Because He Watches Me (Because He Owns Me, Book Nine) (An Alpha Billionaire Romance) (7 page)

* * *

I
couldn’t sleep
.

My body was wired and filled with energy.

I felt like I was going to lose my mind.

I flipped on the TV, but there was nothing on, not even any good pay movies.

Finally, I grabbed my key card from the nightstand and went downstairs, deciding to check out the rack of chocolate and other snacks I’d seen in the lobby.

I was heading back upstairs to my room, a package of peanut butter M and Ms and a Diet Coke in my hands, when I saw Callum through the glass of the door that led to the pool.

He was in the gym, which was on the other side of the pool, separated by another glass wall. He was on the treadmill, his ear buds in, running at what seemed like an impossibly fast pace.

His legs pumped hard, the muscles in his thighs straining with every push. He’d taken off his shirt and tossed it over the machine next to him.

His body, as always, was perfection, muscular and strong, his shoulders broad, his movements graceful and powerful at the same time. Sweat glistened on his chest, and I imagined licking it off him, my tongue dipping in between the indent between his pecs. A thin line of hair started at his belly button and slipped beneath his shorts, and I imagined licking that too, going further down until I got to his hard cock.

He was staring straight ahead, determination on his chiseled features.

I remembered that night he’d come to me, the night he’d slipped into my bed, the night he’d told me he’d run miles and miles to try to get me out of his head.

Was that what he was doing now?

Before I could tell myself not to, I opened the door and walked into the pool. The door shut behind me, but Callum had his ear buds on, and he didn’t hear it. He was so focused that I stood there for three minutes before he saw me.

His jaw tightened, again at my disobedience, at the fact that I was out and walking around the hotel when he’d told me not to leave my room, and he reached down and pushed the speed of the treadmill up even higher.

I liked that I was pushing him.

I liked that he couldn’t do anything about it, that he was afraid that if he did, he would lose me.

It was a heady feeling, knowing I had that power over him.

And yet at the same time, I wanted him to lose control.

I felt the need for him pulsing through my veins.

I needed to push him more, to test him.

But how?

What was the thing that would make him the maddest, I wondered. He hated it when I wore revealing clothes, which was why he had only allowed me to wear things that he had approved.

His eyes were locked on me as he ran and a shiver ran through my spine at what I was about to do.

I set my candy and soda down and before I could really think about the repercussions of my actions, I reached down and took my dress off, leaving me in just my bra and panties. It was a set he’d bought for me, black and lacy. Once I was in the water, it would be perfectly see-through – any person coming through the door would be able to see my body on display for them.

My heart was pounding in my chest. We were pretty secluded here, but anyone could come in at any time.

I started down the stairs in the shallow end of the pool, inhaling the scent of the chlorine.

The water was cold, almost shockingly so, and goose bumps broke out on my bare skin. I sucked in a breath and forced myself to keep going, pushing myself into the water before diving under and swimming toward the deep end.

When I surfaced at the other side of the pool, I turned to the left and looked back toward the gym.

Callum was gone, the treadmill silent.

My mind was just starting to register this information when the sound of the pool door slamming shut echoed through the room.

I turned around and he stood there, gazing down at me, intensity burning in his blue eyes.

He dove in, reaching me in what seemed like a second, his body slicing through the water in smooth, strong strokes.

When he reached me, he pressed me up against the side of the pool, his body warm against mine.

“What do you think you’re doing?” he growled.

“Swimming.”

“Half naked?”

“It covers as much as a bikini.”

“The fuck it does.” His hand slid down my side, slowly, and I sucked a breath in through my teeth at the feel of his touch on my bare skin. “I don’t like it.”

“I don’t care what you like.”

His eyes flashed, this time with hurt, and I felt a ball of emotion in my throat. I didn’t want to hurt him, but I did want him to prove to me that what he said was true, that things were going to be different between us.

He slid his mouth down to my collarbone and kissed it softly, and I melted.

My legs went weak and if I wasn’t up against the side of the pool, I would have fallen to the ground in surrender.

“I need you,” he whispered. “I need you naked.” He tugged at the side of my panties, just down over my hip, just a little bit, a few centimeters.

“People will see,” I said.

“Not if you don’t make a sound,” he murmured, and licked the sensitive spot behind my ear. “Can you stay very quiet, Lemon?”

His fingers moved with exquisite slowness, moving my panties over to the side, and I realized I’d been wrong to test him this way. He could only take so much, and more importantly, I could only take so much.

I wanted him badly.

I could feel the bulge in his pants, through his shorts, could feel it against my bare pussy now as his fingers finished moving my panties to the side.

“I’ll fuck you right here,” he said, playing with the folds of my cunt. “I’ll push my cock right inside of you. I don’t give a fuck who sees.”

I pushed him away and swam to the other side of the pool. He let me go, and that’s when I started to get really scared, because I knew if he was letting me go physically, he knew he had me.

And he was right.

I was sick of fighting.

I wanted him.

I wanted him inside of me.

But not here.

Not like this.

Not in the pool.

“Not in the pool,” I said.

“Where?”

“Upstairs. In my room.”

