by Ashlee Price
I blink at him, then whisper, “Grazia.”
I’ve surprised him, I can tell. But then, I’ve surprised myself. When he murmurs my name, his mouth somehow caressing the Italian sounds, I gulp. His eyes flicker down the length of my face, from my own gaze that is captured by his, to my lips which I can feel tremble.
I’m not the sort of woman who trembles in the face of a strong man. Usually, arrogance pisses me off and has me flouncing away, unable to tolerate such an annoying and useless character trait. But Marshall is an anomaly.
And I don’t know why, but then, isn’t that what makes him unusual?
Of all the men who’ve watched me over the years, who’ve come on to me, who’ve made me aware of their positions of power… I can’t imagine accidentally falling onto their laps, nearly castrating them with a hand, and then sharing a laugh together at the absurdity of it all.
None of that takes away the farcical proposition he handed me earlier, but somehow, it fades to dust, enabled by his whisper of ‘men like me don’t date.’
There’s no self pity there, only a varnished truth that gleams under the spotlight.
Men like him really don’t have a choice. Not that I pity him, or the rest of the world’s male elite who have to suffer the vagaries of gold diggers and the like, but still, I have to wonder what kind of universe puts me and him on the same sphere.
It’s a funny old world.
“What are you thinking?” he asks me in a low voice, one that I can tell is hesitant; he doesn’t want to spoil the odd mood that has settled between us. Mostly because I’ve stopped trying to run off and he has me exactly where he wants me.
I could lie. I could tell him I’m thinking of a way to get off his knee without hurting him, but instead, I tell the truth. “I’m thinking… I wish you’d kiss me.”
Chapter Two – Marshall
Whatever I’d expected her to say, it certainly wasn’t that.
In fact, none of this meeting has gone how I’d expected, which, in itself, is unusual. But then, the reason she came to my attention is because of that spark in her nature, that fireball that makes her illuminate whatever space she’s inhabiting.
Maybe it’s the Italian in her. Maybe that’s the source of the inferno within her. Wherever it comes from, I feel burned by it, and it’s the nicest burn I’ve ever experienced.
My glance drops down to her lips, plump morsels that are sheened with a gloss that has my mouth watering. Her eyes are like molten chocolate. A man could drown in them, and I know I’d love to give survival a shot. Her blue-black curls tumble into an artful cascade atop her head, the locks curling about her throat and making her tanned skin seem golden rather than just brown. I reach up and, mimicking her position, trail a finger along the sharp jut of her cheekbone. Staring at my digit, I trace it over the soft slope of her nose, the high, shaped brows, and the widow’s peak that also speaks of her Roman ancestry.
Her bottom lip pouts out at my touch, a soft gasp escaping her as I trail my finger down, along the sharp line of her neck, across her throat before sloping it down the quivering line of her cleavage. I tap there, once, and reach forward. As our mouths connect, another breathy sigh pops free, letting me taste the scent of a fruity breath freshener. I rub my mouth over hers, slowly at first, gently. The move has her throat arching, head falling back onto my shoulder as I move in deeper, letting my tongue slide over the soft, pouting curve of her bottom lip before slipping inside.
There’s a mesmerized quality to this interlude.
I’d never expected her to kiss me today. Whatever I’d expected to happen, certainly hadn’t. I kind of knew she’d reject my proposition. Any woman who starts a company as a means of supporting another venture doesn’t have it in her to let a man pay her way, let alone have that payment come at the expense of her body.
I had to ask, though. I had to. I wasn’t lying when I said earlier that men of my stature don’t date. We can’t. Gold diggers, fortune hunters, call them what you please, they’re all there, waiting in the wings. Looking for an opportunity to strike.
After I made my first couple of million and hit the press thanks to one of my first inventions, a girl I’d gone to college with, who I’d shared a computer science class with—nothing more, nothing less—had sold an expose into my life. Into her relationship with me.
