The Billionaire Book Club

by Monroe, Max

  His tongue is an opportunist. It traces the gap before slipping inside, and our tongues tangle in time with our legs.

  We are wrapped in each other, trapped in each other, and the speed of our intimacy breaks all land-speed records.

  Regardless of the seemingly quick progression, I’m surprised to find it doesn’t feel that way. All I feel is…right.

  I arch up into the heat of his body, and he moves his free hand up along the skin of my side. I shiver and moan a little, and he swallows it greedily with his mouth.

  “That’s it,” he coaches, apparently satisfied by my sounds. “Don’t think. Just feel, Ruby.”

  I let my legs fall open, and he doesn’t wait to settle his hips between them.

  He feels deliciously heavy on top of me. I barely breathe as his lips trail a path from my ear to the hollow of my collarbone, and he notices.

  His fingers tense in my sides, and his lips go to my ear. “Relax,” he whispers. “I promise it won’t hurt.”

  I smirk at his cheekiness and drop my head back to the seat below me. It exposes my neck to his lips, and he doesn’t waste the opportunity.

  Slow, languid kisses dot an arrow from my jaw to my chest and tingle in the chilly air as he pulls away.

  “Fuck, I want you. Badly,” he whispers, and my pants disappear swiftly down my legs and his promptly follow.

  I watch as he maneuvers his muscled legs free of the material, a huge bulge sticking out of the front of his black boxer briefs. My mouth feels hungry, desperate to take a taste of him, but everything about this exchange is more urgent.

  Slow but tenuous.

  He needs to be inside me just as badly as I need him to be, and both of us are dragging against time as we fight to make it last as long as possible.

  God, I want him. Need him. Right fucking now.

  “Cap,” I whimper, and the intensity, the desire, resting inside his eyes urges shivers up my spine. “Now. Please.”

  He pulls a condom from the pocket of his discarded pants, shoves his boxer briefs to the ground, and rolls it on smoothly.

  His body is the stuff of dreams. I’m talking defined abs, chiseled chest, smooth skin, big motherfreaking cock—holy hell, I’m ruined.

  I’ll never see anything as perfect as a naked Caplin Hawkins for the rest of my life, I’m absolutely sure of it.

  I start to shake a little—partially from the cool fall air, and partially from emotions.

  I’ve never felt so simultaneously comfortable and anxious.

  Cap crawls back between my legs and pulls the blanket over his back to cover both of us. He settled his hands on the sides of my face, and he looks into my eyes. “Cold?” he asks on a whisper.

  I nod just as he finds me with the tip of his cock and starts to slip inside.

  My neck cranes and my heart jolts and a little moan escapes my lips.

  Dear God.

  Inch by inch, he joins our bodies together and melds every part of his skin to mine. I can taste the mint of his breath and smell the freshness of his body wash. Every cell of him feels like a part of me, and I have to close my eyes against the power of it all.

  His hand moves deeper into my hair where he tugs, just a little.

  “Look at me, Ruby.”

  I force my eyes to open, their weight unparalleled in all my years on the planet and look into the smooth silk of his light-brown beauties.

  “Good, right?”

  I lift the corners of my mouth into a small smile and nod, and he returns the gesture.

  He’s the cockiest son of a bitch I’ve ever met.

  But tonight—tonight, he’s earned it.

  He pushes himself deeper, and the growing ache between my legs makes my back arch and my knees shake. “Stay right here,” he whispers against my mouth, and his eyes never let go of their hold on mine. “I want to see you catch fire.”

  Jesus. This man. What is he doing to me?

  All I can do is moan in response.

  “I need to see the way your beautiful eyes change when you come.”

  Lost in him, lost in the way he’s making me feel, lost in our connection, lost in us, I find it doesn’t take long before I’m doing just that.

  With our gazes locked, I come. Hard. Together with him.

  And through our eyes, his heart and mine stare back at each other.

  Cap

  We’re in my bed, it’s a little after midnight, and Ruby’s head rests on my chest, her fingers creating a lazy path on my bare skin.

