Bared by the Billionaire (7 page)

He stepped forward but didn’t shake hands. “Miss Thornton, I’m Sam, Mr. Harmon’s assistant. He asked me to give you this,” he said, handing her a small black box tied with a white ribbon. “Now, if you’ll please follow me.” He ushered her into another elevator that opened on an underground parking garage, and then helped her into the back seat of a black stretch limo. Sliding open a wood panel in the console between two rear-facing seats in front of her, he offered her a drink from a selection of crystal decanters nestled there. She shook her head wordlessly.

“Very well, ma’am,” he said, shutting the passenger door with a solid thunk. Once he got behind the wheel, he pushed a button and a glass partition rose up from behind the driver’s seat to close her off from further contact.

Kyra took the opportunity to retrieve the crumpled card from her clenched fist. It wasn’t a standard business card. There was no name, no company logo anywhere. One side of the heavy cream-colored card was completely blank. The other side was rimmed all around with a thick black band. In the center were two words.
Yes, sir.

“As if I’d forget that,” she muttered. She dropped the card into her purse. Turning her attention to the box the chauffeur had given her, she untied the ribbon and opened it. Inside was a cell phone. It was sleek and silver, with no name or model number anywhere on it. She turned it on. A single word,
Master
, appeared on the screen, with two buttons below it. One said
Call
and the other said
Text
.

There was no panel of numbers below it, no way to choose another call destination. She looked for apps, for contacts, for the usual dizzying array of options that presented itself on any new phone. But aside from the keyboard that popped up when she pressed the
Text
button, there was nothing. As far as she could tell, this phone had only one purpose—to send and receive calls and messages from a single preprogrammed number. She slipped it into her purse next to the card and stared, unseeing, out the window until the limo pulled up in front of her building.

Once inside her condo, Kyra paced restlessly around the rooms. She’d wait until evening, pretending to consider her decision, before she texted Harmon. Until then, she had nowhere to go, nothing to occupy her time. For the first time in years, she had no to-do list. She was alone with her thoughts.

Her mind went back over Harmon’s description of her duties. She’d be expected to obey his every command, fulfill his every whim. Kyra recalled that when she asked if she’d be made to ‘do things’ with others, Harmon had been very careful in the way he worded his answer. He said she would not be required to have sex with anyone except him.

“But he never said I wouldn’t have to submit to other kinds of contact,” she told herself aloud. Thoughts, images, flew unbidden into her mind. Would she be dressed in a tight leather corset and taken to one of those BDSM clubs, where strange men could put their fingers and tongues in her wherever they pleased while Harmon watched? The idea sent a jolt of dark desire through her body.

All her life, she had adhered to a set of rigid rules. She never allowed herself to get drunk or high, never slept with men she’d just met after the bar closed. She took files home with her from the office nearly every night and seldom used up all her vacation days.
Yeah, you’ve always been responsible, dependable, reliable—in short, you’ve been boring as hell,
the voice in her head declared.

She always told herself it was because she had high moral standards. Now she’d be compelled to let them go if Harmon demanded it. What would it be like to be stripped naked and put on display for his amusement? To be spanked hard, then taken in the ass? She shuddered and ran her hand up between her legs. Her panties were damp and she shoved them aside to plunge one finger inside the slick heat of her pussy.

Kyra stared at herself in the mirror. This was a first. Pleasuring herself, fully clothed, in the middle of her living room, in the middle of the day—and watching the expression on her face as she did. She might as well get used to it. There’d be plenty of firsts for her in the coming days, certainly much more depraved than this. She noted with almost clinical detachment how her breathing quickened when she picked up the pace, moving her finger faster, deeper. She stopped for a moment, took off her skirt, and yanked her panties down to her knees. Would he expect her pussy to be clean-shaven? Or would he like seeing her little nest of dark curls?