He moved through the water and out, grabbed a towel off the rack and wrapped me in it.

Then he put his arms around me and led me to the elevator.

* * *

W
hen we got
to my room, I didn’t hesitate.

I didn’t have a moment of wishing I wasn’t doing this, of telling myself that I should be telling him to go away.

I was too tired of fighting him, too exhausted from railing against this thing between us, this thing that was bigger than me, that was stronger than me, stronger than anything I’d ever encountered in my life. I couldn’t do it anymore.

“Callum,” I moaned as we tumbled onto the bed together.

I was still cold and shivering from the water, but his body heat warmed me.

I was still only in my bra and panties, and they stuck to my wet skin as his strong arms encircled me, pulling me toward him.

His bare chest felt strong and protective, and it caused confusion to swirl through me. How could I feel so cared for when he’d done nothing but destroy me?

“Adriana,” he breathed. “Oh, Adriana.”

He brushed damp strands of hair from my face, and it wasn’t until I heard the strangled cry escape from between my lips that I realized I was crying.

Callum kissed my tears, his lips trailing over my cheeks, my chin, my lips, my forehead. His touch began to calm me, and he held me, pulled me against his chest, letting me cry until I was spent.

Then he slowly tipped my chin up.

“I don’t want to hurt you anymore,” he whispered softly.

“Then don’t,” I whispered back, and I heard the raw emotion in my voice, the desperation there.

“How?” he murmured, and his chest was heaving, and I closed my eyes and tipped my head back, because I wasn’t sure how I was supposed to answer that. His mouth dipped to the hollow of my throat and skated across the sensitive flesh there.

His hand was on the small of my back, big and strong, holding me against his body, and I slid my head back up as he brushed my hair further back from my face with my other hand.

“You are so beautiful,” he breathed, and he was sliding his arm from around my waist to under my knee, pulling it up and over his hip, and I slid my hands down over the smooth planes of his chest, over the ridges of his abs.

I placed my palm on his stomach and slid it down into his shorts, feeling his hard cock. I squeezed it and he moaned.

“Fuck, Lemon,” he moaned as I stroked him, and he moved his fingers in between my legs as we touched each other, me stroking his dick, his thumb moving over my clit.

“God, baby,” he breathed. “You feel so good. I love you so much, Adriana, I do, baby, I’m so in love with you.”

I was crying again, and I pulled his shorts off, needing to feel him inside of me, and he unhooked my bra, pulling the straps slowly down off my shoulders, more tender than I could ever remember him being with me.

When I was topless, his hands found my breasts, palming them and lifting them to his mouth, sucking each nipple between his lips slowly, rolling them, then giving them a tiny nip with his teeth, letting me know that he was still the same old Callum.

He tugged at my panties, until the wet fabric separated from my skin, which was now hot and wanting. When my panties were off, then pushed his naked body to mine, raising my leg back up over his hip.

I could feel him poised to go inside of me, and the torture was exquisite.

“I love you,” he said again, and the raw emotion in his voice, his hands on my body, his dick against my pussy was enough to almost make me come right there. I swallowed and tried to put some distance between us, because he was burning me up. “Don’t,” he pleaded, and I felt myself relax back into him.

The head of his dick was still pressed against my slick entrance.

“You’re so wet,” he said. “Jesus, Adriana, you’re so fucking wet, baby.”

I wrapped my arms around his shoulders and waited for him to push inside of me. But he continued to stroke my face as he gazed into my eyes.

“When you were… when I thought I’d lost you..” The only light in the room came from outside, the streetlamps filtering through the mostly closed blinds and illuminating his face. “It was the worst feeling I’ve ever felt in my life. I felt like I was suffocating.”

His words were the words I’d wanted to hear forever, and I closed my eyes tight and felt another tear slip down my cheek.

“Don’t cry, please,” he said. “Please, I can’t take making you cry for another second.” He brushed my tear away. “You have to be mine. Please.”

“Callum…”
He kissed me hard and deep, his cock still nestled right at the edge of my pussy, the head pushing on my folds, forking them gently. He pushed just a tiny bit inside of me.

“I can’t breathe without you, baby,” he said. “I can’t exist without you.” He pushed into me a tiny bit more, and even though I was so wet, so ready for him, more turned on then I’d probably ever been in my entire life, I gasped at his girth. His breath was coming in ragged gasps, and he held me tight in his arms. “Say you’re mine,” he said. “Say you belong to me.”

“I’m yours,” I said. “I belong to you.”

He pushed inside of me then with one long hard thrust, and he kept me right against him, not moving, just gazing at me as our bodies connected and became one. The emotion of the moment, the love I felt for him and from him, was so intense I could almost see it, crackling between us.

He kissed me softly on the lips, over and over again, and the kiss deepened and became more passionate as he began to move inside of me, his thrusts becoming deeper and faster.

Finally, after he’d been fucking me for what felt like forever and yet no time at all, he grabbed my hips and rolled me over so that I was on top of him. His chest was heaving with the effort as he railed against his urge to control me, to dominate me, to punish me and whip me and make me scream.

He was doing this for me, I realized. He was pulling me on top of him to show me he could give in a little bit.