Later, when they’d exhausted each other, she threw her dress back on and let him lead her through the villa. The one level house had large, light, airy rooms and Isa padded around in her bare feet, taking in every detail. In the living room, the book-lined walls, the simple decor, the huge white squashy sofas, the table crafted from driftwood – it was so simple, yet the place radiated old money, luxury. Over the fireplace – the incongruous fireplace considering the heat – hung her painting, the one Sam had bought the night they met. She studied it for a few moments and turned to him, her eyes shining.
Sam smiled. ‘It traveled with us.’
Isa grinned, reaching up to kiss him. ‘This is your place, right? Not a clients. It’s yours, the house?’
Sam hesitated for a moment then smiled sheepishly. ‘The island.’
Isa rocked back. ‘Holy fuck balls…’ She gazed up at Sam, and a small curl of unease started to wind through her. ‘Sam…who the fuck owns an island?’
She had never felt out of her depth with him before; she knew he was wealthy, of course, but a freaking island?
Sam put his arms around her. ‘It was my dad’s. He left it to me and Cal. Really, we should sell it, but I couldn’t bear to. My mom loved it here. Before she died, we used to have every vacation here. Don’t be freaked out.’
Isa put her palms flat against his bare chest and blew out her cheeks. ‘It’s a lot, though, Sam.’
‘I know. But Isa… it’s just money. What means the most to me, is that I’ve only ever been here with people I love, with women I love. You, and my mom. That means something so bone deep for me I can’t even begin to…’
She stopped him with a fierce kiss, tears glistening in her eyes. ‘Thank you. Thank you for saying that.’
The kiss went on longer than she’d intended and she had to break it off to catch her breath. She pulled away from him with a smile, went to the French windows and pushed them open. A wave of jasmine-scented air swept over her hot skin, and she breathed in the scent of the ocean, only a few yards down the beach.
‘I think I’m having an out-of-body experience.’ She felt him come up behind her, press his body against her, his arms curving around her waist. She pressed herself back into him, felt the hot length of his erection through his pants. Sam pressed his lips to her shoulder, one hand splayed across her belly, the other under her skirt, sliding into her panties.
‘I want an in-your-body experience. You’re still wet,’ he murmured, and she laughed softly, her breath hitching as he began to stroke her clit.
‘You are a machine, Samuel,’ but she pressed her ass back into his erection as he caressed her. She could feel his fingers, the beautiful soft pads of them sweeping along her cleft, the mixture of his semen and her arousal making it slick and soft. Sam turned her so he could look into her eyes as he touched her.
‘Fuck, do you even know how beautiful you are?’ He whispered, his eyes taking on that intense, almost dangerous look. Her pulse quickened, her stomach disappearing with desire, Isa ground her mouth onto his. Sam tugged her up into his arms and moved to the bedroom, dropping her onto the bed and covering her body with his, his movement’s rough, commanding. He pinned her hands above her head, pushing her legs apart with his knee.
‘You’re mine, Isabel, and I’m going to fuck that knowledge into you so hard, you won’t have any doubts…’ His cock, thick and long, plunged deep inside her and she screamed with joy at the feel of it, moving her hips so he could ram into her as deep as possible. She felt the wide crest of it brush unrelentingly against the sensitive nerves deep inside her, making her head spin, her sensibilities go wild and her limbs liquefy.
As she neared the peak, he suddenly stopped, pulled away so only an inch of his cock remained in her. Isa screamed in frustration as Sam grinned wickedly… waiting, waiting. Then with one brutal thrust, he slammed into her so hard the bed moved. Isa felt the hot rush of her orgasm flood through her, over him, her whole body vibrating with uncontrollable pleasure. The next moment as Sam came, her sex was filled with his semen, throbbing from him in warm spurts. His eyes were soft now, full of love, full of her. He released her hands, and she slid them either side of his face, feeling the soft skin, sweeping her thumbs over the fine angles of his cheeks. Sam brushed her lips gently with his.
‘Tell me you’re mine, my Isabel…’ His voice was a caress, a whisper, a soft breeze from the warm ocean outside. She kissed him fiercely.
