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

In fact, my eyes narrow as I look around, if Mark and Blake hadn’t stolen my company and totally fucked up my life, I could afford to live on the Upper West Side too. Well, maybe Upper East. Or Tribeca.

“What the hell kind of game are you playing?” I spit out at Mark, unable to hold my tongue any longer.

“Seems like you’re the one rolling the dice these days, not me.”

“Oh yes, you were conveniently out when Blake was spewing filth out of his mouth. You have been purposefully absent for the last three days and when I finally take the matter into my own hands, you aren’t around to help me, save me or bail me out in a decent amount of time.”

I fight like an old harpy fishwife, standing in the center of the room blurting out accusations while he quietly makes a drink at the bar.

“I’d ask what you were thinking but you clearly weren’t thinking,” he says sharply.

“What do you know about it, ‘Mr. Show Up When it’s All Over’? You’re too busy to help, even though you promised.”

“I have been busy doing just that, helping you. But how am I supposed to keep a secret plan in motion when you are running around like a banshee? Imagine how I feel. I was out today digging up useful information and I return to the office to discover everyone gossiping, Blake shrieking, Kenneth plotting, and cops all over taking statements and I find out it’s because Julia Sharp has attacked my partner.”

“I didn’t attack him.”

“The red handprint I saw on Blake’s cheek would suggest otherwise,” he says. “Why don’t you tell me what happened and we’ll regroup from there.”

Mark guides me to the couch and sits a vodka tonic down in front of me. I start slowly, holding the heavy glass with both hands.

“Mark, I felt like I was running out of time, you had disappeared and I needed to get something done.”

Mark watched me, silent. I take a sip of the drink in my hands and launch into my side of the story, starting with the office visit. When I get to the part where Blake was proposing to use my body as his sex toy, I see Mark wince for a moment.

“Well, I’m sure Blake would love to do that. He loves demeaning women as a form of pleasure in return for favors. You could have struck some kind of deal with him if you let him do it. That’s the way his impulses work.”

Mark seemingly justifying his brother’s actions is like a matador holding up the red flag to draw the bull.

“So, that’s what this is all about isn’t it? You offer to help me but I have to fuck you. Blake wants to help but I have to fuck him. Welcome to Sandstone Ventures where we fuck your business then we fuck you too! Do I have to fuck Kenneth Allen too? How about your receptionist? Do I need to eat her out before she’ll put my calls through?”

“Julia, that’s not what I’m saying,” Mark tries to be rational but I’m past that. “I’m just saying I believe you—Blake’s like that. It was wrong, horribly wrong.”

“Are you really a venture capitalist, or just a highly compensated pimp? How many, Mark? How many people do I have to fuck to get my job back?”

The look on his face changes from quiet strong mentor to sad lost love almost instantly. I can see he doesn’t like being compared to Blake. Who would? I can also see he’s deeply hurt by the idea he set this up. The dear man, who is nothing like the sleazy degenerate who is holding my company hostage, has probably been at lawyers and accountants and everywhere looking for a loop hole.

“You can back out of our deal any time you want,” he says, his voice barely a whisper.

I grow ashamed of the accusation I hurled at Mark. The lady in the jail was right. I can be a stone cold bitch. Sorry for the pain I’ve caused him, I reach out and touch his hand.

“I didn’t mean all that. It’s just been a rough day.”

“Trust means you follow my lead. Trust means you listen to my advice. Trust means you get rid of the theatrics and wait for my call. You’re strong enough to spew fire and brimstone, but are you strong enough to contain it? To control yourself?”

“I understand, Mark, I really do.”

“You do?” He asks. “Let’s see.”

Rising from the couch, he offers me his arm and as I rise he pushes me with all his body weight up against the wall. It happens so fast I really don’t know what’s going on until my back hits the wall with a thud. Grabbing my hair and pulling my head up, he kisses me roughly. I feel my lips and body respond to his strong touch. His hand goes down between my legs, roughly pressing against me. I hear his zipper go down as his body holds me against the wall. Breathless, I open my stance, hoping to show him my regret about today and my willingness to follow.

