The Boss Vol. 6: a Hot Billionaire Romance (2 page)

“
Y
ou
.” Grace’s voice wobbled. “Another picture of you.”

There was no denying it. How could I? I was in living color, filling the damn screen.

That was Annabelle, always fucking me over. This time she’d even managed it from beyond the grave.

“I can explain.”

“Oh, I’m sure you can. I don’t doubt that for a moment. The great Blake Carson always has a reasonable explanation for the ridiculous.” Grace gripped the edge of the counter and stared off into the distance. “The bigger question is will you even bother, or will you just fob me off with some morsel as you have every other time I’ve tried to dig at the truth?”

I hated that she was right. Hated more that I’d have to do it again this time, if I intended to keep her close. And I had to, because her safety was paramount.

That I’d wanted her for so long I couldn’t imagine my life without her now that I’d finally, finally gotten a taste…well, that was secondary.

I sure as hell hoped it was secondary.

“You won’t believe me, but I can assure you that I never intended for things to go like this.”

“Like what? Me squatting in your house, demanding my job back after you fired me? Or maybe you mean you never expected to get involved with me after you were clearly somehow involved with my grandmother. Something you refuse to elaborate on.”

“Refuse is a bit strong.”

“You know what’s strong? My willpower, or else I’d probably grab the lapels of your fancy shirt and demand some damn answers.” She slapped her hand down on the counter beside the laptop and it jumped, displacing my hand.

“Did it ever occur to you that I might not just be trying to hide things from you? That I could have genuine reasons for not elaborating? Ones that have nothing to do with keeping you in the dark, and everything to do with—”

Just keeping you, period.

She stared at me, not speaking. Her eyes were bluer than I’d ever seen them, her hair somehow wild in its delicacy.

For an instant, I saw Annabelle in her face. Their features were more different than alike, their coloring closer to opposite than the same, but that knowing, shrewd expression was all her grandmother’s.

“I first met your grandmother as a teenager. After I met you, actually.”

“Met me? What are you talking about? You never met me back then.”

I moved my fingers over the trackpad, hoping that Annabelle would have more evidence to the contrary. More pictures had been taken that day at the Beacon school, and I hoped she’d kept them. But as I scrolled through the list of photos on the thumb drive, my eagerness dimmed.

Until I clicked on the third from the last one and saw a thirteen-year-old Grace holding up a shard of glass refracting a prism of light. The students sat in front of her, many of them not paying attention since she wasn’t the real teacher, so she couldn’t get them in trouble. But one boy was riveted. Fourth row, fourth seat back. Shaggy dark hair hiding most of his face, and his oversized glasses obscuring some of the rest.

“Take a look.” I pushed away from the counter and paced across the kitchen. I didn’t want to see her expression as she realized I’d been in her purview back then and she’d never so much as given me a second glance.

On the other hand, I’d built an entire fantasy life around her. And when Annabelle had reminded me of my proper place—far away from her granddaughter—I’d stuffed her memory and my thoughts of her into a box.

“It’s my class at the Beacon school,” Grace began slowly, taking my seat. “I used to help the teacher with art classes in the summer.”

“I know, Grace. I was in that class. Just like I’m in that picture.”

Definitely not my best day, and I couldn’t deny the spurt of embarrassment at her seeing me that way. But of course, she already had back then. She simply hadn’t been aware of me.

At the time, I’d been bitter about that too. I’d figured she had rich boyfriends lined up around the block, so naturally she wouldn’t notice the awkward, angry, borderline nerd who clung to the corners.

After a while, I realized Grace wasn’t interested in boys. She cared about her art, and
only
her art. So I nurtured my obsession like a lover, waiting for the day that would change.

“What?” Pulling her bottom lip between her teeth, she grabbed the edges of the laptop screen and dragged it closer. “Where? I don’t see anyone who resembles—” Then she broke off, torturing that small bit of flesh even more. “No. That can’t be you.”