  Not too long ago, I was inside her. On my boat.

  And now, I know her moans, and I know the way her big, innocent eyes look when she comes.

  I know what she feels like and tastes like, and I’ve seen the way her greediness can morph into needy impatience. And I know how goddamn beautiful she looks when she lets go and lives in the moment.

  I let my gaze trail down her naked body, taking in her perfect curves and the way the light of the moon coming in from the large window bounces off her silky-smooth skin.

  Goddamn. This woman. I’ve spent my life searching for beautiful things—homes, cities, the opposite sex. But I’m certain I’ve never seen anything more beautiful than Ruby Rockford.

  I move my fingers to the soft skin of her back.

  At first, I let them linger, just a whisper of a touch from her shoulder blades, down her spine, to the delicate spot where her lower back meets the curve of her delectable ass.

  But, eventually, my fingers turn insatiable and I can’t stop myself from gripping the pliant flesh in my big hand.

  Fuck. These curves. They could make a man lose brain cells.

  My cock twitches against her hip, and she fucking giggles. Uninhibited, unchecked—Ruby is as open and playful as I’ve ever seen her.

  “What’s happening down there?” she asks and peeks up at me from beneath her lashes. Her eyes are bright with amusement and when I spot the little teasing crinkle in her nose, my heart does this weird stutter thing where it seemingly forgets how to beat.

  Ruby is a conundrum of a woman. Confident and secure in herself and sassy as hell.

  She doesn’t play games and she doesn’t fall for bullshit and she can be tough as fucking nails.

  But, right now, she’s relaxed and soft inside my arms, and it only makes me want her more. Want her again.

  I don’t answer her question with words, instead, I show her what’s happening by gently lifting her up and sitting her on my lap. Her legs straddle my thighs and her sweet as fuck pussy rests against my now hard cock.

  Good God. She’s wet and soft, and I need to be inside her.

  I need to hear her greedy-as-fuck sounds again.

  I need to see the way her eyes change when she comes.

  “Again?” she asks on a moan and grinds herself against me.

  “Again,” I whisper, and I make quick work of pulling a condom from my nightstand.

  She grabs it from my hands and tears the thing open with her fucking teeth.

  I watch in rapt attention as she leans back just enough to grip me in her hand and slide the condom on.

  And my ability to look anywhere but at her gets multiplied by zero and cut in half as she lowers herself onto me.

  My cock slips inside her, and it feels so fucking perfect my eyes roll into the back of my head.

  Her gaze turns heated, and her blond hair falls over her shoulders as she starts up a rhythm on my cock. Up and down, up and down, she rides me, and I swear to God, it’s the sexiest fucking thing I’ve ever seen in my life.

  And, fuck, it feels good. Too good.

  The kind of good that makes me wonder how many times I’ll have to fuck her in order to get enough.

  I grip her hips and guide her rhythm.

  We start out slow, easy, until the need becomes too much and we can’t do anything but race toward our climax.

  “More,” she whimpers. “More.”

  “Greedy fucking minx,” I whisper and flip her onto her back, pushing my
cock in deep.

  Ruby moans, and she digs her nails into the skin of my back as she wraps her legs around my waist and urges me further.

  “More,” she says again, but this time, it’s not laced between whimpers. No. This time, it’s a fucking demand.

  Greedy. Bossy. Fucking beautiful.

  Christ almighty, I don’t know if just one more time with Ruby will ever be enough.

  My eyes feel heavy as I pull them open to the soft light of dawn.

  The lake sparkles outside the window, and a red leaf twirls and flips as it falls from its previous home on a branch down to the ground.

  I stretch out an arm to the side and roll to my back, but when I get halfway there, my body runs into something warm.

  I scoot over to ease my way, flip over slowly, and come face-to-face with a mess of blond hair, blue eyes, and the smoothest skin.

  Ruby.

  The past few hours have been more than I ever could have imagined, more than I could’ve dreamed.

