Billionaire Beast (Billionaires - Book #12)

by Claire Adams

  This is one of those times I wish I could congratulate myself for a job well done, but honestly, I’m not sure I have more than a mechanical part in any of it right now.

  When the two finally separate, I can barely hear them, as Yoga Chick’s thighs are still quivering against each side of my head.

  That, mixed with their continued vocalizations, is almost loud enough that I don’t hear it.

  “Breann, I told you to turn your cell phone off,” one of them says to the other.

  I wish I could tell which one says it, but my field of vision is somewhat restricted at the moment.

  “It’s not mine,” whichever one is Breann answers.

  “Shit,” I say—if you can call what I’m doing right now talking. “It’s mine.”

  Yoga Chick raises herself off of me just enough to ask, “What?”

  “That’s mine,” I tell her. “I’m sorry, but I really have to get that.”

  “You’ve got to be joking,” Buzzed Girl says, still grinding her hips against mine, pushing me into her again and again, so deep.

  “It could be about my apartment,” I tell her. “If I don’t answer, someone else might get it.”

  Yoga Chick sighs and lifts herself enough for me to angle my upper body toward the edge of the bed.

  Buzzed Girl takes this as an opportunity to get one up on her roommate, and only rides me harder.

  I pull the phone out of my pants pocket, just hoping that it’s not my mom calling to see if I’ve found a new place to live yet.

  I’m not a total neophyte to the city, but my last apartment, well, let’s just say things kind of got complicated with the roommate.

  “If you don’t get the apartment, you can stay in my room,” Yoga Chick says, running her hands down the front of my body.

  “Oh, hell no,” Buzzed Girl retorts. “If he’s staying with anyone, he’s staying inside of me.” She giggles.

  The slip was clearly intentional.

  “Shh,” I whisper. “This is Dane Paulson,” I answer the phone.

  I can only hope that whoever’s on the other end can’t hear Yoga Chick lifting Buzzed Girl—by the ass, mind you—off of my cock, or the mostly-self-satisfied tone she exudes as she works me inside of her.

  “Dane, yeah,” an only vaguely familiar voice answers, “I just wanted to let you know that my first three choices were unavailable, so it looks like the room is yours.”

  “Thank you,” I say, trying not to sound anywhere near as relieved as I am to hear the news.

  As fun as this whole thing is tonight, I really don’t want to be anywhere near either one of these women in the cold, sober light of day.

  “Oh, that’s it!” Yoga Chick gasps as I start working my thumb over her swollen bud.

  “What was that?” the woman on the phone asks.

  I really need to get better with names.

  “Nothing,” I answer. “When should I plan on moving in?”

  “Screw it,” she slurs. “Move in tomorrow.”

  The line goes dead a moment later.

  I can’t quite be certain with the amount of distraction going on at the moment, but the woman on the phone sounded kind of drunk.

  Oh well, verbal contract and all that. Right now, I’m more interested in watching as Buzzed Girl places one of her thighs over Yoga Chick’s shoulder while Yoga Chick, straddling me in what amounts to a modified version of the splits, holds her roommate in place with both hands on the latter’s ass and proceeds to go down on her.

  All things considered, life is pretty great.

  Chapter Three

  Resolutions

  Leila

  My head hurts.

  I lie in bed for what feels like an hour before I gather enough courage to open my eyes.

  “Mike?”

  There’s no response.

  The brightness of the tiny beam of light that’s made its way through the blinds is pinning me down and keeping me sightless. I’m not even sure where or who I am right now.

  After what feels like another hour, I manage to sit up and scoot over to the side of the bed.

  If this is what a hangover feels like, I can’t begin to imagine how anyone in the world has ever decided that getting drunk twice is a good idea.

  I did something stupid last night, but I can’t for the life of me remember what it was.

  I’m in my own bedroom. There’s no one in here with me.

  That’s a positive sign.

  Still, there’s that heavy pull in my gut that tells me I’m going to regret something just as soon as I remember what the hell happened.

  I’m naked. Somehow it’s taken me this long to realize it.

  I’ve never slept naked in my life. I’m way too uptight to feel comfortable without some sort of clothing on my body at all times; showers and sex excluded, of course.

  I lean toward the floor and feel my pants pockets for my cell phone, but it’s not in them.

  After the long, nearly impossible task of standing up, I check the rest of my room, but the phone’s nowhere to be found.

  Not knowing if there’s anyone sleeping on the couch, I wrap myself in my bathrobe before I open the door.

  Empty.

  I would think that something happened with Mike last night, but I’m confident that he’d stick around for a while if that were the case. Then again, that would be weird enough that I might never see him again either.

  Huh.

  I give up on the phone for a while and try to remember what cures a hangover. Apparently, though, even thinking hurts.

  Coffee, whether it’s going to help or not, sounds like a great idea right now, so I head into my kitchen and start a pot. The clock on the microwave reads 11:36.

  “Great,” I mumble to myself, “even after getting hammered, I still can’t sleep past noon.”

  I was trying so hard to be one of those derelicts who throw caution to the wind and, whatever.

