The Billionaire's Command (The Silver Cross Club) (6 page)

“Good work, Sherlock,” I said, because it was easier to make smart remarks than to think about what he was doing to me, and how I was responding. I wasn’t supposed to like this so much.

“You’re really living up to your name,” he said. “Do you talk back to that sweet old man who just wants you to read him some porn?”

“No, because he’s sweet,” I said.

He slid another finger into me and pulsed his hand again, and I was glad I’d had the foresight to hold onto his shoulders, because my knees threatened to give way beneath me. He tightened his left arm around my waist and said, “I’m not going to be sweet to you, but I don’t think you’ll have any complaints. Now stop digging your claws into my shoulders, I’m not going to let you fall.”

“I don’t have claws,” I protested, but my words came out sounding weak and unconvincing. I believed what I was saying, but the way he kept pressing his hand against me made it hard to put any conviction into my voice.

“Talons, then,” he said. “Christ, do you pay someone to file them into dagger points?”

I opened my mouth to respond, but he moved his fingers again, and whatever I had been about to say was wiped clear out of my head. I made a pitiful, helpless whimpering noise and tightened my grip on his shoulders. There was no room for dignity anymore; I just had to focus on staying upright.

“What a temptation you are,” he said, his fingers moving steadily. “So responsive. You were made to quiver at a man’s touch.” He leaned forward and spoke into my ear, his words a hot puff of breath gusting across my cheek. “How soon will you come for me, sweetheart?”

I wanted to tell him that I wouldn’t, that I had
never
come for a client, that every orgasm was faked, and that he wouldn’t be the first to shatter my control. But I couldn’t say any of those things, because I wasn’t sure the last bit was true. My body responded to him in ways I didn’t understand and couldn’t account for, and if he kept touching me like that, I was going to totally embarrass myself.

Because it
would
be embarrassing. Losing control like that. I was a professional: calm, cool, and collected. Clients didn’t matter to me. They came and went. Nothing they did affected me. They touched me, and I smiled and cooed at them and pretended to be swept away, but none of it really mattered.

It didn’t matter. And I held onto that like a totem, something to shelter me from the reality of what I did for a living. As long as they didn’t
really
touch me, I was safe. I was just doing it for the money.

But if Turner broke through, if he made me crumble and
want
him—well, then everything he said was true. I was a slut. A common whore, desperate for a man’s caress.

I fought it. God knows I tried. I kept my eyes open and stared at him, trying for “defiant” but falling short and landing somewhere around “scared and rebellious” instead. He met my gaze evenly, maintaining steady eye contact even as he alternately rolled my clit in slow circles with his thumb and thrust his fingers in and out of my pussy. I wanted him to break first and look away, and then I would
win
and be able to maintain some illusion of control, even though my thighs shook and my nipples hardened into tight buds. I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of seeing me look away first.

And so I stared at him, forcing my eyes to stay open, as he rubbed my clit faster and I felt the orgasm I both longed for and dreaded rise and crest over me like a wave.

It tumbled me to shore and dragged me under and back out to sea. I had never felt anything so powerful, such a strong physical sensation of powerlessness and
joy.
In that moment, he owned me. My eyelids dropped shut without my permission, and I felt every muscle in my body tense and quiver and then loosen all as one as the ecstasy slowly ebbed.

It ended, and I opened my eyes again, humiliated to find him still watching me steadily.

I felt my face flame hot, and I turned my head aside, not wanting to see the dark triumph in his gaze.

But he didn’t gloat, like I expected him to. Instead, he bent toward me and pressed a kiss to the hollow of my throat, right between my collarbones. And then he pulled his fingers from my body, and took his arm from around my waist, and lay back on the bed.

The bulge between his legs drew my gaze, and I flushed again when he saw me looking and spread his thighs slightly, inviting me to look more.

“Unzip my trousers,” he said, his voice rough and low.

I shook my head, opening my mouth to remind him of my ground rule, but he spoke before I could. “My hand is wet,” he said. “That’s your fault. You wouldn’t want me to ruin my pants.”

I was hardly a blushing virgin, but the things he said made me feel so ashamed and off-kilter. I didn’t want to think about his hand, wet from my body, and so the path of least resistance was to do as he said. Still, I hesitated, seeing his erection outlined by the thin wool of his trousers, and then I told myself that I was being an idiot and bent down to unzip his pants.

There was a hook closure, and a button, and I could feel him hard and hot beneath my fingers as I fumbled with the unfamiliar fastenings. It wasn’t like I took off a man’s pants every night of the week. Everything was backward, and he was
looking
at me, and I finally managed to find the tab of his zipper and tugged it down with a feeling of relief.

He was wearing boxers, or boxer-briefs—I couldn’t tell for sure—in some silky, dark material, and my fingers brushed over the fabric, and over the hot flesh beneath, before I flinched away.

Jesus Christ. I straightened again, and ran one hand through my hair, gathering myself. I had already crossed too many lines with him. I wasn’t going to touch him again.

“No happy ending for me, then,” he said, accurately reading my expression. “That’s fine. I’ll do a better job of it anyway.” And he reached down to draw his cock from his boxers, and wrapped his hand around it.

I had seen clients in almost every state: hungry, tired, lustful, irritated, weeping. They told me their secrets, complained about their wives, and touched me in every manner imaginable. I had witnessed the full range of human emotion and weakness.

But I had never seen an attractive man jerk off in front of me.

Well. First time for everything.

I stood there, still feeling wobbly from my orgasm, and watched him touch himself, his strong fingers rubbing at his thick cock. He was
big
, in a think-twice, shit-I’ll-be-feeling-that-tomorrow kind of way, but he didn’t show off the way some guys did. He didn’t seem to care about my reaction at all. I wasn’t an audience for him to perform for. I just happened to be there. He didn’t care what I thought about his dick; he just wanted to get off.

