Taken By The Billionaire (6 page)

When my sobs had subsided to sniffles, while I was still curled in Damien’s comforting, masculine embrace, Alexandra also knelt and stroked my hair to comfort me. “Oh, my God, Kylie, I’m so sorry. I had no idea you were so afraid of spiders,” she said.

“It isn’t your fault,” I snuffled.

“It isn’t anyone’s fault,” Damien interjected. “Now, come on, Kylie. Let’s get you up and back to the hotel. We’ve got that dinner tonight. You’ve got to look fabulous for the paparazzi. They’ve been hounding us so we’ll give them a photo opportunity later.”

Despite his kindness I still worried about Damien’s real feelings. Was he angry at me despite his outward show of concern for me?

And, as he helped me to my feet and escorted me to the limo, my leg’s as shaky as a newborn colt’s, I noticed a strange expression on Alexandra’s face. She smiled and waved when she saw me looking at her, but I couldn’t quite understand why she’d looked so pleased.

4.

On the evening of my humiliating fainting session on set I forgot all about the odd look on Alexandra’s face. The chaos of being surrounded by a pack of baying paparazzi pushed that scene from my mind. We gave the paparazzi their pound of flesh, and as the cameras whirred and the flashbulbs exploded, while the picture hungry photographers all called out instructions to look their way or to face this way and that, barking at us like a pack of dogs, all I could do was worry about Damien. I was concerned about how he felt about the incident with the spider. Was he secretly pissed off with me? With my self-confidence at basement level I might have been worrying unnecessarily, agonizing over every sentence Damien spoke, over-analyzing and maybe finding hidden meaning behind his reassurances that it was really OK.

I was also unsure about how Damien felt about me. I was falling for him and wondered how he really felt about me deep inside. He’d said a lot of nice things to me, kind and tender murmurs of endearment, especially as we made love, but being so emotionally vulnerable after my day made me question everything.

My cellphone rang and I noticed a quick flick of irritation on Damien’s face when I pulled it from my purse.

I experienced a cold wave of shock when I saw Rafe’s name appear on the screen. My cheeks flushed when I glanced at Damien, but to my relief he’d turned away and was smiling and waving and showing off. He joked with a few of the photographers while I declined the call and turned the phone off. I posed and smiled for the cameras before, finally, Damien took my elbow and steered me into the restaurant, the other cast members following us in.

A fawning waiter showed us to our table, fussing and generally getting on Damien’s nerves.

“I’ll call you over when I’m ready,” Damien said brusquely. The man bent at the waist in a little bow and scurried away from Damien’s dark face.

“I’m sorry, Damien,” I said, concerned that my performance on set had caused this bad mood. “I’ll get over it. I’ll do anything I can to get over my fear of spiders. I’m so sorry,” I repeated. “Please don’t be mad at me because of it.” I reached for his hand. “I owe you so much for giving me this break. I’ll do anything I can to make it right.”

Damien checked around at the other tables to see if anyone could overhear before he looked at me, his eyes cold. “That isn’t what I want,” he said, a tic twitching in his cheek.

I took the twitch to be a sign of how Damien really felt, and that in spite of his reassurances that everything was fine, he really was mad at me.

“I can get counseling or something,” I said anxiously. “It doesn’t have to be a big deal. It’s only a fake spider.”

His eyes chilled me. Oh God, it was all over! He’d made a mistake in giving me the role. I could read it in his face. He was monumentally pissed at me and was having a hard time covering it up. The cracks were showing and I felt so weak and helpless.

“Meet me in the bathroom in five minutes,” Damien said through clenched teeth.

He stood up and almost toppled his chair with the back of his legs as he pushed it away and threw his napkin onto the table.

“Is everything all right, miss?” the waiter asked, almost wringing his hands with concern at Damien’s abrupt exit while some of the others muttered behind their hands.

“Yes, yes, everything’s fine,” I murmured as I fingered the shiny fork nervously. “We’re just a little tired, what with work and everything.”

The guy did his little bow and inclined his head before gliding away and leaving me to an anxious five minute wait.

I excused myself from the group and followed after Damien. When I saw him in the men’s room I gasped. The sight of him standing there with his pants unzipped while he stroked himself roughly held me enthralled. He wasn’t mad at me at all. He was horny!

He looked so sexy like that, swollen and huge and sensationally hard, his eyes hungry while he stared at me. I watched him for a few seconds, feeling my insides melting as my body reacted to the sight of such a beautiful male animal in full-blooded arousal.

A whimper mewled from me and I was overwhelmed with the urge to touch him.

“God but that’s so hot,” I sighed. “I love seeing you like that. And it’s just like you said, it’s such a rush to know we could be caught any second.”

With a glance at the door, half-expecting the pain in the ass waiter to come checking, I lifted the hem of my dress to my waist and walked towards Damien.

He watched me approach, his fist moving more urgently while I felt his eyes lasering onto my underwear.

When I reached him I leaned forward for a kiss, filled with a sudden, desperate need to feel his tongue in my mouth. I wanted his hands on my breasts and between my legs; I wanted the girth of him stretching me while we went at it hard and fast and deep.

