Pawn of the Billionaire (11 page)

Then I hissed in sudden arousal as her hand reached my belly. With cautious movements, she slid her hand along and down, following the arrow of hair towards the base of my cock. Her fingers were hesitant to touch me, and I watched with amusement as she brought the packet to me. She managed to get the packet off, but she didn’t seem to be able to feel which way to start rolling it. So she took my cock in her hand. I was so rigid and close to the edge that I had to clamp my jaws together and tense myself against the urge to thrust upwards.

She placed the condom on the tip of my cock, her face creased in concentration, the tip of her tongue poking out between her teeth. I reached over, put my hand over hers and turned it over so that it would roll the right way.

“There you are. Now you just have to roll it down.”

As she concentrated on rolling it down my shaft, I concentrated on not exploding.

At last she was done, and her hands dropped from me. I pushed up onto my elbow. “Thank you, Toni. Well done.” I touched her face. “I’m going to take those clamps off, and then I’m going to fuck you.”

She nodded wordlessly.

I smoothed the hair back from her face. “Will you keep the blindfold on, or would you like me to take it off now?”

She thought for a moment. “I think I’d like to keep it on if that’s all right. But, if I want to change my mind, can I pull it off?”

Dear sweet Toni, she had no idea.

“Yes, if that’s what you’d like.” And I watched as she nodded acceptance.

I slipped my hand between her legs again. I wanted to get her closer. I slicked along her pussy lips and gently slid my finger inside. She took a deep breath, and I lifted, pressed against the front wall, found her G-spot.

“Toni, when I take the clamps off, at first it’ll hurt like crazy as the blood rushes back in. But then it’ll make your orgasm much stronger. And so will the fact that I haven’t let you come for the last twenty-four hours.” She was moaning under the movements of my finger, so I didn’t think she’d really heard what I was saying.

As her hips began to thrust up towards my finger, I pulled away and parted her legs. As I swung my way into place, my cock nudged at her entrance.

I swiftly loosened the nipple clamps and pulled them off, dropping them to the floor in my haste to enter her. Her sharply indrawn breath and the twist of pain in her expression showed as the blood engorged her nipples.

“Hands behind your head,” I ordered her, my voice cracking. I shook my head.
Keep control, James
.

Then I entered her with one swift thrust, dragging her hips up to mine, filling her.

She arched up towards me with a cry of primal need and I knew there was no way I could delay her climax longer. My own grunt was as urgent and I pounded into her with increasing speed, my hand covering both of hers, keeping her pinioned beneath me.

It was only a moment or so later when I felt my balls tighten into my body and I felt the quivering need to explode radiate through my body. I scraped my face alongside hers, my mouth drawing in the flesh of her shoulder, and I felt her center squeeze around my cock as she threw her head back and I saw her face, the blindfold, and beneath it her mouth open in a silent cry.

As her orgasm rippled around me, I exploded into her, biting back my own shout.

W
e lay tangled together
, sated, gradually letting our breathing come back to normal. How could I let her go? We were so well-suited. I loved her instant obedience when I needed it, and I also loved her occasional sassy remarks — and the fact that she could usually judge when was the right moment not to try it.

Most of all I loved her independent mind and spirit, the way she’d insisted that she was going to make a success of her own idea, make her own security, but had realized that a bit of help wasn’t cheating and had accepted my help. My heart swelled that she hadn’t accepted my offer just because I was rich, although I was so glad that I’d known how to help her get her app up and running. I grinned up at the ceiling, I’d have had a much worse job helping her if she’d wanted to make something else.

I rolled over and kissed her forehead, sliding the blindfold off. “That was amazing, Toni.” She was snuggled into my arm. “Now it’s time to begin the day. How about coming down to the pool?”

She looked up at me in astonishment. “You put me through all that, and then expect me to go swimming? No way. I’m staying right here. I might have a shower in a minute.”

