Benefactor: A Greenbridge Academy Romance

by Knox, Abby

  Then my finger hovers over Rushmore’s text and I smile. I touch his name. Smiling, I type: Good morning, Anthony. What are you doing right now?

  My face heats when I see the three little dots almost immediately appear. He’s already typing his response.

  “Wrapping up a vid conference call with Capri. You?”

  I grin wickedly as I slide open the backdoor and make my way to the pool. I dive in, come up, and then, soaking wet, I take a poolside selfie in my rainbow striped bikini, complete with lots of unnecessary side boob. I don’t stop to question it; I just hit send with the words: Feeling cute and bored. Nobody here to supervise me. Thinking about getting into some trouble.

  14

  Rushmore

  When that selfie from her appeared on my phone, I dropped it on the floor in the middle of my conference call with Capri.

  I might be in over my head with this girl. I can see the headline on the next Rushmore Group newsletter now: “Rushmore CEO’s teen girlfriend’s tits bungle sale of Capri resort.”

  My Porsche speeds over to her house while I glance at the photo again. Her long blonde locks are soaked and clinging to her tanned neck and shoulders, partially draped over one breast. Beads of water are trailing down her face, her neck, over the plump curve of her breast and down her sides, into the shadows between her tit and her ribcage. The shadowy valleys of her body call out to me to get lost in them. It’s the same neon rainbow striped number she wore to Ridley’s pool party yesterday, only today no cover-up is in sight.

  It’s a crime that a woman this sexy should be alone.

  Correction: it’s a crime that I’m not there with her right now.

  Does she know what she’s doing to me? Does she know what it does to a man when he receives sexy photos in the middle of a conference call?

  As I barrel down the highway, I find myself grinning like an idiot at things that pop into my head. Thoughts that maybe one day this incredible woman will be sending me pregnant selfies. Nude ones.

  Then a wild thought occurs to me. Once I’m married to this woman, I don’t want to go to another board meeting or take another conference call for the rest of my life.

  What if I gave it up? What if I sold the entire company to the highest bidder? That way I could spend every waking moment—and sleeping moment—with Hunter? She’d never have to be alone again if she didn’t want to. Whatever my princess wants, my princess is going to get.

  But first I have to teach her a lesson: don’t go tempting me when she’s not ready for me yet.

  Park in the garage, she texts me when I’m a block away. It’s like she can feel me getting close. Smart girl.

  I pull up the long driveway which winds around to the back of the house. Sliding my Porsche into the garage, I notice the early model Jeep that has seen better days. Hands on my hips, I walk around and inspect the vehicle. If she’s home alone, this must be what she drives, and it’s not the safest. I’ll have to fix that.

  I make my way down to the pool, where I find Hunter lying on her stomach on a lounge chair, soaking in the sun’s rays.

  “There’s the girl who almost ruined my deal in Italy.”

  She giggles. “Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to distract you from your important business.”

  “Like hell you didn't.”

  I stride over to the lounge chair and tower over her. She lifts her head and looks at me through dark sunglasses. “Why are you so mad? You asked what I was doing.” Shrugging coyly, she returns her head to rest on her forearms, her round ass facing the sky, begging to get spanked.

  My jaw tightens as I fight the urge to grab her and have a taste. But I don’t want to play it that way. Not yet. I step in front of her so I’m looking down at back of her head, her damp hair now tied up in a voluminous knot on the top of her head.

  “Little girl, you have no idea what kind of fire you’re playing with,” I grind out.

  She props herself up on her elbows. “Well, which is it? Am I a woman or a little girl?”

  “Both,” I say, unable to keep my eyes from taking in the intensely inviting cleavage she’s creating by looking up at me that way.

  “I can’t be both. I’m eighteen. I’m a woman.”

  “And a naughty little girl who needs to learn how to behave.”

  She sits up all the way and faces me with a challenging look.

