For now, he abides it. He doesn’t bitch about the schedule and acts as if he doesn’t mind spending all this time with me. It’s almost believable.
Nearly a month from the day our agreement began, the Ashton-Moran-is-no-longer-a-cad publicity train has gained enough momentum that we finally do our first real talk show. It’s like The View, but lower rent. I don’t even know the show’s name; they’re all blending together. I only know that I sit through the entire afternoon with Ashton’s hand on my lap, in a horseshoe of soft chairs surrounded by a cast of mildly obnoxious women diverse enough to pose for a Benetton ad.
They ask the usual questions, but more in depth — juicy is the only word I can think of for the way they giggle and squeal over all that we say.
“How did you know you loved her?” Ashton is asked.
He hesitates, as if he’s forgotten Alyssa’s scripted response. Then he fumbles a syllable or two, as if he’s really considering his answer. He’s so good at lying about us that when he finally speaks, it almost sounds genuine.
“When she hated me, refused me, and called me on being a jerk, I knew she was the one for me.”
I look toward Ashton to silently congratulate his perfect delivery. The answer hits its mark with the show hosts for sure; they purr like kittens, and I can smell the estrogen.
But Ashton isn’t looking at me. And when he does, his expression is somehow confusing.
Two and a half hours later, I’m in Ashton’s limo and he’s ripping my clothes off. Actually ripping them, as if he has a grudge. It occurs to me that I don’t know how I’ll get home without clothes — whether Ashton has a spare set for me somewhere or whether I’ll need to sneak past my dad looking like the Incredible Hulk after a long day.
Elegant fabric peels from my skin. I’m wearing a jeweled necklace that makes me look like a princess, but five minutes after the limo pulls away from the set I catch my reflection in the blackened windows and see that I look like a fancy debutante who’s remembered everything except the one thing that matters. My breasts are out in the limo’s cool air, my hair up, jewelry still in place.
I’m ready for my photo shoot, as long as they only get me from the collarbone up.
“Make me come all over your tits,” Ashton says.
I get to my knees, take Ashton’s thick cock from his pants, and swallow it. The limo is a little deeper in the floor than most cars and a little higher in the ceiling, so there’s plenty of room to bob up and down. His hands are tangled in my hair, the fancy ’do finally undone. I look up at him while licking the tip, giving him my sexy eyes. His expression is almost dire.
Is this a man getting head, or considering murder?
I flick the spot under the tip, running my tongue long along the underside of his shaft — like licking a popsicle that’s starting to melt. I don’t just suck him; I devour him. Ashton’s cock is delicious. His orgasms are my dessert. I’ve always been fine with giving blowjobs, but for Ashton it’s something I actively enjoy.
I cup his balls and gently stroke them. I use my other hand to pump the shaft. I’m off-balance with no hands left to steady me, and I almost fall a time or two. I don’t want to tumble and break the mood. He’s tensing already, his balls pulling up tight and close, thighs firming with tension, his hips wanting to rise and meet my mouth.
I pull his cock out like he asked, and seconds later I’m wearing a pearl necklace to match my diamonds.
I look up at him to celebrate my job well done, but he’s not satisfied or smiling. His cock is still jerking with aftershocks, its tip drizzling in my hand.
Ashton’s face still looks restless. “Take off your panties.”
This electrifies me. I love it when he eats me out. Other guys have made me come, but never reliably. They usually failed to read my signals. When I shifted to put their hands or mouths in the right place, they moved back to where they were. Some ignored my clit, using their fingers to jab me like a pincushion.
But Ashton knows how to make me purr, or scream like an animal.
After I’ve slipped off my panties, Ashton looks at the remainder of my ripped dress as if he’s offended. He tears at it, ripping the rest away. Again I’m nude in heels and jewelry.
He likes it when I keep my heels on, so I always do.
I sit back and spread my legs. But rather than lining up to eat my pussy, Ashton is stripping nude as well. His cock hasn’t sagged an inch.
