Billionaire Bad Boys of Romance Boxed Set (10 Book Bundle) (8 page)

"Yeah?" I said. "No shit photography's not my medium. I could have told you that. I'm as photogenic as a dead pigeon." His welcome gave me the guts to continue walking toward him until I stood just over his shoulder, staring at the picture of me dragging my panties down my legs.

To my surprise, it wasn't a bad photograph. Despite the fact that I was on the ground, my head tossing and turning this way and that, Malcolm had managed to somehow capture an angle that didn't make me look fat or distended in some way. I was still the trashy tramp with small tits and a big ass covered in tattoos that I'd always been, but somehow I
looked
like someone who was a little more than that. I was still a long way from beautiful, but as Malcolm began to scroll through the pictures he'd taken, I started to see myself in a slightly different light. The planes and angles of my face became less harsh, more... striking. Bold.

Perhaps Malcolm did have some latent artistic ability after all.

I let my gaze slide down so I could study him from the corner of my eye. He wasn't wearing the same clothes I'd last seen him in; instead of pajamas he now wore a fine cashmere sweater and well-tailored slacks, though his feet were stockinged. A pair of fine shoes languished a few feet from the desk, as though he'd brought them over, meaning to put them on but had forgotten to do so. He'd also shaved, so that was good. It meant he'd probably taken a shower.

He still seemed a bit off, though. He had a strange, hunted look on his face, as though he hadn't slept, dogged by some unrelenting compulsion. Glancing back at the images on the screen and his riveted attention to them, I could believe it.

"Some of these are pretty good," I told him. "I mean, considering your subject matter and all."

Next to me, he shook his head. "That's kind of you," he said. "But it's not here."

I blinked. "What's not here?"

"My masterpiece."

I felt my mouth twist. "You don't think so? You asked me over to look at your photos as a professional. I think they're pretty good. You have talent. And I'm admitting that grudgingly considering you didn't decide to become an artist until yesterday."

"Two days ago," he corrected me, "and that was just an excuse. I asked you over to do this again."

I could see it all in my mind as he moved the mouse down to the lower bar of his photo editor, clicked on a box, and up popped the picture of him between my legs, eyes half-closed with ecstasy as he laved my clit with his tongue.

Just the sight of it made me aching and empty for his cock, even as my face flushed with humiliation. And yet the picture I'd taken was beautiful, in a purely artistic sense. I'd captured my subject perfectly: the only thing truly in focus was Malcolm's face. The face of a cat lapping at a bowl of cream.

I still wasn't entirely prepared when he turned his chair and gripped my hips gently to pull me to him.

"Whoah!" I said, my hands flying out to grab his shoulders. "I... uh..." My brain shorted out as my fingers met his body. He was well-muscled.
Very
well-muscled. And hot. He burned through his sweater and undershirt. Burned for me.

I'd worn a skirt. A heavy wool skirt. No tights. He stared up at me with his beautiful, intense eyes as his large warm hands smoothed over my hips to my ass, squeezing gently. His lips, level with my breasts, were thwarted only by the thick coat I wore.

He didn't seem to care. "You've been on my mind since I saw you," he said, his voice thick and husky. "But I haven't captured you yet."

It took me a moment to realize that he meant artistically. He hadn't captured me
artistically.
Of course by that point he'd stood up, maneuvered me to the chair, and sat me down in it.

"Uh..." I said again as he towered over me. I'm really brilliant in a tight spot. He unbuttoned my coat, but didn't remove it, instead simply letting it fall open.

"There," he said. "Wouldn't want you being uncomfortable."

"For what?" I managed to say. If I'd been smart or had more blood in my brain, I would have said,
Too late.

But I wasn't uncomfortable, except in the excited, breathless way everyone is uncomfortable as they take a new lover, someone whose habits they don't know, whose likes and dislikes are not yet second nature to their lips and tongue and hands. This discomfort didn't seem to afflict Malcolm, of course. He gazed down at me, his warm, beautiful eyes still riveted to my face, then reached into his pocket and withdrew something limp and red. A long length of red satin ribbon.

