The Billionaire's Embrace (The Silver Cross Club) (2 page)

But it had been a long and frustrating two weeks of steamy kissing, flirtatious text messages, and lonely nights spent touching myself in bed. I missed the feeling of Carter touching me. I missed the way he could make me feel. I was ready to have that again, his hands on my body, making me crumble into pieces.

So I said, “I want it. Your attention, I mean.”

He leaned back in his chair, looking as pleased as the cat with the proverbial canary. “I’ll ask for the check,” he said. “And none of that business about how you’re a grown woman who can pay for her own dinner. I picked the restaurant; this is
my
treat.”

“Okay,” I said meekly. He’d headed off all of my arguments at the pass, so there was nothing left to do but agree with him.

We went outside and waited for his car to pick us up, standing on the sidewalk while pedestrians steered around us. It was a cold night, but I was so warm with wine and Carter’s company that I barely noticed. I didn’t usually drink much, so even the couple of glasses of wine I’d had with dinner were enough to leave me feeling pleasantly light-headed and giddy.

“We’ll go right past Rockefeller Center,” Carter said. “We can look at the lights.”

I smiled at him, but I didn’t care about the Christmas lights. I’d seen them before. I only cared about the broad expanse of the back seat of Carter’s car, and the twenty minutes we would have before we arrived at his apartment; and after that, whatever came next, a whole evening with nothing to do but enjoy each other’s company.

His car pulled up to the curb, and he guided me toward it with one hand on my lower back, lightly steering. He opened the door and helped me inside. The interior was warm, and I unbuttoned my coat and shrugged it off my shoulders.

Carter climbed in after me. He slid the privacy panel open and spoke briefly with the driver, and then slid it shut again and turned to me. He placed one hand on my bare shoulder and trailed it down my arm, leaving my skin prickling in his wake. “You look beautiful tonight,” he said.

I flushed and looked away. His open admiration made me uncomfortable. “Sadie made me buy the dress,” I said. “She said I needed something expensive if I was going to start dating a billionaire.” The car started moving, and I leaned back against the seat. I hoped he would kiss me soon.

“I think Sadie and I will get along very well,” Carter said. “I agree with her. You should indulge yourself more.”

“I’m indulging my savings account,” I said. “It’s pretty happy with me.”

“So frugal,” Carter murmured, touching one of my earrings, his thumb brushing the sensitive skin behind my ear. Our eyes met, and I could feel the change in atmosphere like the barometer had just dropped. We weren’t going to be talking about my spending habits for much longer.

Carter moved his hand to curl around the back of my skull, cradling my head with his palm, and leaned in to kiss me.

I closed my eyes at the first touch of his lips. I didn’t want to think, didn’t want to worry about the future and what might happen; I just wanted to be with Carter and fully experience every sensation.

The kiss went from gentle to hungry and demanding in the space of about fifteen seconds. I clung to the thick fabric of Carter’s overcoat, then slid my hands inside, trying to push it off his shoulders. I wanted to feel him, the heat of his skin. He drew back long enough to shuck off his coat, and then pulled me against him again, his hands curling around my hips.

I didn’t think I would ever get tired of kissing him. Each time seemed new, like I was learning him all over again, the way his tongue teased at my lower lip, the low sound he made in his throat when I responded to him.

He slid one hand up to cup my breast, his thumb skimming over the nipple, and I gasped without intending to. It was a small sound, but it was loud in the close confines of the car.

Carter chuckled and pulled away from me. “If we don’t stop, I’m going to fuck you right here in the back seat of this car, and we don’t have enough time for that.”

“You could just tell Henry to drive around in circles for a while,” I said, breathless.

“I try not to traumatize him into retiring,” Carter said. “And besides, I want to see you spread out in my bed. I intend to take my time with you tonight, Regan.”

It was both a promise and a threat, and I wanted it, whatever he was planning to do to me.

We slid apart on the seat. I straightened my dress and smoothed back my hair, and Carter fixed his tie. I didn’t want to stop, but he was right; we should wait. I would die of embarrassment if the driver opened the privacy panel and caught us mid-coitus. Henry was so grandfatherly and dignified that my skin crawled just
thinking
about it.

