In the Dark--A Sexy Billionaire Romance

by Jackie Ashenden

  He knew how to play a woman, that was for sure.

  But I could feel that cock of his beneath my ass, long, thick and hard, pressing through the scratchy wool of what felt like suit pants. And I couldn’t resist playing with him like he was playing with me.

  Because if anticipation worked on me, then it would also work on him, and I wanted him to be as desperate for me as I was for him. So I shifted my ass on him, arching against the hand at the small of my back, twisting a little, moving a little, giving him the same kind of tease. He didn’t move, though, and I thought that perhaps it wasn’t going to work, but then he gave a rough curse, the hand between my legs pulling away.

  I shuddered, giving a soft moan of protest.

  ‘It’s your own fault,’ he growled. ‘If you’d kept still you’d have what you want, but since you didn’t do what you’re told you’re going to have to wait.’

  Satisfaction uncurled inside me as I heard the rustle of clothes, the movement of his hands near the zipper of his pants. Another curse, then the thud of something hitting the floor. The tear of foil and more movement, his roughened breathing coming hard and fast, making me pant too.

  Then his hands were on my hips, lifting me, and I felt something hot nudge against my sensitive sex. I took a breath full of trembling anticipation before he pulled me down onto him, the head of his cock pushing into me, stretching me wider than his fingers had. A low moan escaped me but he didn’t hesitate, easing deeper and deeper.

  I stared into the blackness of my blindfold to where his face would be as he gripped me tighter and pulled me down hard, sheathing himself completely.

  There was pain, brief and intense, but it was gone before I could even cry out. And then nothing but him inside me, filling me. Invading me. He was in front of me, under me, inside me. And it felt like more...

  It felt as if he’d become part of me and I had become part of him. I’d never really felt I belonged anywhere. Not with my beautiful, talented, successful family. Not at school. And even though the life I had now was what I loved, creating art to ink into people’s skin, I still felt out of place somehow. An outsider.

  But here, with him, I belonged.

  I belonged with him.

  There was a sudden, complete silence, but it wasn’t empty. It was full of tension and longing. Of relief. Of desire and hunger. Of tenderness and peace.

  And I knew he felt the weight of the silence too, that it affected him as much as it was affecting me. But the urge to move was overwhelming and I couldn’t stop it, even though I wanted to hold on to this moment of perfect understanding. His hands on my hips were directing me, a slow up-and-down, and soon I got the hang of it, moving with him.

  Pleasure built, coiling tighter and tighter.

  He didn’t speak, all the rough things he’d said before falling away. And I couldn’t speak, either. My chest was full of something heavy and profound, and my eyes prickled.

  He moved harder, faster, and I knew there’d be no drawing out of anticipation. No teasing. He was on the edge of the cliff already and so was I.

  Who’d fall over first? Him or me?

  But then his hand was between my legs, touching my clit, pressing down and stroking in time with the movement of his hips, with the slow push-pull of his cock. Intensifying my pleasure as he took his own.

  Eli Hart had never been a selfish man and he wasn’t now.

  Pressure built along with the pleasure, like a hand slowly closing around a delicate glass bauble, causing cracks that spider-webbed out, at first fine and then becoming deeper, wider.

  I was shaking hard, my breaths sharp pants, the pressure becoming intolerable.

  I was going to crack. I was going to shatter.

  And suddenly I wanted to see his face, look into his eyes. This was my treasured fantasy and this was the one and only time I would see him looking at me as I fell apart in his arms, watching him as he came apart in mine.

  But, as if he knew and wanted to stop the moment, his hand twisted, his finger creating magic between my legs, even as his cock thrust hard and deep, and suddenly I was coming, the orgasm relentless, rolling over me like thunder.

  I meant to moan, but it wasn’t a moan that slipped out.

  It was his name.

  ‘Eli,’ I whispered as the pleasure drowned me.

  And then I was shaking and shuddering, feeling his grip tighten as he moved inside me, harder, faster, slamming me down on him as he thrust up in a series of hard, brutal movements.

  He stiffened, a low roar breaking from him as he came too, his whole body shuddering under the impact of it.

  I waited, still drifting with the aftershocks, until he’d quietened and the silence had returned, broken only by our rough, shaken breaths.

  Then I raised my hand and jerked the blindfold off.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Elias

  I KNEW SHE was going to do it. Call it a sixth sense. In the first moments of that post-orgasmic haze—and it was one fucking amazing haze—I could see her hand reach for the blindfold. I could have stopped her. But I didn’t.

  In those moments, I wanted her to see me. I wanted her to know exactly who’d made her scream. Who’d made her sob. Who’d made her come so hard she’d forgotten her own name. Who’d taken her virginity.

  A fucking caveman thought, but there it was.

  I didn’t want to be nameless, faceless. I wanted her to know who was her first.

  And only.

  The thought unwound inside me even as I registered something else. She wasn’t surprised to see me. She wasn’t shocked, angry or anything else.

  Her blue eyes were so dark they looked black, pupils dilated, little strands of black hair plastered to her forehead where the blindfold had been pressing. She blinked quickly against the sudden influx of light, her pupils abruptly narrowing into tiny black points in response.

