Her Sweet Surrender: Billionaire Secrets - Book Four (12 page)

"I've never felt like this before Ruben. Nobody's ever made me feel this way. I want this to last. I want it to be forever."

There was a moment of silence before he responded and then his deep, low voice vibrated through her.

"I do to." He whispered. "Forever."

Did he mean it? Could someone like him really, really mean that?

She wrapped her arms and legs tightly around him. This was his time, his fantasy, if this was what he chose to do then she could pretend as well. Why not? She would live this moment as if it were the truth and then pick up the pieces tomorrow morning in the cold light of day.

"I don’t care about my ten nights." He said, beginning to lavish kisses onto her neck and shoulder again. "You're free." He said and then lifted his head to look at her. "If this is all just a game to you Suzy Falstaff, and you want me to go now, then just say the word and I'll leave you here alone. You'll never hear of Ruben Mayweather again."

Her eyes filled with tears as she took his head into her hands.

"It's not a game." She whispered. "I want you to stay." She wrapped her hands around his neck again. "Dear God Ruben Mayweather, please stay. Say you'll stay with me and swear to me that this is real."

He didn't speak any more. There was no need. His body and passionate, tender love making would do the talking. Lifting her from the floor he carried her to the bedroom where they lay tangled together for hours, rolling, kissing, caressing and worshipping each others' body and minds until the winter sun went down again. Then at last the young couple lay spent, this time truly, truly spent for what felt like blissful eternity.

Epilogue

Sunset on the Florida Keys.

The balcony of their beachfront hotel room gave Suzy and Nadia a perfect view and the two friends drank in the indescribable beauty before them. They had arrived earlier that day on a short break just for them, a girl's weekend away. Clay and Ruben had protested at their absence for a whole weekend but they had been overruled. The women needed this time away from their men in order to fully digest the incredible events that had swept over their lives in the last year.

They sat together now on the balcony, a bottle of Champagne on ice sitting between them. Suzy looked at Nadia and smiled.

"So is it okay if I ask why you guys have postponed your wedding date again?"

Her friend didn’t answer.

"Are you guys doing okay?"

"We're doing just fine." Nadia said without looking at her. She had been tight-lipped on the subject.

"Really? You know you can tell me anything, right? If you want to of course. I'm not prying. If you don't want to talk about something then that's okay too."

"It's not that. It's nothing to do with us at all."

"Not about you? I don’t understand Nadia, what's going on?"

Nadia stared at her friend a moment, wondering if she should speak or not.

"It's about
you
guys."

"Us? As in me and Ruben?"

Nadia nodded her head. "How are
you
guys doing? I mean, it's going on six months now since you two are officially an item, and nearly a year since you met. Do you think he's got it in mind to, you know, to--"

"To go to your wedding?"

"No dummy, to ask you the big question."

Now it was Suzy's turn to look away. She hadn’t realized that this was an issue outside of her and Ruben.

"What's it to you guys? Can’t you get married without us being engaged already?"

Nadia put her hand to her friend's arm.

"Look, the same goes for me, if you want to talk about this then I'm here to listen. If not, then that's fine too. I was just thinking, you know, since we kind of all met at the same time, and as they're best friends and we're best friends too and because we all went through so much together… and God, you guys are like the sweetest couple ever. I've never seen a man change so much for someone, not even Clay. Ruben is crazy about you, I don’t get why--"

"It's not him, it’s me." Suzy said.

Nadia's jaw dropped.

"Okaaay. So is that something you want to talk about? Are you not happy with him?"

"Are you kidding me? Ruben is like the guy from the dreams you have while you're dreaming. I couldn't think of anyone more perfect to spend the rest of my life with and… God Nadia, he's already asked me but--"

"You said no?" Nadia's eyes were huge with incredulity.

"No. God no. I didn’t say no. But there's something else we have to work out first before I can say yes to him."

"Okay. I can understand that. Clay and I had issues about trust and honesty that we had to work out, but we got there in the end. Is it something like that?"

Suzy looked at Nadia, longing to speak, longing to share the burden that had been hanging over her since that night Ruben and her had spent together in her house on the beach.

