Falling Hard (Billionaires in Disguise: Lizzy, #1) (22 page)

She kept one hand on the chair to steady
herself because falling over just then might really hurt at least
one of them, but Lizzy brought her other hand up and under his soft
balls, rolling them in her palm.

He gasped and his dick throbbed in her
mouth.

She rolled her tongue under his cock,
dragging the roughness along the underside.

Mannix’s hand behind her head pushed her head
down farther. She fought to not gag. Above her head, he cried out
and came hard, his legs shaking.

As the last spasms left his body, Lizzy
pulled her head off of him, and he collapsed in the chair behind
him. He held his head in his shaking hands. His black hair draped
forward around his face, and he seemed to struggle with
something.

Lizzy sat back with her butt on her heels.
Her lips felt bruised and swollen, and her throat was sore from
taking him so far down, but the shock on his face was so worth it.
She grinned.

Mannix finally looked up, and his blue eyes
were full of fire again. He rolled one shoulder, then the other,
and then stretched his back by twisting. His expression had been
shocked surprise, like he had not realized just how incredible she
was at blow jobs, but it shifted to exultation.

She smiled at the rising emotion in his
eyes.

One should always be modest. Demonstration of
one’s skills was better than bragging.

The astonishment in their eyes was so much
better that way.

Mannix’s legs trembled, and he sat down hard
on the kitchen chair. He grabbed the table, his fingers scrabbling
against the dark wood.

Lizzy knelt in front of him, a devious grin
on her pixie face. A strand of her short blond hair wove through
his fingers where he had gripped it.

He felt no pain.

Mannix rolled his shoulders, and bent, and
turned. Nothing hurt him. The relief from the constant, chronic
pain was momentous. The pain always clawed at him, dropping a
barbed curtain between him and everyone else that he couldn’t break
through.

As Lizzy had deep-throated him, he had stared
down at the bruises and stripes mottling her skin under the sheer
fabric of the underwear set, and the pain had disintegrated.

Gone.

No fire lanced his spine. No glowing iron
spikes stabbed through his neck and legs.

His bones and muscles felt like they had when
he was teenager, maybe better. His first injury, a neck sprain, had
sidelined him when he was fifteen, and he swore that he had never
been right after that.

Now, he was
right
. He was
whole
.

Mannix panted, and his voice was hoarse with
relief. “I could fall in love with a girl like you.”

Lizzy shifted on her knees, watching
Mannix.

His eyes were still unfocused from the
orgasm, and shudders ran over his chest under his swirling tattoos.
He braced himself on his knees, his big hands slipping a little on
his black silk pajama pants as he breathed deep, shuddering
gasps.

Lizzy resisted the urge to polish her nails
on her shoulder like that was no big thing. Let him revel in how
she had worked him over.

Mannix’s soft voice rasped with
vulnerability, like he was strung out and nearly dying, and he
said, “I could fall in love with a girl like you.”

All of Lizzy’s life, she had an echo in her
head, and the echo spoke Russian. Everything that everyone said to
her, the echo translated and fed it back to her in her father’s
voice.

When the echo got to the word
love
, it
stuttered and phased into white noise.

Lizzy didn’t know the Russian word for
love
.

She slipped her arms around his waist and
laid her head on his thighs. The silk of his black pajama pants
were smooth under her cheek.

He stroked her hair, his breathing still
ragged.

Sunday just before noon, while Lizzy lay limp
over the back of the sectional in front of the television area
after he fucked her until the pain went away again, Mannix answered
his blaring phone that was displaying a long, unknown phone number.
Odd.
“Hello?”

A very deep, dark male voice asked, “Mannix
Bonfils?”

The caller must be someone connected to his
father because he had pronounced Mannix’s last name the French way,
but even as Mannix’s chest pounded, he knew that it wasn’t the
estate executor. That guy’s pinched voice irritated the crap out of
him.

“Yes. This is?” Mannix stretched, free from
pain in his leg and back again. He felt like a new man.