I remembered the first time Damien had taken me, when he’d made me kneel on the sofa with him behind. This time I wanted to sit on him, to face him as my body accommodated every glorious inch of his maleness. That way I could watch his face while I moved, my body clenching and oiling with desire. He could maul my tits and pull my face down to kiss his mouth as I milked him to orgasm.

When I tried to push Damien back so his butt pressed up against the sink and I could lift one leg to slide onto him, he stopped me by putting a hand on my shoulder.
He slid the
underwear to one side with his fingers and went at me with his mouth like he was going to devour me.

His tongue felt incredible, probing and lapping and sliding over my clit. I groaned at the sight of Damien using his mouth on such a private place. It had never been like this with Rafe; I always felt a little uncomfortable about letting Rafe see me in such a vulnerable position, like I was shy or embarrassed at the way my own body might look to him. But with Damien it felt so wonderful when he looked at me down there; I felt beautiful and wild and free; I felt like a woman with Damien, that he was a man who could love me. I wanted to please him, and if he wanted to look at me between my legs, to touch me, to taste me, I was only too happy to flaunt my sex at him. It felt so damned sexy, so naughty.

At first, just as Damien began to pleasure me so expertly with his tongue I kept my eyes on the door. I was certain that someone was going to come in and catch us like that, me with my legs akimbo and my modesty so lewdly compromised. But as Damien’s magic tongue began to charm me, I soon forgot all about being interrupted.

To hell with it, if anyone did walk in I was confident that Damien would handle everything. He’d said as much on the night he’d made his indecent proposal back in LA.

Besides, it was just too good for me to care about anything else.

“Oh, baby,” I groaned. “I’m going to cum.”

Damien got me there quickly and, as I could have bet, he started on me again immediately. I was soon on my way to orgasm number two. During a brief pause, Damien left my pussy and brought his face to mine. I kissed him hungrily, holding his cheeks in my hands as my shoes slid and scraped on the sink surround and Damien used his fingers on me.

After a second juddering and vocal climax, after he got me there again with his tongue, he pulled away from me with a gasp while I slumped panting and breathless to the cold marble floor.

After that I was sure I loved him. What I’d felt when he comforted me after I’d fainted on set, that warm, protective embrace was one facet to the nature of Damien Taylor. I loved that he could be so nurturing when we shot the movie scenes, I loved that he’d looked after me and protected me that afternoon, and I absolutely adored the sexual dimension to this gorgeous, sharp, sensitive man.

I thought Damien’s actions in the men’s room were a sign that he’d forgiven me for the spider incident. But as it turned out I’d been wrong about that from the start. Damien wasn’t bothered by all that anyway, it was something else that had upset him.

He told me what he really felt in no uncertain terms in the limo on the way back to the hotel.

And his words hurt me, shocked me so much that I begged the driver to stop and bundled out of the car.

Before Damien could come after me I hailed a conveniently passing taxi and climbed inside. The driver took me to a nice hotel, not in the same opulent style as the other hotel but decent enough. It wasn’t as though I was used to the high life anyway, and this hotel was more like the standard I was used to. I only needed somewhere to hide out so I could think without Damien finding me.

The clerk on duty looked at me quizzically, no doubt wondering why I looked so upset. He gave me a key after I’d paid using my credit card and I went along the corridor in search of my sanctuary.

I sat on the lonely bed and went over Damien’s words in my head. He’d spoken about how I belonged to him sexually, and that he’d seen Rafe’s name on my phone when it rang, but had only kept up the happy, smiling pretense for the cameras.

“I’ll ruin that arsehole’s career if he makes any attempt to get you back,” he’d growled, his face twisted into a snarl of fury. “You made a deal with me, Kylie. I’ll fucking destroy that wanker if he tries to get you back. Sexually, you belong to me. Don’t forget that. You’re mine. That little scene back in the men’s room was just to remind you.”

So he didn’t really care about me? I was just something to own, his plaything. How could he think I’d go back to Rafe? Hadn’t he listened to me after all?

And to say he’d ruin Rafe’s career just like that, on a whim, like a spoilt kid in a tantrum because someone tried to take his ball. How could Damien be so awful?

I picked up the phone.

“Kylie?” My dad’s warm, familiar, lovely voice caused a flood of tears. “Are you OK, sweetheart?” he asked, his voice strained with concern.

It all came pouring out in bursts as I cried into the phone. I told my father all of it, about the spider and how traumatic it had been and about Damien’s reaction to Rafe’s call.

“Why would this guy care about you and Rafe?” my father asked. “Why should he be bothered about your love life?”

“Oh, daddy,” I blubbed, “I think I’ve fallen for him. Damien, I think I’m in love with him. We’ve been together since we got to Paris.”

“Oh, Kylie,” my father said, soothing me across the miles of Atlantic and time difference that separated us. “So soon after, Rafe? Do you want to come home? Do you want to come here?”

For a second I thought about how good that idea sounded. I could just go home and into the security of my father’s house. I could hide there and forget all about Rafe and Jenny and Damien. I could put all the ideas about making it big and showing my sister how good I am out of my mind. I could put Rafe down as a bad loss, better to have found out what he was capable of before I’d married him. As for Damien, if I could get over Rafe I could get over him too.

My father’s love pulled at me and I yearned for the familiar house, the same old smells and the normality of waking up in my own bed in my own room.