The Hotel 3 (The Billionaire Seduction) (10 page)

“A pair of tight, black leggings.”

“Good,” I growl with approval. “You lying down?”

“Yeah.” I hear a rustling sound. “I am now.”

“Put your hand down there.”

Her response is immediate, a small gasp. “Fuck…I’m
so…”

“That’s a good thing. Just go with it. Now close your
eyes…”

“Ok…”

“Squeeze your hand between your thighs…”

“Yes…”

“That’s where I wanna be. Smelling you. Tasting you.
Devouring you,” I
whisper, with just enough authority in my voice to let her know how
much I mean it. My hand’s fully in my boxers now, releasing my
cock, which is so stiff even the tightness of my designer underwear
can’t strangle it.

“Fuck…” she pants, and then I hear her gasping for
air like she just ran a marathon. “Stop…stop. This is
way too much, way too early for me.”

Damn. Game over, and my dick is still hard enough to cut diamonds
with. “Ok, yeah. We can take a break. What’s wrong?”

“Nothing…nothing’s wrong. That’s kinda the
problem.”

“You’re gonna have to explain that to me.”

“I don’t know anything about you. And here I am
fucking…
wet…
just from the sound of your voice.”

I take a second to absorb her words, but they’re not adding up
yet. “Ok? I still don’t see where the problem is.”
I laugh, trying to put her at ease again.

“I literally just got out of a relationship – like
yesterday.”

Though my hand’s still on my cock, even I can’t jerk it
to relationship talk. She’s feeling guilty, that’s what
it is. I can fix that.

“Exactly. Yesterday – not today. Not now. Right now
you’re a single woman who’s looking for some intimacy,
and I’m a single man looking for a night of distraction. That’s
it.”

She pauses, and I hope she’s getting back in the zone. “Still,
it’s…”

“You’re rationalizing this, but I know for a fact your
body’s telling you something different,” I soothe. “We’re
both consenting adults, right? Come out and meet me.”

I don’t want to push her too hard, but there’s something
in her voice that’s practically begging me to take her out of
her comfort zone and give her a night she’ll never forget.

I tuck my cock back in my pants and get up from the couch.

“I…” She hesitates, still breathing hard. “I
want to, but I can’t…”

“Take a shower and come and meet me at my place. I live in the
hills. Trust me, you’re gonna love it. If not, you can turn
around and go home. No harm, no foul.”

She giggles a little, and I can still hear how her nerves are
unsteady.

“This is…
so
unlike me.”

I start making my way around the den, picking up the empty bottles
that I’ve left around there throughout the day. I’ve made
up my mind: this is the girl I’m going to fuck tonight, even if
I have to clean up to do it.

“It’s pretty out of character for me too, which is why
it’ll be perfect.” It’s partially true, at least.
I’ve never had one of these booty-callers come directly to my
house before. But for some reason I trust this girl.

“This is crazy…”

“Come on. If I can make you wet with my voice, just imagine
what I can do with my hands. I can be gentle, too.”

She laughs again. The anxiety falling away piece by piece. I know
she’s not trying to play hard to get, but I have to admit I’m
kind of enjoying the chase.

“And what happens, exactly? We fuck, and then, bye?”

“Put a little emphasis on the fucking part.”

“That doesn’t sound like it would work. I’ve never
done the whole one night stand thing.”

I bring the bottles into the kitchen and make my way back to the den,
where I settle on the couch again.

“Call it a ‘greasy pancake fuck,’
then.”

“A what?”

“A ‘greasy pancake fuck.’
You’ve never heard of a ‘greasy pancake fuck’?
Don’t tell me I have to explain what a ‘greasy pancake
fuck’ is.”

“Would you stop saying ‘greasy pancake fuck’?”

“Sorry.”

I let the silence hang in the air.

“Ok,” she says, giving up. “What’s a ‘greasy
pancake fuck’?”

“I’m glad you asked,” I say, with a smile she can
probably hear. “Well you’re single now, and soon enough
you’ll be dating again; seeing what the world has to offer
beyond that ex of yours – who sounds like a real scumbag by the
way. You’ll be meeting guys, living life, and having sex. Well,
if you come over tonight, it’ll be the ‘greasy pancake.’”

