The Billionaire's Prize: Taken & Tempted: (Book 3 Billionaire Bodyguard Series)

by Kristi Avalon

  With every sweep of his tongue, her inner thighs trembled. The sensual motions scattered sparks through her abdomen, spread tingles over her skin. His thumbs parted her, giving him greater access as he feasted on her body. His tongue swirled over her peak then down to her opening. Up and down, over and over. He massaged her backside with his hands.

  A sigh of lustful appreciation drifted from her lips. Gradually, she relaxed into the ripples of pleasure he offered masterfully. Her hips rocked gently, mirroring the subtle motion of the yacht as it bobbed with the ocean currents.

  “Feels so good,” she breathed.

  Eyelids drifting shut, she dropped her head back. The ends of her hair tickled her lower back and flowed over the warm bands of his fingers pressing her even closer. Using one hand to grip the headboard, she arched and reached back, sliding her other hand beneath the band of his underwear. Skin against skin, she stroked the length of him.

  The heat of his arousal nearly burned her palm. She molded her fingers around him, caressing him with firm pressure. His hips bucked. A bead of moisture dampened her wrist.

  When he groaned, tiny vibrations sent delicious shocks across her nerve endings. His tongue performed magic, the acute pleasure igniting a whirlwind of need coalescing inside her.

  “Oh, God.” Her thighs quivered. “Yes.”

  Sliding her hand up his length, over the tight flexing muscles of his abs, she gripped the headboard with both hands. Her knees clamped his shoulders.

  The intensity funneled down to the single point where his tongue flicked rapidly against her peak. A slick sound echoed in the room. He sucked, his tongue swirled, and he fastened his mouth on her completely.

  She whimpered. “Right there.”

  The suction combined with the pulsing of his tongue sent her freefalling into ecstasy. She trembled in his hands, against his mouth.

  “Yes,” she cried.

  A bright flash sparked in her core and pleasure burst through her. She held the headboard in a death grip, as wave after wave of bliss rocked her with almost unbearable intensity.

  Dizziness clouded her vision before she gasped for breath. Lingering spasms sent tremors through her abdomen. He held her against his mouth. His tongue urged her body to follow every flicker of sensation, until the last little shocks of pleasure subsided.

  That rocked my world.

  She blew out a breath and realized she was staring at herself in the mirror above the headboard, her hair mussed, damp and sticking to her temples. Her eyes were sparkling and dreamy from her orgasm, her breasts heavy and swollen with desire.

  “Stay right there.”

  She obeyed his order. She didn’t think she could move even if she wanted to. He slid out from beneath her.

  In the mirror she watched him rise behind her. He gave her a little smack on her backside. “You didn’t look at me when you came.”

  Seeing the burning intensity in his stare, she blinked. “I was very…preoccupied.”

  “Now I’m going to make you come twice.”

  Fingers digging into her hips, he pulled her back flush with his erection, thick, long and hard against her bottom. No wonder women stood in line to become his lover. He had more than talent and experience. A lot more. She swallowed.

  Their eyes met in the mirror. “In this position, you have no choice but to look at me,” he said in a low growl. “Both times.”

  The crinkle of a condom wrapper, followed by the slick sound of him rolling it down his shaft, shot a tremor of nervousness through her. She nibbled her lower lip.

  When was the right time to tell a hot naked man she’d never experienced an orgasm during sex? Now he expected it of her. Twice. She didn’t even know how to do that.

  What if she turned out to be terrible in bed?

  A light pressure of his finger under her chin urged her to look at him in the mirror. Damn him, he had all the confidence in the world. She wanted to borrow a little from him, she just didn’t know how. “I…Cade, I should tell you—”

  “Stop.” The head of his shaft probed her opening, sheathed in the condom. “Let go, Kylie. Can you do that for me?”

  Surprised by his request, she thought he was asking an awful lot of her. To relax. To come. Twice. “Cade, I’m serious.”

  “Let go of your seriousness. Be in this moment with me.”

