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

by Kristi Avalon

  A shiver went through him as the adrenaline began to wear off. And the gravity of the threat they’d faced sank in. Slone appeared unaffected, though the dark steel in his eyes was slowly leeching out, before returning to placid gray.

  When he heard a shuffling sound, he turned and saw Kylie. Her eyes were drained of their vibrant color and her beautiful face looked starkly pale, as if she now understood the gravity, too. The neon orange lifejacket glared in contrast to her pink t-shirt and canvas shorts.

  Relief knowing she was okay warred with his over-protectiveness. “Babe, I told you to wait for me down below.”

  Suddenly, her face turned ashen gray. Her lips parted but no sound came out. In a flash she raised the gun she held in both hands and fired above his head.

  “Jesus!” he shouted, diving out of the line of fire. “What the hell is the matter with—?”

  The sickening thud of a body hitting the ground filled his ears. Shocked, he glanced beside him at a man’s prostate form, a crimson pool expanding beneath him, seeping into the cracks between the wood flooring.

  Kylie thrust the gun away, as if it had turned into a hissing cobra. It skidded and rattled across the floor, her hands left trembling around air.

  Slone rose to his feet, stared at the gun, then stared at the dead man, then stared at Kylie. “I’ll be damned. You’ll need to give her half the credit, chief. Didn’t see him coming.”

  Cade hadn’t either. The swimmer who dove overboard must’ve climbed the back ladder and scaled to the captain’s deck to finish them off. He might have, if Kylie hadn’t shown up when she did. With the pistol he’d given her.

  Stunned, Cade looked at the guy on the floor again. When he saw the gun clenched in his hand, a chill wracked him like someone had stepped on his grave.

  No, she had saved him from it.

  Two tears dropped from her eyes, coasted down her white cheeks. “I didn’t mean to. Oh, God. He was just there. Aiming at you. I couldn’t…I didn’t…think, I just…”

  “Saved your boyfriend’s ass,” Slone filled in the blank.

  Cade was already on his feet and he gathered her in his arms. “You shouldn’t have had to do that. Or see that. I’m sorry.”

  “Good thing she did,” Slone said, shaking his head at the close call.

  Cade glared at him. “Give us a minute?”

  “Yeah, sure.” Slone held up his hands and backed toward the steps. “Just saying.”

  “Well, don’t.”

  The friendly camaraderie in the bodyguard’s eyes turned to stone. “You got it, boss.”

  Hearing Slone’s response, Cade admitted he liked “chief” a lot better. He’d fully intended to go have a beer, or six, with Slone. They’d definitely torn down some barriers separating them as they stood together in the line of fire.

  But right now he needed to be here for Kylie, to make sure she could handle what just happened, what she’d done—taking a life to save two. He lifted her in his arms and whisked her down to their bedroom, feeling her tears soak through his sweatshirt the entire way.

  Taking infinite care with his movements, he sat her on the bed, knelt before her, and unbuckled the lifejackets. He whispered soothing words. He knew all too well the shock, the unreality, the ice running through her veins. He lifted her chilled hands to his lips.

  “I can’t believe what I did,” she said through bloodless lips. Her whole body was stiff and cold as if he’d chipped her out of a glacier. “I’m so sorry.”

  He needed to warm her from the inside out. Pull her from her numb thoughts and bring her back to the present moment, so she could face what had happened and put it behind her. Otherwise, the remorse would eat her alive.

  “You have nothing to be sorry about, sweetheart. Relax, lie back.”

  While he undressed her, he told her what his father had explained to him the day Cade put a man in the hospital after a bounty hunt turned into a shootout.

  “The man you shot was on a path of destruction long before you pulled the trigger. If it hadn’t been you, it would’ve been someone else. We all make choices. He chose his own end. The second he got on that speedboat he knew he’d either kill or be killed. You didn’t decide his fate, he did.”

  Her teeth chattered as he swung her legs up and under the covers. “That s-s-sounds good. B-but I don’t feel any better.”

