Dating the Billionaire

by Lisa Childs

  Only with her.

  A strange emotion rushed over him—a vulnerability he hadn’t felt since he was a kid. He could lose control with her, but did she do the same?

  Or was it that she was always in control? Always keeping her secrets from him.

  He cleared the last vestiges of passion from his voice and said, “Our conversation isn’t over.”

  She arched a blond brow. “What conversation?”

  “The one in which you really tell me about yourself,” he said. “Who you are, what you do...”

  Now, after that mind-blowing release, she wouldn’t be able to distract him with sex. She would have to answer his questions.

  She must have realized it, too, because an emotion passed through her dark blue eyes, and it looked an awful lot like the vulnerability he was feeling.

  No. It was even more intense than vulnerability.

  It was fear.

  What the hell was she so scared of revealing to him?

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  BLAIR HAD GOTTEN LUCKY, because before Teo had been able to resume his interrogation of her, the limousine lurched to a stop outside the nightclub where the fashion show was being held. Relief had shuddered through her, but it was short-lived.

  As Teo had helped her from the back of the car, he warned her, “This isn’t over. We’re going to have a conversation—a real conversation—before the night is over.”

  Even though her heart had pounded faster with fear, she’d forced a smile and told him, “Of course we will.”

  But she had no intention of ruining this evening with the truth. Not yet.

  She was enjoying it and him entirely too much. She could taste him in her mouth, on her tongue—the salty-sweet taste of his passion. And she wanted more...

  She wanted him again, her core throbbing with the need to have him inside her again, filling that hollow ache as only he could do. But before she could lose her mind to the madness of desire, they stepped into the nightclub and into the perfect distraction.

  As had happened at the restaurant, he wasn’t the only one treated like royalty at the fashion show. The designer fawned over her, begging her to model for him.

  She laughed at the notion of a former fighter pilot walking a runway. There was nothing sexy about her...except when she was with Teo. She felt sexy with him, maybe because all she could think about around him was sex.

  Teo stepped back and studied her through narrowed eyes. “You could be a model,” he murmured speculatively. “Are you? Is that what you do? Why you’re so busy you can’t return phone calls?”

  A smile tugged at her lips, and she shook her head. “I am definitely not a model.” But she was busy—thanks to him and all the flights he’d been booking with Bill.

  “You should model,” the designer told her. “I would love to include you in tonight’s show, in that dress, which looks as if I made it specifically for you.”

  The older Italian gentleman was even more charming than Matteo. Maybe this was from whom Teo had learned how to disarm with charm—because it seemed as if the two men knew each other well.

  “Please,” the designer persisted. “Walk in my show.”

  She shook her head again. “Not unless you want me to ruin it. I would trip over my own feet and embarrass you and myself.”

  “Never!” the designer insisted.

  She was saved again when someone called to him from the stage. “We’re ready.”

  “Ah,” he sighed in disappointment. “It’s too late to have you in this show. But the next...”

  The next one she wouldn’t attend; she would be flying someone somewhere. And she doubted it would be Teo. Once he learned the truth, he would never want to see her again. She blinked away the sudden sting of tears pricking at her eyes. She wouldn’t cry. She never cried, but she was disturbingly close to now over the thought of never seeing him again.

  “What’s wrong?” Teo asked, his voice even deeper with concern.

  She shook her head. “Nothing. He was just being so sweet. He seems like a genuinely nice man.”

  “He is,” Teo confirmed as he guided her to a seat in the front row nearest the stage. “He’s very talented, too.”

  Blair had already realized that from the beautiful dress gifted to her. But she also saw his amazing talent in all the other designs the professional models wore as they strutted across the stage.

  “You could do that,” Teo assured her. “You would be a super model.”

  She doubted it. From the way some of those models glared at her sitting next to Teo, she bet at least one of them would have tripped her—if not most of them. “Did you bring me here to protect you again?” she wondered.

  He chuckled. “From whom? Tony? He’s harmless.”

  Tony had clearly been more interested in her than him, so she chuckled. “You know...”

  “My matchmaking sister isn’t here,” he said, and his brow creased as he frowned. “Although she should be.”

  “Why?” she asked.

  “Tony was there for us when we were growing up,” Matteo said, his deep voice gruff with emotion as he recounted his past to her. “Even though, as just a tailor at that time, he didn’t have much more money than we did, he helped us out with food and old clothes.”

  She turned fully toward him now, studying his handsome face as she processed her shock over his admission. “What? You didn’t have food and clothes?”

  His face flushed slightly. “Things were a little hard for us. But we got by with some help. Tony was a neighbor. He helped.”

  “You’ve paid him back now,” she said, surmising that he’d probably helped the designer launch his own fashion house. Not that she expected Teo to admit it.

  He shook his head, and his voice was even gruffer with emotion when he replied, “I will never be able to thank him enough for his kindness and generosity.”

