No Dreams Allowed: A Billionaire Romance

by Sonora Seldon

  I was down to my bra and my panties and a whole lot of nerves.

  These were real curves now, not theoretical ‘sure, I like big girls’ curves, and would he really want them once his eyes and hands roamed over my shivering bare skin?

  Stupid question, I know. My head knew perfectly well that a real body, a warm and round body like mine, was every bit as desirable as the narrow hips and board-flat chests of runway models and actresses – no, scratch that, a real woman with real curves was way hotter than those bony bitches.

  My head knew it, but my heart was scared to believe it.

  But when I sat on the edge of Dave’s bed and he sank to his knees between my open legs, all of me knew to trust the longing and need in his eyes.

  His hands settled on my hips as he leaned forward to kiss me. Just a single taste, and then he leaned back again, his knees shifting on the floor.

  The cuts on his face had opened back up, blood welling to the surface of his skin in parallel lines – and his left eye still looked like absolute hell.

  “Dave, are you sure you’re okay for … well, are you okay?”

  He smiled, a faint curve of the lips, and his hands rubbed in circles over my hips as he looked at me.

  “Seriously?”

  “Of course I’m serious, please, if you –”

  “Well, my face feels like somebody took a garden rake to it, my head is pounding like a bass drum, and I can barely see out of my left eye.”

  His smile fell away and his hands tightened on my hips. “And I’m with you, soon I’m going to be on you and inside you, I love you, and I’ve never felt more okay in my entire life.”

  Those eyes, open and honest and full of need, pulled me in, owned me, and I barely noticed as he eased the silken whisper of my panties over my hips and down my legs and off onto the hardwood floor.

  Now I was open to him.

  All except for my breasts, aching and full and so ready for his touch.

  I wasn’t waiting one more minute for that. Not one second.

  He reached for the clasp of my bra, but I beat him to it. I unfastened the hooks, I peeled away the cups and slid the straps down my arms, and then I gave myself to his waiting hands.

  My eyes closed as Dave cupped the warm, heavy curves of my breasts for the first time. He held them for an endless moment, his palms warm beneath their weight, his fingers spread wide over the smooth, yielding skin. Breathing faster, needing more, I reached out and tangled my hands into his hair, trying to pull his mouth to my nipples.

  His voice was a husky whisper. “Not yet, soon … I need to feel you first, to explore every beautiful inch, please …”

  That was when his hands stirred to life, and I forgot everything except what he was doing to me.

  First he brushed his palms over and around my shivering breasts in slow, gentle circles, barely touching them, as I shuddered with the need for him to do more, so much more.

  Helpless to stop myself, I pressed forward against his hands.

  “Please, I need …”

  “I know.”

  He nuzzled a kiss to the top of each breast.

  “I know.”

  His hands took hold, harder and deeper, kneading my breasts, squeezing, his strong fingers pressing deep into the soft curves.

  “I know.”

  He rubbed his thumbs over my nipples and I moaned.

  Bending forward, he took one nipple into his mouth and sucked gently. Wetness surged between my legs as his lips and tongue tasted the hard nub, drawing it in deeper as he rolled the other nipple between his fingers.

  Arousal pulsed in my clit with every wet taste from his mouth, his lips and his fingers brought me closer to the edge with every touch, and when he pulled away and rose to his feet, I could have killed him …

  … until he stripped off his boxers and stood before me, naked and powerful and hungry for what I could give him.

  Hungry for me.

  I’d felt his erection straining against me, wanting me, when I’d kissed him behind the bar, or in his tiny ‘freedom’ apartment across town, or just down the hallway from this bedroom. I’d wondered what it would be like to see it and hold it, and what all that strength would feel like when it took me.

  I’d had no idea.

  His cock reached for me, hard and wanting. I’d never seen anything like its size, and never anything at all like the need in Dave’s eyes as he stepped closer and lowered one knee onto the bed beside me.

