[Dirty 01.0] Dirty Rich

by Amelia Wilde

  He gives me a half-smile but his eyes stay locked on my face as if he’s trying to figure out what I’m thinking. Nothing. I’m thinking nothing. My brain is a cascade of images—touching him, kissing him, getting fucked by him—and there are no words.

  “I came to bring some flowers and congratulate your sister.”

  “Thank you so much,” Bee says, a bright smile on her face. “Those are beautiful. Is one for Cate?” Leave it to her to say the right thing.

  “You guessed it. Is there somewhere I can put them?”

  “Absolutely. You must be Jax, then. I’ve heard a lot about you.”

  “And you’re Bee. Cate talks about you all the time.”

  Jax follows her into the dining room, and Dex leaps to my side, carefully taking Gabi from my arms. “Your billionaire dude is here,” he says.

  “Very helpful, Dex.”

  “Are you two going to make up?”

  I groan. “Does Bee tell you everything?”

  “Yeah. Can you blame her?”

  “No.”

  Then Jax is coming back into the room, followed close behind by Bee. He has his hands in his pockets. It’s the first time I’ve ever seen him look nervous.

  “Cate, I have something to show you. Would you come out with me for a while?”

  The heat in my cheeks, the heat in my chest. All the anger I felt when I walked into work on my last day at Basiqué is gone. My heart does a slow turn. “Yes,” I whisper, and when he takes my hand to lead me out, I follow him.

  44

  Jax

  Cate doesn’t say much as she slides into the passenger seat of my rental car. It’s an Audi—the best they could do on short notice at the airport I flew into a couple of hours away from here—but she doesn’t seem to care. She doesn’t say much as I steer the car away from her sister’s house, or when I navigate straight to the main street of the town, which is of course called Main Street.

  She doesn’t say much, but she never lets go of my hand.

  If she feels anything like what I’m feeling, she’s searching for what she wants to say to me, but there aren’t enough words in the whole world to describe it.

  I park the car in front of a storefront between a bookshop and a café. Cate turns to me, one eyebrow raised. “You didn’t come all this way to take me out for coffee, did you?”

  I laugh, and some of the tension in my gut eases away. “If you want coffee, we can get some right now. But no, I didn’t come here for that.”

  “What are we doing here?”

  “You’ll see.”

  The storefront has paper over both the huge front windows, blocking the inside from view. Cate follows me tentatively, and when we reach the door and I pull a key from my pocket, her mouth falls open.

  “Jax—why do you have a key to this building?”

  I lead her inside. I had a crew come in overnight to freshen the space, which is an empty canvas for any kind of business you can imagine. Everything is newly white and smells like possibility.

  “What’s that?”

  She’s spotted it.

  At the back of the room, smack in the middle of the wall, is a single desk. It’s an antique—one of the ones they used to use at the old New York Times offices during the newspaper heyday. I purposefully chose it to be the opposite of the sleek furniture that crowds every inch of the Basiqué offices.

  This is a space for Cate.

  Dropping my hand, she moves toward the desk, and as she gets closer I hear the tiny gasp that escapes her.

  “What is this, Jax?”

  She turns to face me, her eyes shining with so much delight I think the room gets brighter. On the desk is a nameplate. I woke up one of my business vendors in the middle of the night to get it made before I flew out of LaGuardia, so it’s been tucked in one of my bags since yesterday.

  After I left my mother’s hospital room, I flew to the largest available airport in Cate’s home state and got in after midnight. I debated driving to her hometown in Winthrop Harbor right away, but decided that would look a little insane, so I booked a room at the best hotel in town.

  This morning I drove to Cate’s old address in Winthrop Harbor. Sandra Sarzó gave it to me after I dressed her down for the way she handled my request about transferring Cate’s duties over the following months. Lucky for me, Cate’s emergency contact is still her mother, so there wasn’t much of a search to be done. When I showed up at their home this morning, Cate’s father shook my hand and, after several minutes of pleasant conversation that nearly killed me, he let me know where Cate’s sister lives in Beechford.

  Which brought us to this building.

  I bought it hours after leaving Christian at the club two nights ago.

  No matter what happens between us, I’m leaving Cate with the one thing she needs more than anything: security.

  The nameplate on the desk reads:

  Catherine Schaffer

  Editor-in-Chief

  “It’s for you,” I say simply.

  “The nameplate?”

  “The building.”

  Cate shakes her head, smiling helplessly. “Why in the hell would you buy me this building in Beechford, Jax?”

  I cross over to her and take her hand.

  “I shouldn’t have done what I did about your job at Basiqué. That was wrong. I know that now.”

  “Jax, I—”

  “No, let me finish. You should know that I never intended for you to feel like you didn’t have any options. I had several ideas for businesses you’re more than capable of running, and I wanted to talk about them all with you. When things started happening with my mom, I didn’t get the chance, and then Sarzó—” I let out a frustrated breath. “That’s all irrelevant. The point is, you have options, and one of them is to stay here in Beechford, close to your family, and run your own publishing imprint.”

