Her Brother’s Billionaire Best Friend (Her Billionaire #1)

Chapter NINE

(Matthew)

I’m here, the text read. Let me know when you need me.

I took a deep breath and slid my phone back into my pocket. This was going to be perfect. It had to be, because Charlotte deserved it, damn it.

I’d seen the way she’d folded in on herself during the conversation about age. Which, frankly, I’d found patronizing as hell. What was it about being almost-forty that made elder millennials so keen to insist their lives were harder than everyone’s who were born after them?

I knew from Scott that Charlotte was still struggling to find herself. I could sympathize; I’d turn forty in two months, and I still hadn’t figured out who I wanted to be when I grew up. The what I wanted to be had been decided for me the moment I became a fertilized egg; the Ashe family ran resorts and spent money. But figuring out an identity alongside that? Well, that was the tricky part.

I spotted the lamppost at the convergence of the two sidewalks where we’d met the night before. A moth the size of a bat swooped over my head, and I ducked.

A laugh floated up the path, and I squinted to make out the shape moving toward me through the darkness between the carefully positioned lights.

“Did you just get attacked by a moth?” Charlotte asked.

Of course she had seen the entire thing. Why wouldn’t she have?

“I was thinking about how impressive it is that this resort isn’t more buggy.” And now I was talking about pest control with the hot chick.

“The way the internet makes this place sound, it’s supposed to be this charming seaside rich people swamp,” she said, shielding her eyes as she looked up at the light. “So, how do you do it?”

“How do we do…?”

She gestured over her head. “Is it bats? Infrasound? Carefully positioned bug zappers?”

“I don’t know,” I admitted. “It’s not a department where I’m real hands-on.”

“But you’re hands-on with the alligators?” she asked as we began to walk up the path.

“Did you see me lay my hands on an alligator?” I countered. “I won’t be touching that damn bear either.”

She snorted a laugh, having been present for the discussion of who would walk the bear down the aisle. “You’re going to break Lauren’s heart, you know.”

“She’ll have to take comfort in knowing that I got the damn bear here, then. Because I’m not getting anywhere near the thing.” Despite Lauren’s assurances that Daisy was the nicest, sweetest, most gentle carnivorous Ice Age megafauna around, I wasn’t taking any chances.

“That was a nice thing you did, though,” Charlotte said. “If I forgot to mention that before.”

“You did forget to mention it, but I’ll let it slide. You were so impressed you were overwhelmed.” I hoped she knew I was teasing. That I didn’t think I was as amazing as all the shit I was talking.

I had a hunch that was the case when she played along. “Well, you’re very impressive. It’s difficult not to feel overwhelmed.”

“It’s the price you’ll have to pay to bask in my nearness.” I lowered my voice as a couple approached from the other direction. Thank god, it wasn’t anyone from Scott’s family. When they passed by, I asked Charlotte quietly, “In all seriousness, I want to make sure that you fully understand what’s going to happen tonight.”

She blinked up at me.

“You know, with the—”

“Yeah, I know what you’re talking about.” She looked over her shoulder before whispering, “I assume you have some guy waiting to catch us on the roof, and then we’ll all fuck.”

“That ruins some of the surprise, but yes,” I admitted.

“It’s not a surprise if it’s what we explicitly discussed.”

“Do you expect me to believe that you weren’t a little more convinced once you saw that bear?”

She thought for a moment. “It did make it seem more probable and less like idle fantasy talk. I didn’t want to admit that you’d actually be able to pull off the fantasy thing, you know?”

That could be a problem, because I had absolutely pulled it off. I stopped and faced her, my hands on her slender shoulders. “But it’s something you want to do? The reason I’m asking is because I’m not playing chicken here. We’re going to go upstairs and fuck and get caught and then fuck the guy I’ve got waiting to catch us.”

“I know,” she said simply.

“And you’re still okay with that? You’re not counting on us getting up there and it all being a joke or something?” That would be a humiliating thing to explain to the fuck buddy I’d flown in from New York.

“Yeah.” She shrugged my hands off and started walking again. “I trust you.”

“But you were overwhelmed because…”

“Because you’re literally a billionaire. You can do whatever you want, all the time. That’s intimidating.”

That was fair. I found it intimidating, myself. There were thousands of things I could do, could get away with, that the average person couldn’t. And I guess it would weird me out, if I’d never known a life like that, to hang out with someone who lived that way.

“Intimidating,” I repeated. “But you trust me.”

“I do.” She nodded decisively. I noted she hadn’t worn her hair in a ponytail tonight, but in loose curls around her shoulders. The lights along the sidewalk illuminated a halo of copper around her.

Who the hell was this woman, who’d met me less than twenty-four hours ago but who was about to march into my suite and act out one of her secret fantasies with me? That was the kind of boldness and fearlessness that reminded me—

Well, it reminded me of me. And I’m a big fan of myself, so I found myself liking her a lot too.

Charlotte was fun. And she didn’t seem to give a damn about what I thought of her.

We chatted idly until we reached my suite, talking about safe-in-public topics like the fact that Leo kept his phone clipped to his belt like a big giant nerd and all of Lauren’s friends seemed wildly different from each other and her.

“The guy who looks like he runs an RV dealership—” Charlotte said as we stepped through the door.

“Rich,” I replied. “His name, I mean. Although he does do well for himself with his… camping supply store.”

“Camping supply store!” She groaned comically. “I knew it had something to do with the boring outdoors.”

“Hey, hey.” I stopped her with one hand held up. “The outdoors is not boring. And if you think it is, I feel like I have a duty to prove you wrong.”

“Feel that way all you want, but I’m not going camping with you.” She walked into the great room and turned around in a slow circle. “So… do I get to meet your friend?”

“Do you want to meet my friend?” It would be unreasonable to ask her to not meet a person she planned to fuck later.