It’s still like stone, pink and pulsing.
He strips completely. My fingers go to my pussy in anticipation and I watch the ripple of his lean, wiry muscle as it skates beneath his skin. Some guys are all show, no go, having built their bodies for appearance. Not Ashton. Despite his wealth, he has a scrapper’s body. It looks like he earned it from hard work — no, wait … from fighting.
There’s a scar on his chest that I’ve never asked about. Maybe it was an accident as a kid, like he fell off his bike. Or maybe he got it from another man’s knife. It’s such a strange thing to have, given his polished, downright debonair bearing. It gives me a thrill to know that he has it when others don’t — to know the man behind the man, and how he differs from the man the world thinks it knows.
“Turn over.”
But my pussy needs his attention. It craves his tongue. I’m a bit disappointed. My finger’s idle play isn’t enough to satisfy the pounding I feel inside. It’s not just a sexual craving. This is something bigger. Something about today has taken me over. I can’t spread wide enough. I can’t come soon enough.
“Turn over,” Ashton repeats, “so I can fuck you in the ass.”
It’s crass. It’s crude. I’ve never done that before and have had no interest in doing it ever. He must be joking. That’s not just something you announce. And it’s not something he should even be able to do, given that I just sucked him dry a minute ago.
“I … I’ve never done that before.” He’s popped the surface of my mood, but the deeper part of me, paradoxically, is craving him even more. My fingers haven’t left my pussy. I slip them inside. I’m like a sponge in there.
“I’m going to fuck your little virgin asshole, Jenna,” Ashton says. “Now turn over so I can take it.”
We stare at each other. His eyes move to my pussy, which feels to my fingers as if it may actually be dripping.
“Don’t you dare fucking tell me no.”
But I’d swear, in the way he looks at me, that he actually does want me to say no. He’s giving me the look you give a kid when daring him to defy your command. This feels like some sort of bizarre game whose rules I don’t know. What am I supposed to do? What will turn him on most? I feel like I should fight.
Instead I turn over.
I watch him until he’s out of my line of sight, until I’m bent over with my hands on the seat, the lighted backbar filling my vision. I see him pump his cock with one hand, his expression hungry like a predator’s.
I might have failed this test.
I was supposed to be more reluctant. Say no before I said yes.
But now there’s no discussion. His finger teases my asshole, the small circling of his digit around the outside sending shivers to places I didn’t know I had. It’s like that spot is a forbidden nexus, filled with wires that run to all the parts around it. His wet finger on my ass deepens my need.
If he does this for long, I will beg.
“What do you want, Jenna? Do you want me to fuck your ass?”
“Yes,” I breathe, hardly able to believe what I’m saying.
His finger slips in. The feeling is like nothing I’ve ever felt. He moves it past the thick ring of muscle, one knuckle followed by the next. It moves in and out with a tight popping that lights my unattended clit like a wildfire.
“Say it, Jenna.”
“Fuck my ass, Ashton! Please!”
The finger comes out. I look back to see him spit on his hand and use it to lubricate his cock’s head. Then he grips it in his fist and presses it against my back door.
/>
There’s intense pressure, but I’m so hot right now, my holes are all his for the taking. I don’t resist the push, even though an instinctive part of me wants to.
Seconds later, he’s in, thrusting slowly in and out. “You like my cock in your ass?”
“Yes.”
“You want me to fuck your little asshole harder?”
“Yes!”
My orgasm surprises me. It’s different than usual, and shakes my foundation. For a few seconds, I can’t see. When it’s past, I feel Ashton reaching down between my legs to rub my clit. That sends me over another hill, squeezing his dick in my ass, coming through every part of my body.
“I’m coming, Jenna. I’m going to come inside your ass!”
He slams into me. My face practically strikes a whisky bottle in the bar. I think I may somehow come a third time.
Everything is alive. A wash of sensation, all of it otherworldly.
