Page 9 of Lost At Sea With A Billionaire (Billionaire Row #5)

Janet

M orning light filtered through the palm fronds of our shelter, casting dappled shadows across Jonathan’s sleeping face. I’d been awake for nearly an hour, watching the steady rise and fall of his chest, trying to process what had almost happened between us last night.

His features were softer in sleep, andthe hard lines of his usually fierce structural face relaxed into something gentler.

A small cut on his chin had scabbed over, his fade was growing out into a wilder untamed looked that gave him a devilish air of ruggedly handsomeness, and his full lips were slightly parted.

In this unguarded state, he looked less like the controlling billionaire CEO and more like the man I was rapidly falling for.

I carefully extricated myself from the tangle of salvaged blankets, not wanting to wake him.

The storm had passed, leaving the island smelling fresh and renewed.

Puddles dotted the sand, reflecting the cloudless blue sky above.

I stretched, my muscles aching from our mad dash to save our shelter from flooding last night.

That and the delicious tension that had built between us before the storm interrupted.

Those few moments kept replaying in my mind—the heat of his mouth on mine, the electricity of his hands on my skin, the firmness of his hard body pressing me into the blankets.

We’d come so close to crossing a line that couldn’t be uncrossed, and part of me regretted the falling tree that had brought us back to reality.

I went to our freshwater collection system, checking that the storm hadn’t damaged it. The containers were overflowing—at least we’d have plenty to drink today. I splashed my face and attempted to tame my wild hair with wet fingers.

“Morning.”

I turned to find Jonathan watching me from the entrance of our shelter. He’d pulled on a relatively clean t-shirt, and his feet were bare. The sight of him like this—disheveled, casual, completely unpretentious—sent a flutter through my chest and tingles to my pussy.

“Morning,” I replied, suddenly self-conscious. “How’s the arm?”

He glanced down at the bandage. “Better. You do good work.”

“Thanks, I have a very cooperative patient.” I hesitated, unsure how to navigate the charged air between us. “About last night?—”

“We should check the fish traps,” he interrupted, avoiding my eyes. “And I want to salvage more from the yacht before it sinks completely.”

Disappointment washed over me. Was he regretting what happened? “Sure. Let me just grab my knife.”

We worked in awkward silence, emptying the fish traps that had been generous overnight. Three good-sized fish would make a decent breakfast. As I cleaned them on a flat rock, I stole glances at Jonathan. His brow was furrowed in concentration as he reinforced the stakes holding the traps in place.

“You’re quiet this morning,” I finally said, unable to stand the tension.

He straightened, looking at me directly for the first time since we’d woken. “I’m trying to figure out what to say.”

“About?”

“This.” He gestured between us. “Us. What almost happened.”

I set down my knife. “Do you regret it?”

“No.” The word was immediate, emphatic. “Do you?”

“No.” I matched his certainty.

He took a step toward me, then stopped, running a hand over his growing hair. “This isn’t exactly a normal situation, Janet. We’re trapped on an island, dependent on each other for survival. I don’t want you to feel?—”

“Don’t.” I stood, wiping my hands on my shorts. “Don’t you dare suggest I only kissed you because we’re stranded. Give me more credit than that.”

His eyes widened slightly. “That’s not what I?—”

“I wanted to kiss you on that yacht,” I said, the words tumbling out.

“I wanted to kiss you while standing in that gleaming kitchen. I wanted to kiss you when you complimented my cooking. I wanted to kiss you when you helped me with my head injury. I wanted to kiss you every time you built or fixed something in this godforsaken place.” I stepped closer.

“Being stranded didn’t create those feelings. It just removed the barriers.”

The silence that followed felt endless. Then Jonathan closed the distance between us in two long strides, his hands cupping my face as his mouth dived into mine. This wasn’t the tentative exploration of last night—this was hunger, certainty, and inevitability.

I responded in kind, my arms wrapping around his neck, my body pressing against his. Our mouths meshed, tongues explored, and flavor burst through me in a heated shockwave. I couldn’t get enough. His hands slid down my sides to my hips, pulling me even closer.

When we finally broke apart, we were both breathing hard.

“I’ve been fighting this since the moment you walked into my kitchen,” he admitted, his voice rough. “I didn’t hire you just for your culinary skills or your resilience. There was something about you that—” He shook his head. “I couldn’t look away. I needed to know you.”

“And here I thought you were just another entitled billionaire.”

He laughed, the sound warming me from the inside out. “I probably was. Maybe still am.”

“Less entitled now,” I conceded, sliding my fingers along his jawline. “You make a decent fisherman.”

“I will definitely except the praise from Chef Banks.”

His smile faded and a more serious emotion covered his dark eyes as he searched mine. “I don’t know what happens when we’re rescued. Our worlds are very different.”

“I know,” I admitted. “But we’re not being rescued today.”

That seemed to be enough for now. He nodded once, then pulled me back into another kiss that weakened my knees.

“The fish,” I murmured against his lips.

“Right. Priorities.” But he didn’t move away immediately, his forehead resting against mine. “We should probably eat.”

Over the next few days, I decided to build a proper outdoor kitchen because I had had enough of cooking on rocks and makeshift grills.

Getting to know Jonathan was ridiculously funny at times.

To see this beautiful athletic man get completely flustered at times where I excelled tickled me to no end.

But watching his muscles flexed, his nipples hardened, and body spring into action when I needed him for physical endeavors became my favorite pastime.

“I need something more stable than this,” I explained, gesturing to our current cooking setup. “A real workspace. Maybe even a storage area for the herbs and fruits we’ve gathered.”

Jonathan considered it. “We could use stones from the beach to build a base and some of the larger pieces of driftwood for the surface.”

