Billionaire Games (6 page)

S
he slipped
her foot out of one of the heels, then the other, disliking how much more obvious the differences in their heights was without the extra inches the heels gave her.

He kept facing her, and Claire focused on the broad expanse of his suit-covered chest.

Under Simeon’s unwavering, heated gaze, she unbuttoned her skirt but didn’t lower the zipper. She reached up instead and pulled her blouse from her skirt, smoothing the shirttails against her palms, though she knew it was just a ploy to buy herself a few precious seconds of respite.

And then she began to work the buttons on her shirt, slowly opening them one by one and wishing she had worn a shirt that had a hundred buttons instead of seven. Because far too soon, she had reached the final button and was left with a question. A choice.

Lower the skirt first, or take off her blouse?

It was a silly, stupid question, but it was one she grappled with.

If she removed the skirt, he’d have more time to look at her body, the hips that were always a touch too wide and full, but even wider and fuller now than they had been before. He’d have more time to examine her curvy thighs, the ones that stayed soft and untoned no matter how hard she tried to shape them.

Or worse, he might see the dampness of her panties, the way her sex was now dripping with evidence of her desire for him.

On the other hand, if she removed the blouse, he’d see the stomach that was not flat and her breasts that had sometimes been the source of embarrassment because of their generous size.

She couldn’t decide which course to take and wasn’t sure that either would help her. So she stood, frozen, staring at Simeon’s chest as he watched her. Seconds bled into minutes and still Claire stood, not sure what to do. She hoped he’d say something, do something, anything that might help her decide in one way or another.

He did nothing.

Said nothing.

He just stood, watching, waiting.

Screw it!
Claire thought.

On two hasty motions, she tore out of the blouse and then unzipped the skirt and stepped out of it, leaving herself in the matching bra-and-panty set she had bought just for this occasion.

Insane, she knew, especially since she’d bought special underwear but not actual clothes. Maybe it was her way of acknowledging what this was all about. It had been funny because between her trip to Simeon’s doctor and a stop at the post office to have them hold her mail, she’d made time to go to a lingerie shop. She was unemployed now, needed to watch every penny, but she hadn’t been able to resist getting something special for this occasion, and it had been love at first sight when she’d seen the pink-and-nude lace set and elation when the shop had had it in her size.

She was again pleased with the choice as she lifted her eyes to meet Simeon’s and watched him react. His eyes darkened even further, and he looked at her intently, his gaze roaming her body, until he again lifted his eyes to meet hers.

“I said strip,” he said, his voice gravel rough and low in the reverent silence of the room.

She swallowed, not surprised that her ploy hadn’t worked, but now so deeply nervous and aroused that she wasn’t sure she’d be able to remove the underwear without him seeing the vicious tremor in her hands.

She looked into his eyes. “Why don’t you help me?” she asked.

His expression turned thunderous. “Are you playing some kind of game, Claire?”

Something in her made her push back. “Would it matter if I were? Isn’t that what this is to you? Some kind of game?” she said.

“I won’t be toyed with, Claire,” he replied voice low, almost silent, but she heard it loud and clear.

“Sad for me that I can’t say the same,” she said.

After she spoke, they stood, staring at each other. They stood for a long time, his expression so stormy that Claire halfway thought he was going to change his mind and send her away. And she knew where that would leave her.

She met his gaze again, saw that his heavy brows were dropped low with his displeasure. She also saw a hint of vulnerability, and that was what made her speak.

“I’m nervous, okay?” she said, her voice taking on a tone that was far too raw for her liking. She decided to be honest, confront what she was feeling head-on, but she didn’t want to be exposed to him, be vulnerable, or at least be the only one who was.

“So nervous that you can’t take off your own underwear?” he asked, voice dripping with sarcasm.

She stared at him a moment and then shook her head. “Forget it,” she said.

Then she dropped her gaze and reached her trembling hands up, knowing she would fumble with the fastenings, but knowing she had no choice, because she wouldn’t beg him or give him up any of her honesty or her dignity.

She had lifted her hands to open the front clasp of the bra. However, before she could open it, her hands were knocked away, a jolt going through her when Simeon’s warm fingers touched hers.

She looked up at him, saw that he still wore the same stormy expression, but that he had moved to stand closer in front of her and was now busy working at the front clasp of her bra.