  There’s a knock on the door, and I’m almost at the peephole when I realize what I did last night. It’s worse than I could have imagined.

  If Mike and I had slept together, at least we could chalk it up to being such close friends getting drunk and doing something stupid. It would be weird, but I think we’d both find a way to live with it.

  No, the truth is much worse.

  “Hey, is anyone in there?”

  It’s him.

  “Just a minute!” I call out.

  There has to be a way for me to get out of this. I know I told him that he could move in here, but in my defense, I was drunk, and drunken people should not be held accountable for their phone calls.

  Now that the generalities of the mistake are clear, the specifics start to set in. I can’t really be certain, but I think he was having sex while he was on the phone with me.

  “I don’t have a key yet,” Dane calls through the door, and I bite my fingernails on one hand while, with the other, I unlock the door.

  “Dane, look, I—”

  “I’m glad you called,” he says, trotting in. “Fucking thrilled is more like it, actually.”

  “When I called you last night,” I start again, but lose my train of thought.

  He shrugs and says, “I don’t have that much to move in, really. I’m having my mattress delivered here today along with some other essentials, but I’m sure I’ll be all settled before I have to go to work.”

  “Isn’t it Saturday?” I ask.

  “Yeah,” he says. “It’s my busiest night of the week.”

  “That’s right,” I yawn. “You’re a musician.”

  He shoots me a look that I’m nowhere near interested enough to decipher, and starts talking again. It’s insufferable.

  “Yeah,” he says. “In this city, the two best jobs to have are also the ones that’ll kill your Saturday night more than any other.”

  I wait for him to expound on his philosophy, but he either chooses not to or simply hasn’t thought it through far enough to have decided what the other
“best job” would be. Neither possibility would surprise me.

  “Listen,” I say. “It’s Dane, right?”

  “You’re good at that,” he says. “I can’t remember someone’s name if we’re fucking.”

  I get the feeling the statement isn’t hyperbole.

  “Charming,” I mock. “You and I are going to have to talk about that little phone call last night, but before that happens, I have got to get some more sleep.”

  “I can tell,” he laughs. “Looks like you got hit by the drunkest train in the state.”

  “Uh huh,” I say dismissively. “Anyway, so, why don’t you help yourself to some food and make yourself comfortable for a while? Just keep it down. I’d really rather not have to kick you out before I’ve had a chance to drift into a hangover-induced coma and die.”

  “You know what helps with that?” he asks.

  “What?” I ask, for the first time looking forward to hearing something that’s about to come out of this idiot’s mouth.

  “Hair of the dog,” he says.

  “What does that even mean?”

  “Hair of the dog that bit you,” he says. “It means to have a couple of shots or a Bloody Mary or something. Trust me, that shit fucking works.”

  “Have you ever gotten through a conversation without pumping it full of obscenity?”

  “All the time,” he says. “If you need to go lie down now, I can fix you up something to drink. Just tell me what you like.”

  “That’s okay,” I tell him. “I think that would just make me puke right now.”

  “Oh, yeah,” he says, “you’re going to need a vomit can. I’ll get one for you, roomie.”

  I’m done listening to him. That is, until I get to the door to my room and realize that I’m about to pop.

  “You look like shit,” he says. “Think you can make it to the bathroom, or are we about to get to know each other in a very new and disgusting way?”

  “Just grab me a ‘vomit can’, will you?” I ask, only hoping the phrase means what it sounds like it means.

  “All right,” he says. “Go sit on your bed and I’ll bring something in for you.”

  I sit on the edge of my bed for about 12 seconds before I give up and lie down flat on my back. It’s a long time before I move again.

  Whether I actually fall asleep at one point or another is hard to say, but the next thing I know, I’m hearing what sounds like someone hammering a nail into the drywall in the other room.

  I’m about to get up and tell my new and very temporary roommate to “knock it off and, oh, by the way, get out, you’re not moving in here” when I hear a woman’s voice punctuating the same rhythm as the banging noise.

  “You’ve got to be kidding me,” I exhale.

  I would love to go in there and throw him out right now, but I’m really not willing to see whatever it is that he’s doing to that poor woman. Either he’s killing her or they’re having sex. Either way, I don’t want to be a witness.

  Sure, I could knock and call through the door, but it’s so much easier to just bury my head between two pillows and wish for death. His or mine: it doesn’t really matter.

  Even through the pillows, though, I can hear the woman’s screaming moans, or whatever you’d call that noise.

  To me, it sounds like a cat being nailed to a board. It’d almost be sad if it weren’t so infuriating.

  “Oh, fuck! Oh, fuck!” the woman is screaming, and I’ve got to get the hell out of here.

  The man’s only been in my apartment a couple of hours, and he’s already driving me out of it. If I had any residual guilt about going back on my offer for him to move in, it’s being drowned out by the woman’s howling.

  She’s got to be faking it. I wonder if he knows.

  He probably doesn’t care.

  I’ve had sex before, and at no point did I feel the need to start making noises like a tortured rabbit.

  Real or not, I’m done. I start to think that I might not hear them if I get in the shower—a necessity at the moment, I assure you—but the squealing is way too loud for me to hang onto that illusion for long.

