Priceless: Contemporary Billionaire Romance Novel (7 page)

She
felt him unclasp her bra and fling it across the room.  He gazed at her exposed
breasts in the moonlight, heavy and erect, and took them into his firm,
massaging hands.

Maribel
sighed and tried hard not to consider what could be next.  There had been so
few men who she had dared to let touch her the way he was touching her now—his
hand sliding under her skirt to invade the soft pouch of her knit stockings. 
So few men who were willing to seduce her the way that he was seducing her
tonight.  She didn’t know what to believe more—her own insecurities about his
intentions or his fingertips probing her crotch, making her relinquish all her
inhibitions and preparing her for his next request.

“I
want to undress you fully…” he whispered.

Without
waiting for her consent, he unzipped the back of her skirt.  He already knew he
had it.  His hands towed it down over her hips.  He massaged her backside and
exhaled against the nape of her neck.  She attempted to unfasten the final
buttons of his shirt, slipping her hands inside to free it from his chest.  Even
in the darkness and shadows, she could see his bare muscles and feel the
strength of his flexing biceps as he whisked her into his arms and slid her
across her bed. 
Rosebud
sheets
, she suddenly thought.  She
remembered buying them on sale in the department store, thinking to herself
that the obnoxious pattern didn’t matter because she would be the only one who
would ever see them.  Now, he spread her out like a five-point star and peeled
off her tights, stopping only to release the straps of her shoes before
liberating everything from her waist and legs—except her black lace panties,
ruby pendant and ruby earrings. 

“You’re
so incredibly gorgeous, Maribel Martinez,” he said, gazing down upon her.  She
closed her eyes and savored how he said her full name. 
Maribel Martinez
.
When she opened them again, she saw his masculine body looming over her in the
darkness.  He wasn’t staring at her bare breasts or her jewelry.  He was gazing
into her eyes.  The absence of his warmth against her body pricked her skin and
nipples with anticipation.  He circled his hot breath and sharp chin over her
belly before whispering his lips upwards along her breast bone and over her
tits.  Then, she felt his hand glide down along her inner thigh and stopped
over her panties.

“I
want to feel inside you, I want to feel deep inside you.”

Maribel
heard him clearly, but her mind replayed it in a daze.  It had been so long
since she had accepted any man into her body, but now she wasn’t sure she could
deny him—or herself.  He slowly took hold of her panties with his teeth and
stripped them down off her legs.  Maribel exhaled—an attempt to relax as he spread
her naked legs wider for him.  His fingertips probed her black pouch and she
tingled with every caress of his invading touch.  It had been years since she
had been stimulated by someone other than herself.  Cautiously, he massaged her
deeper and deeper with beating strokes.  Maribel exhaled again. 
God how she
wanted this
…

She
was gushing now, his confident fingers fondling her G-spot and priming her for
more.  He suddenly kicked off his shoes and unzipped his pants, then removed
his boxers—he was sleek, hard, and gleaming like a chiseled Carrara marble
statue.

“I
want to be inside you.” It wasn’t a request, it was a plea. 

She
nodded, closing her eyes and giving in to him. 

Her
tiny mattress forced him to mount her, smothering her body with the dominating
force of his own.  He replaced his fingers with the tip of his cock and tongued
her with powerful, consuming kisses before penetrating her wetness.  She released
a sigh, heavy and unbridled. 
God, it had been so long—she had waited for so
long to be wanted like this
… She wrapped her arms around his strong
shoulders and arched her back, shifting him deeper inside her.  With a hungry mouth
and craving heart, she inhaled his breaths as he thrust forward, grinding his
pelvic bone against her clit and heaving with an exhale.  Abruptly, he paused
to restrain himself, his hard chest hovered over her breasts and his burning cock
lingered between her legs.  Brushing back her hair, he glanced into her eyes
and confirmed what they both wanted from each other.  Then, he accelerated his
rhythm, pushing himself inside her—again and again—seeking out a way to melt all
the barriers between them.  He was no longer a billionaire; she was no longer a
shop girl.  He was no longer a wealthy aristocrat who barely knew her.  They
were simply two people who had chosen to spend Valentine’s Day together—rather
than alone—and now they had chosen to indulge in their carnal need for the
other.  Miles pressed the full weight of his body against Maribel’s chest.  She
felt the ruby pendant dig into her skin with pain and pleasure.  Maribel
throbbed and released, throbbed and released.  Vibrations swept through her body
as he accelerated towards his final climax, burying his mouth between her
breasts and suffocating her inner core with his need to capture her heart.  But
it was too late—he had already captured it hours and hours ago—and now, it was
only a matter of when and how he would release it.