"He wouldn't… Jesus Christ Nadia, don't breathe a word of this to anyone, but in the beginning he wouldn't fuck me."

Nadia nodded her head, trying to understand, to remain non- judgmental.

"I mean, that sounds so bad Nadia, worse than it was. He did things to me, incredible mind-blowing things. I'd never met a man like him before and probably never will, but I had to force him to do it the first time.  He just wouldn't make love to me in the sense of…"

"He wouldn't…. penetrate?"

"Exactly." Suzy breathed a sigh of relief. It was out. She could talk about it now. "I had to  bargain him into it."

"Bargain?" Nadia lowered her voice instinctively. "You mean, when we were going to Point Nemo and you guys were squabbling about deals and agreements that's what you were talking about?"

Suzy nodded her head.

"That's right. I had to trade with him for it, beat him at his own game, but then when he finally did it to me, my God… Nadia, I've never experienced anything like it and I mean not even in my wildest fantasies."

Nadia watched her friend, mouth still hanging open. Suzy nodded her head as if to say 'oh yeah' everything you're thinking and more. She looked at her friend and then leaned in a little closer to her.

"I mean, for Christ's sake Nadia, he fucked me unconscious."

"No!"

"Oh yes. The guy gave me simultaneous clitoral and G-spot orgasms. It was unreal."

"The blended O?"

Suzy nodded.

"On the first time and then every time since then."

Nadia took in a deep breath, blew out a long sigh and reached for her Champagne glass.

"Blended O on the first time." She whispered. "So tell me again, why exactly did you say no to him? Because I am definitely missing something here. He
is
fucking you now, right? No more penetration issues? "

Suzy nodded. There were no issues, none at all, unless being satisfied to the core of your being at a moment's notice whenever your lover was around was an issue.

"So what is it?"

"The issue is that he won't tell me why it was so hard for him to do it with me in the first place."

Nadia plunked her Champagne glass down with a thud.

"Are out of your mind? Are you seriously out of your high IQ tiny, little mind? Jesus Christ, where's my phone? I'm calling that man for you right now and saying yes on your behalf before he changes his mind."

"Don't do that Nadia. I know it sounds small, but you know how it goes with these things. He asked me to marry him and of course I wanted to say yes but something held me back. I told him nothing would make me happier but that I couldn't say yes until he had answered one question for me."

"And what did he say?"

"He said to ask him anything, so I asked him why he had been the way he was with me in the beginning."

"And he said?"

"He looked at me for way too long and then eventually gave me one of his stupid enigmatic answers. 'Put it aside for now.' That's what he said."

"Put it aside?"

"Yes. Those were his words, 'put it aside'."

Nadia fingered her glass, looked out at the sea for a  moment and then turned back to her friend again.

"That smug, patronizing arrogant bastard." She said.

"I know! Right?" Suzy said with relief. "I was beginning to think I was crazy but it's him, isn't it?"

"Damn right it is. 'Put it aside'? Who does he think he's talking to, a child?"

"A child from the eighteenth century."

The two women stared at each other for a moment more.

"You have got to know what this is." Nadia said.

"Exactly. I mean, if it was just that he had been a little shy or self-conscious, but God, Nadia, you have no idea what a pervert this he was. I'm not saying it wasn't hot, but Jesus, how does a person wind up being into all that bondage, teasing, sexual control stuff?"

"Sexual control?"

She nodded. "Can you believe it?"

"Him? Sure. You? Never."

"I know."

The women lapsed into momentary silence again before a thought occurred to Nadia.

"So that whole trip to Point Nemo, from the time you disappeared into your hotel bedroom with him in Manhattan, he did all of that just to have his evil, wicked, sexy way with you?

Suzy nodded.

"He was willing to risk his business, his reputation, even his life to do kinky 'sexual control stuff' with your bones?"

Suzy nodded again.

"And were you… were you kind of… kind of…?"

"Into it?"

"Yeah… we're you getting off on it too?"

"Not at first, but hell, it didn’t take long."

"I knew it." Nadia exclaimed. "I knew he was forcing you into doing weird sexual stuff for him, I just didn't realize you were having so much God damn fun doing it."

