"Tell me his name, baby. That fucker should die for hurting you."
She stared at him, even as more tears blurred her vision. "You can't kill him, Jason. You can't!"
"Oh, not me. I know people, that's all. People who hate rapists even more than I do. People who'll pay him a visit and make him just disappear, so he'll never, ever bother you again." He looked like he meant it, too.
"He won't. He'll never find me. I'm safe now with you." The tighter she held Jason, the more she believed it. Had to believe it.
Gently, he stroked her hair. "You sure are, baby. I swear I'll never let anyone hurt you. Especially not me. And this sex thing?" He cupped her chin and stared into her eyes. "We'll work it out. When you're ready for me to do things to your body that'll blow your mind, you tell me, and we'll take it slow. But not until you're ready."
Privately, Phuong thought she soon would be. If he asked her now, she'd say yes. But she didn't tell him yet. For the moment, she just wanted to stay secure in his arms.
FORTY-EIGHT
The next day, four hundred and eighty-three kisses later – not that he was counting or anything – Jason reluctantly left Phuong watching TV so he could look through the email Xan had sent, detailing her plans for his resort. Bad news first – he clicked on the half-yearly financial report, knowing it couldn't be good.
Columns of numbers filled his laptop screen in endless ranks of red and black. Meier used to explain it all to him, but he didn't think Xan would be quite as accommodating. No, he had to wrap his head around these figures before their meeting on Monday so he wouldn't look like a complete fool.
But there were pages and pages of numbers. None of them meant anything to him. He should be sitting on the couch with Phuong, her body tucked against his, as he did his damnedest to get her to relax around him enough for him to show her how a honeymoon was supposed to work.
Instead, he was giving himself a headache. "Fuck," he swore softly.
She heard. "What is it?" Before he'd opened his mouth to respond, she crossed the room. Phuong leaned over his shoulder, peering at the fucking figures. "Oh, that's not good. No bar should stay in business with a loss like that. And the margin's increasing, too...when was it last in profit?" She reached over and tapped the touchpad, bring up another mess of columns. "Wow. Let's see if I can find your drain...ah, yep. Here. You're spending thousands a month on this product, but there don't seem to be any sales of it, yet the orders keep coming. Where else have you got a loss this big? I know I saw another one...oh, in staff meals. Well, that makes sense. I take it you're not charging staff for room and board, which is fair, but when you compare it to the number of staff at the resort, this is more than I paid for full room and board at the residential college I used to stay at. You're not putting your staff up in hotel rooms and feeding them exotic seafood every day, are you?"
Jason recovered from his surprise enough to manage a short laugh. "No. The food in the staff dining room's pretty basic, or so I've been told. They only get seafood if the chef's messed up, and it's not suitable to serve to guests in the public restaurant. As for the accommodation...mining camp dongas, and little ones at that." He stared at her. "How come you know so much about hotel running costs?"
Phuong shrugged, but she also smiled. "I'm in my final year of a business degree, with a double major in accounting. My father's company owns some small hotels in Vietnam and Singapore. He sent me to university here so I could learn to run his business. Occasionally, he'd ask me to check the financials when something didn't seem right..." She trailed off. "But that's all changed now. After Dad died, my brother took over the company with his wife's brother as Chief Financial Officer. The only numbers I'm likely to see from them now are if I get a job with whatever company handles receivership when those two bankrupt it."
Jason didn't understand. "Sorry about your dad, but why are you letting your brother destroy what he built? Sounds like your dad wanted to keep the company for you. He was training you to take over as his successor, not your brother. Why...?"
Phuong slid into the seat beside him. "It's a long story, but my brother's older than me. What my father didn't know is that he paid his way through business school by getting ghostwriters to write his assignments. He's also under his wife's thumb, and he believes everything his cheating, lying, thieving brother-in-law says, because they went to university together. They said my education was a drain on the company, with no hope of a return, so when my father died, Thuan stopped paying my tuition and board. But it wouldn't have helped – Felipe's running the company into the ground, or making it look that way, while he's building the money to buy it. Dad knew, but he couldn't prove it. He was waiting for me to be qualified so I could replace Felipe and find out what he'd done with the money. You can only trust family, he said. And I did, but my brother trusts his new family more than me, so there's nothing I can do now."