  Luckily, I find my phone and call Mike.

  “Hello?”

  “Mike, I’ve got to get the hell out of here. Remember that idiot I told you about—the one who went through my newspaper?”

  “Yeah?”

  “I called him last night and told him that the room is his. Now, he’s in the other room, doing unspeakable things to a poor woman, and I can’t even—”

  “Is he hurting her, or are they having sex?” Mike asks.

  “Probably the latter, but I have no way of knowing. You’ve got to get me out of here.”

  “Just go for a walk or something. When you come back, tell him that you made a mistake and that he’s got to go. Wait, you didn’t sign a contract with him or anything, did you?”

  “No.”

  “There you go. I’m at work right now, but just go get food or something. It’ll be uncomfortable, but you’ll be fine.”

  “Are you sure you can’t do it?” I ask.

  I’ve never liked confrontation.

  Mike sighs on the other end of the phone.

  “I’ll tell you what,” he says, “if you can hold out until I’m off, I’ll come over and provide moral support.”

  Deep breath in. Deep breath out. “All right,” I sigh, and hang up.

  I had been so focused on the phone call that I hadn’t noticed the disembodied grunting in Dane’s room had ceased.

  I go back to my room and close the door. I don’t want to see him or the woman that’s in there.

  Sadly, the two were apparently taking a breather, as that thump, thump, thumping of the headboard is back and louder than before.

  I get dressed in record time, grab my wallet, and am out the door. It’s not until the latch clicks behind me that I realize I forgot my keys.

  This is quite possibly the worst day of my life.

  * * *

  I’m not going to lie. I’m a little drunk.

  Dane was right about that whole hair-of-the-dog thing. This is fantastic.

  That is, I feel fantastic right up until I feel my phone vibrating in my bra and realize that I now have to go home and deal with everything.

  I order another drink for the road.

  Walking used to be the easiest thing in the world. It’s been years since I’ve even given the task much thought, but trying to keep a straight line down the sidewalk takes every bit of concentration I have.

  Mike’s on his way. At the rate I’m going, I should get there about 10 minutes before he does.

  I just hope he relents and does some of the talking. Sauced or not, I’m not looking forward to kicking the guy out.

  When I get to my building, I don’t bother waiting out front for Mike like I told him I would; I just go straight up there.

  Maybe if I do this quick, Mike can arrive just in time to throw Dane out on his ear.

  That’s the dream.

  I spend a few solid minutes going through my pockets before I remember having left the keys inside.

  I knock on the door and wait.

  While I’m waiting, something triggers a memory within me. Something about my father, but I can’t put a finger on it.

  I knock again, but there’s no answer.

  He must be out.

  I don’t have Dane’s number in my phone since my call history automatically deletes itself, so all I can do is wait for Mike to get here and then track down the super.

  As I’m walking away from my door, I realize what’s triggering the memory: someone's cooking confit de canard. My dad used to make it in his restaurant.

  This is just perfect. I’m drunk, irritated, and now starving.

  As I walk down the stairs, I pull out my phone.

  “Hey,” Mike answers. “Where are you?”

  “He’s not there,” I tell him. “Are you out front?”

  “Yeah,” he says. “Are you drunk?�
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  “I wouldn’t say that I’m drunk,” I tell him.

  “You know, if we don’t get that guy out of there, I’m going to have to start taking you to meetings.”

  “Yeah, yeah,” I say, stumbling down the final two steps to the ground floor.

  “You okay?” Mike asks.

  “I’m fine,” I answer. “Why?”

  The knock on the glass door of the building answers the question for me.

  “Are you going to let me in or what?”

  I hang up and open the door.

  “Are you all right?” he asks. “It looked like you rolled your ankle or something.”

  “I’m fine, but we need to find the super. I forgot my keys.”

  The quest takes a while as we chase Mr. Traven from floor to floor, the people in each apartment we stop at saying that he just left. If I didn’t know any better, I would swear that he’s avoiding me for some reason.

  We finally catch up to him on the fourth floor, and little droplets of spit fly out as he chastises me for making such a ridiculous mistake.

  Grudgingly, he walks with Mike and I back into that hallway, still filled with the fragrance of confit de canard.

  “I’ll let you in,” Mr. Traven says at the door, “but you’re going to have to figure something else out next time. I’ve got two broken radiators, a refrigerator that stopped working around 3 o’clock yesterday afternoon, and six or seven toilets to unclog. I really don’t have time to save you every time you—”

  “I really appreciate it, Mr. Traven,” I interrupt. “You’re an absolute lifesaver.”

  The gambit works, and he opens the door without showering me or my companion with any more spittle.

  As soon as the door is open, I’m struck by the smell wafting from inside.

  “Smells like your roommate is quite the chef,” Mike says, stopping to sniff the air. “What is that, anyway?”

  “I don’t know,” I lie.

  My mind is elsewhere.

  Sitting on the kitchen table is a plate of confit de canard with a note off to one side.

  I walk toward it and breathe deep the succulent aroma while Mike makes his way to my side and picks up the note.