07BarteredPainThe BillionairesWifeARE

by Ava Lore

  "How can I not freak out when you're yelling at me!" I cried. My eyes fell to the technicolor mess on the creamy marble. It looked like a pile of vomit. Trashy vomit. "What's with the tabloids?"

  In answer, Sadie enveloped me in a fierce hug. "It's going to be okay," she said.

  Okay, I thought, now I know this is really bad. On trembling legs I lowered myself to the floor, and Sadie took a step back to allow me to do so, almost as though she were giving me a respectful space to mourn my dead. With numb fingers I reached out and grabbed a National Enquirer.

  WATERS AND WIFE'S DIRTY LITTLE SECRETS screamed the headline. And there, beneath it, was a blurry night-vision picture of me sprawled over Anton's lap, my bare ass in the air, as he spanked me in the back garden.

  I knew it, I thought. I knew we couldn't get away with it. Another picture of us as we got in a car, my face clear as day, hovered in the lower corner of the front page, just in case no one knew exactly who I was.

  The blood drained from my head and I sat heavily on the floor, swaying. Numbly I picked up a copy of the Star. That one was even worse. A shot of Anton and I on the balcony, a collar around my neck, the leash in Anton's hand as he plowed me from behind. That had only been a few days ago.

  "Oh my god," I breathed.

  Sadie stood next to me, clearly feeling awkward. "Well," she said at last, "at least your tits look good."

  I gave a weak laugh. "They're blurred out."

  "Yeah. But firm as hell. I mean... damn girl."

  I shook my head. "This is... this is not good."

  Sadie sat down next to me. "I don't know," she said. "Look how a sex tape launched Paris Hilton's career."

  "What career?"

  "Oh, you know. Stuff. And you actually have talent! Everyone's going to want a piece of sculpture from the billionaire mogul's sex slave."

  "Sadie!" I covered my face with my hands. Fucking Anton. Fucking Anton and his stupid need to get off in public. This was the worst.

  She reached out and patted my shoulder awkwardly. "It'll be okay. It's not the end of the world," she said. "And look at it this way: you guys are married. Who cares what married people do? It's the twenty-first century. Maybe if you guys were swingers or something that would be bad, but this is just... just..."

  I sneaked a glance at her. She was staring at the Star cover, biting her lip. She was definitely not sure what to think about the leash and collar, but she rallied well. "This is just like something out of a Rihanna video. Yeah, it'll get banned in some places, but everyone's going to be sinfully envious of you. Waters is hot. You got to marry him. And you guys have a sex life like some crazy Eyes Wide Shut shit."

  Despite myself, I started to feel a little better. "Maybe I should go talk to Anton," I said.

  Sadie nodded wisely, clearly relieved to be wrapping up the topic. "I think that's a good idea. Oh! But I found a great caterer. How do you feel about Ethiopian food?"

  I smiled. "Sadie..." I began.

  She grinned at me. "More importantly, how do you think your mother will feel about Ethiopian food?"

  That made me grin back. “I don't know what I'd do without you,” I said.

  *

  Two hours later I was walking into Empire Capital's headquarters. I was a familiar enough face that I didn't have to check in any more, simply go to the elevator and head up to the top floor.

  I glanced at Katy, manning the front desk, and gave her a smile.

  She looked away immediately.

  Oh, I thought.

  The sick feeling in my stomach returned. What was my mother going to say when she found out? What was my father going to do? He'd never shown any sort of fatherly inclinations to keep me pure and untouched, but when his little girl was splashed across the tabloids in compromising positions he might have a different reaction.

  Nerves singing, I mashed the elevator button and waited for it to descend.

  People passed me. No one looked me in the eye. I felt my cheeks begin to burn.

  The elevator dinged and I leaped inside it, pushing the button for the top floor. Outside the door, a small gaggle of businesspeople waited, each and every one looking anywhere but at me.

  There's room, I wanted to say, but I didn't. The doors closed with a hiss and I ascended.

  I forced myself to breath slowly and deeply. Anton would know what to do. Anton knew everything there was to know about being a rich and famous schmuck targeted by paparazzi.

