A Double Dose of Billionaire: Part Two (2 page)

“We can send him away, you know, through legal or illegal means.” He then brightened up a bit. “Speaking of which, we’ve gotten that issue with your ex-boss settled.”

“What issue?”

“He punched you in the face, remember?”

“Oh, yes, that.” I’d nearly forgotten about that. Riley’s ice pack was surprisingly effective; the bruise lightened so much, I barely noticed its presence after the first day.

“Kristie helped us take some photos when you were sleeping for some evidence,” Riley continued, “but we decided the court would go too easy on him and settled for easier, less-troublesome, non-legal means.”

He spoke nonchalantly, which was probably the reason why he seemed even more dangerous. “You really don’t have to,” I said, waving my hand to dismiss his idea. “I’ve already settled that. I sent his wife a picture of him cheating on her. That’ll teach him his lesson.”

Surprised, he said, “Oh? You never mentioned that. It’s a little too late now. He got fired from his job yesterday.”

I felt bad for my ex-boss.

For, like, two seconds.

That asshole deserved every last bit of what happened to him. He fired me for not letting him get into my pants. The twins had simply given him what he’d been dishing out to his staff the last few years.

I grinned, knowing I shouldn’t have been that sadistically happy, but not caring anyway. “How did you manage to do it?” Why bother asking? The Crawford brothers must have had strings attached all over the place.

“Another one of our subsidiary companies has dealings with your old firm. We called them up, offered a nice deal, and they snatched it. I just added in a word about having a grudge with that scumbag.”

“Nice.” I was doing somersaults in my head. “He totally deserved it. Thank you, by the way.”

“No problem.” He went back to flipping through his files. “One more thing. I’m heading off to Paris this week for a four-day conference. Wednesday to Saturday. Schedule that in for me.”

Paris? That was the first I heard of it. “Is Ryan going along with you?”

“Yes.” He continued to read his files—how he managed to keep up with the conversation while talking boggled me. He was definitely more unsociable when busy, but being able to talk while not getting distracted needed a god-like level of multitasking skills.

“And I’ll still be living in your house?”

“If you want.”

I mentally pumped my fist into the air, feeling like a teenager who had just gotten free reign of her house from her parents. I tried to think about all the things I could do in that mansion.

Walking around in my underwear while baking brownies with their top-grade chocolate? That sounded nice.

Not that the twins would have any qualms about my state of undress when they were around, but I liked having my reservations.

He put the sheet of paper down and studied me. “Don’t go too crazy.”

“Can I invite people over?” I asked, knowing I’d invite Kristie regardless of his answer.

He squinted. “Who?”

“I haven’t decided. My dad, my mom, my uncle, aunt, cousins, my cousins’
dogs.
”

He faced me with a blank expression.

Why didn’t he have a sense of humor when at work? “Just Kristie.”

“Kristie is fine. She can come over.”

I ran to his side and gave him a kiss on the cheek. “Thank you!”

He returned my gesture with another light kiss on my lips. “Like I said, don’t go too crazy.”

***

“Helena,” I said, “can you send me the report on the finances of our HR division by today? The boss is asking for it.”

She shook her head. “But we’re not done with it yet.”

“And is that my problem? We have work piling up, and this document was requested last week.”

“We need an extra hour or two.”

“You have a lunch break, don’t you?”

“Yes…”

“Use it.”

Within a week, I’ve unofficially been given the honorable title of ‘Bitch’ in the company. In the beginning, I could feel their condescension as they spoke to me. They asked me to do the menial chores, like refilling the paper trays and making coffee.

And then I realized that those were their jobs, too. I had reports to finish, emails to answer, meetings to attend. Something was definitely wrong; I abruptly found myself piled with way too much work while my colleagues had enough time to lounge around and chitchat.

Sure, the twins employed me as their secretary, but that didn’t mean I was at the beck and call of everyone else. In fact, it was my job to tell the other staff what they had to do on the boss’s behalf.

Last Wednesday, some of my colleagues talked about having too much work to do. They thought I wasn’t listening.

“Give it to Scarlet. She’ll do everything you say,” Tracey said.

I had overheard their conversation. Believing I needed to be a little more reserved at first to start getting along with them, I tried to play it nice for the first few days. But I wasn’t going to let myself become everyone's servant. Tracey's comment had taken it too far.

So I walked up to the group and glared at them.

“What?” Tracey asked, putting on a front of innocence.

“As all of you know, I fucked your boss.”

Her mouth hung wide open.

“But that doesn’t mean the rest of you can treat me like your little bitch,” I continued. “Let me make this clear: I’m
fucking
your boss. One word from me, and Riley will send you home packing.” The twins’ names really did come in handy.

Shocked into silence, they looked at me with widened eyes.

“So, no, Tracey. I’m not going to do everything you ask me to. Handle those documents yourselves. You lot should be the people doing everything
I
ask you to.”

I walked away feeling more pompous than ever, not forgetting to take the last packet of biscuits from the tin.

“We’re out of biscuits. Fill that up.” I turned around to smile at them, my head raised higher than usual.

The rest of the staff had left the office three hours ago.

I stared at the computer screen, the words of this afternoon’s transcript flying by my mind, none of them managing to stick. I glanced at the time on my screen’s sidebar. Nine thirty-six. The brothers had somewhat flexible schedules, since they didn’t have too many people to answer to, but their sheer amount of workload made sure they stayed up late for half the week.

A finger tapped me on the shoulder. “Hey, what’s up?”

I swung my head around, my heart leaping in my chest. The office could be pretty scary at night, especially since most of the lights were off because of the building’s built-in automatic timer.

I sunk back down onto my seat, not wanting to show my fright. “Ryan, don’t do that.”

