BILLIONAIRE ROMANCE: The Unforgettable Southern Billionaires: The Complete Collection Boxed Set (Young Adult Rich Alpha Male Billionaire Romance)

by Walker, Violet

  The man in the hoodie was lying on the hard concrete. He moved weakly.

  “He’ll be fine,” Daiki said quietly. I turned just in time to see his wings collapse into his back and disappear. Now he just looked like an ordinary, extremely beautiful man, but the image of those wings was burned into my mind. “Broken ankle, at the worst.”

  I realized that he wasn’t wearing a shirt. The soft curves of his stomach muscles gleamed with a light layer of sweat. His skin was a warm, brown color that made me think of caramel milkshakes and butterscotch candy. That thought led me to thoughts of running my tongue over those muscles. I tore my eyes away from his amazing body and glared at his face.

  “Two muggings!” I shouted, making him jump. “And a home invasion. In three days. Is this the worst neighborhood in Manhattan or am I just unbelievably lucky?”

  Daiki ran a hand over his hair. It took every ounce of willpower I had not to watch the way his pectorals shifted when he raised his hand. “It’s actually pretty safe by New York standards,” Daiki said. “Although I’ve noticed that it’s been getting worse recently.”

  “You have wings,”

  He grimaced. “I – no?” He must have seen how unimpressed I was with that remark, because his shoulders slumped. “Yes,” he muttered.

  I nodded. “Why?”

  “I’d rather not say,”

  I growled at him. Despite the impressive muscles on display he seemed to be a little worried that I was going to attack him. I still had the pepper spray in my hand, and I was seriously considering using it. “Why were you outside my apartment?” I asked.

  Daiki chewed his lip and crossed his arms over his chest. “Why were you walking down dark alleys all evening?”

  “Were you following me?”

  “Were you trying to get yourself killed?”

  I raised the pepper spray and, instead of spraying him with it, whacked him over the head with the canister.

  “Ow!” he said, grabbing my wrist before I could reach back and hit him again. I kicked him in the shin as we wrestled over the spray, and he let out a more urgent “Ow!” before pulling the spray out of my hand. Once I was disarmed, he took a big step back.

  “You were stalking me!” I said.

  “I wasn’t stalking,” Daiki said, raising his hands in surrender. “I promise, I was just – well, I was worried. About what you would do,”

  “What I would do?”

  “No one is supposed to know about me,” he replied quickly. “I just needed to know that our secret is safe. There are people out there who could hurt us.”

  “Us,” I said. “Your grandfather? He’s like you?” He hesitated, before nodding grimly. I felt the anger melt out of my body as I considered the adorably accommodating man who’d taught me how to use chopsticks. I stepped forward, raising my hands to mimic his stance. “I promise,” I said, in my most sincere voice. “I will not do anything to get you or your grandfather hurt.”

  He scanned my face, looking for a lie. Eventually he seemed to relax. “Okay,” he said finally. “Thank you,”

  “Would you like some coffee?” I asked.

  He blinked. He looked surprised. “Sure,” he said.

  I led him into the kitchen where I’d set up a kettle and microwave the day I’d arrived in New York. I hadn’t had much of a chance to use them. I filled the kettle and switched it on, busying myself with the mugs and coffee pot while Daiki stood awkwardly next to the counter. I kept expecting him to sprout those massive black wings and take flight from my living room window.

  “Sorry I don’t have any chairs,” I said. “I haven’t had the chance to go shopping.”

  “How long have you been in town?”

  “Three days,”

  His eyebrows flew up into his hairline. “You’re having a bad week,”

  I laughed at him. “You’re telling me,” I said. I liked that he could joke about it. It made me feel better about everything. “My parents begged me not to move here.”

  The kettle whistled and I poured two cups of coffee. We both took it black. I tried not to read anything into that. We sipped in uncomfortable silence for a moment, before the tension became unbearable and I blurted out: “Are you a dragon?”

  Daiki blinked slowly. He looked like he was doing some quick thinking. “Why do you ask?” he asked.

  That may as well have been a confirmation. I sighed and set my mug down. My bag was on the ground next to the door – I had dropped it when Daiki had flown into the room. I closed the door, which was still open, and squatted down to shuffle through my bag for the blog post Terry had showed me. Once I found it, I handed it to Daiki.