The friends looked at each other for a moment and then cracked up into a fit of giggles. When the laughing subsided Suzy looked at her friend again.

"Problems of the billionaire girlfriend, right? It's a hard life isn't? Maybe I should take a reality check here. I mean, there are people who can't eat in this world and I'm complaining about my billionaire stud boyfriend's one little sexual secret."

Nadia took a sip of her Champagne and then shook her head vigorously.

"No way. The upside of that is that we are now in a position to really help people who need it, so you don’t have to feel bad about that anymore. At least now there's something you can do apart from just keeping a roof over your head. And damn it Suzy you need to know what happened to him. You don’t want this coming back to bite you after ten years of marriage when he decides he can't put it inside you anymore and needs to spice things up with a few straps and handcuffs or whatever he's convinced himself he needs to get off himself off in the bedroom."

Suzy's eyes widened.

"You're right. I hadn’t thought about it that way before. I'm so glad you made me talk about this Nadia."

"No charge for the counseling session baby, all part of the service."

"So what do you think I should I do? I can’t ask him about it directly anymore; the subject is totally off limits now. I think Candy, his old head of security, she might know something but it's like she's fallen off the face of the earth since Point Nemo. I just don’t know what to do anymore."

"Leave it to me. I'm pretty sure I can find out what the problem was. If Clay doesn’t know something about this then it'll be a scientific and statistical wonder. Those two are like guy soulmates."

"No, no, no. Nadia, don’t dare say anything to him about this. Promise me that."

"Pshaw! Do you know remember who you’re talking to honey? Do you even remember who
you
are? Clay and Ruben are two smart cookies but they have nothing on the sisterhood. Don’t tell me that blended, double O you put out every night isn’t blowing his mind as well."

Suzy smiled shyly.

"Well, it does kind of rock his world alright."

"Damn right it does. He may rule the roost in the little world of Mayweather Services but you have that man wrapped around your finger in the bedroom. And don’t you think this MIT alumna has a few bedroom tricks up her sleeve that can rock the Hargrave world as well?"

"I wouldn’t doubt it for a second."

"Trust me, your hero's dirty, sexy little secret will be out in the open long before we've even picked the bridesmaids' gowns for our big day. And the best part? He'll never even know you know. Not until you want him to know of course. We can run rings around those two manicured cavemen until they drop."

Suzy smiled and shook her head helplessly from side to side. She had a pretty good idea it was mostly bubble talk from the Champagne, but at the same time, if Nadia put her mind to something then it was almost guaranteed to happen.

She raised her glass and Nadia raised hers.

"To honesty." She said.

"To full disclosure." Nadia replied.

When they had each taken a slow sip Suzy returned her glass to the table.

"So can you go ahead and start planning your wedding now, right? Knowing that Ruben and I will soon have our last remaining little bump in the road ironed out."

"Well, it certainly will help but unfortunately, waiting for you and Ruben isn't the only issue."

"Oh?"

"You know how Clay is about family?"

"Sure I do, yeah. I think it's really wonderful how hi and Dale are so close to each other and to their mother. I'm kind of jealous almost."

"I know, but unfortunately that's precisely the other obstacle. Clay won’t fix a date until Dale has started acting normal again."

"I didn't know he was capable of acting any other way than he does now."

"Well, you and I know him as the dark, moody one of the three, but apparently that only started after they rescued us from Point Nemo. He was supposedly the most 'normal' of the three of them."

"Dale? The most normal? I find that hard to believe."

"Crazy I know, but Clay swears it. Whatever happened to him on the island or directly afterwards has changed him and he refuses to speak about it. It's another of my little side projects but the guy is never around. Even Hargrave Robotics is suffering because of it."

Nadia's phone buzzed from her bag in the hotel room. Suzy looked disappointed.

"I thought we agreed no phones for the rest of the weekend?" She said.

"Damn it, I'm sorry Suzy. I thought I had it turned off. Look, you know how I am these days, if I hear it ring I have to answer or I won't be able to concentrate. Don’t put that Champagne glass down, I'll be right back."