Unwrapped by The Billionaire

by Joanna Nicholson

  “Sounds good,” he replied, the line going dead a moment later.

  Figuring it would be best not to keep him waiting much longer, Elena locked the front door to her apartment before making her way down the multiple flights of stairs toward the entryway of the apartment. She could already see the limousine parked in front of the building waiting for her, her heart beating a little faster in her chest at the sight of Gerard standing beside it, waiting for her. He was dressed impeccably in a midnight blue suit and matching pants, a golden necktie serving as the only variation of color in his outfit. His eyes were closed as he leaned gently against the back of the limo, no doubt doing his best to make sure that he didn’t wrinkle his outfit in the process. Pushing open the front door to her apartment complex, she plastered a smile on her face and began to saunter over to him.

  “I didn’t make you wait too long, did I?” she asked playfully, a knowing look on her face telling him that she was making fun of him slightly.

  “A little longer than I would have liked, but I suppose I won’t complain. At least you didn’t keep me waiting as long as you did that one time back in France,” he said, a smile on his face as he brought up one of our very first missions together.

  “I had been kidnapped from my hotel room the night before and had to wait for my captors to leave long enough that I could pick the lock on the handcuffs they had used on me and escape. I’m sorry that my having to break out of Notre Dame and avoid people trying to kill me inconvenienced you,” she said teasingly, sticking her tongue out at him.

  “You never did tell me the full story of how you managed to get away,” he said, holding open the back door of the limo for her to climb inside.

  “Maybe, someday, I’ll tell you,” she said with a smile, climbing inside and scooting to the other side to make room for Gerard to climb in as well.

  “Now that is a story I would be interested in hearing,” he said, glancing toward the driver and nodding his head wordlessly.

  The limo began to drive off, Elena allowing herself to enjoy the feeling of the comfortable leather seats. She could smell the slightly tangy scent of Gerard’s cologne, the scent one that she thought suited him quite well. She closed her eyes, taking a deep breath to draw the scent further into her nose. She did it as subtly as she could manage, casting a sidelong glance at him to make sure that he hadn’t noticed her actions. “So, what brought about this sudden change of heart? You seemed pretty angry at me earlier when you left Charlie’s place,” she said curiously, resting both of her hands in her lap.

  “I figured that I wasn’t being as empathetic as I could have been, and I thought that this would be a way for us to bury any possible bad blood between us. You are my partner, after all. I need you on my side, and having you angry at me makes it so that there is a possibility that you could be persuaded to side against me at some point. I would rather avoid that,” he said, his arms crossing gently in front of his chest.

  “Do you really think, after these three years of us working together, that I would honestly ever consider betraying you? Especially since we both know what happens in our organization to traitors?” she asked incredulously, shaking her head in disbelief at his words. “Besides, I might have been in a bad mood lately, but it would never drive me to turn on you. You mean a little more to me than that.”

  “What exactly do I mean to you, Elena?” he asked softly, his voice only loud enough so that she could hear him.

  She didn’t answer him right away, looking out the window so that she could watch the buildings pass by. They were already approaching the hotel, which meant that she didn’t have much time until they arrived. She bit her bottom lip as she considered how she might respond to his question, worrying that she might unwittingly admit more than she was willing to were she not to carefully consider her words. “You are important to me, Gerard. It is just hard for me to say in what way.”

  “I suppose I’ll let that suffice, for now,” he said with a smirk. “However, I do intend to make you tell me eventually.”

  Elena didn’t reply to that, simply smiling. “Let’s go eat. I’m starving.”

  Chapter Seven: Gerard

  The two of them were lucky enough to manage to find a table right next to the windows that gazed out onto the Thames River, the setting sun offering a beautiful view as the many colors were reflected on the surface of the water. It reminded Gerard a little of the kinds of paintings that he used to see on The Joy of Painting, a show that he had enjoyed greatly when he was younger and still put on every now and then when the mood struck him. The vibrant orange, pink, and red in the sky offered a breathtaking sight, and he couldn’t help but say as much to Elena as she sat across from him. “We’ve got a really good view from here.”

  “We certainly do,” she said distractedly, her eyes gazing out onto the river with a distant look to them.

  “Something on your mind?” he asked softly, his gray eyes gazing at her somewhat intensely.

  “N-Nothing important,” she stammered quickly, clearing her throat as she turned her attention back to him. “Just thinking about how I am going to enjoy this week off is all.”

  “It has been a while since we last had a break from assignments, hasn’t it?” he asked aloud, the question being more of a rhetorical question rather than one he expected her to answer. “At least the job’s we’ve been doing for the last few months have all been relatively small scale. Nothing excessively dangerous has happened, which is honestly the way that I like things to go,” he said, rubbing the back of his head gently.

  “I know what you mean,” Elena replied, lifting her menu and flipping it open to look at all the offered dishes. “If I could make my entire living by doing only slightly dangerous missions, I would be a happy woman.”

  “Yeah, I imagine that the possibility of getting kidnapped or killed is not the kind of thing that creates a whole lot of excitement for one’s job,” Gerard said with a laugh, the sound deep and full of mirth. “However, you know what they say. No risk means no reward, and I would like to think that our rewards are usually worth the hassles that we go through.”

