Just Friends: A Summer Fling With A Billionaire Heir

by Cynthia Dane

  “No, I’m being too hard on you.” Rachel hovered, her wispy ponytail blowing in the slight breeze overtaking the dock and lake. Zack parted his fingers so he could catch a glimpse of her illuminated face. “I’m sorry. You’ve done a lot of nice things for me and I keep throwing them back in your face.”

  “A little, yeah.” Zack flung one hand over the side of the dock. A mosquito came close, but he waved it away. “I don’t mind, though. I’d rather you throw my nice stuff back in my face than point out every one of my flaws like I don’t know them.”

  “Yeah, right. Like you know of all your flaws.”

  “You think I don’t?”

  “It’s impossible to know all of your own flaws. Some are impossible to see from your own point of view.”

  “All right.” Zack pulled his knees up, feet flat on the dock again. “So what’s one of my biggest flaws you don’t think I know about?”

  “This is a trap. You don’t really want to know.”

  Damn, she’s already thought of something? From the woman who has only known me for a couple of weeks? They certainly were moving quickly. “Now I have to know.”

  “Do you?”

  “Yes.”

  Rachel gave him a contemplative look. Let me have it, Rachel Taylor. Fuck me up with the truth.

  “You don’t understand how good you’ve got it.”

  “Come again?”

  “I could say that your biggest flaw is that you don’t know what it’s like to be poor, to be financially insecure, stuff like that… but that’s easy. You seem like the kind of rich boy who understands that to a point.” Rachel sat on her legs, hands in her lap. “But what you’ll never understand is how much other people would kill to be you. Regardless of what downsides there are to being who you are, who your family is, and the kind of shit that uniquely comes with being a billionaire heir, you’ll never, ever understand what drives someone to become like you.”

  “Wow.” Zack snorted. “That’s pretty deep.” She wasn’t wrong, either. Zack wasn’t pompous enough to suggest that he knew what it was like to be poor. He also didn’t know what it was like to go from being poor to rich overnight or over a lifetime. God willing, he would never have to know either of those things.

  “All right.” Rachel looked away. “My turn.”

  Zack claimed to not have heard her.

  “I said it’s my turn. What’s my biggest flaw that I don’t realize?”

  “We’ve already covered that you barely know how to chill and are probably going to waste your youth with this whole work thing…” Zack grinned. “Nah. I know what a dangerous game this is. I’m not about to tell a woman her fatal flaw.”

  Rachel furrowed her beautiful brown brows. “Do it. Give me the hard truth, Zack.”

  “You don’t want the truth.”

  “I think the phrase is You can’t handle the truth.”

  “That too.” Zack propped himself up on his elbows. “You really wanna know what I think your biggest flaw is?”

  “Yes.”

  “You promise not to freak out at me?”

  “I won’t. Even if I disagree with you.”

  “All right.” Even so, Zack braced himself. “Your flaw is that you will never know how much you’re worth.”

  Rachel didn’t respond. If anything, her silent response sounded more than a single word she could say.

  “You’ve been colored by shitty life experiences. Apparently people, especially men, have made you feel like you’re not good enough, pretty enough, smart enough, whatever. You don’t have to tell me that your self-esteem was shattered back in college. Now you have to take care of your mom? It’s a lot to ask. Surviving that kind of stress requires you to…”

  Zack didn’t have a chance to fully explain himself. Not when Rachel pounced on him, her face coming dangerously close to his.

  For a man who had kissed countless women before, he was forever amazed by the kind of punches Rachel packed.

  He was also in shock. Because one of the last things he expected from this quick getaway was Rachel Taylor kissing him like he had dreamed of kissing her more than once.

  Was she as pent up as he was? Was she willing to go back on her vow of celibacy? Does kissing count toward breaking that vow? Or was it only sex? Rachel had made sure Zack understood that boundary a few days ago. Absolutely no sex. Making out in the lobby of her apartment building was as far as it went, and they weren’t going to talk about it afterward.

