4 The Billionaire's Seduction All That He Requires (9 page)

We drove back in silence – at least at first – with Connor holding my hand.

I just reclined in the leather seat, feeling wonderful and flushed and completely happy as I stared out the window. This time, though, I wasn’t looking at the sky; I was watching the dimly lit desert landscape as it rolled by in the starlight.

“You know,” I said, “it’s kind of ironic that you took me out to see the future site of the largest solar energy installation in the world… in a Lamborghini.”

He laughed. “I thought about getting a Tesla.”

“That would have been more apropos.”

“Yes, it would have. But there aren’t many charging stations between LA and Vegas, and the ones that exist are pretty damn slow. But… I’ll fix that.”

“You really think you can do it?”

“What, put in high-speed charging stations between here and Las Vegas?”

I rolled my eyes. “You know what I mean.”

He gave me a little half-grin. “Change the world.”

“Yeah.”

“Yes I do, or I wouldn’t attempt it.”

I thought carefully about what I was going to say next, especially since it contained the ‘L’ word – but then decided the way I was going to use it was innocuous enough.

“You know what I love?” I asked, then rushed on to avoid any awkward pauses or looks. “That you’re so passionate about this. That it means so much to you.”

He smiled, and lifted my hand to his lips and kissed it softly. Then, as he lowered it, he gave me a pointed look.

“It’s nice doing something you love. You should try it sometime.”

I almost –
almost
– said,
But I AM doing something I love. YOU.

But no matter how playfully I was planning on saying it, I knew it was too much of a risk.

So I just groaned instead. “I didn’t intend this to turn into career counseling.”

“What are you going to do, though? Have you thought about it?”

I just want to stay with you,
I thought, but decided against saying that, too. Because I was afraid he might reply,
But what about after?

That was the one thing that really bothered me with Connor. Our fight on Sunday night had left the field strewn with landmines. Any talk of the future, no matter how offhand or innocent, might set one of them off.

But I was happy, and I refused to let it bother me right now. There would be time for that later.

So I just stepped around the landmines.

“No, I’ve been too busy getting wined and dined and… other things.”

He grinned. “Ever the proper lady. I think it’s ‘wined and dined and sixty-nined.’”

“I don’t think a ‘lady’ would have done what we just did back on the hood of your car. And as for the other thing, we already did that on Saturday.”

He laughed and shook his head. “I said it before and I’ll say it again: you should become a politician. You’re
really
good at dodging questions.”

“As of the last four days, I have too many scandalous sex acts in my past to be a viable candidate.”

He squeezed my hand. “With more to come.”

My heart – and other parts of me – fluttered a little.

“But you’re still not answering my question. Have you thought about what you might do?”

“I don’t think I can get paid for the things I love.”

“And what’s that?”

Again, I almost said,
Having sex with you.

But then the snide little voice in my head said,
Oh, wait – you already HAVE been paid for that, haven’t you?

It left a sour taste in my mouth.

So I lied instead. “Watching reality TV.”

Connor grunted. “Yeah, not gonna happen. So, next question: what do you know?”

“What, like, for a job?”

“Yes.”

“Not much.”

“There you go again.”

“There I go again what?”

“Not believing in yourself. Tearing yourself down instead of building yourself up.”

“Okay, Mr. Hotshot – if I asked
you
that same question, what would you say?”

“Everything.”

“No, I mean, ‘what you know.’”

“I know what you meant. And I’d say ‘everything.’”

“Wow –
somebody’s
full of themselves.”

He laughed. “Somebody’s got to be my best PR agent. Might as well be me.  Nobody else will believe in you until you believe in yourself.”

“What if you don’t believe in yourself?”

“Fake it till you make it.”

“Well, you obviously believe in yourself.” I gave him a sideways look that might have dented other guys’ egos, but only amused Connor.

“Wholeheartedly. One thousand percent.”

“Was there ever a point where you didn’t?”

“Yes.”

I looked over at him. The honesty in his voice was disarming. “When?”

“Walking out on my father was probably one of the defining moments of my life – maybe
the
defining moment, at least up until now. But after the adrenaline high wore off, I was pretty afraid. Actually, I was terrified. Getting disowned will do that to you. But I quickly realized that, even though I was alone and technically broke, it was more important than ever to present myself as confident, competent, and in control. I never would have gotten a single investor if I’d gone into those meetings saying, ‘I don’t know anything… poor little humble me…’”

“Well, I
don’t
know anything.”