On the phone, the man said, “The Dom of The
Devilhouse.”

Mannix dropped his arm to his side. “This is
a surprise.”

“I have decided to divest myself of The
Devilhouse. Are you still interested?”

Mannix took half a step backward. Yesterday,
he would have never guessed that The Dom’s possibility of selling
The Devilhouse
someday
would turn out to be the next
afternoon. “I would consider it. When you say The Devilhouse, what
does that encompass?”

“The business, the building, the books, the
real estate. Everything. There are legal firewalls, but I hold all
the stock. There is no debt.”

Mannix had always assumed that that huge
building, grounds, and upgrades must have been funded by a group of
investors or bought largely on credit. He revised his estimate of
The Dom’s net worth skyward and felt smaller, which pissed him off.
“What are you asking for it?”

The Dom named an exorbitant price, far beyond
what remained of Mannix’s football contract termination payment and
his trust fund put together.

“That’s high.” He would have said that to
negotiate because he wasn’t an idiot, but there was no way in Hell
that Mannix could scrape together that sum or anything close to
it.

“That comprises liquidation value plus five
years’ cash flow, calculated from the low end of the extrapolated
growth curve, which is by all standards more than a fair price. I
generally take eight percent of the gross as profit. The rest of
the surplus has been re-invested in capital improvements and
expansion. We can forward our books to your accountants this
afternoon, if you’re interested in the numbers.”

“Of the
gross?”
Jesus, that meant that
The Devilhouse was a Kobe-beef cash cow, pumping out millions per
month. Depending on how much capital was tied up in that building
and land, The Devilhouse might be throwing off several million per
year. Maybe ten.

Considering how much Mannix paid in
initiation fees and annual dues, he shouldn’t have been
surprised.

Even though it was the deal of the century,
it was still impossible.

Mannix said, “Most of my money is tied up in
long-term investments. That sum isn’t possible at this time.”

The phone was silent, and Mannix let the dead
air hang, waiting. It wasn’t a no until The Dom said no. His own
breath rasped through the line.

Finally, The Dom said, “Considering the
nature of the business, it cannot be sold to just any investor.
Perhaps we can consider a payment schedule, if you put down a
twenty-five percent deposit.”

Only a twenty-five percent deposit?
Twenty-five percent was fucking insane. There had to be a fucking
catch. “Interest?”

“Prime plus two.”

Financially, that was a fucking
gift.

This deal could turn Mannix’s finances around
in ways that he hadn’t dreamed of.

With The Devilhouse, Mannix could find subs
who could take whatever he needed to dish out, however many he
needed. His exultant sigh blasted out of his chest.

Mannix had to
find
the money.

His brother was probably saving his pennies.
He had no fucking vices. He probably hadn’t dipped into his trust
fund for anything beyond his house, just a few blocks away.

“It’s a deal,” Mannix said. “I’ll send you my
lawyer’s email, and we’ll draw up the papers as soon as
possible.”

“Excellent,” The Dom said. “I’ll rebate one
percent if this is finalized within a week.”

Jesus Christ, as if it couldn’t get any
fucking
better.
“We’ll make sure of that.”

A few minutes later, after flipping a blanket
over Lizzy’s small, still form, Mannix took his phone to the
kitchen for some privacy. Some things shouldn’t be out in the open
just yet.

The pans from breakfast, still on the stove,
smelled like browned butter and crisp eggs. He would wash those in
a few minutes. He didn’t want his little fuckdoll to get dishpan
hands.

Mannix grinned as he scrolled through the
contacts and tapped the one labeled
The Other
Asshole
Lawyer.

Redundant, but funny.

Three rings later, during which Mannix
imagined his half-brother glaring at his cell phone in his tiny,
county-government office, the line clicked open.

His small voice came through the phone line.
“Hello, Mannix.”

Mannix bared his teeth, ready to do battle.
“Hello, Theo.”