  “Behave? I thought our agreement was clear. I stay on the swim team and you provide the new equipment.”

  “Sweetheart, this is just the beginning. You need to use your imagination and tell me what you really, really want.”

  Incredibly, she chooses this moment to break out in song: “If you wanna be my lover, you gotta get with my friends…”

  “I’m not sure what’s happening,” I mutter.

  She throws up her hands. “Old man, you’re the one who brought up the Spice Girls. They’re like, even older than you, I’m pretty sure.”

  “Enough sass for one day,” I mutter, and grab her hand, pulling her to her feet.

  She pops up willingly to face me.

  “Get in the pool.”

  “Ooh, are we going for a swim?”

  “No. Just you. I want to watch you swim.”

  “And what do I get?”

  “Use your imagination,” I say. “Clothes, shoes, electronics. A new car?”

  She bites her lip. “Well, there is one thing.”

  I touch my index finger and thumb to her chin so she meets my eyes. “Name it, beauty.”

  “I need funding to travel next semester.”

  “Travel? Where?” I don't like the idea of her going anywhere without me.

  “It’s for my independent study. If I can secure an agent, and that agent can get me auditions, I’ll need to travel.”

  “Understood. Done and done, whatever you need.”

  “And there’s one other thing. It’s kind of a big unethical favor.”

  “Hunter. Look at us. I’m 39 and you’re 18. You’re in school with my daughter. I think we crossed the line of unethical a while ago.”

  “I need you to forge a parent signature on my independent study for Greenbridge.”

  I’m reminded of Miles’s words the other night. Headmistress Moody would most assuredly shit a brick if she knew about Hunter and me. But I cannot waver for one second if I’m going to have and keep Hunter.

  “Get in the pool,” I growl. “Let me watch you swim and it’s a done deal.”

  15

  Hunter

  “But the permission slip is right inside the kitchen door. It’s on the table. All you have to do is go in and sign it. I know you want to,” I tease, pushing up onto my tiptoes and speaking so close to his jawline that my lips brush against his scruff.

  Rushmore’s jaw clenches and I sense that I’ve pissed him off royally.

  “We have an agreement,“ he grits out. “That agreement entitles me to access. And with that I want to watch you swim. That’s all. Nothing more. Nothing less.“

  This quiet impatience in his voice and the narrowing of his eyes like he’s getting ready to give me a time-out warning are making me feel like I’m both a little girl and yet on the cusp of womanhood at the same time. So I decide to take it to another level.

  “Well in that case…”

  I spin around and slowly slip off my bikini bottoms, bending over just enough to be unnecessary. I stand upright again and reach my hand around my back and give one sharp tug to the knot at the back of my bikini top.

  “Hunter, what are you doing?“ I hear the tiniest edge of panic in his voice, but he keeps it together.

  This will teach him not to push me around. I let the bikini top fall away. He sucks in his breath through his teeth. I pad toward the edge of the pool and I dip my toe in. The movement of my legs causes my cheeks to spread just slightly. He blurts out a quiet but utterly filthy curse that triggers a needful drip from my sex. I feel like I’m in big trouble, and I love it.

  “Young lady.”
<
br />   I give Rushmore a partial side view as I gingerly step up onto the diving board, covering my nipples in the light breeze. I walk to the end of the diving board and dive in. I regret that I can’t see his face. I’m doing exactly what he said: swimming laps while he watches. He didn’t say he wanted me naked; that’s just my little something extra—a treat and torture for both of us.

  Something about him, something about his restraint is bringing the serious cock tease out of me. Maybe it’s the fact that it’s so obvious how much he loves to be in control. Or maybe it’s just me exploring my power.

  When I reach his end of the pool on the eighth lap and come up for air to perform another flip turn, I’m startled to see his shoes planted on the Spanish tile right in front of me. I hear him bark, “Out. Now.”