I thought for a moment and decided to let it slide. “All right, but the car will be collecting us at eight, remember.” I had an idea.

“Oh, shall I show you my new app? It’s the one I’ve wanted to do ever since I started, but I didn’t have the experience to pull it off until now. It’s taken two years to build, and we’re advertising the release now in time for the Christmas frenzy.” I reached over to my case and pulled out the trial iPad. “Look, it’s the best training app ever.”

I switched on and handed it over to her. “This is being billed as the first app to take someone from beginner to competition level chess.”

Her eyes brightened. “Great. Can someone who’s learned before skip the very beginning stages, and how does it know how hard to make it?”

I looked at her with respect. “That’s been the hardest part. You can’t make the thing always win; it’s too depressing. But players learn best by being challenged to their limits.” I bent to the bag again and grabbed trunks and a robe.

“Look, see what you think of it from the point of view of someone who’s not met it while I swim.”

“Okay.” She sat herself up, and took the game.

I
was only gone
about twenty minutes and bounded up the stairs afterwards instead of taking the elevator. I’d been thinking as I plowed lengths of the pool. My life was infinitely more fun with her in it than without. But I wanted to be careful. I knew what I was like when I was fascinated by a woman, sometimes I didn’t know their reasons and their motivations. Once or twice I’d had to break my own heart and get rid of someone who’d been found to be gold-digging or worse, in it to drag my name through the media frenzy which was never far from me.

Surely, Toni wasn’t that sort? I’d searched her out, after all. And none of the scrutiny of her background had turned up anything ominous.

So I went into the suite smiling.

But the smile was wiped off my face when I saw the iPad lying on the floor across the room, and Toni was sitting at the table in the bay window, ramrod stiff. She was neatly dressed, and ready for the day, but her whole demeanor was controlled anger.

I picked up the iPad and put it on the bed as I went over to her. “What’s the matter? You should have just put the thing down, not thrown it. Temper tantrums are not ladylike.”

She looked up at me, her expression mutinous as a small child’s. I was hard-put not to grin.

“It cheated! You can’t release an app that’s going to cheat in order to win! People will break their things!”

“Toni, it’s an app. It can’t cheat. It doesn’t have feelings.” I helped myself to coffee.

“Don’t patronize me!” Her voice rose higher. “I know when something’s cheating. If you’ve programmed it wrong, then it’s a fucking failure.” She stood up and marched to the coffee machine herself.

“It cheated. It waited until it was two moves to checkmate and then it wouldn’t allow a legal move!” She spun around, daring me to disagree.

I thought rapidly. “Toni. It’s got every legal move in the program. USCF national rules. It can’t cheat. It’s taken two years, been through hundreds of beta tests. Maybe you tried a move that looked legal but there was a — oh, I don’t know, maybe you were going into check or something.”

“Yeah, think I’m stupid, why don’t you?” The tiny red rage spots on her cheeks made me pause. Why was she so upset?

“You don’t know anything about me! You spied on me to make sure I was who you wanted, but you’re not really interested in me. Like when I was at school I was chess champion. I wanted to take part in competitions, but Mom never let me. I read up all about it. I know what’s fucking legal, and don’t you be such patronizing fucking know-it-all.” She’d really lost her temper, her language was slipping, and I was puzzled. She’d been nowhere near losing it in that horrible diner when her boss was blaming her unfairly for something. So why now?

“Please, Toni. Can you show me what you mean?”

She stood, breathing heavily, her eyes narrowed. Then she took a deep breath, picked up the iPad and switched it on, looking as if she was holding something foul-smelling.

“There. I’ve stepped back five moves. You step through what I did and what it said.” And she thrust the thing in my hands.

Oh, God! I hoped to hell she was wrong. I couldn’t possibly delay the launch. But I hoped to hell she was right and I could mollify her anger and build her confidence.

I looked down reluctantly.

