Coerced (Billionaire romance): Blackmailed by the Billionaire (Buchanan Romance Book 1) (13 page)

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Elizabeth was lost in the exquisite exhibition of select Picasso’s on display when Sutton came up behind her, sliding his hands along her waist and drawing her close.

She relaxed against him, smiling. “It’s brilliant,” she said with a subtle shake of her head. “It’s not my style but you can’t help but marvel at the artistry.”

“If you say so. I’ve never been much of a fan,” he said with a faint chuckle. “What do you like about it?”

“Art is supposed to evoke an emotion, something powerful welling up inside you…when I look at the art collections of the masters, I feel swamped by the beauty and the perfection of the medium. Sometimes it makes me cry.”

“So you’re saying art should be more than just pretty on the walls?” he teased and she turned to swat at him. He dipped his head down to whisper against her ear. “I rather liked that new piece you were working on. Very sensual.”

Elizabeth smiled with secret happiness but couldn’t help the saucy quip, “So did your brother. He wants to buy it when it goes on display at Covington House.”

Sutton released her and she turned to face him, not surprised to see the scowl.

Was that jealousy? Was it possible?

She decided to diffuse whatever false idea Sutton had brewing, rising to bravely kiss him of her own accord. “You’re cute when you look like you want to rip someone’s head off.”

“Are you attracted to Reece?”

“That’s a dumb question. Of course not. But he’s very charming — just like you can be when you want to be.”

That seemed to mollify him and she slipped her hand into his. “Come on, I want to see the Bartolomé Bermejo
collection
.
You’ll like it; it’s very dour and there’s even some naked breasts.”

“Sounds like my kind of art,” he said, finally breaking a smile.

As they walked, Elizabeth decided to be honest.

“I really love that you brought me all the way to Spain. No one has ever done anything so extravagantly kind. It’s been my dream to see all the great art of the world and you made that possible.”

He seemed to swell with pride at her admission but he simply squeezed her hand, as if he didn’t trust himself to talk at that moment.

“Careful,” she warned him, causing him to do a double-take. “If you keep acting like a decent human being, I might get the wrong idea about you.”

“Well, we wouldn’t want that, would we?” he replied with a small twist of his lips.

She laughed, enjoying the easy banter between them.

They had a connection, that much was undeniable and it didn’t matter how or why they’d initially come together — the fact was, they meshed together very well and she was beginning to crave his touch like no other.

Elizabeth smothered the chuckle at the irony. Who cared how they’d come together?

She was in Spain with an insanely hot guy who couldn’t keep his hands to himself.

Had she ever in her life felt so cherished, so desired?

Easy answer — no.

Did it matter that he’d bought her for an ungodly sum?

Well…a part of her still cringed. But it was becoming a smaller and infinitely less important detail in her mind.

Especially when he was smiling at her with his mouth and devouring her with his gaze.

Yeah, that was powerful stuff.

By the end of the day, Elizabeth was exhausted and her feet hurt from walking what felt like a million miles but the smile on her face was almost permanent.

They walked into their sumptuous hotel room and she went straight for the bed, flopping onto the bath with a happy groan.

Sutton laughed and detoured for the bathroom. Several moments later, she heard water running in the huge bathtub. She smiled, knowing what was coming.

Soon enough the water was ready and Sutton was there to help her undress.

She shivered, biting her lip with anticipation. If there was one thing Sutton excelled in, it was making her wet with simply one touch.

Standing bare before him, she closed her eyes as he sank to his knees, his face right at the apex of her thighs.

His hands gripped her hips and drew her close. He inhaled the fragrance of her womanhood and his groan of pure desire caused her to tremble.

“My Elizabeth…” he murmured, sinking his tongue between her folds, seeking her pleasure button with unerring accuracy.

Her knees wobbled as he mercilessly drove her to a quick orgasm and when she came, she nearly crumpled to the floor if it weren’t for Sutton quickly being there.

“Whoa there,” he said, grinning. “Now that’s quite a stroke to my ego.”

“As if you need one,” she countered breathlessly through a smile. “God, you’re pretty good with that tongue.”

“Always nice to hear,” he said, grasping her hand and pulling her to the bathroom where they climbed into the marble tub together.

Elizabeth settled against him, smiling to herself when she felt his erection digging into her back. Was it terrible that she loved teasing him? Loved knowing that she had this power?

Maybe, but she wasn’t going to feel bad.

She’d spent her entire life feeling second best to every girl out there with a perfect figure who seemed to have everything at her fingertips.

There was no way she was going to give up this amazing feeling, even if it were built on a superficial foundation.

Maybe it was stupid but Elizabeth didn’t care. She was drowning in delicious happiness and not going to apologize for enjoying it.

Elizabeth hesitated, deciding to delve into the mystery known as Sutton Buchanan. She knew his body but almost nothing of his mind or past.

“Tell me about your family,” Elizabeth said as Sutton lazily swirled the water around her breasts.

He sighed and said, “Well, you’ve already met Reece. He’s the typical middle child — doesn’t take anything serious, ever — and then there’s my baby sister Whitney.”

Sutton had a sister? “What’s she like?”

He shrugged. “Wild. Unpredictable. A little self-destructive at times.”

“Sounds like a train wreck,” Elizabeth murmured with a frown. “Does she know about me?”

“By now? Probably. Reece couldn’t keep his mouth shut about anything even if his damn life depended on it.”

“And what do you think she’ll have to say about it?”

“What does it matter? I don’t put much value in the opinion’s of others.”

