The Billionaire's Allure (The Silver Cross Club Book 5)

by Bec Linder

  “Max, what,” she said, but it was too late: I had her up, and I was already unfastening her bra and drawing the straps down her arms.

  “Mm, very nice,” I said, and tossed her bra on the floor.

  “That’s an expensive bra, you know,” she said, raising her hands to cover herself. I didn’t think she was even aware that she was doing it. “You can’t just drop it on the floor like that.”

  “I’ll pick it up later,” I said. “I’ll buy you a new one.” I drew her hands away, kissing each palm in turn. “Don’t hide yourself from me, sweet girl. Everything about you is perfect.”

  “Oh, Max, you can’t say things like that,” she said.

  “Why not?” I asked.

  “Because you’re going to give me a huge ego,” she said, and bent her head to kiss me.

  It was a slow, heated kiss, a dance of lips and tongues. I cupped her breasts in my hands and rolled my thumbs over her nipples. Beth inhaled sharply with each pass of my fingers, a quick little breath, and it made my blood boil. My cock throbbed between my legs. Waiting was torture, but the delay made the eventual ecstasy even sweeter. And I wanted to see Beth come before I took my own pleasure.

  Our last coupling had been frenzied, rushed. Thoroughly enjoyable, but now I wanted to take my time with her and re-learn all of her responses: every tremor, every indrawn breath. I eased her back down onto the bed. She clung to me, drawing me with her, and I rested on top of her, my body covering hers, pressing her down into the mattress. I loved the feeling of her beneath me, warm and soft.

  “This is nice,” she said, running her hands down my back. “Like you’re hugging me with your whole body.”

  I laughed. “You wanted to come back to my apartment so we could hug?”

  “That wasn’t really what I had in mind,” she admitted. “But this is still nice.”

  “You’re touch-hungry,” I told her, and turned my head to kiss her neck. “Your skin wants my hands on it.”

  “Hungry?” she asked. “Starving.” And she drew my head up and brought me into another kiss.

  I loved kissing, and I loved lying there with her and touching her hips and the sides of her breasts, but there was only so much making out I could tolerate while my dick was demanding immediate release. It was distracting. My mind wandered from Beth’s lips to the presumably slick heat between her legs, and my mouth wandered down her neck to suck on her nipples again. She had magnificent tits, gold-medal tits, round and full and just right for squeezing. But even her breasts lost their appeal after a few minutes, and I kissed my way further down her body, approaching what was by far the most fascinating part of any woman’s anatomy: her wet, tight, delicious pussy.

  “Oh,” Beth said, as I spread her legs, pressing one knee up and out of the way.

  “Oh?” I asked. God, she was already wet and swollen. I drew one finger along her slit, and she trembled at my touch. I pressed a kiss in the crease of her hip, and another on the swell of her mound.

  She exhaled shakily. “You never did this when we were kids.”

  I grinned pressed another kissed to her thigh. “Beth, I’m not sure I even knew this was an option.”

  “Didn’t you watch porn?” she asked. “Don’t they do this in porn?”

  “They do a lot of things in porn,” I said. “At the time, I didn’t believe that half of them were real sex acts. I thought it was performance art, I guess. And a lot of the women didn’t seem to be enjoying themselves too much, so I decided that porn wasn’t meant to be an instruction manual for pleasing a lady.”

  “Aww, little teenaged Max,” she said. “You did a pretty good job of pleasing me.”

  “Let’s see if I can do an even better job now,” I said, and bent my head to the task.

  She was more responsive than I could have hoped, gasping and trembling at every touch. I had one hand curled around the back of her thigh to hold her leg out of my way, and I felt the long muscles there quiver each time I drew my tongue over her clit. I rubbed at her with the flat of my tongue, using long strokes to warm her up. She moved her hips in time with my mouth, rocking against me ever so slightly. I wondered if she was even aware of doing it, or if she was so lost in sensation that her body moved without her conscious command.

  She gasped, quick and shallow, and I looked up to see her stroking her breasts, pinching her nipples with her fingernails.

  Christ. Perfect.

