Escorting the Billionaire by Leigh James
James
Only idiots putall their cards on the table and hoped for the best. And yet here I was, cradling her in my arms, asking her to stay with me.
She sniffled yet again and sat up, pulling back from me a little, straightening her shoulders and regaining her composure. “You’re sweet,” she said, and I could tell from the tone in her voice that she was dismissing what I’d just said to her. She didn’t know if I meant it, and I couldn’t blame her. So she was giving me a pass to act as if it meant nothing.
Take the pass, James,I thought. Until you can get your head on straight.
Expert actress that she was, Audrey turned the conversation around fast. “What on Earth did my mother make of you?”
“She thought I was… pleasant,” I lied. She asked me if I was paying you enough, and why I couldn’t find a ‘real’ woman. “I told her that she can’t ever take money from your brother’s facility again.”
“I told her that last night. She doesn’t care about anything other than what she can get away with.”
“That was the impression I got, unfortunately,” I said.
Audrey grimaced. “I can’t believe you went and saw where she lives. And talked to her. I’m so embarrassed.”
I reached out and grabbed her hand. “You have nothing to be embarrassed about. She’s not you. You’re nothing like her—and by that I mean you’re honest, caring, and kind-hearted.”
“I can’t believe that she’d do that to my brother. I mean, I can—’cause she’s done it. But still.” Her tears had dried up and she had a resigned look on her face. “I should probably do that paperwork.” She grabbed it, and I went and got her a pen.
She started signing the documents that would remove her mother as a signatory on her brother’s account. “How much did you pay New Horizons?” she asked without looking up at me.
“It doesn’t matter.”
“Of course it does. You’re paying me a ridiculous amount for these two weeks. We’ll just deduct it from that.”
“No, Audrey. We won’t.”
Now she looked up at me, her jaw clenching. “How much money did you give my mother?”
“I’m not telling you that, either.”
“You have to,” she said. “I’m paying you back, James. I don’t want this on my conscience for the rest of my life. My mother’s my cross to bear—not yours. I don’t want her having anything to do with you.”
“We don’t have to argue about it right now. Okay?” I asked. She finished signing the papers, and I pulled her back to me, placing her head against my chest. “Just let it go,” I said.
“You have to promise that I can pay you back. It has to be even between us,” she said. “Otherwise, I’ll feel like a user. Not just a whore.”
“Stop it,” I said, anger flashing through me—not at her, but at her circumstances. “You’re doing what you’re doing for the right reasons. You don’t have to be ashamed of the choices you’ve made. Protecting someone you love is the most important thing you can do.”
She looked at me stubbornly. “I’m not ashamed. I just want you to promise me.”
“I’ll promise you anything, Audrey.”
“Good. I feel better already,” she said, finally relaxing and nestling against me. “Promise me I’m the cowboy.”
“You’re the cowboy, baby,” I said. “I’m the bed.”
Taking me by surprise, she hugged me. “Thank you, James. Thank you for helping my brother. You’re a good person.”
I lifted her chin in my hands, and I kissed her softly on the lips. “No, I’m not.”
“You’re wrong,” she whispered. “I’m the cowboy, and I say you’re wrong.” She ran her hands through my hair again. “So… you’ve seen some of my really ugly skeletons now. I seem to remember last night you said you had some in your closet, too. Wanna share? So we can balance the ugliness between us?”
I looked out the window. It was a beautiful, sunny June day. “Do you remember what I said? About the fact that you don’t want to know?”
“I think that was my line, James.” She traced my jaw with her finger. “But you don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to. I understand.”
I looked over at her then. The thing was, she did understand. She was the one woman I’d met in decades with whom it was easy. Even though it wasn’t easy. Audrey was the only woman I’d met in forever that I felt connected to.
“I lostsomeone close to me. A girlfriend.”
“I’m so sorry. When was this?”
“A long time ago. The summer after high school.” I rubbed my face. I hadn’t talked about this ever, really. Maybe a few words to Todd when he asked me if I was okay. He’d been so young when it happened. I don’t think he understood how it wrecked me.
“Her name was Danielle. We’d dated our senior year at Philips Andover. I’d never met anyone like her before—she was a scholarship student, from a very different background than me. She was brilliant. And open. And kind.” I smiled at the memory of her.
“She sounds lovely,” Audrey said. “What happened?”
“She was going to Brown in the fall, and I wanted to change my plans and follow her there. My parents didn’t approve. I’d been accepted to Harvard. That’s where my father went, and that’s where my father wanted me to go. They were against the relationship, anyway. Her family was lower middle class, nobodies from Tewksbury. Actually, they were really nice people—I’m still in touch with them. Which means they still send me a Christmas card.
“But just because I thought she was wonderful and her family was great didn’t mean that she was acceptable to my parents. The fact that she’d gotten a full-boat scholarship to Brown for biology didn’t earn her any points, either. She didn’t have the pedigree. They wanted me to attend Harvard and end the relationship. I fought with them about it the whole summer.
“One night Danielle came over, and my parents were horrible to her. Really vicious. They told her that she was breaking our family apart by trying to get me to follow her to Brown. Which she wasn’t—that’d been my idea. But knowing my parents the way I do, I just sat there. There was no use fighting them. Danielle became hysterical and left.”
He paused for a beat. “She got into a car accident that night, Audrey. On her way home. And she died.”
Audrey sat there, holding my hand and looking white with shock. “I’m so sorry.” She looked as if she was going to cry for me. “But you can’t blame yourself for that. She got into an accident. You didn’t cause it.”
“I did nothing to defend her that night. My parents told her she was unacceptable to our family. It was like they’d gutted her. And then she left, sobbing. I never heard someone cry like that before.” The memory of it still haunted me.