She leaned over me as I stepped forward a move. Hell, she’d got herself into a commanding position in very few moves. And she was on the expert level. She was a hell of a lot better than I’d anticipated.

“See.” She pointed. “Desperado is allowed. And so is conditional promotion. And if I use a sacrificial move there, it’s checkmate after two more moves and it won’t let me do them.” Her voice was vicious. I wasn’t surprised. If I was that close to winning a tricky game, I’d have been angry too.

She’d confused the thing by using a number of rare moves together. But perfectly legal. I dropped the pad and reached for her.

She stepped back. She wasn’t going to be soothed that easily.

I wasn’t either. Her reaction to me fueled my anger against my staff. I could blame them. I reached for my phone, then dropped it on the bed. I had to wait, had to control my temper.

I stood up and went to the window. Staring out, I made myself drop my anger level. I took some very deep breaths and thought about what we had to do to rescue the situation.

I closed my eyes to the cityscape. One final breath, and I could act now. In control.

I picked up my phone. “Lawrence? Make sure the car’s here even sooner. Get onto the team at the office, and tell them to make sure everyone’s in for a crisis meeting. They’ve got to bring in the programming team now and get the beta team ready for action in two hours. Tom’s got that long to pull a new rabbit out of his hat. Or we’re screwed for a Christmas launch.” I paused. “And, Lawrence?”

“Yes, sir?”

“Thank you. Sorry I shouted, it’s not your fault.”

I could hear the smile in his voice. “You haven’t blamed me, sir. But I’m sorry if there’s a problem.”

“True.” I rang off. Called the next number.

“Tom? Get your ass in gear, and the team. There’s a big problem with Chess. We’ll have to pull the beta and get upgrading.”

His voice was shocked. “What the hell is it?”

“It doesn’t allow for two or more rare moves together. Toni caught it out in twenty minutes. Hang on.” I looked over at her. “Toni, can I take your game in and show them? So they know where to start?”

“Sure.” She looked confused. “No problem.”

“I’ll be there in fifteen minutes. Get your ass over there.” I rang off, grabbed my case and stuffed the offending iPad into it.

I looked over at Toni. She hadn’t moved. “You can leave your personal stuff. The staff will send it back to the house.” She still didn’t move. I tried again. “We’ll get breakfast sent up to the office, come on.”

She shook her head. “Should I go back home?”

I stopped what I was doing and looked at her. “Why do you think you shouldn’t come to the office? You’ve got your stuff to work on.”

She shook her head, looking anxious. “But won’t you need to take Paul back to the main team for this problem?”

So that’s what was worrying her. “No, Toni. He’s allocated to your app now until it’s completed and released with no problems. Until you don’t need a coder for it any more.” I watched her face clear with relief. I would have to work on her showing her emotions to others too obviously. But until then, it was useful that I could read her.

I
grabbed
a bagel from the counter along with the coffee, still feeling disheveled. James had been in such a tearing rush that he’d not given me any time to sort myself out, and ten minutes in the restroom before coming up to Suite Five hadn’t really been enough to make me feel really comfortable.

Still, at least my app was coming along better than his chess one. I grinned to myself. It might be a crisis to him, but I felt a naughty sense of satisfaction that I’d beaten it. If it hadn’t cheated, I’d have beaten its expert level, only two off the top. I didn’t think James had actually realized I was good. He probably thought I was a beginner. Maybe now I could challenge him to a proper game. God! I’d love to beat him. I wondered how good he really was. He probably wouldn’t play me if he thought I might win. He was a bit too much the alpha type for that.

I was still grinning when Paul hurried in apologetically. “Sorry I’ve arrived after you, Toni. I didn’t know you’d be in early.” He dropped his folder on the counter and went to get coffee. “What’s happened? The place is buzzing with a scared sort of twitch.”

We’d been working together now for long enough that he wasn’t so nervous of me, and he glanced at the bagel in my hand before taking one himself.

I grinned even wider. “I broke his new app.”

