The Billionaire's Embrace (The Silver Cross Club) (7 page)

Before I could really start feeling sorry for myself, though, Ben came into the living room and announced that dinner was ready. “And no more talking about feminism,” he said. “Arguing during dinner gives me indigestion.”

“We weren’t
arguing
,” Sadie said. “We were
debating
. There’s a difference.”

“Semantics,” Ben said. “Let’s eat while the food’s still hot.”

They didn’t have a dining room, so we ate around the coffee table, plates balanced on our knees. Ben had made naan and okra and curried vegetables and something with lentils, all perfectly spiced and delicious. This was the reason I never turned down an invitation to have dinner at Sadie’s: Ben could cook like nobody’s business.

“This is incredibly good,” Carter said, after he took a few bites. “You made this yourself? From scratch?”

Ben grinned. “It seems more impressive than it actually is. Indian is pretty easy as long as you get the spice mixture right.”

“Baby, don’t talk yourself down,” Sadie said. “You make some good food and you know it.”

“She’s right,” Carter said. “Do you have professional training?”

“What, like culinary school?” Ben laughed. “No, I’ve just had a lot of practice. Sadie burns water, so I do most of the cooking.”

“I don’t
burn water
,” Sadie said. “That’s impossible.”

“You burned the bottom out of a pot three days ago,” Ben said. “Making instant oatmeal.”

“That wasn’t my fault!” Sadie said. “The phone rang, and it was work, so of
course
I had to answer it, and then
someone
had forgotten to make the bed, so—”

“And next thing you know, the smoke detector’s going off,” Ben said.

I glanced at Carter, concerned. I was so accustomed to Sadie and Ben’s good-natured bickering that I found it almost comforting, but I was afraid that Carter would be annoyed, or disconcerted. But he looked back at me with his eyes crinkled at the corners, and I relaxed. For whatever reason, he was enjoying himself.

“So if you don’t cook for a living,” Carter said to Ben, “what is it that you do?”

“Well, I just started a business,” Ben said. Carter sat up straight like somebody had shocked him, and they began talking about about start-up costs and venture capital and who knew what. Sadie looked at me and rolled her eyes. She’d told me that, as proud as she was of Ben, she’d gotten sick of listening to him talk about his business plans at least six months ago.

“You know, if you’d like to send me a prospectus, I might be interested in investing,” I heard Carter say, and my stomach dropped.

I looked at Ben, whose face had suddenly gone flat, expressionless. “That’s very kind of you,” he said stiffly.

Carter didn’t seem to notice. “I’m always open to opportunities to support upcoming businesspeople,” Carter said, digging his hole even deeper. He sounded so condescending.
Upcoming businesspeople
, like Ben was a charity project, a lost puppy Carter needed to save.

I put one hand on Carter’s knee. “I thought we said no talking business at dinner.”

“Did we say that?” he asked, but he turned his attention back to his plate, and then asked Sadie about her job. I wasn’t sure if he realized that he’d misstepped, but he was usually pretty insightful. I hoped we wouldn’t have an awkward conversation about it later.

Crisis averted, Ben relaxed and started eating again. I chewed on my lip, worried that he was offended, but he glanced at me and winked. He wasn’t mad at me, at least.

I should have said something to Carter in advance, but it didn’t occur to me that he would offer to give Ben money. He had so much of it that he didn’t realize its power. He made more money in a single day than most people made in a decade. It wasn’t real to him; it was like Monopoly money. Giving a few million to Ben was nothing. But to Ben, it would be
everything
, and he was too proud to accept a handout. I knew that he wanted his business to succeed or fail on its own merits, not because I happened to be dating a billionaire.

I looked at Carter, perched on Sadie’s dumpster sofa, balancing a plastic plate on his knees. He looked expensive, and he made everything else in the apartment look cheap. He was kind, warm-hearted, and generous, and he would never understand what it meant to need money and not have enough of it.

But so what, I asked myself. So what if he lived a life of privilege? Things had been going so well; we had fun together, and he was considerate and respected my boundaries. Was his money really an insurmountable problem?

Watching him talk to Sadie, a piece of naan in his hand, I didn’t know the answer to that question.

C
arter was waiting for me at the club the next evening.