  “Had enough?” I look up at him innocently. My breasts are still beneath the surface of the water, but I know he sees them. I can hardly describe his face at this moment. It’s a combination of anger and stark need.

  “Get upstairs and put some clothes on. The paperwork will be signed when you come down.” And with that, he strides into the kitchen, nearly slamming the sliding glass door.

  I’m shaking when I get out of the pool. I wrap myself up and do as he says. After I wash the chlorine out of my hair and off my skin, I dress in a modest summer dress.

  I come downstairs to find him standing there holding the permission slip in the kitchen. I reach for it and he pulls it back.

  “Not so fast,” he says imperiously. “If you’re going to ask me to do things such as break the rules and forge a signature, be prepared for me to say no. If I say yes, there will always be a condition. You are to meet that condition exactly as I state it, no interpretation necessary. You remove your clothes without me asking you to ever again and I will send an anonymous email to the office saying that this signature is a forgery. Do you understand me?”

  My lip trembles, but I swallow back the lump forming in my throat.

  “Yes. I just thought you would…would like to see what you’re buying. I’m so embarrassed.”

  Rushmore raises his hands and I gasp. But then they cup my face. Honestly, what did I think he was going to do? I think I’m losing it, I’m so horny.

  “You have nothing to be embarrassed about. It’s me. I can barely control myself around you,” he whispers against my cheek, a hint of tremor in his voice. “I know my limits. I know what I want to do to you, but you’re not ready.”

  A single tear tumbles, landing on Rushmore’s thumb.

  “You keep saying that. What…what do you want to do to me that I’m not ready for?” I ask, summoning my courage again.

  “Are you sure you want to know? You might run screaming,” he says.

  Rushmore leans in close. His lips are so close I can feel his breath tease the fine hairs along my hairline. “Every time you walk away, I have a nearly uncontrollable urge to take you, place your hands on the wall, pull your hips back and spread you wide so I can see all that belongs to me.”

  My breath catches. My body jolts. I want so badly to press into his hard body, but I’m afraid to do anything but follow orders.

  “And then what?” I have to swallow because I’m salivating at the thought of being bent over while his eyes take me in. All of me.

  “And then I want to taste you from your clit all the way back. All. The. Way.”

  I may have just toweled off and dressed, but I’m going to need a dry pair of undies immediately. I have to stifle a moan by biting my bottom lip. “What happens next?” I say, my voice breathy between shallow inhales.

  “After I devour you? That’s when I prepare your pussy with my fingers.”

  “Oh god,” I whisper, my voice trembling.

  Rushmore’s lips move softly through my hair. I have to close my eyes at the pleasure of him speaking directly into the shell of my ear. “And then I make you come so hard, you forget your own name, precious.”

  I’m so under his thrall that I don't even realize he’s now standing behind me, his hands lightly resting on my hips, and his lips a hair’s width away from the flushed skin of my neck. His cock presses through his trousers and into my lower back.

  I breathe and lick my lips. “That. I want all of that.”

  Rushmore’s lips connect with the skin of my throat and I absorb the soft, velvety brushes of his strong lips and his scruff. “I’m ready.”

  “Soon,” he whispers before landing a slightly firmer kiss to my neck. The electricity of it travels down my spine and heats my pussy to an unreasonable degree.

  When I open my eyes, he’s gone.

  Trembling with unmet hunger, I stare out the picture window and watch his car motor silently down the street. He left me breathless and so slick that I spit out an angry curse on his stupid car that I know I don’t truly mean.

  “So much for getting anything I want simply by asking,” I mutter, stomping back upstairs to my room, closing the door, and hurriedly kicking off my undies with my toes. My own hands begin to answer the yearning of my body before I even hit the mattress.

  I have to do something; I can’t very well go to swim practice horny.

  16

  Rushmore

  Cruel of me to leave her like that. But it was a much crueler thing to do to myself.