Paul stared at me, his eyes shocked. “What do you mean?”

I shrugged. “He gave me the chess app to play and it cheated and froze when I was about to win. Now he’s all angry with them.”

Paul went white. “Fuck, I hope it wasn’t my coding that went caput.”

I stared at him, horrified. I hadn’t thought of that.

“Oh, I’m sure it’s not. He was mad with Tom on the phone.” I took a gulp of coffee.

“Yeah, well he would be. But Tom doesn’t do that much of the coding, he just stitches together what the teams do. It makes it a lot quicker.” He stared at the folder. “I was going to tell you that we’re taking longer than we should, just because you might want to ask for a team yourself. But if the fault’s in my stuff, maybe I shouldn’t be working on your app.”

He looked really worried.

“No. Paul, I don’t want a team. I was worried enough telling just you. I’d be scared it would get leaked. And I trust that you’ll make it work.” I sat at the workstation. “Is it today we’re going to look at the backroom psychologist workload?”

His face cleared a bit. “Yeah. That’s the genius bit of your idea. No other team that I know of would want that commitment, but it’s exactly what’ll make people keep on subscribing.”

I grinned. “That’s what I thought.”

I began leafing through the sheets. “But we don’t want it to throw too much to the back. It’s got to learn to come up with good replies most of the time.”

Finally, his face cleared. “Yeah, I’ve thought of that. Look, on this bit. There’s a feedback loop here where the user has to rate the response. If it’s good, then the app learns, and downloads a new bit of code in the next update.” He paged on through.

“And here, if the user is coming up with too many whacky responses that come back to us, then she gets told to get a health screening before she can use the live psychology function again.”

I carried on reading. “That looks good. So … we’re good with just one member of staff until we’ve got how many subscribers?”

He leaned over me. “Look. There, the estimate’s up to fifty k. I’m thinking to start with, the boss will want to pay agency shrinks by the hour. We’re not promising instant replies, and that on its own will encourage them to go for the easy answers.”

I grinned. “Good thinking, Batman.” I stopped, puzzled. “What does this mean?” And I pointed to the word. “Psycho-ceramica?”

Paul looked a bit embarrassed. “Oh, that’s back-end. Users won’t see it, but I didn’t want a rude name getting out if the code got leaked.” He shrugged. “It’s cryptic for crack-pot, when we get a weirdo.”

I sat back and laughed my head off. “Psycho-ceramica. Crack-pot. I love it!”

He went a bit pink, smiling back.

Then my senses prickled. I turned. James was standing in the doorway. He looked serious, not a glimmer of a smile, his body tense, coiled. He saw me looking at him, and smiled tightly.

Paul leapt to his feet. “Good morning, sir.”

James nodded at him. “Carry on, Paul.” Then he turned to me.

“Perhaps Paul can spare you for the rest of the day, I’d like you to come home for lunch.” I looked over at him. There were lines of tension around his eyes, and he looked more gaunt than usual.

“Of course.” I reached for my purse. “See you, Paul.”

I followed James to the elevators. Once we were inside, he leaned against the wall, as if he was weary. I felt anxious when he didn’t speak to me. “Um, James?”

He shook his head at me. “Not here.”

I was astounded. Didn’t he trust his staff? But I subsided anyway, and kept silent even as the car took us home.

I
t was
a bit early for lunch, and James headed upstairs immediately. “Come with me, Toni.”

What had I done wrong? Slowly, I followed him. It seemed ominous, no staff were around, though I often didn’t see anyone until we called for them anyway. Perhaps I was just being extra sensitive.

I trailed along after him and he entered his own suite, holding the door open for me. I went in, trying not to bite my lip.

“What happened, James? Can it be fixed in time? Chess? I’m sorry, maybe I shouldn’t have tested it?”