All of it had been made up, a grand lie sold to a rapacious reporter who didn’t care whether it was fact or fiction, who just wanted to fill up the paper with something about Wall Street’s new golden guy. I could have handled an entirely fictional story, but there’d been little snippets of truth hidden among the lies. That’s what had pissed me off. Because, though the majority of it had been mythical, those snippets had revealed a lot about me. To discerning eyes, some of which belonged to my competitors in the field, they were telling.
Like my need for white, empty living spaces. Or my pathological need to use the staircase over the elevator unless I was alone in there. Small, informative tidbits about my behavior in class, as well as rumors that had spread about my hacking into the college server. It was the truth; I had successfully hacked into the server and had managed to sneak around in the database for a little while, but I sure as hell didn’t want the rest of the world knowing that.
Humans, be they female or male, have the nasty, irritating habit of turning the world upside down in the search for profit, and unfortunately, ever since my earliest inventions took flight, I’ve been a target.
As I let my tongue unfurl along the length of hers, teasingly taunting her with it, urging her into a breathless kiss that has her panting and reaching up to cup my face to hold me to her, I can’t help but wonder how this woman will betray me.
It’s only a matter of time. It always is. Someone will come along, because they always do. Be it the press or a competitor… they’ll slip sly words into her ear, make her offers she’d be a fool to turn down. Loyalty, in my world, has to be bought, because if it isn’t, it can’t be trusted. It’s a myth, more precious and more rare than a lost treasure. But I don’t want to think about that now. Not when she’s on my knee, compliant, and enjoying my touch.
I pull away from her lips, ignoring her moan of complaint, and dot kisses along the taut length of her jaw. Tracing the line with my tongue, I smile a little as she shivers at the sensation and withhold a sigh of my own when she wriggles in my lap.
My dick is still pounding out an angry message—it really didn’t appreciate being squashed beneath her palm, but with each throb of need, it seems to be easing some, and with each wiggle, I’m left wishing I could spread her out on the thick rug beneath us and take everything she’s offering.
Nibbling down her throat, enough to leave a faint mark, but not a semi-permanent one, I murmur, “Come to dinner with me.” I let the invitation be more of a statement than a request. I know from her file that Grazia is an independent little thing. I know she’s had to fight hard for the successes she’s earned, but the way she submitted to my kiss then also tells me a lot about her.
Those weaknesses I can use to my advantage, because though she might not be aware of it, she will be my mistress. Loyalty bought and paid for.
I let the thought flutter away and smile wider when she breathily tells me, “Yes, yes, thank you.”
I cup her left breast, weighing the heaviness in my palm as I squeeze it gently. She writhes on my lap at the barest caress and I know it’s been a while since someone touched her like that. Satisfaction floods me, making my cock pound urgently against the weight of her butt.
“When?” I ask, lifting my hips a little so she can feel exactly what it is she does to me. There’s power here between us, a power that I sensed the moment we first met. She’d be crazy to back away from it, to ignore it or to let it go to waste. I, for one, refuse to let that happen. Which is why we’re here. Which is why I won’t relent until I get exactly what I want.
Her.
In my bed.
For as long as we mutually
need one another.
“When what?” she replies, asking a question with a question.
Amused that she doesn’t remember what we’re talking about, I murmur, “Your coming to dinner with me. When?”
She blinks up at me, those big chocolate-brown eyes of hers hitting me square in the gut with their power. She’s Italian. Every bit of her screams of her ancestry. And when she stares at me, with that languid look, I’m reminded of Naples. The scorching heat of summer, the clearest blue skies, the warm winds… she’s elemental in her beauty. Everything about her makes me think of us entwined on a bed. And I know I’ll have to take her to my house there, simply so I can make love on the four poster that had spawned a dynasty… before I bought the entire mansion from the poverty-stricken prince whose family had owned it for hundreds of years.
Just the idea of seeing her on that expanse of white linen, as the wind rushes into the room through the French doors, as the gauzy curtains around the bed flap in the breeze, makes me wish I was there with her now.