“That’s excellent.” I high fived him and the sting from our hands colliding rippled through me with joyous tenacity.

We spent the day hauling rocks and selecting the flattest ones for the countertop.

Jonathan’s strength made what would have been backbreaking work for me alone manageable as a team.

By sunset, we had constructed a surprisingly functional cooking station, complete with a stone fire pit beneath to control the heat.

I stood back, hands on my hips, admiring our work. “Not bad for a couple of castaways.”

“It’s practically gourmet,” Jonathan agreed, wrapping his arms around me from behind. His chin rested on top of my head, a perfect fit. “You would have made a good architect in another life.”

“I’ll stick to food, thanks.” I leaned back against his chest. “Speaking of which, I found some wild herbs growing near the freshwater stream. They smell similar to rosemary. I’m thinking they might work with that fish you caught earlier.”

“Lead the way, Chef.”

The kitchen became my domain, a space that felt more like home than anywhere else on the island. Even stripped of modern conveniences, cooking grounded me. Jonathan watched me work, fascinated by the way I improvised with limited ingredients.

“Where did you learn to do that?” he asked one evening as I wrapped fish in large leaves before placing them in the fire pit.

“Extreme Chef,” I joked. Then, more seriously: “My dad. He could make a meal out of anything. Military rations, wild plants, whatever was available. He said hunger was the best seasoning.”

“Smart man.”

“He would have liked you.”

Jonathan looked up, surprised. “Yeah?”

“Yeah. He respected competence above all else.” I poked at the fire with a stick. “And you’re nothing if not competent.”

His hand covered mine. “I wish I could have met him.”

The growing intimacy between us wasn’t just physical; it was emotional as well. The next morning, Jonathan was crouched beside a cluster of green leaves, his brow furrowed in concentration.

“Is this one of the herbs you mentioned?” he asked, pointing to a plant with serrated edges.

I knelt beside him, the awareness of his proximity sending warmth through me like a shower.

“Close, but see these tiny hairs on the underside of the leaves?” I brushed my finger along the leaf, then guided his hand to feel the texture.

“The ones we want are completely smooth. These could make you sick.”

His fingers lingered where mine had touched the leaf. “How do you tell the difference so quickly?”

“Practice. And paranoia.” I stood, scanning the area until I spotted what we needed. “There. Those broad leaves by the fallen log.”

Jonathan followed me over, watching intently as I demonstrated the identifying features. “Smooth undersides, waxy coating on top, and they should smell slightly minty when you crush them.”

He picked a leaf and held it to his nose. “Like that?”

“Perfect.” I couldn’t help smiling at his focused expression. “You’re a fast learner.”

“I have a good teacher.”

Later that afternoon, it was my turn to be the student. Jonathan had spent the morning redesigning our fish traps, and now he was showing me how the new mechanism worked.

“The key is creating a funnel effect,” he explained, his hands demonstrating the water flow. “Fish follow the current in, but the design makes it nearly impossible for them to find their way back out.”

I watched as he positioned stones with mathematical accuracy, creating channels that looked deceptively simple but were clearly engineered for maximum efficiency.

“This is basically calculus with rocks,” I observed.

He laughed. “Everything is calculus if you think about it long enough.” He handed me a flat stone. “Try placing this one where you think it should go.”

I studied the pattern he’d created, then positioned the stone where I thought it belonged. He adjusted it slightly, his hand covering mine to guide the placement.

“Feel how the water moves around it now,” he said, our fingers still touching as water flowed around the stone.

The current eddied and swirled exactly as he’d predicted. “It’s like conducting an orchestra,” I murmured. “Each piece has to work with all the others.”

“Exactly.” His eyes lit up with the same passion I felt when talking about food. “Most people think engineering is about forcing solutions, but it’s really about working with natural forces.”

“Is that what you did with your pharmaceutical work? Work with natural processes instead of against them?”

“That’s the idea.” He released my hand, but the warmth of his touch lingered. “The best medicines enhance what the body already wants to do.”

These teaching moments became our favorite parts of the routine as days passed.

I showed him how to prepare the bitter roots we’d found, soaking, grinding, and seasoning them until they were not just edible but actually pleasant.

He taught me to weave stronger baskets using a technique that distributed weight more evenly.

“Your fingers are too tense,” he observed one afternoon as I struggled with the basket weaving. “It’s like... cooking, actually. You can’t force the ingredients to do what you want.”

I relaxed my grip, letting the palm fronds guide themselves into position. “Better?”

“Much better.” His hand covered mine, adjusting my grip. “See how it flows now?”

The simple contact charged my heart rate, but I forced myself to focus on the weaving pattern. “You’re right. It’s like kneading dough.”

“Everything has a rhythm,” he agreed. “You just have to find it.”

At night, we talked—really talked—in a way I suspected neither of us had with anyone in a long time. Under the canopy of stars, with only the fire and each other for company, we shared childhood memories, professional disappointments, dreams that had been realized, and those still waiting.

“I never wanted to run the company,” he admitted one night with his head in my lap as I ran my fingers over the waves in his fade. “The business side of it, I mean. That was supposed to be temporary.”

“What did you want?”

“To be in the lab, creating, testing, and solving problems.” He smiled up at me. “Not unlike what you do in a kitchen.”

“We’re not so different after all.”

His hand reached up to touch my cheek. “No, we’re not.”

The physical tension between us continued to build, but neither of us rushed it.

There was something precious about the slow exploration—stolen kisses while gathering food, hands lingering during joint tasks, bodies gradually learning each other through casual touches that weren’t casual at all.

It was courtship of another kind, in a faraway land where just he and I existed.

This was the thing made of fairytales. The more we remained here, the more I wanted to stay, because the idea of going back to our realities caused a rift in my soul.