I wasn’t having an awesome day. I was late to work for the very first time, and it wasn’t my fault—the train had been late, and then stopped between stations for fifteen minutes with no explanation—and I was flustered and over-heated as I scuttled behind the bar and shed my coat. When Germaine called me into her office, I assumed it was because of my tardiness, and started apologizing right away.

“Slow down,” Germaine said. “You were, what—five minutes late? These things happen. I’m not going to yell at you.”

I took in a gulp of air. “Okay,” I said.

“There’s a gentleman waiting for you,” she said. “In room 4.”

My heart started beating faster. Room 4 was Carter’s room, where he always had his parties—and where we had our initial encounters. If there was someone waiting for me in room 4, and that someone had specifically asked Germaine to fetch me, it
had
to be Carter.

I wondered what he wanted. We had ended up having a good time at Sadie’s the night before, even after his unfortunate offer to invest in Ben’s business. We’d stayed out late, drinking wine and talking, and he had kissed me in the foyer of my building when he dropped me off, long and sweet. But I hadn’t seen him at the club since we started dating, as if, by some unspoken agreement, we had put that part of our relationship behind us.

The only way to find out what he wanted was to go and ask him. I thanked Germaine and left her office to head for room 4.

The door was open slightly, just a crack. I peeked inside.

Carter was sitting on the sofa, bent over his phone. I recognized him just from the back of his head and his jacket. I thought I would know him even in the dark, even if I forgot how to see.

It had been less than twenty-four hours since the last time I saw him, but I still felt my pulse quicken in the hollow of my throat. I wanted to go to him and press my face against his neck, right where he splashed his cologne.

I opened the door further and stepped into the room. When I shut the door behind me, Carter turned at the soft sound. His hair was falling across his face, and he looked tired. His shirt was rumpled and rolled up at the sleeves.

“Regan. You found me.”

“You weren’t hard to find,” I said. I crossed the room and stood in front of him, burying my hands in his messy hair. “Long day?”

“The longest,” he said. He leaned forward and rested his forehead against my abdomen. “I wanted to see you. Selfishly. I won’t keep you long. The others will be arriving shortly.”

“You’re having a party tonight?” I asked.

He made a noise of agreement. “Hackett’s coming. I’m supposed to ask him some leading questions. It’s difficult when he spends the entire time with a dancer wiggling around in his lap.”

Having seen it myself, I knew exactly what he meant. Carter was helping to build a case against Richard Hackett for securities fraud, but it had been months, and Hackett was too interested in the dancers to say anything incriminating. I knew that it was stressing Carter out, but I couldn’t be too sorry. Hackett was the whole reason Carter came to the club, and if it weren’t for him, we never would have met.

I drew my hands through Carter’s hair, running my fingers across his scalp. “Why don’t you ask me to serve for you anymore?”

“Because I don’t want to share you,” he said.

Oh.
That sent a shiver down my spine. I liked it when he was possessive.

“Sit down,” he said. “Talk to me. I spent all day having people yell at me about operating costs. Tell me what you did this morning.”

I sat beside him on the couch, smoothing my skirt over my thighs. “Well, I woke up,” I said.

He grinned at me, his tired eyes lighting up. “And then what? You rolled around in bed for a while in your silk nightie?”

I mostly slept in oversized T-shirts. “Yes,” I said.

“That’s a pleasant mental image,” he said, and then he sobered, and looked at me with a serious expression on his face. “I enjoyed meeting your friends last night. Please tell Sadie I’m grateful to her for inviting me.”

“They liked you,” I said, and I thought it was true. I hadn’t done a full postmortem with Sadie yet, but she had texted me after Carter dropped me off at home:
nice catch

“I’m glad,” he said. “So tell me more about this silk nightie.”

I blushed. Did he really want to spend time discussing my nonexistent lingerie? “Well, it’s silk,” I said.

“Yes, we’ve established that. What else?” He leaned toward me and put one hand on my knee. The weight of it, the warmth, reminded me that it had been more than a week since we’d done anything but trade a few kisses. My libido sat up and took notice. Carter was touching me, and my body wanted more of it, and right away, and damn the torpedoes.