Chapter Six

She
awoke to the sound of rushing water and the smell of smoldering coffee grinds.

Her
apartment was a vintage studio—one room with a kitchen sink, refrigerator, and
gas stove along one wall, her full mattress and box spring in the corner, a used
couch along the courtyard windows, a large walk-in closet, and a small square
bathroom—so it was impossible to do anything inconspicuously.  Maribel
stretched across the bed, naked and alone, half-covered by the thin rosebud sheets. 
The obnoxious pattern glared back at her—even more obnoxious in the full glory
of the morning light.  She spotted his leather dress shoes and dismembered suit
and tie, strewn across the floor and entangled with her own disheveled sweater,
skirt, and tights.  Maribel fell back under her obnoxious rosebud sheets and
heaved a sigh of relief.  Her night with him wasn’t just a faded fantasy; it
was a reality.  And it wasn’t just a one-night stand; he hadn’t left without
saying goodbye.  He was still there, and still willing to at least spend the morning
with her.

The
shower
, she thought, noting the sound of spraying water. 

Maribel
quickly dressed.  Normally, she would throw on her favorite flannel pajama
pants, vintage Madonna T-shirt, and hooded sweat shirt.  But that was when she
was alone, not when she was with a strong, sophisticated man with whom she had
just had the most amazing sex of her life.  Maribel scrounged through her
closet for her yoga pants and leotard spandex top. 
Bra?  No bra?  Bra?  No
bra?
  She wasn’t sure…

“Hello
out there…?” His masculine voice boomed off her shower tiles. “Is that Cupid’s
little helper?”

“Maybe? 
Who wants to know?” she slipped open the bathroom door and called back over the
rushing water.

Miles
peered out from above the shower curtain rod.  Maribel saw his wet black hair
and sparkling blue eyes.  “Someone who wants to be hit with another arrow,” he
said, mischievously.

She
rolled her eyes.  He chuckled and turned back into the steamy shower.  “I made
us some coffee.”

Maribel
moved into the kitchen and checked the wafting coffee pot.  He had forgotten to
add in the water as well as a fresh filter with fresh grounds.  Clearly, it had
been awhile since Miles had made his own coffee.  Maribel dumped out everything
and lay in a new filter with fresh grounds, then poured in two cups of water
and started up the machine.  Next, she considered breakfast.  She popped two
pieces of bread into her toaster and set out a fresh stick of butter onto a
plate.  She searched her refrigerator for something other than eggs, but came
up empty.  It had been days since she had had a chance to go grocery shopping.  
Scrambled
eggs and oatmeal cookies
, she considered, wondering how much longer Miles
would be in the shower.

“
Roxanne
,”
he suddenly belted out, “
You don’t have to put on the red light
/
Those
days are over
/
You don’t have to sell your body to the night
.”

Maribel
smiled. 
At least for a few more refrains.

Suddenly,
she heard Miles’ phone ringing with a low muffled chime, and it took her
several seconds to realize that it was still in her purse, where she had forced
him to deposit it the previous afternoon. 

“Miles,
your phone’s ringing,” she called to him.

“
Roxanne
…”
he sang out,  “
You don’t have to wear that dress tonight
/
Walk the
streets for money
/
You don’t care if it’s wrong or right
.”

Maribel
smiled.  He either didn’t hear her or he didn’t care because he was enjoying
his alternate reality in which he was truly Sting, the lead singer of the
Police.  She rushed to her purse and fumbled to secure his phone, planning to
bring the phone to him.  Abruptly, she heard the sharp raspy voice of another
woman, questioning her on the other end. “Brax?  Brax?”

