Page 35 of The Billionaire Submissive
Lilly leaned down and gave him a soft, gentle kiss. “I’m so sorry. That couldn’t have been easy. How old were you?”
“Fifteen. I lived with my aunt during the school year, but then started joining them on the boat for the summer. I worked in the trenches just like any other greenhorn. I did the shittiest jobs on the boat and learned what hard work really meant. I was still angry and my father wasn’t ‘Dad’. He was Captain. I gave him hell every chance I got, and he gave it back and then some. I hated him, I hated the boat, and I swore as soon as I was eighteen I wasn’t ever stepping foot on a boat again. I sure wasn’t going to take over the family business.”
“What happened?”
“He told me when I was eighteen I could do whatever the hell I wanted. I thought he was joking, but when I told him I’d won a scholarship to go to college, he took a week off the boat and helped me move across country and get settled. After Grandpa passed, I felt even guiltier for not joining them on the boats, but he insisted I return to college. He wasn’t the kind of man who ever said a lot. We didn’t sit down and have a heart-to-heart talk or anything like that, but I finally realized all those years on the boats had been his way of showing his love for us. He’d grown up poor and he never wanted that for us, even if it meant he had to be gone doing one of the most dangerous jobs on the planet.
“When I graduated from college, he finally told me he’d never been prouder. That’s when I decided I was going to take over the family business—but I was going to do it my way. I started making investments, expanding from fishing boats to packing companies, ocean liners, manufacturing. I kept thinking I’d make enough that Dad would finally quit captaining the fishing boat and we’d just… I don’t know. Hang out together. When I bought him this yacht, I thought it would finally get him to retire. Instead, he named itBeverly, after my mother, and started touring the world in it. Alone.”
“Why?”
“He said he met Mom on her father’s boat when he signed on his first year, and she was in the sea for him. When he was out on the water, he was with her. If he was on land, he missed her too much. I joined him when I could, but I got tied up with business more often than not, doing the same thing he’d done for all those years. Making money for the family, when what the family really wanted was me.”
He had to pause a moment, his throat dry and raw from emotion. Sitting up, he crawled over to the cooler and brought back two Perriers. “When Dad started having heart problems, I tried to get him to come live with me for a while, but he refused. He had to be on the sea, die on the sea. So I joined him on theBeverlyat last and we just sailed and fished and talked about Mom and Grandpa and all those wretched miserable summers I spent on the boat learning the trade. It was the best summer I can remember, and it taught me the most important lesson of my life. The business did just fine without me, and in the end, there’s no substitute for time together with the ones we love. One morning I got up and found him in his bunk instead of fishing. He’d passed away in his sleep.”
Lilly snuggled closer, using his shoulder for a pillow, her palm over his heart. “How long ago was that?”
“Eleven years. I returned to work andBeverlywent to dry dock. I couldn’t bear the sight of her. I continued to expand the business but I stayed away from the sea and boats because it was too painful to remember. Then one day I was going through some old boxes and I found a picture of Mom and Dad together on Grandpa’s first boat. Before she became pregnant with me, she’d sailed with them as the cook. Mom looked so happy, just beaming at the camera and holding Dad’s hand with the sea in the background. I was conceived on that boat. I became a man on that boat. I finally decided it was ridiculous to give up something I’d learned to enjoy out of grief. It would have been easier to leaveBeverlyon the coast, but I’d already bought the new office building in St. Paul and I was determined to stay put for a while. So I paid an exorbitant amount to get her moved up here after I found the perfect dock for her.”
“Why did you pick St. Paul, though? Especially when you already have so many homes sprinkled across the globe.”
“I grew up in St. Paul just down the street from Ricardo. Mom worked at thePioneer Pressfor years and years. It just felt like coming home.”
She fell silent, and after a few moments, he realized she was falling asleep. Lulled by the rocking of the boat and the warmth, his sleepyhead was finally getting the nap he’d promised her.
Staring up at the patches of blue sky cut by the tree limbs, he held her and listened to her deepening breathing. He smelled her hair, tamed by the braid she’d put her hair into fresh out of the shower this morning. He’d never told anyone the whole story of his life and his love/hate relationship with his father and the sea. No one had ever asked.
If I hadn’t decided to come back to St. Paul…
If I hadn’t decided to buy the rundown old post office…
I wouldn’t be here now. With Lilly’s head on my shoulder. I wouldn’t be wondering exactly what else she’d stuck into the black bag.I wouldn’t be smiling at the thought of what she might do with chocolate pie.
For the first time since he’d been coming up to Lake Minnetonka, he didn’t have to strip all his clothes off and lie in the sun to feel any warmth. Not when he had this woman lying beside him.
Chapter Twelve
Waking up with a hardening dick pressed against her backside was something Lilly decided she could definitely get used to.
Donovan held himself very still, probably trying to be gracious and not wake her up yet again, but she could tell he was awake by his careful, shallow breathing. Maybe he’d never even fallen asleep. “If you’re good with four or five hours of sleep a night, we’re going to have to work out some kind of sleeping schedule or I’m going to be as grouchy as I was this morning all day long.”
“Sorry,” he nuzzled her neck, tightening his arm around her waist. “I did doze off for a while. I tried to let you sleep.”
“Is this where you do the sunbathing that made your ass such a pretty brown?”
“If there aren’t any boats in the area, sure, though I like to use the rooftop deck at the lake house too. I’m secluded enough I don’t have to worry about streaking around unless a helicopter decides to fly over.”
She rolled over onto her back and gave him a wicked smile. “If your delicate sensibilities find this place secluded enough to go butt naked, then maybe you wouldn’t be opposed if I fuck you out here in the open.”
“Five.” His voice deepened, his eyes dark and slumberous. “I wouldn’t mind as long as a boat doesn’t pull up and start videotaping. The last thing I’d want is anyone to see what is mine alone.”
Ah, her submissive was quite possessive. Maybe he wouldn’t mind his bare ass getting recorded, but he sure wouldn’t take a boob shot of her going viral very well. “Well it’s too bad you didn’t grab my bag I stowed in your car.”
His breathing quickened and she didn’t miss the surge in his shorts, even though he tried to keep his face smooth. “Before we left, I made sure your bag was stowed on board. Just in case.”
“Then maybe you wouldn’t mind if I gave you a few good swats before I fuck you.”
“Six,” he answered a little more breathlessly. “And I wouldn’t mind. Far from it.”