“It’s red,” I said. Red was a sexy color, right? “And it has—lace along the neckline.”

“Good,” he said. He kissed my neck, right behind my ear. I shivered. “Tell me more.”

“I, um.” I racked my brain for something else to say. “The fabric—feels nice against my skin.” This was embarrassing. I sounded like bad soft-core porn.

But Carter was enjoying it. He slid his his hand up my leg to settle in the crease of my hip, and moved his mouth down my neck, sucking soft kisses against my skin. I tilted my head to one side to give him better access, and he took full advantage, pulling me close against him and kissing his way down to the sensitive hollow of my collarbone.

I felt alive, alight. His hands and mouth shaped my body into a new form, and I welcomed the change. He knew me as someone desirable, and when he touched me, I felt myself becoming that person. Someone worthy of love. Someone who deserved the intimacy and pleasure he offered.

“What time is it?” he murmured against my skin.

I looked at the clock on the wall. “4:15.”

“We have time,” he said. “Enough.” He sat back and touched my cheek. “Do you want to be good for me?”

I knew those words. They meant he was about to take control, and I would surrender to him joyfully. I swallowed. “Yes.”

“My sweet girl,” he said. “I want you to kneel on the floor.”

Trembling with anticipation, I slid off the sofa and knelt before him, hands clasped in my lap. He spread his knees, and I could see the shape of his erection, outlined by his wool trousers.

My mouth watered. I knew what would come next, and I
wanted
it.

“That’s right,” he said. “You’re eager for it, aren’t you? I want you to unbutton my pants.”

My hands shook as I reached forward and unfastened his trousers. My wrist brushed against his hard cock, and I felt it twitch in response.

“Good,” he said. “Now unzip me.”

I did as he said, tugging the tab of his zipper and revealing his black boxer-briefs. The fabric clung to his erection, showing me the thick shaft and the round head.

He slid one hand around the back of my head and cupped it there, holding me in place. His other hand slid into the waistband of his boxer-briefs and tugged it down, slowly, slowly, until his cock sprang free and rested, flushed and heavy, against his lower belly.

He fisted his other hand in my hair and tilted my head back, forcing me to look up at him. “Do you want to suck my cock, Regan?”

“Yes,” I said, my voice a ragged whisper.

“Should I let you?” he asked. “I don’t know that you’ll be any good. I wouldn’t want to waste my time.”

“I’ll be good,” I said. “Please let me. I’ll be—I’ll—”

“You’ll have to convince me,” he said.

I moved my hands to his thighs. He released my hair, and I looked down, at the apex of his thighs, at his arousal. I had never been this close to a hard penis, and I was both excited and intimidated. I didn’t want to do anything wrong and disappoint him.

I knew the basic mechanics, of course, from reading magazines and watching a little bit of porn, but putting it into practice was daunting. I slid my left hand around the base of his cock and gave it a tentative squeeze. It was firm, solid. I moved my thumb over the swollen vein on the underside, feeling the hot blood washing through it, and looked up at Carter to gauge his reaction.

He was watching me with hooded eyelids, face unreadable. No help there.

Using my hand to hold him steady, I leaned forward and licked the head of his cock. It tasted salty, not unpleasantly so. I ducked my head and used my tongue to trace the course of that fat vein from the base to the tip.

Carter’s hand tightened in my hair. “Less teasing,” he said.

I hadn’t intended to. I wanted to take my time to explore, but he was probably worried about his guests showing up. I slid my mouth over the head of his cock and gave a gentle suck. It was smooth beneath my tongue, and then felt crinkled where the head flared out over the shaft.

He inhaled, just the slightest click of noise in his throat, but I heard it and was encouraged. I wasn’t doing it completely wrong, then.

I just hoped I didn’t choke. Then he would know I hadn’t done this before.

I rubbed my tongue against the head, keeping my mouth soft. I wasn’t sure what to do next. I knew I wouldn’t be able to deep-throat him, and what looked so simple in porn turned out to be sort of daunting when I was expected to do it. I wasn’t sure how to coordinate my mouth and my hand, or how hard to suck, or what to do with my teeth.

Carter came to my rescue. “You want to be coy, hmm? You want me to tell you exactly what to do? That’s fine. Keep your mouth open.”