"I used to be into bondage," he said, his voice strangely detached. "Once upon a time. Let's see if I still have the touch." And he reached for me.

I shot to my feet like a bolt of lightning. Behind me, the chair clattered as it rolled away, shoved across the floor by the strength of my momentum.

For a long, tense moment, we stared at each other, the sounds of traffic outside unnaturally loud, as if the tension between us actually made the air thicker.

He didn't look hurt, merely surprised. But curious.

So I said, "I don't trust you." Which was the truth. Beneath the heavy arousal zipped the zest of fear, deep and primal, that I had not felt for years.

His eyes softened, and suddenly he was reachable again, no longer distant. Human. "You are right," he said. "I understand." He opened his hand, and the ribbon fluttered to the ground as he stepped forward, bringing the distance between us to nothing.

I could have backed up then. But I didn't.

He bent down, his face drawing closer and closer to mine. Dizziness overwhelmed me, made the world spin and tilt as he came closer. His scent filled my head, and I thrilled at his nearness, every inch of my body awake and alive to his proximity. Then his full, sensuous lips met mine, and I melted, like wax before a flame.

Malcolm Ward could
kiss.

He wasn't demanding, not at first. At first he seemed content to gently massage my lips with his, sweet and soft, teasing me down from the height of fear. Slowly the echoes of the past receded, replaced with first a slow smoldering, and then fast burning embers as he continued his slow play of mouth on mouth, lips on lips. His nose brushed against mine, our breath mingling between us. There was nothing outside of our kiss, even as it brought me to the brink of frustration.

Gimme some
tongue,
damn,
I thought.

As though he read my mind Malcolm paused and smiled against my mouth before flickering his tongue over my lips. I opened for him readily, aching from my tongue to my curling toes.

He invaded me gently but inexorably, stroking his tongue over mine in a slow, strong caress that had me reeling, my body listing toward his. I felt the heat coming from him, but we had yet to touch anywhere but our lips, and I longed for more. A moan escaped my chest, and then his hands alighted on my face.

My cheeks burned where his flesh met mine, white hot points of contact that shook me down to my bones, and I reached up, gripping his arms lest I fall. I was swaying, unsteady, and he was a steel pillar, holding me up, keeping me from collapsing completely. Our bodies met, my breasts brushing against his chest, his thighs meeting mine, the bulge of his cock bridging the gap between us, nudging my belly and sending streamers of fire out over my limbs. I wanted to reach down and touch it, take it in my hands, and with any other man I would have.

Malcolm was different. I didn't know how, I just knew he was. I twisted my hips instead, letting my stomach rub over his erection and feeling the contact ripple through him as he shuddered, ever so slightly, like a great wind gusting against an ancient tree, or a skyscraper bowing to a hurricane. The pressure of his hands on my face increased as I circled my hips against him, feeling the delicious bulge grow harder and larger as his arousal caught and fanned into flame, but then, abruptly, he broke away, first planting a kiss to my earlobe, then dragging his open mouth down my throat, over my chest, until he was kneeling before me, his face buried in my stomach.

He inhaled deeply, and I got the sense that he was reveling in my smell. It made me wish that I'd spent more time primping this morning, but that wish was soon forgotten as his hands skated down my body from my face, traveling over my throat, grazing the outside swell of my breasts, smoothing over my stomach until they met my hips. Slipping his hands around me, he splayed them over my generous ass again, and a flood of moisture between my legs responded to his possessive touch.

My breath came in short, hot bursts as he let his hands wander down the backs of my thighs. Inching forward on the wood floor, he nudged my feet apart with his knees, until he knelt between my legs as his hands found the hem of my skirt and began to lift it up.

I braced myself on his shoulders, my knees suddenly weak and watery. He was face to pussy with me, and I knew he was going to do it again. He'd said as much. That he had respected my wishes and let me stay unbound excited me, and made me almost wish I'd let him tie me up.

