The Billionaire's Hired Bride (BWWM Billionaire Romance Book 1) (8 page)

Eventually (
predictably
, she thought to herself), Minnie decided that her tastes still ran towards the simple, and they left with a few lacy panties and matching bras all in a discreet bag, and one set each of black and white stockings and garters in a second. “Happy birthday,” James said with a kiss on her forehead as they left.

“Maybe I’ll wear them for yours,” Minnie said. James’ birthday was in late January, almost a year from when they’d met. Perhaps by then, she’d feel ready to put the garments to use.

Chapter10

As it turned out, she felt ready before then. Maybe. Or at least, ready enough to give it a try.

That was almost exactly how she put it to James, as the credits rolled on their usual late-night movie, dead in the center of December, her finals three days past and Christmas a week away. He started, his expression showing confusion for a moment until he figured out what she meant.

“Are you sure?” he asked, wrapping an arm around her shoulders and squeezing gently.

“I’m
never
sure,” she said honestly. “But I’m not ever going to find out unless I’m willing to try, right?”

He nodded. “Your room, mine, or one of the others?” There were a total of eight bedrooms in the manor, although one of them was reserved for James’ mother when she came over. It turned out that, although her bathroom was better than a lot of them, Minnie’s room was actually on the smaller side.

“Not mine,” she said. “Other than that, I don’t really care.”

“I’ve got some supplies in my room,” he said. “We can head over there.”

So they did.  James, of course, had the largest of the lot, nearly two of Minnie’s room put together. It was large enough that it practically had its own living room inside, an armchair and a chaise lounge clustered up in front of a TV nearly the size of the one in the living room. His bed was large too, large enough that Minnie had to wonder if he had to get custom sheets for it.

She’d been in the room before, but it was in a much different context than the way she felt as she followed James in at that moment. Her nerves were beginning to act up again already; she fiddled with the ties at the front of her sweatpants while James went over to the table beside his bed and opened the drawer.

When she stepped over to see what he was doing, he held a wrapped condom up for her inspection, and pulled a small bottle of lube out and set it within easy reach of the bed. “Kids are something we can discuss
much
later,” he said.

“And the lube?”

“That’s just in case,” he answered, setting the condom next to it. “If you’re nervous, it won’t hurt to have it.”

“There’s no
if
there,” Minnie said awkwardly, taking a seat on the edge of the bed and pulling off her socks. James nodded understandingly.
 

“Gentle and slow, then, and if you need to stop, just say something.”

She stood up on her tiptoes to kiss him, and he bent down to meet her lips. It was a long, slow kiss, with only a little tongue, not like some of the others they had in the heat of a moment snatched while no one was looking at parties, or sometimes when everyone was looking.

As they kissed, Minnie undid the belt holding James’ robe closed, letting it fall open over his underwear and being glad that he didn’t usually go naked under there. She’d seen him in his underwear alone several times before – he had just enough muscle for some definition, but not the body of someone who exercised constantly – and she was grateful for that middle step between clothed and naked, to give her a few minutes to get her confidence together.

As they pulled apart, James tucked his fingers under her shirt, pausing to wait for Minnie’s nod before pulling it up over her head. At that point, however, he had to stop and let her get it the rest of the way off, because it was so tight around her armpits. She slid the sweatpants over her hips next, sitting back on the bed and letting James pull the ends of the legs off her ankles.

Now that they were both down to their underwear (and a bra, in Minnie’s case), she could feel her nerves beginning to fail again. She reached up, and James let her wrap her arms around his neck, let her hold on for a moment to settle down. She kissed him, eagerly, willing that to be the thing driving her heart rate up instead of her nerves.

He pulled her up into a standing position, some of her weight on her toes, some of her weight on the hand he rested under her bottom. As they kissed, he ground against her, just a little, enough for her to feel that he was already becoming erect underneath his boxers.

She ground back. It felt good, satisfying in a way her occasional adventures with her hands didn’t.

They stayed like that for a while, until the kiss broke and James released Minnie to slide back down to the bed. Her legs weren’t going weak, not yet, but her body was beginning to feel electric the energy meant that she had to either sit or pace circles around James.

He looked down at her with a little concern. “Still good?”

She nodded, taking a moment to find her words. “Doing better, I think.”

He nodded, leaning and then kneeling down to put the level of his face a bit below hers. One of his hands reached for the front closure of the bra she was wearing. “May I?”

“Go for it,” she said, adjusting her shoulders to puff out her chest a little more for him. Her breasts weren’t exactly large, but Minnie had always felt glad of that, given the difficulty in shopping for clothes some of the women she’d known with larger chests had. Certainly, James didn’t seem to mind the smaller size; once he had her bra off, he palmed one of them, running his thumb over the nipple and sending a small shiver down her back.

He looked up at her then, to see her smiling encouragingly down at him, then slid his hand aside to lean forward and take that nipple into his mouth. It was gentle, more lips and tongue than teeth as he played with her, but Minnie gave a pleased wriggle nonetheless. If she focused on her nervousness at all, it still threatened to overwhelm her, but James was giving her plenty of other things to focus on, as his free hand slid down to pull at the band of elastic over her hip.

By the time James came up for air, Minnie could feel herself starting to get wet, feel her lower muscles bunching up excitedly. It was a good sign; when her body was ready, it helped to keep her mind from failing her and backing out in the middle of the act. She didn’t
want
to back out of this.