“Today? Tomorrow?” She shrugs a shoulder, then reaches up to brush her lips over mine. “I don’t care when.”
Her words empower me, and urge me down a path I shouldn’t necessarily take… “Be my mistress, Grazia. Come together with me.”
When she stiffens, I hold her on my lap, refusing to let go.
“Let me up,” she demands, her voice still husky, but this time, I can hear the hurt there, and I regret it.
“I can’t be with you without protecting myself, Grazia. You have to understand that.”
“Then be alone,” she retorts, eyes flashing with ire. “I don’t need you.”
“No, you might not yet, but you want me, and when was the last time you’ve wanted someone?”
I know the dig will hit home, mostly because my investigation into her background showed very little in the way of personal or intimate relationships with anyone—man or woman.
She has family in Brooklyn, family she rarely sees—odd enough for an Italian girl. She has a few friends, ones she barely visits or goes out with. Indeed, the only person she seems to be with on a regular basis is an assistant of hers. My investigator saw her go out for a meal with the younger woman, and it wasn’t on business.
She freezes on my lap, and I know she’s processing my words. I know it because I can almost see the cogs turning as she thinks back to the last time she allowed herself to be intimate with someone. To the last time she allowed herself to care.
It’s interesting watching her process the details. She blanches, then flushes, then, with eyes that spit fire at me, states, “Don’t ever call me your mistress.”
I frown at her. “It’s just a title.”
“A title I don’t appreciate. I’ll sign whatever clauses you need to protect yourself, even fill in a contract if I have to, but don’t have it state anywhere that I’m your mistress. Or that I’m a companion! Partner… that is all I’ll allow you to call me.”
For the first time, she’s surprised me. Her vehemence is unexpected. I know most women don’t necessarily appreciate the term ‘mistress’, but her anger is far more than just a feminist disapproval.
It burns her.
It scalds her.
She’s ashamed that I’ve asked this of her and that she’s conceding because she wants to be with me.
Slowly, I nod. “Don’t worry, there’s no real mention of anything in the contract. It’s simply a nondisclosure agreement.”
Her jaw works for a second, then she turns away. “Where is it? I’ll sign it now. We’ll get this damned thing over with.”
She hauls herself off my knee, and I let her, but the instant I let go, I miss her warmth, her heat. My fingers ache with the need to reach for her, to ask her to come back to me. And I don’t just mean physically.
I can tell she’s placed distance between us. A distance I have to span or it will drive me insane.
“You understand why I have to do this?”
Those beautiful eyes of hers are cold. Enough to make me shiver. “Yes.”
“It doesn’t sound like you do,” I counter, crossing over to my desk. In the drawer, there’s the standard contract I had one of my lawyers write up. It protects me, my name, and this company’s name, and ensures that if any of my ‘companions’ do decide to go to the press, they’ll be diving headfirst into legal battles the likes of which would make even an attorney wince.
“I get it,” she grits out. “What do you want? Blood?”
“No, but I don’t want you to be bitter.”
She narrows her eyes at me. “Are you being serious? You’ve just used my desire for you against me. You’ve just twisted something honest and beautiful around, made it ugly and cheap.”
“Trust is costly, Grazia. I can’t afford to trust, not right at the beginning of a relationship. Surely you can understand that?”
“I can understand, but I don’t have to appreciate it. In fact, you can expect a similar contract from me. I’ll speak with my lawyer and have it sent over to you to handle.” When I just blink at her in, I admit, astonishment, she curls her top lip. “I have a reputation to protect too. The last thing I need is some spoiled billionaire wrecking my good name because things have ended poorly between us. This way, if I’m the one to dump you, you can’t get back at me by trying to ruin my business.”
