The Billionaire's Embrace (The Silver Cross Club)

by Bec Linder

  “That sounds nice,” I said. Maybe we could find a corner to hide in.

  He led me through the crowds, moving confidently into the sea of people. As we passed, I heard murmurs from other guests. Even among these people, all of them wealthy and powerful in their own right, Carter was worthy of notice.

  Scraps of conversation reached my ears. Everyone was talking about Carter. And, I realized to my horror, about me. “Shade of yellow,” someone said, and, “That dress.”

  “How sweet,” I heard someone say, “he brought the help.”

  My face flamed. Of course that was what they thought about me.

  And, in a way, I was. I didn’t clean his house or cook his food, but we didn’t meet at the gym or a coffee shop, or a society function or a country club. We met because I served him a drink.

  “Carter, my boy,” a voice boomed, and I looked up—and up—to see a tall man with a huge belly beaming down at us.

  “Frederick, how are you?” Carter ask, and they vigorously shook hands. “I have to go speak with Cortland, but let’s get together soon to talk about that merger. I’ll be in touch.”

  “Yes, wonderful,” the man bellowed, and Carter steered me away into the crowd.

  “See? You didn’t even have to talk to him,” he murmured in my ear, and I placed my hand over his and squeezed it gratefully.

  “Who’s Cortland?” I asked.

  He grinned. “My mother’s dog, circa 2003.”

  That happened three more times—people speaking to Carter, who gave them a polite brush-off and kept moving—before he got cornered by an older woman, probably his mother’s age, who seized him and said, “Carter Sutton, you are a terrible creature for not telling me you would be here tonight!”

  Carter kissed her cheek. “Mrs. Chanler, it must have slipped my mind,” he said. “How are you? How’s Delilah?”

  “Gorgeous and still single,” the woman said, eyeing me. “Although I take it you’ve been snapped up already.”

  “Mrs. Chanler, this is Regan Cabatu,” Carter said, drawing me forward.

  I didn’t try to shake the woman’s hand. I gave her a polite smile. “It’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance,” I said.

  Her mouth pursed like she had tasted something sour. “Yes, quite,” she said, and turned back to Carter. “So, tell me, how is your mother?”

  Just like that, she neatly cut me out of their conversation. I stood at Carter’s side, feeling awkward and wishing I could go hide behind the drapes. Carter kept inhaling and saying, “Well,” clearly trying to make his excuses and escape, but Mrs. Chanler wouldn’t let him get a word in edgewise. She went on and on about her daughter and her dogs and her tennis lessons, until I felt like screaming.

  Someone cleared their throat behind me. I turned to see two women, probably about my age, standing there sizing me up. One of them, a tall blond, gave me a frosty smile.

  I knew that look: like a dog pissing to mark its territory.

  “You must be the reason Carter hasn’t been returning my calls,” the woman said. She looked me up and down. “What is it that you do?”

  In for a penny. I refused to be ashamed. “I’m a cocktail waitress,” I said.

  The woman exchanged a glance with her friend. “How... interesting.”

  “What do you do?” I asked.

  The woman laughed, a light, tinkling sound. “I don’t ‘do’ anything. Only the lower classes work to earn their keep.”

  I stared at her. Was she serious? The lower classes? Were we in a Charles Dickens novel?

  Unexpected rage filled me. I hated these people, with their galas and their art openings and their money they wasted on haute couture and pampered little dogs. They all thought they were better than me just because they were born with silver spoons in their mouths. I said, “I’m glad to see you’re doing your part to parasitize the global economy,” and turned my back on the both of them.

  I heard shocked gasps behind me, but I ignored them. What were they going to do? Have me thrown out? Tell Carter I had been rude to them? Somehow I got the feeling he wouldn’t care.

  He finally managed to extricate himself from Mrs. Chanler, and we moved on through the crowd. He said, “I saw you talking to Juliette. I hope she didn’t say anything horrible. She’s an awful person.”

  “She said you aren’t returning her phone calls,” I said.

  He rolled his eyes. “Yes, because I hate her. She makes my skin crawl.”