Watching him touch his cock, his eyes closed and his lips slightly parted, kindled new heat between my thighs. I didn’t want to watch. I didn’t want to be turned on by this.

I closed my eyes.

“No you don’t,” he said. “Look at me.”

I shook my head, eyes still closed.

“Sassy,” he said. “Open your eyes.” A pause. “That’s an order.”

I swallowed, gathering my courage, and opened my eyes again.

“Don’t ever hesitate when I tell you to do something,” he said, brow furrowed, hand still working at his cock.

I nodded. There was nothing else I could do.

“Christ,” he said, and threw his head back and came into his cupped palm.

I couldn’t have looked away even if I wanted to. He bit his lip and arched his back and
surrendered
to it in a way that surprised me. The men I knew were so concerned with their masculinity that they avoided any situation that even hinted at vulnerability. But Turner didn’t seem to care that I was watching him fall apart. He had told me to watch. He wanted me to see him like this.

Maybe it was a back-handed statement of power: I was so insignificant that it didn’t matter if I saw his soft underbelly. I would never be able to hurt him.

My brain was still to fried from my orgasm to figure out his motivations, and also, I didn’t really care.

If he wanted me to watch him come, I wasn’t going to complain.

It was pretty hot.

When it was over, he sat up and said, “Tell me there’s a box of tissues somewhere.”

“I think in the nightstand,” I said. He raised an eyebrow at me, and I belatedly realized that he wanted me to get the tissues for him. Okay, fine. He could reach it himself, but if he really wanted me to do it, I would do it. I turned and opened the small drawer in the nightstand, and handed him the box of tissues I found there.

He accepted it, and pulled out a tissue to wipe his hand. “You’re the least obedient whore I’ve ever met,” he said.

What an asshole. Was he telling me I sucked at my job? “Have you met a lot of whores?” I asked.

“Not so many,” he said. “But they’re usually quite interested in keeping me happy. You, on the other hand, are a study of indifference.” He tossed the tissue onto the floor and looked up at me. “I think you have many secrets, Sassy Belle.”

“Not really,” I said, shrugging. “I work. I go home. It’s not that interesting.”

“Well, your honesty is certainly refreshing,” he said. “Most of you tell me only what you think I want to hear.”

I frowned. “Most of who? Whores in general? Or girls here?”

“Very astute,” he said.

“But you said you haven’t met many of us,” I said. “Do you come here a lot? Or—”

“Let’s skip the guessing game,” he said. “I take it that Germaine failed to tell you who I am.”

I stared at him. My stomach dropped. Everything fell into place. “You’re the owner,” I said.

His mouth curled into what, on anyone else, I would have called a smile. “Good girl.”

I bailed.

In hindsight, it probably wasn’t the smartest move, but I couldn’t handle being in that room for another minute. I wasn’t even sure how I felt. Humiliated, lied to, afraid. I had just spent forty-five minutes with The Owner, and I was never any good at watching my mouth. What if I had said something—

Whatever. Too late now. If he wanted to fire me, he would just go ahead and fire me, and there wasn’t a thing I could do about it.

I was halfway down the hallway, tying the belt of my robe in a sloppy knot, before I realized I had forgotten my wig.

Again: whatever. I wasn’t going back for it now. Maybe I could sweet-talk one of the busboys into getting it for me later.

Assuming I still had a job.

I slammed into the seraglio, robe fluttering around my ankles, and the dancers sitting around on the couches looked over at me like I was Godzilla strolling down Fifth Avenue. I flashed them a huge, fake smile, and walked past them toward the dressing room.

I needed to talk to Poppy.

She was applying mascara with her mouth rounded into a huge O. I flung myself down into the chair beside her, hoping she would poke herself in the eye, but she didn’t flinch or react in any way.

Her lack of response annoyed me, but I tried not to show it. Poppy had a shark’s nose for blood in the water, and irritating people was her favorite thing in life. I wouldn’t give her the satisfaction. “Am I on the schedule tonight?”

“Of course,” she said, combing another coat of mascara through her lashes. They were clumped together like spider’s legs and looked awful.

“Well, take me off,” I said. “I’m going home.”

That got her attention. She glanced at me in the mirror, her eyes darting over to meet mine while her head stayed still. “But you’re on the schedule.”

The urge to roll my eyes was almost unbearable. “Yeah, I got that,” I said. “But I’m leaving.” I’d had enough for one day. The club hadn’t even officially opened, but I was done. There was no way I would be able to entertain clients after my run-in with The Owner. I wanted to go home and sit on my couch and eat junk food.

“You can’t do that,” Poppy said. “You’re supposed to dance.”

Poppy was too stupid to live. “I’ll get someone to cover for me,” I said. “Okay? So then you can just swap me out. Problem solved.”

“Fine,” she said, and shrugged. “You find someone, though. I’m not helping you out.”

I bit back a snotty reply and turned to scan the rest of the room for a willing victim. Finding someone to cover was harder than you would think. More dancing meant more money, sure, but humans in general were lazy creatures. I never wanted to cover for anyone; I wanted to sit in the seraglio and drink soda and gossip with Scarlet. So I understood why everyone was avoiding making eye contact, but it was still infuriating. Lazy bastards.

“I’ll cover for you, Sassy,” someone said, and I turned the other way to see Trixie glaring in Poppy’s direction. “
Someone
didn’t schedule me to dance tonight
at all
, for the third night in a row.”

“You’re awesome,” I said, and blew Trixie a kiss. “I owe you one.”

“Maybe talk to Germaine about how we’re ruled by a pea-headed idiot,” Trixie said.

“I can hear you,” Poppy said.