Billionaire Bad Boys of Romance Boxed Set (10 Book Bundle) (11 page)

I watched his eyes flicker as I brought him closer to release, his hips nudging up into my hand in tiny thrusts. He started leaving his fingers in my mouth, just for a moment, and then a moment more, and when a bit of savory sauce escaped, he dabbed it away with a napkin. "No worries," he told me, and his voice was deep and husky, thrilling me to the core. When at last my orgasm came, I had to bury my face in his shoulder—large, warm, solid—as I gritted my teeth and rode it out. My whole body clenched and released, and underneath my hand I felt his cock jump as he came, too. A bit messier, to be sure, but probably no less satisfying.

When I took my hands away, I found the meal had been finished, and I was just getting my first sip of wine when the waiter brought our check. Malcolm paid, and together we exited the booth, he donning his long coat first, and I couldn't help but be a little satisfied that I'd given him some pleasure in return. And he hadn't run away this time. I'd have to count this as a victory.

As we meandered back toward the subway in silence—not exactly comfortable, but not tense or awkward either—I realized he had been right. It had been the best meal of my life.

Now if only I could remember what any of it had tasted like.

* * * *

We stopped in front of Malcolm's mansion. We still hadn't said a word to each other since the restaurant, and now I was starting to feel a bit awkward. It's not every day that you feel yourself up at your companion's insistence on the first date. It's not every day that your date comes in his pants. It's not every day you do both of those things out in the open, like a couple of subway perverts. I'd once asked Felicia if Anton's semen contained some kind of mind-altering that made her just go along with whatever he wanted to do and forget why she agreed to do so, but now I was beginning to wonder just what kind of hold Malcolm Ward had over
me.

I mean, hell, I wasn't even his wife. And his cum hadn't even touched me yet. I had no excuse. None at all.

"I'm not running away again," Malcolm said suddenly.

I started. I hadn't even gotten that far in my thinking. "Are you saying you're not running away and then running away and saying you didn't because you said you weren't going to and therefore what you are about to do is not running away?" I asked him.

For the first time, I think I'd left
him
speechless. Although it had less to do with my shocking libido or scandalous thoughts than my improperly organized brain. "What?" he said, confused.

I shook my head. "Nothing. Never mind. Okay, so you're not running away. What does that mean?"

He looked up at his ridiculously huge house. Why would a single man need such a huge house? I had to wonder. I mean, aside from storing boxes full of eight-track tapes and incomplete collections of the Encyclopedia Britannica. What is a house if not a storage unit, I ask you?

"I think it means I would like to continue to explore our artistic relationship," he said at last. "I believe a union between us could be quite fruitful."

Now I had to stare at him. "You're kidding, right?"

He looked down at me. He really was very tall. His beautiful dark eyes narrowed as his brows drew together in worry. For a moment, he looked almost... betrayed. "No. I'm not kidding. What makes you think that?"

I raised my eyebrows. "You're really talking about our
artistic
union being fruitful?"

His mouth dropped open. "Oh!" he said. "Oh, yes, I can see where you might be getting the wrong impression. But yes, I meant that. I would like to explore... other mediums."

"And I still inspire you?" I asked.

To my utter shock he reached out and ran his thumb down the side of my face. "Yes," he said huskily. "Very much so. Please come back here tomorrow at two in the afternoon."

A queer feeling curled in my stomach at the touch of his finger against my cheek. "I, um, I have to work tomorrow..." It sounded like the lamest excuse ever, but his touch, though it inspired anticipation in me, also gave me a strange little quiver of longing. Longing, and regret. I had no idea what to do with it, so I backed away and he dropped his hand. I felt the loss like a blow.

"Will Felicia not give you the day off if you ask?"

I had to think about that. "I don't know," I said. "I don't think I've ever asked her for one."

"Then I'd say you're due. Be here. Tomorrow. Two." And he turned and walked up the stairs and into his house.