His mouth twisted in a grimace. “No, that’s okay, Toni. In a way, it’s better now than when it’s been released. Someone in the media would have tried everything to break it.” He shrugged. “Because that’s what they do.” He smiled humorlessly. “Perhaps I should’ve given it to you a week or so ago, so the pressure isn’t on so much.”

He walked across to his drinks cabinet. “Christ, I need a drink.” He slid the door open and sloshed a small amount of whiskey into his glass. Then he looked over at me. “You?”

“Just a cola, please.”

He poured it and brought it over to me, and then he sat beside me on the sofa. “So. Tell me how your app is going.” He didn’t look very happy, and I wondered what I’d done, or whether he’d heard about it and didn’t approve, or something.

I shrugged. “It’s going okay. Paul thinks it’s a good one, and it’ll work and make good profits.” I looked at him.

He nodded, looking into his glass and swirling the drink around. “Okay. Tell me a bit more.”

I thought. “Paul thinks it could be ready for asking people to try it soon.” I looked up at him. “I don’t know what you’re asking for. So I don’t know what to tell you. Paul’s saying that …” I stopped in the middle of the word as James grabbed my hand, nearly spilling my drink.

“Good God, girl! I don’t want to know what Paul thinks. I want to know what you think, whether you think it’s any good, if it’s really something you want to sink your life into?” He glared at me.

I stared back. What the hell was that all about? “I … I’m sorry. I thought that’s what you wanted to know.” I shrugged. “Yes, it’s just like I imagined it would be.” I tipped my head up. “I know it’s going to be really popular when people see it.”

“Good.” He’d shrunk back into disinterest, and I watched as he threw the rest of his drink down his throat. “But I need to talk to you about Paul.”

Alarm flared inside me. “What about Paul? Are you going to take him away to fix Chess?”

He looked puzzled for a second. “Oh. No. It wasn’t his coding that went wrong. Anyway, I told you this morning. He’s on your app until you don’t need him any more.” He placed his glass on the side table.

Then he turned his body to face me. “No, what I need to speak to you is about the way you behave towards Paul. He’s a member of my staff, a team member who has ambitions to work for my company for a long time.”

I was mystified. “I understand.”

“Do you?” James’ voice hardened. “So why are you treating him as a friend? He’s not a friend, he’s not even a colleague.” He leaned forward. “He’s a member of staff, and you’re getting much too familiar with him.”

I leapt to my feet. “How dare you? I’m just being nice. Or have you forgotten what it’s like to be friendly?” I took a deep breath. “For your information, Paul hasn’t put a foot out of line. He wouldn’t take advantage of me. He’s not an idiot!”

I realized I was standing over him, my hands on my hips, and I knew I’d gone scarlet with anger and embarrassment.

James sat there, his face dark with anger. “I would hope he hasn’t. Or he’d be out on his ass! No, I’m talking about your behavior, not his. The friendlier you are, the harder you’re making it for him as well as me — and yourself, in the long run.” Then he was on his feet, towering over me. “I think another lesson is in order, don’t you?”

And in that instant, I shifted from anger to lust. I felt my insides lurch and a throbbing need overtook me. I saw amusement in his eyes, and swallowed.

He took my arm, and he didn’t grab me or force me. Perhaps that lulled me into a false sense of security. He took me over to the chair he’d sat in when he spanked me before, and he sat down, making me stand in front of him.

“I think you need a firm lesson to drive home the need to treat staff as staff, don’t you?” His voice was deep and commanding.

“Yes, James,” I muttered, wondering what the hell sort of feeble girl liked being spanked. I must be mad. Maybe I should make a stand, tell him that I wouldn’t let him do this to me. But I was too late. He took my arm and drew me next to him.

“Lie across me.” His words were utterly compelling, but I hesitated. It wasn’t that I wasn’t excited by the thought of it, but the sheer humiliation of putting myself in the position was harder to bear.

“Do as you’re told.” His voice was incisive and reluctantly I knew I’d obey him. I set my jaw and bent over him, waiting as long as possible before I actually put my weight across his lap. Then I lay still.

