The Corrupt Billionaire COMPLETE Box Set

by Hope, Camilla

  He ran his fingers up my legs and settled his touch between my legs as he stroked my mound. I whimpered and wondered if I really could open my body to him or any other man ever again when Peter moved his caress to my shoulder and kissed my neck.

  “He said…” I gulped. “Morgan said that it wasn’t mine anymore. You know, my…”

  “Of course it’s yours,” he purred. “And mine, too. As soon as you’re ready, Gypsy.”

  I turned to take him now, to show him that I was not too damaged to feel him inside me but when my head hit his chest, I finally fell into a deep sleep.

  Chapter Eight

  I want to play with her. I want to make her moan.

  Strung up by my wrists, my toes just grazing the floor, I endured the sight of Morgan back from the dead as he finished whipping my back, his strikes sharp against my rear as he took hold of my hair and pulled my head over my shoulders.

  Time for some real fun!

  My brow fell to my breasts, and I heard the sound of what had to be a torture cart wheeled close to my side. What was he going to do with me now? I started to ask the question when I managed to lift my head and suddenly saw a new figure in the dungeon.

  Daddy?

  My father slapped Morgan’s back and shook his hand as undid his belt and whipped my raw flesh. Anguished and confused under the weight of his strikes, I tried to ask him why he of all people was doing this to me when he rammed his tongue down my throat and twisted my breasts.

  You were supposed to step up to the plate, Caroline. Don’t you know how good I would have made you feel?

  My body trembled as he disrobed and pushed his throbbing piece between my thighs. I struggled and screamed for him to stop when he held my breasts harder and entered my body.

  But you just had to seek out someone else. Thought you’d have learned your lesson after Adam.

  My wrists worked wildly around the chains, and I begged him to stop when his slobbering lips hit my throat.

  We used to have so much fun together. Why are you crying?

  Don’t…!

  I miss, Mom, too. But I’ll tell you a bedtime story. Make it all better.

  He was tearing into me when I started up off the bed and slapped at the man surrounding my sides.

  “Get away from me, you bastard! Stop it!” I screamed.

  “Caroline, calm down.”

  “Stop messing around with me!” I yelled.

  I started to fly from the bed, stumbling over my own feet and crashing close to a pizza box when a pair of hands seized my ankles. I kept kicking at the feel of my body being turned to my back, and I clawed at the air that housed my attacker’s face when hard hands corralled my wrists over my head, and a hot stream of breath raced down my neck.

  “I don’t want to hurt you!” he insisted. “Relax, Gypsy.”

  Seeing Peter clearly, my chest heaved, and I sobbed into my shoulder as he stroked my cheek.

  “I know…” he said. “… I know that he hurt you.”

  “You don’t… you don’t know.”

  He relinquished his hold, and I rolled towards the wall and buried my face in my hands.

  “You’re right, I don’t know it all - only what I saw,” he said. “Tell me what happened.”

  I swallowed hard and flinched as he touched my shoulders.

  “I’m sorry,” I whispered.

  Peter backed off and settled as close to my side as he dared and sighed.

  “Nothing to be sorry for,” he said. “Just… just tell me what that sick fuck did.”

  I couldn’t meet his stare, but somehow I was able to lay all of it out. And retelling was closer to enduring it all over again than I ever wanted to be. He held back until I got it all out, and when my voice was spent, he tentatively took me into his arms and brought my face to his.

  “My poor pretty girl,” he moaned as he kissed me.

  Despite my dream, I liked the feel of his hands, wanted more and more of his touch, but as soon as I wrapped my leg around his, I pushed back and just kept crying.

  “Caroline, he wasn’t my man,” Peter insisted. “No way I’d ever have put you within one foot of that sick fuck.”

  “I… I get it. But you still have enemies.”

  He hung his head and started to speak when I pressed my finger to his lips.

  “Me, too,” I said. “The worst kind.”

  I started to my feet when he was at my back, folding me into his arms as he breathed into my neck.

  “Only because of me,” he said with anguish.

  “But… but there are others,” I said.

  “So I’ll keep you with me. Night and day if I have to. No one that I know is ever going to hurt you…”

  “But I know people, too, Peter!”

  I had kept it buried for so long. Even Sabrina didn’t know. Peter’s hands twirled around my fingers, and I started to pull away from him when he held me fast and brought me back to the bed.

  “Caroline, what is it? You can tell me.”

  “I… I can’t talk about it,” I said.

  “Sure you can. Don’t you trust me?”

  His question tugged at my soul, and I tried to speak when it suddenly felt worse than reliving my time with Morgan. Because this was something that I was born into, and I shook my head as he took my face in his hands.

  “Please talk to me,” Peter said. “What else is going on?”

  I tried to shrug him off when he steadied my shoulders and gave me no choice but to meet his stare.

  “I… you’ll think I’m disgusting if you know,” I said with a choke in my voice.

  “Never,” he said. “You can tell me anything.”

  I started to shake my head when he pressed his fingers to my cheek and rested his brow to mine.

  “Peter, you don’t know what…”

  “I can handle it,” he said. “Please trust me, Caroline.”