Accidentally,
Maribel had touched its screen and answered the call.  Maribel fretted and
considered hanging up until she heard the woman’s demanding voice: “Are you
fucking kidding me, Brax? You don’t even have the balls to say ‘hello’?”

Maribel
answered with an official air. “Receiving calls for Mr. Miles Braxton-Worth,
how may I assist you?”

It
worked.  The woman fell silent, then hostile.  “Oh, precious… he has a personal
assistant answering his business calls, does he?  Well, you tell Mr. Miles Braxton-Worth
that Ms. Gillian Cartwright needs to speak with him today about our multi-million
dollar deal, or else my clients are going to sign a deal with his competition
at the Amory Building.  Did you get all that, cupcake?”

The
woman said ‘cupcake’ like she was slapping Maribel through the phone.

Slowly,
calmly, Maribel counted to ten and restrained the urge to verbally slap her
back.  Her years of working in retail had trained her well.  “I will be sure to
tell him,” Maribel answered, curtly.  She wanted to hang up the phone
immediately, but knew she had to wait until bitch-queen hung up first.

Gillian
. 
Maribel remembered that name and Miles’ reaction to her call during their
brunch.  She shivered and set down the phone on the kitchen counter. 
No
wonder Miles was avoiding her
. 
Multi-million dollar deal or not
.

Maribel
suddenly felt the warm tickle of kisses fluttering down her neck.

“Good
morning, good morning,” Miles said between nibbles.  “Whatcha makin’?” he
asked, peering over her shoulder.  He was naked, dripping wet, and wrapped from
the waist down in her powered blue bath towel. 

“Toast,
scrambled eggs, and oatmeal cookies,” she said, popping the butter and brown sugar
together in her mixer.  The mixer had been a gift from her mother, and she
always loved making something fresh and homemade with it on Sunday mornings.

“Really? 
Yum, yum… Deeeelish.”

Maribel
smiled and shrugged off his prickly chin from her shoulder, and searched her
cabinets for the oatmeal.  She eyed Miles as he stretched his long, strong arms
into the air and heaved an exhale—the promise of a good day.  In the obscure
shadows of the night, she had been consumed, devoured, and dominated by the strength
and masculinity of his hard, naked body.  Now, in the honesty of the sunlight, Maribel
finally had a chance to take in the full scope of his athletic form, smooth
chest, and tapered waist.  Beads of water clung to the muscular arch of his sloping
bare back.  He fell onto her bed, a gesture of relaxation. Every muscle was
sculpted and defined, every movement was deliberate and determined, and he
watched her—watching him—with a complete lack of inhibition. 
He was
impossibly handsome
, she thought,
but it was his uncompromising
confidence that was the sexiest part about him
.

“In
all my years as a man, I never realized the way into a woman’s heart was
through her rosebud sheets…” he joked, and spread his palms across her
mattress.

“Who
said you’ve gotten into anybody’s heart?” Maribel sassed back.

He
rolled onto his elbow and gazed at her. “
Touché
,” he said, assessing the
challenge.

His
searing blue eyes were inescapable.  Maribel finally broke away to pour them
two cups of coffee.  Then, she glanced over at his phone on the kitchen
counter. 
Gillian
, she thought.  It was a thorn that threatened to pop each
bubbly exchange between them.  He was in such a good mood; she didn’t have the
heart to disrupt it.

When
she turned around, she saw him sitting at her kitchenette table, legs crossed
at the knee and dressed in a tight marathon training shirt and matching
athletic pants. 

“What’s
that?” she suddenly asked.

“My
pajamas,” he wagged his foot, and watched her carefully.

“No,”
she said slowly, stopping the whirling blades of her mixer.  Her eyes
acknowledged the familiar mint blue box that he had placed in the center of the
table.

“Why
don’t you come over here and find out.”

“Miles—”
she said, exasperated, and set down the coffee mugs.

He
smirked and sipped from his cup.  Maribel peered down at the box—it was long
and rectangular. Clearly, it was not something small and inexpensive.

