My Billionaire Stranger

by Shae Black

  “Let’s go have a look around. Elijah better have things in order.”

  “Or what?” I ask, seriously wanting to know, but I think he takes it as teasing.

  “Or I’ll fire him, along with everybody else. Then I will burn this place to the ground with all of them in it.”

  I look up at him, mouth gaping apparently, as I work to remove his leg from the pillows. He reaches out to hook his knuckle under my chin, closing my mouth. “Joking Imani, I’m joking.” He dips his head, looking up at me through his eyelashes to make sure I understand. I shake my head a little trying to shake off my unwarranted shock. If I hadn’t overheard Accent and Scratchy earlier, I probably would have laughed that comment off for what it was, a joke. Marcus keeps his eyes trained on me as I help him up; he’s gotten the hang of the crutches quickly and doesn’t need much from me other than to open the door. Pausing outside his office, he points toward the right and we walk together down a hall that opens into…. well…. heaven…. white is everywhere like a winter crystal fairyland. We stand together on a balcony of sorts, looking down on the dining room. There are tables covered with white linen cloths, white carpet, and white chairs and walls; the only smattering of color is a small arrangement of lavender roses in the center of each table. I inhale a sharp gasp when I notice the chandelier that spans the ceiling of entire room, like sparkling rain drops falling from the sky. It’s the main light source for the room causing it to be dim, intimate, romantic and breathtaking. A few tables are already occupied, and another couple is being seated.

  “Oh …it’s… I’m speechless really.” His eyes sparkle with pride as he watches me take it all in. Smiling, and completely satisfied with my reaction, he indicates with a quick motion of his chin where the entrance is, and which direction the kitchen is in and I can literally can not speak so I settle for nodding.

  “I normally enter the dining room from the stairs here but I do not want to maneuver them with crutches right now..” There’s a solid white curved staircase that leads from this landing right into the center of the dining area.

  “Is there an elevator?” I’ve finally found my voice.

  “Yes, this way.” We turn around and go back the way we came where an elevator lowers us down into the busy kitchen. The men and women cooking go about their business with no regard to Marcus and I. But the rest of the staff is immediately timid, anxious and apprehensive. A hush falls over the room, and I feel the tension thick in the air. Eventually everyone returns to their work, waitresses scurry around readying dishes, hustling gracefully in and out of the kitchen.

  One brave and beautiful Latina woman approaches us, clutching her hands. She’s dressed in a cream-colored well-tailored pantsuit. It fits perfectly in all the right places, and her silky black hair is gathered into a loose chignon. “Mr. Castillo, I’m so relieved to see you back. How are you feeling, can I get you anything? Would you like to look over the reservations for this afternoon and tonight? Things should be in perfect order.” She rushes through the information, rattled but apparently used to anticipating his wants and needs.

  “Tasha I’m fine, just a broken leg and yes, I’d like to see what’s going on today.”

  She actually takes a jerky step back from Marcus as if she had just been slapped, wide eyed she begins to stutter, “Ah…ok…ok then let’s uh, let’s go out front.” What is her problem? His tone wasn’t threatening, he responded appropriately…didn’t he? Maybe that’s it…from what I heard in the restroom he’s usually an intolerable ass…. is the Marcus I’ve come to know so different than the one they are used to? He’s irritating and rude at times, but I’ve never been intimidated or frightened of him. The CT. we really need to get that done and see what’s going on. I wonder if he’s had some sort of personality change since the accident, from the reactions I just witnessed, reasonable and agreeable are not normal traits of Mr. Castillo.

  I continue to observe the gorgeous pair talking about endless celebrity reservations and wines that are on backorder until Marcus turns to me. “Ready?” He’s looking tired, I know he’ll never admit it, but we need to get to the hospital and back home before he makes up an excuse not to go.

  “Um, Mr. Castillo, there are some repair receipts that need your signature in the club, would you like me to get them for you?” Tasha asks. I get the sense she’s next in line after Elijah in the ranks of Dominus employees.

