“Without even turning on a light,” I tease Grant as I turn on the burner.
We sit on the floor, sipping our glasses of wine and eating our noodles, and talk about what happened earlier.
As we go over the details, he shakes his head. “I’m so sorry I got you into this.”
“There’s no way you could have anticipated it.”
“I’ll get you to safety as soon as I can, and you can go back to your regular life – ”
“You’re joking, right? You think this guy is going to just let me go? No way. If he catches me, he’s going to use me against you as leverage. Or bait.” I shiver. “Or treat me like those two women you found.”
Grant gives me a sharp look. “Stop it.”
“Well, you can forget about ditching me. We’re in this together now.”
“If I can figure out a way to get you out, I will.”
“Whatever.”
“Don’t ‘whatever’ me.”
“Stop telling me you’re going to get rid of me, then.”
He sighs, and we go back to our dinner.
“Life certainly has a way of taking you down a peg, doesn’t it?” he muttered.
“What do you mean?”
“Yesterday I was a billionaire eating filet mignon with a beautiful woman in my penthouse. Now I’m sitting on the floor eating Spaghetti-O’s in an apartment I just broke into.”
“They’re not Spaghetti-O’s,” I say. “It’s Chef Boyardee.”
He looks at me, and we both burst out laughing at the same time.
7
There’s nothing to do – we can’t watch television, we can’t even read without turning on a light – so we decide to go to bed.
The master bedroom is on the second floor of the building. I start to take off my blouse when I notice him getting under the covers fully dressed – even with his shoes still on.
“What are you doing?” I ask.
“In case we have to make a run for it, we should be ready to go.”
“Oh,” I say, and button my blouse back up.
“You could be a little undressed,” he suggests.
“Not if we have to make a run for it.”
“Damn it, I shouldn’t have said anything,” he jokes.
We lie in bed, him holding me tight against his body.
“Have you ever been in a situation like this before?” I ask.
“On the run, you mean?”
“Yes.”
“There were a couple of times where I narrowly avoided being caught. Security came after me, there were Dobermans chasing me… but nothing like this. Nothing where I felt like the other side knew the next move I was going to make. Nothing where I felt… hunted.”
I shiver. He can feel it against his body.
“Don’t worry,” he soothes me. “We’re going to figure this out. We can beat him at his own game.”
“Are you sure about that?”
“Absolutely. We just need to get you to a computer, and – ”
“But I have no idea how to track him down,” I say, and for the first time I voice my real fear: “I have no idea how to catch him.”
“Shhh… shhhh. We’ll figure it out. He’ll make a mistake – ”
“I don’t know that we can count on that.”
“Then we’ll outsmart him.”
That was the wrong thing to say. I think of the art gallery, the raid on the penthouse…
“I don’t know if we can count on that, either.”
“We’re going to win, Eve. Do you know why?”
I look at him in the darkness. I can see the dimmest of light glinting in his eyes, reflected from the streetlight shining through a crack in the bedroom curtains.
“No… why?”
“Because I never lose… and I have a feeling that you never do, either.”
I want to believe him. I do.
But the darkness is too deep, and my despair is too strong.
“There’s always a first time,” I murmur.
“Well, let’s make sure it doesn’t happen this time around.”
He kisses me softly, lingering on my lips.
I nuzzle against his body, trying to get closer.
He feels warm… safe.
Right now, my world is neither.
But he is.
I press my face into his chest.
Under his pants, I can feel a slight pressure, growing.
I reach down and touch him through the cloth. Feel him growing in my hand.
“We don’t have to,” he whispers.
I lift my head and kiss him.
“I want to,” I whisper back.
And I do. If for no other reason than to forget my fears, to blot them out at least temporarily. To use pleasure to give me a moment of peace.
We kiss longer. His lips drift to my chest… slowly move up my neck, then higher. He gives me tiny delicate kisses on my ear that make me shiver, but in a good way.
I unbuckle his pants as he lies there next to me. Slip my hand inside his underwear and find him. Soft, hot skin over a hardening shaft. I lightly caress him, my skin barely grazing his, making him stiffen even more.
His fingertips trace over the tops of my breasts not covered by my blouse. One by one he undoes the buttons until he can reach his hands inside, run them over my lace bra, cup me in his palms. His fingers circle the fabric over my nipple, making me harden, and I arch my back against him from the pleasure.
We slowly remove one piece of clothing at a time, lingering for long moments to enjoy the sensual slowness of it all.
All of this is in the near-dark, and in complete silence. The only noises we make are the tug of fabric, the clink of metal, and stifled moans and sighs.
My blouse comes off, and he spends minutes tracing his lips over my arms, kissing the insides of my wrists, sucking on my fingertips.
I peel off his shirt, and I luxuriate in the hard bulges of his muscles. I trace my fingertip between the grooves of his abs, then over his massive pecs and biceps. I brush my fingers through the hair on his chest and lick his tiny, hard nipples with my tongue.
