-Drenched Billionaire

“You checked.”

“Last week. First time in two years.” He looked at me. “You made me check.”

The light was dropping. Everything on the deck had gone warm and heavy, the kind of evening that pressed against your skin and settled there. His eyes were dark and steady, and he was looking at me the way he’d looked at me on the rooftop that first night. Waiting.

“Nobody came looking,” he said. “That’s the part. Not the poverty, not the work. The silence. I aged out and the world kept going and nobody came looking for me.”

I put my coffee down. I crossed the space between us and put my hand flat on his chest, over his heart, and felt it pounding through his shirt. Hard and fast—the heartbeat of a man who’d just said the truest thing he’d ever said out loud.

“I would have come looking,” I said.

His hand came up. Slow, deliberate—the transition from still to reaching. He wrapped his fingers around the back of my neck and held me there, close, his thumb against my jaw.

“I know you would have,” he said.

“August,” I whispered.

4

AUGUST

She said my name, and I stopped thinking.

Her hand was still on my chest. My hand was still on the back of her neck. The valley was going dark below the deck and the last of the light caught her hair, her collarbones, and the flush that had spread down past the neckline of her shirt.

I pulled her closer, moving slowly enough that she could stop me. She didn’t stop me.

“I haven’t done this before,” she said quietly, her eyes on mine. “Any of it.”

My heart slammed against my ribs. I brushed my thumb along her jaw and felt her shiver.

“We don’t have to.”

“I know.” She turned her face into my hand. Her lips grazed my palm, and every rational thought I’d ever had left the building. “I want to.”

I took her inside. The bedroom was all glass, the valley spread out below us, the last light fading from gold to deep blue. I pressed her back against the window. Her shoulders hit the glass and she gasped—the cool surface against her warm skin, the whole city below her.

“Right here,” I said. “I want you right here.”

I kissed her then, deep and slow, tasting the nerves and the want on her tongue. She melted into it, her hands sliding up my chest to clutch my shirt as if she needed something solid to hold onto.

I turned her gently, guiding her to face the window. “Hands on the glass,” I murmured against her ear.

She obeyed, palms flattening against the cool surface with a soft exhale. The city sprawled below us, lights just beginning to flicker on as the last of the sun bled away. I pressed in close behind her, my chest to her back, and slipped one hand beneath the waistband of her skirt.

My fingers brushed over smooth skin, then lower, finding the heat of her through her cotton briefs. She was already wet—slick and warm—and the discovery pulled a low moan from my throat.

“God, you feel perfect,” I breathed, kissing the side of her neck as I stroked her slowly.

My other hand slid under her shirt, cupping her breast through the thin lace of her bra. Her nipple hardened against my palm as I teased it, rolling it gently between my fingers.

She whimpered, the sound soft and needy, her hips pressing back against me. I kept my touch deliberate, circling her clit with two fingers, then dipping lower to feel her wetness coat them.

Every gasp and shudder she gave me went straight to my cock, already straining against my pants. Her breathing grew ragged, little moans escaping with each stroke, and I could hear the faint squeak of her palms sliding on the glass as she trembled.

I didn’t rush. Even when she started rocking against my hand, chasing the pleasure, I kept the rhythm steady, learning exactly what made her breath hitch and her thighs shake. “That’sit,” I whispered when her moans turned sharper, higher. “Let go for me.”

She came with a broken cry of my name, her whole body tightening, pulsing around my fingers as her forehead dropped against the glass. The sound of it—raw, surprised, utterly hers—nearly undid me.