  Removing his clothes, he crawled into bed with her and hugged her against him.

  “I took his life, Cade. Another person is dead because of me.”

  Maria. His arms tightened around her. “That was Ramos’s doing. This is all on him. Don’t carry the burden of conscience, just because he doesn’t have one. It’s not yours to bear.”

  She snuggled close against him. “I can’t help it.”

  “I know, baby. You’re a kind person with a compassionate heart. I wouldn’t have you any other way.”

  A tear splashed on his shoulder. She began shivering uncontrollably. He recognized the remorse and fear racking her, the endless unwinnable mind game of would’ve, could’ve, should’ve.

  “Look at me.” He nudged her chin up and saw her eyes filled with liquid regret. “You saved my life. I’ll never be able to repay that gift.”

  Chest aching with gratitude, and something far greater, he ran his thumb beneath her wet lashes, kissed her cheeks, grazed his lips across hers. He skimmed his palms over her arms, down her waist, drawing her legs up around his hips.

  “I want to warm all the cold places inside you. I want you to forget what happened, just for a little while.” He settled between her thighs and eased inside her, inch by slow inch. “Be with me in this moment. Let go of everything.” He rocked gently with her, his chest coasting across her breasts. “Feel me inside you. Let me take away your fears.”

  “Oh, Cade.” Her whisper of breath fanned his cheeks and the flame of his desire. She wrapped her arms around his shoulders. “Please don’t let go.”

  “I’ll never let you go. I promise.”

  The light returned to her eyes, defeating the terror and darkness that had threatened to extinguish it. They moved and breathed as one. He’d never made love like this, with his whole heart and soul.

  “I need you,” she whispered. A vulnerability she’d never revealed seeped into her expression.

  It reached inside him and grabbed hold of his heart. “I need you, too.”

  Passion and heat surrounded them.

  The morning sun streamed in through the porthole window, cocooning them in a glow of light and warmth. But it didn’t compare to the glow in her cheeks and the blaze in her eyes as he brought her to climax. He went still above her, inside her, their lips barely touching. Her core gripped him, rippling along his shaft. Without moving, he shivered and came inside her. Holding her face in his hands, he kissed her deeply, and his moan of release echoed in her throat.

  Their lips and bodies didn’t part for a long time. He didn’t want to lose the perfect peace that filled him from head to toe.

  Eventually, she combed her fingers through his hair, forcing him away from her luscious mouth. Her fingertips traced his forehead, his nose, his cheeks, his lips.

  “You are beautiful,” she said, smiling up at him.

  “Hey, that’s supposed to be my line.”

  Her smile faded. “It’s not a line, Cade.”

  He lifted his hand to her ribs and tickled her. “I know, baby. I meant that I’m supposed to be the one showering you with compliments. I have a ton of them stored up that I couldn’t tell you before. Ready for the list?”

  “No.” She shoved at his shoulders. “That’s embarrassing. I don’t like being the center of attention.”

  “What’s embarrassing is a girl telling a guy he’s beautiful.”

  She shrugged. “It’s not my fault you are.”

  “That’s the point. I’m not.”

  She arched an eyebrow in challenge. “Do you really want to argue the point with me?”

  “Maybe not.” He huffe
d a laugh. “I’ll never hear the end of it.”

  A giggle escaped her. “You know me too well.”

  He smoothed her hair across his pillow, entranced by the way the sunlight picked out the gold and champagne colors in the light-brown strands. “I know you look as irresistible in sunlight as you do in moonlight. I know I should’ve apologized for coming onto you in my hot tub when you’d known me for a whole three hours, but I couldn’t lie about how attracted I am to you.”

  Her gaze softened and her lips parted. He grew hard again inside her.

  “I know the way you move when I touch you just right.”

  When her hips lifted against him, he thrust into her heat.

  “I know you won’t believe me when I say you’re the most amazing woman I’ve ever made love to.” She arched to meet his driving motion as he thrusts gained momentum. “And that’s why I’m going to, over and over, until you do.”

  “Do what?” she said on a moan.