  “I suppose so,” she relented, sighing gently as she rested her cheek against her open palm. “I just wish sometimes that I could work a more normal job that didn’t include the possibility of not coming home again, you know?”

  He nodded but didn’t speak, Gerard having had those kinds of thoughts countless times before. When he had first become a secret agent for the Night Hawk Foundation, it had been one of the most exciting moments of his life. His love of the works of Ian Fleming and other spy novels when he was younger now seemed to be rewarded with the opportunity to actually live the life of a spy, but even he had not given the proper thought to the kind of dangers and situations that such a career would constantly find him in. You would think with all the spy films he had watched growing up that he would have been prepared for what seemed to be inevitabilities in the profession, but he chalked those instances up to his own rookie status. He was proud that he had made significantly fewer mistakes as time had gone on. “I know that feeling all too well,” he said eventually, picking up his own menu and allowing himself to look at it silently for a moment.

  “What do you think you are going to have?” Elena asked curiously, offering him a shy smile over the top of her menu. “I am a huge fan of their seafood, so that is probably what I am going to go with.”

  “Sushi doesn’t seem like a bad idea,” he replied, setting his menu down and pointing to one of the open pages. “Shall we just have them bring us a bunch of different kinds of seafood so we can try them and see which ones we like the most?”

  “If that is the case, then we have a choice between salt and pepper crispy squid, wasabi salmon skewers, and coconut crumbed prawns,” she said, looking at the section of the menu where the only food items were listed.

  “Those all sound quite intriguing,” he said, tapping his finger on the menu as he pointed toward one of the food items listed. �
��I also have to say that their bourbon pork belly bites are also really tasty.”

  “You’ve had them before?” Elena asked curiously, not really knowing how familiar her partner was with the bar and the food that it served.

  “I came here for a dinner celebration with some of my employees for a New Year celebration, and I tried it at that time. I might have been a little intoxicated by the time the food came around, but I remember really liking the flavor. I figure that if I was as intoxicated as I was but can still remember the flavor that it must have been good. Wouldn’t you agree?” he asked, his two hands folding together like he was praying as they rested on top of his menu.

  “I could probably agree on that, yeah,” she said playfully, her head turning in the direction of the waiter as he finally approached their table, the young British lad looking like he was no older than his mid-twenties.

  “Are the two of you ready to order? Or would you like me to bring you something from our liquor menu to tide you over while you decide?” he asked sociably, his blue eyes glittering from behind a mop of brown hair. He was a wiry young man, his face occupied with a spare growth of hairs that couldn’t even be considered a beard. Gerard could only click his tongue quietly in sympathy, wondering how such a guy would possibly be able to gain any kind of female attention when he went around looking the way he did.

  “I think that we are, actually,” Gerard said politely, not giving the waiter’s look much more of a thought as he returned his gaze to his menu. “I think we would like to take advantage of your mix and match deal,” he said, his white teeth glinting in his mouth as he offered a kind smile.

  Gerard noticed that while he was busy rattling off the items that he would like to try with Elena that night that his companion seemed to not be capable of keeping her eyes off him. Her beautiful blue eyes were twinkling in a way that made Gerard curious as to what she might be thinking, though he could think of multiple things that he hoped were on her mind. She had only been broken up with a short while ago, which meant that she still was technically on the rebound. There would be no better time for him to try and act on his pent-up feelings for her than now, and he was intending to take advantage of that. “So, it really is a shame about what happened between you and Jeremy.”

  He saw her immediately bristle at his words, a frown tugging the corners of her mouth down as she looked back at him. He silently kicked himself when he saw the expression on her face, realizing that he could have gone about it in a much subtler way. “I know that it must be hard to have a relationship that lasted that long end.”

  Rather than staying silent like he had expected her to, Elena sighed and nodded. “It’s okay; I kind of had the suspicion that he wasn’t being entirely faithful to me anyway. He was always being messaged by women that he assured me were just friends, but with how long I was sometimes away for missions, I would be naïve to think that he didn’t seek some sort of companionship while I was away,” she said, shaking her head back and forth like she was trying to dispel the thoughts that had suddenly popped into her head. “It’s probably better this way.”

  He glanced over at the waiter and cleared his throat. “Could you also bring us a bottle of your 2005 Dom Perignon?” he asked, enjoying the look of surprise that flashed across Elena’s features.

  The waiter nodded and hurried off to take their order, leaving the two of them alone once more. Gerard smiled warmly at Elena, gesturing towards her dress with the pointer finger of his left hand. “That is a lovely dress you are wearing, by the way.”

  “I’m glad you like it. I wore it just for you,” she blurted, her face turning pink as she realized what she had just admitted.

  Gerard sat there flabbergasted for a moment, unable to reply. Had she really just said what he thought she had said? Were his thoughts about wanting to get together with her really so far-fetched, or was destiny literally placing the opportunity in his lap? “I am flattered to hear that. It is not often that beautiful women dress up just for me,” he replied suavely, a hand moving to stroke through his black hair gently.

