Billionaire Bad Boys of Romance Boxed Set (10 Book Bundle) (7 page)

Then he reached out and took the camera from my hands.

I blinked at him stupidly.

Carelessly he reached down and threw the white satin over me, half-covering my body, and, apprehension building, I reached down to cover myself entirely as he suddenly snapped off a series of photos.

“Don't hide from me,” he said, his voice hoarse with need. “You are amazing.”

I licked my lips. “I don't do porn.”

He lowered the camera and reached down between my legs again, his hot, rough fingers finding my pussy and stroking into my slick channel, harsh and without control, which just made me wetter and hotter. “No,” he said as my hips thrust up into his hand and he shot another photograph, “you aren't doing porn. You will see.”

“Don't take pictures of me—
ah—
like this!”

“You inspire me,” was all he said. He slipped his finger out and shoved his thumb inside me, sliding his creamy index finger down the crack of my ass where it curled over my puckered entrance, pushing and retreating, pushing and retreating. My body quivered around his hand, my back arching. The white satin tangled around me, twisting me up. I managed to trap myself in it like a butterfly tangled in a spider web. Relentlessly his fingers pushed their way inside me, stroking and stirring, and above me the camera clicked and whirred, capturing every moment.

I should have been ashamed. I had certainly been raised to feel that way. But I didn't. My climax, previously denied, began to build again, mounting harder this time, faster, higher. He played me like an instrument, and I let him. The satin slid against my skin, looping and tightening, my breath coming hot and fast. The cool air on my body, the dazzling lights, the darkness of the backdrop burning against my eyes as my back arched like a bow pulled taut—all of it exposed me to him, to the unforgiving lens of his camera.

Yet I trusted him to make it beautiful, to transcend it.

You were alive.

Maybe he
was
crazy. But if I was alive, I wanted to feel like it.

His harsh breathing cut through my haze, scraping over my ears as he moved over me, placing a foot by my shoulder and staring directly down at my face. Closer and closer the camera came, and I forced myself to be still as he stroked me, so the shots wouldn't come out blurry. Below the waist, my hips bucked, thrusting into him as he fucked me with his hand. I tried to touch myself, but my arms were caught in the satin, and I could only close my eyes and give myself over to him.

My pussy clenched, drenching his hand, and my climax was coming, just on the edge.

“I'm—” I started to say, but the clatter of something heavy hitting the floor startled me and I turned my head just in time to see the camera skitter away over the dark black cloth covering the floorboards as Malcolm Ward suddenly crouched down and slipped an arm under me. I became weightless as he lifted me, clutching me hard to him, and I, tangled and twisted as I was, could only lay limp in his embrace as his mouth found my throat. Then his fingers gave me a little push, and I was tumbling over the edge of my climax, pleasure rushing up to meet me.

Great shudders raced through my body and I curled up, my legs clamping around his arm as I came. The waves of my orgasm threatened to sweep me away, suck me into an undertow I could not escape from. More than anything I wished it were his hips I were clinging to instead of his arm, and as his hand drew my orgasm out of me, his mouth traced gentle, soft patterns over the fragile skin of my throat, a sharp contrast to the violence of his fingers in my ass and pussy. I writhed as he brought his index finger and thumb together inside me, only the thinnest of inner walls separating them. I was stretched wide, aching, and when at last the ripples subsided I collapsed in his grasp, all the tension of my body flowing away like water down a hill.

Our ragged gasps mingled together in the studio, his breath coiling in the hollow of my throat, and mine bouncing off the walls. His forehead was sheened in sweat and I remembered my own curiosity as to what it would taste like. Turning my head, I let my tongue slip along his brow, tasting him.

Salty, sweet. Dark.
Good.

Then my body jolted as he jerked away from me. I inhaled sharply at the expression on his face.

He looked... confused. As though he had no idea what had just happened, even though his fingers were still buried inside my body. The smell of sweat and my juices hung in the previously cool, stale air, and his wide, dark eyes searched my face as if he were looking for some clue that might be hidden there, something that would tell him what to do next.

Personally, I'd thought we were going to fuck. But that look on his face told me that things were not quite as simple as that.

