The Billionaire From San Francisco: A BWWM Taboo Romance (United States Of Billionaires Book 5)
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Part of her wondered where he was and what he was doing, and another part of her, the more practical part, didn’t want to know. She worked a long while and then went to her room for a nap late in the afternoon. When she woke up, she stopped in the kitchen for a snack and a cup of coffee and didn’t see any sign of Cameron.
She thought about going to the other side of the house to see if he was in his studio, but then she decided against it. She told herself not to go chasing after anything with him, just to leave well enough alone. Perhaps it would just be a onetime thing. Perhaps they had blown off the tension and steam, and now that it was gone, they could be stepsiblings in the home with more ease. Except for her, it wasn’t really gone.
She had tasted paradise with him and more pleasure than she had ever known with any man, and even just the thought of what they had shared and experienced the night before was enough to make her sigh and moan softly, make her body warm, and make her feel a dull ache down low for him.
Going back into the library, she went to work and got another story submitted before dinnertime. At dinnertime, she wandered into the kitchen and found that the chef had left dinner for them both in there, rather than serving it, as she and Cameron were the only ones left in the house. Adam and Theresa had gone off on their own trip while Charisse and Wilson were away, and that left Cameron and Natalie with the whole house to themselves.
She ate a light dinner, salad and fish, and then went to her bedroom and changed into her bikini. She headed out to the pool in the golden sun of a summer evening and dove in, loving the refreshing feeling of the cool water against her body.
She swam for a while, losing herself in the cool blue water and feeling at peace there. She was more than surprised when he seemed to show up out of nowhere in the water beside her. She had been cruising around in the deep end and hadn’t heard him get in, and she hadn’t seen him until he was beside her, reaching for her.
Natalie surfaced and drew in a big breath as the shock of his sudden appearance struck her, and he wrapped his arms around her and pulled her tightly to him, kissing her mouth hard and hungrily.
Everything inside of her reeled, and she grew dizzy and hot all at once. She wanted to ask him where he had been, she wanted to ask him what they were going to do, she wanted to ask him a hundred questions, but his mouth stole all of them away from her, and all she could do was cry out softly with pleasure as he pulled her to the shallow end of the pool and then slowly peeled her swimsuit off of her.
She stood there in the brilliant sunshine, nude and glistening in the water, her head back as his mouth moved ravenously over her skin from her neck to her breasts, and his fingers played havoc with her core, making her moan loudly as he brought his mouth down her belly to the soft feminine folds of her, devouring her there, until she could barely stand and surrendered to an orgasm swiftly in profound disbelief. No one had ever been as passionate and wild a lover with her as he was, and it only made her hungrier for him.
She realized as she was gasping for air and clinging to him, her lips parted, her eyes closed, that she looked exactly like the painting that she had seen him working on, and she wondered if she was a real-life fantasy for him.
When she had come once, he stood back up slowly, canvassing her skin with his mouth all the way, biting and sucking at her, taking her dark and hardened nipples into his teeth and toying with them with the tip of his tongue. When he was standing, she saw that he was nude as well and that he wanted her completely.
He faced her, kissing her lips, and then he turned her in place so that she was facing the ocean and he was to her back. Pulsing with need, he pushed himself into her, filling her cavern and making her cry loudly with intense pleasure as he began to move in her, hard and swift. He closed his hands over her breasts and squeezed them, teasing her nipples with his fingers as he rocked himself inside of her.
He had almost come when he hesitated and murmured softly in her ear, “Do you want more?”
She gasped for air and nodded. “Yes! Yes, god yes…” She trailed off, and he slowed himself, stopping from coming to his fullness as he lowered one hand from her breasts to the core of her and massaged her at the front while he moved in and out of her slowly, taking his time to make it last longer for her. She came hard for him again, pushing her head back against his shoulder, and when she had, he could no longer wait, and he began to move fast and hard in her again, closing his hands tight on her as he roared and came with a powerful force, filling her with his release.
He was slow to let her go, pulling himself from her and then turning her toward him again. He clasped his hands around her face and kissed her long and slow, savoring her, and then he held her close to his chest for a long while before kissing her one more time, and then turning and walking away from her.
She watched him go, Cameron with no clothes on at all, emerging from the swimming pool as the water ran from his body and the sun shone on all of his tanned and toned muscles. She watched his gorgeous figure disappear into the house as he wrapped a towel around his lower half and then vanished.
He took her breath away. Everything about him took her breath away, from the nearness of him to his touch, most certainly the feel of him holding her and loving her as he did, filling her body with himself and being so hungry for her. The sight of him. The feel and scent of him. Everything about him stole her breath away.
Natalie took her time getting her swimsuit and putting it back on. As she did so, she thought of him out there with her, peeling it off, and of him staring at her in it when he had first met her. She thought of him mentioning it to her and asking her to bring it to the yacht, though she hadn’t even put it on there. She began to wonder if his fascination with her was because it was the first thing he had seen her in, and it wasn’t much of a cover. It was not much more than a simple string bikini.
