Before Her Billionaires (6 page)

Despair.

For a few shining moments in REM sleep he’d been blissfully wanted, stroked, tasted and loved.

And the dream woman wasn’t Jill.

His eyes met hers
and she melted inside, as if he’d sent heat through her with the specific purpose of making her bones soft and pliant, as warm as her flesh.
 

Being asked to fuck a man made her heart pound
in her ears
so hard she wasn’t sure she heard him right. While both
men
could be dominant, and demanding in bed,
the blonde
one
wasn’t the type to—

Slam her against
the shower
wall and grab her with such force, fingers everywhere like tentacles, and kiss the breath out of her until her lips felt bruised and bitten, taken and defiled, leaving her heart and clit throbbing in unison, her hips dipping into his thigh, the sound of his ragged breath setting her on fire.

He was everywhere suddenly, all flame and rush, eager need replacing intimate love for this moment. If this were all she had with him it would be too much and too little, too rough and too angry. But right this moment, with her mind like cotton and the tightening noose of fear making it harder and harder to pretend she remembered how to breathe, what she needed, and didn’t realize it was this.

Animal.

Pure
sex
.

“Fuck me until I can’t think straight,” she whispered against the crush of muscle and bone, the
play of fingers on her hip, gripping with the intensity of someone drowning. The scratch of day-old stubble on a cut jaw awakened a deeper primal sense in her as he dragged his face down her neck, over her breast, mouth making a trail—no, bulldozing a culvert—down her belly until his tongue burrowed to find her, fingers parting her lips, mouth sucking as she arched into the water’s spray.
 

H
er hips smashed into his face, ass encased by his palms, fingers clawing her like he was holding on for dear life.

A nudge. A not-so-gentle push against her back and suddenly, she wasn’t
just
leaning against the tiled wall for support.

The wall had become a man’s well-muscled chest. Dar
k
hair, now wet and sleek,
tickled her shoulder, her neck straining as she turned to see his face, but the steam in the shower obscured everything but touch.
 

And taste.

Firm, guiding hands bent her slightly, and down, the push of a rock-hard cock against the cleft of her ass sending delicious tingles up and down her body, all radiating out from her clit. Which was, currently, being teased and tortured by the other man’s mouth.

“You’re so beautiful,” the dark-haired man said in a voice that could have been any man’s, but that spoke only to her. His hands moved under her, holding the fullness of one pendulous breast as he used one knee to push between her legs, encouraging her to widen them.

Oh.

Now she understood, the flush of heat and forbidden desire pushing all the blood in her body to her skin.

He wanted...
that
.

She did, too, as the climax that she’d held at bay took over her body from the mere thought of being entered from behind—of anal play—of
risqué
sensuality and the promise of openness without judgment took her over the edge.
One, then two fingers slid inside her clenched, hot walls as the man behind her pulled back, stroking himself once, twice, the push of his movement against her ass confusing as she exploded into her own orgasm, realizing on the edge of sanity that he was lubricating what was about to come.
 

At the moment, what was coming was her. The mere thought, though, of being entered by him took her—

Beep! Beep! Beep!

“
ARGH!” she screamed, three cats sprinting off her bed in three different directions, her alarm clock wailing like a chaperone at a high school dance, forcing horny kids apart.
 

Laura’s body trembled, the sheets slightly damp where her thighs rested against them, and if her clit throbbed any harder she could be a beacon for a lighthouse, renting out the little nub of skin along the eastern shore.

Worst—her phone’s alarm clock function was particularly hard to turn off (probably designed by perfectly reasonable engineers who did that so you wouldn’t zonk back out again, but right now she wanted to kill those guys), so she spent a frustrating ninety seconds screaming at an impassive glass screen while her cats hissed and
sphfffted
and made a racket at the indignity of being chased off their comfortable bed by a madwoman.

A madwoman who had an 8:30 a.m. staff meeting. Who in the hell scheduled staff meetings for 8:30 a.m. on a Monday?

Laura’s boss. That’s who.

She was still holding her phone in her hand, staring stupidly at the 6:11 a.m. on the display, when her phone buzzed with a text notification.