  So why didn't he think twice about fucking me where we could be photographed? Come to think of it, why didn't I think twice about it?

  But I already knew the answer. I had thought about it. I'd thought about it each time it happened, but in the heat of the moment, tangled and twisted up with arousal, I hadn't been able to voice my concerns. I'd only had one thing on my mind: Anton.

  The elevator slowed to a stop and I exited. Arthur, Anton's personal assistant, sat at his desk. He met my eyes and smiled. Was it my imagination, or was that smile a little false, a little plastic?

  "He's in his office, Mrs. Waters," Arthur told me. "Go on in."

  Licking my lips, I nodded and skirted around him, entering one of the doors leading to the small, spare foyer. My hands shook as I opened the door to Anton's office.

  Anton sat at his desk , serenely typing away at his computer. He glanced up as I edged my way in.

  "Hey," I said.

  He gave me his signature faint smile. "Is there something I can do for you?" he asked me. "I missed out on a lot of work this morning."

  I winced. I knew my mother's insistence on his attendance at the wedding planning was definitely eating into his time, but he acquiesced to her demands out of... I guess out of concern for me. Funny, I'd been writing it off as through the goodness of his heart, but I realized, as he stared at me from the tranquility of his office—full of zen fountains and running water—that he was much happier here, working. He probably wouldn't endure my mother out of some misplaced sense of kindness. I frowned as I stared at him.

  "Felicia?" he said.

  I started. "Um." Opening my purse, I dug the tabloids out of the depths. "I have something you should probably look at."

  He raised a brow, but beckoned me closer. I walked the length of the room—an endless length, it seemed like—and presented the tabloids to him with trembling hands.

  What was he going to think? Was he going to somehow blame me for this? Would this negatively impact his business? I worried my lip between my teeth as he laid the tabloids down on the desk and studied them. Then he looked back to me.

  "Your tits look amazing," he said.

  Fucking wow. "That's it?" I asked him. "That's all you have to say?"

  An expression of genuine surprise crossed his face. "What do you want me to say?" he asked.

  I threw my hands in the air. "I don't know!" I cried. "Something! Anything!"

  "I did say something," he told me. "I said your tits look amazing."

  Never before in my life had I wanted to slap someone more. "And that's all you have to say about it?"

  He squinted down at the terrible photos of us in our private moments. "I wish they'd got a shot of my ass," he said. "It's pretty great, too."

  Exasperated, I stamped my foot. "Really?"

  "Well, there's nothing else to really do about it other than make the best of it," he said.

  I was feeling less and less good about this with each thing that fell out of his mouth. "I thought you might want to sue them or... or something."

  "Why would I do that?" he asked me. "This is free publicity. I'll be on the receiving end of many back-slaps the next time I attend a business function."

  "Yeah?" I said. "Well Katy couldn't even look me in the eye when I came in here," I told him. "It's different for me."

  That seemed to have an effect. A frown shadowed his eyes. "Katy?" he said. "Really?" He pursed his lips and thought about this. "Do you want me to fire her?"

  "What? No!" I'm not that vindictive. "I just... I fee
l totally humiliated. You might not have any friends or family, but I do, and the next time I see them this is all they're going to be thinking about."

  "I have a family," Anton said. His voice faltered slightly, and I realized I'd touched a nerve. I tried to wave it away.

  "It doesn't matter. Didn't you think about what could happen when you chose those places to fuck?"

  For a long moment, Anton stared at me. His green eyes, so startling and brilliant in his handsome face, were thoughtful. "No," he said at last. "No, I didn't. And you're right. I should have."

  Slightly mollified, I crossed my arms. "Yeah... well... think about it next time."

  He smiled at that. To my surprise, he pushed back from his desk and stood up. "I can't guarantee that," he told me. He rounded his desk, his smooth, predatory gait calling to something primal in me. I was such a sucker.