“The ‘greasy pancake,’”
she repeats, unconvinced.

“Right. The first pancake you make of a batch, the one that’s
just there to soak up all the grease. You’re probably angry at
your ex right now. Maybe depressed. Maybe lost. You could spend weeks
getting over him. Flicking through the photographs, reliving the
arguments in your head, throwing out the fluffy stuffed animal he
bought you for your birthday that you thought was cute but was
actually just a last-minute purchase at the gas station.”

She laughs. “It was a keychain, actually. And some wilted
flowers.”

“Or, you can come over here, and just fuck all of that shit
away. A big blow-out. Just let yourself loose, and cut yourself off
from the past. Mentally, emotionally.”

“Physically,”
she adds.

“Exactly.”

She pauses, and I hear her inhaling deeply as she considers my
argument.

“You make it sound pretty easy.”

“Because it is.”

“I barely know you though. We’ve spoken for – what,
twenty minutes?”

I glance at my phone and realize, to my shock, it’s been almost
forty. “What’s the difference if it’s twenty days?
The only thing that happens when you wait too long is you miss out.
You’re frustrated, I’m bored – the stars are
aligned right now. And I like you.”

“There you go with the astrology again.”

“Like you said – it’s fate.”

She sighs.

“If you feel uncomfortable at any moment,” I say, “you
have my permission to kick me in the balls and run away. Just don’t
steal any of my stuff, please.”

I wait for what feels like years until she answers again.

“Ok. But I don’t even know what you look like.”

“Believe me, you won’t be disappointed.”

I give her directions to my house, and we break the call. I toss the
phone onto the table and lie there for a few moments, staring up at
the ceiling. Her voice is still echoing in my mind, that colorful
laugh, and the stuttering gasps. I’ve been called a superficial
bastard many times in my life, but if those people could see how
turned on I am right now by nothing but a disembodied voice and a
snappy wit they’d retract their statements. Ok, maybe it’s
still true, and maybe I’m still hoping she’ll be a
knockout, but frankly, even if she isn’t, I’m ready to
put in a prize-winning bedroom performance on her.

I get up and shake my limbs like a prize fighter getting ready for
the fight of his life. My balls are aching from how fucking hard she
got me, and it’s all I can do to save myself for when Miss
Mysterious shows up.

“Shit,” I mutter to myself, as I take out a bottle of
nice wine and some glasses, “what if she doesn’t even
show up?”

I stamp the thought all the way into the back of my mind – like
I do most things these days – and jog on up to the second floor
to change.

I get dressed, comb my hair, and go back downstairs. I put a little
music on in the den, something slow, but edgy – none of that
sugary shit. I like a little dirt in my music. Then I proceed to walk
around the room, checking my watch as I pace like I’m scared of
getting stood up in my own home.

I stop as soon as I hear a sound, not sure if it’s real, and
too involved in my own imagination to hear it properly. Was that a
car door slamming? I hear footsteps on my porch.

And there goes the fucking doorbell.

Dylan and Gemma’s sexy adventure continues in
BOOTYCALL: PART ONE

Order now!

Discover the Sexy Bastard series: five
friends, one bar, and a whole lot of trouble. From Eve Jagger –
out now!

RYDER

CH. 1

There
are two smells in the world I love more than any others: a woman
right before sex and this warehouse right before a fight. They’re
different, of course. There’s nothing like a naked, wet,
waiting woman, the scent of her skin salty with sweat but sweet at
the same time, like swimming through an ocean of roses. The
warehouse’s odor is far less pleasurable, phantoms of last
round’s knocked-out teeth, bruised faces, and aching bones
making the air heavy, grimy, stifling, like the smell of fresh dirt.
But both are thrilling and unpredictable and make me want to explode.

Even when it was me
in the ring a few years ago, my ribs about to get punched, my
knuckles about to crash into someone’s cheekbone, the smell of
this place would intoxicate me. Facing off with a guy whose sole
intention for the next several minutes is to pummel you into
submission is as terrifying as it sounds. And as exhilarating. The
policy of bare-knuckles brawls is no shirt, no shoes, big problem
standing right across from you. But all I had to do to calm myself
was take a big inhale of this warehouse air, let the molecules seep
into my lungs, into my bloodstream, and I won every match.

