by Lia Lee
“You never know until you try. I can be very easy to take advantage of, with the right incentive.”
“Attempting to put an Aussie under the table would require a bar tab far exceeding my budget, Mr. Faris.”
“That may be true. Please call me Derric. Mr. Faris is my father.” And it makes me sound too much like him. Fuck that. “There are other incentives, if you’re interested.”
“Really?” She tilts her head slightly, playing along. “What might those be, Derric?”
My name dangles on her lips as the server brings our drinks, interrupting our obtuse banter. “Thanks.” I nod to the girl and close my fingers around the cool glass of amber liquid, re-thinking the conversation. I don’t want to play word games with Mila. I want to find out what’s really on her mind; why she’s behaving so stand-offish. I thought we might have a good thing going, explore our relationship a bit further, and give her business a boost in the process. Mostly I guess I want to know why she never called me. I’d be lying to myself if I said my ego wasn’t smarting over it.
“Why did you say you don’t think you can work with me?”
Mila looks askance and takes a sip of water. “I think you know why.”
“I don’t. I thought you enjoyed our time together in Sydney.”
“I did. That’s exactly why we have to keep things professional. It’s too awkward knowing... what we know about each other... and try to be objective. It’s a recipe for disaster.”
“It doesn’t have to be. Isn’t it better to work with someone you like? Someone you’re attracted to?”
She fixes me with her sweet, brown-sugar eyes. “Like Belle Luna?”
Christ, that’s it. She’s pissed off at seeing and hearing all the horseshit about Belle and me. It all makes sense now. “Oh, I see. You think you’re the one being taken advantage of. That I’ve been dishonest with you, and I’m just a player, is that it?”
“Got it in one. You’re sharp, for a pretend lifeguard.”
“That’s not true. I’ll have you know, I am a fully certified lifesaver. But that stuff about Belle Luna is pure gossip-rag rubbish. I met her on tour, and we went out a couple of times. That’s all. Unfortunately, she has more cameras and reporters following her around than I do, and society draws its own conclusions. As you just did.”
“You’re not engaged to her?”
I shake my head. “Haven’t clapped eyes on her in a long time. She’s all skin and bones held together with Botox. Not really my type.”
The corners of Mila’s delectable mouth twitch and her forehead crinkles into a single, vertical dimple. “So, what is your type? Chubby, unsuspecting American girls on vacation?” she asks.
Ouch. Does she think I see her as chubby? Far from it. She’s got more curves than a sidewinder, and just as deadly. “Oi, your words, not mine. I happen to like girls who have no idea how beautiful and sexy they are,” I say, staring straight into her eyes. “Who are smart and independent, and see me for who I am, not what I do for a living. Who care about more than what rich guy they can fuck over.”
She raises her chin, still looking me over like a wounded animal she’s not sure she can trust with her kindness. “That must be quite a burden, fending off women who aren’t honest about their intentions.”
“Feels like my life’s work, sometimes.” I take a bite of my sandwich, and it’s as good as she said it would be.
“You have to go for what you want in this life, right?” she says, quoting me from our last meeting.
“Too right. Anything else is a waste of energy.”
Silence reigns for a few moments as Mila pokes experimentally at her food. “So, about this contract,” she finally says. “Mind you, it isn’t an official yes yet, I have to speak with Claire, but what does it entail?”
“Branding, for a start. Then ads, both print and video. Titles, sets. You should come down to the soundstage one day and have a look ‘round.”
“Perhaps I will, if that’s an invitation.” Her heated gaze has cooled to a simmer. Hopefully, I can raise it back to a boil, in a good way, by the time we’ve finished lunch. Because I’m ready to have her for dessert.
“It is. In every way.”
She blushes and turns her attention to her food, alternating dainty bites of sandwich with sips of water. Maybe I’m weird, but I love watching her eat. It turns me on.
“I’m sorry I didn’t call you,” she says. “I planned to, but… it just never seemed like the right time.”
“Yeah. Thirteen hours ahead can be tricky.”