  That made me feel a little better—that the woman hadn’t been rude to me because of anything about me, but just because she was an odious human being. “She seemed a little, um.”

  “Awful?” Carter asked. “I hate coming to these things. Poor Regan. I shouldn’t have asked you to suffer with me.” He looked around the room, scanning for something, and then said, “Let’s stuff our faces with hors d’oeuvres and then get out of here. Do you want to?”

  “God yes,” I said, and he laughed.

  We waded back out of the crowd and found a quiet spot against one wall. Carter told me to stay put and wandered off, and came back with two small plates loaded with hors d’oeuvres: bacon-wrapped asparagus, bruschetta, crab canapes. I’d eaten dinner before Carter picked me up, but I wasn’t about to turn down free food. That was one of the first things you learned when you were poor: if it was free, put as much of it in your stomach as you possibly could.

  We ate, and listened to the music, and then Carter said, “Have I told you how incredible you look in that dress? Because you look incredible.”

  I smiled at him. “I liked Betty. She was really nice to me.”

  “She’s a peach, but I don’t want to talk about Betty right now.” He ran one hand down my bare back, from my shoulder to my hip, and I leaned into his touch. “I want to talk about getting you home and into my bed.”

  Oh. I nearly choked on my canape, and looked around to make sure nobody was in earshot. But we were alone, and Carter’s gaze was hot and dark, and I felt myself responding to him, just like I always did. “That sounds, um. Way better than staying here.”

  He slid his hand down even further, until he was cupping the curve of my ass. “I’ll go get our coats.”

  Chapter 8

  We stumbled into Carter’s apartment, laughing and kissing, Carter’s hands on my hips. “Where should I have you,” he asked me between kisses, “the sofa? The dining table? The living room floor?”

  “What’s wrong with the bedroom?” I asked, fumbling with his bow tie.

  “Ah, a traditionalist,” he said. “If you prefer the bedroom, the bedroom it shall be.” He unzipped my dress and slid it to the floor, and then stopped, confounded by my shape-wear.

  I laughed at his expression. “You have to go in the bedroom and wait for me,” I said. “Taking this stuff off is really undignified.”

  “Whatever the lady wants,” he said. He winked at me and strolled down the hallway toward the bedroom.

  Alone, I peeled down the shape-wear and worked to ease it over my hips. Betty had said it was absolutely necessary to preserve the line of the dress, but in retrospect, I should have just worn a slip. It would have been easier to take off, and I needed to be naked now.

  Carter always did this to me. One touch, and my body went from zero to sixty. It would have been a little terrifying it if weren’t so incendiary.

  I wasn’t wearing any underpants beneath the shape-wear, and when I finally struggled out of it, the cool air of the apartment felt refreshing against the overheated flesh between my legs. I was already swollen with desire just from making out with him in the car. A few kisses, and I was desperate for more.

  Still wearing my heels, I walked down the hallway toward Carter’s bedroom. I probably looked ridiculous, strutting around in high heels and no clothes, but I thought Carter would like it, and that was the only thing that mattered. I stopped in the doorway and struck a pose, one arm over my head.

  Carter was shirtless and unzipping his trousers, but he paused with
his hands on his fly and gazed at me. I felt pretty foolish, but I held my pose, and the heat in his eyes made my mouth go dry. Whatever I thought about myself, he found me desirable. It made me feel powerful, that I could make a man like Carter look at me like that.

  “You need to come over here right now,” he said, and shoved his pants down over his hips.

  He was wearing his usual black boxer-briefs underneath, and I let myself stare at his strong thighs, his ass, the heavy bulge of his erection. Most of the time, he was so well-dressed and civilized, all buttoned-up and tidy, and it was easy to forget what lay beneath all of that, that under the clothing and the polished manners, Carter was a man, and he was used to getting what he wanted.

  And what he wanted, right now, was me.

  I crossed the floor and stood in front of him, skin prickling, nipples hard. Even with my heels on, he was still tall enough that I felt small and delicate beside him. And I liked that feeling, like he would protect me from all the dark things in the world, the monsters in the closet, the wolves in the forest. He slid his hands down my bare back and over the curve of my ass, and squeezed gently.