  “No, we can get them, it’ll give me a chance to show Imani around,” he replies. I feel Tasha’s tension easing ever so slightly; maybe I’m a buffer for her? Well if so, good. It seems like she could use a break.

  “All right, if you’re sure, I’ll keep you updated on every detail.”

  “Yes Tasha, do that.” Still no thank you, Geesh. Marcus directs me toward double doors off the main foyer of Dominus and into the club. A mammoth fish tank, like none I’ve ever seen monopolizes the wall behind the bar. I imagine sitting at the bar would feel like being submerged in the ocean; salt-water fish swim in schools, with none of the constrictions of a small tank. There are five small, raised areas scattered among maybe twenty or thirty small table and chair sets. A huge stage monopolizes the wall of the club opposite the bar. Several thick aerial silks hang from the ceiling, a theatre-sized screen is mounted behind the rear of the stage, and a giant bowl full of water large enough for a person to swim in fills the space. What on earth happens here, Cirque du Solei?

  Music plays softly throughout the room, strange music, defiantly not club music. It’s more like forest sounds with rhythmic drums and a haunting woman’s voice singing in a foreign language. I look at Marcus with questioning eyebrows. “Jocelyn Pook, Goya’s Nightmare.” he says

  “Oh…I’ve never heard music like this before,” I say softly, listening to the unfamiliar chanting.

  “No, I’m sure not,” he agrees.

  “What kind of club is this?” I’m curious about what the platforms are used for although I have some idea.

  “Entertainment, sort of an adult version of Cirque de Solei,” he answers casually, making his way past the entrance closing the doors and further to a tall desk. Ha, I knew it! Well the Cirque de Solei part, I don’t know about the adult part, strippers perhaps? He signs some forms that have been conveniently left on a stone desk where he will not have to search for them. Looking up, our eyes meet and he reaches out to me, I step to him, it’s almost completely dark where he stands, and the only light is a glowing blue hue from the fish tank across the room. Balancing on his crutches, he places his hands on either side of my face and quietly instructs me to close my eyes again. Narrowing them for a moment first in hesitation but eventually closing them as he asked, I hear him inhale deeply through his nose, breathing me in and exhaling with a contented sigh.

  “Can you feel it, the way the music flows through you? Without sight your other senses become heightened.” I reach to touch his face and he turns his cheek into my hand. The music’s timbre is dark and eerie at times, but the rhythm is contagious, and strangely intimate. The magnetic connection between us is pulling stronger than ever as I step closer. Keeping my eyes closed, I touch his face slowly, tracing his cheekbone, the corner of his mouth and the edge of his eye, brushing the pad of my thumb over his long, thick lashes. I feel his pulse quicken when I skim over his neck and rest my hands on his chiseled chest. He accepts my exploring touch naturally, I move closer and he envelopes me in his arms holding me around the waist, almost completely standing on one foot, his crutches propped against his body under his arms while the music pulsates around us. Without warning, Marcus lifts me onto the tall stone desk behind me- he actually lifts me, balancing on one foot and propped on his crutches.