“I think we can take the rest of this off,” she said quietly, lifting her butt from the bed just long enough to slide her panties over the hump of it. James, in turn, stood up to drop his boxers over his hips and to the floor, and so of course afterward, naked in front of each other for the first time, there was a moment of examination.

For Minnie, at least, there weren’t any surprises. James was a bit on the large size, but given the size of the rest of him, it was really only to be expected; if you compared just the men of his towering height, he would probably be a bit above average, but not so much that there would be commentary. Part of her nerves tried to throw up objections at the size anyway, but she squashed them down; he would fit just fine. She’d never had any trouble fitting tampons or the like inside herself, the way she knew some girls who were small did. It would be fine.

Whatever verdict James had come to about her, it left him grinning when she looked back up to meet his eyes. “You’re beautiful,” he said, and Minnie was glad that he didn’t attach an observation to it about how out of place her nerves were. Avery had done that, sometimes, and it had usually just made it worse. Instead, James’ simple compliment gave her a little more confidence, enough to stand up and kiss him again, pressing their bare skin together.

I can do this
, she told herself silently as he wrapped his arms around her.
I can do this, and it’s going to be GREAT.

When their kiss ended, James had a funny little grin on his face. “I don’t know why you got up just to sit back down again,” he said. “Unless you planned on doing this standing up.”

Minnie blushed, even on top of the faint flush that was already all over her body. “No, definitely not,” she said. “Maybe someday, but… definitely not.”

James’ grin didn’t change in the slightest. “Then let’s go to bed, then,” he said, and without further comment he picked her up, lifting her weight completely to deposit her on top of the comforter. Minnie squeaked, not exactly in protest, as he did so.

“You didn’t have to do
that
!”

James climbed up onto the bed next to her, smiling, even though it was obvious that lifting her had taken quite a bit of effort. “But I wanted to. It’s my job to make you feel like a princess as much as I can, after all.”

A princess – the word caught in Minnie’s mind, made her think of the huge bed back in her room, the drafting table he’d given her for her birthday that was already piled up with sketches. “You already have,” she told him firmly.

“I’m glad you think so,” he said, taking her hand and squeezing it briefly. “But I think I can still do better, if you’ll let me.”

Uncertain what to say, unsure what he had in mind, Minnie just nodded. James released her hand and reached around, his fingers gently probing and sliding between her legs. She lifted her hips up to him – it
felt
good, and he knew what he was doing, rubbing the back of one knuckle against her clit for a moment before continuing lower. For the first time, she was glad he
had
had so many girlfriends. No doubt they had been the ones to tell him where to touch and what to do.

She wanted to reciprocate, especially as he started to work a finger into her, but the angle of his body put his crotch well out of her reach. From what she could see, though, she didn’t need to give him much help; James was fully erect and looked to be ready as soon as she was.

Minnie shivered as he slid another finger into her, her muscles trying to clamp down on his hand. It felt good, not just in sensation but as reassurance, that this was happening at her pace and James was okay with that. Still, she wasn’t really getting any wetter, and there was still a bit of friction when his knuckles moved in and out of her. Maybe that lube on the table was a good idea.

A third finger, and this time James increased the speed of his movements, just enough that Minnie could notice. Her hips bucked upwards and the rest of her squirmed; she finally leaned back against the pillows, letting James work at her as he would for a little while. When the first small moan escaped her, he looked up.

“Think you’re up to the rest?” he asked, and she nodded, reaching over for the bottle on the table.

“I’ll take care of this part,” she said, before following up with handing the condom to him. “You handle that.”

The liquid in the bottle smeared quickly across her hand, and she reached down to apply some to the parts of her sex where she felt there might be problems. Even as she did that, James watched her the same way she watched him, unwrapping the condom and rolling it on with a practiced gesture.

She leaned back into the pillows, and he climbed on top of her, kissing her hard before he made any motion to touch her anywhere else. Minnie kissed him back eagerly, their lips and then tongues meeting, a union that was as much passion as it was a familiar kind of comfort. They had been friends first, would always be friends first, and that was enough of a departure from most of Minnie’s other boyfriends that it added a new element, rather than being something to overcome.

Finally, their kiss broke, and James brought his hips down flush with hers. Since he was using both his arms still to support his torso over her, Minnie was the one who reached down to help guide him in, adding a little more lube to the outside of the condom so that he slid in easily. The first few thrusts were shallow, but still enough that she squirmed against James, tilting her hips up to change the angle so that he could push deeper into her.

And so he did, without much more encouragement – one, two, three strokes and then she was filled, her muscles squeezing around him as she gasped, and he stopped, briefly, until she could breathe again. “Keep going,” she murmured to reassure him. James bent his head and kissed along her neck before starting again.

He did, slower, then faster, then slowing down a bit again until he found a steady rhythm that worked for both of them. Every slide of their bodies drew Minnie a little higher – the hand that she had used to help James into her remained between her legs, rubbing at her clit, until James shifted his angle slightly and slid against
something
inside her that made her want to scream. It was dizzy and disorienting for a moment – not a full orgasm, but something close – and James was kissing down her neck again as she moaned, putting all his energy into her. Some small part of her that wasn’t distracted by pleasure had a growing respect for his stamina, but the rest of her had focus for only one thing. For once, there wasn’t a worry or anxiety on her mind at all.