Kyra stepped out of her panties and stepped closer to the full length mirror. One hand found the nub of her clit, already hard. She licked a finger and stroked it, then spread herself apart with her other fingers so she could watch it grow as she played with it, making it throb with need. Her other hand moved down to caress the soft hot flesh around her pussy. She slid one finger back in again, then two. Spreading her legs further apart, she moaned and began fucking herself hard, all the while seeing what Harmon would soon be seeing.
What he’ll own for the next six months, to pleasure or punish at his whim,
whispered the voice inside her head. She came then, a vicious climax that left her legs weak and wobbling.

But the orgasm only fanned the flames of her sudden hunger. Kyra grabbed the phone, deliberately blocked the sound of all the warning bells that were going off in her head and punched in the six letters that would determine her destiny.

* * *

Harmon was a little surprised when the message came in so soon. She was more desperate than he thought. Good. He could use that, pushing her harder than he’d planned at first. Suddenly, he wished he’d told her that she’d be picked up immediately after sending the text. Now he was forced to wait.

But then, so was she. He’d use this time to tweak his equipment, making sure everything was ready. His cock was hard already, as he thought about what he’d do when she arrived. He headed down the hall to the lab.

A door opened off the long hallway and Sam Neely stepped out in front of him. “Mr. Harmon, could you step into the communications center for a moment? There are a few new developments I think you need to hear about immediately.”

Harmon didn’t hesitate. If Neely said something was important, it always was. That’s why he was on staff—he and Marcus and Slade and Riley. All former members of Special Forces, they served as the best-paid household staff in the country. Sam Neely may have had the title of personal assistant on his employment agreement, but he was also a surveillance expert as well as a master at hand-to-hand combat. He’d been a member of an elite Seal team that operated so far under the radar it didn’t even have a number.

Harmon stepped inside the windowless room, glancing at a dazzling array of computer screens and state-of-the-art equipment in the room, most of which wasn’t available for purchase anywhere. A skinny young man, barely more than a kid, sat in front of one of the displays, scrolling through websites at lightning speed. Even Harmon was impressed. Sam waved him away and the young man stood up and disappeared through a door in the side of the room.

“First of all, Mr. Harmon, that extremist group is ramping up their level of hostility. They posted another rant on YouTube late last night, claiming that your thought-controlled devices are going to usurp powers only God has the right to wield. They’ve issued another death threat, but this time two of their members we’ve been keeping an eye on have dropped out of sight. I recommend that we up the security level from yellow to orange.”

“Do whatever you think is best, Sam. That’s why I have you guys. You said there were a few new developments. What else have you got?”

Neely nodded, then hesitated before going on. “It’s about Miss Thornton, sir. We had surveillance equipment in place at Cabrera’s headquarters and we sent someone in last night to retrieve it now that he’s gone and the company will be closing down. All routine. But we inadvertently recorded several conversations between Miss Thornton and an agent from the FBI.”

Harmon’s eyebrows rose. “The FBI? It didn’t take them long to go after her.”

“Yes, sir. But the disturbing part is that she has agreed to work for them. She’ll be going undercover here at DreamQuest, looking for information that will implicate you in masterminding the theft at International Technology Consultants in exchange for immunity from prosecution on any charges stemming from her involvement in the matter.”

“That’s no problem. She won’t find anything.” Harmon could see from Sam’s face that there was more.

“Apparently the agent in charge used information about her intimate relationship with Cabrera to pressure her into accepting whatever terms of employment you offered her.” Neely looked uncomfortable, but he went on. “Agent Patterson specifically mentioned that you’ve been exploring the world of BDSM and you’re searching for a very special woman to become your sub. I thought you should know, sir, that if you become involved in a… personal relationship… with her, you can’t trust her, no matter how close you might think the two of you have become. We had a saying in our unit, sir. God gave men two heads, but only enough blood to use one of them at a time.” Neely met his gaze solidly. “I’m sorry for speaking so frankly, sir, but part of my job is telling you the things no one else has the guts to say.”

“You’re right, Sam. Thank you. Is there anything else?”