  Beautiful eyes, slightly turned up at the corners like a cat’s, her eyebrows serious black slashes. She had a silver ring through one of her eyebrows and it suited her whole edgy look.

  I remembered those eyes, though. They’d been solemn when she was a kid, going wide every time they looked at me, as if she’d never seen anything like me in her entire life. And then later, as she’d got older, they’d danced with shy amusement as I’d teased her for being so serious, trying to get a grin out of her. She’d been so serious. I’d counted it a victory when I’d managed to make her laugh.

  She looked at me with those same serious, solemn eyes, but she wasn’t a kid now. Her body glistened with sweat, her mouth was full and red and I was still deep inside her, the clutch of her pussy around my cock already making me start to get hard again.

  She’d known all along. Somehow, she’d known who I was.

  And now she knows exactly how big an asshole you are too.

  ‘Eli.’ Her gaze roamed all over me and she lifted one small hand to touch my face.

  I moved before I was even aware of it, gripping her, lifting her, pulling her from my lap and sitting her down on the couch beside me.

  ‘Eli, wait,’ she said huskily, reaching for me again.

  But I ignored her, getting up off the couch and striding through to the bedroom, and from there into the en suite bathroom.

  I shut the door and locked it, aware that my heartbeat was out of control, my fucking cock still getting itself ready for another round. And that my hands were fucking shaking.

  How long had she known who I was? Why hadn’t she said anything?

  A man I maybe loved...

  No. Fuck no. No fucking way.

  I dealt with the condom, tidied up my clothes, then went to the mirror above the vanity. It floated there, looking as though it wasn’t attached to the white-tiled wall behind it, lights surrounding it as if it was framing some Hollywood movie star.

  But there w
as no fucking star in the glass.

  It was only me in my black suit, looking like a fucking undertaker.

  What had she seen when she’d pulled off the blindfold? Because I wasn’t the same man she’d once known.

  The same face, sure—the fire hadn’t touched that. The nurses seemed to think I should be grateful for that, but some part of me wasn’t. Some part of me wished that my face hadn’t escaped, so that it was obvious. So no one would assume that I was still the same person, the same selfish asshole my dad thought I was who’d thrown a game so he wouldn’t have to bear the weight of all those expectations. Of all those responsibilities.

  My jaw was tight, a muscle leaping in it. In the mirror I could see that the top button of my shirt had come undone, revealing the red lick of scar tissue that lay just beneath it. I lifted a hand to do up the button, to exert some control over myself even in this small detail.

  She knows. Do you think that matters now?

  No, she didn’t know. Not everything. She didn’t know about the fire. Didn’t know about my injuries. Didn’t know that all the medical staff who’d called me a hero had been wrong.

  I was no one’s fucking hero.

  I was a coward.

  And she doesn’t know why you cut her out of your life and then, years later, fucked her in a hotel room, making sure she had no idea who you were.

  So? She didn’t need to know. She didn’t need to know anything. I could go and tell her coolly that there would be no discussion and that it was time for her to leave.

  That’s a shitty thing to do.

  Of course it was a shitty thing to do. But maybe, if I was sufficiently shitty to her, she’d finally leave me the fuck alone the way everyone else had.

  A soft knock came on the door.

  Every muscle in my body tightened.

  ‘Eli?’ she called quietly. ‘Are you okay?’

  I’d been the one to deceive her, having her naked in that chair, making her come over and over again. Taking her virginity on the couch like a goddamned animal. Not even having the decency to let her know who I was. And yet she was the one asking me if I was okay?

  That should have been my line. I should have gathered her close and held her, kissed her. Asked if I’d hurt her and whether she needed anything. But no. I’d shoved her off my lap and escaped into the bathroom like the coward I used to be.

  And a hypocrite into the bargain. I wasn’t supposed to give one single shit what people thought of me and yet here I was, hiding. Afraid of shattering the pedestal she’d once put me on when she found out the truth.

  I hadn’t fully realised how much I’d needed that pedestal until now. To still be a hero to someone, even if it was only one person, just one. To her...

  Except there was nothing heroic about what lay underneath my suit. Scars and selfishness. Anger and bitterness.

  Sure. You treated her like shit and yet here you are in the bathroom, consumed with your own pain.

  Of course. Why would I care about anyone else’s? That was not who I was any more.

  I bared my teeth at my appearance in the mirror. ‘Yes,’ I said flatly.

  Maybe she should know. Maybe she should discover the truth about me. Shatter that pedestal once and for all, so she’d finally put me aside. After all, hadn’t she said she’d come here to lay the ghost of me? So she could move on with her life?

  Perhaps if she knew the truth then she finally would.

  ‘I’m sorry, Eli.’ Her voice again, from the other side of the door. ‘I know I should have said something, but I...’

  She was apologising to me? What the fuck? It should be the other way around, surely?

  ‘You what?’ A thick, hot anger shifted inside me. This was exactly what I hadn’t wanted for this evening. Discussion. Conversation. Going over the past. Compli-fucking-cations. ‘Spit it out, Vee. That you knew all along who I was.’