  I glanced towards the window and saw a way out, something that I had been denied for so long. If I took the chance now, I could probably hit the open air and run hard. He would follow, and maybe I would even slow to a stop to work my way back into his hold.

  But once he knew all of it…

  “My father…” I said in a small voice. “He… he came into my bed when my mom died.”

  His shocked expression was to be expected, and I barely felt his hand around mine as I looked out the window again.

  “He… he said that I had a part to play. So what if it hurt? He… he didn’t tie me up. But where the hell else was I going?”

  “Caroline?” he said and the kindness in his voice reduced me to tears.

  He guided my eyes back to his and stopped short of kissing my lips.

  “Why didn’t you tell me?” he asked.

  “I… I didn’t really remember until… until now. I must have buried it deep.”

  “Jesus Christ.”

  Peter suddenly seemed to have no idea what to do with his hands, and I wriggled against the bed as I looked up and waited for a reaction that I could clutch close again.

  But Peter just stalked across the room and cracked his knuckles.

  “You didn’t think about it until now?” he asked.

  “I didn’t want to,” I said. “But now it’s all just like rushing back.”

  I started to cry when he fell back to my side and held my face.

  “I’m so sorry,” he whispered. “… sorry that you have to remember.”

  “Peter, I…”

  “More sorry that it even happened in the first place,” Peter said sadly.

  Peter shifted to his feet, and he brushed his finger around my wrist. I felt warm under his eyes, but I shook the feeling off and pursed my lips.

  “How do you like me now?” I said ashamedly. “Bet you think you could do so much better.”

  “There is no better than you, Gypsy.”

  He started to kiss me, and I swooned at the feel of his lips. He didn’t think that I was dirty and worthless. He still wanted me cl
ose. I rested my head to his shoulder and moaned as he caressed my arms.

  “No one, I don’t care who he thinks he is, will every lay hands on you again. I promise,” Peter vowed.

  I felt safe as he held me close, safer than I’d ever felt and I grabbed his arms as our eyes locked.

  “I believe you,” I said. “But can we… can you touch me?”

  He said that it was too soon for all that I wanted, but he brought my body back to the bed and undid my robe.

  “Feel this, Gypsy.”

  He started slowly and grazed his finger up and down my legs. I didn’t flinch as his hand claimed my breast, and when he kissed my lips, I basked in his whisper and nodded my head.

  “Can you… can you just keep doing that?”

  Peter more than obliged, stopping every few strokes to kiss me lightly, and I arched towards his lips as he spread my legs and brushed his lips across my mound.

  “You can… I mean I want you…”

  “I want you to know that this is yours,” he said. “Always.”

  He grasped my hand and pushed it down to my mound. Then he eased my finger into my folds and stroked the back of my hand. It should have hurt, but his lips dotting my breasts made me moan, and I let him help me to pleasure myself with my own hand as he settled at my side.

  “I want you to keep touching me,” I said.

  “I’m right here,” he said as he removed my finger and carefully replaced it with his own.

  Peter pushed deeper, and I clenched down on the feel of his finger and moaned. It didn’t have to hurt. Morgan was gone, and I was miles away from my father. Only Peter was inside me, and I smiled into his eyes.

  “I’m okay now,” I said. “Better when…”

  He pulled finger out and I bit down on my lip as he fondled my limbs, his lips echoing every move of his hands as he found my eyes.

  “Come closer,” I pleaded. “I need you.”

  “And you need to sleep,” he said with a smile.

  He brought the covers over my body and kept close to my side as he nuzzled my neck.

  “So you… you don’t want…”

  “More than you know, Caroline. But if you think for one second that I’m going to do this without you well rested, then you don’t really know me at all,” he said.

  I felt him at my side and muttered into his fingers as he stroked my hair.

  “I know you,” I said. “I know you won’t hurt me.”

  Too many other men had, and I started to cry when he wiped my tears away and kissed me.

  “Sleep,” he said. “And kick as hard as you need to if there are any more bad dreams.”

  But as I sank into the warmth of his arms, there were no dark thoughts, and I came to rest with a smile on my face.

  Chapter Nine

  It was a good dream. No more Morgan or handcuffs. And my father was nowhere to be found. There was nothing but Peter offering his hand as he pulled me closer to his side, and I danced in the space of his arms and laughed into his lips. Peter kept kissing me, and I held him tight as moonlight coated his face.

  I want to be with you now.

  Thought you’d never ask.

  Now who doesn’t know who?

  When I woke again, I saw him gazing at me, his hands barely touching my hair.

  “How long have you been looking at me?” I asked.

  “All night,” he said. “Suddenly I was afraid to close my eyes and find you gone.”

  If I could just be with him again, make my body mine and only give it to one man, I felt certain that my fears would vanish.

  “I’m still here,” I said. “And you can come closer.”

  I spread my legs to take him, ready to buckle as soon as he invaded my flesh.

  This would work. It just had to.

  “Please, Peter. Please take me,” I said softly.

  He moved his body over mine, kissing me deeply and was just on the verge of entering me when he suddenly drew back even as he kept me in his arms.

  “Talk to me first,” he insisted.

  “I already told you everything.”

  “That you did,” Peter confessed. “And still you were hurt.”