  “Marcus!” I gasp and protest simultaneously, but he is shaking his head back and forth, moving between my legs. His sexy as hell smirk has returned and it’s over for me. I’m completely helpless, I can’t move or speak, or even breathe as he smooth’s his hands down my neck and over my breasts pebbling under my thin sweater. I ins
tinctively arch into his touch and he lowers his mouth over mine. Kissing me deeply, penetrating my mouth with a desire that mimics the music surrounding us. My hands suddenly remember how to move and trembling, I slide my fingers into his hair and take hold, the music picks up-tempo and our mouths respond equally. Marcus unbuttons the front of my sweater slowly, never breaking contact with my mouth. A tiny voice in the back of my mind reminds me that we’re in a public place, that while we’re alone, someone could walk in at any moment. Shut up! I tell the damn voice. He’s pushing my sweater off of my shoulders, his hands trail down my arms and around to my now bare back where he skillfully unhooks the bra he had Maria pick out for me. He removes my hands from his hair to slip my sweater all the way off. I risk a peek and see that his eyes are still closed but his hands know their way around my body as if it’s been his forever. I immediately mourn the loss of his body against mine when he moves away just long enough to trail soft warm kisses to my breast. A hitch of breath escapes me as he ravishes one and then the other. Every part of my body reacts to him in it’s own unique way. The rough scratch of the scruff along his jaw against my breasts brings goose bumps to my skin, my back arches with every kiss he lays on my body, my tummy hollows when he traces a circle around my navel with his tongue before traveling down my belly nipping and kissing yet another trail until he hovers over my apex. His hands suddenly disappear and I’m startled by the loud sound of scraping against the floor, my eyes snap open and I see he has somehow moved a chair directly in front of me where he had been standing. My heart stops, I mean I hear it actually skip at least one beat maybe two when he sits with his face directly level with my belly. Oh God, can I do this? Do I want to? Hell yea I do! Somehow, even with his eyes closed he knows mine are not and he gently brushes his hand over my eyes. When they are closed again I feel my other senses sharpen immediately. The music in the room hangs like a thick exotic mist pulsing slowly with a different rhythm now, softer, slower sultrier. Heedlessly I return my fingers to his hair, threading them through his soft, dark hair while he returns to licking and teasing me all around my belly button. I whimper as he traces the skin at the top of my jeans with just his fingertips. When he begins to unfasten my jeans, his advance stops abruptly and I again open my eyes to see what’s changed.

  “Are you ok…is this ok?” he asks his voice laden with worry. I’m amazed at how fully his pupils have taken over his eyes, only a rim of bright green surrounds his dilated pupils, yet he could stop right here if I were uncomfortable.

  “Yes…. please..” I beg, not nearly as practiced in self-control as Marcus has proven to be. I want this and if he suspects otherwise I have no doubt he will dress me and take me home, no pressure, no guilt, no problem…for him at least.

  “Lift,” he instructs as he unbuttons my jeans. I place my palms flat on the desk and lift my hips as he peels them off, panties included. Clothes on the floor, I wiggle my feet out of my shoes until they drop with a light clatter. “The door is locked, no one will come in,” he reassures me, I recognize the core of his voice but those words are so full of sex and need he sounds like a different man. I sit naked before him on the cold desk, completely at his mercy, open and vulnerable. Miraculously, not to mention oddly, I have no inhibition, none. I watch his hands caress the curves of my body smoothing along my waist to my hips, down my thighs where he pauses with one hand on both of my knees. He raises his eyes to mine asking one last time for permission to continue and I don’t even know how I communicate that I’d rather die than have him stop but I do. He spreads my legs wide as he begins kissing the sensitive skin between my legs lazily from each knee to my core never quite arriving at the center of the bulls eye where my body screams for him. He stops just short of ecstasy only to repeat the torture over and over until I’m dizzy, breathless and soaking wet, desperate for release.

  “You’re so wet for me Imani,” he says, right before dipping two fingers into my folds. I gasp, and he reaches around to my ass with his free hand to pull me to the edge of the desk roughly. “Ahh Marcus…” I sigh as I’m forced to lay back and support my upper body with my elbows. A vision of myself naked standing on the edge of a cliff looking down into the foamy surf during a storm with my hair billowing out behind me, eyes closed and ready to surrender my life to him flashes through my mind seconds before he bows his head between my legs setting every nerve ending below my waist on fire with his tongue, licking and circling my clit until he blesses me with a move that I know I’ll crave from this day on. Lifting and tilting my hips he sweeps his tongue from the very back of me along my entire slit all the way forward to my clit with one sweep. Gasping between pants I’m lightheaded while all of my blood rushes to where Marcus performs his magic again, I instinctively clamp my legs on either side of his head but he gently repeats the process of spreading my legs with my knees, opening me wide and giving a little sharp jerk that clearly says don’t move. I grip his hair tightly as he alternates circling my clit and licking my outer folds with his expertly skilled tongue. I thrust my hips forward, offering more of myself to him, my orgasm building quickly with every electrifying movement of his tongue. Griping my ass on both sides to tilt me up fractionally he knows I can’t take one more magic sweep of his tongue without loosing control. He brings me to climax with his entire mouth and fireworks with colors I’ve never experienced explode behind my eyelids as I lose control.