  ‘Not all along.’ A pause. ‘Just after I...took off my dress.’

  That long. She’d known that long.

  I closed my eyes. ‘How?’

  ‘Seriously? I’d know your voice anywhere. And you smell the same. And it just...felt like you.’

  Holy Christ. Hadn’t I told myself to be careful? That she was sharp and perceptive?

  That maybe she loves you—don’t forget that.

  My hands clenched into fists. ‘Why didn’t you say anything?’

  Another pause.

  ‘Why didn’t you?’

  Ah, fuck. Now we were getting down to it. I needed to put an end to it, and quickly. I needed to tell her the truth.

  She’ll never look at you the same way again.

  No, but I’d got through the past decade without her looking at me in any way at all. I was at the top of my game, successful beyond my wildest morphine-induced dreams.

  So what did it matter if she changed her opinion of me? What did her opinion of anything matter? It hadn’t then and it didn’t now.

  Then why are you so afraid?

  I snarled at my reflection, reaching for the anger and holding on tight. Anger was the only thing I had now. It had got me through those first dark days as I’d realised the full extent of what I’d done. The lives I’d ruined. The dreams I’d shattered.

  It would get me through this.

  Distancing her hadn’t worked and I should have known it wouldn’t. She hadn’t given up trying to reach me and she never would because she never gave up on anything.

  Unlike you. You gave up on yourself.

  I ignored the thought, turning from the mirror and striding to the door. I unlocked it, then grasped the handle and pulled it open.

  Vesta stood on the other side, big blue eyes coming to mine immediately, light shining on the ring in her eyebrow. She’d put her dress back on and I had a moment’s regret that she’d covered up all that beautiful skin, all those delicious curves. Then I shoved it to the side, where I put every other inconvenient emotion I’d ever had.

  ‘You really want to know why?’ I demanded, holding her gaze. ‘Then I’ll show you.’

  I backed up into the middle of the bathroom, all the mirrored surfaces bouncing my reflection back and forth between them, the bright, pitiless white light illuminating every single thing.

  There would be no hiding now.

  I lifted my hand to the knot of my tie and undid it, pulling it off and discarding it onto the ground.

  Then I got rid of the rest of my clothes.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Vesta

  I WANTED TO ask him what the hell he was doing, except it was perfectly obvious what he was doing.

  He was undressing.

  I stared, my heartbeat thundering, my mouth dry.

  Eli Hart, right in front of me. As tall and as broad as I remembered. His presence filled the bathroom, dominated it.

  He was dressed in a black suit that fitted him so perfectly it was probably custom-made, highlighting the powerful width of his shoulders and chest and emphasising his narrow waist. Underneath, he wore a black cotton business shirt with a tie of pewter silk. He should have looked like a funeral director, but somehow he didn’t.

  He’d...changed. The thick, surfer-blond hair that used to hang over his eyes, which he used to push back with an easy movement, was gone. It was cut ruthlessly short now, highlighting the perfect planes and angles of his face.

  So achingly familiar, that face. The square jaw and straight nose. The high, carved cheekbones any supermodel would have killed for. His beautiful, beautiful mouth. It used to curve so readily into the amazing smile I used to believe he kept for me and me alone. But there was no hint of a curve in it now.

  I met his gaze, foreboding curling in my gut.

  His eyes were the same mix of amber and green, a colour that used to haunt my dreams, because in some lights they were pure gold,
and in others bright emerald. They changed with his mood, the long, thick, dark gold of his lashes the perfect frame.

  Right now they looked dark as the colour of his suit.

  Everything about him looked as dark as his suit.

  My heart squeezed.

  This wasn’t the Eli I remembered. This was someone much darker, with a presence that wasn’t so much the sunshine Eli used to radiate as a beam of focused, intense light, like an X-ray or a laser.

  Something had happened. Something had changed him.

  You should have left the blindfold on.

  I swallowed, my throat closing up. No point in going over what I should and shouldn’t have done. I’d taken it off because I’d wanted to see him. I’d wanted to look into his eyes in that moment, because he was my ultimate fantasy and always had been. And, yes, part of me had been selfish and had wanted to know whether he’d also felt the pleasure he’d given me.

  Part of me had known that, in taking it off, I’d destroy something. That a line would be crossed that I couldn’t cross back over again. And it looked like I was right.

  The moment of comfort and tenderness when he’d held me and fed me chocolate was gone. I’d destroyed it.

  It was never real in the first place.

  I forced the thought away.

  ‘What are you doing?’ I asked, no matter how obvious it was.

  He said nothing, shrugging out of that beautifully tailored jacket and dropping it on the floor. His face was so hard, no give in his expression. He looked like a man who didn’t even know what a smile was.

  What was it that had changed him? Because something had. There was an edge to him that hadn’t been there before, a steely ruthlessness. A sharp anger.

  He said nothing, reaching for the buttons of his shirt and undoing them one by one. His gaze was intense and dark, pinning me in place.

  It wasn’t a slow, sexy strip show he was treating me to, and I knew that the moment he ripped off his tie. He was showing me something.