Coming off shift and want something hot and sweet. Thought of you.

She rolled her eyes and typed back:

A coffee booty call? Seriously?

While Laura’s half-smile and eye roll made her
mood
lighten slightly, her heart still pounded in her chest
from her dream.
 

This text wasn’t from a hot man, half of the duo she’d been sleeping with in her (wet) dreams. As Miss Daisy climbed back on the bed and gave Laura an aloof look, pawing her comforter to get it just right before settling into a curled lump of fur, Laura read the incoming text.

I love you a latte, but not enough to sleep with you. Only if caffeine deprivation were critical.

Ha ha. She smiled and typed back:

Get over here and I’ll make a pot right now.

One letter was the response:

K

Her best friend, Josie Mendham, was on her way, and that meant a morning of yappy-yap-yap talking, sarcasm so thick you needed a honey stirrer for it, and a series of complaints about Laura’s shyness when it came to dating. Josie worked weird nurse’s hours and often showed up as Laura was getting out of bed.

Sometimes, weeks went by and this was the only time Laura saw her, so she was grateful for any time from Josie, e
s
pecially since Ryan.

Laura didn’t want to talk about Ryan. Didn’t want to think about Ryan.
Wished a small building would be struck by lightning, crack in half, and fall on top of Ryan.
 

Wow. She hadn’t really gotten over Ryan, now, had she?

Throwing the covers off her, the shock of cold air made the slightly wet spot under her ass a lot more prominent. Those men.
T
he men in her dream—now that is who she wanted to think about. Not the last guy she dated, the one who lied to her and turned out to be married....

Guys in dreams were never married. They weren’t assholes. They didn’t stick you with the check for dinner because “I only have an American Express card and they take Visa here,” or give you a pained expression when you ordered the wr
o
ng wine, or put you down in tiny ways to make themselves feel better, or—

Lie about being married.

No. Men in dreams were all about you. The way life should be, right? As Laura dragged herself across her small apartment and set up the coffee machine, she yawned, stretching her tired arms to the ceiling, standing on tiptoe, body pulled like taffy toward the sky.

“Meow.” Snuggles registered the latest complaint from The Feline Brigade.

“You’re next,” Laura insisted, reaching for the cat food in the cupboard next to the sink. “As if you don’t know you’re my real bosses,” she added.

Snuggles appeared to smile.

“I’m talking to my cats,” Laura muttered. “Even if I ever find Mr. Right, he’ll think I’m crazy, because I talk to my cats. Hell—I am crazy. Crazy to think I’ll ever find a guy like...” She sighed.

Like him.

Which
him?

Laura laughed as she walked back into her bedroom and grabbed her bra and panties. Looking in her closet, she paused. What to wear? Her business wardrobe was about what you’d expect for a twentysomething financial analyst, which meant staid. Boring. Suits and shells and skirts with hose, modest heels. A look cultivated to be invisible but trustworthy.

She loved her job. Liked the sameness of it. How she could walk into the office carrying her cup of coffee, sit at her desk, log in to email and feel like she was important. Like what she did mattered, even if it was answering emails, completing a technical specifications document, or finding an error in a business process. Even meetings made her feel like she was productive.

Well, most meetings. Definitely not the ones scheduled for 8:30 a.m. on a Monday, though.

Hopping into the shower, she took a quick one, knowing Josie would be here soon. Though parts of her body hummed and twitched, they weren’t getting any attention from her right now. Five minutes later she jumped out, dried off, and was dressed, combing out her hair and braiding it absent-mindedly.

Bzzz.

Josie was here.

“You!” her friend shouted as she stormed through the door,
headed
stra
i
ght for the kitchen. “You had better have caffeine!”

“How in the hell do you drink caffeine at the end of a work shift?” Laura asked, knowing the answer.

“With my mouth.”

Laura sat at the table with her cup of coffee while Josie prepared hers. The two women were about as different as could be. Where Laura was light and fair, Josie was darker, with pale skin and sharp eyes. Curves and softness abounded in Laura, whose long, curly blonde hair and bright green eyes radiated a gentle Barbie look. Josie, meanwhile, was rail thin, with a slightly pinched look that came from a general distrust of the world.