  When a sheen of emotion lined her lashes, she bent her head forward. Her hair covered her face so she couldn’t look at him directly. “I’m ready.”

  “No, you’re not.” He swept her hair back from her face, over her shoulder. He kissed her neck, a slow journey up behind her ear, where he nipped her earlope. “You still don’t trust me?”

  “I do. But…”

  He guided the head of his shaft to probe her opening. “But what?”

  A hot lump settled in her throat. “I’m not going to be good enough.”

  “I think you’re amazing. I want to see your expression when I make love to you. Is that so wrong?”

  “No.” She inhaled a ragged breath. Even as his cock twitched at her opening, she remained stiff and uncertain. “You’re just…you’re out of my league,” she admitted, laying herself bare before him.

  “Not true,” he whispered, scraping his teeth against the side of her throat. “I’m not worthy of you. But if you’ll have me, I’ll make sure you don’t regret it.”

  As his hard body surrounded her, she let her head drop back onto his shoulder. “I know you wouldn’t.”

  Placing his hands on the headboard, he slotted his fingers between hers, a reassuring grip. “Then you’ll look me in the eye when I make love to you, when I make you come.”

  She turned her face away from their mutual reflection. “What if I’m not…?”

  “You are.”

  Reluctantly, she flicked her gaze to his reflection. She spoke the words of her body, and her heart. “I want you.”

  “I want you, too, Kylie.”

  Hands entwined with hers, he pressed himself two inches into her damp opening. She wanted him so badly it hurt, in a good way. She spread her fingers and dug her nails into the tissue of his knuckles. She chose to release her inhibitions and lifted her chin, tossing her hair back over her shoulders.

  “Take me, Cade.”

  “Yes.” His voice sounded raspy as he gripped her hips.

  The length of him eased into her, filling her only halfway. He withdrew a few inches. Then he pushed deeper inside her. Not deep enough.

  “Take me,” she whimpered. “Please.”

  With a powerful thrust he sent himself deep, filling her completely. She dropped her head back onto his shoulder and moaned.

  One of his hands slid into her hair, cradling her head, lifting it upward until their eyes met again in the mirror. His fingertips massaged her scalp while she grew accustomed to the feel of him inside her.

  Then he began to move.

  Long, slow, sensual thrusts made her arch in pleasure. The hand not tangled in her hair guided her hips along his shaft. His gaze fixed on her in the mirror, his shoulders rocking upward each time he slid into her heat.

  The sight of his heavy-lidded eyes filled with passion, devoted to her, created a strange shift inside her chest. She knew she’d never be separated from him. He touched something deep inside her, deeper than his glorious physical penetration.

  As they rocked together, she spread her legs, inviting him to touch the depths of her body. His thrusts intensified. The sexy sound of his hips meeting her backside filled the air. The musky scent of arousal surrounded them.

  Without warning, the angle of his motions hit a pleasure center she hadn’t known existed. “Oh, yes,” she moaned.

  Following his movements with renewed zest, she met his thrusts. She pushed against the headboard, driving herself back into him, driving him deeper inside her.

  She felt him flex within her, and the sensation sent a bone-shaking shudder through her body. This isn’t happening. Is it?

  So wet, her hea
t enveloped him. Pulses rippled in her core. “Please, don’t stop.”

  “Look at me.”

  She shivered. “I think I’m…oh, my God.”

  “I know.” He cupped the back of her head, holding her gaze, even though she wanted to close her eyes and give over to an intensity she’d never experienced before. “Let me watch you come.”

  Though she bit her lip and almost shut her eyes, she kept her gaze trained on his in the mirror as a wash of sensation built to a tidal wave. Spasms rocked her core. She choked on a gasp, stunned as her inner walls gripped him with clenching force that spread throughout her body.

  “Yes!” Filled by him completely, she shook uncontrollably, a bundle of raw nerve endings quivering in his arms. Had she actually had an orgasm? During sex? Her mouth dropped open. “How…?”

  A crooked grin tipped up the corner of his mouth. As if he knew what had happened to her would happen all along. “That’s my girl.”