“Good girl.” At his words, my hackles rose. There was the humiliation again, the patronizing words. But I clenched my jaw, the very humiliation was what made it exciting, what charged me. My ass, stuck up in the air. His arm, warm and heavy, across my back. Then I gasped as the cool air hit my ass. He’d lifted my skirt up over my back. Somehow the fact that I wasn’t naked made it all the more exciting, and I squirmed in discomfort. His arm pressed more heavily down on me.

“Keep still, Antonia.”

I screwed my eyes tightly shut. I could feel everything more intensely that way, and as his right hand slipped inside my panties and tugged them down over my ass, I bit my lip. Oh God! He’d know how wet I was, how ready for him.

“Oh. Looking forward to this then.” His voice, cool and amused. His fingers, slicking their way through my folds. My heartbeat, racing ahead with excitement. All my attention focused on my core, and the actions of his fingers as he pressed delicately forward.

Then he’d withdrawn his hand, and I moaned in disappointment. He cleaned his fingers by wiping my sticky juices onto my ass cheeks and chuckled.

“This is a punishment, Antonia. It’s not meant to be fun.” He tapped my ass. “Do you know why you’re being punished?”

I gritted my teeth. I might be aroused by being spanked, but I wasn’t going to play games with him.

“Antonia?” I stayed silent.

“If you want to play games, then that’s fine. You’ll stay right here, over my knee, until you answer my question.” A note of amusement crept into his voice. “It’d be a shame if Lawrence or David came in to tell me lunch is served, wouldn’t it?”

What? I jerked in shock. Then I felt my anger rising. He wasn’t playing fair.

I muttered something that I knew he wouldn’t hear.

“I beg your pardon? Speak up.” He sounded triumphant.

“The moment that happens is the moment our agreement is off. Sir.”

There was a moment of silence. Then. “Touche, Toni. I understand. All right, if you don’t want to tell me why you’re being punished, I’ll remind you.” His finger tapped my ass cheek. “One, you are far too familiar with staff.” He tapped the other cheek. “Two, staff can find it very awkward if you’re over familiar, and then have to require them to do something. The whole dynamic changes.” Back to tapping the first ass cheek again. “Three, this needs to be a reminder that you’ll remember.” He started rubbing my ass. “I’m afraid it will hurt.”

A smile entered his voice again. “But I think you’ll enjoy the aftermath.”

He shifted my position slightly. “Get ready.”

This was a different order of spanking. I knew that from the very first blow. He got into a rhythm very quickly. The usual — one ass cheek, then the other, then the low blow to the sweet spot at the top of my thighs. Within a couple of minutes, I was sweating with pain, trying to move forward to avoid the low blow.

I clenched my jaw. I would be damned if I’d beg him to stop. I could feel my butt stinging like crazy, and I knew my cheeks would be blazing red. I just hoped his palm would be stinging even worse. I tried to count. Last time it had been what? Twenty? I couldn’t remember. Anyway, I didn’t know how many he’d already landed on my poor ass. I wondered hazily if his arm got tired. I wondered even more hazily if he’d ever stop. Then I realized he had stopped, and his hand was rubbing my ass.

“Toni? Well done, you’ve been very brave.”

I didn’t answer him. I don’t know what had happened, but I was in a comfortable haze. The only thing that mattered was that I was with him, and I hoped for some sex pretty soon. I didn’t even mind that none of it made sense to my modern mind.

“Toni?” His voice was quiet. I felt my panties being pulled up and the sting of the pressure of them. Then he tugged my skirt back down, and was lifting me up, limp in my pleasant haze.

He chuckled. “Zoned out on me, have you?” And he tucked me into his arms and carried me over to the sofa. I gave a sigh of satisfaction as I snuggled down onto his lap, and shut my eyes again. I sensed his gaze on me and kept my head down.