  I was inside her. Last night. Several times.

  A small smile touches my lips and I reach out to touch her face, but when I get close, I stop. She’s so serene, so…perfect.

  Time slows down, and my heart pauses with a piercing spear of unexpected pain.

  What the hell am I thinking?

  No woman is perfect. It’s an impossibility, a ruse.

  Are you sure about that? Because Ruby sure seemed damn perfect last night…

  Jesus Christ. My heart starts to pound inside my chest, and I am officially over-fucking-whelmed by the strange feelings, the insane emotions racing through my veins.

  I run a hand through my hair, and when that does nothing to calm my ass down and my lungs feel tighter than a damn vice, I do the only thing I can do. I try to find some fucking air.

  Backing out of bed slowly, I make a quick escape to the bathroom without waking up Ruby.

  The door shut behind me, I try like hell to take deep breaths and slow my erratic pulse.

  But my skin feels clammy, and my throat is tight. And, apparently, my lungs still don’t know how to fucking breathe, so I splash some water on my face. It’s cool, but the sensation isn’t nearly enough.

  What in the hell is happening? Am I having a panic attack?

  A fucking heart attack?

  I run my wet hands through my hair and then shut off the faucet before looking around manically.

  The shower.

  Yes. I just need to take a shower.

  I bound across the marble tile to the other side of the bathroom and whip open the glass door to crank the knob.

  I’m already naked, a side effect of last night’s activities, so I step right in without waiting for the temperature to warm.

  It feels like knives on my bed-warmed skin, but a good stabbing seems like what I need right now.

  My head is all muddy, and my thoughts aren’t my own. I’ve been hijacked by my friends’ sappy ideals, and I need to find a way to reboot.

  A way to forget…

  I’m not a one-woman kind of guy. No matter the woman. It’s just not in the cards for me.

  Then why does it feel like it could be with Ruby?

  Gah. No.

  I shake my head and drown my face in the frigid spray.

  What I feel right now is a temporary illusion created by months of chasing and the power of suggestion by my fucking friends. This isn’t real. This isn’t right.

  This won’t last.

  I just have to find a way to fight the insane urge to go back in there and pull her into my arms until it does.

  Ruby

  The radio plays softly in the background as my parents discuss the latest episode of Dancing with the Stars. They’re rooting for opposing couples, apparently, and for some reason, both of them think they can convince the other to cross over.

  Cap’s focus has been largely on the road, his eyes serious, and he hasn’t said much. But my parents do have a way of dominating a conversation. So, while Mark and Connie are preoccupied, I try to get his attention.

  I practically do a whole song and dance with no reaction, so I finally reach out and put a hand to his bare forearm. He pulls away like my touch burns.

  “Sorry,” I apologize. Maybe I startled him?

  He swallows thickly before rubbing at the skin I touched and pasting on a smile. “No, no. I was just kind of zoned out. Tired, you know?”

  I nod, even though I don’t. I feel invigorated. Alive. Like I finally realized what this whole fucking time on earth is about.

  “Long weekend,” I say, and he smiles again. It’s not a smile I recognize, though, and that’s saying something extreme when you consider the amount of time I’ve spent secretly studying every single one he’s got.

  But not this one. This one seems…hollow. Sick, even.

  “Are you okay?” I ask when the hold he has on it slips away completely. The corners of his mouth are actually turned down—something I don’t think I’ve ever seen.

  “Yeah.” He nods, so hard it’s like he’s trying to convince more than just me. “Could you just grab me a mint?” he asks. “They’re in my bag on the floor in front of you.”

  “Of course,” I say, forcing myself to take a deep breath. He’s obviously not feeling well, so I just need to back off with the overanalyzing. Just because we slept together last night doesn’t mean the world has to be ending.

  I pull open the flap on the top of his messenger bag and undo the zipper, and then I lean over to get a look inside. I push a few things around in search of the mints, but when my hand closes around something that feels like a book, I can’t help but pull it up high enough to get a look.

  Hanging on a Hero.