My skirt is next. His hands find the inside of my thighs and stroke me, softly, all the way up to my panties, then move away just as I’m about to beg him for more.
I take off his shoes and socks, then help him pull down his pants. I try to take off his boxers, but he stops me. Instead I play with that long, hard shape straining at the material… lovingly brushing my lips over the thickness of it, teasing him.
He pulls me on top of him and reaches around to undo my bra – but he doesn’t just pull it off me. He keeps it in place, slowly pulling up the material from the bottom, exposing the underside of my breasts, licking from beneath until his tongue touches my nipple, wet and hot. I gasp as he takes me in his mouth. He removes the bra entirely, clutching my left breast with one hand while he sucks greedily at the other.
Finally I break away and pull his boxers off. His cock is so stiff that it fights against the material, and I have to be careful to pull the waistband far away so as not to hurt him. But then he’s lying there naked, his shaft jutting into the air. I lick him up and down, slowly… pausing at his balls to loll them on my tongue.
Finally he’s had enough, and he pushes me back and roughly removes my panties. But he doesn’t plunge inside me immediately. Instead he lowers me onto his cock, which lies flat against his stomach. My lips envelop just a few centimeters of the middle of his shaft, the same as if I were kissing him with my mouth. He slowly moves me back and forth, forcing my hips with his powerful hands, making my wet pussy slip up and down the surface of his cock.
I lean over at an angle and grind my clit into him as I slide across his shaft. It feels so I good I don’t want it to stop… my thighs are pulsing, and I can feel my muscles fluttering inside my belly.
I have to stop myself from making noises. Little gasps escape my lips, but I try my best to be silent. I feel like a teenager having sex in my parents�
� house, with an ever-present danger of getting caught. That danger, that tension, makes it soooo much hotter. I come for the first time, my legs spasming. A little cry bursts out of me as I continue pressing myself as hard as I can into his rock-hard shaft.
He’s trying to keep quiet, too, but deep grunts escape his throat – sounds he tries to repress, but can’t.
Finally he can’t take anymore, and he pulls me all the way to the swollen head. I lift up on my knees, and he uses his hand to angle his shaft up so that he’s in line.
Very slowly, I ease back onto his cock.
Oh my God…
His swollen head presses tight against me, pushing, easing further – and there’s a slight give as his head slips in far enough that I can glide down the rest of his cock. Although it takes me awhile to go all the way down. His girth keeps expanding towards his base, filling me almost past the point I can take.
It’s overwhelming, but it feels like heaven.
I play with my clit as he sinks further inside me, using that extra bit of pleasure to counteract the slight hint of pain. He’s so big, I still haven’t gotten used to him yet…
I move up and down, rocking with my body, my hips rolling back and forth, up and down his shaft. My fingers move faster on my clit – the sensations are astounding from both outside and inside my body.
He’s watching me hungrily. His eyes are the only thing I can see clearly in the dark, the bright points of light reflecting across his pupils like some predatory cat about to devour me.
I’ve forgotten everything now – all the danger, the fear, the terror. All I can think of is how good it feels as he moves deeper and deeper inside me.
I rub myself faster, harder, almost in a frenzy as I start to plunge deeper down on his cock.
“Oh God… oh God oh God oh God…” I whimper frantically as I start to come.
The violence of it takes me by surprise. I actually double over as the contractions overwhelm me, shoot up and down my thighs and belly, showering ecstasy all the way up to the crown of my head.
I can feel myself releasing, getting wetter all over him as I plunge down harder, letting him fill me, letting my fingers work in a blur over my clit.
And then I can’t contain it anymore, and I’m screaming –
His hand reaches out and clamps over my mouth, muffling my cries.
For some reason it’s even hotter with him restraining me, and my dying orgasm flares up again. I come a second time – or maybe I just keep coming, my body bucking and writhing in ecstasy.
Suddenly he looks like he’s in pain. He clamps his jaw shut, trying to stifle any noise, and I feel him explode inside me. Burst after burst of pressure pulses inside me, driving me even crazier. He just keeps forcing me to ride him as he comes inside me, driving his cock deeper into me with the rocking of his pelvis.
Finally it’s too much, and I’m spent. I pull my hand away from my clit and collapse on top of him, my chest heaving, trying not to make any noise. He holds me like that, his arms wrapped around my back, one hand stroking my hair, as I lie on top of him with him still hard and deep inside me, but neither of us moving.
8
Afterwards, when I’m lying by his side, it takes me awhile to go to sleep. I can hear by his breathing that he’s nodded off, but dreamland is a lot more elusive for me.
I rewind our conversation from earlier, thinking back to everything we said before.
I’ll get you to safety as soon as I can, and you can go back to your regular life.
You can forget about ditching me. We’re in this together now.
If I can figure out a way to get you out, I will.
Whatever.
There was no question that he really did want me out of danger.
But do I want out? That’s the question.
Oh, I want the danger to stop. That much is true. I’d had enough excitement over the previous 24 hours to last a couple of decades.
