Billionaire Black: My Billionaire Boss, Part 4 (A BDSM Erotic Romance)

"Something wrong?" Mr. Stone said, his voice going flat.

I gulped and felt for the clasp on the leather collar but my fingers had suddenly turned into bumbling sausages. I saw a brief flicker of relief on his face and he reached for the collar but I pulled it away from him. He frowned and then sat up straighter, moving away from me.

Put it on, put it on, put it on!

I was willing myself to unclasp it and wrap it around my neck. To say yes to his proposal. Why was I so afraid? And why couldn't I say yes?

He held my fingers with his hand, stopping me fumbling with the clasp and looked deep into my eyes. I felt like he could see right through me
. That he could see I held a secret inside that was far darker than his.

"Give me an answer," he growled.

The silence stretched out for another moment. All I could hear was his breathing, the sound of the wind in the trees and the distant pounding of the waves on the shore. I just needed a minute. And another minute. And another...

I squeezed my eyes shut.

"I can't wear it."

I felt him move off the bed. I opened my eyes to find him dressing and I suddenly felt very exposed in my nakedness. Mr. Stone stopped halfway through buttoning up his shirt and looked down at the ground with such an expression of pain that I wanted to dive across the bed and hug him and promise that I would wear his collar.

But I didn't move.

"Can you tell me why?
" he asked. I again got that feeling from him of a volcano barely held in check.

Sure I could tell him. Your company almost destroyed my home town and then got away with it. I joined just so I could hurt you. Then you took my heart and removed your armor. I want you but I'm afraid if I tell you the truth it will destroy everything.

"I'm ... not ready," I finally said, my face burning in shame.

A tear ran down my nose and dripped on to the bed. I had to hold it together. I would not cry in front of him.

Mr. Stone reached across the bed and pulled me towards him, wrapping his arms around me. The heat of his body and the strength of his arms just made it worse and I let out half a sob. Mr. Stone knelt down and kissed away my tears.

"I
need you Delilah," he said and then with that, stood up and passed me a thick white robe from a drawer under the bed. His face was smooth and unreadable. I didn't know if he was angry or disappointed or something else entirely and I didn't have the strength to ask. Mind-melting sex followed by intense emotional confusion had spun me around and worn me out. I just wanted to sleep. To be close to him and spend ... time.

I stood up and wrapped the robe around me and then Mr. Stone motioned for me to follow him.

*

We left the maze and with every step on the grass I
found myself actually calming. The high walls of the maze were thick green and the grass was soft and cool. We walked in silence but the anxious part of my mind seemed to have disconnected somewhat. My rambling thoughts were as distant as the ocean waves.

As we walked towards the mansion I noticed a small red mud-brick house built into the garden. It had
vines twining through it and blue flowers dangling down from the roof.

"That's an unusual building..."

"I built it," he said, not turning around. "For someone I knew a lifetime ago," he added.

I wanted to ask more but we were soon at the mansion and I followed him up the steps and inside. Everything seemed out of place now - the carpet too thick, the lights too bright. Even the polished wood floor seemed to be freezing.

He stopped at the foot of the stairs and turned around.

"There is a driver out front who will take you wherever you want. I need to go now."

Mr. Stone stepped closer and I just wanted to wrap my arms around him and hold him but it wasn't to be. He caressed the back of my neck and then quickly kissed me on the cheek before turning away.

He walked away, looking like he was back in standard Mr. Stone mode but I could see my refusal had wounded him.

*

I dressed in all of two minutes and then flew out the front door like I was late for the ball. Mr. Henry smiled at me and I forced one in return. How many girls had he seen running out of this mansion?

The driver turned out to be a petite Japanese woman named Mi-oh who bowed and then surprised me with a French-Canadian accent. And the car? A limo.

"Where will I be taking you today?" she asked once I was inside.

I gave her my address and then sat back on in the chair feeling that the limo was a cruel joke. This really was like the ball in reverse. I'd been with my dark and damaged Prince and now I was returning alone to my average life having broken his heart.

We
left the mansion, the wheels crunching on the gravel and I didn't look back even once. I couldn't bear it.

Mi-oh soon started chatting
as we drove and I found her accent soothing. We were soon talking about our home towns and she told me about her Japanese mother and Canadian father who met while in Berlin as students. I got lost in her stories and by the time we reached my apartment block, I was actually laughing.

She winked at me before driving away and standing there in front of my building in the warm sun, life's problems suddenly didn't seem so bad.