  “Your life...” she murmured. “I can’t imagine how it must have been.” She’d never been hungry for food—just for love and acceptance.

  But her mother had been so busy trying to get her father’s attention and approval that she hadn’t had time for her children. And her father hadn’t shown love or any other emotions.

  “I think you might be able to imagine it. Something about you...” Teo studied her face through narrowed eyes. “I don’t believe your life has been easy.”

  She uttered a shaky sigh at the understatement. “If things were difficult for me, it was because of the choices I made,” she admitted. Like now...

  She’d chosen not to tell him her real name and to hide behind a disguise when she flew him.

  “What kind of choices?” he asked.

  She couldn’t tell him about the flying, so instead she told him about Miranda. “I had a friend who often got me into trouble,” she said.

  “You were a wild child?” he asked, his brown eyes twinkling as if the thought excited him.

  “No,” she said. “I always got caught.”

  “Is that why you’re so guarded?” he asked. “You are trying to protect yourself?”

  She nearly jumped at his astute observation. How could he not see through Bill’s disguise but he could see her so clearly now?

  That was why she had to protect herself, though, from him, from falling for him.

  “I have no regrets,” she assured him.

  “No?” he asked, his head tilted.

  It was as if he knew she regretted not being honest with him.

  Thunderous applause saved her from having to reply. She jumped to her feet along with everyone else. Tony came onto the stage and bowed. Then he gestured for Matteo to join him.

  Matteo shook his head.

  “This would not have been possible without you, my friend,” Tony called out to him. “You are responsible for this finally coming to fruition.”
>
  “You are the talent,” Matteo called back. “Congratulations on a fabulous line!”

  The applause and accolades continued even while drinks and hors d’oeuvres were served. While Teo kept Blair at his side, he didn’t have time to interrogate her any further about her past or her present.

  But then he took her empty flute of champagne and passed it along with his to a waiter.

  “Would you like more, sir?” the waiter asked.

  Teo shook his head. “No, thank you. We’re leaving.”

  And her heart began to beat faster. The interrogation would probably begin again—unless she could distract him as she had on the ride to the show.

  When they stepped outside and the wind blew beneath her dress, over her bare skin, she knew just how to distract him. Once he’d taken the seat across from her and the chauffeur closed the back door, she spread her legs and pushed her dress up high enough that he could see how badly she wanted him.

  “Damn you,” he cursed as his nostrils flared. “Damn you for being so irresistible.”

  “Then don’t resist me,” she said and invited him, “Take me...”

  He didn’t resist her.

  He did what she had and dropped onto his knees in the space between their seats. Then he planted his palms on the seat on either side of her hips, and he leaned forward until his mouth brushed across hers. He kissed her softly, slowly...before deepening the kiss by sliding the tip of his tongue between her lips.

  She moaned against his mouth, wanting more than kisses. She needed the release he’d given her earlier. She needed him inside her. She reached for his belt, but he pulled back and shook his head.

  She worried that he was going to insist on having that conversation she kept denying him. But then he leaned back even further until he was sitting on his haunches, and he moved his mouth lower, between her legs.

  He tormented her as she’d tormented him earlier. He touched her first with his fingers and then with the tip of his tongue. He teased her until she was nearly sobbing from the tension wound so tightly inside her body.

  Then he slid two fingers inside her while he licked and sucked her clit. And she came, her body shuddering from the power of the release he’d given her.

  But it wasn’t enough yet. Despite the intensity of the orgasm he’d given her, she still felt that hollow ache inside her.

  Was it because he was still fully clothed? Or because she was still not telling him what he deserved to know?

  * * *

  She tasted so damn good that Teo wanted more. He wanted to bury his face in her mound and lick and lick at her. But his body was so damn tense, his cock throbbing with the demand for another release.

  He’d told the driver to take at least an hour returning to the hotel—because he’d wanted to finish what she’d started in the limo on the way to the fashion show. She’d given him a release then.

  But it hadn’t been the same as burying himself inside her, as joining their bodies. He wanted to do that again—even more than he needed to have that serious conversation with her.

  But he wouldn’t be able to talk—to even think—until he released the tension gripping him. Sweat beaded on his upper lip as he struggled to hold on to his control. But with her...it was impossible. He had to have her. “Do you want more?” he asked. “Do you want me?”

  “Yes,” she said, her voice raspy with desire.

  Her blue eyes darkened, her pupils dilating with renewed desire as she realized he wasn’t done. He also noticed the relief. She was glad that he wasn’t going to force her to talk right now.

  She clearly didn’t want to have a conversation with him. Was all she wanted from him sex?

  That probably would have thrilled most men. Hell, that probably would have thrilled Teo that a woman wasn’t after his money or the lifestyle he could offer her. But there was something about Savannah...

  Something that made him want more than just sex with her. But he wanted the sex, too, so badly that he couldn’t think of anything else right now but having her, but burying himself inside her.