He sighed, obvious annoyance in his voice – which annoyed
me
.

“What did I do when I came to your office?” he asked.

“Besides seducing me?”

He grinned. “Yeah, besides that.”

“And besides acting like a self-important jerk?”

“Who
you
slept with.”

I glared at him. “Technically, it’s
whom.
”

I’m not normally a grammar nerd. Only when somebody pisses me off.

Which he had.

He knew it – and loved it. “Technically or not, you still slept with me.”

“Technically, now you’re acting like a self-
satisfied
jerk.”

He laughed aloud. “Okay, besides that – what else did I do when I came to your office?”

“You looked at some files.”

“Why?”

“You were looking for information.”

“What information?”

“About the buyout.”

“What was I looking for?”

“The files for PT & Associates, Teramore, Zaruder – ”

“No – those are just data points.
Why
was I looking?”

This time, I thought before I answered.

“…you were looking to see if Klaus and the department were all that.”

“Exactly. Because I had my doubts.”

“And how does that involve me, other than I was the one who gave it up?”

He smirked.

I blushed a little. “Not
that
way.”

“Well…” he said, as though to say,
You kinda DID…

I smacked him on the arm and he laughed.

Then he grew serious again. “Remember when you and I talked after I saw the Teramore report on your computer screen? I found out everything I needed to know from 30 seconds of talking to you.”

I frowned. “No.”

“Yes.”

“You quizzed me for, like, five minutes after that. Actually, ‘quiz’ is the wrong word. You were like the Spanish Inquisition for five minutes after that.”

“That was to satisfy myself that you knew what you were talking about.”

“Still – five minutes, not thirty seconds.”

“More like two-and-a-half minutes. I just kept going because I was amazed you knew so much.”

“You weren’t going to torpedo a buyout on the say-so of some little secretary in Exec Comp.”

“No – that’s why I did my due diligence for the hour afterwards. But I had a gut feeling 30 seconds in that you knew what was going on. Two-and-a-half minutes later I knew my gut was right, and the deal was off.”

I sat there, stunned. It seemed to me that was a pretty big decision to make after talking to a secretary.

But, then again… one of us was a billionaire investor, and one of us wasn’t.

“So what does this have to do with me? Sounds to me like
you
were the genius who connected the dots so fast.”

“I’ve often found that you can gather your best intelligence at the lowest levels of the company. At the people in support, the ones who have to deal with the bullshit generated by the idiotic ideas of the MBAs and people in management.”

“Not everybody’s
me.
There’s lots of crappy people at the bottom.”

“That’s the first time I’ve ever heard you compliment yourself, however indirectly.”

I blushed.

“But you’re right,” he continued. “Which is why I made sure you knew your stuff. You did. And I scuttled a billion dollar buyout on your opinion.”

My mouth gaped open to hear it put so baldly. “That’s crazy.”

“Not from my point of view.”

“Why are we even talking about this?”

“What if you ran a consulting firm where you went in and interviewed the low-level employees about what worked and what didn’t? Basically, you culled all the problems and all the suggestions from the people on the front lines? The
good
people. That would be half your work, separating the wheat from the chaff. But you’re excellent at grasping large-scale issues. You synthesize information rapidly. And you have six months of high-level Exec Comp experience. You basically did all the heavy lifting for an Executive VP. What if you could sell yourself as a consultant for smaller companies, with, say, more than 50 employees but fewer than 500? You go in, find out the problems… and then present the issues to management with suggestions, also pulled from the best employees. You’d basically be crowdsourcing the problems and solutions, but from the group of people who know the system inside and out.”

I sat there for a long second, just turning it over in my mind.

“…that’s kind of cool,” I murmured.

“I know.
I
thought of it.”

“Even when you’re trying to be helpful, you’re kind of arrogant, you know that?”

“It’s not arrogant if it’s true.”

“Whatever. But answer me this, Mr. I’m Too Cool For This World.”

“What?”

“Who in their right minds would hire me for my first gig?”

“They would if I recommended you.”

I was silent for a long moment.

Finally I asked, meekly, “You’d do that?”

“I have faith in you. Faith, I might add, that you’re sorely lacking in yourself.”

“They would listen to you?”

He gave me a look.

“Okay, stupid question,” I said – yet couldn’t let it go. “But seriously… they would?”