  When he saw the paper, his eyes went dark. “She said that she deleted it,” he said.

  “You’re the dragon ex-boyfriend?”

  I yelped and jumped backwards as his hand burst into flame, engulfing the paper in an instant. He dropped it into the sink and cast me an apologetic look. “Sorry,” he said. “My temper got the better of me. That can happen sometimes.”

  “Because you’re a dragon,”

  “I’m a shifter,” Daiki said. “Humans got the idea of dragons from shifters.”

  I nodded slowly. I wasn’t sure whether to be happy that I was right, mystified at the idea that dragons are real, or horrified that there was a live dragon in my kitchen. The conflicting emotions must have shown on my face, because he pursed his lips and stared down at his shoes.

  “Sorry,” he said again. “I know it’s a lot to take in,”

  “No, it’s – it’s fine,” I said. “I’m just… dragons are real,” I ended lamely.

  “Dragons are real,” he agreed. He took another gulp of coffee and set his mug down. “It’s not common knowledge. I’ll tell you what you want to know – just, please, I wasn’t lying when I said that there are people who could hurt us. I can fight, but Oji-san shouldn’t. He’d be a sitting duck if they found us.”

  “I already promised I wouldn’t,” I said, squashing the surge of warmth in my belly at how protective Daiki was of his grandfather. Of course, I reminded myself, Daiki had been running around the neighborhood defending people from muggers and home invaders. Protecting people seemed to be what he did best.

  Daiki took a deep breath. “We’re a breed of shifter,” he said. “Our kind used to be able to turn into lizards – like the myths – but that got bred out when we started marrying humans. Now, most of my kind can only make fire. Some can manifest wings.”

  “Like you,”

  He nodded. “Both of my parents were shifters, I’ve got good genes.”

  “What happened to them?”

  His eyes went dark again, like they had when I’d shown him the blog post. I glanced warily at his hands but he seemed to have himself under control. “They were murdered. By hunters,”

  “Dragon hunters?”

  “Hunters will kill anything, as long as it’s not human,” Daiki said. “There are other kinds of shifters, though. My parents were killed in Japan, so Oji-san brought me to America to hide. He raised me in Chicago, but – well, I made a mistake.”

  “Your ex?” I asked.

  He nodded grimly. “I shouldn’t have told her, but – well, I was young and stupid. She dumped me and wrote that blog. Hunters read it. Oji-san and I only just got away.” Daiki paused. “I don’t think he’s forgiven me for that. After what happened to my parents. What I did was careless.”

  The blog post had said that they had only dated a few months before he’d told her what he was. He must have really trusted her, I thought. Or maybe he was just a hopeless romantic. Someone with such a capacity for love and affection shouldn’t have to feel insecure about trusting someone with his secrets.

  “Trusting someone isn’t careless,” I said. “It’s human,”

  Daiki raised an eyebrow at me. “I’m not human,”

  I rolled my eyes at him. “It’s a figure of speech, doofus,” He smiled. It made him so much more beautiful. “Why do you do it, then? Fi
ghting muggers, saving people?”

  He frowned. “A friend of mine was killed in a mugging a few years ago. She worked at the restaurant.”

  “Can I see your fire again?” I asked suddenly.

  He blinked at that question. “I thought I’d scared you,” he said, waving his hand vaguely towards the sink and the smoldering ashes of the printed blog post.

  “You startled me,” I said. “I wasn’t expecting spontaneous combustion.”

  “It scared her,” he muttered.

  That thought set my teeth on edge. I didn’t like the idea of some woman – some foolish woman with a truly awful screen name – making this beautiful man so shy about what he could do. I set my mug down and stepped forward. We were so close that, if I wanted to, I could reach out and run a hand over his naked chest. He hesitated before raising his hand between us and creating a ball of flame in his palm. It was shaped like a tennis ball and bathed me in a pleasant glow of warmth.

  I glanced up to see him staring at me. The moment stretched between us. I looked back down at his hand and, slowly, I placed my hand under his. His skin was pleasantly hot. I felt the jolt of electricity run through my arm again. We both gasped.