  What the hell?

  I dig around a little more until my hand closes around another book. When I turn it over, I gasp.

  Can’t Handle This.

  “Everything all right?” Cap asks, and I shove the books back into the bag in a panic, flip my hair out of my face, and smile. Mine is just as fake as his.

  “Fine. Almost got the mint.”

  “Great,” he replies, suspicion creeping into the edges of his voice.

  I grab one from the bag quickly and unwrap it for him. I reach out to put it in his mouth, and he blocks me with a hand. “I got it. Thanks.”

  I nod, but the truth is, I’m not even there anymore—riding in his fancy car with him and my parents. I’m in my head—trapped in a spiral of questions and a memory full of answers.

  Like a laundry list of bullet-pointed moments, everything I’ve been through with Caplin Hawkins in the last couple months flits across my mind.

  The women, the apology, the makeover, and the party. The weird, slightly cheesy, stilted talk of moonlight strolls and lovely twirls and promenades in his office. The weekend getaway in a cabin.

  My heart damn near drops into my shoes when those real-life memories match up a little too closely to my literary memories.

  All of it, nearly every damn thing, can be found in the pages of the books I’ve read—the books he currently has sitting inside his bag. And they span from the time I started working with him until last night, when I finally slept with him.

  My stomach churns, and I reach down and grab one of his mints for myself. His queasiness has spread to me.

  I sit back in my seat and angle my face out the window. My dad’s voice is louder now as he’s still trying to express to my mom that a football player like Glen Harwick, one of the best running backs to ever play for the New York Mavericks and the king of footwork, would never lose to some Teen Bop Kids reality star like Hugh Beckman on Dancing with the Stars.

  Apparently, according to him, finesse on the football field has been studied scientifically and linked directly to rhythm and dance. I think he’s full of shit, but I’m too busy trying to figure out what the fuck is going on in my life to care.

  But it is a Sunday afternoon, and I’ll have plenty of time to lay into Cap—and interrogate him about the books and
the strange coincidences that have quite literally given me a painful, confusing case of déjà-fucking-vu—in the privacy of the office tomorrow.

  For now, while we’re riding in a car with my parents, I’ll just keep all my angst and my questions to myself.

  But the rest of the ride turns eerily quiet. After thirty minutes of nothing from either Cap or me, my parents actually clam up too. It’s like the silence is contagious.

  Eventually, though, the painfully quiet drive comes to an end.

  As we pull up in front of my apartment building and Cap puts the Range Rover in park, I grab my phone from the cupholder beside me and open up to my calendar. “What time do you need me in the office tomorrow?” I ask, my voice neutral and, for all intents and purposes, professional. “I have to record in the afternoon, but I can be there in the morning.”

  Cap looks between me and my parents as they gather their stuff and climb out the back doors, a tiny line marring the space between his eyebrows.

  I raise mine in response. “Hello? Time?”

  Cap unbuckles his seat belt and turns to face me, but his eyes go to the console as he digs around for some unnamed object. “Actually, I was thinking…”

  “Yeah?”

  “Liz is due back from maternity leave soon, and you’re super busy with your other job and…” He pauses, his voice growing quiet, and my heart makes a strong attempt to escape my flipping chest.

  Liz isn’t due back for at least another month, and his caseload is insane right now.

  He needs the extra help around the office more than ever, yet it sure seems like he’s trying to get rid of me…

  “And?” I question, but when he opens his mouth to respond, no words come out.

  What the fuck is going on?

  “Just say it, Cap,” I prompt further, and this time, words do come out.

  “I think maybe it’s time we part ways.”

  Painful fucking words that have the accuracy of a sniper, taking aim at my chest and hitting the bull’s-eye that is my heart.

  A manwhore tiger never loses his scumbag, player stripes, my mind taunts, and the memories of last night are instantly tainted by the way he’s treating me right now.

  It’s like all he did was use my literary preferences to get me into bed, and now that he got what he wanted, he’s fucking done with a capital D.