  The mental image of Hunter toeing the water, slightly bent over and showing me a wicked shadow of what’s between her ass cheeks, is going to be fodder for many nights of self-pleasure until we have our moment. I have watched porn that didn’t get my dick this hard. This thought puts a evil grin on my face as I head back to the office.

  What she doesn’t know is that she’s given me a gift.

  I’ve made a mental list of things that need upgrading regarding Hunter, starting with a new car. Back at the office, I put that list in writing.

  Nearly automatically, I begin to text the specs to Pearce but then delete it. If we experience any blowback, I don’t want Pearce in the know about anything.

  I look through my list of contacts at nearby car dealerships and scroll past the Mercedes and BMWs. She won’t want something flashy. She also wouldn’t want something too mom-ish, so Volvos are out. It needs to be safe, classy, and luxurious, but unique like her.

  Then I order a new bouquet of flowers—fresh cut wildflowers—to be delivered to her house every week.

  Next on my to-do list is making contacts in Manhattan and Los Angeles to find her an agent.

  While she was showering, I’d sneaked into her room and taken some of her headshots. Creepy thing to do? Maybe. Don’t give a fuck about creepy anymore.

  I email her headshot to a dozen or more acting and modeling agencies in Manhattan, and then I book the penthouse suite of my own Rushmore Hotel in NYC for the first week of winter break.

  I open a checking account in my name and have the associated debit card issued to her.

  I could have delegated some of these things to my assistant, or my accountant, or any number of people I have working under me. They would do all of it without batting an eye.

  But I’m selfish. I want every transaction, every decision, regarding her to be mine and mine alone.

  17

  Hunter

  On the first day of school, I snatch Addie’s schedule out of her hand while we’re at the lockers. When I see all the difficult classes she’s taking, I have the odd feeling that she’s lucky she doesn’t have a man to obsess over.

  I sigh. “Well, at least one of us has brains.”

  Addie slaps my shoulder. “Hey, don’t talk about my best friend that way.” She reminds me of the fact that I’ve completed so many fine arts courses at this school that they’ve had to make some up for me this year.

  Addie has always been my biggest cheerleader, always telling me I could have graduated early and gone off to New York to take acting classes even before starting college if I’d wanted to. But my parents always like to step in and remind me that I need to be more well-rounded.

  Later, at
lunch, Addie shocks me with a story about her first wet dream, and I start to wonder if, in fact, she does have a man in her life she’s not telling me about. I urge her to tell me everything.

  “Who was it about? What was it like?” I ask as we sit under our favorite tree.

  She’s really vague about who it was in the dream, but she describes how the dream ended. My girl had her first orgasm. I’m so proud. And jealous. How long will it be before Rushmore decides I’m ready?

  “Lucky girl,” I comment.

  There’s definitely something she’s not telling me, and I don’t like it. But then, who am I to judge? Boy, do I ever have a whopper to tell her. But instead, I change the subject to easier conversations like the most recent royal wedding.

  Over the next few weeks, I don’t see much of Rushmore because of some work he’s doing in Capri. Most of my time is taken up by school, swim practice and theater, anyway. But that does nothing to stop Rushmore from making sure I feel his presence everywhere.

  My bedroom is full of fresh flowers, and he has set me up with my own checking account with more zeros than I’ve ever seen in my life. Boxes of clothes, shoes, and high end bath products come to my house weekly. I can’t think of what he wants me to do with the checking account when an endless stream of material goods is being delivered to me.

  He seems to have memorized my schedule, because after every class, and after every swim practice, a text is waiting from him. The texts are never the same. Common phrases such as Thinking of you. Or, Hope your day was lovely.

  But he mixes it up with I saw a play on Broadway and all I could think was how you would have fit the lead role better. Or, I heard this song and it reminded me of you, with a link.

  Random books and songs appear on my phone’s ebook and music apps.

  It’s all sweet, but something is missing. What I really want is not gifts or random compliments or money. Those things are nice. But what I really want is time.