But she shook her head. “Nah. Kind of ruins the mystery of it. And I know you’re not going to put me in danger, so it must be someone you trust.”

She had me there.

“Someone you probably have done this with before,” she added.

“Not exactly this, but… yeah. Guilty.” I found it difficult to believe that she’d ever felt intimidated by me; her confidence scared the hell out of me. Not that I didn’t like confident partners. I couldn’t remember a time when I was her age that I would have done something like this or spoken to a sexual partner as boldly. “Before we head up, let’s make sure we’re on the same page about a few things.”

She nodded in agreement but added the caveat, “Nothing too specific, though. I still want there to be an element of surprise.”

“Fair enough.” I put my hands in my pockets to keep myself from touching her. Now that we were safely behind closed doors, I wanted to do the things to her that I’d been thinking about all day. Our tryst in the linen closet hadn’t been enough. The wedding weekend had a packed itinerary that left no time to sneak away and jack off, so I’d spent a frustrating evening trying not to trace her every movement with my eyes or “accidentally” brush up against her.

But there were important preliminaries to be observed. “First, I want you to know that I don’t play around with people who aren’t safe. I’m not opening you up to any new and exciting sexually transmitted infections by introducing you to this guy, okay? Do you want to know his name?”

“No,” she said quickly. “I want him to be a stranger. The whole time.”

“Can do. Second, I don’t play around with people who don’t understand boundaries. Which means for all of us.” I didn’t think she’d view Max as a sex toy instead of a person, but I had too much experience with this kind of thing to completely rule the possibility out. “Do you want to set up a safe word or are we sticking with ‘stop’?”

“‘Stop’ is fine,” she said, her cheeks coloring slightly. “I’m not sure I could remember any other words in the heat of the moment.”

We’ll need to fix that, eventually.

My brain screeched to a halt. What “eventually” was I planning for? This was a weekend. A little bit of fun on the side, presumably to remind myself that my friend was ruining his life by getting married and giving up all the freedom I enjoyed. To convince myself that my broken engagement wasn’t the dying-alone sentence it felt like.

I had to get myself back on track. “Moving along here, how do you feel about double penetration?”

“I feel like it would be a good time, but I’m not prepared to go there tonight. I think I would need way more experience in the back door area, if you catch my drift.” She blushed again, and I wondered if it was difficult for her to admit to being inexperienced at something.

I resisted the strong urge to offer to tutor her. “Off the table, got it. How about stuff between two guys? Is it okay if me and him get involved, or is this a strictly male-female-male fantasy?”

“Please, do get involved,” she said with a giggle.

“Hey now, I’m not here to perform for you,” I teased her.

“Sorry, was that fetishizing? I can’t help it. You’re superhot.” She spread her hands in a what-are-you-gonna-do gesture and let them flop to her sides.

“Is there anything you want to add or know about, before we go up?” I asked. For example, do you want to tell me to kiss you? Because you didn’t react well when I tried before, so I’m not going to try again.

Why did I take that so personally? Lots of people on the planet didn’t want to kiss me. Why did it bother me that she’d not-subtly rejected me?

She shook her head. “No. I’m. I’m ready.”

“Good.” I took a step toward her, then another, savoring the anticipation of what we were about to do and the anticipation of finally touching her after a torturous day of denying myself. “Shall we go up, then?”

I would normally leave my phone as far away from the sex I was having as possible. It tended to ring for obnoxious reasons right in the middle of the best parts. But I needed it tonight to communicate with Max.

“You didn’t bring your suit again,” I noted as we walked past the pool.

“Oh, I’m about finished with swimming today. Possibly for life,” she said with a laugh. “I went to a fun wedding pool party today. Which you got to skip out on.”

I’d avoided it purposely, because seeing Charlotte wet and glistening and not being allowed to touch her would have been a special kind of torment. “A best man’s work is never done. I was finalizing plans for the bachelor party.”

“Let me guess,” she said, strolling over to the bar. “You’re going to go to the grossest strip club imaginable, where none of you will have any fun because half of you will be terrified of your wives and the other half will be terrified for your daughters.”

She certainly had the vibe down. But I pointed out, “I have no wife and no daughters, so I am free to support the local talent.”

“Then it’ll be a fun time for you, not so much for everyone else.” She went to the mini fridge below the bar, retrieved a bottle of some kind of flavored malt beverage, and declared, “I’m taking this,” before twisting the top off.

“You’re not too drunk, right?” I asked, stepping up behind her to trap her against the bar. “I’m not taking advantage of you?”

“You’d better take advantage of me,” she said, tipping the bottle back and gulping it down. “It’s going to be hard to top last time.”

“Don’t issue challenges that you know I can meet. It’s insulting.” I leaned down and caught her earlobe between my teeth. I expected she would squirm away, but instead she tilted her head to give me better access. I nibbled my way down her throat, until I couldn’t feasibly reach more of her.

She turned in my arms and I straightened, looking down at her upturned face. Her eyes were dreamy, lids heavy, but not from the alcohol. I let myself get lost in her for a moment. A band of pink crossed her cheeks and nose from the sun she’d gotten during the day, and the slight breeze stirred her hair. Her body was warm and firm, and she felt so good pressed against me. I knew how good it would feel when all her soft skin was bare and perspiring, how incredible she would sound when Max and I made her come.

She looked good now, but I wanted her to look used when she left. I wanted the red patches on her skin to be from my stubble, the curls in her hair crushed by friction. I wanted her to leave here on weak legs and wake up as sore as someone who’d done CrossFit for the first time.

What I wanted was to make sure that when we left and went back to our normal, non-wedding-dominated lives, that she would remember me as the best sex she’d ever had.

She gazed up at me dreamily. “So, when do we get started?”