  “Believe in me.”

  She inhaled as his hand cupped her breast in a grip of ownership. “I do believe in you.”

  He saw the uncertainty still shadowing her gaze. “Not yet. Not completely. But you will. Because I’m going to prove myself to you.”

  His thrusts lengthened and deepened.

  “For as long…and hard…as it takes.”

  “God, yes,” she gasped.

  Maneuvering her effortlessly, he flipped their positions.

  Kneeling on the mattress now, she undulated her hips, sending fiery bolts of hot need through his shaft. He guided her up and down on him. Then he let his hands roam over her body, obsessed with the feel of her beneath his palms. All his. She took his breath away.

  When she dropped her head back, and the sun glistened on her sweat-misted skin, he groaned and came. Hard. And didn’t stop until her inner heat quivered around him with her own release.

  He hadn’t experienced the compelling urge to keep a woman in his bed for days since he was a hormone-ravaged teenager. He loved sex, and women, but not like this. Never like this. This unquenchable desire to have her naked and his to claim whenever he wanted her. She’d become the ultimate temptation. No matter how many times he’d taken her, he still wanted more.

  But he had plenty of time to pursue his carnal fixation on her, he told himself, as she unstraddled his hips and collapsed on the sheets beside him.

  “I hope you know,” he said, kissing a path from her inner elbow to her shoulder, pausing to nibble her neck. “I’m never going to get enough of you.”

  At his words she released a sigh of sated pleasure. “Is that a promise?”

  “It’s a warning,” he replied thickly. “You need to know what you’re in for.”

  Her expression turned serious as she thought it over, though humor twinkled in her eyes. “So, then, realistically you’re saying I have a choice in this scenario.”

  He nipped her earlobe. “Not really. No.”

  A giggle caught in her throat. “I appreciate you being so forthcoming.”

  “Yeah, there’ll be a lot of that.” He took her wrist, kissed the delicate web of faint blue veins, and then trapped her hands above her head. “Plenty of back and forth, and coming.”

  When he bent to capture her lips, he suddenly heard the sound of boots thumping overhead. Male voices called to each other in English, one of them sounding like Slone. Then came the shrill whoop-whoop of a siren.

  “We’ve got company.” He leaped out of bed and reached for his discarded clothes.

  “Who?” she asked, a tremor of fear in her voice.

  “Coastguard, from the sounds of it.”

  “From where?”

  “That’s what I’m about to find out. They sound American, though. Very promising.”

  She turned white, her face filling with dread. “I’ll have to tell them what happened.”

  He zipped up his jeans followed by his hooded sweatshirt with the bloodstain on the shoulder, and reached out to kiss her with firm, reassuring pressure. “No, you don’t. And you won’t.” He held her chin and stared at her evenly. “You had no part in this. You saw nothing. Are we clear?”

  Her chin trembled. “But the man—”

  “Got caught in the crossfire when we were attacked. Slone and I defended the yacht, since we both have concealed carry permits and licenses for the guns.”

  Tears welled in her eyes. “But…”

  As he scanned her face and saw how deeply she was hurting, how confused and conflicted her emotions were, he experienced a painful pressure in his chest. “It’s okay, honey. If you want to fall apart hysterically, this is a good time to get it out of your system. The more distraught you are, if that’s how you feel, the more credibility you give our story of getting attacked.”

  “We were attacked.”

  “And your distress will confirm it.” He picked up the lift vest from the floor. “Get dressed, honey. Put the lifejacket on again, and come up top like you’re seeing the aftermath for the first time.”

  “Okay,” she nodded.

  Kylie knew that wouldn’t be a problem.

  What an unholy mess.

  Although Cade had done a miraculous job of pulling her from a dark place of despair, a hollow cavern remained inside her. Emotion quickly flooded in to fill the emptiness.

  The staunched flow of tears began leaking from her eyes the moment Cade left. She buried her face in her hands, wet anguish dripping down her fingers. Her chest shook with a few hard sobs.