He flipped it open quickly and then, without pause, reached for the waistband of her panties and pulled them down.

Then he stepped back quickly and watched her, that same distant, implacable expression back in an instant.

As Claire stepped out of her panties and then slid the bra off her arms, she realized she’d made a mistake.

His expression was implacable, but not exactly distant. She couldn’t say exactly what it was she saw, but there was something. He was not unaffected by her, wasn’t as casual about this as he would have her believe.

She looked down the length of his tall body and settled at his crotch, could see the hardness pressing against the front of his expertly tailored pants.

No, she was not alone in whatever this was. Not a surprise given that this whole scheme had been his idea, but whereas she had thought it was simply some sort of plan to get back at her for her imagined sin, the bulge protruding in front of her told her that wasn’t the truth, or at least not the complete truth.

He wanted her.

Probably wanted her just as much as she wanted him.

Which was good, very, because she had feared being in this alone, but his reaction told her she was anything but.

T
ime seemed
to slow as Simeon lifted his hands toward her and then brushed his fingertips across her collarbone.

Though he barely touched her, every nerve ending in her body sprang to life, alert, on edge and anticipating the need for more of him. He slid one finger down across collarbone and then suddenly pressed his big hand flat at the center of her chest.

Claire’s heart pounded, the thud of it going through her chest and pounding against his palm. She looked up at him and saw that his eyes had gone heavy, dark and weighted as he stared down at her.

Then he again lifted his gaze to hers, and some of his control, which she was sure had slipped, came back into place. His eyes became a little sharper, a little less dreamy as he watched her.

Simeon lifted his hands away from her and she could see a shift in the moment.

Then, moving quickly and boldly, he reached for her breasts, squeezing softly for a split second and then relaxing his hands for just a moment before he brushed his thumbs across her sensitized nipples.

Claire’s thoughts scattered and then recentered, all focused on the throbbing pulse between her thighs. She was already needy in a way she had never imagined she’d be, but his touches, bold yet almost matter-of-fact, were beyond anything she had ever experienced.

At least until he slid his hands down her waist, stopping to circle his palms over her stomach before delving between her thighs.

She huffed out a breath and then lifted her eyes to meet his, unable to stop herself from smiling at the amusement on his face. It was barely there, only the merest hint of a smile, but she’d seen it.

He was pleased by what he had found between her thighs, pleased by evidence that he could still inspire such intense passion in her.

“Your pussy is wet, Claire. Is that for me?” he asked.

As he spoke he began to gently rock his hand between her thighs, his palm brushing her clit, his fingers rubbing the edge of her wet lips.

“What makes you think that?” she asked, unwilling to give him the satisfaction of a confirmation, at least not yet.

He stilled and his expression went thunderous.

“Don’t say anything like that again, Claire. Ever,” he said, his voice hard, rough, and not like it had been before. This time it was shot through with anger, and Simeon had even dispatched with the idea of pretending to be detached.

“I don’t care about who was before, who comes after, but now, for this time, you are mine and mine alone. I won’t share. When you’re with me, no one exists but me.”

He ground out the words as if each one had to be forced through the tight anger that seemed to clog his throat.

“Do you understand?” he said a moment later.

She nodded quickly, regretting the words she’d spoken. She hadn’t intended to hurt him, had never,
ever
intended to hurt him, and even now, she would have taken some of his pain, shared the burden of it with him. Not that he would ever allow her to.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered.

She looked up at him, hoping he could see her sincerity, and though his expression softened ever so slightly, the hint of playfulness that had been there only moments ago had faded, though the passion and desire remained.

Quickly, before she even realized he was moving, he had shot out an arm and pressed it around her waist. He guided her to the windows and stood behind her, so close that she had no choice but to follow.

“Simeon…” she whispered, shivering, from both the cold of the glass against her nipples and the heat and anticipation of his body behind hers.

“What?” he asked.

Though she couldn’t see him and wanted to see his face, for some reason she didn’t want to turn, so she stayed where she was, waiting for him as she had for so long. She heard the sound of his belt opening and then heard the low
snick
of his zipper lowering.

He pressed his chest even closer to her back, his heavy thighs molding against hers, her ass curved against his lower body so that the naked flesh of his shaft touched her bare skin.