  This whole “friendship” started because I asked her out.

  If Zack needed any convincing that Rachel was into him too, he now had it. He also now understood her hesitancy to make love with him. People – men – had hurt her. She was under a lot of stress and using casual sex as an outlet. Somewhere along the way she decided that was harmful to her psyche and growth as a person. So, celibacy. For a whole summer.

  Yet she was kissing Zack? With tongue?

  Like hell he’d let her do all the work. It took two to kiss well.

  Zack wasn’t going to stop it. If Rachel wanted to kiss him? Fine! He’d kiss her back! He’d show her how much beautiful worth she had, and he said this as a man who had only known her for a fortnight.

  It felt like years. Those two kisses they had shared so far screamed that they had a bond so old it would never be matched by anyone else in the world. A scary thought, since Rachel had never seemed that interested in him.

  Until now. When she straddled his waist and bent down to kiss him some more.

  Chapter 16

  There they were, Zack flat on his back on an open, wooden dock, and Rachel straddling the breadth of his body so she could kiss him with both hands on his face. Zack’s fingers slowly untangled and were drawn into her silky hair.

  Wow. That was the only thought he allowed himself while sensually kissing Rachel’s lips. Just… fucking wow. This wasn’t the intense first kiss they shared after the night at the movie in the park. This was the slow kind of kiss that was nothing but them exploring each other and testing uncharted waters.

  Which also meant they had a lot of time to change their minds.

  “Shit.” Rachel sat up, pushing her ponytail back behind her shoulders. “What the fuck am I doing?”

  “Yup. That was all you.” Zack dropped his hands to his side. Birds squawked overhead. His phone buzzed with a text from God knew who. Rachel’s breath rattled in her chest as she closed her eyes and acted as if she had traveled a thousand miles away.

  They were utterly alone. Yet Zack felt like they were exposed to every eye in the world.

  “What the fuck am I doing?”

  “Dunno.” Zack’s eyes wandered to her chest, because he couldn’t help himself. She has got a nice… Oh, like he had never looked at it before. Stared at it. Ogled it. Rachel’s chest was one of the focal points of her whole body. She carried her breasts well. As a man who had his face in plenty of fake and natural breasts, he knew that one did not mean better than other. Some natural breasts were beyond proportional to a woman’s body. Some fake ones accentuated her in ways she could never achieve otherwise. Either way, I’m a fan. Rachel looked like the best of both worlds: proportional with all the sensation maintained. “What are you doing?”

  “Kissing you.”

  “Not right now you aren’t.”

  “No, but…” Rachel hopped off him. So neither of us are going to mention how that got me half-hard? She probably hadn’t noticed – but Zack sure had. “Shit.”

  “Yeah. Shit.”

  Rachel curled her hands into a tight fist and bit her lip. “God damnit! Why does it have to feel so either or?”

  Zack rolled onto his side and propped his head up on his hand. “You’re the one making it either or. You’re the one who has kissed me, twice.”

  “You kissed me first.”

  “True. Because I like you. I’m not shy or ashamed to admit that I asked you out because I was attracted to you. But I admit I’ve never had a relationship go this way before.�
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  She snorted. “We could never be a real couple.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because…”

  “Reasons in your head?”

  “Sure.”

  “I’m willing to wait for you, but you’ll torture me the whole time.”

  “Wait for me to what?” She shot him a heated look. Damn, that’s scalding hot. Zack was getting more and more turned on now that his body decided it was aroused. “To fuck you?”

  “When you put it that way…”

  “That’s not something we could ever come back from.”

  “This is true. And you’ve made that vow to yourself. You should keep it.”

  “Don’t make fun of me, please.”

  “I’m not.” Rachel stood up and looked toward the lake house. “I’m gonna go inside and use the bathroom. The security system isn’t going to chew me out, is it?”

  “No. I turned it off with my phone when we reached the gate.”