"You could finish your degree," Jason pointed out.
Phuong smiled again. "Yes, thanks to you, I can, but the semester doesn't start for a few weeks and that will still take me a year. With no one to hide his dodgy dealings from, Felipe might destroy the company within that time. He might hire Thuan when he takes over, but he won't take me." She shrugged. "I have...new family now. Family I can trust and maybe help." She nodded at the laptop. "May I take a look?"
"Absolutely." Instead of sliding the laptop across the table to her, he pulled her into his lap. Now he could hold his wife in his arms and kiss everything he could reach, while she translated numbers into something he could understand. If he'd known he'd snag such a wonderful woman when he created a profile on the mail-order bride website, he would've done it sooner. As it was...he was just lucky.
More kisses. Four hundred and ninety-one, two, three... Jason slid a hand under the table and started stroking her leg through the silky material of her skirt.
She broke four hundred and ninety-four to lean forward, closer to the computer screen. "I think I need to see some earlier reports, ones from previous years. I can't be certain, but I think I've found your problem. It's specific products, and...you know, that feels really nice."
Jason grinned. "I can do better than nice. Here's the deal. I'll get you whatever figures you want tomorrow. You work your magic with them and tell me what they mean. Tonight...let me show you a bit of my sort of magic."
She stiffened. "You mean...sex?"
That one word...just three letters...the way she said it, like she was surprised. As if she wasn't sitting firmly on his hard-on, squirming as she considered the idea and teasing him like the minx she was.
Four hundred and ninety-five, then six and seven before he replied, "No. I said we'd take it slow. Call it...foreplay."
"Foreplay before...Jason, I'm scared."
Jason wasn't fazed. "A long time before. No need to be scared, baby. The pants aren't coming off tonight. Not mine, anyway. Your underwear...you should take that off first."
She didn't, though. Inwardly, Jason swore. He'd taken her too far, too fast and she was poised to run.
"One hand!" he blurted out. "I'll pleasure you with just one hand. Five fingers, all pleasure with no pain. I promise you'll want more. I want to give you this, baby. Please."
"Jason..." She twisted around for a tentative four-hundred and ninety-eight, before following it up with a far more confident nine. "Yes." Phuong wiggled out of her knickers and kicked them under the table.
Jason's hand crept under her skirt, caressing her skin. Closer and closer until with one light stroke he parted the lips of her pussy...her wet pussy, he was pleased to find, and felt her shiver as he touched her pearl. Yeah, chicks might call it a clitoris, but to him it would always be a pearl because of how it made girls glow when he did this right. And he always did this right.
"How's that feel, baby? Not hurting you, am I?" He drew a circle with his thumb, slow and firm.
"G-good," she breathed. "So good...oh!" She closed her eyes, letting her head fall back against his shoulder. He
applied more pressure, and she let out a little whimper of delight, parting her thighs.
That was all the opening Jason needed. He uncurled one finger and eased it inside her, followed by a second as she clenched around him, then relaxed again. He didn't stop circling – no, not when she was so close. Fuck, he couldn't take his eyes off her rapturous face.
"O-o-o-oh!" Part moan, part exclamation was the only way to describe the sound she made when he pushed her over the brink. A tear trickled down her cheek as she blinked at him, unseeing.
"Did you like that, baby?" he asked. "I have plenty more where that came from. A lifetime of orgasms, all with your name on them."
Phuong gasped for breath before she managed to say, "I'll take a dozen now and tomorrow –"
Jason burst out laughing. "Then I better get you to the bedroom, baby." First, he leaned down to kiss her one more time, knowing it wouldn't be kisses he'd be counting any more.