  The mattress creaked beneath his weight, and I wanted to back away from him but I didn’t – I needed to be against him, to feel him skin to skin, all down the length of my body and right now. I was unnerved by the demanding size and hunger of his cock, but I ached to feel it take me, and then Dave settled his hands onto my shoulders and eased me back onto the bed.

  The full weight of his powerful body lay on top of me, forcing me down into the mattress – and being helpless beneath him aroused me more than any word or touch or taste. I ached between my legs for him, my breasts flattened beneath his chest and I wanted his hands on me everywhere, and I had to tell him, somehow.

  So I took two handfuls of his hair and pulled his mouth to mine.

  We kissed as if it was our first time.

  We kissed as if it was our very last time.

  Sinking into each other, we kissed until my lips were swollen and sore. We kissed until Dave groaned into my mouth. We kissed until I could taste him in every breath and until he couldn’t breathe – I know, because he told me so.

  “Cassie, I kind of can’t breathe …”

  “Yep, me too.”

  He shifted his weight to one side, letting his right hip and shoulder rest on the bed. Our legs tangled together. I traced the line of his stubbled jaw with my fingertips, careful not to get too close to his mauled cheek.

  “You know, you should totally grow this out into a full beard.”

  He kissed my shoulder. “You think so?”

  “I know so. Stubble is hot, beards are hotter. As your personal assistant, I’m putting growing a wild and manly beard at the top of your to-do list.”

  “I think your hair is sexy as anything.”

  He reached out to brush a rain-damp curl away from my face. “It’s red like a fire. It’s red like the sky, right when the sun is setting.”

  “It’s impossible to style and it won’t ever do what I want. It’s wild.”

  “Wild like you.”

  He leaned across me to kiss my other shoulder. “And against all this beautiful pale skin, it’s like fire on ivory.”

  No one had ever said that, or anything like it – but when he said it, it was true.

  I ran a hand up and down his chest, loving the way a shiver ran through him when I teased my fingers over one nipple. “Problem is, all this crazy red hair and allegedly beautiful paleness means that I also have tons of freckles. Like, lots and lots of them. You may have noticed.”

  “Oh, I’ve noticed.” He moved over me again, his hips shifting against mine. I closed my eyes as he settled onto his elbows above me, and I jumped a little when he kissed my throat.

  “In fact, I’ve noticed a few here that are particularly hot.”

  He kissed and licked and then his lips and teeth worked against my neck, drawing blood and warmth and need sharply to the surface.

  I twisted beneath him and he moved lower, licking the hollow at the base of my throat.

  “Or maybe it’s these ones here.”

  “Dave?”

  “No, turns out there are six or so over here that are even hotter.” He nipped at my collarbone, and a sweet thrill of arousal danced over my skin.

  “Dave, I have freckles everywhere.”

  He tasted lower still. “How many?”

  “Too many to count – like I said, they’re everywhere.”

  He looked up from kissing the top of my chest, and his crooked, impossible grin owned my heart and sent a fire racing to the end of every nerve I had.

  “Abso
lutely everywhere? Guess that means I’ll have to keep you honest and check everywhere …”

  I gasped as he sank down to my right breast and his warm, wet mouth closed over my nipple.

  I felt every rough taste of his tongue between my legs. Every nibble from his teeth sparked a fresh pulse in my clit, every time his hand tightened on my breast my back arched without any input from me, and when he sucked my nipple deep into his hungry mouth, a low wail came out of me all by itself.

  I drowned in the sensation.

  Then his mouth moved away, lower, as I felt the cool air of the room against my wet nipple, and why?

  “Please don’t stop, I need you, I need –”

  He pressed his face to the underside of my breast, his lips and nose and stubbly chin sinking into the warm swelling curve. “Mmm, not stopping, just doing a freckle census, there could be dozens of them hiding out in this neighborhood …” He kissed the tender skin, licked it in a single wet stroke, and his breath tickled as he reported, “Hard to see under here, but I’m saying at least fifteen … also, you smell so good.”