I always win.

So tonight, after
Crutcher beats Miller in an upset, a big win for me for sure, when
Tyler tells me that some kid is in for $10,000 and has disappeared, I
tell him he’s got to have it wrong. “I would never have
let Jamie McEntire run up that kind of tab,” I say. “I’ve
seen him around. I wouldn’t give him ten dollars, let alone ten
thousand.” When I took over running fight night two years ago,
I did a little cleanup from the mess my predecessor left. No five- or
six- figure debts to people we don’t know, no credit to anyone
who’s welched more than once. We may be an underground
operation, but there are standards. There’s also a dress code:
women in heels, men in collared shirts, and our crowd is the type who
likes to drop a lot of money on both. We have security guards. The
bartender will call you a cab if you get too drunk. I run a tight
ship. Even the police think so. That’s why they don’t
hassle me. Sometimes they even take a try in the ring.

Tyler
shrugs. “It’s been gradual. Losses on a couple fights,
loans to cover him,” he says. “I hate to be the bearer of
bad news. But I double checked the ledger, and it adds up.”

“Fuck
me,” I say, and a blond woman in high heels and a dress so
tight she must not have exhaled all night turns toward us. She raises
an eyebrow at me, smiles like she might take me up on the offer.

And
with the way she wraps her mouth around the neck of that beer bottle,
keeping her eyes locked on mine as she takes a drink, I might just
let her.

Tyler’s
voice yanks me back to the problem at hand. “So what do you
want to do?” he says. “He’s offered his house as
collateral.”

I shake my head.
“This isn’t a swap meet.” Sometimes people think
that just because I run an illegal fighting circuit and betting ring,
I must be dishonest or inattentive to keeping the books, or maybe
just dumb. So they try to take advantage of me occasionally. They
think I won’t notice or care if they siphon a little cash or
don’t pay in full or don’t pay at all, that I’m
just a guy who made his money beating the shit out of strangers while
debutantes and their dates made their bets. All brawn and no brains.
But they’re wrong.

In the ring, I
didn’t mind being underestimated. It helped me win. Some
spectators think when you look like me, tall, muscular,
broad-shouldered, you won’t be agile enough to dodge a right
hook. So they bet against you. They don’t realize those muscles
aren’t just for showing off to the female members of the
crowd—not that I minded when they noticed. Those hard biceps
mean you’re strong, and those washboard abs make you quick, and
it all adds up to making my bank account big.

But
as the boss outside the ring, I can’t have people not take me
seriously. The Armani suits I wear on fight nights look damn good on
me but they don’t come cheap, so when I loan money I expect to
get it back when the handshake said I would. It’s only fair.
I’ve got a reputation to protect, not to mention a legitimate
business career to support, owning two of Atlanta’s most
popular nightclubs, a cocktail lounge, and Altitude, a bar some
buddies and I run together. I got to the top flying like a butterfly
in the ring, but I stay there because I sting like a bee outside it.

And
Jamie McEntire’s about to feel what I mean.

“You
know where this kid’s house is?” I say, clapping Tyler on
the shoulder. He nods. “Good,” I say. “You’re
driving then. Grab Valero and let him know that as soon as this crowd
clears, we’re making a visit.”

Tyler
leaves, and the woman in the tight dress with the lucky beer bottle
approaches. The dip of her neckline is as low as her skirt is short.
“Someone should wash your mouth out,” she says.

“Sorry
if I offended your delicate sensibilities,” I say, smiling.
We’re at an underground bare-knuckles fight.
Fuck
is
hardly the most offensive thing she’s been exposed to tonight.

“Not
at all,” she says. “I like a man who talks dirty.”
She takes a sip from the bottle, tipping it toward me. “Want
some?”

I
don’t think she just means the beer.

Over
her shoulder, behind her in the crowd, I see a guy in a
decent-looking grey suit. He’s standing with a few other
people but his attention is clearly fixed on her, watching. I tilt
the bottle back toward her with my index finger. “Who are you
here with?”

“No
one special,” she says, taking a step toward me. “Unless
you want some company.”

Women.
They smell good, they look good, they taste good, but they can be so
bad for you.