  “What?”

  “You told me once that if you could do anything, you’d be in charge of your own publishing house. I’ve been working with my business manager to establish one in your name. It doesn’t matter where in the world it’s located—I can guarantee that people will be breaking the door down to have their work published with you. And you can take it in any direction you want. Books. Periodicals. Internet sales. People are working on it right now to get everything off the ground. All you need to do is run it.”

  Cate wrinkles her forehead. “I can’t run an entire company.”

  “Yes, you can. If you can survive Sandra Sarzó for a year, you can run any company you want. But you can leverage all of my resources for business advice, if you want to.”

  “Why are you doing this, Jax?” She looks up at me, eyes wide, hopeful, anxious.

  “Let me show you one other thing before I answer that.” I move behind the desk, open one of the drawers, and pull out the portfolio, opening it and turning it so she can see the papers inside.

  “I want you to understand that all of this is yours—no strings attached. These documents are proof that this company and all its assets—which come with startup funds and five years’ worth of salary for you and any employees you hire—belong to you even if…”

  “Even if what?”

  “Even if you’re done with me.”

  She puts a hand over her mouth, and I can’t control the pain in my heart, can’t get a handle on the tightness in my throat. I’ll give anything to her. But I need to know. I can’t wait any longer.

  “Are you done with me, Cate?”

  One long moment passes.

  Then she shakes her head, tears in her eyes.

  I hold my breath.

  45

  Cate

  It takes me a second to get the words out because I’m so overwhelmed by the magnitude of everything Jax is saying to me.

  “I’ll never be done with you.”

  His shoulders collapse as he registers what I’m saying, and then he closes the distance between us and takes me in his strong arms, the motion so powerful my he
art nearly stops.

  Then his mouth is on mine, his tongue is in my mouth, he tastes like mint and magic and it’s all so right I could scream, I could cry, but instead I kiss him back with everything I have, like there’s no moment other than this one, like this is my only chance.

  When he breaks the kiss I gasp for breath.

  There’s something else I need from him.

  “Will you give me anything I ask for?”

  “You know the answer to that,” he murmurs in my ear as his hands tighten on my waist.

  “Will you prove to me that I belong to you?”

  He pulls back, looking deeply into my eyes. “How should I do that?”

  I take a deep breath, then reach for my shirt, pulling it over my head. My shorts are next, dropping to the floor in a crumpled pile of cotton, and Jax watches as I strip off my panties and bra.

  Then, slowly, I kneel in front of him.

  My hands shake with anticipation.

  “I broke our agreement,” I say, my voice soft. “I didn’t follow the rules.”

  He instantly understands.

  “And you need me to correct you?”

  “Yes, Mr. Hunter.”

  I need it so badly that I don’t know how I survived without him these past days, without our meetings in his office. I don’t know how I kept breathing from one minute to the next when there was no possibility of him possessing me, dominating me, like only he can.

  I am desperate for him to take charge.

  In my professional life, I need to have the reins…but here, where we are the only two people in the world, I need him to be the man I know he is at his core.

  Powerful. Measured. Raw.

  He unzips his pants with one motion and frees his cock, which is already so hard it twitches when the air hits it.

  “Suck.”

  His voice is all authority, all command, and it sends a shiver down my spine.

  I obey immediately.

  Taking him into my mouth, I go to work as if this is the most important thing I will ever do, circling the head of his cock with the tip of my tongue, dragging the flat of it along the sensitive underside, sucking, sucking, building the rhythm faster and faster until—

  He pushes my head away, then shoves his cock back inside his pants.

  “To the desk.”

  I start to get to my feet, but he holds out his hand. “Crawl.”

  My opening is dripping as I crawl across the freshly shined floor to the brand new desk. Jax gets there first, moving the nameplate to the side—it doesn’t matter here, in this deliciously dirty game we’re playing.

  “Up.”

  I stand.

  “Bend over.”

  I arrange myself over the desk and spread my legs, lowering my breasts to the cold metal surface and arching my back. My breath comes fast and shallow, the anticipation so strong I can hardly stay still.

  Jax runs his hands over the white expanse of my back, all the way down to my waist, all the way down to my ass, and then he cups it in his hands, squeezing, testing. I push back into his grip, wanting more of him, and he responds with a slap to my right asscheek.

  “You stay in position.”

  “Yes, Mr. Hunter.”

  He drags the pad of a single finger down the length of my opening and I shove my knuckles into my mouth to keep from crying out.

  “You’re very wet,” he comments, in the same tone that he might say, “It’s raining out.”

  “Yes, Mr. Hunter.”

  “You like this.”

  “Yes, Mr. Hunter.”

  “You need this.”

  “Yes, Mr. Hunter.”

  “Do I need to remind you what happens when you break the rules?”

  “No, Mr. Hunter.”

  “Twenty strokes for appalling behavior. Move out of position, and we’ll start over.”

  “Yes, Mr. Hunter.”