“Not that… Well yes, partly. I guess I just didn’t think a... billionaire... would take my call. You kinda dropped that bomb on me at the last minute.”
“Would you have gone out with me if you’d known? Or acted differently around me?”
“I don’t know. Guess I’ll never know.” She laughs softly. “But I’m glad you looked me up. And thank you for lunch.”
“No worries. And for the record, I would take your call anytime, love.”
Her pretty lips curve into a genuine smile, and suddenly it feels like the reason I’ve come to New York has nothing to do with work at all. I bask in the warmth of her smile until she checks her phone and it fades like a sunset.
“Speaking of time, I should be getting back to work.”
Way to spoil the moment. Back to her office is not the place I want to take her right now.
“You’re the boss,” I say, and signal for the check.
Mila covers her plate and downs the last of her water. I don’t want the afternoon to end. Again, I feel strangely liberated being around her; free of the weighty cloak of position, duty, and expectation that shrouds me back home.
“Doesn’t the boss get to set her own hours?”
“Hardly.” She chuckles, rising from the table. “More like my clients set my hours. Which feels like 24/7 most of the time.”
“That’s a shame,” I say, taking her hand again as we leave the café. “Because today I’m the tourist, and you’re the local. You do owe me a tour, you know.”
“I suppose I do,” she says, casting me a sidelong glance. “But it’s a pretty big town, and I don’t own a car. What would you like to see?”
I should say something polite, casual, like the Statue of Liberty or Times Square. But I’ve actually seen both before. The lunch hour foot traffic hustles us along quicker than I want it to; I look above the heads of the crowd for some way of exiting the flow and spot an entrance alcove to a building up ahead. I tow her across the wake of bodies and under the eave.
“What are you doing?” she calls out.
I pull her close, crushing her against me. A gasp of air escapes from her lungs, and she turns her gaze upward to meet mine. Her lovely brown eyes go wide in surprise, and something more. Something deeper. Something secret. My arms slip around her, one hand cupping the back of her curly head. I’m not wrong about this. She’s holding back her feelings just as I am.
I lean down and touch my lips to hers. “I want to see you, not the Empire State Building,” I whisper as our skin grazes each other’s. Her breath is warm and sweet on my cheeks, and I cover her mouth with my own, suck each luscious lobe of the lips I’ve been dreaming of for weeks and drive between them with my tongue, past her teeth, and into her wet warmth, leaving no corner unexplored. She responds with equal heat, her body yielding to my embrace, her tongue dancing with mine, her taut breasts rubbing against my chest and my awakening cock pressed against her belly.
“Yo! Get a room,” a gruff voice calls out.
Mila pulls away, breaking the searing contact of our lips, and I feel like the earth has been torn from beneath my feet. A wizened old man stares at us from a few feet away, pointing above our heads. We look up to see a sign that reads: Rooms by the hour. Mila lets out a soft laugh, and I cradle her face in my hands.
“I don’t think an hour will be enough.”
Her cheeks press against my palms as she smiles. “Better pay for two, t
hen.”
Chapter Nine
Mila
No Apologies
The room is small and dim, the furniture mismatched and second-hand. It resembles nothing of Derric’s penthouse enclave, and I couldn’t care less. The tiny space is all we need besides each other.
I felt excited, aroused, ashamed, giddy, decadent, all at the same time as we hurriedly shoved money through the dingy cashier’s window and raced up the worn stairs. My rational mind screamed: What are you doing! But my heart drowned it beneath waves of desire. All through lunch I forced myself to talk business, tried to remain cool and detached, but my treacherous thoughts could barely revolve around anything but the insanely gorgeous man across from me, and my body followed.
Now, alone in this private little cell of space and time where nothing and no one else can intrude, including my brain, I peel Derric’s expensive suit jacket away from his shoulders as we kiss, and claw at the buttons of his crisp dress shirt to bare the carved muscles of his chest.
“Mila,” he whispers hoarsely between passionate, repeated meetings of our lips. “God, I want you…”
I want you too, God help me. My consciousness reels in heated disorientation as my skirt is unzipped and lands in a ring around my feet. He pulls my light-knit sweater over my head, and I reach around to disconnect the hook closure of my bra, releasing my throbbing, tingling tits. I can’t get naked fast enough. I want him so badly.
