Billionaire Erotic Romance Boxed Set: 7 Steamy Full-Length Novels (21 page)

Slowly he undresses me, his kisses following his hands, covering my body in his passion for me. I feel as if I am floating on a magic carpet. He turns me on my stomach for a moment, hastily undresses, then straddles me, massaging my back. It is a luscious feeling as he gently works my stiff muscles until they are loose. He then turns me over, positioning himself between my legs and begins sucking on my breasts.

My back arches for him. I want to say something, give some silly remark or even tell him how much I need his love at this moment, but I can’t seem to get my mouth to function. Mark licks and laps at my nipples, taking time to enjoy himself while his hand reaches between my legs, rubbing and entering me. I curl around it as if I am drawing myself into a cocoon.

He enters me slowly, pushing his shaft into my body with one long stroke. I feel my flesh open for him and embrace him. He leans up to my ear his kisses making their way up my neck until he arrives again at the spot, this time accompanied by the luxurious feeling of him surging inside me.

“You’re so beautiful, Julia. So beautiful.”

I reach down and drape my arms around his hips, pulling him further into me, thrusting to meet him and feel the full power of his movement inside my core. He takes me gently, in long steady strokes, delaying the moment for both of us until it can be denied no more. I come while he impales me, my body clutching with his steady rhythm, pulsing softly and releasing all the pressure of the day into a long steady pulse. I float beneath him, letting myself go, letting everything go, as tears fall in orgasmic response. He kisses my cheek, gathering my tears on his tongue and presses himself in me for one last thrust, his seed emptying into my body.