She buried her teeth into her bottom lip, trying and failing to choke back the moan that escaped anyway. The cold glass against her chest was like ice, but his hard, muscled chest, the soft linen of his shirt, the slightly rougher brush of his suit jacket and pants, and the scorching inferno of his cock against her ass was creating a whirlwind of feelings and sensations that she couldn’t process.

She pressed her hands to the glass, not able to gain traction against the cool, slick surface, but still grasping at it anyway.

As she did, he thrust, pushing his shaft between her thighs so that it was cradled between her soaking-wet labia, him pressing against her most intimate skin, making her fingers curl against the glass wall as she arched her back, the intensity of the pleasure that crashed through her nearly more than she could handle.

Using the arm he had anchored around her waist, he pulled her back, reclaiming the millimeters of space she had put between them. He went still for a moment after that and she squired in his hold, the heat and hardness of his body against hers driving her to the edge of distraction.

When he moved again, it was to shift his hips until the head of his cock was settled at the edge of her opening, so close to inside her that she could feel her walls clenching, ineffectively grasping at him, trying to pull him in. She jerked forward, forcing her nipples against the cold glass, and she opened her eyes to take in the harbor below.

“What…what if someone sees?” she asked, suddenly feeling exposed, like a thousand eyes were on her.

He thrust again, edging his steel-hard cock against her wet sex.

“Then they’ll see,” he said, and from the sound of it, he was straining, his voice tight.

Then he thrust hard and he filled her completely, the way he always had. Her body opened to accept him.

After so long, the burning stretch of his length and girth filled her almost to the point of discomfort, but discomfort was not what she felt. Instead the beginning edge of pain only intensified the sensation of his possession of her body. It also intensified the feel of the cool glass against her nipples and forehead, which she had now rested against the window.

The coolness was made that much cooler and more intense by his heavy palm against her stomach and the other that held one of her breasts.

But all the sensation was nearly nothing in the face of him moving inside her.

He thrust hard at first, sending her onto her tiptoes with the force of his motion, but then he pulled back, thrust more shallowly, more slowly, moving at a leisurely pace that she could tell was forced.

But he stroked inside her smoothly, he gripped her stomach tight, and she could feel the tension in his body as he cradled her, hear the increasing harshness of his breath, his warm exhales against her ear making her shiver.

He lowered his head and trailed his lips against her shoulder, and on instinct she turned her head to meet his lips.

Her lips brushed the corner of his mouth, but Simeon moved and began thrusting faster as he pressed his lips against her shoulder.

He kept his head there and moved faster still, his lips against her skin, his hands holding her tight, his breath feathering across her back. Simeon moved his hand down, between her thighs, to touch the place where they were joined and then stroked his thumb across her clit.

It sent her over the edge, sent her hurtling over the precipice that she had been teetering on since the moment he’d stormed back into her life.

Her body pulled tight and then collapsed onto itself, the power of her climax ripping through her like a tornado that sapped all the strength she had left.

She went limp against him, half of her weight on the window, the other half held by the steel band of his arm around her waist.

Yet he continued to push himself inside her, his hardness spreading her walls, and the low slap of their bodies, the slight sucking sound of her wet flesh yielding to him, and their combined breathing the only sounds in the room. All the sounds of the fucking Simeon had promised.

He hardened inside her, and then she felt him shudder as he released his hot seed inside her.

That feeling, Simeon’s strong release inside her body, triggered another of her own, and though she thought she was depleted, the climax ravaged through her. It was her undoing.

She went completely limp, held up only by his arm around her, his still-hard cock inside her.

She didn’t know how long they stayed that way, but after a few moments, he pulled out of her. Claire again heard the
snick
of his zipper, this time rising. After, he turned her, lifted her in his arms, and carried her deeper into the penthouse. A bedroom, she idly realized when he laid her on the soft bed.

Though she barely had the strength to do so, she lifted her eyes and looked at him, stunned by how put together he was, still dressed in his dark suit, stray curl on his forehead. Had she not looked closely, she would have thought she was alone in what had just happened, that he was completely unaffected.

But when she caught his gaze, saw the darkness in his eyes, the fire in them, she knew she was wrong. He’d been as affected as her, and in that moment, he couldn’t hide it. Simeon looked away quickly and then turned.

“The bathroom’s that way, and the refrigerator is stocked,” he called over his shoulder. “Be ready when I come back.”

She lay silent, trying to catch her breath as she listened to the sound of his receding footsteps and then the door closing.