Outside the glass wall of Theo’s office,
too-young interns and more mature admins trotted, ferrying
paperwork. Theo had hoped for a few hours of quiet to catch up, but
weekends in the County Attorney’s office were almost as bad as
Mondays, maybe worse due to everyone’s surly attitude for being
tapped work on the weekend again. The Hyperactive Penguin, Theo’s
boss, was a known slavedriver, but he was in his office, too.

Inside the glass wall, Theo’s paperwork was
beginning to pile up. Since the Rojas case had been shut down,
every other open case that needed work had been dumped on his desk.
His schedule was a morass of small prosecutions, harder than
working on one massive case.

His cell phone rang, a double-ring like an
old-time telephone. The screen read
Mannix Bonfils.

Ah, crap. Mannix wanted something else. From
the very beginning, when their father had invited them both to
dinner at a fancy restaurant in Manhattan without telling them why,
springing the half-brothers on each other, Mannix had called Theo
when he wanted something.

One of these days, it was going to be a
kidney.

Or, more likely, a piece of his liver.

Theo thumbed the glass screen. “Hello,
Mannix.”

“Hello, Theo.”

As always, Mannix was trying to sound
menacing or like he was growling. Theo surmised that it was left
over from being a hulking linebacker in the NFL, where image was
paramount. “What can I do for you?”

“Put any bad guys behind bars today?”

An intern, wearing jeans and a tank top on
her robust body instead of a suit, rushed in with a few pages,
probably trying to get done so she could go home.“Nope. It’s
Sunday.”

“So you aren’t at the office?”

Theo’s voice was grim. “Yeah, I’m at the
office. What can do for you, Mannix?”

If Mannix listened closely, he could hear the
slightest lilt of Theo’s Colombian accent in his deep voice, even
though Theo had been born and raised in the States. He was
practically a fucking anchor baby. Mannix said, “About The
Devilhouse.”

Theo cut him off. “I canceled my membership
to that place. It’s not for me. I appreciate you getting me into
the party and all, but I’m just not into that.”

“It’s for sale,” Mannix said.

“So?”

“So I have a business proposition for you. We
can go in on it together. You can be a silent partner.”

“I don’t think so.”

His dismissive tone sounded final, but Mannix
could work with anything. “It throws off eight percent per
year.”

The line was silent for a moment. “Eight
percent isn’t bad. How much are they asking?”

Mannix told him the enormous number.

“Well, crap. I don’t think I should cash out
that much and slap it all on one business venture.”

“That Dom is sending over the books,” Mannix
said, “but that includes the building and the land.”

Theo paused. “Real estate is on the
upswing.”

Time to turn the emo screws. Mannix had
always played the dismissive, older, legitimate heir to Theo’s
upstart bastard, so he said, “It would be great to go into business
together. I’ll bet our father would have loved it.”

Mannix waited through Theo’s long pause.
“It’s still too much money.”

And now logic. “It’s a fair offer,” Mannix
said, “made more generous by the fact that The Dom wants us to
front only half the money. Fifty percent down is a steal. As a
silent partner, you would put down twenty-five percent, and so will
I.”

Mannix just had to make sure that Theo never
saw the paperwork on that one. He would have it all sent to his own
lawyer.

Theo asked, “How do we finance the rest?”

“It’ll be paid out of receipts over five
years at the prime rate plus two percent.” And now some bravado
coupled with standard investing advice. “It’s an excellent
investment opportunity. Income stocks are for blue-haired widows,
Theo. At your age, you need an aggressive investment with growth
potential.”

Theo’s sigh whooshed through the cell phone.
“I can’t imagine a management company that would take it.”

And now, some pity for the crippled brother.
“I was thinking about managing it. I’ve been looking to get out of
the NFL entirely. Even coaching is too hard on my injured
back.”

“Well, that makes it more interesting.”

Through the phone, Mannix heard a complicated
drum roll tapped out like a herd of beautiful women running in high
heels. Trust the half-Colombian bastard to play the bongos on his
desk.

Theo said, “I’ll think about it.”

“If the deal closes within a week, he said
that he could rebate us one-half of one percent of the purchase
price. We would split that.”