Dance for the Billionaire (8 page)

“You know people in Jamaica?”

“I have property there—five apartments blocks in Kingston which are currently all occupied.  And work is almost complete on the two gated communities I’m building in Montego Bay, but those won’t suit your mother and grandparents or I would move them until the house gets sorted out.”

“Gated community?” Chantelle gasped.  “My grandparents are very simple people.  They don’t even like going to Kingston!  I managed to get a nice piece of land in the countryside.  It’s not too far from the beach and there is enough land at the back for my grandfather to start farming again on a smaller scale.  He’s really excited about moving to it.” Chantelle sighed.  “Mr. Patrick—that’s the name of the contractor—had given me a guarantee that another ten thousand pounds will complete everything.”

“Until you send it to him and he decided that he needs another ten.”  Dominic ran his right hand through his hair.  “This man’s either incompetent or a con artist.  Derek will pay him a visit and straighten the whole mess out.”

“But—”

“Don’t worry he won’t hurt him if it’s not necessary,” Dominic promised with an edge in his voice.

“What?”

The traffic lights ahead turned amber and then red. Chantelle slowed the car and stared across at Dominic as she automatically brought the clutch up to biting point in preparation for the change of signal.

“You heard me.”

“I don’t want anyone hurt!”

“Sometimes it’s necessary to inflict pain so that a lesson can be learned.”

“I’m not giving you his full name and address if you plan to get him beaten up!” Chantelle told him heatedly as she followed the car ahead as the lights changed.  Had she somehow stepped into a parallel universe?  “Especially since it’s probably my uncle’s fault!”

“Your uncle needs a lesson in family loyalty, but I promise that nothing will happen to him.”  Dominic took a deep breath and exhaled it slowly.  “I hate injustice.”

“And you think hurting a man because he might have conned me out of some money is justice?”

“It’s a kind of justice.  Heaven knows how many other people he has conned out of their hard-earned money.”  They just missed the amber signal at the next set of lights.  Chantelle turned to glare at him again and he reluctantly agreed, “Okay.  I promise that Derek won’t touch either of them.  He’ll find out if all the money you sent has been spent on the house and if so, how much more needs to be spent.  If he finds out that the funds have been misappropriated, he will have the man refund the balance or find a way for him to work it off.  Whichever way, work will recommence immediately.  Your mother will be in Jamaica within a week or two.”

“That’s not possible!  I don’t have any more money at the moment and—”

“I doubt that the contractor needs any more money and if he does, I will send it to Derek.  If there’s not enough manpower to finish the job quickly, Derek will put some of his own men on it.”

“I can’t let you pay for—” Chantelle began.  It would be so wonderful if he could… but she just couldn’t let him.  Surely, she couldn’t!

“You can think of it as a salary advance, if that makes you feel better.”  Dominic reached over and ran the back of his hand against the line of her jaw again softly.  “Sweetheart, you’ve been doing this on your own for a long time.  Let me help you now.”

Chantelle felt tears prick her eyelids and hastily blinked them away.  Dominic, specifically the money he had given her that night, had been the first ray of light in a life which had been a constant battle to survive.  She wanted so much to lay her troubles on his broad shoulders, but she sensed his ruthless side and worried about getting on the wrong side of it.  But, she was weary to being strong, of being in charge and making sacrifices.  Her teenage years had flown by without her realizing, spent cooking and cleaning and making sure that her siblings were fine.  She hadn’t partied, drank or smoked joints as most of her friends had been doing, knowing that she could neither afford to do so, nor risk becoming addicted.

“Okay,” she agreed, “but you have to let me know and approve every step you plan to make.”

“Agreed.”

Chantelle had been following the street signs as they had conversed and soon Dominic instructed, “Turn left at the lights and then right at the end of the road.”

“My God, are we still even in London?” she gasped as she took note of the large detached houses on either side of the road for the first time before she turned into his driveway.

“Definitely still in London,” Dominic confirmed with a laugh.  “Come up and let me show you around.”

Chantelle hesitated.  She sensed the flame that had been simmering between them since the night at the club would quickly flare into a raging inferno once they were alone together.  Was she ready for that?

“Chantelle, I give you my word that nothing will happen up there that you don’t want.”

“Okay.”  She noted that he didn’t promise that something won’t happen, only that whatever did would be with her consent.

She could live with that promise.

Chapter Six

“Will that be all, sir.”

“Thank you, Rogers.”

“Very good, sir.”

Dominic’s butler bowed and left the room silently.  If he wasn’t gay, the middle-aged man was certainly the most effeminate straight man Chantelle had ever met.

“Yes, he is.”  Dominic smiled as he interpreted the look on her face correctly.  “And probably the best butler in the UK.”

“I-I…”  Embarrassed, she quickly took a sip of freshly-pressed watermelon juice.

“It’s okay,” Dominic assured her.  “Many of my friends laughed at me when I hired him.  Now they know how good he is, most of them want to steal him away.  A few have offered to triple or quadruple his salary, but he’s so far declined.  I was the first person to take a chance on him and he’s said he won’t leave until either of us dies or I fire him.”

“That’s amazing loyalty.”  Most people would switch employers for a slight increase in salary.  For the man to stay when he could be earning three or four times what Dominic paid him was crazy!