In the picture outside with her grandmother, I’d tamed my hair and I wore no glasses. I’d also managed a tight smile in spite of the fury that burned in my gaze. But in the classroom shot, I was in full geek mode—hair wild from my hands, huge, thick lenses, white shirt with the collar shot up as if that made me cool.

Yeah, not my finest moment for sure.

“Compare it to the other one you just saw with your grandmother. I’m afraid you’ll see it’s very much me.”

Her head came up, her eyes narrowing. She knew it was. I was fairly certain her shock came more from seeing me in the same room as herself rather than true surprise. The boy photographed with her grandmother just happened to be the edgier, street-wise version of the nerd who lived inside me still.

“How?” she whispered. “How could this be you? How long did you know who I was?”

My first instinct was to cover my tracks. I’d been doing it for so long that I scarcely knew how to be truthful anymore. But this woman deserved more than easy lies from me. She deserved everything.

“I was sixteen the first summer I took one of the glass classes you assisted with. I took my final one when I was eighteen and you were fifteen.”

“You took them for three years?”

Nodding was easier than replying when my throat had tightened to the point of pain. Even thinking of those days of lack and want brought forth a physical response.

“Three summers you sat in my classroom. Never spoke to me. Never identified yourself.” She returned her gaze to the screen. “How did you go from this to…” She gestured wildly at me and I had to laugh, because sometimes I still wondered that myself.

My transformation had been inner as much as outer. Over time, I’d hardened until no one could pry away the pieces that held me together or see inside past the slick veneer. The opacity went much farther than the surface.

Much like the glass I—
we
—loved.

“I had to. I was born dirt poor. The kind of poor you couldn’t imagine until your grandmother died and left you penniless. I didn’t know,” I continued, sensing she was winding up to blast me. “I had no idea the state of your grandmother’s finances.”

“Oh really? Then why were you at her house the day before she was found dead?”

“Because she invited me. She called me, quite out of the blue, and commanded I make room in my schedule to see her. Immediately. And I was to come to her, of course, since her time was more valuable than mine.” Despite the difficulty of the subject matter, thinking of Annabelle’s absolute imperviousness made me smile. She was a hell of a woman. Life had never knocked her down for long.

She was more apt to do the knocking. I should know. And I did, all too well.

“I did as she asked. She’d helped me at a time when no one was taking my calls. Hell, I might as well have been a ghost for all the recognition I got in architecture circles. Your grandmother’s connections and money helped pave the way for me.” I kept my voice level as if I didn’t notice Grace’s spine stiffening degree by degree. “If not for her early assistance, Carson Covenant would probably still be struggling. I would’ve gotten there eventually. But it would’ve taken a lot longer.”

“And since you’ve already denied being lovers, I’m to believe she helped you out of the goodness of her heart.” Suspicion threaded through Grace’s words, thick and hot. “Just her way of giving back to the community. Or perhaps she…saw something in you.”

From Grace’s tone, I could tell she was still tangled up in the notion Annabelle and I had been intimate—or had at least circled around some kind of flirtation. Which was wrong on a million levels.

“Not quite.” The corner of my mouth ticked up. “She knew my father. I believe I mentioned that to you before.”

“Knew or
knew
-knew?”

Again, I smiled. That was Grace, my Nancy Drew in-training. “She never clarified that for me, and I’ll admit to not wanting to think too hard on it. But I have my suspicions. She acted as my benefactor to send me to art camp at Beacon school because she knew Robert. She claimed to have known him for many years. That she was extremely fond of him.”

“But if you were sixteen, I was thirteen, and that means my grandfather had only died seven years before. She wouldn’t do that. Not to my grandpop. He was the love of her life, Blake.”

“Whatever that means,” I mused, and watched her eyes flash hot like a summer storm.

“I don’t know what her relationship with Robert entailed,” I continued, keeping my voice low and soothing. “I’m not sure it matters. Everyone who would’ve been involved is dead now.”