“Do you trust me?” Mark asks as he reaches down grabbing one of my thighs. He lifts my leg and wraps it around his body, drawing me closer to him. He kisses me deeply, his tongue enjoying my mouth as his hand readies me.

“Yes,” I whisper as he pulls his lips away. I want him to never let me go.

I feel his cock parting my nether lips finding its way into my wet darkness. I gasp at his slightly awkward entry, and then my body floods his member with my juices, inviting him in deeper. His hands wrap around me, holding me up.

“Lift your other leg,” he commands, pulling my body up and bracing it against the wall as he begins pumping into me. I do what he says quickly—instinctively—without any worry of being dropped. I know he will hold me up. I need him to hold me up. The small thrusts he began with get deeper as he pushes into me harder and harder. It’s the first time I’ve really seen his face, intense and strong as he plunders my body for his pleasure.

Weightless, I am floating on air, the only sensation I feel is the friction as he pumps me again and again. I wrap my arms around him, clinging to him. This is everything I need, and all I desire. I’m filled and fulfilled. The depth of his cock and the bracing of the wall behind me ground me to him. I feel the tingling growing inside me as my muscles tighten around his member. His thrusts become more like sharp quick jabs as I feel him swelling within me, his breath coming out in short hot bursts.

“Ohhh,” I gasp as my body releases, convulsing in his strong arms. It’s a slow deep orgasm that rocks me all the way to my toes. The sounds of my passion and clamping of my pussy encourages him to pound me harder, his cock driving itself into me as my shoulders knock against the back wall. He lets out a rough growl as he explodes deep inside my body.

After he withdraws, I drop one leg on the ground and he holds me until I let the other down. Slowly, he turns and gives me a moment to get myself together as he walks to the couch and gets a blanket. Mark gently wraps it around my shoulders. Still shaken by the depth and power of the moment, I can barely walk, but he guides me to the couch.

“I do trust you,” I say softly.

“Good,” he says, twirling my hair in his fingers.

“But, Clank and Clack?” I ask.

“I couldn’t take the risk Blake or Kenneth would know I helped you. We have to keep it a secret. For your safety, and for my plan to work. Besides, Robert is a good man and friend. If you’re going to run around assaulting people, you should probably get to know him.”

I nestle against him satisfied with the explanation. He’s so different, after sex—so loving and nurturing. Tiger, then tabby.

Chapter 8

Sitting at a sidewalk café in the East Village, I squint against the sun and discover I’m staring right at Janice even though I barely recognize her. My normally neat and professionally dressed friend is wearing old jeans with an oil stain on one leg, a football sweatshirt, floppy hat, and sunglasses. She makes an effort to look up and down the street then slides into the seat across from me.

“You couldn’t pick an inside place?” she whispers. “Why didn’t you wear something unusual? You look just like you always do. They can spot you a mile away!”

“Oh, I don’t know Janice. Maybe I thought looking like a drug dealer or international terrorist would attract more attention than it would repel,” I reply with a sarcastic smile. “Are those even your jeans?”

“They are my sister’s. You don’t understand, Julia. You don’t know what it’s like there. They keep your office door closed and locked unless Kenneth All-Slime is there poking around. They changed the password to your computer and put in a privacy program to protect it on the network. Then they made everyone change their own password. John Kellen thinks they are using some kind of tracking software to read everyone’s new password as it was put in.”

“Jeez Janice, what’s next? Kenneth is going to peel off his face like they do in Mission Impossible and turn out to be Cameron Diaz?”

“Ha ha, very funny. I’m glad you’ve kept your sense of humor. It must be nice to be you. I have two ulcers and an eye twitch.” Janice pretends to be teasing but I can see she’s really under a lot of pressure.

“Yep. It’s great to be me. I’ve lost my job, my magazine, my life work, been escorted by security guards not once—but twice, had two conversations with the cancer treatment center about how I’m going to pay for my Dad’s experimental treatment which may or may not be working, been arrested for assault, and been notified my lawyer’s retainer runs out at the end of the month. My life is just peachy keen!” I respond.