“If Bill Gates said he’d just used an incredible software debugger last week, and the person was a freelancer and anybody could get him on a job-by-job basis… wouldn’t you hire him?”

“I don’t need any software debugged.”

“Very funny,” he said, not laughing.

“Yeah… if I had the money.”

“The people I’d be recommending you to? They have the money.”

“You’d do that?”

“Like I said, Lily, I have faith in you. You should try to have a little in yourself.”

“Or just fake it till I do.”

He grinned. “Now you’re learning.”

We got back to the hotel long after 2AM. Connor opened the door slowly, scanning for any angry Asian bodyguards – but the penthouse was dark, and Johnny was apparently sound asleep in his room.

We tiptoed into the master bedroom and closed the door.

“I need to take a shower,” I said. I had a thin layer of dust and fine grit over my skin and hair, and there was no way I was getting into bed like
that.

I peeled off my dress and bra. The panties, as far as I knew, were still in Connor’s pocket.

He watched me as I undressed.

I enjoyed feeling his eyes roving over me.

“I’ll join you,” he whispered when I was finished.

I looked back at him and smiled. “Fine by me.”

While Connor undressed, I went into the bathroom. There were a number of small candles on the counters; I decided to light them rather than turn on the bright overhead lights.

And… y’know… just in case.

There was a light tap at the door.

“Come in,” I whispered.

The door opened, and he walked in.

Totally naked.

I caught my breath.

I
still
wasn’t used to seeing him like that. Still wasn’t used to seeing someone so
gorgeous
in front of me, and naked on top of it.

And Good Lord it was nice to see him naked.

I hadn’t been able to out in the desert. As fun as it had been, I had missed looking at his body.

His muscles rippled in the candlelight. His chest was broad and powerful. His arms looked more like a construction worker’s / fireman’s / insert-your-preferred-fantasy-here than a billionaire investor. His hands were big and beautifully sculpted, like Michaelangelo’s
David.

My eyes moved back to his body and the muscles of his torso. In the candlelight, his abs look like they were drawn in India ink, they were so deeply delineated by shadow.

And my eyes still kept going lower – to the seductive curve of his hipbones, and the lower muscles of his abdomen… to the thatch of dark curly hair… and below that, to the long, thick member that hung between his muscular thighs.

I just stood there looking at it, entranced by the shading of the light over the ridges and contours… and then it slowly started to expand… to get longer… to thicken and pull away from his thighs at a slight angle.

I looked up and saw him smiling at me in that naughty little
I know exactly what you’re looking at
way.

I blushed, though in the candlelight, I was pretty sure he couldn’t see it.

He walked over to me slowly, like a jungle cat stalking its prey.

My eyes dropped briefly to his thighs again, and watched his shaft sway heavily with his movement.

Then I forced myself to look up into his eyes as he came to a standstill in front of me.

He put out a hand and brushed my hair back from my shoulder.

“I love it that you like looking at me,” he whispered.

I swallowed hard.

“There’s a lot of nice reasons to look at you,” I answered truthfully.

He grinned and put his other hand up to my cheek, tilted my head up, and leaned over and kissed me softly on the lips. So warm, so sweet. Our bodies weren’t even touching, but I could feel the heat radiating off him.

Well…
most
of our bodies weren’t touching.

Besides his hands on my face, I felt something soft and warm graze my thigh and slowly trail upwards, heartbeat by heartbeat, as it grew thicker and harder.

Oh God.

As his manhood grew, it brushed past my lips and my landing strip of hair, tantalizing me, teasing me.

Then, when it was fully erect, he stepped closer to me, pressing it against my belly, hot and massive and hard, but the skin still soft as it gently slid across my stomach.

I just stood there like that, hypnotized, his hands gently holding my face, his lips brushing a lingering kiss against mine, and the erotic pressure of his manhood against me, making me desperately want him inside me.

Then he pulled away.

“Weren’t we supposed to take a shower?” he whispered.

“Uhhhh… yeah…” I mumbled, my face still lifted up towards him, straining to continue the kiss.

Instead he grinned and turned towards the shower. As he did, his hands trailed down my chest, softly stroking my nipples before he moved away.

Grrrr.

He was the world’s worst tease. I would have
loved
to make him want me as much as he made
me
want him – and then leave him hanging.

For ten seconds or so.

But I don’t think the ‘him wanting me as much as I wanted him’ part was possible.

I’d have to work on it, though.

The soft hiss of water filled the air.

“Come on in,” he said as he took my hand.