“Don’t
look at me like that,” he added, noting the concern in her face.

Maribel
silenced her protests, and tried hard not to seem ungrateful.  But she wasn’t
certain she wanted him to buy her any more expensive gifts.  What he had
already given her was enough. 
More than enough
.

“I
knew I wasn’t going to win with the earrings,” he finally said, noting she was
wearing her original cubic zirconia studs again.  Maribel touched her ear
lobes.  In the middle of the night, she had awoken to use the bathroom and
replace his ruby tear-drop earrings with her diamond studs.

“It’s
nothing against the earrings, Miles,” she explained.  “I loved them… but it’s
just that…”

“They’re
sentimental,” he repeated her words from yesterday.  “I know,” he added, “a
gift from your mother.”

Maribel
narrowed her eyes and leaned back against the kitchen counter.  She thought
carefully about their conversation yesterday.

“A
high school graduation gift—” she clarified, but Miles stared at her and finished
her own thoughts.

“Your
mother bought them early for you because she was certain that you would finish
school, even though she knew she wouldn’t be there to celebrate it with you
when you did.”

Maribel
gazed at him, searching to understand how he could possibly know the details
about one of the most important relationships in her life.  His eyes revealed
nothing, other than a calm persuasion that he could be trusted.  Maribel settled
into an internal moment of silence and waited before acknowledging that she
wanted to understand more.

“I
have another confession to make…” Miles said, judging the moment with care.  It
was as if he was reading her, waiting and watching until the connection between
them signaled he could move forward.  “I used to hear stories about you—stories
about you and your mother.”

Maribel
sat down at the table and processed his words.  “How?” she asked like a reflex.

“From
my aunt, Mrs. Strauss.”

“Mrs.
Strauss, from the department store?” Maribel repeated with shock. “Your aunt
was Mrs. Strauss?”

Miles
nodded.  “Towards the end, they were both being treated at the same dialysis clinic. 
I used to pick up my aunt every other day and she used to tell me stories of
who she saw there and who she had spoken with that day.  She often told me
stories about your mother, and her stories about you.”

Maribel
looked away.  
At the same clinic
.  God, how she had hated those days at
the clinic, where the only hope for her mother was a new kidney, but the new
kidney never came.  She hated the smell of decay and chronic illness.  She
hated the flickering florescent lights and the droning murmurs of the TVs.  And
she hated witnessing her normally vibrant mother withering into a sodden,
listless ragdoll, barely kept alive by machines that cleaned her blood.

“I
went there, too—every other afternoon after school,” Maribel confirmed. “Then
later, when I started working part-time at the department store, I went there after
work...”

Maribel
suddenly brushed tears from her eyes, reflecting on the past while trying to
keep her nostalgia from overwhelming her.  She had never spoken with anyone
about that time in her life because she tried so hard
not
to remember
anything about those days.  Those were impossibly long, exhausting, hopeless
days—going to high school in the morning and early afternoon, and rushing to
catch the “L” downtown to arrive early for her part-time position at the
department store before doubling back to pick up her mother from the clinic.  When
all her friends were worrying about buying their homecoming dresses and passing
their driver’s “ed” tests, Maribel was fitting in work, school, laundry,
grocery shopping, cooking, caring for her mother, and sleeping during every
free moment she had to spare. She worked every day—evenings and weekends—just
to afford to live on her own as an independent sixteen year-old, caring for her
sick mother rather than be swept into the dysfunctional entanglement of the
foster care system.

“Yes,
I remember seeing you at the clinic,” Miles confirmed, “you were just a high
school student then….me, on the other hand—I was a ridiculously self-absorbed, newly-minted
millionaire who at least had the good sense to take care of his favorite aunt
when she needed it most.  But I remember seeing you, picking up your mother, and
later, I remember noticing you when you came to work at the department store.”  

 “I
remember going to the interview and thinking it was a complete waste of time,”
Maribel confessed, regaining her composure. “I was only sixteen and I knew nothing
about working in retail.”

“Yes,
I know.  I was the one who set-up the interview for you.”