  After a couple minutes, she lifted her head and stared at her hands as if they belonged to a stranger. She hadn’t even realized she still held the weapon Cade had given her when she’d heard heavy gunfire, compelling her to help in some way.

  For reasons she couldn’t fathom, she’d felt unaccountably protective toward Cade, even though she knew he could take care of himself just fine. Some internal drive had forced her up the steps, desperate to know if he was all right. When she’d found him blessedly intact, but then watched in horror as a man climbed over the railing to point his gun at Cade’s back, she’d reacted without thought, like an out of body experience. Something dark and elemental had come over her. Once the red haze had faded, the next thing she saw was that man sprawled on the deck face down surrounded by a pool of blood. And she’d put him there.

  Today she’d learned a life altering truth about herself. She could, and would, kill for someone. For Cade. A man she’d fallen for yet hardly knew.

  Not true, her heart whispered.

  But emotion, instinct, hadn’t guided her life since her mother’s death. Reason and intellect had been her constant, reliable companions for the past ten years.

  Not anymore, she thought miserably. Everything had changed, turned upside down and inside out. She didn’t even recognize herself.

  Panic welled inside her. What do I do?

  She hugged herself as an old, chilling sense of alienation returned. The same crushing helplessness she’d endured when the media pounced on the fragile family bonds she’d forged with her father and sister after her mother left them, until the story of her mother’s murder—and her father getting framed for it—attracted tabloid attention. Weaving a web of heinous lies, they’d dragged her family through hell.

  And living in the camera’s eye was Cade’s entire existence. He’d built his company through media appearances, keeping cool, charismatic and collected at all times. Helpful for situations like this, but terrifying for her with the legacy of pain and shame she’d endured in the callously brutal writings of drama mongers. She and Cade were as opposite as two people could be.

  As she dressed in slow motion, she tried to tell herself that if the man climbing over the deck had aimed at Slone, she would’ve taken the same action. But there was no way to ever know. She felt like the whole experience had stained and degraded her soul, and there was nothing she could do to take it back. Now she fell into the same league as her mother’s husband. A killer.

  Mortified anger prick
led beneath her skin. The righteous vengeance she’d harbored against the man rang like a pathetic hollow bell in her ears.

  Could things get any worse? She trudged up the steps to the captain’s deck. There she found the ship swarming with a coastguard team. Overwhelmed, she darted her glance around and saw Slone and Cade sitting on the wraparound seating—in handcuffs.

  Oh, no. This is definitely worse.

  A heavy hand gripped her upper arm. “Ma’am, I need you to come with me.”

  Her knees buckled at the brusque words, but she forced herself to stay upright as a stern-looking man, wearing a navy blue polo shirt and navy baseball cap, led her to the front of the yacht. Out of sight from Cade and Slone. She wished Cade had looked up and caught her worried glance, and offered some silent reassurance that this would all turn out okay.

  Why were Slone and Cade being persecuted? They were the victims of the attempted hijacking!

  On the way, she caught a glimpse of the yacht captain. Dripping wet, he spoke with animated gestures to one of the coastguards. Though she noted with grim satisfaction he stood handcuffed as well. The captain threw her a menacing glower. She turned her back on him.

  “What happened?” she asked the official still gripping her arm.

  “That’s what I need to find out from you,” he said wearing a grave expression beneath the shadow of his hat. Grooves fanned out from the corners of eyes, set deep in his weathered face. He released her.

  Bracing herself against the railing, the metal hot from the rays of the tropical sun, she remembered Cade’s suggestion to let her fear do the talking. She looked up at the official with wide, wet eyes. “I don’t know,” she sniffed. “My…boyfriend shook me awake at dawn.” Calling Cade that was easier than explaining their complicated relationship to each other, something she couldn’t even sort out herself. “He was frantic. He told me to get dressed and put on a lifejacket. Because we might be under attack.”

  “Was that the case?” the man asked. “Was the ship under siege?”

  “I guess. I didn’t understand what he was talking about, he was so upset. His bodyguard came to our room, and—”