Chapter 5

5

Easton

Istare at Scout’s curled fist on my pillow. Let my eyes travel up her arm, her shoulder kissed by morning light. Her bare tits nestled in the sheets, her rosy lips softened by sleep. Angelic. A breeze carries in off the ocean and stirs her hair, but she isn’t roused by the sound of the tide coming in below, waves pounding on the rocks. Almost like she was made for this place. My home. Made for me.

She was.

One day isn’t going to be enough.

Two. I can get away with two.

With a heavy swallow, I climb out of bed, throw on a pair of sweatpants and brush my teeth, making my way down to the kitchen. Am I crazy to take such a chance with this girl? My enemies are always looking for a weakness. A way to exploit me. And I haven’t given them one since the elimination of my brother and best friend. Since they were gunned down in the street right in front of me, their expressions eternally frozen in fear.

There would be no recovering if the same happened to Scout.

Fuck that. If a bullet grazed her, I’d spend the rest of my life deranged.

She’s dangerous to my sanity. A liability.

Then she walks into the kitchen in a borrowed T-shirt with messy hair, blinking at me innocently from behind her glasses and I almost laugh. An adorably nerdy, five-foot-three college student could put a wrench in my billion-dollar operation by shedding one tear.

Jesus.

Scout is staring at me and blushing under the kitchen’s archway. “What is it?”

“Nothing.” She presses her knuckles to her lips, subduing a smile. “I just…after last night…”

My eyebrows go up, heart beating faster. “Are you actually feeling shy?”

She holds up her index finger and thumb, nearly pinching them together. “A little.”

“Come here.”

“No, I’m good.”

“Scout,” I say warningly. “Here. Now.”

I receive an eye roll in response, but she pads her way over to me where I stand at the coffee maker. “It’s just that now I’m thinking about all the things I said in the dark. And all the things that you said,” she rambles. “They sounded perfectly appropriate at the time, but now it’s light out and you…you don’t have a shirt on and…”

My hand cups her cheek. “And?”

“And I can see a lot of what’s happening in your sweatpants,” she whispers, looking up at the ceiling. “Pretty much all of it.”

I look down to find my cock at full mast. Of course it is. Scout is in the room.

Being fucking delicious. Fresh from having her cherry popped.

“And?” I prompt her again, my voice like gravel.

“Well. It’s um…N-Newton’s Law states that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction and…”

Christ, she is so sweet, she’s going to break me in half. “Is that your way of telling me your pussy is wet, cutie?”

She hums, the color of her cheeks deepening. “But I seriously doubt I can do what we did last night when it’s light out.”

“Oh, you doubt it, do you?”

Her expression is solemn. “Yes.”

I tuck a finger under the hem of her borrowed shirt, tease her belly button with my knuckle. “Would you like to have your hypothesis disproven?”

Scout gasps. “Don’t use science terminology. That’ll only make it worse.”

“Mmmm. Centrifugal force.” Her mouth drops open and I swoop down to the kiss the corner of her parted lips. The move causes her neck to lose power and I dip my head to rake my tongue up the side of that smooth slope, snagging her earlobe in my teeth. “Beta particles.”

So help me God, she can barely catch her breath.

I’m jealous of science.

Or maybe it’s all me turning her on, because her legs almost collapse when I palm her pussy, massaging it firmly through her moist panties. “Easton,” she moans, clinging to my shoulders. “How can that feel so good even when I’m sore?”

The word “sore” wrenches something in my chest.

I barely stop myself from shoving my face into her neck and howling in denial.

“Goddammit,” I manage around the tightness in my throat. “I knew I was too rough, especially at the end.” I kiss her forehead apologetically. “You were just so wet and tight.”

“You were perfect.” She kisses my pec, smooths her hands down my chest. “It was just my first time. That’s why I’m sore.”

I adjust my erection. “This can wait. What will make you feel better?”

When she bites her lip and gives me a mischievous look, it becomes blatantly obvious that I’m out of my head in love with Scout. Permanently. No way out. I never stood a chance. “We could do a science experiment.”

A laugh barks out of me. “The kitchen is yours.”

For the next half an hour, I drink my coffee and watch her flit around the kitchen like a hot, nerdy fairy. She retrieves an empty, plastic, two-liter bottle from the recycling and fills it with oil and water. Next she finds green food coloring and adds several drops, her brow pinched in concentration. She adds a healthy dose of salt, then shifts the bottle side to side.

“Do you have the flashlight app on your phone?” she asks over her shoulder.

Nodding, I open it up, setting it down on the counter.

Biting her lip, she carefully places the bottle on top and I realize what she’s done.

“It’s a do-it-yourself lava lamp.”

“Uh-huh,” she says, grinning. “See, the salt binds the oil, making it heavier than water.”

“An equal and opposite reaction.”

“Yes.” She beams at me. “Next time, I’ll make a battery out of a potato.” As soon as the words are out of her mouth, she tries to jog them back. “I-I didn’t mean next time. I know there can’t be a next time.”

My heart rips up into my mouth at the thought of her leaving. Of coming down to this kitchen tomorrow morning and not having her here, doing science experiments in one of my T-shirts. I’m already miserable at the prospect. “I’ve decided that I’ll be keeping you here until tomorrow, Scout.”

