ALL THAT HE WANTS (Volume 1 The Billionaire's Seduction) (17 page)

And then he shouted, a strangled cry, as he crushed me to him and I felt him explode inside me.

The sensation of him pulsing inside me, the feeling of hot, warm wetness suddenly gushing inside me, pushed me over the edge.

I screamed his name as I dug my fingers into his skin and pulled him as far inside me as I could get.

For an instant, my entire body was made of light and electricity and sex, and I lost myself in a giant, pulsing swell of pleasure that swallowed me whole.

He was still moaning when I came back down to earth, gasping for breath.

He slowly raised his head from the hollow of my shoulder and looked me in the eyes.

With one finger, he smoothed away a sweat-drenched curl of hair from my forehead… and then he grinned.

And kissed me.

We lay like that for the longest time, his sweaty skin sliding sensually over mine, as he gave me long, slow, lingering kisses. We gazed into each other’s eyes (though I tended to let mine slip close as I got lost in the moment). My lips felt puffy and slightly painful, but I couldn’t stop kissing him. Didn’t want to stop.

Finally he pulled away from me. “Stay here,” he ordered as he rolled out of bed.

“What, I can’t use the bathroom?”

“Oh… yeah, go ahead,” he said as he padded out to the main room of the penthouse.

“Thanks!” I called sarcastically.

When I came back out of the bathroom, the room service table was by the bed, and the silver trays were up.

The chocolate.

I’d almost forgotten.

I watched his perfect backside, entranced, as he poured some more wine into our glasses.

He turned around. “Well? Get back in bed.”

Suddenly I was shy – buck-naked and very self-conscious about it. I ran around the other side of the bed, jumped in, and pulled the covers just over my breasts.

“Here you are,” he said, passing me a wine glass. Then he placed one of the open silver trays on the bed next to me and got in himself.

“Oh my God,” I sighed in rapture as I let one of the pieces of dark chocolate melt on my tongue. “This night couldn’t
get
any better.”

“I can think of at least one other way,” he said, and nuzzled against my neck.

I giggled, mostly from the tickling on my neck. But not entirely. “I’ll bet you can. Too bad we never finished the game.”

“Oh, I think we finished it pretty well,” he said as he popped a grape into his mouth.

I frowned. “Yeah, but there were other questions I wanted to ask you.”

He sighed dramatically and took a sip of wine. “Okay: yes, I was cheating.”

My stomach turned.

What I heard was,
Yes, I was cheating on my wife/girlfriend.

With YOU, Lily Ross.

“WHAT?!” I cried out.

“I admit it,” he grinned.

I just stared at him. I could feel my lower lip starting to tremble.

“I
am
a card shark,” he finished.

I blinked.

“…what?” I asked, now totally confused.

“Oh, excuse me… a card
sharp,
” he said, and ate a cherry.

“You… you cheated at
cards?”

He looked at me oddly. I think he heard the enormous relief in my voice.

“Yeah… it was something I picked up a long time ago for fun. I always wanted to learn, so I hired a guy to teach me. One of the best ‘prestidigitators’ in the world,” he said, saying the word with self-mocking snobbery, as though he were ridiculous for even using it. Then he smirked at me. “I’m assuming you know what that means, Ms. ‘It’s really a card
sharp.
’”

“You stacked the cards?”

He nodded with a grin. “That’s another thing you’ll find out about me. If I can’t bluff, I like to cheat.”

At this point, the relief rushing through me was immense. I had a couple of choices: I could either break down and explain my misinterpretation, and look like I was Seriously Over-reactive Girl… or I could keep it to myself.

Hold my cards close, I guess you could say.

I figured there was no need to show him my
entire
hand.

“Put your wine glass down,” I ordered.

He looked at me quizzically. “Why?”

“Just do it.”

After a brief hesitation, he set the glass over on the room service table.

Then I grabbed the nearest pillow and
whomped
him with it.