  "Why can't you guarantee that?" I asked him. He drew close, looming over me, and I was reminded of our very first encounter here in this office, when he seduced me. He hadn't made me come, only touched me, stoking a fire inside that was so violent and out of control that I had to quench it myself the moment I was alone. Even now, just thinking about it, I was turned on.

  I didn't want to be. I wanted to think rationally and calmly, but it felt like the moment Anton had entered my life that my reason had taken a flying leap off a cliff. And I liked it. I really didn't like how much I liked it.

  I was losing myself in Anton.

  Glittering green eyes stared down at me. "I'm sorry, Felicia," he said. "I will do my best in the future to remember the potential consequences of acting on my, ah, more exhibitionist impulses." He extended a hand, running his fingers down my cheek. I gazed up at him, uncertain what to say, wanting only to fall into his arms. It would be easy to do so. A strong man is hard to resist.

  He leaned down and kissed me, stealing my breath. His mouth was hot and soft, but undemanding. Gently he nibbled and massaged my lips with his. My body heated at the tenderness in his kiss, reveling in the feeling of his arms as they circled around me. Large, warm hands traveled up and down my back, cupping my ass, tracing my spine. His body met mine, soft against hard, and I was melting against him.

  He pulled away for a moment, cradling my head in his hand. His eyes, desire-drugged, explored my face, as though looking for something there. "You make me forget myself, Felicia," he whispered.

  "Oh," I said. Inexplicably, tears stung my eyes, but he was already kissing me again, obscuring whatever sweet, soft revelation I was about to uncover with the magic of his touch, and I closed my eyes.

  His body moved against mine and he broke away again, planting kisses against my throat, his hands smoothing over my breasts, circling my ribcage, as if he could hold all of me in the palms of his hands. My own fingers tangled in his rich, dark hair, and I couldn't help but sigh as he lowered himself to the floor, kneeling before me.

  I was wearing a skirt again, a heavy wool thing, and again I wore no panties. I was so thoroughly his that I didn't even think about it now. I was so trained to want his touch that I almost never wore jeans any more. The realization sent a tiny spark of apprehension through me, but then Anton ran his fingertips lightly up the backs of my thighs and I pushed it away, unwilling to examine it.

  Slowly, he lifted the hem of my skirt and planted a warm, chaste kiss on my mound, letting the skirt fall over his head as he moved his hands to my ass cheeks and began to massage them in an insistent rhythm. The rhythm of sex, of thrusting. I moaned as his tongue escaped his mouth and dipped into the delta of my thighs, hot and wet against the nub of my clit. He took up a soft, relentless pattern, thrusting his tongue over my clit where it hid, mashed between my closed legs, until my knees weakened and I parted for him.

  Pressure on my hips had me backing up into his desk, and he lifted me up until I sat on the edge. Parting my thighs with the palms of his hands, he exposed me to the cool air, my soaking pussy quivering with the sudden change in temperature.

  "Lean back," he instructed. I did so, placing my palms flat on the desk behind me as he spread the lips of my pussy with one hand.

  I watched as he studied my inner folds, almost clinically, but the darkening of his eyes told me all I needed to know. If I reached one foot down, I would find an erection as hard as a rock in his trousers.

  "You are beautiful," he said then, breaking the tense anticipation of the moment. Placing one long, lean finger on my clit, he traced small, slow circles around it with the tip. Each stroke sent a shudder through my body, and I couldn't resist. I was putty in his hands. Throwing my head back, I let him circle, circle, circle me, commanding my pleasure with a single point of contact. I sighed and moaned, spread out on his desk like a banquet, until his tiny, sweet, merciless circles spiraled out, out along my limbs, curling in my belly, and I came in small, short bursts.

  He stood, undoing his trousers with a practiced motion, then reached up and helped me out of my skirt, letting it fall to the floor as he inched my shirt up over my stomach until it bunched beneath my breasts.

  “Lie back,” he said, and I did. Defying him didn't even cross my mind now. All I wanted was pleasure—his and mine. His hands circled my ankles and brought my legs up, perpendicular to my torso, and pressed them together so my pussy was open and exposed to him. Languid and content, I lay on the desk as he coated his cock in my slippery juices, preparing myself for entry.