“Not even that of your family?”

“Especially that of my family,” he replied dryly. “My family isn’t like most. We’re not exactly a warm and fuzzy bunch.”

Elizabeth digested that information, then asked, “Why is that?”

“Why is what?”

She turned, careful not to slosh water everywhere. “Why do you think you’re not a warm family? Before my parents died, we were pretty close. I mean, my parents were awesome, great people. It took a long time for me to stop being angry at the world that they’d been taken when there are so many awful people out there in the world that shouldn’t be.”

Sutton, a beautiful man but so hard to read sometimes, simply shrugged, his gaze shuttered. “I don’t waste my time thinking about questions I’m not likely going to get answered. My family is what it is. Besides, money makes up for a lot of deficits.”

Elizabeth disagreed. “That’s not true,” she protested, shaking her head, sad that Sutton had a giant hole in his heart where family love should’ve been. “Money just covers up the hole, doesn’t mean you can’t still fall through it.”

“Profound,” he teased, reaching up to cup her chin. “My own little philosopher. That’s an unexpected bonus to the purchase price.”

She pulled away with a hurt scowl. Why did he have to bring up their sordid beginning at every chance? “Stop it.”

“Stop what?”

“Stop pretending that there isn’t something between us because I can feel it just as well as you can. Each time you try to cheapen what’s happening, it only makes you look like a scared little boy and that’s not very attractive.”

His gaze narrowed. “Careful, little peach.”

“No.” She shook her head, knowing she was playing with fire but she couldn’t stop. “I need you to stop being such a…a…damn
Buchanan
.”

He looked affronted. “And who exactly would you have me be?”

She leaned forward and framed his face with her hands. “Just be Sutton. I like that guy. Sutton is surprisingly sweet and generous. But that Buchanan guy is just a dick who likes to push his weight around using his money. Trust me…
no one
likes that guy but I suspect a lot of people — more importantly,
me
— would love to get to know Sutton.”

Sutton held her stare and after a charged moment, gently removed her hands, saying grimly,

“Sweetheart, they’re one in the same. You can’t have one without the other. Trust me, I know. I’ve tried.”

***

Sutton
rose from the bath, tucking his towel around him, needing space.

He hadn’t meant to share that but somehow Elizabeth had coaxed that personal nugget of private information from his cache before he’d been able to stop her.

The thing was he wanted to share personal things with Elizabeth but he couldn’t see how that was a good idea.

Theirs was not a real relationship and he needed to keep that knowledge in the forefront of his mind.

But even as something short and curt jumped to his tongue, something held it back — wrapping iron bands around the hurtful comment to keep it from ruining the fragile moment between them.

Elizabeth sensing a break in the wall, took advantage, rising from the bath and wrapping with a towel as well.

“Don’t do it,” she said softly, coming to him, her gaze searching his. “Every time you start to get close to me, you do something horrible and hurt me to protect yourself.”

It scared him that she was so right. Put into stark words with no protective barrier of denial, the truth stung. He was a fucking bastard.

“You were the first person to see who I really was — to see beyond what others perceived as a flaws — please don’t ruin that with words you don’t mean.”

“They were idiots,” he said, his voice tight.

Sutton swallowed, his grip on the towel hard. God, she was striking to his core.

She covered his hand with her own, gently tugging his grip off the towel as she let hers go.

No fair, he thought, his gaze immediately riveted by the glorious hips, curves and tits that made him lose his mind.

“You’re so beautiful.”

To his own ears, it sounded like a whispered prayer and maybe that’s exactly what it was because suddenly, it was Elizabeth kneeling before him, tenderly sucking him in, taking his cock with loving attention, gently fondling his ball sack and teasing him mercilessly.

She was a quick study, a natural.

Or maybe it was just that they were both so in tune with one another that it was easy to discern what worked and what didn’t.

Either way, within minutes, he was breathing hard, his eyes rolling up into his head as he came in her mouth, filling her with his cream, which she eagerly swallowed as if it were ambrosia.

He stumbled back and collapsed on the bed, trying to catch his breath.

It was then he realized with fatal certainty that he’d never get enough of Elizabeth. They could live lifetimes together and he’d always want more.

With her, he was insatiable.

Never in his life had any one person so consumed his thoughts and desires.

It was frightening and outside of his comfort zone.
What the fuck are you doing? Falling in love?
Impossible.

Nervous sweat dampened his brow as he tried to recover while not panicking at the wild thoughts zinging through his brain.

Elizabeth crawled on top of him, straddling his groin so that her hot core pressed against his ultra-sensitive spent cock. Within a heartbeat, he was already hardening again.

Her full breasts were exquisitely beautiful and all he wanted was to bury his face between their softness.

“You’re doing it again,” she warned him softly and he just stared. “What are you so afraid of?”

Loving you.

But he couldn’t say that. His hands gripped her hips and he thrust gently against her.

“I’m afraid of nothing.”

“Who hurt you in the past?”

“What makes you think I’ve ever given anyone the power to hurt me?” he countered in a silky tone, his gaze still riveted by the rise and fall of her breasts as she slid down his cock, burying his length inside her.

He fought for control but a guttural moan escaped his lips.

“Because your actions say differently,” Elizabeth said with a moan as he thrust against her.

She fell forward and he gripped her ass cheeks as he buried himself over and over into that hot, wet sheath.

He didn’t want to think, didn’t want to admit that she was right. He trusted no woman. Not even his sweet Elizabeth. “Oh God, Sutton!”