  “Yeah right,” she said playfully, that smirk that he was so used to seeing slipping onto her face once more. “I’m sure you say that to all of the women that you take out on dates.”

  “Maybe, but you are the first person I’ve said it to that I’ve actually meant it,” Gerard said smoothly, his hand reaching out across the table to take her small, delicate hand in his. “I also have a confession to make. I lured you here under false pretenses. This isn’t a date for me to apologize about how I’ve been acting lately, though I do admit that I want to. No, the real reason I brought you here is that there is something that I want to admit to you; something that I’ve been feeling for a very long time and don’t wish to hold in anymore.”

  “W-What is it?” she asked breathlessly.

  “I want you to go out with me, Elena,” he said softly, smiling.

  Chapter Eight: Elena

  The rest of the date passed in somewhat of a blur. Elena had been so taken aback by Gerard’s confession that she hadn’t known what to say at first. She couldn’t deny that she had thought about such a relationship ever since she and Jeremy had broken up, especially since she and Gerard typically got along phenomenally well. There had been more than a few instances in the time that they had been partners that the two of them could feel the sexual tension between them, and it had only been Elena’s relationship that had prevented the two of them from acting on their desires. Now there were no such obstacles to be seen, and Elena was of the opinion that maybe the two of them going out wouldn’t be such a bad idea. Surely the additional intimacy would only work to make them that much more of an efficient team, right?

  She didn’t give him an answer right away; their conversation being temporarily sidelined thanks to the return of the waiter with the rather expensive bottle of wine that Gerard had ordered for the two of them. He poured each of them a glass, his hand steady and unhesitant as he filled each one before handing one to her. She smiled gently as she remembered the time that the two of them had been forced to work undercover as bartenders in Munich for a while for one of their previous assignments in order to take down a wealthy mogul who had been running an underground prostitution ring. He had seemed skilled in the art of pouring drinks even back then, and she wondered, not for the first time, where he had picked up all of these skills that he seemed to possess.

  They had chatted idly while drinking, Gerard telling Elena about some of the goings-on in his company and Elena talking about some of the ideas she had about how to spend their next week off. She brought up the possibility of leaving the country for a few days for a short vacation, something that Gerard seemed to think wasn’t a bad idea. When she brought up the possibility of going to Barcelona, his interest seemed to be piqued even more. She could tell that he was just waiting for her to ask if he wanted to come along, and if she thought about it truthfully, she wouldn’t have minded his company.

  When their food arrived, Elena found herself feeling surprisingly hungry. The meal at Charlie’s earlier had been great, but her hyperactive metabolism meant that she got hungry a lot quicker than most other people did. Her food had already been digested thoroughly, leaving her feeling like she hadn’t eaten anything all day even though she had. The two dug in with gusto, making sure to try each dish, though Elena quickly found that she wasn’t a fan of the coconut crumble prawns. Likewise, Gerard was not a fan of the chicken satay skewers, citing the crunchy peanut sauce as something that he didn’t particularly enjoy. Aside from that, their meal was rather pleasant, and by the time they left the restaurant, they were both feeling the effects of the liquor they had drunk.

  As they rode in the back seat of the limousine, Elena suddenly found her face being gently cupped by Gerard’s hand. She gazed curiously over at him only to find his lips suddenly being pressed against her own, the surprise of the sudden action causing her to freeze momentarily in place. Normally she would have pushed him back, but for
some reason, she didn’t. Instead, she returned the kiss eagerly, her arms moving to wrap around the back of his neck to help deepen the kiss. She felt his tongue slide along her lips and opened her mouth to allow it inside, their tongues lashing against one another for a moment until the two had to break their kiss to catch their breath.

  When the limo stopped in front of her apartment, she found herself not wanting him to leave. They had been having such a good time tonight that it seemed like it would be a shame to let it end ahead of time. “Would you like to come up and stay for a while?” Elena asked quietly, the eager glint in her eyes betraying just how badly she hoped he would accept her invitation.

  “I don’t see what the harm would be,” He said with a knowing smile, his hand reaching down to stroke over her thighs teasingly. “I’m sure there are plenty of things that we could do tonight.”

  I think you mean there are plenty of things that you could do to me tonight. The thought brought a blush to her cheeks, but it wasn’t one of embarrassment. She had felt a sensation of burning desire flare up in her loins, her pussy already beginning to grow damp with anticipation despite the two having done nothing but kiss. She had never slept with Gerard before, but she had fantasized about doing it enough times that she could imagine what lurked within his pants, which only served to excite her all the more.

  After Gerard sent his driver away and the two had made their way up to Elena’s apartment, she was surprised at how quickly he began to take charge. No sooner had she managed to push her door closed after the two had stepped inside did she feel his arms wrapping around her, pulling her tightly to his muscular body as he leaned his head down to press another kiss against her lips. This one was even more passionate than the first one had been, Elena finding herself capable of doing nothing but submitting herself to the insistent press of his lips while his hands seemed to waste no time in exploring her body. She let out a gentle squeal into their kiss as she felt his sizable hands grope her firm ass, giving her fleshy cheeks playful squeezes that only served to turn her on even more.