  This time when she reached for his belt, he let her unclasp it and lower his zipper. But when she freed his cock, he pulled it from her hand. And he rolled on the condom he’d taken from his pocket.

  Then he pushed her back on the seat and eased himself inside her before thrusting deeper and deeper. She was so hot from the release he’d just given her, but despite that release, she was needy, too.

  She clutched at him, moving her hands over him, pushing aside his shirt to touch and kiss his chest. She nipped at one of his nipples, lightly, with her teeth. And he leaned over, pushed her dress down, and returned the favor.

  She cried out and arched against him, wanting more. He gave her more, thrusting his cock inside her over and over again. Deeper and deeper...until she tensed and cried out.

  Not in pain...

  He had enough control that he would never hurt her. But she was strong with sleekly toned muscles, so she easily matched him—in passion and strength. He wouldn’t hurt her physically. And he doubted she’d ever let him close enough to hurt her emotionally.

  He’d never intended to let anyone that close, either. But she was getting there...she was getting as deeply inside him as he was inside her. Then his body tensed and shuddered as his release shook him to his core with its mind-blowing intensity. It just got better between them every time.

  Panting for breath, he rolled off the condom and wrapped it in napkins before disposing of it.

  “You didn’t need that,” Savannah told him.

  Miranda Fox had assured him that all their members had voluntarily been tested and were safe. But Teo still always wore a condom...except for that moment back at the hotel, when he’d wanted to feel nothing between them.

  But if he’d come inside her...

  If he made a baby with her...

  He would be connected to her in a way he’d never intended to connect himself with another woman. Unlike his father and Francesca’s, he wouldn’t walk away from his child—from his responsibilities.

  “I have a birth control implant,” Savannah told him. “So I can’t get pregnant for years.”

  So Savannah didn’t want children, at least not any time soon.

  She didn’t want to trap him into marriage or anything else. He should have been relieved, but that wasn’t how he felt. He was unsettled.

  She hadn’t run earlier, when she’d fallen asleep in his bed, but he had no doubt that eventually she would. When they returned to the hotel, she distracted him again with sex, and when he came out of the bathroom, after cleaning up, he found her gone.

  She must have dressed in her jeans and sweater again. For the dress and the shoes sat on the bed, which was still rumpled from the wild sex they’d just had in it. The dress and the shoes were all that she left.

  No note again.

  She’d left without leaving him her number or even her damn last name so that he could track her down. That had to be because she didn’t want him tracking her down. She didn’t want him to find out any more about her or her life.

  What the hell was Savannah hiding from him?

  Miranda Fox claimed to have verified that all the members of Liaisons International were single. But Teo was beginning to doubt that was the case with Savannah. Maybe Miranda had made an exception for that rule for her friend.

  Maybe Savannah had a husband.

  Was that the secret she didn’t want him to learn? The reason she didn’t share her last name with him—because she already shared it with someone else?

  Did she have a whole secret life that she was so desperate to protect that she kept running out on him?

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  BLAIR SAT AT her desk, staring into the computer monitor that had gone dark because it had been so long since she’d touched the keyboard—becau
se she was so lost in her thoughts, in her daydreams. In that dark screen, she could see Teo’s handsome face, his jaw clenched as passion overwhelmed him. Would she see him like that again? Or would they just continue to nod at each other when he poked his head into the cockpit to thank Bill for a smooth flight?

  “You have to come clean.”

  Blair jumped at her brother’s pronouncement and nearly toppled her chair over onto the polished concrete floor of their shared office space. Not only did they share it with each other but also with the hangar for their biggest planes. This building in London was the headquarters for Private Flights. She grasped the edge of her desk and steadied herself, but her hands trembled. “What are you talking about?” she asked.

  And how the hell did he know?

  Had Miranda told him?

  “Your little masquerade is going to come back and bite us on the ass,” Grant continued as he stalked into the room from the hall that ran between the exterior door and the area of the hangar with the planes.

  She released a slight sigh of relief when she realized that her brother didn’t know that she’d slept with their new biggest client. He was talking about her pretending to be a man.

  That was even worse given that she was sleeping with Teo. If the Italian businessman ever learned that she had purposely tricked him into thinking that she was a man, he would be so furious with her. He wouldn’t forgive her. What the hell had she done?

  “It’s only a problem if he figures it out,” she said, trying to convince herself as much as she was trying to convince him. And he damn well couldn’t figure it out.

  Ever...

  “You think you’re going to be able to keep up the charade forever?” he asked as he dropped into the chair behind his messy desk. Before she could answer, he shook his head. “You’re not. Hell, I’m surprised you’ve gotten away with it for as long as you have.”

  She was, too. But Teo only ever stuck his head in the cockpit, and she never turned fully toward him. He saw only her back and shoulders, which she disguised with heavy padding, and when she turned slightly toward him to acknowledge his presence, that beard. She touched her face, which was chafed from the glue used to hold that damn thing in place.