‘Forever, Sam, I’m yours…’
Even the evenings were sexy as hell here, she thought as she sat on the sand outside the villa, listening to the waves crashing onto the beach. The air was warm, but a cool breeze glided over her hot skin. Isa pulled her knees up to her chest, rested her head on them. She was tired and pleasantly sore from making love. Sam was in the kitchen, and Isa realized just how hungry she was as the smell of delicious food drifted through the villa. She clambered to her feet and followed the smell. As she got closer to the kitchen, she could hear Sam talking. She leaned against the doorway and watched him. God, he was so freaking hot, bare-chested, huge muscled arms, the pecs with the flat discs of his nipples, the wide chest sloping down to the hips, slim but not skinny. He had his jeans on, but she could see the outline of his incredible cock, big even when at rest. That’s all mine, she thought smugly, a smile playing around her lips. Sam saw her and grinned, his cell phone to his ear. His grin grew wider as he watched her watching him, her eyes raking up and down his body, obviously enjoying her admiration. He finished the call and turned off his cell, waving it at her.
‘Last business call, I promise.’
She didn’t answer but went to him, pressing her lips to his. ‘Something smells delicious.’
Sam grinned. ‘Me or the food?’
Isa chuckled. ‘Both. I’m famished, actually.’ She looked around at what he had prepared. Two fillet steaks with a green salad sat on the counter, a bowl of fruit salad, fresh plump peaches, strawberries, mango, and raspberries. She almost moaned at the sight of it. Sam laughed, grabbing a serving tray and whisking the plates on it.
‘Let’s eat outside on the veranda.’
She helped him light the tealights on the table, and they sat, enjoying the evening as they ate. The steak was juicy and tender, the salad crisp and fresh. They ate with enjoyment, Sam grinning at the moans of delight coming from Isa.
‘I am actually in heaven,’ she said later as she sat back, her hand over her full belly. ‘Right here, right now. You, sex, food, this island, this evening. This is my idea of heaven.’
He leaned over to kiss her, tasting of peaches. ‘You are my heaven.’
She grinned, her lips curving up against his. ‘If you’re trying to seduce me… it worked. I just need an hour or so to recover from this feast.’
He laughed, sliding his big hand over her belly. ‘Same here. I do have another surprise for you, though.’
Her eyebrows shot up. ‘Oh yes?’
Sam smiled, handing her glass of wine to her. ‘Finish your wine, and I’ll show you.’
An hour later he led her by the hand a room at the far end of the villa. The first thing she saw was the outside wall was entirely glass, sliding doors that opened up onto the beach, like the living room. Although it was dark now, turning the view to inky blackness, she could see that in the day, the sun would flood this room with light. Sam was turning on lamps around the room, and now she could see a long work bench, easels, canvases, pads of heavy artist paper, paint palettes. Her mouth fell open slightly and a lump formed in her chest. Sam watched as she walked around the room, touching everything lightly. Isa ran her fingers over unused half pans of watercolor paint, thick, round, rich, soft pastels in every color, tubes of oil paint, acrylics. She turned to look at him.
‘I don’t know what to say, Sam, this is just…’ She looked around again. ‘Willy Wonka’s Artist Factory.’
She grinned as he laughed at that, and went to him. ‘Thank you so much. This really is my heaven.’
/> He smiled down at her, brushed his lips against hers. ‘You’re welcome. You haven’t painted much lately – not that I blame you. I thought you could take some time out, do some work. If you feel like it, that is.’
She stared up at this gorgeous man she loved so much, wonder at his thoughtfulness, his huge heart. How had she been so lucky to meet a man like this? Someone who had brought her back to life, championed her, protected her? She wasn’t joking when she said it was a dream. Here, on this island, just the two of them, she could forget about stalkers and jealous artists and absent parents and death threats and lost babies. That last thought caught in her chest. Sam’s baby. She felt her eyes fill with tears again and turned from him so he wouldn’t see them. She walked over to an armoire at the far end and picked up a sketch book which looked older than the rest. She flipped through it to find pencil sketches, beautiful drawings most of a young boy, asleep, reading, playing, and laughing. Isa’s heart began to thump as she studied the boy’s features, soft with youth but so, so familiar.