Almost.

His hands spread over my thighs, lifting my heavy skirt away, and I reached down and grabbed the hem, lifting it up with one hand while I held onto him with the other. I couldn't get enough air. My body quivered and quaked as he stared at my pussy, still clothed in my panties. Leaving his fingertips on the inside of my thigh, he moved his hand up and up, until he met the edge of the elastic leg bands. I wished I'd worn something sexier. Then one long finger moved to the damp crotch of my panties and rubbed.

I whimpered and faltered, my knees giving way, but he steadied me with his other hand. His eyes rose to mine, and we stared at each other as, slowly, deliberately, he moved the cotton aside, exposing my aching pussy to the cool air.

I could barely keep my eyes open. Desire washed over me, threatening to knock me off my feet, and when he stroked his finger over my slit I groaned. My thighs were still close enough together that there was little room, and my crowded flesh was hypersensitive. My hips rocked toward him and he finally looked away. I let my eyes slide closed as he moved his head forward and gave my pussy a long, luxurious lick.

Oh. Oh, he felt so
good.

Slowly, achingly, he circled my clit with his tongue, keeping it firm and direct in the obscuring folds, and I quivered and cried out. I needed a finger inside me, something in me, but he only teased the little nub at the apex of my pussy lips, his tongue pointing hard, then flattening softer, circling, circling. He stroked his fingers over my labia, letting the slickness of our mingling juices tease me softly as his tongue hardened its approach. At the base of my spine, in the backs of my thighs, my climax began to mount.

"God, don't stop," I begged him, and I felt him smile against me. His fingertip ghosted over my entrance, and I had the distinct impression he was laughing at me, telling me he had just what I wanted, but that he wouldn't give it to me yet.

My orgasm built slowly. My legs ached as I struggled to stay up, my hand digging into his shoulder, my toes curling for purchase inside my boots. The fingers holding my skirt up and out of his way were damp with sweat, and I was nearly on my tiptoes, feeling my release just out of reach.

A frustrated sob escaped me, and then Malcolm flicked his tongue against my clit, driving it into his teeth, and my quaking, aching legs nearly gave out as a warm, delicious orgasm spread out from my pussy across my entire body.

My skin dissolved into shivers, my knees buckled, and I cried out as I came around his tongue, my inner passage twisting and squeezing nothingness in a sweet release. I collapsed as wave after wave lapped gently over me, and he dragged it out with his mouth, until I knew I could take no more and begged him to stop.

When he did, he drew away from me and I collapsed gracelessly to the floor, my legs askew, my brow sweaty, my mouth gaping open as I tried to catch my breath. My bare, slick pussy pressed into the wood floor. Malcolm stared at me, almost tenderly, and licked his fingers and lips clean.

"Your taste is delectable," he said. "I could lick you all day."

I had to give an exhausted laugh at that. "Please don't," I said. "Give me a little time to recover first."

He smiled at that as he lowered himself to the ground, reaching out and pulling me into his lap. I let him, because I was feeling pretty boneless, though the reminder that he was a man who wanted to fuck me rather than just a pussy-eating machine came crashing into me when I felt the rock-hard swell of his cock against my ass. I tried not to let it impinge on my afterglow, but already it was making me think of other things I wanted to do with him—and to him. We could have a jolly good time in that bed across the room...

His hand stroked my hair and I leaned against his shoulder, fantasizing for a moment that we were intimate lovers rather than almost total strangers. It felt nice to be held. I couldn't remember the last time I'd let someone hold me.

Then a low growling sound scraped across my ears, and I frowned.

"Did... did your stomach just rumble?" I asked, pulling back and frowning at him. I mean, some growling is sexy, but that was kind of... not.

To his credit, he looked faintly embarrassed. "Yes," he admitted. "I'm afraid I've been forgetting to eat."

I stared at him in disbelief. "Seriously?" I said. It was barely lunchtime. "How long have you been forgetting to eat?"