He bends his groomed blond head to take my breasts in his mouth, his spiked hair brushing my collarbone and his tongue laving circles around my aching, stiffened nipples. I groan in lustful bliss, arching my neck toward the ceiling. His hands reach down and slide away the silky material of my panties to cup the globes of my ass, fingertips perilously close to my puckered entrance, and I shiver in wanton anticipation.
I fumble with his belt buckle, finally releasing it and yanking the zipper down. His dress slacks join my skirt in a puddle of discarded clothing on the seedy carpet. My hands fly to the thick bulge in his boxer briefs, feeling the heat of his magnificent, hard cock tight against my palms as I squeeze. A low growl rumbles in his chest, and my breast pops free of his hot, hungry mouth with a smacking sound.
The cool air in the room tightens my wet nipples even further, sweet pain rippling from their tips downward to my core. My private muscles spasm as my panties are shed the rest of the way, and I’m standing completely naked before him. I tug at the waistband of his boxers and free his member that’s stiff as a plank; it springs upright against his groin and my mouth waters at the sight.
I drop to my knees, dragging the boxers downward over the sculpted muscles of his thighs. I nuzzle the warm skin of his incredible cock that’s swollen and rippled with veins and begging for attention. I cradle it in my hands as I lick its glorious length.
Derric hisses in a breath. “Jesus, woman,” he grunts out. “I love how you get your fuck on.” I exhale a heated breath over his wet skin and feel him shiver. My tongue spirals around the firm, plum-like head, licking away the delicious jewel of precum at its tip. He gasps and fists his hands into my hair.
I close my lips around the shiny, engorged dome, lovingly encasing it within the soft warmth of my mouth. Christ, he’s big; my jaw slackens, and my tongue slides to the underside of his shaft to accommodate him. I press his thick cock to the roof of my mouth and begin to suck, drawing one powerful pull after another.
“Holy fuck,” he curses, my scalp stinging as his fists close tighter around the strands of my hair.
I want to consume him, leave my mark on him that will spoil him for any other woman, make him mine and no one else’s. I fuck him with my mouth, pulling back then plunging forward again. He moves my head in sync with each stroke in and out, his shaft glistening, wet with my saliva. Suddenly he pulls me away, yanking my head backward.
“Have mercy, love,” he gasps out and draws me up to stand. “Give me a chance to fuck you raw before I come apart.”
“Do it,” I say, my hands roving the expanse of his broad chest and my lips kissing his neck. “Fuck me into next week.”
He steps out of his boxers that are now down around his ankles and wraps his arms around my waist. He lifts me off the floor and moves toward the bed. The ancient bedframe squeaks and the broken-down mattress jiggles as we land on it together.
“I’ll fuck you into next year,” he says, trailing a line of kisses across my chest and down through the centerline between my breasts, moving lower and lower. I shudder in arousal when the tip of his tongue dips into the shallow crater of my navel. This is tickling on a whole new level. My breath comes fast as he works further downward, sliding his hands beneath my legs and lifting my knees up and apart.
God, I remember well his oral skill and my breath stills as he buries his face in the folds of my soaking wet pussy, nose and lips and tongue all vying for their portion of the meal. When his tongue swipes the length of my channel, and his lips close around my aching, begging bud, I can’t stop the tide of orgasm that swells deep in my core. It rises and crests over me in a black wave, blocking out everything else.
“Derric,” I wail as the glorious sensation rockets through every part of me, crippling me in blind ecstasy.
“That’s my girl, my goddess,” I hear him say as I drift helplessly in a tidal rush of bliss. He moves to settle his hips between my legs, and the hard tip of his cock breaches my quivering entrance. “Come hard for me baby,” he whispers.
His rigid thickness enters me, filling me, and with a thrust of his pelvis drives home to full penetration. I gasp as he pushes in to the hilt and lingers there a moment, leaving me perched on the summit of his maleness like a mountain peak, the sensation every bit as dizzying.