I nearly blurted out “became a sexual slave” in the laundry list, but didn’t. I trust Janice, but I don’t think Mark would enjoy that part of the deal becoming public, and I’m not sure how she’d react. I don’t know what I think about giving myself sexually in exchange for help, let alone what she might think. Plus, there’s no way I could describe the incredible pleasure his rough thrusts have been providing me.

“I know. I’m sorry. I guess I’m just tense. The whole office is abuzz at you punching Blake the Snake right in the eye. How is your lawyer doing? Have you found a way back?”

“I’m working on a plan. I can’t tell you anything about it, but I may call on you and need your help,” I reply, adding a hint of mystery. It works for Mark, maybe it will work for me. “And, for the record, I slapped Blake’s face. Although I’m sure by the time it gets to court, I will have crippled him.”

“You know, there are some things I could do. Kenneth is asking me to run the office when he isn’t there interrogating people or searching through things. I could find a way to jam the copier, stall contracts and slow things down further, trip the breaker and shut the system down claiming brownouts. Heck, no one at the office does anything real at work anymore. They keep their real writing at home.”

“Thanks for the thought, but I don’t think that’s the best idea.” I’m a little taken back by Janice’s offer. She’s as meek as a mouse and once cried when she got a warning for speeding because it was her first ticket and she didn’t like the fact she broke a law. Now she’s willing to sabotage the system for me? It must be terrible there.

“I’m serious, Julia. If you need a ghost in the machine, you can count on me. In fact, the whole office is behind you. No one quit because they keep thinking you’re going to come back. But, I’ve heard a lot of people say they’d rather become internet bloggers than work for that hack Valerie James.”

“Janice, when you said, ‘when Kenneth is not interrogating people’ what did you mean?”

“Well,” she leans over and whispers louder, only drawing more attention to us. “Kenneth calls them interviews and says he and Blake are just trying to get an idea what everyone’s talents and projects are but it’s clear they are looking for something. They keep asking people what they’ve written about, what they are working on now, and if you assigned them anything that isn’t in the system. Everyone is stonewalling them.”

“Have they found anything?”

“No, and they’re pissed. At one point Blake shouted loud enough for everyone to hear, ‘I am truly amazed you people have an award winning magazine when none of you seem to be working on anything interesting!’ People just laughed at him, and he slammed the door and started poring through your files again.”

“What are they looking for? Did they mention the Wall Street piece by name?”

“No,” Janice squints when I say the words out loud. “But I think they know something about it. They were asking if anyone had done a ‘political or financial’ piece. And they requested all your payouts, personnel files, and have been going over your source lists. The first thing they did was block my access to accounting, but they keep asking questions about money.”

“Is the Wall Street piece still secure?”

“They will never find it.”

“Is the source secure?”

“She’s out of reach and out of touch. She’s safe.”

“As long as we keep it that way we are okay. Listen Janice, one more thing,” I try to find a non-suspicious way to clue her into Mark’s presence on my side of the war. “You know Mark Stone, Blake’s brother? He’s the Co-president.”

“Yes, he used to handle our account until he bailed like a cheap rat fleeing a sinking ship. Loser.”

“Well, he’s a friend of mine. No one can know that. He’s been helping me try to get back in. I can’t tell you anything now, but someday he may call you and ask you to do something—I don’t know what—but I want you to do what he says if he calls.”

“He’s a ‘Hi, how ya doin?’ friend or a ‘Let me make you some eggs for breakfast’ kind of friend?” Janice raises her eyebrows with a side smile.

“He’s just a friend. For now.” How could I possibly explain he’s my friend who routinely bends me over desks and cars, enters my body with a thrusting force that makes me wet every time I think about it, fucks me like I’m a whore then holds me like I’m a precious egg? I don’t even understand it; there’s no way on earth she would.

“Do you trust him, Julia?”

The moment she asks me, the last few weeks pass before my eyes. I see my anger at him for handing off our file to Blake, and my desire when he took me that first time, his frustrating absence that made me do something stupid, and his caresses on the couch after he bailed me out. I see myself embracing his cock in my desiring wet mouth as he told me he had a plan, and I see that text—that damn text message—saying ‘Do not trust him.’ I saw it all and I had to make a decision.