“I understand your need for protection,” I snap, even though I’m pissed off. As if I’d ever try to discredit her, dammit. But the tit-for-tat nature of her comment makes me understand her own agitation with the NDA. “Don’t bother having it sent over. I’ll have one of my lawyers draft it for you and I’ll sign it and send it to your lawyer so you know it’s a solid contract and that you’re protected.” When her mouth pops open, I can sense her desire to argue. Shaking my head and holding up a hand, I tell her, “Look, I’m rich, you’re not. I can afford to get one of my lawyers to waste their time on petty things like NDAs. You can’t. I don’t mind handling this. If you simply get your legal representative to make sure you’re protected, then it won’t cost you as much.”
At my first remark about her relative poverty in comparison to me, she stiffened, but after I finish, she starts to loosen up. “Thank you,” she unbends enough to say.
“You’re welcome. Now, this is the agreement. It’s short. Check it through, and sign it, then we’ll discuss where we’re going for dinner.”
Chapter Three – Grazia
“I don’t want to talk about dinner.” My words are cold as I sign my name at the bottom of the sheet of paper.
“No?” He frowns at me, and I know I’ve surprised him.
“No. If I want dinner, I can go out and get some.”
His eyes are like narrow slits. “What do you want, then?”
Taking the bull by the balls, and only capable of doing that because he’s pissed me off, I reach for the hem of my blouse, cross my arms and tug it off, over my head. Flinging it on the floor, I stare at him in silent challenge, awaiting his reaction.
Those narrow slits of his widen, and I can see his arousal turn his pupils into saucers. He swallows, then, in a low voice, bites off, “Don’t stop there.”
“I didn’t intend on stopping,” I tell him silkily. “I was waiting for you to join in.”
Again, his eyes widen and his nostrils flare. Everything about him has hardened. He’s standing taller, his muscles are tensed, and the bulge at the front of his pants makes me want to pant with the need coursing through me, a need to have him inside me, deep, deep, inside.
His hands come up and I watch as he shrugs out of his suit jacket then works at the buttons on his shirt. As he reveals his torso to me, I’m close to surprised by the muscles he’s packing. I knew he worked out, could tell by his posture, but his stomach ripples with strength, and in a way that makes me want to lick in between each individual nodule of his six pack.
The lines between his pecs have a crimped edge. A fuzzy line that speaks of true strength, of a true passion f
or working out. It tells me that he’s no gym bunny. I have no idea how he maintains his form, but he doesn’t do it by worshiping the dumbbell rack.
Curious despite myself, I ask, “You work out?”
He just nods, and his jaw flexes and firms as he starts to work at his belt. When the leather whips out, I gulp.
“How?”
“A mixture of martial arts. Swimming. Yoga.” He blinks at me. “Does it really matter?”
“You’re a yogi?” Of everything he’s said, that has me holding back a chuckle.
“Yes.” He tilts his head at me, almost like he can sense my amusement. “You find that humorous?”
I shake my head, because I can sense I’m coming close to offending him. “You don’t seem the restful type.”
“I’m not. Which is why I practice yoga. It helps me cope with the stresses of running this place.” He eyes me a second and bites off, “Take off your pants.” He preempts my own demand for him to do the same by unbuttoning his fly and letting the tailored slacks fall to the ground. He toes out of them, shucking his shoes off at the same time, then bends down to remove his socks.
When he stands up, a whimper curdles in my throat. “You’re huge. And you go commando.” I hate that my voice is a squeak, but goddammit, any woman would squeak in the face of that anaconda.
Good God above, where the hell am I supposed to fit it?
He waves a hand. “It will fit.”
“It fucking won’t,” I deny immediately, cupping my poor, innocent, never-done-anyone-any-harm pussy in self-defense.
His chuckle is low, gravelly. “Don’t worry, I won’t hurt you.”
“You say that now,” I snap, my tone churlish, but in the name of fairness, I unfasten my own pants and send them flying down my legs to the ground. He stares at me in my bra and panties and lets out a low growl.
“Fuck, you’re beautiful.”
Despite myself, despite my anger at his putting a contract on any relationship we might have together, I flush. His comment was readily and earnestly spoken, but somehow it makes me want to cover myself up.