  “How much do you trust me?” he asked.

  What a loaded question. Did he want me to give him an exact amount? A percentage? “I trust you,” I said, hedging my bets.

  He grinned. “That’s a non-answer. You’d do well in the boardroom.” He moved one hand lower, sliding between my legs, dipping into my wet slit and teasing at me. “You can use your safeword.”

  “I know,” I said. Of course I did. I didn’t think there was any way that I could forget it.

  “Will you use it if you need to?” he pressed, fingers rubbing my clit, making my breath catch in my throat like a fish-hook.

  “I’ll use it,” I said.

  “That’s right,” he said. “You will, won’t you?” Our eyes caught, and the memory of the last time I’d used my safeword passed between us, a little painful, but it had turned out okay. He smiled, a wry twist of his mouth, and pushed his fingers into me, a sudden thrust, pressing me open.

  I arched my back, sinking deeper onto his fingers, welcoming the intrusion. The alchemy of our bodies created fire between us, just like always, turning all of my molecules into gold. I felt hot and open around him, aching, wanting more but not yet, wanting to relish what I had now. It was already so good that wanting anything more would be greedy. Well, I was greedy. I wanted everything that Carter could give me, all at once, no holding back.

  “You’re so beautiful,” he murmured, mouthing at my neck, the soft skin behind my ear. He slid his other arm around my lower back, holding me close against him, and I wrapped my arms around his shoulders, clinging to him, relying on him to hold me up while he slowly made all of my muscles liquefy. My knees wobbled, my thighs quivered, and I would have melted to the floor if he wasn’t holding me up. I throbbed and burned, speared on his fingers, wanting him. I wanted him all the time, day and night, every moment of my life, even when he held me so close that we breathed into each other’s mouths.

  “I’m going to make you come like this,” he said. “You have to hold on. Can you do that for me? Don’t let go.”

  “I won’t,” I said, already breathless, so hot and bothered that it was hard to make sense of his words.

  “You wouldn’t want to disappoint me,” he said.

  I opened my mouth to respond, and then he twisted his fingers and erased every thought from my mind. He sunk his fingers deeper into me, thrusting in until his palm rested firmly against my pubic bone. His hand ground against my clit, a steady pressure that made my head spin. He seemed to know everything about my body, every way to touch me that would make my nerves light up.

  He curled his fingers inside me, pushing firmly and rhythmically against something that made me feel like there was a rubber band being stretched taut behind my navel. I clung to his shoulders, breathing in shallow pants, feeling myself start to lose control. It was a long, slow slide down into the deep place where I stopped caring about anything but the way Carter made my body feel.

  I couldn’t move much or get any leverage, not and stay balanced in my shoes, and so Carter had me completely at his mercy. He took full advantage, teasing me relentlessly, rubbing his thumb over my clit in strokes that were too slow to be anything but deliberate torment. He kissed me and murmured things about how I was sexy and beautiful and perfect, but he wouldn’t move faster and give me the relief I needed.

  It was maddening. I was tight as a bow, pinned between Carter’s mouth and his hand. I needed more friction, more movement, but I couldn’t lift up onto my toes to ride his fingers because I was already balanced on the balls of my feet. I was trapped, exactly where he wanted me.

  And then, after an endless, molten span of time, he pulled away.

  I clung to him, knees buckling, and he held me up with his arm firm around my waist and said, “You’re a mess, sweetheart. You’ve had enough already?”

  “No,” I said, because I wanted more, but then I said, “Yes,” because I’d had plenty of his teasing.

  He chuckled and said, “Well, that’s clear.”

  I wanted to explain what I meant, but I couldn’t think of the right words. I let my body speak for me, and pressed my hips against his in a silent plea.

  “So impatient,” he said. “You know I always take care of you.” He slid his hand back between my legs and pressed his fingers into me again, but then drew them out and slid further back until his fingertips teased at the furled opening of my ass.