  I tried to shake my head and take his lips when he held me back.

  “And we can’t have that happening,” Peter declared.

  Peter shifted to his side and stared down at me with a heavy sigh as he ran his fingers through my hair.

  “When you were gone… when I thought of all the things that might be happening to you…” His voice trailed off as if it was too much to even contemplate, and the sight of him sad and scared ripped into my heart. Reaching for his face, I work to soothe the anguish from his cheeks.

  “I know,” I whispered. “When I thought you were dead, a part of me just wanted to curl up and join you.”

  “No one’s dying here,” he said. “Even if it means…”

  Again his voice stuck in his throat, and he turned away from me, flinging his feet over the edge of the bed. I clung to his firm back and sensed nothing but the total tension in his shoulders as he hung his head and massaged the bridge of his nose.

  “I keep thinking of all the things… all the horrible things that have happened to you since I came into your life,” he said.

  The same memories assaulted my mind, and I rested my head against his body and took his hand.

  “But it’s not your fault,” I tried to assure him. “These same things were done to you.”

  He nodded slightly before turning to face me.

  “And now this… this business with your father.”

  I trembled around the idea and wondered how and why I had kept it buried in the back of my mind for so long. And I decided that it had probably just been too painful to face. Maybe even now.

  And yet…

  “That wasn’t your fault either,” I managed despite the tears streaming down my face. “And now that I have remembered, I’ll have to find a way to deal with it.”

  Claiming his mouth again, I was bound and determined to replace the dark images with lighter, sweeter sensations. For a second, Peter followed my lead and wrapped his arms around my waist as he moaned into my lips.

  “No,” he said as he drew back and shook his head. “We shouldn’t…”

  “Peter, please.”

  “You don’t really want…” he said.

  “Don’t presume to tell me what I want and what I don’t want,” I said angrily. “We both went through hell to get back to this place, to each other. Unless…”

  I inched away from his side and folded my arms across my chest.

  “Unless you’ve thought it over and don’t want me anymore.”

  “No,” he insisted, his hand on the verge of touching mine when he stopped short, looking as if he feared he would shatter me where I sat. “I want you… I need you more than anything on this earth. But if being with me is only going to get you hurt, then I don’t see how I can…”

  “Peter…?”

  “I just can’t do it to you,” he finally said.

  Maybe there was some truth in what he said, and I rubbed my hands across my face. For a moment, I was plunged back into the darkness that was Morgan’s captivity, and a ragged sigh left my lips. Peering through my fingers, I spied Peter waiting, his eyes brimming with tears as he lightly bowed his head.

  “And I’m not going to be one more in a long line of men making you do things against your will,” he said sadly.

  At those words, he eased my hands away from my face and reverently kissed my wrist.

  “So if you say it’s too much… if you just want to put this in the past and try to move on, I’ll respect it. I’ll miss you like hell, but I won’t fight you on it.”

  There was a time when he never would have said that and when it might have been the thing that I wanted to hear most, scared and seduced by him in equal measures but thinking it wise to think with my head instead of my heart. But now?

  “It’s my choice, right?” I asked
him. “You’d really let me go if that’s what I want?”

  “If it’s what you need,” he answered, his face a study in misery.

  He brushed his finger against my palm, and I focused on nothing but the feel of his hand as he looked like a man on the verge of having to endure a lengthy prison sentence. Unable to stand the sight of his sadness for even one more second, I moaned as I tossed my arms around his neck.

  “This is what I need,” I whispered. “I need to be with you. Always.”

  Our lips nearly met, and his face brightened. But again he started to protest, listing off all the reasons why it still might be better for me to run and never look back when I shook my head against his chest.

  “No more of that,” I said firmly. “This is where I want to be. And I need you… I need you to help me forget.”

  He pushed a lock of my hair behind my ear and ran his finger down my face, my throat, his touch stopping just above my breasts as he softly nodded his head.

  “Okay then. I’ll take however you want, wherever you want.”

  “Here, Peter. Now!” I said.

  I eased his hand under my robe and guided him to the waiting warmth between my thighs. Stroking me there, Peter gently took his time as he eased his finger into my soft folds. My body opened to take all of him, and I twisted and twirled against his touch as he pressed his free hand to my back and pulled me closer.

  “Tell me how it feels,” he asked.

  “Sublime,” I answered.

  “Perfect word. That’s what you are to me, Gypsy.”

  He kissed me quickly before laying me out on the bed. With one hand cupping my breast, his probing fingers echoing the pounding of my heart, he pushed deeper. I gasped as he fingered me to the point of a sweet climax. For just one instant, all the dark days and darker feelings flashed across my eyes like a video feed on maximum overdrive. I turned my head to my shoulder and silently begged whatever god might be listening to take the images from my mind and my heart. Before the prayer finished, there was nothing but a blank slate.

  And then there was only Peter.

  “Lay down,” I ordered as I pushed him to his back and undid his pants.

  “You feel ready to me,” he said as his pulsing piece made contact with my thighs, and I stripped his pants from his body as he peeled away his shirt. My lips met his taut pecs, and he started to push inside me when I waved a single finger before his eyes.