My blood pounded in my ears. I looked out the window, giving myself the time and space to calm down a little. Carter seemed to have the same idea, because he was quiet on his side of the car, and for several minutes we rode in comfortable silence, just existing together.

Finally he said, “We’re coming up on Rockefeller Center.”

It was the second time he’d mentioned it, so he must have really wanted me to look at the Christmas lights. I was happy to indulge him. I slid over to his side of the car and leaned against him as I peered out the window. He slid one arm around my waist and held me close.

“I thought we were waiting,” I said.

“I’ll be good,” he said.

I didn’t really believe him—
I
wouldn’t have been able to behave myself, in his position—but I wasn’t exactly opposed to any potential misbehavior.

But, true to his word, he just held me as we passed Rockefeller Center. I watched the lights glide by, the very tip of the big tree, the excited tourists posing on the sidewalk. I didn’t see tourists much—they rarely came to Brooklyn, and I was only in Manhattan for work or to see Carter—but they all seemed so happy and excited that I felt my own heart lifting in response.

Everyone always talked about how magical New York was at Christmastime, but I had never really understood it. It was cold, and it didn’t snow as much as I would have liked, and I had no family to celebrate with. I spent pretty much every Christmas alone on my couch, eating Chinese takeout. But now, here with Carter, I thought I finally understood what all the fuss was about.

“It’s really beautiful,” I said, and Carter squeezed his arm around me and said, “I know.”

Rockefeller Center receded into the distance, and I sat back, leaning my head against Carter’s shoulder. “How did your family celebrate Christmas, when you were a kid?”

“Well,” he said. “Let’s see. Presents on Christmas morning, of course, and then we usually went to my grandparents’ place in the afternoon for more presents and dinner. We had a dog—a cocker spaniel—and my mother always put a pair of reindeer antlers on his head.”

It sounded nice. Normal. Like a perfect, Rockwellian family.

When I was a kid, there was never enough money for presents, and my father usually spent the whole day too drunk to stand up.

“What about you?” Carter asked. “Or should I not ask?”

I had told him that my dad was an alcoholic, and Carter wasn’t an idiot; he knew how to read between the lines. “My family never did much,” I said, and left it at that. He didn’t need to hear all about my dysfunctional childhood.

We rode the rest of the way to his building in silence, my head pillowed on his shoulder, his hand resting on my hip. I was warm and content. My arousal had banked to a pleasant glow in my abdomen that I knew would flare to life again as soon as we were in his bedroom. Carter had that effect on me. A single look, a touch, and I was ready to go belly-up for him and beg for more.

The car slowed and came to a stop. I heard the driver open his door and get out of the car. “We’re here,” Carter said. “Are you ready?”

“Ready for what?” I asked. I wanted to see what he would say.

“Whatever I want to do to you,” he said, and I was: I was
so
ready.

“Let’s go inside,” I said.

A
s soon as we were in the elevator, he crushed me against the paneled wall and kissed me. I wrapped my arms around his neck, enjoying the hard press of his body against mine. He was lean and firm with muscle, and cliché as it was, feeling the strength of his body made me feel safe.

“I have been thinking about this,” he said, “every day, every
hour
since the last time I had you in my bed.”

I swallowed. “Me too,” I said, and it was the truth.

He reached down and grasped the hem of my dress, and peeled it over my head.

The elevator dinged, and the doors slid open.

He tossed my dress into his apartment. It landed on the soft rug in the foyer. I looked at it, the silk crumpled in a sad heap, and then stepped out of the elevator.

Carter followed, and the elevator doors closed behind him. “Do you remember your safeword?” he asked me.

I nodded. I hoped I wouldn’t have to use it tonight. I hadn’t enjoyed it much the one time I did, and I didn’t think Carter enjoyed it either. But he knew, I thought, that he had pushed me too far, and I didn’t think he was any more eager to repeat the experience than I was.

“Go sit on the couch and wait for me,” he said. I bent to pick up my dress, not wanting it to get wrinkled, but he said, “Leave it,” and I did. I wasn’t willing to disobey a direct order.

