Illusion (Billionaire in Disguise Series, #2) Read online

  “Why have you always been good at it?” I asked.

  Sam turned her face toward me, her saddened eyes connecting with mine as they took my breath away. There was no going back. I had asked the question I knew I was going to regret. I had no idea if Sam was going to answer it, but the pain that shot through her eyes convinced me that if she didn’t, it wouldn’t matter.

  The pain and the desolation this woman had endured was great. And I wanted to shine a light on her face so she could feel the warmth of the sun against her skin again.

  “Because I had to be,” Sam said. “It was a requirement of my childhood.”

  Chapter 8

  Sam

  I DIDN’T WANT TO RELIVE my childhood. It wasn’t something I enjoyed talking about, so I never did. The only person I ever trusted with anything remotely close to a childhood memory was John, and even that was tempered. Facts were left out in favor of the point I was trying to make, and that was the only glimpse anyone would ever get of it.

  Ever.

  The conversation turned back toward a lighter subject as we ate and drank. We fell into an easy rhythm of learning more about one another, and the chatting was nice. Topical and easy, which wasn’t something I’d encountered in a long time. I didn’t feel the need to look over my shoulder or count all the exits in the room. I didn’t feel it was necessary to know how many air vents were strewn around the kitchen or how many waitstaff were employed in the restaurant at the time of our arrival. It was nice, shutting that part of my brain off and enjoying the very rich wine I kept pouring for myself.

  We were two bottles in once we finished dinner, and the two of us were pretty drunk.

  Derek took my hand, and we headed back to the car. The driver drove us all the way up to our bungalow, where we stumbled down the pier and made our way to our bungalow. It really was a beautiful sight with the nighttime sky coating our little island, the reflection of the water mirroring the sky. The horizon was almost invisible as the water stilled, and I studied it through the open doors of my room. The ocean breeze was salted and comforting. The warmth of the Hawaiian air was caressing my exposed legs. The wine was dropping every wall I normally put up whenever I woke up in the mornings, and I found myself feeling freer than I had in a long time.

  “What would you have done if you hadn’t been a bodyguard?” Derek asked.

  I looked back at him, my body leaning heavily against the doorframe as he lay on my bed. His legs were spread wide, and his linen pants were cupping around his massive cock. Heat rose up the back of my neck as I stared at it a bit too long, my face flushing when he caught me eyeing him.

  “I enjoy my work,” I said as I closed my eyes. “I couldn’t imagine doing something else.”

  “Would you dance? Like your parents wanted?” he asked.

  “I don’t know. Maybe I would’ve been a teacher.”

  “Nope. You wouldn’t have been that.”

  “Why not?” I asked. “It’s possible.”

  “It’s not. Because no teacher I ever had looked like you. And if she had, she would’ve been in a hell of a lot of trouble.”

  “Oh, really? Is that so?” I asked. “And what is this trouble you speak about?”

  I pushed off the doorframe and walked toward him as he tipped his head up to watch me.

  “There are many things I can drum up. Questions I could ask in class or desks I could’ve—”

  I dropped to my knees between his legs as my hands slid up his thighs. I could feel him jumping at my touch as the alcohol buzzed through my brain. I wanted him. I wanted him more than I could stand. My hands drifted to the band of his linen pants as I fiddled with them, ignoring the dull ache in my arm.

  “You could’ve what?” I asked.

  “I could’ve bent my teachers over ... shit.”

  I palmed his cock, feeling it grow before I slid his pants down his legs. I cast them aside, watching his dick rise to attention as I licked my lips.

  “I don’t think you could've done shit as a student,” I said.

  I licked a thick stripe up his throbbing vein, watching his hips roll desperately into my face.

  “Because your teacher would’ve known ... so much more on the subject,” I said.

  Before he could reply, I wrapped my lips around his cock. I planted my hands beside his hips, feeling his hands migrate to my hair. He twisted them up in my hair, pushing my head down deeper onto his cock. I took him back all the way, my body relaxed and my inhibitions silenced as I tasted the whole of him.