What a weird fucking guy,
I thought. Definitely not crazy, though. Not by a long shot.

I turned and went home.

Chapter Six

I awoke to the phone ringing in my ear. Groggily I rolled over, grabbed my phone, and answered. "'lo?" I muttered.

"So you had to get your lover boy to ask me to give you the day off?" Felicia's voice buzzed in my ear and I winced.

"What?" I said. She sounded angry. I couldn't imagine why. "I have no idea what you're talking about."

She huffed into the phone. "I'm talking about Malcolm Ward calling me up and saying you needed the day off today so he could paint you."

This was news to me. I mean, we'd sort of left it at
maybe
yesterday. That he'd taken matters into his own hands rankled. "I didn't tell him he could do that," I said, indignant. "I told him I'd ask you for the day off. Or just the afternoon, if you need me in the morning. Do you need me this morning?"

"Do I ever need you?" Felicia asked.

"Yes. All those times you got on the front pages of the tabloids with your indiscretions? Remember when you first got married and I covered for you? Remember all those times you forgot you had to go to one of those fancy dress parties and I just so happened to have it on my calendar and you showed up fashionably late without clay under your fingernails?"

There was silence on the other end of the line for a moment. "Yes, well, fine. I know I need you. But I don't need you today. It's a Monday. Nothing ever happens on Mondays."

Even I had to admit this was true. "I suppose," I said. "So he wants to paint me, huh?"

"I thought you said he took photographs."

"He says he hasn't found his medium yet."

"Oh jeez. What a twat."

For some reason, I felt defensive. "I don't think so. He has some talent. The photos he took definitely show promise. You know, if they weren't of me. Maybe if he had a really beautiful woman to photograph he'd do better."

"He could have a really beautiful woman to photograph. He's rich. He wants you."

"Oh. Thanks," I said, crankily.

"You know I didn't mean it like that. Anyway, he called and asked for you to have the day off. I said yes."

I lay in my bed and blinked at the ceiling. My clock was just about to tick over to my alarm, which was... strange. "Wait, he called you at six in the morning?"

"Late last night," she corrected me. "I'm gathering he's rather eager to see you again. You fucked him yet?"

I bit my lip. My dreams had been full of Malcolm, of things that we hadn't even done to each other in the waking world. I had no idea what kind of relationship we had, but it was certainly sexually charged, even though I hadn't even touched his bare cock. Or his bare skin. Or... well, much of anything, really. I'd never been with a guy as reserved as Malcolm. He seemed to only want to touch me, and was largely uninterested in reciprocation. I'd once thought, after one too many blowjobs with one of my exes who never told me when he was about to come—it's called common courtesy, my god—that it would be lovely to have a man worship my body and never ask for anything in return. But I was finding out that I was pretty randy to worship Malcolm myself. He did have a wonderfully hard body—what I had felt of it under his clothes—and sex seemed to draw him out of his shell. He would have been fun to play with. It would be really fun to see what made him tick.

"No," I said at last. "I haven't fucked him yet. But I plan to."

"Good," Felicia said. "I don't think you've gotten laid since you started working for me, and that's too damn long."

"I have!" I said, though I couldn't quite remember when. "It's just that you get laid enough for the both of us."

"I don't think it works like that," Felicia said. "You don't get to average sex out across multiple people."

"I know." Boy, did I know. Maybe my unbelievable attraction to Malcolm was because of how long it had been since I'd just gone out and had fun with a guy. I was a ball of repressed sexual energy, clearly, and Malcolm had picked up on it. Perhaps that was why he thought I was so magnetic.

"Well, whatever, go over to his studio, get painted, get fucked."

I made a face, though I knew she couldn't see it. "Damn, that sounds like you're mad at me."

"I'm not mad," she said. "I'm just cautious about this guy. What kind of man calls up your employer to ask to give you the day off?"

"A rich man used to getting his way?" I guessed.

"I suppose."

"You sound like you don't like him."