  “Good.” Rachel took off as if she couldn’t wait to get away from him.

  Zack followed, but by the time he reached the porch Rachel was probably already in the bathroom. He gave the framework a once-over, determined to put thoughts of wooing and romancing Rachel out of his mind again.

  Even though they had this whole place to themselves.

  Even though they clearly wanted one another.

  Even though Rachel stood in the living room, her sweater off and her eyes glistening in the kind of determination that scared most men – including Zack.

  Whelp. I’m done getting hard now. Thanks, Rachel.

  He laughed to think it. But he wasn’t laughing when Rachel ran to him, flung her arms around him, and hopped up into his embrace – her lips on his.

  There it was. The passion from the other night. A woman giving in and going back on her vow to herself.

  Zack was too weak to take a stand and tell her no, for her sake. The only thing he knew how to take was Rachel. To the nearest bedroom.

  There were two on the bottom floor, one with an on-suite and the other, smaller bedroom holding two twin beds instead of one king-sized bed. I used to sleep in there with one of my cousins when the family came here for the summer. He also had one of his first sexual experiences in that room when his parents threw a Fourth of July party and invited a bunch of upper management men and their families to a catered barbecue. First time a girl ever rode me like the pony she always wanted. He had been sixteen. His poor cousin, who walked in on them as Zack was about to finish, was a tender fourteen and barely starting puberty. It started that day, that’s for sure.

  Zack bypassed that room even though it was closer and he wanted to seal this deal right now. Rachel deserved better than a twin bed and the memories of a randy teenager hooking up with a corporate vice president’s oldest daughter.

  He kicked open the bedroom adjacent to the wildflower garden in the backyard. With sunflowers, irises, and blooming dandelions peeking at them through the sheer white curtains, Zack dropped Rachel onto the freshly made bed and held back from eating her alive.

  “Kiss me,” she gasped, clawing at the soft cotton of his T-shirt.

  “My pleasure, Ms. Taylor.”

  He may have been several years removed from that clueless boy in the room next door, but every time he kissed Rachel it was like experiencing it for the first time again.

  At first, he worried that she would gather her bearings in the middle of kissing him and push him away, intent on leaving – or at least demanding that he take her home. Then, as if the cosmos sensed how worried he was, Rachel wrapped her legs around his waist and enticed him to have at her.

  There was a lot she didn’t understand about him yet. Like how being given that kind of permission was like opening up the Feldman floodgate.

  Zack couldn’t just thrust between her legs without going at her with all the strength he had. And he sure as hell couldn’t just feel her up through her clothes without trying to yank half of them off. After all, what good was all this power thrusting if their clothes were on? I know I have a condom in my wallet. Right? Oh my fucking God, I swear if I don’t…

  With a deep, guttural grunt, Rachel eased him off her and onto his back again. But the bed was a thousand times more comfortable than a wooden dock jutting out into the lake. If Rachel wanted to get on top of him, she was more than welcomed to. Under the pretense that he was most definitely, finally going to grab those breasts, of course.

  Assuming she didn’t rip his shirt off first.

  Zack would’ve helped if she only asked. Or if he had the idea first. But there was something delightfully erotic about Rachel fumbling with the hem of his T-shirt and cursing butterfingers when she couldn’t keep a grip on it. Zack had to pull his own shirt over his head and throw it onto the other side of the bed to get them going again.

  “Oh my God.” Rachel slapped her hands against his bare chest. “Look at you! What the fuck!”

  His eyes widened. “Problem?” Like the fact they weren’t kissing?

  “You’re fucking hot!”

  He grinned, choosing to take the compliment instead of interrupting their tryst to ask her why she felt the need to say that. “You ain’t so bad yourself. I mean…” He thrust upward, knocking her forward, both hands landing on either side of his head. Her surprised visage was only intensified when the erection in his jeans rubbed between her thighs. “You’ve already got one massive fan.”