  The words have barely had a chance to leave my mouth before his hand crashes down against my ass, the pain hot and stinging and sharp. It comes down again a moment later on the other cheek. Again. Again. Again. He keeps a steady rhythm, my ass heating up under his strikes as my pussy does the same, the juices collecting, dripping down the inside of my thighs. I grip the desk, trying to stay still, but something has to give. The pressure needs an outlet. I shout around my own fingers as the pain builds, builds, Jesus Christ it’s so exquisite, I want more, I need more, I love him.

  He reaches twenty and there are tears in my eyes and my legs shake from trying to stay in position. There’s the sound of his zipper and then he dips the head of his cock into my juices, lines it up with my opening.

  “Beg.”

  “Please, fuck me,” I say, trying to push myself back onto him. He holds me in place, his hands on my waist.

  “Excuse me?”

  “Please, fuck me, Mr. Hunter.”

  “Why should I do that?”

  “Because I belong to you.”

  “That’s right,” he answers. “You belong to me.”

  On the last word me he thrusts into me with all of his strength, filling me and stretching me and bottoming out and I catch my own cries with my hand because he is consumed with claiming me.

  Then he pulls at me, turning me, lifting me up in his strong, muscular arms, and then laying me back down on a bed of my own clothes.

  “Spread your legs.”

  I spread them wide, my hands on my knees, pressing.

  “Please,” I whisper, and he bends toward me and fills me again, this time touching my face, my neck, my breasts, he’s kissing me, biting me, licking me, sucking at every available inch of me and stretching me while he sends us careening toward the peak of desire, climbing, climbing…

  My muscles tense around him and release as I explode. He covers my mouth this time so that the people in the bookstore and the café next door can’t hear us. He follows suit several moments later as I descend from my own high, going in deeper than ever as his hips jerk uncontrollably.

  When he’s spent he lays his head down against my shoulder for a moment before standing up and pulling along with him. He helps me put my clothes back on.

  A wicked grin forms across his face. “If we’re going to continue this, we should go back to the hotel.”

  “Only if we can get there fast,” I say, grinning back.

  We head toward the door.

  “There’s one more thing,” I say, reaching for his hand.

  “What is it, Cate? Anything.”

  I bite my lip. I’m going to sound like an idiot. “I love the building…but I don’t want it.”

  Jax’s face falls. “You don’t?”

  “No. If I’m going to run a company like this, I want to do it in New York, where I can be with you.”

  A smile grows on his face, and he tilts his head back and laughs. “You’re unbelievable. I can’t get enough of you.”

  “I hope you never do.”

  46

  Jax

  There’s nothing in the world I want more than to drive Cate back to my hotel room and fuck her all day and night, stopping only to eat and maybe shower…then fuck her in the shower…then kiss her, then spend several hours telling her how magnificent she is, how she is the only one for me, how I will never take her for granted, not for one day, not for one minute, not for one second.

  I can tell she wants to go back there, too.

  But there’s one more thing I need to do.

  I make a right-hand turn at the next block after the storefront and turn around, heading back the way we came, back toward Bee’s house.

  “The hotel is the other way. Did you get turned around?”

  “No.”

  “Where are we going?”

  “Are you always this impatient?”

  “Yes! Tell me where we’re going.”

  “There’s one more thing I need to do at your sister’s house.”

  “Pick up the flowers you got for me?”

  “That, and something else.�
�

  Every time I glance over at Cate during the drive, she’s grinning, her bottom lip caught between her teeth, her cheeks blushed and happy.

  When we pull up to the house, her eyes widen. There are several vehicles parked by the curb, and people are coming and going, carrying packages and pieces of furniture.

  “What is this?” She looks at me, not quite believing it.

  “A baby gift for your sister and her husband.”

  “That’s way more than one gift.”

  “You’re right.” Looking at the constant flow of people and things now, I think it might be a bit much. “They’re not obligated to keep any of it, if they don’t want it or need it.”

  “Are you kidding? Bee’s probably in heaven right now. The babies were born before they could plan a shower, so they’re having to buy everything as they go.”

  Relief. I’m not going to come off looking like a total asshole, then.

  “Let’s go in.”

  “Okay…”

  Cate’s voice is still a little wary, but she follows me in through the door. Bee, wearing one of the babies in a wrap close to her chest, comes to greet us, squealing with excitement.

  “Jax—tell me right now. Did you send us all this stuff?”

  “I did.”

  “Thank you!” Bee pulls my face toward her and kisses me on the cheek. “Thank you. Cate must have told you that we didn’t get a chance to have a baby shower.”

  “She didn’t, actually…but I’m glad I didn’t send a truckload of things you already had.”

  Bee’s eyes widen. “You sent all this even though—” She stops herself. “Never mind. We can talk about all this later. Dex?”

  Dex appears from down the hallway. “They’re almost done setting up the two cribs in the nursery.” He has the other baby cradled over his arm. It looks odd to me, holding a baby that way, but what the hell do I know? Not a thing.

  “Hey, Jax. Heard this was from you. Can’t thank you enough, man.”

  “You’re more than welcome.” I look back toward Bee. “Are they here?”