Ashton pulls out and sits, turning me to sit beside him. He uses his arm to guide my turn, and ends up with his arm around me, spent.
I don’t know if it’s the limo, the long day, or the full-body exhaustion, but we’re both beyond beat. It’s only ten or fifteen minutes to Ashton’s building, and before we get there, we’re sleeping together for the first time.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
ASHTON
WHEN WE GET TO MY place — the apartment, not the house — I invite her up. Fortunately the fact that I’ve ruined her clothes and left her messy strikes her as more funny than discourteous or embarrassing, given the fact that we can use the back elevator and ascend to my penthouse in privacy.
We clean up, then have sex again. It’s more pedestrian this time. I’m lucky I can even do it. What comes out of my dick this time must be a puff of dust, given all I’ve already unloaded on and in her.
I think this when we’re finished, when we’re under my Sferra Capri sheets. I’m behind her, with my arm draped over her naked side, lightly cupping her perfect breasts. I can’t see her face. Jenna’s quiet enough that she may have gone to sleep. That would be twice in one day. I don’t like the precedent. The first time I let her stay over, she’ll want to do it every time.
That’s not what this is between us.
“We’re lucky, you know,” she says.
So she’s not asleep. I didn’t realize there was a spell over my quiet penthouse, with its view of Chicago, until she spoke.
“Lucky how?”
“We have exactly what we want. No more.”
“Is it bad to have more than you want?” I’m thinking of the Syndicate, of Nathan Turner’s Trillionaire Boys’ Club. I doubted Nathan at first, but I shouldn’t have. That man can network his way into anything. It’s his gift. And now that I’m on board with Nathan, I believe it all.
He’s already landed Caspian White, Hunter Altman, Trevor and Daniel, me, and I think a few others. By hooking Cole up with Alyssa and knocking him down a few pegs, I think I’ve helped grease Cole’s entry into the group. Ben Stone of EverCrunch will probably follow. Soon it should snowball. First the Boys’ Club, then the Old Guard. We’ll have our trillion dollars in no time. And isn’t that the very definition of excess … of more than you want?
Jenna doesn’t really answer, nor roll to face me. “What happened in the limo today?” she asks.
If this were foreplay, I’d tell her exactly what happened, in graphic detail. I’d tell her what went where and how it made my body feel. But that’s clearly not what she’s asking. “Do you mean …?”
“You know what I mean.”
She means the ass play. The way I demanded it. It’s not really any different from the other things I’ve commanded her to do, but I get why she’s asking. It felt different to me, too. Like maybe it was a line I shouldn’t have crossed. Or rather: a line I should have crossed differently, or that we should have crossed together.
“Didn’t you like it?”
“I loved it.”
“So what’s the problem?”
She’s silent, for long enough that I think she really has fallen asleep. Then: “Alyssa didn’t write that answer for you today, did she? About the first time you knew you ‘loved me.’” She’s careful to put the last words in verbal quotes, just to make sure there’s no misunderstanding.
I think about lying. Instead I say, “No.”
“So where did your answer come from?”
I search my mind, but it comes easily. It’s a strange game I’m trying to play with my own memory, and I’m utterly failing. I want the words to be elusive. I want to think hard and barely recall them, because obviously I pulled them out of the air. But I recall exactly what I told those talk show ladies today in blaring neon.
When she hated me, refused me, and called me on being a jerk, I knew she was the one for me.
“I don’t know. I just made it up.”
Another long spell of silence.
“Ashton?”
“Yes?”
“Did you want me to say no in the limo? Did you want me to refuse you?”
“What are you getting at?”
She sighs into the suddenly-heavy air. “Nothing. Never mind.”
I hate the feel of this moment. I need to get out of bed. Ask Jenna to leave. She’s a girl I’m fucking on one level, but a hired employee on another. We have a business arrangement — one that’s doing precisely what it was designed to do.
I was worried from the start about crossed wires, and here we are lying back to front. It’s sending her the wrong message. Giving her the wrong impression.