But God, it was so refreshing to see Grace’s cheeks stain pink with indignation over possible slings and arrows against her long-dead grandfather. We had nothing but supposition, nothing but the scantiest information, and she was ready to leap to his defense.

“It matters. Honor isn’t something to throw on and off like a pair of pants.”

“Oh, Ms. Copeland.”

“Don’t.” She wagged her finger at me and shoved off the stool to start walking around the counter again. “I know you think I’m a naïve fool.”

“No, I don’t.”

“Then what else am I? I was in a class with you for years, and I never even knew. I walked into your office one day to try to get you to see reason about my house, and you knew who I was right away. You
always
knew, and I just blithely ignored every clue you gave.”

“Not knowing what to do with a piece of information isn’t the same as ignoring.” When she would’ve sputtered at me, I pressed on. “Your grandmother called me to her house, as I said. And she asked me to promise that if something happened to her, I would buy it. No, she begged me. Flat-out begged.”

“Why? Why would she do that?”

I had my theories, and maybe someday I’d share them with Grace. In the meantime, I went with my old standby—deflection.

“It’s late.” I moved forward and closed the files on the laptop. “This can all wait until the morning.”

“No, dammit, you’re not shutting me down like that. Not tonight.” She slammed down the lid on the laptop, nearly slamming my fingers in the process. “She left behind a video saying I might be in danger, for fuck’s sake. You can’t put me in a glass box and keep me from the truth.”

“You’re not in danger.”

“How can you say that with such steel in your voice? How can you fucking
know
?” She started to whirl away, but I grabbed her arm, curling my fingers into her pale skin. Sometimes a little precisely applied force was necessary to make a point.

Like right now.

“No one is getting near you. No one. Do you understand me? Not while there’s breath in my body.” I dragged her against me, using my height advantage to remind her that I was a worthy foe. Not toward her. Never toward her.

But anyone else—I’d like to see them fucking try.

“You’re mine.” She tried to shove me back, but I didn’t move. “I protect what’s mine.” I bent to press my mouth to her ear, well aware of her quickened breaths pushing her chest against mine. Those full breasts straining, trying to pull my focus from where it needed to be. “Anyone who comes near you is taking a very large risk.”

“Oh yeah? Gonna chain me up somewhere?”

“I just might. But I guarantee you’d enjoy it.” Slowly, I let my gaze roam her face as I trailed my fingertip along her cheek. “It’s late,” I said again. “It’ll still be here tomorrow.”

“So what, we’ll just fuck it out and make it all better?” But she was already breathless, her lips already parted and wet. She wanted to do exactly that.

We might be reckless and insane, but it was a mutual affliction.

“You tell me.”

“No, dammit, it won’t be better. I want to know why you took my class for three years. Why you knew my grandmother—why she was your benefactor—” She said the word as if it were poison, “yet I never once met you. You never even said hello to me.”

“That’s not true. I asked you about a particular technique with copper and glass, and you explained it to me in detail.”

She brushed it off, shaking her head. “Three years, Blake. A man like you wouldn’t have bothered with a class like mine, even back then.”

“I learned from you. You were the one who introduced me to glass, who made me see it was so much more than a pretty object.”

She reeled back as if I’d slapped her. “Stop it. Was it just a lark for you? Just a free class you took because my grandmother footed the bill?”

“I told you.” I gripped her shoulders and shook her lightly until she finally met my gaze. “You’re the one who taught me how to fall in love. With glass,” I said as she went still, hating that I had to divert to safe territory once again.

Even in the truth, only lies could protect me. And protect Grace, because I’d be damned if anyone harmed her—or the memories she held dear of the grandmother she loved so much.

I
kissed her
.

It wasn’t fair to deflect her questions or worse, to distract her from them. I’d done that far too often. But I hadn’t been lying about keeping her safe, and the idea that someone could be invading our privacy, watching too closely, when I’d finally made her mine…

Fuck, I had to have her. I needed to feel her pulse around me while she shattered in orgasm. My name on her lips and our memories no more important than the sweat cooling between us.