  I licked at her until she was moaning steadily and tossing her head from side to side, all of her muscles tensed and straining toward release. She was close, and it would be so easy to let her topple over the edge into orgasm, but I wasn’t finished with her yet. There was an empty span of eight years that I had to compensate for: ninety-six months in which I should have been doing this all the time but wasn’t. If Beth was starving, I was a man presented with water after a long sojourn in the desert, and I would drink until my burning thirst had been quenched.

  “Max,” she cried out, and I pulled back and kissed her knee, her shin, waiting for her to come back from the edge.

  A few moments passed. She raised her head from the mattress to scowl at me. “Why did you stop?”

  Darling, crabby Beth. “Because I’m not going to let you come just yet,” I said.

  “That’s so mean,” she wailed, letting her head fall back to the mattress.

  I smiled. She was so cute in her outrage, like a wet kitten. And completely at my mercy. I pressed one finger into her, carefully, going slow, but it sunk right in, and she arched her back to take me deeper. Oh, she liked that. I gave her another finger, and she took that one, too. Her body was a tight clench of heat around my fingers. I couldn’t help imagining what she would feel like around my cock.

  I pulled my fingers out almost all the way, watching how she stretched around me, and then thrust them back in, gently but firmly. She made an encouraging noise, so I did it again, a little faster, and soon I was fucking her with my fingers, and she moaned and moved with me and loved it. She started getting noisy again, working herself up to orgasm again, and I couldn’t have that. I pulled my fingers out and waited.

  “Maaaaax,” she whined. There was a fine sheen of sweat on her forehead. She bit her lip and looked at me with mute desperation. “Please…”

  I didn’t give in. I waited until her breathing evened out, and the frantic pulse in the hollow of her neck slowed. Then I bent my mouth to her and started all over again.

  I repeated the cycle twice more, using my lips and tongue on her until she wailed, then switching to my fingers, and then back to my mouth until she was a limp, trembling tangle of limbs on the bed—but never giving her quite enough, never letting her reach satisfaction. Then I stopped, finally, and raised her from the bed and into my arms.

  She gasped and shivered, too close to orgasm to protest being manhandled. I stroked her back, waiting for her to quiet. At last she lifted her head from my shoulder and said, “You bastard.”

  I chuckled. “My parents were married when I was born,” I said. “So that isn’t technically accurate.”

  “Fuck you anyway,” she said, her voice too weak for the words to have any power.

  “Yes, please,” I said, and I felt her body shake against me with her laughter.

  I lay down on the bed, arranging myself against the pillows, and steadied her on top of me with my hands on her hips. “You want to get off, don’t you?”

  “Yes,” she said, her hands creeping up again to cover her breasts.

  I grasped her wrists and drew her hands away. “Ride me. I want to watch you.”

  “Max!” she exclaimed, like I had shocked her, but I didn’t miss the sudden hitch in her breath. She liked the idea as much as I did—and I liked it a lot, a hell of a lot. Beth above me, taking her pleasure from my body, her incredible breasts swaying with each motion…

  “You’re not scandalized, sweet girl,” I said. “You don’t need to act coy with me. What’s shameful about liking sex? I sure enjoy it. We can enjoy
it together.”

  “It’s different for men,” she said, “but you’re right. I enjoy it, too. We’re going to have a good time.” She leaned down to kiss me, her breasts brushing against my chest, her belly and soft thighs pressing against my cock and driving me wild.

  I couldn’t get enough of her. She was curvy in all the right places, with hips that were perfect for squeezing and an ass that begged to be smacked just hard enough to cause a little excitement.

  She sat up and planted her hands on my chest. “Do you have a condom?”

  “Do you even need to ask?” I reached for the drawer of my nightstand and handed her a condom in its foil wrapper. She frowned at it, biting her lip adorably as she ripped it open and rolled the latex sheath onto my iron-hard cock. Even the brief touch of her hands threatened my self-control. When she lifted herself up and sank down onto my cock, using one of her hands to hold me in place, I felt my eyes roll back into my head.

  “Oh,” Beth said, with wide eyes, and began moving.

  I curled my hands around her hips and held on.

