Billionaire Romance Boxed Set (9 Book Bundle) (122 page)

“Well, apparently so. I
thought…” Asher quieted down, staring at the screen.

“I know,” I said. “It’s not your
fault. You had no reason to think this would happen.”

“It’s just so sudden,” Asher said.
“It’s not even that I trusted him, though that’s a large part of it.
I trusted Beatrice, too. I… I should have seen this coming,
though. I remember small signs now that I think about it. I never
really knew which friends Beatrice was going to visit, and I had Solomon’s
business expenses paid without a second glance at them. They were never
too
excessive, so I didn’t think I had anything to worry about. I should have
paid closer attention, though. I should have…”

“Shhh,” I said. “No, it’s
alright. It’s not your fault, Asher.”

He remained silent. I was worried about
him. I could never understand what he was going through, or what he must
feel right now, but I didn’t want him to be upset. I wanted him to be
happy, even if that was hard. He still had a lot of things left in life,
right? Maybe this wasn’t a good spot to be in, and his marriage was all
but ruined, along with the loss of one of his higher ups at Landseer
Enterprises that he thought he could trust, but…

Well, he had his house still. Two of them.
And technically he still had money. For now, anyways, as long as Beatrice
and Solomon’s plan didn’t come to fruition. He had Jeremy as a friend,
which I thought was a pretty big thing to have.

And… if he wanted—though I didn’t know if this
would work—he still had me, if…

No. He said he loved me, but it was out of some
other reason. He was worried, and Solomon, and… I shouldn’t expect
anything, regardless of all of this. I fully expected him to be upset
with me, since I’d basically singlehandedly destroyed his understanding of
almost everything around him by revealing Solomon and Beatrice’s scheme.

“We’re naked,” Asher said, interrupting the
silence. “We’re naked and my marriage is ruined and my company might
be in shambles.”

“I’m sorry,” I said. “It’s all my
faul—”

“What’s your favorite movie?” he
asked. “We can watch it. Let’s go get a pizza. We can
pick it up, with Jeremy. We’ll need to put clothes on, of course.
I’m starving.”

I blinked. “What?”

He swept me in for a kiss, leaning me across his lap
and dominating my lips. I wrapped my hands around his neck, returning his
kiss with fervor.

“Will you help me?” he asked.
“You’ve done so much for me so far and I can’t thank you enough.”

“If… if you want me to, I can. If you
want me to stay and help you, I’ll try.”

“I don’t want you to go anywhere,” he
said. “Not just for this. I meant it when I said I love you,
Jessika.”

I couldn’t help it; I cried. Tears streamed down
my cheeks and Asher kissed them away, smiling at me.

“Shh,” he said. “Stop that.
No crying.”

“I love you, too,” I said, lips
quivering. “I’m so sorry about what’s happened to you. I don’t
want you to be upset at me for it. I know that—”

“No,” he said firmly, shaking his
head. “It’s not your fault. This would have happened
regardless. Maybe we made some mistakes, too, but this would have still
happened. I won’t let you blame yourself.”

I nodded. I wanted to believe him, but I was too
scared to say it.

“I need you,” he said. “Please
say you’ll help me?”

“I’ll help,” I whispered. “I…
I’m hungry, too,” I added, averting my eyes.

“Good. Let’s get dressed, get some food,
watch a movie back at home—the guest home—and relax. In order to solve
any problem you need to be in a peaceful state of mind, no matter the
situation. That’s going to be a rough one here, so I might need your
help.”

I laughed. “Alright.”

Home, he said. Not “my home,” but just
“home.” Our home. With me.

*

His Absolute
Devotion

*

When we left Landseer Tower, Asher held my hand.
No one was around since he’d let everyone leave early for the day in
celebration of a particularly beneficial arrangement between Landseer
Enterprises and a previously reluctant company, but it didn’t matter. The
way his fingers held onto mine, his warm palm pressing slightly against my own,
it was amazing. I felt brazen and bold and if the world saw us right now,
no matter what happened, I knew that we could persevere.

It was a good feeling but I didn’t know if it was the
proper feeling. With his wife, Beatrice, and his director of public
relations, Solomon, plotting to ruin Asher’s marriage and company, I thought we
shouldn’t be so complacent. This wasn’t a game, it wasn’t a minor
obstacle. Asher Landseer was the billionaire CEO of Landseer Enterprises
and he possessed a lot of worth that was capable of becoming destroyed.

And yet, when he held my hand and walked with me
through his office building, I felt comfortable and confident. A little
less worried and unsure, and much more optimistic. Everything would work
out fine, right?

As if reading my mind, when we reached the elevator,
Asher leaned down and kissed my forehead. Just a peck, but it eased me
into more relaxing thoughts. And then he swooped in for more than a peck,
pressing his lips against mine, hard and demanding. I nearly fell over,
so caught up in the emotion of his touch. He wrapped his arms around me
and held me up and when the elevator dinged its arrival and we should have
stepped through the doors, he ignored it.