Her lips opened and her tongue came out to battle with mine. Slick and hot, her mouth tempted me like no other. Just like the rest of her. Before I’d ever touched her, before I’d fully understood what true want was, I’d understood this woman would be my decimation.

She fisted a hand in my shirt, pulling until I was sure the buttons would pop. Then she shoved me back, her eyes wild. “You think my grandmother might’ve had an affair with your father and you’re just—just going to maul me?”

“Ms. Copeland, I’d maul you if your grandmother and my father were having an affair in this very room.” I took advantage of the smile that twitched on her face and stepped forward to slip a hand under her slouchy top. We’d changed after Jack left, and she’d picked something that doubled as pajamas and lounge wear. Soft, soft shirt, fuzzy pants with dancing sheep. About the most unsexy things known to man, and yet.

“I can’t compartmentalize you can, obviously.”

“I’d say this is a very large compartment, wouldn’t you?” Not caring if it was crude, I grabbed her hand and brought it to the steel pole tenting my pants. My idea of clothes to wear around the house and hers differed, but since we would soon be naked, I didn’t care.

Her fingers curled in and held even as she continued to try to get me to see reason. “We’re caught up in something so much bigger than us,” she said, and that hint of uncertainty swayed me more than any demands to be logical.

Fuck logic. What had it ever gotten me? Yes, I’d made more money than I ever dreamed, but I’d also spent too many years alone. Grace had pushed me past my limits over and over, and all I wanted was more.

Nothing with her would ever be enough.

“You wanted to know why I kept coming back to your classes. Year after year. You refuse to believe it’s because of your skill at teaching, and the joy you share every time you immerse yourself in your art. It’s your gift. You make people want to experience that happiness too.” I reached back to undo her messy braid. Half of her hair had come out of it, and she didn’t seem to notice or care. “But there was more.”

She’d begun to relax under my hands, but then she stiffened. “I knew it.”

“I know it’s hard to imagine it looking at my photos back then, but I didn’t exactly have my pick of the girls.”

She made a sound in her throat and ducked her head.

“Weird thing was, I didn’t care. I wasn’t looking for a girlfriend. Maybe I was too angry, too used to fending for myself to even think that someone would be able to deal with me. Besides, I had two hands.”

Her head came up, her gaze sharpening. I knew she was thinking about that night in my bathroom, just as I was. The night she’d asked me to jerk off for her pleasure, using my tie.

“Then I saw you. There was absolutely no reason for you to grab me the way you did. You seemed to have even less interest in the opposite sex than I did. All you cared about was what you built with your hands and your heart.”

Her lips trembled. “I was practically a child.”

“So was I, all things considered. You also loved your grandmother. I didn’t trust her, and I definitely wasn’t sure I liked her. But watching you with her, hearing you laugh, it did something to me.” I clamped my fingers around the end of her mostly deconstructed braid, using it to tug back her head so that her sea-colored eyes were on mine. “You want one of my secrets, Ms. Copeland?”

“You know I do. I want all of them.”

I couldn’t give her all. But I could give her this.

“Sure about that? You’re not going to like me very much afterward.” I brushed my fingers through her hair, spreading it over her shoulders.

“Who says I like you now?”

“Touché. I followed you. I tracked you, and I learned everything about you. You fascinated me on levels I’d never experienced before. Imagining you with another boy, thinking of him touching you,” I parted her full, pink lips and slid my finger inside, “of him having this, it made me crazy. And then when I discovered you didn’t care about boys, I became obsessed with being the one. The one who would have you first.”

She took a shuddery breath. “You’re right. I’m not liking you a lot right now.”

“Told you.”

“Is that how it always is with you? You have to plant a flag and claim everything? Can’t anything be easy with you?”

“With my company, no. With you, absolutely not.” I bent to nip the indentation I’d made in her lip. “I never did get to have this pretty, perfect mouth first. But I’ll have it now.”