  I went rigid, every muscle clenching in tandem. Was he really going to—

  “Breathe,” he said. “I’ll stop if you don’t like it. But I think you might like it.”

  I exhaled, and nodded slowly. This must be why he had asked me how much I trusted him. Well, I did trust him: enough to try it, enough to believe that he would stop if I asked him to.

  He spent several minutes doing nothing but rubbing gently at my opening, getting me used to the idea. As he kept going, I gradually relaxed, and started focusing on how my body felt. It was—strange, but not bad. Not bad at all, really. I was sensitive and swollen, and every movement of Carter’s fingers sent waves of pleasure rolling through my lower body, like a flooding river rising and threatening to overflow its banks.

  “There you are,” he said, and slowly, slowly, pushed one finger inside me, slick with my own arousal.

  I expected it to hurt, but it didn’t. It just felt really strange, an odd stretch where I never expected to feel one. I frowned and moved my hips, trying to decide how I felt about the intrusion.

  “Hurts?” Carter asked.

  “No,” I said, still frowning. “Just—weird.”

  “I can stop,” he said, leaning in to kiss my cheek.

  “No, not yet,” I said, blushing furiously. “I’m—I want to try it.” It was embarrassing to admit: that I wasn’t totally repulsed by what he was doing, that I wanted to keep going and see what happened.

  “Good girl,” he breathed, and his approval eased my embarrassment. If Carter liked it, if he wanted to do this, why should I feel ashamed?

  He pressed his finger fully into me and paused for a few moments, letting me adjust. I took a shaky breath and nodded at him, and he withdrew his finger slightly and pushed back in. God, it felt so strange, but there was something about it, the stretch and the glide, that made me want more.

  “Another one?” Carter asked, and I bit my lip and nodded.

  With two fingers, I was split open, helpless. I opened my mouth to tell him to stop, that it was too much, but what came out instead was a moan.

  “That’s right,” Carter said. “You like that, don’t you, sweetheart? I had a feeling you would.” He pulled his fingers all the way out, and then slid them in again, twisting as he went, and I dug my fingers into his shoulders and focused on keeping my breathing steady.

  It was almost too much. The fullness, the not-quite-painful stretch, the feeling of absolute vulnerability—it was
almost enough that I wanted to pull away and go back to having normal sex, something familiar that I understood and didn’t make me feel so overwhelmed. But I didn’t. There was something about it that made me want to keep going.

  Carter said, “Take a deep breath,” and as soon as I did, he added a third finger. I heard myself make a high-pitched sound, and he said, “It’s okay, breathe through it,” and I tried to, filling my lungs with air and letting it out again, and after I did that a few times, I felt my body opening around him, and then it was okay.

  Nothing we had done so far had prepared me for this, for feeling like my skin was too tight, like I was about to burst out of myself and disintegrate into a million pieces.

  I was so wet between my legs that I could feel my arousal sliding down my thighs.

  “Shh, you’re doing fine,” Carter said. I wasn’t sure why he was telling me to hush, but I closed my eyes and breathed, and waited for what would happen next.

  What happened was that he slid his fingers out of me, leaving me achingly empty. I made a protesting noise, and he laughed softly. His other arm stayed where it was, snug around my waist, holding me up. “You’d better take off those shoes now, sweetheart,” he said.

  Legs trembling, I stepped out of my shoes and planted my feet on the carpet. Carter was suddenly several inches taller than me, and I leaned my forehead against the center of his chest, wanting that comfort. He ran his hand up and down my back, soothing me, bringing me back down to earth.

  “Are you okay? Should we stop?” he asked.

  I shook my head mutely, rolling my forehead against his bare chest.

  “Then you’re going to do exactly what I say,” he said, and I shivered at the commanding note in his voice.

  And then he bent and lifted me into his arms and carried me over to the bed. He tossed me down onto the mattress, not gently, and climbed onto the bed beside me. He pulled me on top of him, positioning me so that I straddled his hips, his cock nestled hot and hard between the cheeks of my ass. “Do you want to be on top, little girl? You can pretend you’re in charge, for once. See if you can make yourself scream.”