She got out of the pool and wrapped herself in a towel, her mind so focused on him that she could barely think of anything else. She went to her own room and took a shower, washing herself clean and then crawling into her cool bedsheets to fall asleep. She did not know what she was going to do about him, if she wanted him to stop, or if she didn’t want him to stop at all. She had never felt so much fire, so much pleasure in her life, and thinking about telling him that it couldn’t happen again was almost painful to her. She wondered how she could give it up, but at the same time, she knew that she was probably going to have to, because their parents were going to come home, and Adam was going to come home, and there would be no way that they could carry on as they had been with the family around. There was just no way that it could continue, and that tugged at her heart and tinged it with a strange sadness.
There was something erotic and sexy as hell about the way that he made her feel, the way that he was with her when they were having sex, but at the same time, there was something else that bothered her deep inside, and she hadn’t put her finger on it until after she was lying in bed thinking so much about all that had happened between them.
It was completely casual for him. As their kisses had been on the yacht when she went to the upper deck afterward and saw him with two women under his arms, and after the first night they had been together, when he had come to her and taken all that he had wanted, giving her all that she wanted in return, at least physically, but then leaving her bed and sleeping in his own room that night. He could easily have spent the night with her and slept in with her until the morning, but he hadn’t. He had left her, as if it was casual and meaningless to him. He could come and go and not seem to put any kind of value on what they were doing. That bothered her the most. For her, it was a big deal, a very big deal, and to him, it just seemed much more like a hot playtime between two consenting adults.
Natalie spent so much time thinking about it as she laid in her bed that she made up her mind to wait and talk with him about what was happening between them before anything else physical happened between them. She needed to know just what was going on between them, to
define it, to give her some sense of placement with it.
She spent a while thinking about what it was that she wanted from him. Her mind volleyed between various things from only wanting sex from him to wanting nothing at all from him other than for him to be her stepbrother. After some consideration, she even let herself consider the notion of the possibility of wanting more than just the sex. She wondered if perhaps it was possible that they could have a real relationship and that the sex would just be an exquisite part of it, but then she thought of their parents, and it all seemed too impossible to her.
She hated being confused, and more than that, she was miserable that her mother wasn’t there to talk with her about it. She had always gone to her mother for advice in every troubled time of her life when she couldn’t work something out for herself. While her mother knew nothing of the emotional tug of war that had been going on between herself and Cameron, she knew that she could have gone to her to talk about it, and her mother would have known just what to do to make it right, even if her mother was one of the pieces of the puzzle that was such a big problem.
After a long while of thinking it all over, she finally fell asleep, drifting so deep into slumber that even her dreams did not reach her, and when she woke many hours later in the morning, she felt more determined than ever to stand her ground and talk things out with Cameron to determine what was going on.
Chapter7
Cameron was nowhere to be found in the house that day, though she looked for him and called out to him. She thought that he must be out and busy, and she made her mind up to talk with him when he got home. She hadn’t seen him since he had left her in the pool, and there was no telling where he had gone or how long he had been gone.
She was having lunch in the breakfast nook when she heard the front doorbell, and she knew that the butler was off, as most of the staff had been given paid time off while Wilson and Charisse were away on their honeymoon.
Natalie went to the door and opened it with a smile, until she saw who it was that was standing there before her, and then her smile faltered. Everything faltered. Her heart dropped from her chest straight through the floor below her feet.
It was the redheaded woman from the yacht party. The one who had been kissing Cameron. She beamed and smiled at Natalie and held her hand out to her. “Hi! I’m Kat. I didn’t get a chance to meet you at the party the other day. I guess you were gone when I got there.”
Natalie clenched her jaw subtly and reminded herself that she needed to be civil to their guest. Adam’s words rung through the back of her mind: ‘You are representing the family, do it well.’ She did her best to give Kat a half smile.
“Actually, I left after you got there. I remember seeing you from a distance for a few minutes.” It was all Natalie could do to keep her tone light.
“Oh! Well, that’s nice. At least I’m getting to meet you here.” She hesitated a moment, and when she got no response from Natalie, who was simply watching her and listening to her, Kat continued.
“So, I was wondering if Cameron was home. Is he here? Could I see him please?” she asked with a playful grin.
Natalie’s stomach turned sharply, and she narrowed her eyes slightly. Of course Kat was looking for him. Natalie was suddenly glad that he was nowhere around. She wouldn’t have to deliver him into Kat’s arms as if nothing was going on between her and Cameron.
“I’m sorry, he’s not home. Maybe you could call him.” Natalie moved to close the door, but Kat held her hand up and stopped the door from shutting all the way.