  Rachel scurried to rip off her shirt. Her marvelously simplistic black bra drew Zack’s eyes right back where they belonged.

  “You want me?” Rachel lowered her nose to his. “You wanna fuck me?”

  Is she a Top or something? Because I can dig it. “God, yes.”

  Rachel nipped his bottom lip, making him think he was going to get another kiss to knock him unconscious. Instead, she diverted her mouth to his chest, kissing a heavy trail between his nipples and down the fine lines of his abs. The closer she got to his zipper, the more Zack appreciated the urgency of what they were about to do. The fact that Rachel was the one so gung-ho about it, let alone the one initiating it, took a great load off his mind.

  “How badly do you wanna fuck me, Zack?”

  His eyes had fluttered shut by now. Words? There were words falling from those hedonistic lips that insisted on teasing his skin and taking him to another sweet plane of pleasure and existence? Damn those kinds of words. He wanted to go for it! “Badly.”

  She grabbed his erection through his jeans, face coming back up to his while he groaned from the intensity of her grip. Fucking hell! This was ridiculous! What kind of woman had he entangled himself with? I think she’s the one who is going to do all of the devouring. Something was in the air in this lakeside cabin.

  “Shit, you’re big.”

  “Thanks?” Zack regained enough control of his hands to free her hair from its loose ponytail. Brown hair fell over her shoulder and tickled his naked chest. It only served to give her a fiercer countenance as she came for his mouth again.

  Only this time she shoved her hand down his jeans and gave him the squeeze of his life.

  “Fuck!”

  “You wanna fuck me, but…” Zack didn’t know where this side of her came from. Oh, he had always sensed the feisty side of her, the one begging him to acknowledge and ask for her presence in all areas of his life, but this was beyond. If he weren’t so attracted to it, he might be frightened. “I think you want me to suck your cock more.”

  His eyes snapped open. “That so, huh?” He certainly wasn’t opposed.

  Her eyes, in turn, burned in that same determination that brought them into this bedroom. “You gonna tell me otherwise?”

  “Rachel, I’m not going to tell you anything right now.” He grinned. “Other than that I want to fuck you.”

  She yanked his jeans open and pulled out his hardened cock. She’s no wilting virgin, is she? Whatever she usually felt in bed, she was confident, bold, and greedy with Zack. So happened those were thr
ee of his favorite traits in a woman expressing her sexuality. But he had to admit, it was unexpected of her.

  Unexpected, but very, very welcomed.

  Rachel continued to grip him, her hand slowly moving up and down until she was stroking his cock into further arousal. Great. I’m gonna come at this rate. A woman he had been wanting for weeks? A peek at her cleavage? Kisses that made him see Heaven? And the kind of attitude that would have made him hard if he weren’t already? He was already on the verge!

  “Tell me to suck your cock.”

  Whoa. Zack snapped out of his fantasy and looked gazes with her. “Thought you had already made up your mind about it.”

  “Maybe I want to hear you say it.”

  So she was actually like that in the end, huh? “Suck my cock, Rachel Taylor.”

  She bestowed upon him a sinister smile before lowering her mouth to his skin again.

  This time the slow descent down his chest and to his cock was beyond maddening.

  But Zack wasn’t allowed to simply lay back and take it. Rachel telling him to tell her to give him oral sex was purely about absolving her of the consequences of her decisions. It took power out of her hands and placed it into his. If this went to hell, they could blame it on him.

  Zack wasn’t in the right frame of mind to refute that.

  And he was definitely not in the right frame of mind when her lips discovered the firm shaft of his cock.

  “Oh, fuck.” She slipped her whole mouth over his length.

  Rachel proved that she was no stranger to a man’s member the same way Zack proved he was completely new to it being this good. Oh, he had great blowjobs before. A man like him? With as many partners as he had over the years? And being the type of guy who could command the attention of the most beautiful, the most “talented” women in the world? He had great, awesome, fantastic fellatio. Women who could convince him to go back to church had put their mouths on his dick before.