  But how could he have known he could do that? Give that to her? When no other man had?

  Tiling her face up to him, he possessed her mouth, his tongue entwining with hers. He resumed his forward glides within her. The harder he thrust, the deeper he pulsed, the faster their breathing became.

  Again, the friction he created inside her threatened to unravel her completely. Impossible. Yet the intensity built again. Greater, higher, more frightening, demanding she give into the bliss almost…just…out of reach. He wrapped his arm around her waist and plunged into her with a force that knocked the breath from her lungs.

  Filling her to capacity, he flexed, pulsed powerfully. He groaned into her throat as he met his release. His body shook and shivered around her, and the intensity sent her over the cliff of another orgasm. Her core flexed around him and released its hold with spasms of pleasure that radiated out to her fingertips and toes.

  “Can I tell you something?” she asked.

  His fingertips played a relaxed, sensual rhythm along her spine as he held her against him. “Anything.”

  “I didn’t think you’d be interested in a girl like me.”

  His fingers stilled. He cupped her lower back. “Why not?”

  “Because…well, you’re you. And I’m…a complete study-a-holic nerd. If we’re being honest.”

  His lips pressed against her forehead. “I know. I like that about you.”

  “But why?”

  “Because the best parts about you are who I want to be.”

  She scoffed. “You were never a nerd.”

  “Hell, yeah, I was.” He insinuated his leg between her thighs. “Kids used to make fun of me on the playground.”

  She just couldn’t believe that. He was too handsome for anyone to have ever made fun of him. “No way.”

  “Seriously.” He resumed his tender caresses along her back. “I was the nerd in the family. My brother, Trey, kept me from getting beat up on a daily basis. He’d always been a big kid, played football early in middle school. Two years older than me, Trey always had my back. You can’t imagine the ridicule hurled my way, being scrawny and artistic in middle school. I was a total outcast.”

  Snuggling against his long, warm body, she stroked her hand through the light tuft of hair on his chest. “Really?”

  “God’s honest truth.” He held his hand over his heart. “I sucked at fitting in. Then I shot up eight inches overnight, grew my hair out a little, and began wrestling. Suddenly, I hit high school and I was the object of female attention. I had no idea what I did, but it worked.”

  Yeah, she bet it had worked. He was positively gorgeous. Glancing up at him, she trailed her fingertips over his features. The sharp angles of his cheeks and jaw. The pronounced indentation from his temple to his forehead. The corners of his beautiful eyes.

  How had God managed to create such a perfect male specimen?

  “What about you?”

  She blinked. “What about me?”

  His palm coasted from her shoulder, over her breast, into the dip of her waist, across her hip. “You have the body of a goddess.”

  She snorted. “Please.”

  Without warning, he caught her chin in his hand and pressed a powerful kiss to her lips. “You can’t tell me you don’t know how beautiful you are.”

  Sinking back into the warm sheets, she burrowed against him but turned her face away from his intense gaze. “That’s what my father’s friends used to say—not in a creepy way. Don’t get me wrong. They just assumed I’d follow in my mom’s footsteps and become a Las Vegas hit showgirl. That was the last thing I wanted to be.”

  “Your choice?”

  “Yes, my choice,” she said acerbically, flipping herself away from him. “Why would I ever choose a career that meant giving up my body to the public for show, and turning my back on my family?”

  He dropped kisses from the curve of her neck to her shoulder. “Does a career mean turning your back on your family?”

  Shrinking away from his affection, she admitted, “It did for my mother. After awhile, all she cared about was the attention, the glamour, the money. She fell for a guy who promised her the world and she left us.”

  A sound of frustration left his throat. “You’re right. That wasn’t fair.”

  “Fair? Who cares about fair? I just wanted a normal family. And some filthy rich jerk took that from us. Because he could. He didn’t care about my mom, he just wanted a new trophy to pin on his arm.”