I sit up. The covers pool around my lap, my upper half bare.
“You should go home. Get some sleep.”
Jenna doesn’t really look my way, but nods in thoughtful agreement from where she’s lying on the sheets.
She sits up, and I watch her dark brown hair spill across her tan shoulders. I watch the sheen slither across her skin in the moonlight. Then she’s shrugging on a robe I dug out earlier. It’s some woman’s. I don’t remember her name.
“I’m sure my dad is worried,” she says.
A question occurs to me. I don’t know why I ask it, but I do. “What does he think? About us? About the stories we’re spreading, I mean.” Curiously, with all the press we’ve done, this particular inquiry has never come up.
“I’m not sure.”
“Did you tell him the truth?”
“Of course not. I signed an NDA.”
“But he’s your father.”
“Is there an exception for fathers?”
It sounds harsher than she probably intends. Jenna’s tone reminds me that there are lawyers and accountants involved. She signed on the dotted line. We’re withholding taxes for her part of this relationship-that-isn’t.
“So he thinks we’re really a couple?”
Jenna nods, pulling a pair of my jeans from the closet to wear home. I don’t know why, but in this moment I’m struck anew by how beautiful she is. It’s supernatural. I’ve never seen anyone like her before.
“And he believes it?”
“Everyone believes it.”
“But … your dad.”
“I lie pretty well, Ashton.”
“Even to him?”
“To everyone.”
There’s a beat. Then two. The room is dead silent, save the rustle of fabric as she dresses.
“What does he think?”
“He tries to be happy for me, because he thinks that this is what I want. But he worries.”
“Worries about what?”
“We’re so different. I think he sees all of this as something with an expiration date.”
“And?”
“He’s afraid you’ll break my heart.”
I look at Jenna. She looks at me. Then she looks away, shrugging off the robe and pulling on a T-shirt.
“Which is crazy,” she finally says, trying a little laugh that’s not quite authentic.
“He’s just looking out for you.”
&n
bsp; “He just doesn’t know the truth. He thinks I want something I don’t.”
“What do you mean?” I ask.
“Ever since the divorce, Dad is worried that he and Mom somehow ruined me. He thinks I’m sort of a loner because I’m afraid of commitment, since they couldn’t make their marriage work. He thinks I’m afraid of being in a real relationship. So when this all happened, I get the feeling Dad believed it was real because he wanted to. Sure, I’m forming a committed, monogamous relationship with some arrogant, ladykiller billionaire who’s too old for me. That makes sense. But Dad wanted that for me, in whatever way he could believe it. And worse, he convinced himself that I wanted it. In his mind, it’s like I got over this big mental hump and was finally able to be vulnerable with a man who could love me. Now he’s worried that it’ll all come crashing down.”
“But?”
“But I never wanted that. You and me? We’re absurd. I almost want to tell Dad all about it. Tell him the truth, so he won’t worry. This isn’t a relationship. The only thing I want from my ‘billionaire boyfriend’ is a paycheck.”
Jenna raises her arms to fluff her long hair through the neck hole. Moonlight streams through the uncovered window behind her, displaying the outline of her body through the fabric.
“Then tell him, Jenna. Tell him it’s all a lie, so he won’t worry.”
She shakes her head.
“Tell him we don’t love each other. That we never did, or wanted to.”
“It’s too late. Now it’s a betrayal either way. It’s easier to let him believe.”
“And when we eventually ‘break up’?”
“I’ll pretend to be sad. Then I’ll get over it.”
I don’t know why, but I feel trapped beneath a ten-ton blanket. I’ve never been melancholy. Until now. “I guess that means this is working. Everyone believes us, including your father.”
“Yes.”
“It’s the ideal relationship. We get all the adoration without any hassle. We’re free, without any strings. Like you said: we’re lucky to have exactly what we want.”
“What’s that for you, Ashton?”
“Positive press. Better personal branding.”
Trillionaire Boys' Club: The Clothing Mogul Page 10