“There was a thunderstorm, and the police said the visibility was bad. She hydroplaned and went off the road, into a guardrail. That never would have happened if she were calm—I know that. And she had her whole life in front of her. I took that away.”
“James.” She took my face in her hands. “You can’t carry that guilt around with you forever. It was an accident. Yes, she was upset. But it wasn’t your fault. Your parents must feel horrible about it, though.”
I looked out the window again, trying to calm the sharp edges I felt inside of myself. It was like this every time I thought of Danielle. There was so much regret it physically hurt.
“My mother said it was fate.” My voice sounded dead to my own ears.
“She did not,” Audrey said. “Please tell me that’s not true.”
I shrugged. “She was appropriately mournful to begin with. She went to the service, said all the right things. She donated an obscene amount of money to the scholarship fund Danielle’s parents set up in her memory. My mother is a master at putting on a show.
“Still, I knew she was relieved. And at Christmas that year I drank myself into a stupor and accused her of as much.”
“And?” Audrey asked.
“And she told me that I was lucky. That Preston luck and fate had given me an out.” The memory’s sharp edges of pain dulled to a flat hate.
“And I thought my mother was bad. Celia’s fucking unbelievable,” Audrey said.
I laced my fingers through hers. “She sure is,” I said.
“Did you love her?” Audrey asked me a little while later. We were still sitting on the couch. The only thing we’d done was send the paperwork in and then settle back down, holding hands.
“It was a long time ago, but I know that I did. It was first love. Nothing else is quite like that,” I said. “Do you know what I mean?”
She nodded slowly, her gaze directed out of the window. “I do, James. I do.”
“That’senough doom and gloom for one day.” Audrey sat up straight. My head was in her lap, and she’d been playing with my hair. I couldn’t remember the last time that sitting with someone, talking to them, and having them play with my hair qualified as an event for me, but this did. And this particular event had stretched past lunch.
“Are you hungry?” I asked.
“I’m always hungry.”
I sat up and smiled at her. “Me, too. Why don’t we just go down the street? Sit outside, have a late lunch, and drink some wine?”
“That sounds perfect.” She kissed me on the nose and went to get up but I stopped her, grabbing her hands.
“Thank you for listening to me today,” I said. “I’ve never spoken about what happened before. I never even told Cole. It’s something that I buried a long time ago. You’re the first person I ever felt comfortable with enough to talk to about it.” I tucked her hair behind her ear.
She smiled at me, flushing with pleasure. “Thank you for everything you did for me today—even though I’m paying you back—and thank you for trusting me enough to tell me about Danielle. You can trust me, James.” She laced her fingers through mine. “You’ve shown me that you’ve got my back. I have yours. You need to know that.”
I leaned up and kissed her then, tasting her sweet mouth. It was as if nothing else mattered to me anymore. My business back in California was a blur—it was like that was someone else’s life. All those worries, that rhythm, were far from me now. I hadn’t even called in to yell at my assistant Molly today. All I cared about was Audrey in this moment. As far as I was concerned my family could be damned, except for Todd. And I could already tell he knew what she meant to me.
“Let’s go eat. It’s a beautiful day out.”
“Wait,” I said, not ready to let her go. “I need something from you first.” I kissed her again, our tongues connecting.
I got hard as soon as that happened.
This was uncharted territory for me. Not the erection, obviously. It was just that sex wasn’t all I needed—I needed her, and I didn’t know what to do with that. I couldn’t articulate the need any further. I didn’t know what to ask her for.
But Audrey knew exactly what to do. She showed me that she needed me, too.
She climbed onto my lap and straddled me. She said nothing, but she removed her shirt and mine swiftly, kissing me with an urgency I hadn’t felt from her before. She stood and pulled off her leggings and then undid my pants, lifting my ass up and pulling them off, not saying a word.
She knelt on the floor below me. I ran my hands down her beautiful, smooth skin, and she took my cock in her mouth, licking and sucking. I leaned back, overwhelmed with the sensation. She took me all the way down her throat, sucking hard.
“Oh my God, Audrey.” I threw my head back against the couch. I almost exploded in her mouth right then. I moaned, just wanting to fill her with me. She swirled her tongue around my tip and cupped my heavy balls. “Oh, fuck yeah—that’s good.” I fisted my hands through her hair, caught up in the moment. I almost came like that, hard in her mouth, but it wasn’t what I wanted. I wanted her. I wanted to give her pleasure.
I wanted her to scream my name.
“Audrey,” I said, my voice thick, “Come here.” She sat up and straddled me again, taking my now-enormous cock and rubbing it against her wet slit. She threw back her head, like it felt good, as she rubbed against me.
“Baby, I need to be inside you,” I said. “Now.” She positioned herself above me, and all at once, took me in her, hard. We both cried out. Then we started rocking against each other. It felt so good. I was in so deep. I grabbed her ass and bounced her on my hard length, up and down, over and over.
“Oh my God, James. Oh my God.”
“Tell me I’m the only one,” I said. The sensation of having her on me like that, of being inside her so deep, was making me crazy. I squeezed her ass. “Tell me you’re mine.” Her breasts bounced in front of me and I buried my face in them, licking and sucking her nipples. I wanted to own her body. I wanted to leave my mark on her like a brand, so that no one else ever touched her.
I fucked her harder.
She moaned as I thrust into her again and again. “I’m yours. There’s no one but you,” she cried out. She arched against me, close to her release.
“Come for me, and say my name.” I was about to explode. I put my fingers on her clit and stroked it relentlessly.
She arched her back and cried out, her body wrapped around me like a vise. “James, oh my God. James. Come in me. Come in me, baby. I need to feel you.”
I fucking love you,I thought and came in a torrent.