There was silence at the other end of the line for a long moment. "I don't think he's good for you," Felicia said. "You said he's damaged. You always try to save the damaged ones and it never works out."

I sighed. "I know." I remembered the way he stood up and belted out a classic barbershop tune and dumped his wallet out to help a hobo he'd never met before and probably would never see again. And then told me Allah said he should, even though he wasn't Muslim. Absently, I rubbed one of my tattoos, feeling the marred skin beneath. He was weird... and probably damaged... but... "But he's... different. I think."

"You think?"

"I know. I know he's different."

Felicia sighed on the other end of the line. "I know I can't talk you out of it," she said finally, "so try not to fall into the trap of trying to fix him. Please?"

"I won't," I promised.

"Okay. Have fun today. Go get a massage or something beforehand. You deserve it."

I smiled. Felicia was always trying to take care of me, when I was the one who always took care of her. It was sweet. "I will. See you tomorrow."

"See you tomorrow."

*
* * *

I arrived at Malcolm's mansion ready for anything. A good massage will do that for you. Gazing up at it, I heaved a sigh and steeled myself to once again enter the hoarder's den.

Except when I tried the door and it opened easily into the foyer, I was greeted with the sight of boxes. Stacks and stacks of boxes. Circling around, I peered into the long stretch of the house behind the entrance and saw still more boxes, and a group of men making more boxes, putting stuff into them. What the hell? I thought.

I didn't even call out this time, just started up the stairway. Reasoning that Malcolm wanted to paint me in his studio rather than his bedroom, I went all the way to the top floor.

A wave of heated air hit me as I stepped into the room to see Malcolm setting up a large drop cloth.

"Are you moving?" I asked him.

He looked up at me. His eyes were still haunted, smudged with dark circles. "No. Why?"

My mouth twisted. "You know there are a bunch of guys packing up your stuff and putting it in boxes downstairs, right?"

"Oh, that." He shrugged. "Yes, I know. I have decided to get rid of my things."

I blinked. "Just like that? You, uh, have a lot of stuff."

"Yes, I know. I've decided that it doesn't make me happy. I'm going to give it away."

I just never knew what to expect with Malcolm Ward. "You're giving all your things away? What about the really valuable stuff?" My mind went immediately to the sculpture that had been sitting in his foyer, the one by the student of Rodin. I would have liked to have touched that sculpture.

"What about it?" he asked. "I couldn't care less about how valuable something is to other people." He smiled. "Do you know what the most valuable thing in the world is, Sadie?"

Oh
, I thought,
please don't get all mushy on me.
"You're not going to say love, are you?"

He shook his head. "Go ahead. Guess."

I looked around this huge room, and thought about the boxes moving downstairs. "Peace?" I hazarded.

"Nope," he told me. "The most valuable thing in the world is the head of a dead cat."

I suddenly felt small and cold. Tendrils of the past tickled at my brain. "What the hell?" I blurted. "Why would you say something like that?"

Malcolm looked up from his work in surprise. "It's only a koan, Sadie. A mental exercise posed by the Zen master Sozan."

I didn't care
who
said it. "Don't say shit like that. It's creepy.
Fuck
."

Immediately he looked contrite. "I'm so sorry. I've offended you. It was just a stray thought. I've taken to saying what's on my mind lately, and I didn't stop to think how it sounded. I'll never mention anything like that again."

I took a deep breath, and firmly pushed my feelings down. If I didn't feel them, they didn't exist. "No. No. Why did he say the head of a dead cat is the most valuable thing in the world?"

He tilted his head. "Because no one can name its price," he replied. Then he frowned. "But now that I say it out loud to you, I'm starting to wonder if he wasn't wrong."

I could sort of see it as a sick joke, but it was one that had completely turned me off from the jittery excitement that had dogged me all morning. If I were someone else, I might have responded differently, laughed or something. It was true, in its own way. But still.