“Oh,” he said suddenly, and then, as quickly as he could without injuring me, he set me down and pulled his fingers from my cunt and ass. The swift loss sent a tremor of remembered pleasure through my body and I jerked in my twisted satin bonds. I was caught where I lay, but he retreated from me, leaving me to work my way out on my own. He stood at the edge of the black backdrop and watched, as though he had had no part in my predicament. Sitting up, I struggled out of the tangled white satin, and then stood up. The sweat on my skin was drying and cooling rapidly, and I started to shiver.

I stood, naked, in the middle of his studio, and he stared at me as though he had never seen me before.

Well,
I thought to myself,
that's what you get for trying to fuck a crazy guy.

I tossed my tangled hair back and met his stare head on, daring him to say something. But he just took another step back.

“I'll call you tomorrow,” he said. “Will you see yourself out?”

My jaw clenched, but he backed away again, and I was suddenly reminded of my mother's old cat, who, after a lifetime spent in our house could never tolerate people and never wanted to be touched or spoken to. An abused cat. That's what he was reminding me of.

Wow. Sexy.

What the fuck was wrong with me?

“Yeah,” I said. “I'll see myself out. No problem.”

“Okay then,” he replied, and with that he turned and walked out of the studio, his footsteps thundering on the stairs until he stepped off on one of the floors below. His camera lay on the floor and I thought, briefly, of going over and stealing the SD card, but some artistic camaraderie stopped me. I hadn't stopped him from taking those pictures. They could still be wonderful. And he certainly didn't need money from porno pics.

I left it where it lay, got dressed and gathered my things, then descended the stairs, my knees still weak from the delicious orgasm he'd given me. When I finally walked down the steps to the sidewalk in front of the house, I paused and looked up.

A curtain on the third floor twitched and then was still.

I walked to the subway station, one thought echoing in my head:

What the
fuck
just happened?

Chapter Four

"So did you fuck him?" Felicia asked me the next morning when I showed up at the door of her studio, an unlighted cigarette dangling from my lips and a six pack of Pabst swinging from my fingers. I pinched the cigarette out of my mouth and glared at her.

"Depends on what you mean by fuck," I said.

"Sounds like you have a story to tell." She opened the door wide and I followed her inside.

The place was familiar to me. It had been Felicia's apartment before she had married Anton, but now she kept it purely for her sculpture. A huge wad of clay sat in the middle of the floor on a large tarp, ringed by tables covered in tools large and small of her own devising. The only other piece of furniture in the apartment was an old mattress sitting on the floor, the bed she used to sleep on before she found a better one with the world's most eligible billionaire.

Felicia returned to her project. She wore jeans and a sweatshirt, but padded around the studio barefoot, even though it was freezing cold. Gray clay coated her feet and arms in patches, evidence that she had been working on something real. Creating.

God, I envied her.

"So tell me everything," she said, resuming her sculpting. I watched her for a moment as she picked up a table leg and began to pound on the wad of clay. Wet smacks echoed against the walls. I lit my cigarette and inhaled the smoke into my lungs. One of my many vices. I just can't seem to give them up.

"Well," I said, "I showed up. His house is a mess. Like, a real mess. It's kind of like a hoarder house. It's full of
stuff."

Felicia frowned. "What kind of stuff?"

I thought for a moment. "Like if you crossed Sotheby's with a flea market."

She stopped whacking at her clay. "Seriously?"

"Would I shit you?"

"Yes."

Okay. That was true. But still. "Well, I'm not shitting you. And then he took me up to the top floor of his house where he had a photography studio installed
that morning,
and then he asked me to take my clothes off and wrap myself up in white satin so he could take pictures of me."

"You look good in white," Felicia said, which was a very artist thing to say.

"Yeah, I know. But then he kind of fingered me and then went down on me and when I was done he freaked out and left!"

Felicia's eyes narrowed at me. "It went from pictures to finger fucking just like that?" she asked. She was clearly not buying it. My best friend, disbelieving my innocence.

I sucked my cigarette down and blew a stream of smoke at her. "You know how things just happen," I said. Granted, I had sort of
decided
that those things would happen and then done my level best to ensure that they did, but come on. Finger fucking
just happens
all the time. Sometimes it just needs a little nudge.

She studied me for a moment. "Uh-huh," she said at last, then shook her head and sighed. "You always go for the crazy ones, don't you?"