“Fuck, you’re so tight and beautiful,” he says, then begins to stroke in and out, delivering a healthy bump to my still-vibrating clit with each pass. God, I want him inside me forever. I cling to him like a cat, my nails digging into the skin of his muscled shoulders as I rock in sync with his powerful thrusts. My breathy moans echo in the sparse room, meshing with his baleful howls of satisfaction as our rhythm accelerates and he hurtles toward his own release.
I’m hot and sweaty and alive with joy as he climaxes, and his stellar body shudders inside my embrace. Tears of happiness prick my eyes as I hold him and feel the warmth of his hot seed rush inside me. Here we are again, caught in the throes of reckless desire, only now it doesn’t matter. Our unborn child already slumbers inside me, and I ache to tell him so.
His body stills and our tangled breathing slows as we lie together, spent and exhausted, on a faded, threadbare coverlet in a strange room. It’s ironic and laughable yet somehow perfect. It’s neutral ground, a level playing field. Here we’re not the playboy billionaire and the middle-class, bohemian artiste; here, we are equals.
Derric raises his body weight and rolls to his side. “Even better the second time,” he says, softly stroking my belly. If only he knew what our first time had already accomplished.
I close my eyes and enjoy the gentle circling of his palm overtop the tiny life he’s placed inside me. His hand moves upward to caress my breasts, and my nipples betray me as they begin to tingle and harden again.
“Oh my, are we game for a third time,” he says, a wicked smile creasing his face. “You’re incredible. You may have to give me a few minutes though.” He chuckles. He traces a fingertip over the inked goddess symbol tattooed on the skin above my heart and twists his neck a little to examine it more closely. “I noticed this the day I pulled you from the ocean. Now I know why you chose this symbol. You really are a goddess.”
“Careful. A girl could get used to hearing such things,” I say.
“Well, then get used to it.” He shifts to bring us face-to-face. “Because I intend to keep saying them.” My heart leaps as he brings his lips to mine and delivers the sweetest, tenderest, most soul-shaking kiss I can ever remember. It speaks silently of promise, of happiness, and of a future I’ve no right to imagine w
e might have together.
“Mila,” he whispers after breaking our tender kiss. “I’ve thought of you every day since you left Oz. I gave you my card so that you wouldn’t feel pushed into anything; you could contact me on your own terms. But when I didn’t hear from you...” He pauses and shakes his head. “I realized I’d been an arrogant ass. That maybe you felt I’d lied to you and were pissed off, or that I was just a holiday fling for you. And I kicked myself for not getting your number.”
I reach out and touch his face, feeling the traces of a sexy stubble on his tanned, clean-shaven jaw. He doesn’t know the real reason I didn’t call him.
“Don’t think that,” I say. “You never lied, you just didn’t tell the whole truth. It’s not every day I meet the heir to a media throne, you know. I was a bit shocked.”
“Sorry about that.” He laughs. “You’re not the kind I meet every day, either. I knew you were special, but now I know just how special. You’re intelligent and creative and independent. Not to mention dead sexy and gorgeous.”
And pregnant. “Thank you. You’re not so bad yourself,” I tease.
His smile turns serious. “Listen, I know you don’t want to mix business with pleasure but... can’t we see each other while I’m here?” He glides his palm across my shoulder and down the length of my arm. “I don’t think I could work so close to you and not be able to touch you.” He takes my hand and brings it to his lips. “Or kiss you.”
Neither could I. How did I think it was even possible to accept this job and remain professional, aloof and detached? I’ve been fooling myself. Seeing him now, hearing his words, I realize I want him more than I’ve ever wanted any man. But there’s one more complication.
“Derric,” I say. “I want to see you, too. You’re right, it will be hard to work together and not... be together… because... there’s something else you need to know.”
He props himself up on one elbow, the delicious muscles of his upper body on full display. “What?” he asks, his full attention on me. He’s the most beautiful creature I’ve ever seen. Shit, here goes everything. Please God, let this make him happy.