But given the chance, would I jump ship? If I knew I could be safe, would I leave him to fend for himself?
The answer seems to be ‘no,’ that I wouldn’t jump ship to save myself.
And that conclusion scares me, because it’s completely illogical.
Hello, class. Today’s pop quiz is this: hot guy gets into your pants. Great sex ensues. Then serial killer comes after hot guy, and by extension, YOU. Assuming you can extricate yourself safely, do you?
The answer should have been a no-brainer.
I’ve dumped guys for a lot of reasons. Bad breath, bad tempers, bad manners. The threshold for Dumpville is not excessively high.
By the way, not a single one of my exes ever had a serial killer on his trail.
Of course, none of them had been as hot as Grant, and the sex was nowhere near as incredible as this.
But you can’t have great sex if you’re dead.
Which raises the question: am I sticking with this guy out of some misplaced sense of loyalty, when I should be concerned about myself?
Or am I really falling for him?
Which one is worse, I can’t say.
After all, I’m a hired gun he picked up to help him get rid of a problem. (A very nasty, horrific problem, yes, but a problem nonetheless.) But he’s a billionaire with limitless choices. Once we get out of this – if we get out of this – I don’t see myself becoming Mrs. Grant Carlson. I just don’t. No engagement ring, no proposal on bended knee, no Happily Ever After. It’s a fairytale, and fairytales aren’t real. I stopped believing in them when I was five years old and found out that Disney movies were made out of drawings on computers.
So am I staying because I’m doggedly loyal, or because I’m falling in love?
Because the first option is stupid… and the second scares the hell out of me. Almost as much as serial killers.
Okay, not quite as much as serial killers.
…okay, not nearly as much.
But if you’d asked me a week ago what my number one fear was, it would have been falling in love with someone who would leave me.
And in this room, lying by his side in the dead of night, it’s just as scary as it was a week ago.
9
“Wake up, Sleeping Beauty.”
I come to with Grant gently shaking my arm. He’s already dressed and sitting on the side of the bed.
It’s still dark out. Technically I guess it could be morning, but not by much.
“…what the hell?” I yawn.
“We’ve got to get a move on. Come on, up and at ‘em.”
“…what time is it?” I mumble.
“Five AM.”
“What?! Couldn’t we have slept a little longer?”
“No, we need to get to where we’re going as soon as possible.”
“Where’s that?”
“I need to go see an old friend for some help.”
I start to picture ridiculous caricatures of an underworld criminal: some guy dressed in a black turtleneck, with a pencil mustache and the nickname ‘Slim’ or ‘Fast Charlie.’
“Is that a good idea?” I ask nervously.
“It’s the only way I can think of to go on the offensive.”
“Can you trust this guy?”
“I don’t know. But I know he’s our best shot.”
“Great,” I mumble as I stumble naked out of bed.
“Of course, we could always fool around a little bit before we leave,” he says as he pinches my ass.
I swat him away. “You get me up at 5AM, no fun time for you.”
“Awww…”
“What are we going to do about the sheets and everything?” I ask as I search for my panties in the gloom.
“What do you mean?”
“We just broke into a stranger’s house, ate their food – ”
“Their Chef Boyardee?” Grant asks wryly.
“ – drank their wine, and screwed on their bed.”
“Mmmm. I like that last part,” he murmurs as he touches my thigh.
“
Cut that out. I’m serious – that would creep me the hell out.”
“Already taken care of.” He holds up a piece of paper I can’t read in the darkness. “I wrote, ‘Sorry about using your apartment. Hope this takes care of it.’ Then I’m leaving this.”
He fans out a bunch of hundreds.
I stop, dumbfounded. “How much is that?!”
“Two thousand bucks.”
“Huh…”
I calculate in my head just how much money it would take to make me feel better about two strangers breaking into my place and using it as their own personal crash pad/sex palace.
I would probably want to get a new mattress. And these folks had a nice mattress.
“Better make it three,” I suggest.
10
The most brutal thing of all is that there’s no coffee.
“Please,” I beg him as we stand in the foyer of the brownstone, ready to go.
“No, we have to get moving.”
“God, I hate you right now.”
“No, you looooove me,” Grant grins, and kisses me hard on the mouth.
My thoughts from the night before come racing back, and I push him away. “You wish.”
The lady doth protest too much.
Grant keeps grinning, but he seems to have sensed my discomfort. “Let’s just say you’re far from hating me.”
I’m grateful he’s backed off that particular line of teasing, but I still need to put as much distance as possible between me and the ‘L’ word.
“I hate anybody who gets me up at 5AM. With no coffee. Hint, hint.”
“No coffee.”
“Well, I guess I’m just going to have to keep on hating you, then.”
“I guess I’m just going to have to learn to live with it, then.”
“Will your friend have coffee?”
“Yes.”
“Will he give me some?” I yawn. “Because I’ll love him if he does.”
“You’re fickle, you know that?”
“You know the way to my heart, and yet you deny me. If he’ll give me coffee… well…”
The Billionaire's Passion Page 2