*

I opened all the curtains in my tiny apartment and let the light stream in.
Scavenged bookshelf, fading sofa and a decor by IKEA but it was home. I had a shower and found myself thinking about Mr. Stone in a distant abstract kind of way. It was like I'd run out of emotions - both good and bad. I smiled at the memory of chasing through the maze and then the crazy sex that followed and felt a distant pull of sadness when I turned down Mr. Stone but I didn't cry.

I dried myself and
dressed in comfortable jeans and a faded t-shirt I'd had since I was sixteen. I sat on my sofa and flicked through channels with the television on mute. Things were happening in the world but I was watching them without seeing. Somehow the crazy ups and downs had exhausted me enough that I could think logically through this all.

Tell Mr. Stone the truth and let happen whatever would happen.

Wear the collar and tell him the truth later on.

Don't wear the collar and never tell him the truth.

Wear the collar and never tell him the truth.

The anger that had driven me to join Stone-Black was still there but my feelings for Mr. Stone had pushed it away.
But what did that mean? Stone Pharma had pumped some bad stuff into the groundwater and people had gotten very sick. Some other branch of their company running a quarry on the side of town had followed this up with some illegal dumping of their own that virtually guaranteed no crops would grow for fifty years. Sick people plus no farming and Bedford had changed from a thriving town to a blip on the road people didn't bother to stop at.

Was I saying that becau
se I was fucking Mr. Stone I didn't care what had happened?

But I wanted him...

I turned the television volume on and watched a show where an English couple transformed a dilapidated barn into a stunning modern house. Everything followed so neatly and their problems were easily overcome.

I found myself wishing life could be that way.

*

Some time that night my emotions returned and with them a thousand thoughts of Mr. Stone. Him caressing me. Pulling me across the bed. Brushing a crop over my inner thigh. I found myself getting hot and bothered and wishing he was here with me.

I took myself to the kitchen and drank a glass of water chilled with floating ice-cubes. The cold helped but the sound of the clinking ice-cubes didn't. Mr. Stone sitting in his chair by firelight and me standing naked before him. Mr. Stone bending me over the sofa...

I managed to make it to bed without touching myself but it was a close thing.

Sunday went by in a blur of domestic tasks and moments when I found myself fantasizing about Mr. Stone. In the vegetable section of the supermarket I saw a rather large carrot and then quickly walked myself around to stand in front of the dairy case to cool down after my brain served up scenes of Mr. Stone naked with his thick cock sticking out in front of him. It was ridiculous and frustrating and hot and stupid all at once.
I
felt hot and stupid and by the time I was home in the late afternoon I'd decided I'd tell him the truth. I'd dress as sexy-as-hell, walk into his office without asking and tell him where I was from and why.

It was some sort of plan, right?

The dark mahogany doors to Mr. Stone's office were closed so I sat down turned on my computer, pretending this was just some other day. Was he on the other side behind that giant desk of his? Would be call me in?

I saw Mr. Stone's name in my email and smiled but it was a straight work request: pull all the contracts and correspondence for BSU between January and March of last year. BSU? Where did I know that name from again? Oh, right - Mr. Stone asked me questions about their stock prices and then told me something about them admitting their solar technology wasn't as good as they claimed. Then that night he took me to dinner ... and home ... and then I stood in front of his fire ...

No!

I squeezed my eyes shut and turned shook myself like a puppy getting out a bath. I couldn't let myself get caught up in thinking about Mr. Stone or I'd just end up sitting here all hot and bothered and what if he called me in then?

Ms. Green, the phantom HR manager who I never saw
, had taught me to use the records system but back then I'd only had surface access. Now I had full access - or as Mr. Stone had told me:
you're going to be given access to our systems as though you were me.

I opened the records program, relieved to find that now I had a new task, Mr. Stone was the last thing on my mind.

Every few hours I'd get a new email from Mr. Stone and the work started piling up. Find all the emails between one subsidiary company and another and highlight every mention of the word "integral process". Advise how many millions of Great British Pounds were purchased by Stone-Black as a currency fluctuation hedge over the last six years, broken down by month.

As I dived deep into the world of contracts and data, the size and complexity of Stone-Black became apparent to me. I'd seen the organizational chart given out to all new employees but it was just a few boxes and lines. Stone-Black was more like a web and just when I thought I had started to get a grip on it, I'd receive another email and find new layers on layers.

I was so absorbed in my task that I didn't realize I'd read
Bedford
and Stone Pharma until I was halfway through a stack of emails. I was highlighting all correspondence from an employee named Andrew Panno who was one of the in-house legal counsel ten years ago. I slowed down and went back over what I'd found.