  A low contented growl rumbled from him as he breathed deep.

  I needed more, I needed everything, and he understood.

  Moving across to my left breast, he took the nipple between his lips, tasting and sucking in a gentle rhythm, and the whole world centered on his mouth. My breath came faster, his lips and tongue worked harder against my tender skin – and when I whimpered and pushed up to him, wanting, he bore down and suckled hard, pulling my swollen nipple deep inside his mouth.

  My head twisted from side to side on the pillow, I moaned, and I spread my legs wide, opening myself to him without thinking.

  He kissed down over my sides and my belly, my skin shivered and ran chill beneath his lips, and then his hand slipped between my legs into the wetness that waited there.

  I shuddered as he eased one finger into me, then two, probing, in and out and in – and when he rubbed wet circles over my clit, I lunged against his hand as pure need burned everywhere inside me at once. I needed him like I needed air, water, and gravity. I needed his body, I already had his heart and his love for some wild reason I couldn’t understand, and we needed to be one person.

  Now.

  Dave knew. He knew, his breathing ran ragged and fast, and something between a groan and a growl came out of him as he knelt between my thighs. His cock pressed forward into my wetness, he might have whispered my name but I’m not sure, and then with a single powerful buck of his hips, he was inside me.

  His body was an earthquake, and I flew apart as he took me.

  He drove into me, stretching me wide, filling me, and still there was more of him. Every hungry thrust of his cock plunged deeper, taking me harder, and I lost myself in him. I felt his strength moving inside me, rocking back and forth to the rhythm of our pounding hearts, and the world was our two bodies and nothing else.

  I cried his name against his shoulder.

  Sweat dripped from his chest onto my breasts as he reached between us. His eyes met mine, and time fell still for a single delicate moment. Then with a groan he plunged forward and buried himself inside me to the hilt, he stroked wetness over my clit, and I came.

  My mind went white.

  Endless shuddering waves of pleasure seized me, shook me, and wouldn’t let go. All the air rushed out of my lungs at once, and for endless seconds I couldn’t breathe. My clit pulsed helplessly, I clawed at Dave’s shoulders because I felt like I was drowning, and all the way inside I felt the deepest part of me close around him, pulling his strength into me.

  With a final shivering thrust, he spent himself inside me.

  Two people. One body. One heart.

  Time was only a word. We sank together, exhausted. Slick with sweat and happy, we breathed together, held each other, and minutes or hours could have passed. It didn’t matter.

  Dave stretched out on top of me and pillowed his head on my chest. He stroked my hair, he kissed me, and he murmured something that I couldn’t hear.

  I murmured that he was mine and I was his, and also that it was a little hard to breathe with a huge gorgeous man sprawled all over me, and could he maybe do something about that?

  He grinned, he rolled over onto his back and pulled me on top of him, and the world went away again.

  Somewhere in the night, after he’d taken me two more times or maybe three, I remember mumbling something about how he needed to get started on that beard right away, and then I wrapped my arms around him as I yawned. We snuggled close and maybe I fell asleep with my head on his chest about then, because the last thing I remember is listening to the steady thumping beat of his heart.

  We were home in each other’s arms. He was my Dave, I was his wild woman, and nothing could take me away from him.

  ***

  She slept, but I didn’t.

  Not for hours, not until dawn.

  I couldn’t shake the feeling that if I slept, she might vanish in the night.

  Crossing both arms over her back, I held her against me. I listened to her breathing, I counted the slow, dreaming beats of her heart, and I stared up at the ceiling I couldn’t see in the darkness.

  It didn’t make any sense. I knew she wasn’t going anywhere, she loved me – it was a gift I didn’t deserve, but she gave it to me anyway. I knew she’d still be there in the morning, and knowing didn’t matter.

  I didn’t dare fall asleep in the dark. If I did, she’d be gone when I woke up.