“Oh ho!” he laughed, grabbed my wrists, and forced me onto my back. I shrieked as he tickled me mercilessly, and then it devolved into a hot, sloppy kiss.

“Now I know better than to trust you,” he said as he broke away and grabbed his wine glass again.

“Said the cheating card sharp.”

He shrugged, took a piece of chocolate, and popped it into my mouth.

“Don’t think that excuses your bad behavior,” I said as I let the heavenly sweetness melt in my mouth.

“I don’t. I figured the multiple orgasms did that.”

I blushed and smacked him as he laughed.

“You still owe me some answers,” I said in fake indignation.

“Really.”

“Yes.”

He considered for a second, even though I had been teasing. “All right. As long as they don’t revolve around women, or any relationships I might have had before tonight.”

“Hey!” I protested. “That’s cutting out half my questions!”

“This is the bonus round, and that’s the deal I’m willing to make. Take it or leave it.”

I sighed and rolled my eyes. In reality, though, I didn’t want anything to mess up the last hour… and if I’d been able to ask
anything
I wanted, I might have been tempted to do just that.

“
Fine,
” I said, and thought as I took a sip of wine. “Oh – I’ve got one. What was with all that Mr. Templeton stuff?”

He looked at me funny.

“What?” I asked. “The valet called you Mr. Templeton, and you said he must have you confused with someone else. But then the woman at the desk called you Mr. Templeton, too. Is that something Sebastian came up with?”

Connor looked down at his wine glass and rolled the stem between his fingers, as though he were trying to decide whether to tell me something.

My stomach began to knot up again.

He looked at me again from the corner of his eye. “You honestly don’t know?”

“Don’t know what?” I asked as the panic began to rise. I was fully expecting to hear
That’s my wife’s last name
, or something to that effect.

He looked amused… and also pleased. “You honestly, truly have no idea, do you?”

“Quit stalling and just tell me!” I said in both impatience and fear.

“My name isn’t Connor Brooks, Lily. It’s Connor Templeton.”

I frowned. That didn’t make any sense.

“But why would y…”

And then it hit me.

The reason why the name had seemed familiar was because we were at the Dubai Hotel.

The same Dubai Hotel on the E! Entertainment special I’d seen.

In which the host had mentioned the owner of the hotel:

Connor Templeton.

I’d heard his name before, but I hadn’t seen any pictures of him. I mean, I’ve heard of Michael Dell, but I have no idea what he looks like. I just know he’s the kajillionaire who started Dell computers.

But then everything clicked.

Connor Templeton…

…youngest son of the Templeton family, one of the wealthiest dynasties in America…

…a billionaire in his own right who had actually made more money after he split from the family business…

…and owner of the Dubai Hotel, where we happened to be staying.

I began to
freak out
.

I had just slept with one of the richest men in America.

No, scratch that.

I had just slept with one of the richest men in the
world
.

I stood in the parking garage with all my belongings in a cardboard filing box.

I looked around in confusion and shock, trying to process what had just happened.

Then I burst into tears.

That
had not gone well.

My entire life had cratered in just three short days. Less than that, even: sixty hours since I’d first met him, I was a sobbing mess.

Sure, I’d been places I’d only seen on E! Channel red carpet premieres. I’d rubbed elbows with people from the covers of
Rolling Stone
and
Vanity Fair.
I’d had experiences right out of
Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous
…

…and I’d felt things I had only read about before in romance novels.

And for what?

So I could stand in a parking garage with a cardboard box in my arms, tears running down my cheeks.

I should have never gotten in that damn limo.

All that came later, though.

At the moment, I was in a luxurious penthouse hotel room, in the most exclusive hotel in Los Angeles…

…in the middle of a full-on freakout.

I’d met him at my job, where I was a lowly secretary.

Connor Brooks.

Tall, dark, handsome, charming… a sculpted Adonis.

He’d seduced me.

Well, I mean, I was a willing participant from the get-go. Looking like he did, with his playful grin and occasionally infuriating cockiness, he didn’t have to try too hard.