Both were fiercely loyal to each other, though, and as Josie sat down and sipped carefully, Laura was surprised to find herself deeply relieved to have company that wasn’t feline.

“You look like a bus hit you in your dreams,” Josie declared.

“Something like that,” Laura muttered, drinking so she wouldn’t have to talk.

“You want to talk about it?”

Laura waved her hand dismissively. “Same old same old. No boyfriend, unlucky in love, who would ever want me, might as well become a cat lady.” She looked pointedly at Josie. “You know the drill.”

A long, sad sigh poured out of Josie. “Yeah, I know. My own cats are at home eating anything they can out of sheer starvation. I had to work twelve hours. If I stay
here
much longer, they’ll break into my nightstand and start eating my lube.”

“That’s disgusting.”

“I know, right? Cat hair in your lube.” Josie shuddered.

“That’s
not
what I meant,” Laura said flatly. “
And eww...you have the most bizarre mind.
I’m sitting here worried about living the next six decades of my life without love, and you’re worried about your cats drinking your A
s
troglide? You’re so...romantic.”

“Practical.”

“Weird.”

Josie lifted her half-full mug in a toast. As L
au
ra banged her mug against her friend’s, Josie said, “To truth.”

“To love.”

“To getting laid,” Josie countered.

Laura could drink to that.
And did, finishing her coffee with one eye on the clock. She had about five more minutes before she needed to head out the door for the train ride into Boston.
 

After checking the cats’ food and water dishes, she turned to Josie and said, “You ever have dreams so vivid it’s like you can feel them, even after you’re awake?”

“Only when I took a hit of acid back in college.” Josie squinted at her. “Why? You dropping acid before bed?”

Laura shot her
a
smirk. “The only drug I use is right there,” she answered, pointing to the coffee maker.

“Yeah. Me too,” Josie said with a sigh. “When did we become so boring?”

“When we became grownups.”

Josie’s eyebrows went to her hairline, eyes full of mischief. “You may be a grownup, but no one in their right mind would ever call
me
a grownup.”

“You’re a registered nurse who works on complex research cases, Josie. They don’t hire children
t
o do that.”

Josie snorted. “You obviously haven’t spent enough time in hospitals. Surgeons are just emotional teenagers with the pressure of life on their hands in the operating room. Orthopedists are bone crunchers who look at a dislocated shoulder like a kid looks at a roller coaster. W
e
’re all immature. Some of us are just better at hiding it.”

Laura nodded, swallowing and trying to calm the anxious butterflies in her stomach. Maybe she shouldn’t have mentioned the dreams. If she kept Josie going on this new tangent, then they could forget she ever mentioned it.

“So. Dreams,” Josie said.

Damn.

“
I keep having sex dreams.”
 

“Join the other six billion of us.”

“You’re so supportive.”

Josie laughed. “It’s just...everyone has sex dreams. I have them. Did I ever tell you about the one I had with
Abraham Lincoln?
The man could do incredible things with his pinkie.”

Laura gaped at Josie. “Discussion over.”

“Aw, c’mon!”

“Not if you’re going to mock me.”

“I wasn’t mocking you! I really did have a dream about
Lincoln
and his magic digit!
It was right
after watching
Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Slayer
, and I—
”

“Then this discussion is
really
over,” Laura said with a shudder.

“Now who’s being the judgmental one?” Josie said with fake offense.

Laura’s eyebrow arched. “You seriously had a dream you slept with
Abraham Lincoln
and you two had some ass play?”

“Yep. And he loved the strap-on I wore.”

“Oh, gross.”

“I can’t control what’s in my dreams! Not my fault!” Josie insisted.

That gave Laura pause. She had a point. None of the dreams were technically fantasies, right? They came to her, unbidden, a product of her subconscious. Laura didn’t seek out threesome porn, didn’t read romance novels about threesomes, didn’t watch movies on the topic, didn’t search it out at all.