“Don’t do what?”

“Nothing. Are you finished with your work?”

“Yeah. Riley still going at it?”

“He had meetings this whole afternoon. Riesling wants to cancel some contracts, so he’s trying to work something out.”

Ryan settled himself into one of my colleague’s chairs. “He told me about your ex-boyfriend.”

I thought we went past that conversation this afternoon. It wasn’t that big of a deal. “He’s a jerk. Your point?”

“We don’t want you to meet him.”

I laughed to myself. “You and me both.”

“But he ended up in your apartment anyway. For a week, I heard. Why is that?”

There it was again. That expression of his. The serious, alpha tone of his voice, coupled with a sadistic, playful glint at the corner of his eye.

“I forgot to make him return the keys to my apartment,” I said, trying to ignore the sultry grin Ryan had. “And he camped there like he owned the place. He brought some whore to my place, too. I found some condoms in my trash can and another woman’s underwear.”

“You shouldn’t let other men into your home. It’s dangerous.” He walked closer and engulfed my lips with his. I could feel his possessiveness through his touch. His fingers entangled themselves in my hair as he dove his tongue deeper down my throat.

I doubted he heard a single word I said about my ex-boyfriend and how much I detested that moron. All he tried to do now was to have me all to himself, or at least that’s how it felt.

“We need to teach you a lesson,” Ryan said, breaking the kiss.

Riley stepped out of his office, wearing a look of amusement as he studied us.

***

Riley and Ryan acted strangely during the ride back, sharing questionable glances. I didn’t speak or inquire too much, because each sentence of mine merely received a curt reply, promptly ending my sad attempt at conversation and creating an experience of uncomfortable awkwardness.

When we arrived home, we didn’t head up straight to the bedroom, as we usually did. Confused, I let them lead me down the stairs to the basement.

“What are we going to the basement for?” I asked.

Riley swept me up with his strong, taut arms. “You don’t speak until we ask you to.”

Oh, so we were playing
that
game now. Excitement coiled in my lower stomach. Over the past week, I discovered I loved it when the twins got into their moods. They became incredibly masculine and commanded my submission.

And I enjoyed disobeying them—their ‘punishments’ could sometimes be quite delightful. “Why?” I stared up at Riley with faked naiveté.

A smile reached his eyes, although his lips didn’t part. “You know very well why.”

A wooden, red door waited for us at the bottom of the stairwell. The door was locked by a digital keypad; Ryan tapped the numbers needed to unlock it. I was feeling too turned on to care what the numbers were. My insides swelled with desire.

I looked past the door half-expectantly when Ryan revealed the room. I was guessing they had brought me to the rumored ‘naughty room’, but at first glance, nothing naughty stood out. The place was stylishly-lined with black and red baroque wallpaper. A long, slender couch greeted us at the entrance of the room—nothing particularly jarring.

Then, Riley carried me in and turned left.

I wasn’t sure whether I should’ve been aroused or afraid.

The bedpost was the largest object in the room, so I noticed it first. It had strange contraptions attached to it, ropes of all shapes and colors dangling from its sides and top. An uncomfortable-looking chair with decorative, blunt spikes stood next to the bedpost; chains were attached to its bottom, and what looked like a vibrator rested on it.

And then, there was that machine—a metal object with leather strap-ons and a dildo at one end.

I sure hoped I wasn’t going to use
that
today.

Fear should’ve shocked me into speechlessness, but instead, I looked up at Riley and said, “What the fuck is wrong with you guys?”

He held his breath and narrowed his eyes at me. “Remember what we said about speaking?”

“I know, but I need a pause. Please.”

He lowered his shoulders and put me down next to the couch. “What is it?” He sounded impatient. I was getting impatient, too, feeling hot and bothered ever since Ryan mentioned teaching me a lesson, but we needed to discuss boundaries before doing anything I’d regret.

I paced back and forth with my hands on my hips while I thought about what I was and wasn’t willing to do. I shifted my eyes to the metal monstrosity.

“Anything but
that,
” I said, pointing to the machine.

Ryan smirked, amused by my response. “That’s it?”

“And, maybe, we can avoid those hanging ropes, for now. It looks painful.”

They were grinning, happy with the way I reacted. “Ropes and machine. Got it. We weren’t intending on those anyway. Anything else?”

I tapped my fingers on my jaw. “Don’t we need a safe word or something? Something to say when I’ve had enough?”

Riley shrugged. “We usually use ‘fluffy bunny’.”

Amused, I lifted a brow. “What kind of code is that?” I asked, refraining from giggling.

“You won't be accidentally uttering that during sex, and it’s a total turn-off.”

“But what if you guys make me wear a bunny suit?”

Riley couldn’t help but smile a little. “It’s not our thing.”

What a pity. I dressed as a bunny at Kristie’s Halloween party last year, and she seemed to think I looked incredibly sexy as one.

“We’ll lay down our rules, so we can stop talking and get to the actual fucking,” Ryan said, clicking his tongue against his teeth.

His hands were already wandering up my shirt—so much for ending our first conversation before doing anything. “Don’t talk back, ever. I think we’ve been trying to put that across for long enough. Don’t ask questions when you’re not allowed to. Don’t come until we ask you to.”

“You’ve already tried to establish that many times. I don’t think it’s working,” I said, with a slight taunting tone to my voice.

Mercilessly, his hand landed on my ass. “What did I just say?”

Silently paying attention to Ryan, I sucked in a short breath.

Pleased that I followed his orders, he nodded. “Good. And as long as we’re in this room, you address us as either ‘sir’, or ‘master’. Understood?”

“Yes, sir.” I wasn’t ready to move on to ‘master’ yet—it sounded too odd.