  “What is that?”

  “It’s an empathetic reaction,” he said. “Some humans will feel it when they touch a shifter.”

  “It didn’t happen when I shook Ichiru’s hand,” I said. Daiki didn’t answer me. “Can I paint you?” I asked.

  He closed his hand and the ball of flame disappeared. I felt strangely bereft. “Why would you want to do that?” he asked.

  My throat felt dry. I ran my tongue over my bottom lip and felt a twinge of pride when his eyes followed it. “Because you’re beautiful,” I said. “I like painting beautiful people,”

  “I’m not a person,” he said hoarsely.

  “Beautiful shifters, then,” I said. I wanted to track down everyone who had ever made him feel bad about what he was and smack them in the face.

  He blinked slowly, running his eyes over my face and down my arms to our joined hands. “Okay,” he said finally. “You can paint me if you want – just not my face.”

  I took his hand and led him through the apartment and into my bedroom. The canvas was still set up where I’d left it. I got him to stand by my bed where the street lights poured through the window, casting him in a dirty yellow glow.

  “Can I see your wings?” I asked.

  He didn’t answer. He just paused for a moment, and then the leathery black shapes curled out from his back. They unfurled enough to take up most of the room. I stared for a moment as the sheer magnitude of what I was seeing finally sunk in. Daiki wasn’t human. He had wings and he could make fire with his hands. He was the most amazing thing I’d ever seen.

  I gestured for him to turn around. “I’ll paint your back first,” I said when I saw the way the black leather blended seamlessly into tanned skin. He nodded without speaking. I stepped behind the canvas and picked up my charcoal. I traced the arch of his back with my eyes before I began drawing.

  I felt a hot, burning ache in my lower belly as I stared at him, wondering what an ‘empathetic reaction’ really meant and why he was affecting me like this. No man had ever affected me like this. I wanted to run my hands all over him and learn every dip and curve of his skin. I wanted to memorize the way he looked in the morning, in the afternoon, in the throes of passion. I wanted him. Badly.

  I’d finished the outline by the time my resolve broke. I set the charcoal down firmly and stepped around the canvas. Daiki cocked his head when he heard me coming, but he didn’t move or turn around. I wondered if that counted as consent.

  I reached out hesitantly and ran my hand over the space between his wings. His skin burned and shuddered beneath my touch.

  “Sorry –”

  “It’s okay,” he said quickly.

  How long had it been since he’d let someone touch him like this? I ran my hand over his back again, more firmly this time. He didn’t react, but I felt the tense muscles; he felt like a coiled spring on the brink of snapping. I considered what it would take to make him snap.

  My hands trailed the top of his trousers. Daiki didn’t react. I stepped forward until my chest was pressed against his back and my arms could snake around to stroke his stomach muscles. The jolt of electricity that I felt whenever our skin touched had turned into a gentle hum. His breath hitched; he turned in my arms until we were chest to chest. His eyes lingered over my face.

  “Can I kiss you?” he asked.

  My heart was thudding so loudly that I was sure that he could hear it. I nodded and he raised a hand to gently tuck a lock of hair behind my ear, stroking it lightly, and then cupped my cheek. I could feel the heat coming off his skin in waves. I leant into it, my eyes falling closed, as our lips brushed together.

  His breathing was as ragged as mine and there was an unbearable sweetness in his mouth beneath the lingering taste of coffee. It was both relaxing and intoxicating. I changed the slant of my lips and Daiki shuddered against me, a pleased, breathy moan escaping him.

  Daiki pulled me closer, angling his chin for a deeper kiss. I felt the heat building in my lower belly as I melted against him. I was surprised when a gasp escaped my lips. My knees buckled. He scooped me up and laid me down on the bed. I’d had experience with high-school boyfriends, but nothing could compare to how safe I felt with Daiki leaning over me. I wanted to press myself against him, faster and harder, and at the same time I never wanted this to end. Groaning happily, I wrapped my arms around him, my hands sliding into his soft, sweet-smelling hair, keeping him close.

  I matched him kiss for kiss. They went from slow, to deep, to devouring. Daiki bit my lip softly and my back arched in response. My chest, hips and belly pressed against him. I felt a hard bulge in his pants and felt a surge of pleasure at the thought that he was just as affected by the kiss as I was.