She bit my lip, and damn if I didn’t groan like a teenager in heat. She’d made me that from the first, and sometimes it felt like I hadn’t progressed much past that point.

Her small fist plowed into my gut, and the sound I made was far from sexual. Jesus, she had some power for such a little thing. “You stalked me. Did recon on me, searched into my past?”

Were those questions or statements? I nodded.

She hit me again, nudging me back. My spine hit the counter and she hooked her fingers in the loops of my pants. “Contrary to what some woman might do after hearing all that, I’m not dropping to my knees for you. I’m supposed to get all weak-kneed because you followed me around and pried into my personal life instead of, I don’t know, coming up to say hi? You know, what’s your phone number, want to get a burger?”

I must’ve made a face at that because she shook her head. “Oh no, God forbid the almighty Blake Carson go on an actual date. A meal, a movie, some getting-to-know-you conversation.”

“Is that what you want?” I grasped her wrist. “The banal and ordinary?”

It annoyed me I’d never considered it. Why would she want that when we could take helicopter rides and fuck in secret locations atop my building? Or hell, right in the front vestibule.

In the office washroom, in the gallery across from the clock I’d created for—

No
. I wasn’t going there now. There was baring my soul and then there was ripping it open for sport.

“It’s not banal. You truly are clueless, aren’t you?”

When she lifted her hands, probably to push me one more time, I grabbed them and laced our fingers together. “The next time you touch me that roughly, your hand better be on my dick.”

Instead of dropping to her knees, she arched an eyebrow. “Maybe you should be the one on your knees, since you were the one with the stalkery crush, Mr. Carson.”

Oh, this woman.

I let her go and had a moment to enjoy the smile of satisfaction that slid across her face before I wiped it away by hauling her off her feet. I turned her toward the counter and swept things out of my way with my arm before I laid her down beside the laptop where our lives were being blown apart. My haste had pushed the computer to the very edge and her eyes widened before I yanked down her sheep pants and reminded her of who was in charge.

On my knees. Fuck that. I could do this just as well standing up.

She wore no panties beneath. Damn tease. She never slept naked like I did, but she went without underwear at unexpected times. Like this one, where her scent was like fresh lavender set to bloom under a heat lamp. Spicy and tangy, I could taste her even before I took the first lick.

Bending my head, I arrowed my tongue along her slit, flattening it over her clit as she tried to wriggle away. I pressed my hand low on her belly and nipped, pleased when she spread her thighs and kicked out, either to nail me once more to loosen her pants. I tugged them down with one hand and used the other to open her up for my mouth, plunging deep in one long stroke. She cried out and speared her fingers into my hair, again making me wonder if she was going to draw me closer or push me away.

She dragged me into her warmth, and I was glad to oblige. I buried my face in her folds, kissing her in a way I’d barely gotten to do tonight with her mouth. Then, she’d ended things too quickly. Now, her thighs were inching farther apart, the pants dangling off her foot as she curled her leg around my back. She arched, nails digging into my scalp, toes scraping along my spine.

Pussy wide open and pink, and so, so wet.

I rubbed her clit with the flat of my thumb, circling, circling. Lapping up everything she gave me and demanding more, burrowing into her sexy flesh until her dampness soaked my chin. I slid my fingers lower and slipped them inside, unwilling to miss even a second of her orgasm.

That was mine too. Just like the rest of her. I might take a long time to decide I wanted something, but once I did, there was no going back.

I didn’t share. I might’ve had siblings in reality, but I’d been raised alone. Classic only child syndrome, and one I would never apologize for.

“Tell me again,” she whispered, rocking her pelvis restlessly against my mouth. I didn’t know what she meant, so I lifted my head in question.

And licked my lips.

She moaned and dropped her head back off the edge of the counter, probably giving herself one hell of a blood rush. “Tell me you’re mine,” she breathed, the words barely audible over the throbbing need that had my cock surging against my zipper.

Even in the midst of my own sexual turmoil, I frowned. “I never—” She raised her head and gazed challengingly into my eyes, and somehow I said something I’d never planned to say.