FORTY-NINE
On Monday morning, Phuong woke up in bed beside her husband, and she was happy. It probably had a lot to do with the husbandly hand stroking her thigh, coaxing her to open her legs so he could laugh at the faces she made when he sent her to her own personal nirvana. Oh, but he was amazing at that.
It took some time before she drifted down to Earth, where Jason was licking his fingers as he lay on the bed beside her, the image of the rock god he truly was. And rock hard, too, or he looked it. If it got any bigger, it wouldn't fit inside her, of that she was certain.
"You want my cock now, baby? Wondering what it'll feel like, buried deep inside you?" Warm honey laughing at her. He'd said the same thing last night, and the night before that, but when she admitted it, all he'd said was, "Soon."
This time, she tried a different tack. "Wondering what it feels like now."
"Wonder no more." He seized her hand in his and wrapped it around the shaft of his cock.
Soft and yet still hard. She stroked him a few times, feeling his pulse beating through hot skin.
"You'll need both hands for that, baby, but if you're offering, I'll lay back and let you do whatever you want with me." True to his word, Jason folded his arms behind his head, fixing his gaze on her.
"I don't know what I'm doing," she confessed. "I've never done this before."
Jason held up his curled hand and pumped it a few times. "Teenage boys can do it, and you're a dream by comparison. Whatever you want to give, baby, I'll take it."
"Teenage boys?" Norman had done things with boys in Thailand, he'd told her when he was particularly drunk one night. Not Jason, too!
"Yeah. I haven't been one for a while, but I wasn't always the irresistible man I am now. When I was at high school, it was jacking off myself or nothing." He stared at her. "What, you thought I'd let kids touch my dick? Fuck no! Just beautiful women like you, and now, only you." His hand wrapped around both of hers, guiding her up and down his length. Jason closed his eyes. "Fuck, it feels awesome when you do that. Just keep stroking. Just like that."
Somewhere in the house, a phone rang.
"Don't stop now. They can fucking wait." He raised his voice to shout, "Phuong's working her fucking magic right now, mate, so fuck off!"
She increased the pace and the pressure, like he'd done with her, and was rewarded with a groan. Maybe she wasn't so bad after all.
"Fuck, baby, if I'd known you were this good with your hands...oh fuuuuuck!"
Well, that was messy, Phuong reflected. She lifted a finger to her lips, giving the tip a tiny lick. Salty.
"You need a shower, baby."
She did. So did he.
He pulled her into the bathroom and into the shower cubicle with him, which was a tight fit. It wasn't until he reached for the soap that she realised they stood face to face, naked, for the first time, and she wasn't afraid any more.
"I made the mess. Let me clean it up," she offered, taking the soap from him. She worked it to a lather and applied the foam to his chest, stroking the stuff down his abs, tracing every muscle like she'd wanted to do since she first saw her name written across them. More soap, so she could do it again.
"You just going to wash my belly? My cock's plenty dirty, too. Not to mention the other muscles I kept in shape for you, baby." He dropped his voice lower. "Once you're finished with me, it'll be my turn to take care of you."
Yes! Not because she had to, but because she wanted to. Phuong stared down for a long, long time before she said, "If I told you I was ready for sex now, all of you and all of me, what would you say?"
Jason slid a hand under her chin and tilted until his eyes met hers. "I'd say that's fucking awesome, baby. Do you want to do it right here in the shower, or do you want the first time to be in the bed? There's the beach, too."
Phuong paled. "On a public beach? Oh, no. I couldn't do that."
"Don't knock it until you've tried it. Plus, we have a private beach here. I'll show you."
She laughed shakily. "All right. Let me get dressed first."
Phuong dressed in record time, but Jason still beat her, given all he donned was a pair of board shorts.
He shoved a handful of condoms into his pocket and winked. "I think you'll like it, and we won't want to stop to get more supplies," he said.
Someone started hammering on the front door.
"Fuck off!" Jason roared.
"I can override any lock you have on that door! You're already twenty minutes later for this meeting and we can't make any decisions without the primary shareholder!"
"We're busy!" he shouted back.