  “Honey,” Cade said, dropping kisses along the back of her arm, “no family is normal. That’s a fantasy. A fallacy. Nothing in life is normal, because from the start we make a judgment that it isn’t. Then that reality becomes something we can point to and say, ‘Hey, that’s not what I wanted.’ From there, we choose the life we want.”

  “So what?”

  “That’s what family gives us. A jumping off point. A place to push off from, so we can move forward in our own direction.”

  “You know what I think?”

  Pushing up onto his forearms, he turned her to face him, tucking her close against his side. “I’d love to know what you think.”

  Damn those crystalline blue eyes that seared right through her. “I think you don’t realize what your dad did for you.”

  Surprise registered in his expression. “Okay, now I’m lost.”

  “I know.” She caressed the steep angles of his face. “The thing is, you believe your father didn’t trust you, or didn’t believe you could hack it in the bounty hunter business. I disagree. I think your dad was trying to protect you.”

  Arm still cradling her head, he dropped back against the pillows. He fixed his gaze on the ceiling. “Not sure I follow.”

  “I believe your dad was protecting you. He worked really hard to save up enough money to send you to college, right?”

  “Right,” Cade said with an edge of steel in his tone.

  “He didn’t do that for anyone else in the family. Did he?”

  A long pause separated her question from his answer. “No.”

  “I think your dad knew your potential. He wanted you to become more than the rest of them could be. No offense to your brother or cousins. I just think your dad saw something special in you.”

  “He had a funny way of showing it,” Cade growled.

  “Of course they do. They’re our parents. They can’t spell it out for us, otherwise we’d do the exact opposite of what they want most for us to achieve.”

  With one fluid movement, he levered up onto his forearm again and hovered over her. “That is shockingly brilliant. Are you always this insightful?”

  “Only when I have to be,” she said, grinning up at him.

  He stole a passionate kiss from her. “Would you be shocked if I said you bring out the best in me?”

  She shrugged. “Anyone could do that.”

  “No.” His nose glided alongside hers. “Not anyone.” His lips brushed her cheek. “You.”

  Angling his head, he grazed his mouth over hers once, twice. He deepene
d his kiss to a passionate level, and proved to her again how much she affected him.

  *

  Piercing the edges of his slumber, the slam of a door jarred Cade awake.

  Instinctively, he sat up and dragged the sheet to cover Kylie. Just in time as Slone barged through the cabin door.

  “We have a problem,” Slone said.

  Drowsy from all night sex, and unnaturally possessive of Kylie, Cade tucked her against him and glowered across the room. “Don’t you knock?”

  “You said you’d have my back. I took you at your word.”

  “Yeah, okay.” Cade scrubbed a hand down his face. “Wait in the lounge. I’ll be there in a sec.”

  When Slone stepped away, Cade glanced at the clock. Five in the morning. Hell. He stepped into fresh boxer briefs and rummaged for a pair of jeans. He slid them on, zipped up then bent to kiss Kylie.

  Warmth infused his chest as he gazed at her. The crotch of his pants grew uncomfortably tight because he wanted her again, now. “When I come back, we’ll pick up where we left off.”

  “Mmm-hmm,” she mumbled, snuggling into the warm, sex-scented covers. If last night was any indication, they’d need to change the sheets every two hours.

  A smile lingered on his lips as he went to the door and closed it behind him. He finger combed his hair, heading straight for the coffee maker.

  When he met Slone’s brooding steel gray eyes, he paused mid stride. “What’s wrong?”

  Slone stopped pacing, approached him and spoke in low tones. “Twenty minutes ago I felt the ship turn. Sharp enough that it woke me out of a dead sleep. So I went topside. Judging by the location of the stars, I did a quick mental calculation. We’re going off course.”

  An uneasy sensation tightened his gut. “How far off course?”

  “Forty five degrees southwest.”

  Cade recalled that Slone’s work history included eight years as a Navy SEAL. He trusted the man’s navigation instincts implicitly. “What does that mean?”

  “Next stop won’t be the Virgin Islands.”

  A block of ice formed in Cade’s stomach. “Then where are we heading?”