Sam…
‘It was my mom’s. She used to come here and sketch for hours, sitting out on the beach.’
‘You never told me your mother was an artist.’
Sam smiled ruefully. ‘I know. Just another thing we have to discover about each other. I’ll tell you anything you want to know, sweetheart. This is it for me, forever. There’s nothing I want to hide from you.’
Isa said nothing for a moment. ‘Nothing?’
Sam shook his head. ‘Open book. You?’
She smiled then. ‘Me too. I will warn you… you’ll be bored when you find out about my life before you.’ She walked over to kiss him. ‘I can’t believe I had a life before you.’
Sam’s arms tightened around her. ‘I’ll never get bored.’ He picked her up in a fireman’s lift and carried her, shrieking with laughter, back to bed.
He had taken his time, sought out the one he was looking for. He scoured the places the hookers hung out at first, searched their faces, their mannerisms, the way they moved, to find anyone who reminded him of Isabel. After a few days, he gave up, frustrated, hid out for a few days with a bottle of bourbon, regrouped, and reassessed his plan.
The fact was that he just needed someone who looked like her – resembled Isa to such a degree, they’d be in no doubt, when they found her, that it was meant to be her. He started to scout the nightclubs, the bars, the college campuses.
He found her working at a gas-n-sip off the I5. It was a risk, of course, but he’d gone back when it was quiet with a baseball cap pulled down over his face, in a van he’d jacked from a side street in the business district. He’d flirted the first time, and when he went back, the excited smile she gave him told him this was going to be easy.
He took her as she stepped out back for a smoke. She struggled for a moment as he clamped his hand over her mouth and pulled her into the van. His punch to the side of her head knocked her cold. He tied her up and drove off, pulling into the parking lot of an abandoned motel thirty minutes later. He’d keep her here, alive, until they came back to the island and then he would give them a horror show they could never have imagined.
Isa balanced her chin on Sam’s shoulder, glancing at the laptop he was working on. ‘I thought we said no work?’
Sam turned his head to kiss her. ‘Just while you’re painting, I promise.’ He pulled her onto his lap and kissed her more thoroughly. ‘How’s it going?’
She held up paint-daubed fingers. ‘Good. I’d started to forget how blissful it was to just paint and forget everything else.’
Sam grinned. ‘So why’d you stop?’
‘Food.’
He chuckled. ‘Oh, of course.’
He followed her into the kitchen, admiring the sway of her denim skirt covered hips, the golden skin of her legs and bare feet. She wore an oversized white shirt, opened to reveal a white bikini that could barely contain her honey-ripe breasts. There were smears of paint across her bare stomach and streaked through the messy bun of her hair. Sam felt his groin tighten as he watched her flit around the kitchen, pulling together some food for them. She glanced up at him to catch his admiring appraisal and grinned.
‘What are you hungry for, Mister?’
Sam reached for her, but she skipped out of his way, giggling. ‘You are truly insatiable, Mr. Levy.’
He started to protest, but she pulled a chunk of bread off and stuffed it in his mouth. ‘Eat,’ she said, mock-seriously, ‘eat then fuck. That’s what us posh people do.’
‘You have the cutest little potty-mouth,’ but he laughed, enjoying her humor.
She pulled cold cuts from the fridge while he squeezed fresh orange juice. The French windows stood open, allowing the warm air from outside to circulate through the house. Laden with plates they took their feast to the table outside and sat down.
As they ate, she studied him. ‘We’ve been here two weeks already.’
He nodded. ‘I know. And we can stay as long as you like.’
‘The perks of having a rich boyfriend.’
‘The perks.’ He agreed but saw the uncertainty in her eyes. ‘I know it’s important to you that I don’t… how can I say this… make you a ‘kept’ woman – is that it?’
She smiled ruefully. ‘You know me so well. I’m trying to ignore that voice in my head. I‘m reasoning that you owned this island long before I met you so I might as well enjoy it. When we get back to Seattle, however, we need to talk about an equal division of financial responsibilities.’