He holds me while I cry. I’m not sure who or what the tears are for, me, Dad, Greg, or Lynx, I just know I am safe in his arms and I can let all of it go.

~~~

I wake up to an empty bed. At first I feel panicky, and then the soreness and fulfillment of my body let me know that it was not a dream. I shower and throw some sweats on, walking around the apartment to look for a note or evidence of his presence. He walks through the door holding up my spare key and a pizza.

“You’re up,” he says. “I was hoping to be back by then, but I don’t know this area well and got a little lost finding something to eat. Hope you’re hungry.”

“Ravenous,” I exclaim, practically pulling the pizza box out of his hand. “This is just what the doctor ordered.”

We eat mostly in silence, both of us too hungry to let conversation keep us from downing the pizza. He sifts through the papers I have stacked on the table, sorting out the ones related to the closure of Lynx from the others.

“What did your lawyer mean by ‘irregular accounting procedures’?”

“I don’t know and I can’t ask. My retainer for Paul is up and I don’t have the money to rehire him. This analysis was all I got.”

“We’ve got to get the file in Blake’s office,” he says yet again.

“Yes. Yes. Yes!” I snap at him. “I agree. But no matter how many times you put that thought on the replay list we still have no idea how to get that file.”

“I tried the last two days,” Mark confesses. But Blake’s playing pretty close to the chest. Anytime he left, his assistant would be in there. There’s no opening.”

“You work there. You have the keys and the alarm code. Can’t you just sneak in at night?”

“I hate to ruin your view of me as an outlaw rebel, or Mission Impossible type spy, but I don’t have the key to Blake’s office and I don’t know how to pick locks. The only way to get in there is when the door is open.”

“Maybe we’re overthinking this. Why can’t you just walk in, grab the file and run?”

“Because I don’t want to be the warden’s accountant when I’m doing 15 to 20 for theft. Didn’t you ever watch Shawshank Redemption?”

“Okay, let’s think. Can’t steal it. Can’t talk him out of it. Can’t sneak it out. Can’t sneak us in. Can’t exchange it.”

“Wait.” Mark puts his finger up to stop the momentum. “We can exchange it. We can make a replica–it won’t be exact but it will look enough like it that he won’t know unless he looks closely.”

“So you go in, trade them out, he thinks it’s still there and we have the smoking gun.” The light in his eyes grows bright. He has a plan, and I can see it working through the system of his analytical mind.

“Not me.” He smiles. “You.”

“Me?” I laugh out loud. “That would be great except there’s this little matter of a restraining order, an assault charge, and the fact he hates my guts. Maybe you should re-watch Shawshank Redemption.”

“Look, he will never leave me alone in his office long enough for the switch, but he’d let you in and he’d leave you alone.”

“Are you insane? The last time I visited his office I left in a zip tie between two cops! I’m hardly on the Ten Most Trusted list!”

“You would be,” Mark’s voice curled around the phrase. “If he let you in.”

“And why on earth would Blake Stone let me into his office?”

“This is the gross part.” He squints, giving me a warning.

“Oh, god. You don’t seriously want—”

“You told me he propositioned you. That’s why you attacked him in the office, right?”

“I would rather spend eternity in hell with nothing but a CB Radio and an old TV Guide.”

“Follow.” Mark holds up his hands as if he is showing me the plan on an imaginary presentation board. I cross my arms over my chest and look skeptical as he lays out the idea.

“Before you spend a lot of breath on this, the answer is ‘no.’” I warn. How could he even think I would do something so absurd?

“Wait, look. Blake knows about me and you and he gave you evidence about me. So he will believe you are desperate to get your company back, and now because of the pictures, you no longer trust me. In fact, you can tell him that if one of us is going to use you for sex, it might was well be the brother who can actually give you Lynx back. Tell him you will do anything he requires you to do in order to stop the transfer. Don’t act like you want it–he won’t believe you. But act like you have no choice.”

“Not wanting to have sex with Blake won’t require much acting,” I say dryly. This is crazy.

“The only thing Blake likes better than sex is humiliating someone. So he will egg you on, say rude things, try to shock you with profanity. But when he’s done with that, he will agree to the sex. He’s not going to just want it, he is going to want to remember it. Our offices have security cameras everywhere but we keep most of them turned off because it’s a lot of tape and storage. So when he is ready for it, he will leave his office to go to the control room to turn on his cameras. At that point you’ll be totally alone in his office. You can make the switch and run out the door shouting you just couldn’t go through with it. He will be mad but we will have the folder and he won’t suspect a thing. Easy as pie.”

“Disgusting as cow pies,” I remark. I don’t want to be on the same planet with that man, let alone offering him my body. “He’s grotesque and repugnant. How am I supposed to pretend I’m willing to give him sex when I can barely look at him without throwing up?”

“You’re an investigative journalist, Julia. You’ll find a way. Besides, you don’t have to do it, you just have to get him to believe you’re willing. Then you make the getaway. Do you have one of those large purses? The kind that’s more like a magazine bag than fashion bag? You can hide the fake folder in it. Sit it close to the bookshelf when you go in.”

“Yes, but what if he doesn’t leave the room? What if he decides he doesn’t want it recorded? Then what happens?”

“Improvise. Tell him you feel dizzy or to wait a second. Stand up and leave. You are younger, smarter and far more athletic.” Mark reached out and put his warm hand on my cheek directing my eyes to his. “Your safety comes first. If you think he will hurt or touch you in any way–get out of there. Losing Lynx would make me mad; losing you would kill me.”