  She rode me quickly and confidently, her hands braced on my chest for leverage. She rolled her hips on my cock like she was born to it, and even through the condom, the heat and pressure of her felt incredible. I was going to lose it way too fast and blow my load inside her willing body, and despite the potential embarrassment that my poor stamina would cause me, I couldn’t think of anything better.

  “Oh boy,” Beth said, completely incongruous for a woman who was currently working my dick with such enthusiasm, and I burst out laughing, full of desire and joy. She frowned at me, still moving, and said, “No laughing.”

  “I’m happy, that’s all,” I said, reaching up to touch her cheek. “I’m happy to be here with you.” Then I slid my hand down between our bodies to stroke at her clit, fast and hard, giving her—at long last—exactly what she wanted.

  She arched her back and came in long, rolling waves.

  I gave myself permission to let go.

  After, when we had both cleaned up, we lay twined together in bed for a few minutes before she had to put on her clothes and leave for work. The feeling of her bare skin against mine, smooth as silk, was a treasure worth any price. I would pay anything, do anything it took to be with her. I would kill a man. I would abandon my carefully crafted life.

  “I’m so happy,” Beth said. “Max, I’m so—I’m really glad you decided to look for me.”

  “So am I,” I said, and prayed that she didn’t hear my voice crack.

  Guilt twined itself around my stomach, a wicked serpent.

  I had to tell her the truth. It was time.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Beth

  All at once, overnight, the city exploded into spring. The daffodils were harbingers, and then the next time I left my apartment, the trees were covered with brand new pale green leaves. The entire display was a painfully obvious metaphor for my own heart. Like so: after years of lying in dormant slumber, I had been reawakened to love. It was horribly unsubtle, and yet that was what I thought to myself as I walked to the grocery store on Wednesday afternoon, the day after my rendezvous with Max. I was still feeling the after-effects of our lovemaking, a pleasant, tender soreness between my legs. Everything was bright and glorious. I felt alive.

  I walked to the subway on my way to work, my feet barely touching the ground. Max was alive and not very far away, just on the other side of the river, answering emails or vacuuming his floor, going about his daily business, and probably thinking about me just like I was thinking about him. There was a part of me that lived inside of him, his memories and thoughts of me, and I liked the idea of it, that he carried me around with him all the time, like Athena inside Zeus’s skull.

  Work was bustling that night. I spent the entire evening running around, and barely had a spare moment to catch my breath or even string two thoughts together. But I did check my phone once, while I was waiting for Mike to concoct a complicated drink, and saw that Max had texted me: Thinking of you always. Hope you’re having a good night at work.

  I couldn’t stop smiling.

  “What’s wrong with your face?” Tubs asked me a while later, when we were both loading drinks onto our trays.

  “Nothing,” I said. “What? What do you mean, what’s wrong with my face? Do I have food on it or something?”

  “No, but you’re making this weird grimace,” she said. “If I didn’t know better, I would think that you were smiling.”

  “Shut up, Tubs,” I said, and went out onto the floor with my tray.

  She was right, though. I knew I was grinning like a fool. Even one of my customers commented on it, a middle-aged guy who claimed he came to the club for the excellent wine selection, but who always picked a table near the stage and couldn’t tear his eyes away from the dancers. He was definitely married, and his wife definitely didn’t know what he was up to. I had a sixth sense for that sort of thing, after working at the club for so long. I didn’t condemn him for it, though. Who knew what his life looked like behind closed doors? I set his drink on the table, smiled at him just the way he liked, and said, “I’ll be back with another in half an hour.”

  “Thank you, Beth,” he said, handing me a folded bill. “You’re in a good mood tonight. New boyfriend?”

  “Oh, Mr. Thatcher, you know you’re the only man for me,” I said, and winked at him.

  His comment unsettled me. I needed to get my game face on. I played a character for my customers: flirtatious, light-hearted. That wasn’t really me. I didn’t like to let any parts of my real life seep through. Even my regulars knew very little about me. And if Thatcher—hardly the most observant man—could tell that I was on cloud nine, I must have been lit up like a Christmas tree.