Malcolm stood up. "Sadie," he said. "Are you all right? You look very pale."

Dead cats make me pale,
I wanted to tell him, but I didn't. Plenty of things would make me pale, and I wasn't about to share them with anyone. You never knew who could use a weakness against you. Sharing triggers was a surefire way to get got.  I shrugged, as if to say it was no big deal. "I'm fine. Why is it so warm in here?" I asked, trying to change the subject.

"Ah, that." He smiled. "I read that one of the best ways to keep a model happy is to make it warm enough in your studio. I'm going to paint you today."

"Yeah, Lis told me." I looked around. "So where's your canvas and easel and stuff?" All I saw was a large white cloth in the middle of the room, and a collection of pots of paint and brushes on a small, low table next to it.

"I had planned on
you
being my canvas."

My eyes shot back to him, but he was deadly serious. "What do you mean?"

"I mean I want to paint your naked body," he said.

Okay, that got me nervous and jittery again, in the delicious way that made me warm and shivery all over. "I don't believe we discussed nudity today," I said.

"Then you do not consent?"

It was such a weird way to say it, but his face was open and honest, as though he meant nothing by it. He truly wanted me to be his canvas, naked beneath his brush. The thought excited me. I swallowed.

"I consent," I said. "I would love to be your canvas."

An almost imperceptible relaxing of his shoulders. He had been worried I'd turn him down. "If I go too far," he said, "you must tell me. I will stop whenever you say stop."

A zing of anticipation zipped up my spine. "Okay," I said. "I will tell you if you go too far." But I had no intention of telling him to stop.

There was no screen for me to change behind today, so I held his gaze and shed my coat, tossing it carelessly to the floor. I wore a cardigan underneath it, and I unwrapped it and tossed it down as well. My ribbed t-shirt joined them, and I stood before him in my bra, jeans, and boots.

The cherry wood of his eyes was almost eclipsed by the expanding of his pupils, and the skin of his face became lightly flushed as he watched me disrobe. I felt powerful, keeping his attention to me. He wore simple clothes today, only an old t-shirt and jeans, but they showed off his physique quite nicely. Well-muscled, but not overly so. Long waisted. A swimmer's physique. I licked my lips and bent to take my boots off.

"Let me help you," he said.

My breath caught, but I didn't tell him no. Instead I stood back up and waited. After a moment of drinking me in, he closed the gap between us, his bare feet slapping against the floor as though he were deliberately making a large amount of noise, as if he were flushing out prey from the shadows of the woods.

He knelt at my feet, bringing to mind the last time we were in this position, and he had licked me until I came. His hands ran up and down my thigh, and I felt the heat of his fingers through the denim of my jeans. I was already unsteady on my feet, and he made me more with each gentle stroke of his palms, as though he were soothing a skittish horse. I almost liked that comparison, actually. Strong and wild, he tamed me, but only with my consent. He found the zipper on one boot and slowly slid it down. The warmth of the leather fell away, and he wrapped one arm around my leg, his hand cupping my ass, as he nudged me onto the other foot, sliding my boot off. It clattered to the floor, and I winced, realizing I was wearing a thick pair of socks that one of my friends had knitted for me. It was too cold to wear anything else, I'd thought, and I hadn't thought ahead.

Embarrassed, I laughed. "Sorry about the socks. I know they're not—"

"Shh," he said. It was curt, and it cut my babbling off immediately. I felt the tips of his fingers playing with the sole of my foot through the fine-knit wool, and I inhaled sharply. Slipping his thumb into the cuff, he slid it off my foot and threw it away. His fingertips returned to my sole, and traced a soft pattern. I started to pant. Then he set my foot down and treated my other leg to the same attention, though this time his fingers brushed past my pussy on the way to my thigh. Again he peeled my boot away, and again he ran his fingers over my feet. No man had ever paid such attention to the less important parts of my body before. It was as though he liked all of me, and not just the bits that gave him pleasure.