To even think. In my world, belonging was a one-way street.

Not in hers. And if I wanted her to come—and holy Christ, I did—I’d get her there in whatever method she required.

One more truth in the center of a million lies and misdirections.

“I’m yours,” I said against her flesh, absorbing her shudder as if the energy pouring off of her powered my own heart. I flicked her stiff clit, wanting nothing more than to watch her go off before me. She was so unconsciously beautiful, so unstudied in her reactions. “Now show me you’re mine. That you’ve always been mine, even before you knew.”

A long, slow lick and she combusted beneath me, her hands fisting in my hair as she bowed off the counter. I hated that I hadn’t stripped her of her top, simply so I could watch her perfect tits bounce while she lost herself.

All I wanted was to be in that same place, lost with her. Hopelessly. Inexorably.

She sat up and grabbed my face, dragging it up to hers. Her mouth was on mine before I’d caught my breath, and definitely before she’d had a chance to catch hers. She wound her legs around my waist and pressed her soaked core against the front of my pants, taunting me with all the wetness I could have if I just ditched the pants.

And found a condom. Jesus, I couldn’t forget that part, though it was getting harder and harder to remember when we were intimate. In the crazy thrum of passion, it was hard to remember the life preserver. That little piece of latex that turned everything from a madcap moment to a life-changing decision.

Hell, who was I kidding? She’d changed my life a million years ago. I’d been trying to survive her ever since.

I tugged out my wallet and flipped it open to the condom I never left home without nowadays. In a few flicks of my fingers, the wallet was back in my pocket and the packet was open. Grace pried down my zipper, not about to wait for me. She never did. That was one of the many things I lo—

Her fingers slicked up my length as she rolled on the rubber. With one touch, I was a goner. Even after these last couple of months, her hands on me were like a miracle. I was a planner in every sense.

I couldn’t have foreseen this. Not after the day I’d gone to Annabelle’s and been turned away. So many fucking years ago.

Yet Grace was here, her eyes so big, her hands so steady as she wrecked me. Pieces of me fell at her feet and she kept right on destroying, her callused skin rubbing against mine a thrill of its own.

Once the condom was in place, she went back on her elbows and braced her heels on the edge of the counter, inviting me to take when I was on the verge of begging. With her, my veneer dropped away, and she left me stripped. I became simply a man who needed so much more than was fucking wise. Always had, when it came to her.

“Not on my knees,” she said silkily, and my gaze flashed to hers. Her chin came up. “But I’m willing to try to let you make that annoyingly arrogant comment to me. Oh, and the stalking. And the lies. And the—”

I was half on top of her with my mouth crushed to hers before she could verbalize the rest. There was no doubt in my mind that I was far in her debt.

Snapping my hips back, I drove forward without checking my thrust. I knew she could take. Her scream proved me a liar, until the blissful relief of her nails raking down my back took away my momentary concern.

As did the madness in her eyes. I wasn’t the only one riding the edge. She was right there with me, her body revving under mine. Insisting on more.

Pushing up her top, I slid my hands beneath to cup her breasts. Gripping them tight, so tight, I stroked into her again and again, watching as the hunger in her gaze flared into desperation. She reached down to touch herself, probably thoughtlessly, and I was riveted by the sight of her pale fingers moving between us. She skated their damp tips up my belly and I swallowed a roar, focusing only on the flush of pleasure coloring her cheeks while I struggled to hold on.

Just another moment. Two.

For her, I’d wait a lifetime.

Almost as long as had passed before I’d had her.

She cried out and squeezed around me, her walls fluttering up and down my length. I would’ve encouraged her with the dirty words that sprang up so often when I was balls-deep inside her, but I couldn’t find my voice. Could do nothing but hold on while she reared up and clamped her arms around my neck, bringing us forehead to forehead.

Trapped in her fever-bright blue gaze, I surged forward one last time. And clasped her soft, giving breasts that much harder while I exploded deep within her pussy.