I kissed him, needing to feel everything he felt for
me. His words, his emotions, the slight doubt in the back of his mind and
the surety, despite it all, that everything would work out in the end, it
shifted from him to me. Our lips acted as a conduit, some amazing miracle
of thoughts and sensations. I’d never felt this way before, never kissed
anyone like this before, and it overwhelmed me. I needed it so very very
badly.

The elevator doors closed on us sometime during our
kiss. Maybe a second ago, or a few minutes, but when we paused and he
held me close and I looked, the elevator car had passed us by.

“We missed the elevator,” I said, smiling.

Reluctantly leaving a part of our embrace to stretch
his hand out, Asher pressed the button again. We watched the numbers
above the door, waited for the elevator to greet us once more.

“Do you want to miss it again?” he asked.

I laughed. “Asher!”

Needless to say, when the elevator dinged its second
arrival, Asher and I were otherwise preoccupied.

…

Asher was tired, but he couldn’t let it get to him.

Pizza was delicious and dinner went splendidly.
Jeremy played an excellent role in all of that, and when Asher gave him a
slight nod at the end of the evening while the movie credits rolled, he
politely excused himself and went back to the main house to rest for the night.

“I really like that movie,” Jessika said.
She curled against him, the warmth of her back heating his chest.

“Pan’s Labyrinth is a wonderful movie,”
Asher said. His lips pressed against her neck, kissing up and along her
jaw to her earlobe. He blew lightly and whispered into her ear,
“Very thought-provoking.”

Jessika laughed a little and cuddled closer to
him. She twisted and turned until she faced him over her shoulder and
looked at him with such love and affection that he thought it was strong enough
to break him into pieces.

“I always worry about the little girl,
though. Do you think… do you think it was all in her mind, or…?”

Asher shook his head. “Everything worked
out,” he said. “You can never know exactly what happened, but
everything worked out in the end. She was happy.”

Jessika nodded, willing to believe it. She
looked better now, more comfortable. Asher tightened his embrace,
squeezing her against him, feeling the softness of her stomach and the way her
body molded perfectly against him with the way he held her.

He thought she was perfect before, but he thought she
was even more perfect when he had her in his arms.

…

I dreamed of something. I don’t know exactly
what it was, and the ideas flitted away from my mind as soon as I woke. I
think perhaps I dreamed of today, and what would happen. Asher, Jeremy,
and I hadn’t discussed anything too thoroughly while we sat on the couch in
Asher’s guest home, eating three different kinds of pizza, but we’d talked a
bit; we’d talked enough.

Asher would confront Beatrice and Solomon and tell
them he knew everything. It would all—Oh!

I felt something—a delightful something—warm and
urgent in the core of my body. A whisper of breath teased against the
bare skin between my thighs. I was sure I’d put on pajamas before going
to bed, but apparently I’d lost them sometime in the night. Or was this a
dream, too?

I’d asked Asher to make love to me, but he said
no. We’d kissed for hours and I kept reaching for his hard cock trapped
behind his pajama pants, but he just smirked and eventually moved my hand
away. One quick stroke, then two, but he unwrapped my fingers from around
my prize and went back to kissing me.

I remember growing more frantic near the end. I
tried to stuff my hand in his pants and pull out what was mine, straddle atop
him and convince him with my moist feminine wiles at the center of my body, but
he denied me. He lifted me off him like I was nothing more than a pet and
placed me on my back on the bed and lay atop me and… was he going to?
Yes, finally? But, no, he’d trapped me beneath his body and kissed me and
while I loved every single moment of it, I’d wanted more.

I opened my eyes, groggy, squirming when something
licked lightly at my feminine folds. Looking down, finding myself open
and available with the blankets completely gone, I saw Asher with his head
between my thighs. His tongue, light and delicate, lapped at my sex.

I was too worked up to put up with his
gentleness. I moved my hands to grab his head and pull him up atop me so
he could claim my body properly, but…

Why wouldn’t my hands move?

Asher grinned at me as I struggled against my
bindings. In a panic I glanced towards my wrists. While I slept he
must have moved my arms up and above my head and tied me to one of the rungs of
the headboard with a silken shirt. Nothing too sturdy, and if I really
tried I could probably rip it into pieces and free myself, but it would take
some effort. Effort that I didn’t have at the moment since I was still in
somewhat of a daze from having just woken up.

“Asher,” I whined.

“Shh,” he said.

“Ple~ase?” I asked. I wasn’t even sure
what I was asking for, but I’d know it when he did it.

His tongue licked along my labia, flittering back and
forth, moistening either side of both my lower lips. I gasped and struggled
with the bonds, hoping to slip my hands free and escape this erotic torture.

“If you’re good,” Asher said, pausing to
caress his tongue from the bottom of my slit up to my clit, lingering,
“I’ll give you what you want.”

“I think I was good last night!” I said,
exasperated and horny.

He laughed. “What do you mean you were
good? You wouldn’t stop trying to make me have sex with you.”

“You want to do it, too!”

“That’s besides the point. I can be
patient. There’s no need to rush things.”