  “Oh God Marcus… !” I yell, as my body convulses pulsing violently with the first orgasm to be given to me by a man. Ten years of unrealized pent up need, lust and passion released at the hands of a man who is clearly an expert with not only my body but also my heart and mind. I relax my grip on his hair as I float slowly down from an ecstasy I never knew existed. Marcus props his arms on my thighs and looks up at me through his beautiful long eyelashes.

  “I’ve wanted to do that from the moment I heard your voice in the dark calling to me.” The fact that I can speak at all at this moment is remarkable but the words that fall out of my mouth are even more bizarre. “What if I had been an ugly three hundred pound ogre who happened to have a sexy voice?” I ask playfully, I can’t believe I’m teasing him while I’m spread out naked on a hostess desk!

  “I knew you weren’t, no one with that voice could be anything but angelic…that’s what you were, my angel pulling me from the darkness. I was ready to go you know, there was nothing holding me here. I’d done all I had set out to do in my life, honored my aunt, and I was ready to die.” Stunned by this sad admission, I stare at his beautiful face. How could such a vital, successful, loving man be finished living?

  “Oh Marcus.” I pull him close, his head against my belly, and wrap my arms and legs around him as I press my cheek against the top of his head. “Why? How could you consider giving up? You’re young and strong, you have more than most people could ever imagine!” Dragging my fingers through his hair, I can feel him frown against my skin.

  “My life is one dark, fucked up disaster after another. You know nothing about me Imani, hell I don’t even know everything about me since the accident, but I’m sure if you did you’d run. When I’m with you I feel…. Naked- my soul and spirit exposed. You see it, you see me, everything I’ve ever secretly yearned for, everything I’ve ever dreamed of having, but knew I would never be blessed with because of my wretched past.” Wow is an understatement; these are serious feelings he’s expressing. I knew we had a physical magnetism, but I didn’t dare to allow myself to consider something real happening between us. I wanted that, deep down I always have. All of my adult life I’ve wanted a honest beautiful relationship with a man, to have a partner to walk through life with, to be a best friend to and devote my life to. Just like Marcus I have secret wishes, ones I gave up on long ago. I never thought my fear could dissipate enough to allow a man into my heart…until now. We’re very much alike in one way, damaged.

  “Stay with me,” he pleads.

  “I will,” I whisper. We stay cradling each other until he begins to smoo
th the goose bumps from my skin. “You are cold.” He says more to himself than to me. He begins to untangle himself from me, I watch as he dresses me tenderly not allowing me to help I follow his hands as he buttons, clasps and zips me into my clothes and finally slips on each of my shoes.

  Our next destination is the hospital and I’d love nothing more to speed through that CT and get Marcus home and back to bed. My intentions are void of any health related reasons, I’m a junkie for his love, I need more of him but not in public on a desk, I want him alone in his bed where I can explore and learn how to do to him what he has just done to me.

  Chapter 18

  Marcus is quiet on the drive to the hospital; maybe he’s tired, maybe he’s thinking about what just happened at Dominus and all the things he said to me, maybe he regrets it all. Worrying is a skill I have perfected and I am now officially worrying, freaking out, panicking… whatever. This relationship seems to be going in the direction that I want it to, but I’m having trouble believing a man like Marcus could have real feelings for me. I have no idea who he was before the accident, and what little I do know now is complicated. What if his current personality is temporary, something related to a brain injury? What if he changes back into the beast as his employees referred to him at the restaurant? A big fat tangled knot, that’s what this whole thing is and my current line of thinking isn’t helping me at all. I’ve never considered myself a woman with self-esteem problems but then again I’ve never been tested. I was a nose to the grindstone kind of girl in college, working hard on my studies, never going to parties or social functions. All I wanted to do was graduate and get a job, there was nothing else to hope for, no one to compare myself with, no one to compete against because I gave men, love and children a wide berth.