The Billionaire’s Naughty List (Cam Show Crush)

2. Elliot

2

ELLIOT

Lily’s startled cry echoes over the sultry rendition of Santa Baby and her boots slip as her arms whirl through the air like helicopter blades.

I yell her name and race forward, miraculously finding purchase on the rocky ground beneath the snow.

She skids and stumbles down the embankment, landing ass first into the frigid water. Her shriek echoes across the icy wilderness. My heart stops.

“Holy shit. Lily?—”

Her candy-stripe covered knees poke up out of the water and a halo of red velvet and white marabou trim float around her. She brushes a handful of long brown hair out of her face. Then her eyes lock with mine.

Her fear and shock dissolve as her lips twitch. She sucks in a shaky, shivery breath, then exhales a cloud.

All the turbulent emotions that brought me to Love Valley crystallize as I slide down the hill after her.

"Are you okay? Give me your hands."

She laughs as she reaches for me. “Oh my god, Elliot, you should see your face.”

Her icy fingers wrap around my left hand, chilling me to the bone. The dress clings to her like a second skin.

A very red, very thin second-skin that leaves nothing to the imagination.

Her nipples poke the fabric like twin gumdrops. The velvet shows off the dip of her belly button, and every other feminine curve I should not be memorizing.

"Seriously, you look like I just fell in a pit of lava with impervious crocodiles swimming around.” Her teeth chatter.

"You have such a vivid imagination," I mutter.

She slips as her boots connect with the icy shoreline. I can’t have her pulling us both in the drink.

After shaking her hand loose, I hook her beneath the arms and haul her out of the lake.

Water drips off her, down the front of me, but I couldn’t care less.

She’s soaked like a kitten in the rain.

The once fluffy strips of feathers lay plastered against her skin. She grips my biceps as she gets her footing, those big caramel colored eyes blown wide.

Her teeth clank harder, making her words sound slurred. “I’m okay, Elliot.”

She’s not okay. She’s freezing to death before my eyes. Her skin is bright pink from the icy water.

I slip off my coat and slide it over her shoulders. The soft lining will help warm her up.

“Thanks.” She slips her arms into the holes, but her shivering intensifies. “It’s so warm-mm.”

“Let’s get you inside.”

She nods, some of the humor leaving her eyes, and she starts past me. Her boots are filled with water and every step makes a terrible sloshing sound. I can only imagine how cold her toes are.

“Fire sounds go-ood right about n-now.”

“I bet.” I shouldn’t be mad, but I am. There’s so much going on in my head. It’s hard, almost impossible, to latch onto a singular train of thought.

But my chest is tight, gripped with anxiety. And my mind won’t shut-up with the what-ifs.

What the hell is she doing out here, barely dressed, standing so close to the lake? I'm not that surprised, honestly. She's always been a force of nature, coming and going as she pleases. Filling the world with laughter and the sweetest smiles.

We’re halfway up the incline when her boots hit an icy patch and she slides backward with a yelp. I put out my hands to hold her up and grab two perfect round globes covered in sopping velvet.

“Up. Now.” I push her the rest of the way until we’re standing next to the tree.

My fingers are cold. So are my ears and my nose. I crouch in front of her and unzip one of her boots and then the other. “Kick them off, okay?”

“What?”

I rise to my full height and she cranes her neck, arms wrapped around her waist as she shivers, staring up at me with pinched brows and a dropped jaw. Fuck, it’s cold out here.

I scoop her up, high against my chest. “Kick them off.”

Biting her lip, she does as I ask and then I double time it back to the house. She wraps her arms around my shoulders and her icy fingers brush my neck.

Heaven help me.

Her gorgeous young body is wracked with shivers. It’s like holding a vibrating teddy bear. Except that she looks nothing like a teddy bear. And I’ve never felt this protective over a toy.

Which, as a geek who loved his Star Wars merch, is saying something.

After scrubbing my boots on the mat, I bend down and she reads my mind, immediately reaching for the doorknob. That shouldn’t be a turn on. It shouldn't make me think of a wedding night and carrying her over the threshold to our honeymoon.

It simply shouldn’t.

But it does.

She twists the knob and gives the door a little shove. I nudge it open with my boot, hustle through, then kick it shut before stalking down the hall to my suite. I have no idea which room she’s staying in and it’s second nature to push my way into the large bathroom.

“Here,” I say, setting her on the vanity. It can’t be any colder than the lake.

She’s slow to let go. Poor woman is half-frozen already.

“Let me turn on the shower and we’ll warm you up. Okay? Slowly,” I add.

She sends me a sour look and her hands drop to her lap.

Of course she knows how important it is to warm up slowly and not shock the system.

“I’m not five.”

And there it is. The reason I’m here and not at one of the most important meetings of my career.

“Trust me, honey, I know.”

I know that all too well.

“D-do you-uu?” she insists.

If she wasn’t shaking so hard, it’d be an earnest moment. Full of meaning and nuance and all sorts of things I don’t want to see. Nope. No way.

I step across the space and reach into the large tiled shower, adjusting the knobs until the water runs luke-warm. She might agree to warming up slowly, but I know her. She never does anything in half measures.

Like the time she found an injured baby owl and by the end of the day had the vet out to look it over and her brothers built it a cage to her specifications. That owl grew up and kept the vermin out of the barns for years.

Living life at full throttle is just one of the things that makes her her. One of the things that I adore.

Steeling myself, I turn back to my best friend's daughter. Definitely not a little girl. She’s all woman. Funny and stern and bossy as hell at times. When I tell you she ran our shit when she was little. I guess growing up without a mom will do that. She kept her younger brothers in line like a shepherd herds sheep. Tirelessly, with plenty of bark, an occasional bite, but also love.

She's also the sweetest, kindest person I’ve ever met.

And she’s shaking like a leaf in a hurricane.

“Let me grab you a towel.” Two steps carry me to a small linen closet and I pull out a fluffy white bath sheet that will wrap around her at least twice. “Do you?—”