I scowled. "Malcolm Ward is
not
crazy. Weird and probably damaged, maybe, but crazy, no. And I don't always go for the crazy ones, thanks."

"You don't remember Simon?" she asked me. "Simon who thought you were cheating on him with his brother who lived in Tokyo and burned all your underwear in revenge?"

I shrugged. "Fine. Maybe Simon."

"And Jorge? The one who refused to look at mirrors and wouldn't enter through front doors?"

"That was just a quirk of character," I said. "That wasn't really crazy."

She crossed her arms. "And what was Misha?"

"A drunk."

Felicia rolled her eyes at me. "You have a thing for damaged guys, you nutbar. And you just said yourself that he's damaged."

"I said
probably
damaged." I couldn't help but feel stung, insulted, and a bit annoyed. Before Anton, Felicia's previous boyfriends had all been dumb as rocks. The last one she'd had before she got married had called himself Steele.
Steele,
for Christ's sake. Where did she get off judging
me?

"Yeah, but you're so good at picking out the damaged ones that that probability is awfully high. Besides, he acts crazy in public, right?"

I shrugged. "I don't know, you're the one who knows him."

"I don't know him, I know
of
him. And yes, he does act crazy in public. If he's
not
actually crazy, then it's an act." She pursed her lips. "Which, ironically, would be totally crazy."

I barely suppressed an epic eye roll. "Trust me, he's not crazy, and if he's damaged at least he's really hot." I sucked the last of my cigarette down and stubbed it out in the ceramic ashtray by the bed. Felicia doesn't smoke, so it's mostly there for my benefit. I saw that the stubs I'd left in there the last time I'd come over to her studio were still languishing at the bottom. What a sad existence. I sighed. "And he gives really good head, and that's not the sort of thing you want to just fling to the wind at the first sign of trouble."

Her mouth pursed again, and I could see she was struggling to formulate a counterargument, but I knew she probably didn't have one. Her own husband was pretty fucked up, too, but, from what I could tell, he was amazing in the sack. You can't just throw that shit away lightly. Of course he was also madly in love with her and the feelings were reciprocated, so I suppose he had that going for him, too. All I had from Malcolm Ward was a bunch of weird interactions and one great orgasm.

It had been a really, really
good
orgasm, though.

Why is life so hard?
I thought to myself.

"You're into him," Felicia said at last.

I wasn't quite prepared to admit that, so I made a joke. "Yeah, I was in his mouth yesterday afternoon," I said.

Felicia made a face, but my crude attempt at changing the subject was nevertheless effective. "So that's it?" she said. "Did he take any pictures?"

I blinked. "Oh! Yeah, he did. A ton of them, in fact." Some of which I was feeling quite embarrassed by at this point, but I couldn't do anything about that now. "He's never done anything artistic as far as I can tell, but yesterday he said he wanted to become a... a brilliant madman, connecting to the pulse of the universe through his art and that I was his 'inspiration.'"

She arched an eyebrow at that. "Oh, really? He just decided he wanted to be a brilliant artist?"

"That's what I said."

She returned to her clay, giving it a few good whacks with the table leg before pausing. "I guess that's one way to go about it. I mean, don't we all decide we want to be brilliant artists at some point?"

"Yeah. After
making
art, not before."

Whack. Whack.
"So? Maybe he's got a talent for it. Have you seen the pictures yet?"

I shook my head. "Nope. He said he'd call me today."

"Before or after he gave you head?"

"After."

"Well, he still wants to see you after giving head. At least you didn't scare him away by smelling bad or something."

I lit another cigarette. "Watch out," I told her. "I've decided to be an arsonist and I'm going to burn down your studio."

"You've already tried that a couple times," Felicia said. "You don't have the knack for it."

Dammit. She was right. I cracked a beer and sipped it while she tried to beat her clay to death. I was just contemplating drinking the whole six pack by myself to erase my memories of the past twenty-four hours when my phone rang. I jumped and nearly dropped my beer.

Felicia clicked her tongue. "You're
really
into him."

I rolled my eyes and checked the number. Yup, that would be Malcolm. Said so right there on the screen.

I hesitated.

"Maybe you'll get anal this time," Felicia said.

