Married to the Secret Billionaire

You have no idea, I want to argue. I clamp my mouth shut over the words, and settle for just nodding, instead.

“If she doesn’t know you have any money, she can’t be after you for it,” Mrs. Jenkins points out. “But if you ask me? What this needs is time, Ankor. Time to develop. Time for you both to figure out what you came here for, and whether you’re open to finding something entirely different instead.” Her eyes sparkle, this time with amusement.

“Time? That’s your big answer?” I lift one eyebrow.

Her smile widens. “Time is all anything real ever truly needs.”

* * *

I arrive at the pool early the next day. I don’t know if it’s so much eagerness to get a head start on the day, or just eagerness to get out of my hotel room—and my own damn head. All I can think about is Sinclair. I dreamt about her. About her long, lean legs wrapped around my waist. About the sounds she makes when I’m buried deep inside her; the way her lips part just a little and her eyelids flutter and her hands clasp at me like I’m the only solid thing in the world.

When I wake up, I take a long shower, and as I wrap my own fist around my cock, all I can think about are her soft, delicate hands wrapped around my shaft, her soft blue eyes on mine, hot with lust and frustration when I kept teasing her to the brink of orgasm.

God, she’s fucking beautiful.

She’s fucking dangerous, too. The kind of danger I swore to myself I’d stay away from. Now look at me. A handful of days after meeting her, I’m a fucking mess.

No wonder she decided this thing between us was too strong. That she needed to run from it. I’m starting to get worried too, the longer I go without being able to get her out of my mind.

So, I head to the pool earlier than usual. Long before any of my regulars will be up and at it. I figure I can get in a few laps before class starts.

Instead, I freeze at the edge of the pool, my eyebrows lifting as I find Sinclair in the shallow end—clinging to the wall but looking a lot more comfortable than she did in the water at her first lesson. She’s already trying to kick a little, though she hasn’t dared to try a float from the looks of it. Her legs keep flailing, sinking before she can get up any kind of buoyancy.

I watch her practice for almost a minute before she spots me. When she does, she inhales so sharply I worry she’s about to swallow half the pool right here. But then she coughs and recovers, and raises a hand to wave at me.

I cross toward the shallow end of the pool and pause near the ladder. “Sinclair.”

“Ankor.” I watch her throat contract as she swallows. I try not to think about how good those soft, perfect little bow lips of hers would feel wrapped around the shaft of my cock. I try not to think about how much I want to make her come again—and again, and again… “I-I was wondering if I could still take lessons. With you. I mean, would that be okay, if… after… well.” She stops herself short and bites her lower lip.

That bite almost undoes me. Fuck.

As if I could say no to her.

“Of course.” I slide into the water beside her, one rung of the ladder at a time, the way I’d imagine you’re supposed to approach an easily spooked horse. She doesn’t spook, though. She just watches me, her expression unreadable, somber. “I’ll teach you for as long as you’d like, Sinclair,” I promise, and I mean it. Whatever she wants or doesn’t want between us, this is my job, after all.

And I’d do anything to see the kind of smile she breaks out into now more often. It’s small, but it’s real, the kind that crinkles the corners of her eyes. All I want to do is whatever I can to make her keep smiling like this.

It’s not until after our lesson—our incredibly polite and minimal touching lesson—that it occurs to me to wonder if maybe Mrs. Jenkins is right about this after all.

6

Sinclair

After a week of lessons, I’m finally able to swim the entire length of the shallow end and back. There’s still no way I’m going anywhere near the deep end, and I can only do the breast stroke so far. Butterfly is way too much coordination, and freestyle freaks me out. It feels too much like drowning in between strokes for me to be comfortable with it.

Backstroke I don’t mind as much, but it still unnerves me to float at all, let alone to float and move too. But I’m working on it. Getting stronger every day.