He went back to the task at hand, slowly teasing his
tongue across my slick folds. He lapped up my arousal, tasting it with
the tip of his tongue. This was worse than yesterday when he’d fingered
me and told me to relax and chastised me for writhing and bucking my hips
against his hand. This was…

His tongue flicked against my clit, hard and fast but
gone so soon, like a gentle tap from the end of a whip. I wanted to
scream, but instead I tried to remain calm and “good,” as he
said. Relatively, anyways, but I still couldn’t help but struggle against
the silken shirt binding me to the headboard.

“How long?” I asked.

“Hm?” he said, looking up at me.

“How long do I have to be good before you’ll stop
this?”

“Oh, you want me to stop? If you really do,
I’ll go downstairs and make breakfast. I can bring it up to you when I’m
done. I can’t untie you, though, because I’d rather you didn’t masturbate
while I’m gone. Not right now, at least.”

He said it so simply, so matter-of-factly. I
couldn’t let this happen!

“No!” I shook my head, fast.
“No, no. I don’t want you to leave or stop, but I want you.
Inside me. I…”

“Say it,” he said.

“Asher…” I whimpered.

“We’re both adults here, Jessika. If you
want something, you need to let me know.”

It made sense, and yet… I remembered Beatrice the
other day, and the conversation I overheard while she talked with Solomon on
the phone. Their dirty, raunchy sex talk, and… ugh, the thoughts
of it. And yet… this was different, too.

I sighed. Slow, deliberate, I said, “I want
your long, hard cock deep inside…”

“Yes?” he asked, prompting me further.

“Deep…” I hesitated, but Asher
goaded me further with a compelling lick from his tongue. “I want
your long, hard cock deep inside my pussy,” I said, embarrassed, rushing the
words out in one hasty breath.

“Sixty seconds,” he said. “If you
remain calm and still for one minute, I’ll do everything you want.”

“I want to be on top,” I said quickly.

Asher lifted one brow, smirking.
“Alright. Deal.”

I endured. Asher licked at my folds, languorous
and with no real goal in mind. He liked to tease me, it seemed, and watch
me squirm, but, oh no, I wouldn’t give him the joy of it. I counted down
the seconds in my head, being generous with my estimation.

He circled his tongue around my clit, then just barely
teased at the hood and the center of my pleasure spot. I bit my lower
lip, focusing on the the numbers and counting and praying that the slightest
twitch from my leg didn’t count against me.

Halfway to my goal, Asher grew more frantic. Not
much, nothing over the top, but he licked in longer strokes, flattening his
tongue and touching more of me all at once. This was cheating or
something, and I wanted to yell that out to him, but then what? He’d make
me start all over again, probably! Argh.

With ten seconds left, Asher abandoned his initial
plan. He kept his tongue on me, tempting me, but he added two
fingers. Probing inside me, slow at first but picking up speed, he played
with me like some fascinating toy. My God, if he just let me, I’d happily
let him wind me up and watch me bounce around the room(or on top of him, as it
were), but I doubted he’d accept that offer so easily.

Five seconds. Deeper. Three seconds.
His fingertips tweaked at my g-spot. One second. He never relented
and was one-hundred percent trying to make me lose this game.

Except now it was over. “I won!” I
shrieked. At that same moment, Asher must have decided the exact same
thing.

This time he didn’t tease me, but was full-on coaxing
me to orgasm. In my desperate attempt at staving off my pleasure, I
didn’t realize how pent up I was. Or, I’d realized it, but I really
really needed to forget about it and play his game or I knew he’d keep teasing
me forever. But, now? Oh, no, I’d won alright.

I thrashed on the bed against Asher’s mouth. He
had a smug, annoyingly attractive look on his face, like he thought he’d won
this game instead of me. Maybe in a way he had, or perhaps we both
did. I didn’t quite care at the moment.

My pulse quickened and my breath came out in sharp,
shallow gasps. I pleaded with him and begged him not to stop, or to untie
me, or wait no, if he stopped to untie me that was…

My back arched as the first wave of pleasure slammed
into my body. Asher never stopped, continued licking at my sex, and
whenever he flicked his tongue against my oversensitive clit, I reeled in
shock. My inner walls clenched against his fingers, trying to suck his
hand inside of me, but he kept his motions firm and insistent upon my rugged,
inner pleasure point.

During my orgasm, squeezing my hands into fists and
unintentionally pulling against my bindings, I ripped the silken shirt in two
and freed myself from the headboard. Enough, not enough. Oh God.

Not even knowing what came over me, I grabbed Asher’s
face and pulled him away from my crotch. He looked surprised, but
impressed. In a frenzy, I pushed at him and told him to get on his back,
to… why did he have pajama pants on still? I pulled them off, delighted
when his hard cock popped free in front of me. Asher watched me, smiling,
and I shimmied atop him and centered myself over his erection.

I moved down, fit myself onto the head of his cock,
and then pushed hard against it, taking all of him inside of me in one
go. Everything beyond that was a mess of sensation, sweaty and sticky and
pure, unadulterated bliss.