“No, sir. We know how and when she’ll be contacting Agent Patterson. I assume you’ll want us to monitor that communication?”

“Yes. I’ll be very interested in hearing what she has to say during those reports.”

Harmon walked out the door and closed it softly behind him. Normally he paid little attention to the handful of nuts who had a problem with him and his work. Most of them were harmless, like the conspiracy theorists, only wanting the attention they got from their online followers. Others feared change. They were determined to drive mankind back into the Dark Ages where they thought they’d be safe from machines that might evolve and take over the world.

But in the three years that Neely had worked for him, he’d never seen the man show any hint of emotion. For him to be so talkative, stressing possible threats and dangers, the situation with this bunch of fanatics must be serious. As for Kyra, he’d have to rethink his plans for her. Instead of heading for the lab, he turned the other way down the hall and ended up back in the gym. Marcus and Riley were working out, taking turns spotting each other on the bench press. They stopped when he came in.

“Ready for a workout, boss?” Marcus asked, grabbing a bottle of water and taking a long swig. He smiled casually.

“Yeah, I am. But I’ll just use the machines. You guys keep going. From what Neely tells me, it’s in my best interest to have all of you in top form right now.”

“You heard?” Riley’s face was calm, but Harmon wasn’t fooled. He figured that was ingrained, part of the man’s training. Never let ‘em see you sweat, no matter how dangerous the situation you’re in. These men were extremely well-paid, but as far as Harmon was concerned, there wasn’t enough money in the world to compensate them for putting their lives in danger on his behalf, a position he was sure they would willingly take. They were a different breed, these Special Forces guys. Adrenaline junkies. It seemed like they were only truly happy when shit was hitting the fan.

Harmon set the weights and began doing super sets. Leg curls, then presses, followed by an ab workout. The concentration he needed to bring to his workout absorbed every bit of his attention, freeing his mind for a while from its continuous whirl of thought. He barely noticed when the other two men left the room.

When he finally made his way to the lab, he locked the door behind him, a sign that he was not to be disturbed unless the building caught fire. Kyra Thornton would be here in a matter of hours. But not under the terms he’d originally expected. She’d gone from being an expensive plaything to an adversary. He wasn’t worried about her snooping around to implicate him in Cabrera’s theft. She’d find nothing. However, the idea that she would be reporting everything they did to a government agency concerned him. In his world, information about the newest technology was more valuable than gold. She’d be able to describe his experimental devices, how they worked. It wouldn’t take long before techs operating in labs all over the world were duplicating them.

Maybe he’d have to rely on old-fashioned methods of domination, at least at first. He went to a cabinet along one wall of the lab. Opening it, he ran his hand over an array of paddles and whips, feeling their weight, listening to the swish they made as he sliced through the air with each of them in turn. His cock hardened as he imagined how he’d begin Kyra’s training.

Chapter Six

Harmon closed the door to Kyra’s suite softly behind him and headed down the hall. Their first session had gone very well. She was certainly off-balance right now. He’d left her needy, desperate for release. He was needy too. His cock was hard, straining against his jeans. Paddling Kyra, then arousing her, excited him even more than he’d imagined it would during all those months of planning. He couldn’t wait to shove himself deep inside her, to feel her, hot and wet and tight around him.

He wanted to get into the lab, feed his observations about her into the program he’d created. Cabrera was right. She was the perfect sub. If he didn’t know better, he’d swear she had never been spanked like that, never been restrained and then aroused to the brink of orgasm. Her responsiveness was so real, so raw.

He’d spanked the pros he brought in much harder. They squealed and begged him to stop, but there was something forced and phony about their protests. Kyra’s stubborn refusal to make a sound no matter how firmly he wielded the paddle turned him on much more. She awakened all the dom tendencies he’d learned about but never experienced before. Suddenly he understood. Right now all he wanted was to redden that sweet ass until he made her cry out his name, swear she’d do anything he wanted. He’d spank her until she begged him to let her fall to her knees and take his big cock deep in her mouth.