"Shut
up,"
I told her, and hit
answer
.

"Yeah?" I said. Totally nonchalant. I'm hardcore like that.

"I was wondering if you would like to come over and assist me in going over these photographs," Malcolm said without any preamble. His voice was distracted and distant, and it rankled me.

"I don't know," I told him. "Are you going to stick your tongue in my twat and then run away again?"

"Sadie!"
Felicia hissed, scandalized.

What?
I mouthed back at her. He deserved to be called out. You can't just go around treating people like things. You gotta maybe buy them dinner first or something, or at the very least don't literally
run away
afterward. It was part of the social contract. That sort of thing could give a girl a complex.

On the other end of the line, Malcolm was silent, clearly impressed by my big brass ovaries. I was willing to bet no woman had ever spoken to him that way. I'd left him speechless with my wit.

"I'm not sure," he said at last. "Did you enjoy it?"

...Great. Now I was the one who was speechless. I tried hard not to look at Felicia. "Yes," I said. "I did, thanks."

A gust of air as he let out a sigh. "Good," he said. "I was worried. Please, come over and we can look at these photos. You can give me the critique of a professional."

And I had nothing to say to that, either, except, "Okay."

"See you soon." And he hung up without saying goodbye, like people on television do. I stared at my phone for a long moment before stuffing it back into my purse.

"Well?" Felicia was leaning on her lump of clay, staring at me as though she knew something I didn't. A little smile played on her lips.

"I'm going to his house to go over the photos he took," I told her. "He wants my professional opinion."

"And is he going to stick his tongue in your twat again?"

I'm so proud I didn't blush at that. "We left that open-ended," I said. I gulped a few more mouthfuls of beer and got up. "See you on the flip side, ladies."

"Don't trip and fall on his cock by accident!" she shouted after me as I closed the door.

Don't worry,
I thought.
It won't be by accident.

*
* * *

I rang Malcolm Ward's doorbell about ten times before trying the knob and finding the house open. Reasoning that I'd been invited over, I let myself inside and shut the door behind me.

Immediately the claustrophobic atmosphere descended on me again. So much stuff, everywhere. There weren't actually piles of shit on the floor, but there were so many end tables and foyer tables from the beginning of the last century piled high with junk that there might as well have been. I allowed myself to stop and inspect the incredibly valuable sculpture he had just
sitting
inside his unlocked door where anyone could waltz in and take it, but the press of
things
on all sides and the musty smell of antiques soon drove me to the stairs.

I took them two at a time. "Mr. Ward?" I called at each landing until, faintly, I heard him from the fourth floor.

"Come up!" he yelled down.

I sprinted up the steps to the fourth floor and breathed a sigh of relief when I walked out into another large room like the one at the top of the house. This one was completely empty save for a luxurious bed at the back end and a desk at the front, looking out onto the street. Large windows let light stream in from the cloudy day outside, and Malcolm Ward was sitting at the desk, staring intently at the computer he had set up there.

My God. I was in his bedroom.

It's cool,
I thought. I'd been in plenty of bedrooms before, most of them not even attached to either me or my partner. I'd just play it like I was totally fine. Because I was.

Totally fine.

Straightening my spine, I strode across the floor toward Malcolm, the low heels of my boots clacking on the wood. I couldn't quite make out what was on the computer screen since it was backlit against the windows. I squinted at it as I drew closer. Blurry lines slowly resolved until I was halfway to him, and then I suddenly realized what they were.

He was looking at pictures of me on his computer.

...Well, of course he was.

My footsteps slowed as I found myself overcome by embarrassment, seeing my face plastered across the screen. Then he began to zoom out, and I realized this was one of the pictures he'd taken as I'd slipped my panties off. My naked body came into view and I ground to a halt, halfway to the desk. Ward sat in his chair, hunched over and staring intently at the monitor. He didn't even acknowledge my presence.

I found it a bit insulting that he'd rather look at pictures of me when he had the real me standing right behind him, so I cleared my throat. It was too loud in the quiet of his room, but he turned. Surprise first crossed his face. Then pleasure. A wide grin broke over his face.

"Sadie," he said warmly. "Come over here. I'm afraid photography may not be our medium, but I believe there are some good shots hidden in here."