We’d had mind-blowing sex in the boardroom of my company. After hours, of course – I’m not
that
stupid. It was, however, a room I wasn’t even
supposed
to enter,
ever,
much less have sex on their super-posh carpet.

Then he’d asked me to run away with him, to ignore work and my obligations and everything I was supposed to do, just so I could spend the rest of the evening – and maybe the weekend – with him.

We’d wound up at the Dubai Hotel in West Hollywood, courtesy of his Bentley limo and his badass bodyguard/chauffeur.

We’d had an amazing dinner in the penthouse, during which time I succumbed to the little voices in my head telling me,
He’s rich, he does this with every woman he meets, you’re nothing special, you’re an IDIOT.

He seemed to guess what was going on, and he proposed a sort of hybrid game of strip poker and ‘Truth or Dare.’

He mostly asked me to take off my clothes and do naughty things to him; I mostly asked him questions.

That was how I found out he’d slept with a lot of women.

A
lot
of women.

Which made me feel nauseated and insecure.

But it was also how I’d found out that I was the first woman he’d slept with in eight months… which made me feel a whole lot better. (A ‘whole lot better,’ as in I slept with him again. And oh. My. GOD am I glad I did.)

It was also how I found out his name wasn’t really Connor Brooks.

It was Connor Templeton.

As in the Templeton family, one of the richest families in America.

I’d just unknowingly had scorchingly hot sex – twice – with one of the wealthiest men in the world.

Commence freakout.

I was pacing back and forth, back and forth, doing this thing with my hands that I do when I flip out: I flap them frantically, like I painted the nails and I’m trying to dry them superfast.

And I was trying really hard to
breathe.

It was sort of working.

The breathing part, I mean.

Sort of.

“Uh… Lily… are you okay?” Connor asked.

He was lying on the bed, leaned back against the pillows, the muscles on his perfect body etched by the shadows. His crystal blue eyes followed me as I paced in a loop from one side of the room to the other.

He was grinning, too, like he found all of this very amusing.

Like I said: he could be infuriating sometimes.

“No!” I cried out.

“What’s wrong?”

“You’re… ohmygod… you’re not… you’re not who you said you were!”

He shrugged and settled nonchalantly back into the pillows. “Sure I am.”

Then he took a sip of wine and popped a grape into his mouth like he didn’t have a care in the world.

“You don’t even care!” I said as I fought down a rising tide of hysteria.

“Sure I care.”

“You don’t look like you care!”

“Well, frankly, I’m kind of relieved.”

“Relieved about what?!”

“That you’re acting so freaked out.”

That
stopped me in my tracks. “Why?!”

“All the other women I’ve been with knew my last name before they slept with me. And usually, at some point, they want to go shopping. Four hours, four days… depends on the woman, but at some point, most want to go shopping. Whether I go along or not is pretty much immaterial, as long as they have my credit card.”

“Well I do NOT want to go SHOPPING!” I snapped.

“I can see that,” he grinned. “Which is why I’m relieved – because now I’m
positive
you’re not like them.”

I started pacing again, but slower now. That last little bit about how I wasn’t like other women was oddly comforting.

Connor gestured towards me with his glass. “As much as I’m enjoying the show, I think you should come over here and we should talk.”

I looked down and realized I was totally naked.

Which, you know, shouldn’t have taken me by surprise, seeing as we’d just finished having sex about ten minutes before, and spent the rest of the time lounging around in the nude.

But having your world yanked out from under you like a cheap rug on a hardwood floor makes you forget things like
Hey, I don’t have any clothes on as I parade around naked in front of Mr. Perfect!

Mr. BILLIONAIRE Perfect!

Flapping my hands and probably jiggling stuff I don’t want to be jiggling right now!

I stopped mid-step, gave a little shriek, and covered myself with my arms.

“Lily… come here,” he said softly but firmly, and patted the bed next to him.

I hesitated.

“Lily…
come HERE,
” he growled with that ultra-sexy voice of his, in a tone of voice that refused to be denied.