"You've got that poor girl in there with you? What have you done to her?"
The door whooshed open. A frantic Xan stood on the threshold, staring.
Phuong stared, too...at her feet.
"Nothing she didn't ask for, and she liked the lot," Jason said smugly. "Right, baby?"
Phuong nodded.
"Why didn't you answer the phone?" Xan persisted.
"We were busy. It's our fucking honeymoon. What do you think I was doing?" Jason stepped up to the door, so he stood toe to toe with the hotel manager. "Pleasing my wife, that's what. Let's get this meeting over with. Phuong and I have plans." He reached for her. "Coming, baby? You understand this stuff better than I do."
Leaving Xan standing speechless in their wake, Jason led the way along the path to the hotel.
FIFTY
Jo's face appeared on the projector screen on the meeting room wall. Xan breathed a sigh of relief. She'd never been that good at video calls, and the internet connection out here was patchy at best, especially in the wet season. Keeping her eyes on the screen stopped her from staring at the odd couple across the table, too – Jay Felix in nothing but a pair of low-slung board shorts, sitting beside the sweet girl he'd somehow bullied into becoming his wife. Why he wanted her in this meeting, she didn't know. Perhaps the girl would run away if he was out of sight.
Xan resolved to get the girl alone for a moment, to ask her if everything was all right.
"So, let's get the financials dealt with first," Jo said. "Jason, are you ready to sign off on the half-yearly report?"
"You mean the spreadsheets full of numbers? No," he replied.
"Xan already went over the numbers with me earlier. Everything seems in order, aside from the huge loss the hotel's running at, which brings us to her plans for recouping those losses – "
"I said no," Jason insisted, rising. "The report isn't in order. It's because Meier was ripping me off. Phuong found it – you tell them, baby."
To Xan's surprise, the girl cleared her throat. "He's right. Your biggest deficits are in staff catering and alcohol for the bar, followed by staff transport. I did a preliminary review of the figures Jason showed me, along with that of the last two years. It seems that there's been an increase in orders of certain luxury products that never appeared on the menu in the bar, restaurant or the staff dining room. For example, there's a brand of rum the bar doesn't carry, yet a large order arrives every month. It has
for many years now. Then there's the alcohol in the staff catering order – alcohol that the staff never see, as it's not part of their menu, either. This is the opposite to the stuff for the bar – judging by the orders, they're extremely low price products. Cheap beer and spirits, cask wine...in huge quantities. These date back to when Mr Felix first purchased the resort, and he assures me he hasn't been drinking them. He can't have – unless he was permanently drunk for that whole time."
Xan stared pointedly at Jay. Lying to his little wife about his drinking. Oh, that was low. When she took the girl aside, she should also mention his alcohol problem.
"The orders match a rise in staff transport costs – both helicopters and vehicles. As there aren't any vehicles here on the island, I assume they're on the mainland? Perhaps based at the pearl farm, or in town?"
Xan nodded. "We try to keep two four-wheel drives at the farm, though sometimes one gets stuck in town when the road's closed. Then, it gets parked at the airport."
"Every trip gets logged with a purpose. Meetings, staff interviews, etcetera, so it can be allocated to an expense category. There's some sort of approval required for those, right?"
Once again, Xan nodded. "I sign half a dozen of them every week. Usually carrier boat trips to the mainland, or use of a car to drive into town when they're on leave. Oh, and charter flights. Planes, not helicopters, when the road's closed. That's when the only way back to town is by air. Where are you going with this?"
"There's one category that doesn't need approval. Emergencies. Now, there are two of these that occurred when Mr Felix was at the island, considering purchasing it. Both are medical emergencies – staff injuries, or so it says. But after those, when Mr Felix purchased the resort, emergencies became an almost weekly occurrence. Each one required both a helicopter and a vehicle, unlike the medical emergencies, which were just flights. This is exactly the same time as the bulk alcohol orders started." Phuong drew in a deep breath.
Rock Star's Email Order Bride Page 17