Is that relief that loosens her shoulders? Parts her lips? “I’d like that.” She ducks her head, but I catch her smile. “But I do have class tomorrow morning.”

“I can have someone collect clothes, books, whatever you need from your apartment.”

“Thank you.”

“I’ll drop you off at school.”

She nods. “And that will be it.”

My coffee boils in my stomach. “Yes. It has to be.”

* * *

Eventually my chefarrives to make breakfast.

From her perch on my knee, Scout makes a list of items she needs from her apartment and I relay it to my security team. One of them is sent to purchase her a variety of bathing suits and they return with several options within the hour. Now I stand in my bedroom with a cock made of steel, watching her try them on in the full-length mirror.

Every time she looks at one of the price tags, she frowns over her shoulder in my direction and it makes me fantasize about all the ways I would spoil her rotten, if I was able to keep her forever. Just to get that cute little frown of reproach. I’d build her a science lab to start, because it’s obvious that conducting experiments makes her happy.

Fuck it. Whether I can keep her or not, I’ll do it anyway.

I’ll help her be successful. Keep tabs on her grades, her career.

Crave her from a distance…

Are you deluded? You’ll never be able to stay away.

Determinedly, I tune out the voice in the back of my head, clearing my throat hard enough to bring Scout’s head up. “Try the blue one. It matches your eyes.”

She chews her lip. “Oh, but it…it doesn’t cover the butt. Like, at all.”

I raise an eyebrow.

Scout strips out of the black bikini she’s been trying and I grind my teeth together. God almighty, the ass on this girl. I could take a fucking bite out of it. When she realized I was going to observe as she tried on bathing suits, her entire body flushed, but she’s growing more and more confident. How could she not be when I’m tenting the front of my sweatpants, groaning in appreciation every time she fits the little triangles over her tits?

I’m not going to make it much longer without squeezing my cock into the tight hole between her legs, but I’m trying to make up for being an animal last night.

The royal-blue thong bikini is the clear winner.

Not only because it frames her ass like the work of art it is, but there are gold embellishments between her tits and resting on her hips. And I like her looking expensive. I like her looking like Daddy spoiled her.

Like she’s done every time, she checks the price tag and gasps. “I-is this accurate?” She stares at the bathing suit in the mirror. “Is the gold real?”

“You think I’d put you in fake gold, cutie?”

Without waiting for her to answer, I strip out of my sweatpants and walk naked to the dresser. I can feel her attention fastened to my hard cock as I search for my swim trunks. So I take my time putting them on, making eye contact with her when I fist my dick and position it as comfortably as possible inside the nylon.

“You ready to go to the beach?”

“The where?” she asks, sounding dazed.

* * *

On the waydown the stairs to the beach, Scout takes her scheduled phone call with her sister. “Me?” she squeaks into the receiver of my phone. “Are you okay? The Madman himself carried you out of the arena after giving Banner a concussion and no one has seen you since!”

She pauses, frowns.

“It can be about you sometimes, Whit.”

There is a break in the crashing waves and though it’s faint, I can hear her sister’s next question come down the line. “Has he hurt you?”

My gut twists. Of course the sister would be worried. Scout is holed up with the devil.

But Scout answers right away, as if the very idea is preposterous and I relax. “No.”

“Are you allowed to leave?”

Scout shoots me a questioning look and I give a firm headshake.

“Hard no.”

I don’t hear the next part.

“Of course I will.” Scout sniffles. “I miss you.”

Pause.

“I had sex, Whit,” she whispers dramatically.

Jesus Christ.

I’m caught between exasperated and amused. I live in a hard world and I can’t help but be…moved by the obvious love between the sisters. Didn’t I once have something similar with my own brother? Have I hardened myself so much against getting attached that I’m caught off guard when I see this type of familial bond in front of my eyes?

When Scout hangs up the call, she seems a little lost and I don’t like it, so I tuck her into the crook of my arm. “How is she?” I ask.

“Conflicted, I think. Whitney is harder to read than me.” She presses her lips together. “She wants to see me. To make sure I’m okay. Can you arrange that?”

My jaw pops. “I’d rather not waste the time we have together.”

She stops on the bottom step, right before we reach the sand. “It wouldn’t be a waste.”

“That’s not what I meant. I just…worry you’ll want to leave early. If you see her.”

“I won’t, Easton.” She leans in and kisses the center of my chest. “You have my word.”

Still, I hesitate. We are safe inside my estate, but as soon as we set foot outside, there are variables I can’t always control. Enemies lying in wait. Traps. Violence. If a fucking hair on her head was harmed, I would tear the sun down out of the sky.

“Easton,” she murmurs, laying her cheek against my rapidly thudding heart. “Just a quick meeting. You decide when and where. It’ll be okay.”

I make a hoarse, skeptical sound. “This is important to you?”

“Yes.”

My eyes close, my very soul rebelling over the idea of denying Scout anything she wants. Anything in the world. “Then I will arrange it.”

Her smile makes me short of breath.

“Until then…” I reach behind her back and untie her bikini top, removing and draping it over the railing, leaving her ripe little tits bared to the sun. “You won’t be needing this.” I take her hand and guide it to my cock, watching her eyes glaze over as she grips me, tests the heavy weight of me in her palm. “This is all you’ll be needing.”