  So as she slept in my arms, with her face warm above my heart and her hair fanned across my chest, I moved beneath her. Slowly, careful not to wake her, I curled my legs over hers. With my arms and legs wrapped around her, I held her now in every way I could, close and safe within the shelter of my body and my love.

  I stayed awake until morning filled the room and I could see that she was still with me, still mine.

  The only thing that could take her away from me was the truth.

  19

  Imagine yourself on the cover of People. Go ahead, I’ll wait.

  It would be weird at first, sure – your smiling face right next to the Butterfingers and the Tic Tacs in the checkout line at the supermarket, strangers thumbing through the pages and amusing themselves with the details of your life – but before long, someone else would get the public’s attention for something silly or heroic or scandalous, and you’d be a normal person again.

  Now imagine yourself on the cover of People and Us Weekly.

  And Star the next week, and OK! the week after that. Follow that up with more adoring magazine coverage spread out over the following days and weeks. You’re not always the biggest face on the covers and your name doesn’t always appear in huge, shouting letters, but the talk and the photographers and the gossip and the celebrity won’t go away.

  While you’re at it, picture coming upon a copy of Vanity Fair with you and your smoking hot boyfriend on the cover – a copy of Vanity Fair that you happen to see lying on the President’s desk in the Oval Office, while you’re shaking hands with said President and feeling guilty about voting for the other guy.

  And don’t get me started about the blogs and fan websites and Pinterest and Twitter and Facebook – after the events of Apocalypse Friday, the internet somehow came to a unanimous decision that we were The Cutest Couple And Sweetest Love Story Of All Time Or At Least For Now, and how could online strangers spend so many hours of their own lives dissecting ours?

  Dave took it better than I did. Photographers popped up wherever we went in those first weeks, and he never failed to pull me close and smile as I freaked out about how many pictures the world needed of us, and how bad did my hair look, and what exactly had I done that anybody even cared?

  In Houston – or maybe it was Montreal or Boston or Paris, because we never stopped moving and the cities all ran together after a while – I asked Dave over the clicking and snapping and shouting of the latest batch of paparazzi, “Why can’t we duck these people once in
a while?”

  He faced me right into the cameras like he always did whenever the celebrity watchers caught up to us. “Because I cannot get enough of showing you off – I love a beautiful woman who loves me back even though I’m not nearly good enough for her, and I want everyone to know it.”

  No one seemed to know what had happened to Ilona Szörnyeteg. The shrieking Hungarian nutjob who had given Dave his black eye and torn his face open vanished back home before the confetti stopped swirling that night, and her family wasn’t answering questions.

  Her father did make one brief statement to the press. I watched it on my phone in Madrid, while I sat in the background of Dave’s third business meeting of the day.

  Gregor Szörnyeteg, the man with the cool intelligent stare who’d called my relationship with Dave ‘unfortunate but intriguing,’ stood before the cameras on a flight of stone steps in Budapest. Behind him were two massive iron-banded oak doors that looked like they belonged on a cathedral, and behind the doors were the central offices of the bank his family had owned for more centuries than the United States had existed.

  He spoke in English into a single microphone, and his voice came tinny but clear through my earbuds.

  “My daughter’s hand is broken, but she is healing. I hold no ill will toward David Dallstrom, because he spoke from his heart and meant no harm to my family. I trust he and his father understand that family is everything, and that I will do whatever is necessary to protect my family’s interests, now and in the future that awaits us all.”

  Without another word, he turned and disappeared inside his financial fortress, ignoring the shouted questions of the reporters standing in the street.

  He also ignored Einar Dallstrom’s repeated calls.

  Meanwhile, Dave and I had more to do over the next few months than just ride the Celebrity Crazy Train – in between photo opportunities and interviews and charity events and even sneaking away on occasion to live our lives like nearly normal people, we ran and fetched here and there around the world at the command of Emperor Dallstrom. Dave met with Dallstrom Defense Systems financial officers, systems analysts, production engineers, regional managers, IT executives, and marketing consultants, and he traveled to every continent except Antarctica to do it.