  But he didn't enter me. Instead he slid his cock between my legs, letting it glide against my sensitive clit, and began to fuck my thighs. His arms wrapped around my knees like iron, and I gripped his desk as he pleasured himself with my body. The soft head of his dick slipped against my clit over and over again, my world narrowing to the point between my legs. His belt buckle slapped against my ass with each thrust, and I writhed, aching for him to fill me. He was like a drug. I was an addict.

  Then he stuttered in his stroke and grunted, thrusting harder. Warm cum spurted from his cock in quick, short bursts, spattering up my stomach, marking me as his. I wiggled, needing completion, and without comment he reached down and plunged a finger into my pussy, pumping me hard and fast as his cum cooled on my skin, his cock still rigid and hard on my clit.

  I strained and arched, and within moments I was coming a second time, the world melting around me, my body melding with his.

  When I was finished, he lowered my shirt down over his cum and plastered it to me. He helped me to my feet and steadied me as I worked my skirt back up over my trembling legs. I closed my leather jacket around my upper body and tied it in place so no one would see the stain on my shirt. Anton kissed me again before releasing me.

  "I'm sorry, Felicia," he said. "I will be more mindful in the future. In the meantime, I'm betting you should update that blog of yours and tell all. I wouldn't be surprised if you made some sales out of this."

  Why was everyone concerned about my sales? I hadn't put hand to clay in almost two weeks and I was married to one of the richest men in the world. I didn't need to agonize over my art any longer. And I didn't have any ideas anyway. Anton had anesthetized the turmoil inside me. There was nothing for me to say at the moment.

  I nodded and gave him a smile. "All right," I said. "I'll do my best."

  He showed me to the door, gave me another kiss, and I left. I held my head high the whole way home.

  *

  Anton wasn't home yet when my mother came barging into the second floor reading room where I was camping out with a fire, a blanket I'd liberated from my still-packed things, and a mug of Irish coffee while I scrolled through my emails and texts from all my friends. Contrary to my fears, very few people I knew seemed to have lowered their opinions of me. Most of my art friends expressed envy at the publicity, and my former coworkers at the bar were mostly surprised that I was so kinky. I didn't bother to correct them, because as far as I knew I had always been kinky, I just hadn't known it.

  I looked up when my mother entered the room, her feet meeting the floorboards as
though she held a personal grudge against trees. "Felicia!" she exclaimed when she saw me curled up in an armchair. "Felicia, what are you thinking?"

  The whiskey in my coffee was making me feel quite good, so I smiled at her instead of shying away. "I'm thinking I should get another cup of coffee," I said.

  She stared at me, dismayed. "Felicia," she said again, "you are on display all over the internet and on the newsstands. Everyone is peering into your most intimate moments with your husband. Your husband is treating you without respect. Did you know he was into this sort of... perverted sex play before you married him?"

  Well, I had signed a prenup that had explicitly detailed all of Anton's favorite kinks, so technically I suppose I had known. "Yes," I told her.

  She threw her hands in the air and collapsed in the armchair across from me. "Really?" she said.

  I nodded.

  She put a hand to her eyes and shook her head. "I can't believe this is happening."

  Annoyance ran through me. "Why?" I said. "Because it makes you look bad to all your country club friends?"

  She glared at me. "You know that is not true, Felicia. You know I have only wanted you to be happy. I have only ever wanted you to find love with a good man."

  I sighed. For all her faults, I knew this was true. She really did want me to be happy. She just... didn't realize that people could be happy in different ways. Was I happy now? I didn't know, exactly. I was, at the very least, content to see where this hedonistic relationship could go. And if I wanted to end it in the future, I could. But I could lean on Anton. I could depend on him. And, weird as it sounded, I trusted him. I'd trusted him since I'd first read through his contract. A man so open and forthright with what he wanted and what he wished to do to me... it was refreshing. No surprises with Anton.

  Well, none except the small vulnerabilities he let me see, sometimes inadvertently. All things considered, arranged marriages could go a lot worse. A lot worse.