  “Sam. Holy shit!”

  He felt wonderful sliding down my throat. His legs were strong, and his muscles were throbbing underneath my touch. I raked my nails down his sides, feeling him jolt and squirm as my tongue lapped up his dripping pre-come. I sucked on the tip of his dick, his body shivering as I reduced Derek to a babbling mess of incoherent syllables. His hips were rocking, and his hands were jamming my mouth down onto his cock. I sucked so hard, my cheeks hollowed out as spit dripped down onto his skin.

  Then he ripped me away from his cock, my lips swollen from the work, and he pulled me onto the bed.

  We stripped each other of our clothes, not bothering to remove my shoes. His lips were everywhere. My aching breasts. My dripping pussy. My twitching thighs. He flipped me over onto my stomach, grinding into my ass while openmouthed kisses were pressed against my skin. I moaned, and I whimpered. I broke free from the chains of being under his employ. I relished the affections being shown to me and took back a bit of the femininity I’d lost in the military.

  His fingers were hot against my skin as he spread my legs, lifting my hips into the air. His hand wrapped up in my tendrils, tugging my face up from the pillow as his cock teased my folds. Without a single word, he pressed deep into me, splitting me in half as the ocean breeze filtered in through the open sliding door.

  “Derek,” I said with a moan. “Oh ... oh, yes.”

  He set a relentless pace, fucking me into the mattress as my ass jiggled for his viewing pleasure. He groaned and grunted, his balls slapping against my clit as the bed moved with our motions. The headboard knocked against the wall, and the sheer curtains streaming from the ceiling fluttered with our breaths. I grabbed at anything I could, twisting my fists into the sheets as my pussy began to throb around him.

  Suddenly, I was pulled up from my stance. My back collided with his chest as my legs stayed spread, his arm wrapping around me. He held me close to him as he slammed into me, grinding into my ass. I could feel all of him, all his strength and his masculinity bleeding onto my curves.

  “You’re so fucking beautiful, Sam. Lost your femininity? You really think that’s what happened?”

  He slammed himself onto the edge of the couch and turned my body toward the ocean. My hands raced to his hair, wrapping up in the locks of hair he’d allowed to grow out because of his stress. I tilted my head back, ignoring the searing pain in my arm as our lips locked in passion. His hands grabbed my legs and pulled them apart, exposing my dripping pussy to the warm ocean breeze as his cock slammed up into me.

  “There is nothing about you that isn’t sensual? Nothing about you that isn’t graceful? You are breathtaking, Samantha Williams. And that will never change.”

  I closed my eyes, allowing his words to fill the caverns of my ears. I couldn't move. I couldn't buck back. I couldn't even grind down onto him. The only thing I could do was sit there in his lap as the moon looked in on our debaucherous acts. Our lips collided again, my tongue finding his as electricity sent jolts right to my clit.

  I was climbing quickly and furiously as my pussy throbbed around his dick.

  He slammed into me one last time before his body stilled. I moaned into his lips, making him swallow my sounds as his arms pulled me close. My nails raked along his scalp, tugging hair from his head as I pressed as deeply into him as I could get. I was unencumbered, no longer worried about someone coming after us. Coming into a room and killing us.

  For the first time since
I was eighteen years old, I felt free to be sensual, to be sexual, to be a woman.

  We collapsed on the bed, our bodies shaking from our orgasms as Derek pulled me into his body. Our foreheads connected, our lungs panting for air as the ocean backdropped our noises. I could feel him leaking out of me as we lay there, his hand pulling a blanket up over our bodies.

  Then his fingertips started dancing along my scars, along the rigged, rough skin of my back and on my sides, and along the divots on my thighs and the newest one on the upper part of my arm.

  It was like he was trying to reinforce something, only I was swirling with too much passion to figure out what it was.