The apartment was dark, lit only by the usual orange glow of the city sky. I walked into the living room, moving carefully in my high heels, and came to a stop, trying to remember where the sofa was.

Behind me, I heard Carter set down his keys, and then a lamp clicked on, bathing the room in warm yellow light. I took the last few steps toward the sofa and sat down, feeling my pulse beat rapidly in the hollow of my throat. I crossed my legs and then uncrossed them again, folding my hands together in my lap. How was one supposed to sit, wearing nothing but a bra and panties in a billionaire’s apartment?

Carter moved around the room, placing his wallet and phone on the desk, draping his coat over a chair, turning on a few more lamps. He took his time and ignored me completely as he performed his getting-home ritual, and I sat and watched him, skin prickling, waiting for whatever would come next. His show of disinterest heightened the anticipation I was already feeling. I didn’t know when he would turn the laser focus of his gaze on me, but I knew from experience that it would be like staring into the sun.

He moved behind me and placed his hands on my bare shoulders, stroking his fingers lightly against my collarbones. I shivered at the sensation. He trailed one hand down my bra strap and along the lacy edge of the cup, down to the small satin bow resting between my breasts. “Very nice,” he said.

“It’s the only underwear I have that matches,” I said.

“I wasn’t talking about your bra,” he said. “I’m more interested in what’s beneath it. Why don’t you take that off and let me have a look at you?”

I didn’t know why I felt nervous. It wasn’t like he’d never seen me naked before. He had touched me everywhere, watched me come; there weren’t going to be any surprises. He wouldn’t watch me take off my bra and suddenly decide that my breasts were too lumpy for him to want anything to do with. But even still, my heart was in my mouth as I raised my hands behind my back and unclasped my bra.

Part of it was that I couldn’t see his face. I was so used to reading his expressions—the quirk of his mouth, the way his eyelids lowered—that not being able to see him had me feeling a little off-kilter. I wanted to be able to see how he reacted.

Maybe he was doing it on purpose. Maybe he wanted me to be uncomfortable.

I slid my bra straps down my arms and tossed the lacy fabric onto the coffee table.

My nipples, exposed to the cool air, promptly tightened into hard nubs.

“Gorgeous,” Carter murmured, and slid his hands down over my breasts.

I arched into his touch. His palms were callused at the base of his fingers, and the way they scratched at my skin made every nerve light up. I wanted him. I never knew my body could feel like this, that I could
want
someone so fully, every molecule of my being crying out to feel him pressed against me.

He pinched at my nipples, not hard, but enough to make me squirm against the sofa. I had been ready for this since we got into his car. I didn’t want to wait any longer, but I knew that if I said anything, Carter would make me wait twice as long. He was like that.

“What should I do with you tonight, Regan?” he asked me. His hands slid down to trace light patterns against the sensitive undersides of my breasts. “You obviously have something in mind. Women don’t wear matching underwear unless they’re planning to show it to someone.”

He was right about that, and I wondered how he knew. I was surprised that he had ever seen underwear that
didn’t
match. I would have thought that he mainly had sex with women who did everything in their power to keep him enthralled. I was certainly doing my best. He wasn’t going to see my panties with the elastic fraying along the leg holes.

I was babbling again. At least it wasn’t out loud. “Do you mean your underwear
don’t
match?” I asked.

He chuckled. “Who says I’m wearing any?”

I felt my eyes widen. So he was—did he mean he was
naked
, under those expensive wool trousers? That he’d sat there all through dinner...

When I didn’t respond, he moved his hands back to my nipples and twisted
hard
. I yelped, and felt a sudden warmth spreading through my breasts, radiating outward from my nipples. It should have hurt, and it did hurt, in a way, but I didn’t mind the pain. It made me feel like I was fully awake at last. Like my whole life, up until this moment, had been a long dream, and I had finally opened my eyes.

“That’s right,” Carter said, and I tipped my head back against the sofa, looking up at him, feeling my panties damp between my thighs. I didn’t know what to say, but I hoped he would see something in my eyes that would convey to him what I needed, and how badly.