“Oh, wait. I don’t need to call him. It’s okay if he’s not home. I just came to get some of my clothes. They’re in his room.” She beamed at Natalie with flushed cheeks, and Natalie had to stop herself from being sick.
“Your clothes are in his room?” she asked in utter disbelief. That could only mean one thing. He had been having sex with Kat as well, and never said a word to her about it. More casual sex. More come and go. More meaningless connections with more girls. The playboy at his finest.
“Yeah, I just need to go in and get them. He won’t care if I do that. He knows I’m coming to get them. I just hoped that I’d catch him at home.” She shrugged and took a step toward the open doorway, and Natalie had to stand back and let her pass into the house.
Kat breezed past her with a wave of her hand. “Thanks!” She headed straight for Cameron’s suite of rooms down the hallway, and Natalie was disappointed that she knew her way around the house so well.
She closed the front door and walked out to the pool, sitting in a chair there and staring at the space where she and Cameron had had such an electric connection themselves. She realized that she couldn’t fault him for having a string of women who were interested in him; after all, he had been in the house and in the area for a long time. He had school friends there, and he had lived there a long while. It only made sense that he would have a circle of friends, including women, who he had been close to. She had only been there a few weeks. She couldn’t expect him to let go of every relationship he had had and commit to her so rapidly, leaving all of them behind just because she had arrived on the scene.
At least, she couldn’t expect it because they hadn’t talked about it. If they did talk about it and decide to go public with a real relationship, then she was going to insist that they be monogamous. She was, after all, a monogamous relationship kind of woman.
She sat for a while and thought about it all, sad that there was so much confusion and trouble where there should be none at all. She cursed her intense attraction to him and wished that it was something she could sweep away under the rug and never have to think about again.
Natalie sighed and left her chair at the swimming pool, going to the library to do some new photojournalism work. She was sitting at the desk, focused for once on the images and stories before her rather than on Cameron, when Cameron called her name from the foyer, and then a minute later, he walked in through the library door with a magazine in his hand, flushed cheeks, and a big grin on his face.
“Natalie! Oh, I’m so glad that I found you! Natalie, look at this!” He held the golden-edged magazine up for her to see. “I found some of your work in this month’s National Geographic! It’s incredible! You’ve done amazing things. I’m really proud of you!” He went to her as if to embrace her and kiss her, but she turned away from him and gave him a cold shoulder.
“Thanks,” she said quietly and looked back at her computer.
He wasn’t about to give up on her. He went to her desk and pulled her to her feet, turning her to face him. In a moment, his lips were on hers, and he was kissing her soundly. She struggled inside with her emotions for him, doing everything in her power to force herself to keep cool and levelheaded, and not to let her desire for him overpower her. There was much more at stake than just her pride.
“Oh, I’m so proud of you,” he said with a grin as he lifted his mouth from hers and looked into her brown eyes. “You’re doing so well, and it’s incredible. Congratulations.” He meant it in earnest.
She felt a rush of gratitude and happiness that he had expressed that to her, and that he had wanted to share it with her, but she was staunchly going to hold her ground. She planted her hands on his chest and pushed him away.
“I have to work,” she stated flatly. She turned then to sit down, and his face turned to stone.
“Something’s wrong. You’re upset,” he said quietly. “What is it? What’s the matter with you?”
Anger fired up in her, and she faced him again and crossed her arms over her chest. “You know what, something is wrong. Several things are wrong. First of all, why are you always so hot and cold with me?”
He furrowed his brow. “Hot and cold?”
She narrowed her eyes at him. “Yes, hot and cold. One minute, you won’t speak to me or look at me, and the next, you can’t keep your hands off of me! Why do you do that with me? It’s awful! It’s confusing, and it’s awful!”
He sighed
and dropped his shoulders, looking downward for a moment. Finally, he drew in a deep breath and met her eyes with his, answering her. “Okay. Fine. You do deserve to understand that, I guess.”
Walking over to the mini bar in the library, he poured himself a scotch and then turned back to face her after taking a long pull from it. “When I heard you were coming, I didn’t think anything of it. I was going to have a stepsister. No big deal. Then, I went out to meet you, you came up out of that swimming pool, and everything in me stopped. Everything. I have never felt such an immediate attraction to anyone in my life. I wanted to grab you and kiss you right then and there, and more than kiss you, and it was frustrating to me. It was absolutely maddening. I don’t react like that around women. Women are attracted to me; they chase after me, they fall in love with me at first sight, they swoon over me, but it doesn’t happen the other way. I don’t go falling for anyone I’ve just seen, no… no love at first sight for me, but there you were, looking more beautiful than any woman I had ever seen, and I wanted you more than any woman I have ever wanted. It was a first for me. It was a shock. A big shock. I was angry and confused, and I decided that all I needed to do was distance myself from you. Hence the cold shoulder and the regrettable attitude.”