  “Can I tell you something?” Derek asked.

  I nodded as my body snuggled closer to his.

  “I have feelings for you, Sam. And they’re strong. Getting us in this environment and away from all that shit has only served to strengthen them. Even though we’ve only been here less than a day.”

  I closed my eyes, hoping and praying he wasn’t going to say what I thought he was going to.

  “I think I’m falling in love with you, Sam.”

  And there it was. The one thing I was afraid of more than anything. My client had fallen in love with me, attached himself so effortlessly to the person he was conjuring me to be in his mind. But I wasn’t this person. I was riddled with alcohol and acting on instincts of impulse. This wasn’t who I was on a daily basis, nor was I a bodyguard on a daily basis.

  He had no idea who I was, and if I had it my way, he would never know.

  His feelings weren’t real. They couldn’t be. It wasn’t possible for a logical, successful man like him to partner himself with the likes of me. I hunkered deeper into his embrace, pressing my face into the crook of his neck to try and distract him from his train of thought.

  I kissed his skin, feeling his hands continuing to smooth over my scarred back.

  It didn’t stop me from wishing it was real, though. It didn’t stop me from wishing my life could be like this. In another time, with another childhood and another personality, maybe it could’ve been. Maybe in another realm, I could’ve been the kind of woman a man like Derek Steele was looking for. But our paths were set, and our skill sets were defined, and there was no going back. I was traveling down a very different path from him, and after Jacob was caught, they would never intersect again unless he found himself in more trouble.

  I felt Derek’s breathing evening out, and it provided me some relief. I turned around in his arms, feeling his embrace tighten around my body. I pulled the covers up to my chin and fell asleep with the ocean waves breaking in the background, the sound lulling me into a peaceful slumber.

  And that night, another first occurred.

  For the first time since I was eighteen, I slept without a nightmare.

  Chapter 9

  Derek

  THE RESTAURANT NEAR the bungalows served meals all throughout the day. I woke up to the ocean greeting us sweetly and Sam’s light snores pulsing on the side of my neck. Feeling her warmth wrapped around me was unlike anything I’d ever experienced. I could feel the strength of her muscles and run my fingertips along the softness of her skin. I lay watching her naked chest rise and fall with her even breaths.

  She was content. Peaceful. Beautiful in ways no words could describe.

  Instead of waking her up for breakfast, I simply left her a note. I wanted her to sleep in after everything we had been through. Between pulling all-nighters at the office with me and taking a damn bullet in the arm to keep me safe, she had more than deserved it.

  But I wanted her to know she wasn’t alone and that I hadn’t left her side all night.

  However, breakfast only served to bring up worries about the prior night. The sex was wonderful, more explosive and passionate than it had ever been. She didn’t need permission to do something, and it was the first time she had initiated anything. I wasn’t concerned about what we had engaged in, but I was concerned about my admission.

  About telling her I was falling in love with her.

  She hadn’t said anything back. She only placed a kiss on my neck, and even then, it hadn’t felt quite as intimate. It was almost as if she was trying to use her body as a distraction, as a way to derail my thoughts so I wouldn’t notice that she didn’t answer. I felt closer to her than I had ever felt to anyone last night, but I was slowly beginning to get the feeling all of this was very one-sided. It wasn’t unlikely that she had, in fact, convinced herself what I was feeling couldn’t be real.

  I ate breakfast alone and in silence. Every once in a while, someone would look my way, and I would see the pity in their eyes. That was the thing about being as rich and prominent as I was. I could run to any corner of the world, but someone would always recognize me. And with the way the media was hacking into my world, they would always know my deepest, darkest secrets.

  Like this shit with Jacob.

  “Guess who?”

  A pair of soft hands came down around my face, but the voice wasn’t Sam’s. I tensed, my fists balled up and my legs ready to stand to attention. Thoughts of who this could be were running through my head as my mind registered the voice. Part of me thought I was going to be attacked. Right here in the damn restaurant less than three minutes away from the bungalow where Sam slept.