Sam sighed. He didn’t want to think about going back to the city, going back to whatever craziness was awaiting them there. If he could have his way, they’d never leave this island. He told her that, and she smiled, reaching over to wind her fingers through his.
‘I know how you feel. For now, let’s just wring every minute out of this experience.’
He kissed her then ducked his head, running his tongue over the soft skin of her breast. He grinned as he looked up. ‘You had mayo on your boob.’
She giggled, stroked his face. ‘I do love you, you crazy man.’
He grinned then raised his eyebrows. ‘I don’t, you know.’
For a moment she looked confused, hurt. ‘You don’t what? Love me?’
Sam gave a short bark of laughter. ‘No, of course, I love you, sorry. I meant I don’t really know you that well. Isn’t part of what we came here for was to really get to know each other? We seemed to have skipped that part.’
She grinned, and he felt her foot climb his leg, rubbed against his groin. ‘I wonder why?’
He grinned, enjoying the feel of her foot against his cock. He ran his hand up the smooth skin of her calf, and she purred with delight, making him laugh.
‘So,’ she crunched on a celery stick, ‘where do you want to start?’
‘Tell me about your family.’
She rolled her eyes then, discarded the rest of the celery and took a slug of orange juice. ‘Father was an army surgeon, mom a homemaker. Or rather she just did whatever my father told her to. My grandfather was Indian – I think you knew that – and I was born in Pondicherry. Mom went home to give birth because my father was never around.’
Her face gave away her emotions and Sam nodded. ‘So your father was…’
‘…an asshole. That’s right. And that never changed throughout my own childhood. He was abusive, not physically but emotionally, verbally. My mom – and eventually me too – we both excelled academically, and he couldn’t stand that. Couldn’t abide two women being smarter than him, a man.
Sam nodded. ‘Wow, a real asshole.’
Isa nodded, her eyes angry. ‘Yup. Mom would never fight back against his bullshit, and she wasn’t strong enough to protect me so when I was sixteen, I left. He was stationed in Maryland at the time, so I got on the bus that had the farthest destination.’
Sam studied her, watching the myriad of emotions flash across her lovely face, seeing the deep burning anger within her. Isa chewed on
her bottom lip.
‘When I applied for legal emancipation, they didn’t fight it. Mom didn’t have it in her to fight him and it. She made her choice. The one good thing my father did was provide me with enough money to rent an apartment to be able to live for a while.’ She drew in a long shaky breath and tried to smile. ‘When I got to Seattle, I was lucky – I found a job as a waitress then applied for a scholarship to UW. I met Zoe when she taught a class. I can’t describe what it felt like to finally have someone interested in me as a person, and not just as someone’s child. She gave me a home, a job and a family. As far as I’m concerned, Zoe Marshall is my mother.’
She fell silent, gazing out at the ocean. Sam brushed his fingertips over her cheek, and she leaned into his touch. ‘I saved my money and paid my father back every penny. I didn’t want to owe him anything.’
Sam nodded, understanding. ‘I get it.’ And he did, he could see the resentment, the hurt in her at her father’s absolute rejection. He scooped her onto his lap, nuzzled her neck as she draped her arms around his. ‘Thanks for telling me about it.’
She sighed deeply. ‘You’re right, remembering the crap stuff is painful. No wonder we didn’t do this before.’ She grinned, and he was relieved to see her good humor return. He pressed his lips to hers, tasting her slowly, tenderly.
‘Hey, let’s ditch the washing up and go play in the ocean.’
She nodded, cupping his cheek with her palm, gazing into his eyes. ‘Deal. But later, it’s your turn to spill your darkest and dysfunctional family secrets.’
Casey Hamilton sat in the darkest corner of the café, endlessly twirling her spoon in her coffee. Her date finally put his hand out to stop her, irritated by the sound of metal on ceramic. He pinched her chin between his fingers, searched her face.
‘Are you strung out?’
She didn’t need to answer him. Her large pupils and endless sips of the table water told him all he needed to know.
The Billionaire Bad Boy Plan Page 42