I nod. I can’t believe I’m going along with this nutso scheme, but Mark is right. It really is the only way to get alone in his office. Mark draws a picture of the office on a napkin, as if I hadn’t been arrested there already, and shows me all the exits. He prepares himself to call Blake and warns me that I won’t like what I hear. He instructs me repeatedly to remember it’s all a ruse and says he has to talk to Blake “in his own language” which means crude and gross.

“I’ve been an investigative reporter for my whole career,” I scoff. “I know how undercover works.”

“Hey Blake,” Mark says into his cell with a cynical tone. He’s a good actor, that I’ll give him. “You aren’t going to believe this. I’ve got the deal of a lifetime for you. You know Julia, from Lynx. Yeah. Well, the night you fired her she came storming into my office–just like she did yours. Yeah, I know. I should have called the cops like you and I should’ve told you. But I did something I think you would want to know about. I fucked her.”

Mark puts his hand over the phone while Blake drones and mouths the words “I’m sorry” to me. They help the sting, but it still disturbs. He was right, this is harder to hear than I imagined. I should leave but I don’t. If I’m going to face Blake I’m going to hear worse than this, but it’s all for a good cause.

“Afterward, I started this thing with her–you know–telling her I could help her if she gave me what I wanted. Yeah, it was pretty sweet. Then she blew a gasket or something. She came over to my place‒yeah‒I know‒never at my own place, you’re right about that, anyway she had these pictures. I don’t even know. She must have heard I dated Val so she had someone make pics of us like we were doing it. She was all pissed off. I think she was trying to blackmail me or Val or whatever. I know! That is ancient history. She’s a psycho.”

Blake rambled off another string of something and laughed. It’s too bad Mark couldn’t use the speakerphone, but he said it would scare Blake off. I end up sitting down because all of this is making me sick.

“So, I tell her we’re done. But today she came crying saying she wants to meet with you. She said you made her some kind of offer and she’s ready to take you up on it, but she can’t because of the cops. Did you offer her a job? Oh. Ha ha, yea–that kind of offer. Well, if you want it–sounds like you can have it, brother. A little after hours conference sounds right. When is that contract up? Yep, better hurry, don’t want to pass the expiration date, keep it fresh.”

Mark talks with the same nasty chuckle I remember from Blake’s office. He tells Blake he will give me the message about what time to come and congratulates him on “making the best of the situation.”

He gets off the phone and shrugs.

“You’re in,” he says. I can see he has mixed feelings about the whole thing.

“I don’t know who raised you two, but he must have been a piece of work,” I respond bitterly, still re-living that misogynistic laugh they share.

“That’s his world, Julia. Not mine. If we get this right, neither one of us will ever have to be near it again.”

Chapter 21

My heels click loudly on the tile floor of the main lobby. The guard looks up and I nod at him, pointing to my shoes and giving him a cheesy grin so he knows I’m not trying to break the sound barrier on my way to the elevator. I wobble for a moment then gratefully find my feet on solid ground as I hit the carpet in the elevator car. The shoes were Mark’s idea. The whole outfit was put together by him, actually. A white blouse buttoned down the front with an accentuated waist, conservative black skirt, hose with garter belts and three inch pumps at a steep enough angle to give me a nosebleed. My hair is down, falling softly on my shoulders. A scarf completes the package.

I get off the elevator on the proper floor, look for Mark but don’t see him. He wanted to be here to help me so he pretended to go home at his usual time, and then drove a friend’s car back to the office building. He’s supposed to be lurking somewhere around here. However, unless he has mastered the art of invisibility, he’s not here. I put off entering the door of Sandstone Ventures for as long as I can, but I eventually get to the point where I can’t wait any longer.

The front office is dim, the light from the building giving it a shadowy appearance. It looks like a ghost town. Mark said when he left work Blake looked like the cat, preparing to meet the canary. My stomach rumbles and churns as I envy any bird that could fly away from this. A bright light comes from the left side down the hall. Blake’s office door is open and he sits behind his desk, pretending to work, waiting for me.

I knock on the door jam and stand there, the huge purse making me feel even more obvious and awkward. It only has a few trinkets in it and the fake folder. I pretend it’s heavy so he won’t be surprised when I set it down. Blake looks up, allowing a serpentine smile spread across his lips.

“Miss Sharp, how good of you to come,” he says with a fake air about him as thick as southern sweet tea. “I have longed to speak with you again.”

“I’m just going to put this out there,” I say. Mark said to pretend to be shaken and desperate but there really isn’t any acting involved. This whole situation has my voice and body in tremors. “I can’t lose Lynx. I can’t lose my job. It’s who I am. I’m here to ask you to reconsider.”

“You’re here to do what?” he asks drawing out each word.

“To ask you to reconsider closing my company.”

“To
ask
? Really?
Ask
? This time tomorrow, the waiting period is over and since no judge has issued any kind of stay, your company will be mine—lock, stock and stories. Your staff will be mine, your computers will be mine, hell even the copy machine will be mine. All you will have left is a fading memory of this monumental failure. And you’re here to
ask
me to stop this?”

“I’m here‒um‒I’m here to beg you,” I surrender breathlessly.

“Ah.” Blake leans back in his chair, sunning himself in my humiliation. “That’s more like it.”

I drop my head, far heavier than my purse, as my heart sinks. We aren’t going to fool him. He’s just playing with me like a cat toy.