  But another part of me recognized the voice.

  I wrapped my hands around the delicate wrists that covered my face and pulled them from my vision. I turned around, looking up into a very familiar pair of blue eyes. I was staring up at Valerie Rickshaw.

  And yes, she still had a pair of fabulous legs.

  “Val,” I said. “What in the world are you doing here?”

  “Just taking some time for myself. Getting some stress off my back,” she said.

  “And what kind of stress have you encountered in your fun little world?” I asked.

  She walked around and sat down at the table, her long, thin legs carrying her with a grace unparalleled to any other woman I’d known.

  Except for Sam.

  She was as beautiful as ever. Her voice lilted with a slight southern accent, and her neck sparkled with an exorbitant amount of rubies. The blue in her eyes reflected the ocean crashing against the shore behind us as she crossed one long leg over the other. Her blond hair that used to be long was cut off at her chin, fluttering around her head in several layers as she peered at me from her smoky blue eyes.

  Valerie Rickshaw.

  I hadn’t seen her since she dumped me seven years ago.

  “Oh, well. I’m between husbands right now,” Valerie said.

  “Didn’t realize you’d gotten married,” I said.

  “To the man who came after you, actually. A whirlwind romance, nothing I should have gotten myself into. But this man ... wow. He was a doozy.”

  “Get your heart broken again?” I asked.

  “That’s rich, coming from you.”

  “Oh, come on, Val. We never loved one another. We were both rebounding at the time. You from what’s-his-face and me from what-was-her-name.”

  “You remember her name. You called me her name in bed the first time we ever slept together.”

  “And I bought you your dream car as an apology,” I said. “At your request, if I’m remembering correctly.”

  “Well, I’m here to cheer myself up. Some sun and a nice vacation does wonders for the female form.”

  “You do look quite ... cheerful,” I said.

  “I wish I could say the same for you, but with all the goings on with your name in the news, I think I have a good idea of why you’re here.”

  “Did your social circle help you come to that conclusion?” I asked.

  “Oh, you were always so jealous of them.”

  “Because you were always dragging me to events and then finding some way to slam what I was doing with my life. The mere fact that I hadn’t made my first billion by the time I was twenty-five was apparently something to joke about.”

  �
��That why you pulled away from me?” she asked.

  “Among other things.”

  “At any rate, I’m sorry. For everything going on. The news said he was your best friend? You never really were the greatest judge of character.”

  “Obviously,” I said as I raked my eyes up and down her form.

  I was annoyed at the fact that Valerie was here and that she felt she could simply sit down and dredge up our past to try and make herself feel better. Or take jabs because she was angry. Or whatever the hell else it was she was trying to do. Even though I knew people recognized me in this place, at least they weren’t coming up to me and talking about it. This place had served to wash away some of my concern, even though I was still checking my work emails and notifications.

  But with my ex-girlfriend sitting across the table from me, it was beginning to spoil my mood.

  “Well, Val, it’s always a moderate pleasure to speak with you. If you don’t mind, I have a—”

  The moment I stood from my chair, she leaped to her feet. Her hand wrapped around my neck, cupping my head and pulling me into her lips. Our bodies collided, her tongue swiping over my lips to try and beg entrance. I pursed my lips together, placing my hands on her waist before I pushed her away from me.

  “What the hell was that?”

  Valerie looked at me as if she’d seen a ghost.

  “Why in the world are you upset?” Valerie asked.

  “Because you kissed me, that’s why. What in the world are you doing?” I asked.

  She looked like a deer in headlights as if it shocked her that I didn’t want to kiss her. But when I looked over Valerie’s shoulder, I saw Sam standing there. Her eyes locked onto us as her dress of choice fluttered around her knees. She looked so beautiful in the sunlight of the island with her tanned skin and her orange flip-flops and a dress painted the same colors of the sunset we had made love to last night.