  I tried to tone it down. But the smile kept creeping back onto my face. After a while, I stopped fighting it. Who cared if everyone could tell that I was in a good mood? I was in love. Doubt that the stars are fire, doubt that the sun doth move his aids…

  “What are you thinking about?” Amy asked me, giving me a suspicious sideways look.

  “Nothing,” I said. “Poetry.”

  “Weird,” she said, and brushed past me with her tray.

  When the night was over, and the last customers had finally made their way out the door, I settled down at the bar to count my tips, and the waitresses descended on me like a flock of harpies, eager to unearth what they were all absolutely sure was some deliciously juicy gossip.

  “What happened to that guy?” Tubs asked, leaning on the bar beside me. “Is he your boyfriend?”

  “He isn’t my boyfriend,” I said. I licked my thumb and started in on the twenties.

  “Girl, he wants to be your boyfriend,” Binh said. “Nobody’s that patient unless they’re waiting for pussy.”

  “Binh!” Tubs gasped, like she didn’t say worse things on a daily basis.

  “You all need to leave her alone,” Keisha said, and I could have kissed her, but then she followed it up with, “You know Beth hasn’t had this much excitement in years. She isn’t sure how to handle it.”

  “I’m going to fire all of you,” I said. I had totally lost count by then, and set my bills aside to be dealt with later. “Leave me alone.”

  “You don’t mean that, right?” Tubs asked, sounding genuinely worried.

  “Oh my God, Tubs,” Amy said, rolling her eyes. “You are too dumb to live. Of course she isn’t going to fire us. She loves us. Right, Beth?”

  “Heaven help me,” I muttered.

  “We’re going out for drinks,” Keisha said. “You’ll come with us, right?”

  “Absolutely not,” I said. “Now please go away and leave me in peace.”

  “She wants to go home to her boyfriend!” Tubs said. “I knew it.”

  I could see where this was going. If I didn’t go out with them, they would take it as an admission that Max was, in fact, my boyfriend. I would then be subjected to repeated interrogations about our sex
life, wedding plans, and unborn children. If I did go out with them, for the first time ever, maybe they would be too stunned to keep asking me any prying questions.

  Alternately, I could just quit my job and let Max support me. He would probably be thrilled.

  The thought shouldn’t have sent a warm tingle up my spine.

  I wondered if he had texted me again. I couldn’t check now, though. The waitresses would smell blood and move in for the kill.

  “Fine,” I said, experimentally, and waited to see what would happen.

  “Yay!” Tubs squealed, and clapped her hands.

  Amy and Keisha exchanged a look. I could imagine their silent communication: Have the end times arrived? Is Beth going to sprout horns and tell us she’s here to collect our souls?

  “Really?” Binh asked.

  “Yes, really,” I said. “Why not? You’re always bothering me about it. I’ll go once, and see if I can figure out what the big deal is. And then none of you can ever hassle me about it again.”

  “Oh my God!” Tubs said. “Just let me go get my coat!”

  I really had no idea what was in store. The waitresses went out on a fairly regular basis, a few times a week. Sometimes the dancers would go with them, or some of the kitchen staff. Tonight it was just the five of us, though. We walked north from the club, heading into Chelsea. Even on a Wednesday night, people were out partying. I watched a woman in sky-high heels teeter down the sidewalk. Definitely not a local.

  “What do we think, girls?” Keisha asked, as we approached what appeared to be a nightclub. Loud music thumped from inside, and a small crowd gathered on the sidewalk outside, smoking and making a ruckus. That, right there, was the exact reason I had decided not to live in Chelsea.

  “Looks good to me,” Amy said. “You think we can get in?”

  Keisha laughed and unbuttoned her blouse, revealing the lacy edge of her bra. “Are you kidding me?”

  We got in.

  The nightclub was pretty horrible: loud, crowded, and full of flashing lights and what appeared to be confetti. It wasn’t the sort of place I ever would have gone on my own. But the girls were so happy and excited that it was infectious, and when we found a table in the back and settled in with our drinks, I found myself relaxing a little—and even enjoying myself. Binh had gotten me a fruity drink with a cherry on a toothpick, so sweet I could barely even taste the alcohol.