  Daiki’s wings arched and curled in on themselves as he ran his hands over my shirt. His touch was just this side of burning. I thought that it should have been frightening – I didn’t know how much control he had over his powers when he was like this – but really, all I felt was excited. The electricity running between us tasted of anticipation. I ran my hands down his chest and he growled his approval. He ran his hands over my legs to cup my hips, then lifted the edge of my shirt. Our kiss slowed and intensified. My body was reacting so powerfully that I would have pulled away and taken moment to breathe, to think about how fast this was going, if I hadn’t been so intent on feeling.

  The heat building in my belly travelled lower. As Daiki ran his fingers gently over the skin of my lower belly, I began trembling even more, and when he pushed my shirt up to expose my ribs and brush just under the curve of my breasts, a longing gasp tore out of my throat. Daiki grabbed my hip with his free hand and held on tight, pressing down on me with the bulging hardness between his own legs.

  I arched again. I let my head fall back, the kiss finally breaking, and looked up to see Daiki holding himself above me. One hand on my breast, one on my hip. His eyes glowed with golden light as he ground down into me. The angle of his thrusts, the pressure and the weight of him, his wings beating gently above us, and the way he looked on the verge of losing control, sent a final bolt of electricity through my groin.

  My hips bucked against his restraining hands. I shook in his arms, crying out sharply against his mouth, and I leant up to bury my face in his neck as my body shook with the force of my orgasm. He gasped and shivered against me, reaching around to crush me to his chest as I quivered and curled around him. He pressed heated kisses against my neck.

  “Did you just…?” he asked.

  “Sorry,” I said, my face going red. “That’s, uh, never happened to me before.” I kept my face pressed into his neck so that he wouldn’t see me.

  He groaned and pulled me closer. “Don’t ever apologize,” he said. “Not for that,” His hoarse voice was tinged with awe.

  I wrapped
my legs tightly around his hips and rolled us both so that I was above him. His wings bent awkwardly and for a moment I thought he might be in pain, but he shifted and leant forward so that they were laid out on the blanket. Daiki let out a moan as I pulled my shirt off, running his eyes over my body as if he wanted to memorize me. I could sympathize with the desire. I slid down to kneel next to the bed, taking a moment to make eye contact with Daiki. I ran my hand over the bulge in his pants to make my intentions clear. His eyes flashed gold again, and he inhaled sharply.

  Opening his fly with trembling fingers, I cast my mind back to all the times Annabeth Casey had regaled me with stories about the blowjobs she’d given to her boyfriends. I’d never really liked doing it before. But now, with Daiki laying shirtless and half undone on my bed, I couldn’t think of anything I would like better. My hand dipped inside in pants and glided over the hard flesh. Daiki’s head was tipped back and his throat worked quickly, his red lips slightly parted. His hips shifted slightly, pressing his penis into my hand.

  I matched my movements to the speed of Daiki’s gasps, thinking that nothing had ever felt quite so good as seeing him like that – of knowing that I was responsible for his pleasure. I pulled his pants down his hips, exposing the pink head of his penis to the chilly night air; proud and strong and so much bigger than I had imagined it. I moved down to take the head into my mouth. Daiki cried out and came. I pulled away in time to avoid catching any semen in my mouth. Instead, it splashed onto his stomach.

  “Sorry,” he said after a pause, but he didn’t look it. His head rolled backwards as his entire body relaxed. “It’s been a while.”

  I wanted to ask how long, but instead I crawled up to kiss him sweetly on the lips. “Don’t ever apologize,” I said. “Not for that,”

  He snorted at me. “Bathroom?” he asked, gesturing at the quickly cooling liquid on his stomach. I pointed at the ensuite and watched as he sat up and drew his wings back into his body.

  Watching him walk to the bathroom, I rolled over and put my shirt back on. When I heard the faucet running, the weight of what I had just done hit me. That was further than I’d ever gone with a man so soon after meeting him. I couldn’t regret it, but I also couldn’t help the ripple of worry rolling through my body. Did Daiki think that I did this all the time? Did he think I was easy? Would he think that I didn’t want a relationship? Did I want a relationship?