“He says he has no real use for money.  He lives, eats and sleeps here, so the money I pay him just sits in the bank.”  Dominic’s light-hearted tone changed as he continued, “I trust him implicitly. He’s been with me since I bought this house and threw a house warming party four years ago.  He was one of the waiters working for the company who handled the food and drink.  He came back the next day and told me that I needed a butler and he would make a good one.  I admired his balls.”

“Ballsy, indeed.” Chantelle hastily took a sip of juice to hide the laughter bubbling on her lips.

He had to be a very secure man indeed to admit to admiring a gay man’s balls.

“You can laugh,” Dominic encouraged.  “It was meant to be a double entendre.”

Given permission to let her mirth burst forth, Chantelle placed her hand on her waist and laughed unreservedly.  Not the polite chuckling she generally made in public, but the good belly laughter that she often shared with her siblings in the privacy of their home.

“It’s good to hear you laugh,” Dominic said.  She looked up and realized that he had deliberately attempted to tickle her funny bone.

Her laughter caught in her throat and died at the intense look in his eyes.

“This is gorgeous,”  Chantelle took another sip of juice in an attempt to cool her body’s heated response to his appreciative gaze.  The watermelon juice was so sweet she would have suspected it had been sweetened if she’d been served it elsewhere.  She often bought the fruit since she’d read in the Metro that they were a super fruit.  But she bought whole ones because they were cheaper and she never trusted that the knives the vendors used were slicing were scrupulously clean and still hadn’t yet perfected the art of recognizing the ripest ones by sight, touch and smell.

“So are you,” Dominic said softly, cupping her jaw and running his thumb along the silky skin of her left cheek.  She hadn’t planned to leave the house, so she wasn’t wearing any makeup. She cringed inwardly, hoping that she didn’t look a mess.  “You have such soft skin.”

His eyes, darkening to almost as deep a brown of her own, held hers as he ran his thumb over the full curve of her bottom lip.  The air between them crackled as if it were a live thing and Chantelle licked her suddenly dry lips nervously.  As the tip of her tongue touched his finger, Dominic went still.  His eyes glittered like polished onyx.

“Tell me now if you don’t want this.” Dominic slipped his thumb between her lips and she instinctively sucked it in deeper.  “Saying no won’t affect your job or my promise to sort out the house in Jamaica, but you have to say it now.”

“I’m not saying no, but I can’t stay out for too much longer.”

“This is not how I envisioned our first time together.  I’d planned to explore every inch of your body and make you scream my name before I took you.”  Dominic cradled the back of her head as he eased her down onto the soft, supple leather of the sprawling L-shaped settee.  His weight pressed her further into the softness as he came down over her.  “But once things are settled with your mother, I will leave your brother and sisters in the care of my parents and take you somewhere special.”

Chantelle barely heard his last words as he covered her lips with his, slipped his hand under her jade T-shirt, unsnapped her bra and cupped her breast with a large, warm hand.

“Won’t Rogers—?”she started to protest, mortified at the idea of the man coming back into the room and finding them
in flagrante delicto
. 

“No one will disturb us,” Dominic said confidently as he nibbled a path along her jaw line to the arch of her neck.  He pushed her T-shirt upwards and gazed at the twin peaks of her breasts, the nipples standing firmly erect, the areolas goose-pimpled by the expert stroke of his fingers and thumbs.  “Beautiful…just waiting for the touch of my lips.”

With that he dipped his head and encircled her left nipple with his tongue.

Chantelle bit her lip and moaned as a bolt of sensation went straight to the junction of her thighs. 

“Say my name,” Dominic growled and pulled the hard nub into the warmth of his mouth and sucked firmly.

“God, Dominic, that feels…so good.”

“Tell me just how good,” he demanded, slipping his hand under her short, flared denim skirt and caressed her first through the gusset of her thong and then initiated flesh-on-flesh contact.  “So slippery wet, my sweet.  I want to taste your sugar.”

He slipped down further the chair, got between her legs and suited action to words.  Chantelle gasped as he pushed the hood of her clit back and caressed the sensitive little bud with his tongue.  She gasped again when he pushed a long, blunt finger deep inside her.

“Relax for me, honey,” he commanded, pressing it deeper as he continued to maul her clit.  Chantelle brought her left hand up and bit down on her knuckles as he started to thrust back and forth.  “Open wider for me, sweet.  You’re still too tight to take me.”

He briefly used the edge of his teeth on her clitoris before pulling it into his mouth and rolling his tongue around it firmly. Chantelle’s mouth opened in a wide ‘o’ as he continued relentlessly.  The pleasure was so intense it was painful and yet nothing had ever felt so…so…  She shuddered unexpectedly into a toe-curling release.

“Yes, come for me, sweetheart.” Dominic’s voice was a mixture of approval and arrogance.  She felt him fumble in his jeans pocket and then he sat up.  She heard tearing and soft sound of him rolling the rubber in place.  “That’s my girl.”

She had thrown her head back when her orgasm had slammed into her and had kept it there, too exhausted to move.  Dominic cupped her face and gently moved her head back, so that their gazes met as he positioned himself between her legs.