His Absolute Authority: A Scandalous Billionaire Love Story (Jessika, #3) (4 page)

The towel wasn't the nicest or fluffiest, and it was a little wet since we dried me off first, but it worked well enough.  I cupped Asher's balls in the towel and rubbed gently side to side.  As my reward, I saw his cock twitch and struggle, confused between rising up to an occasion or laying low so Asher could dress himself.

I wanted it up, but we really didn't have time for that again.  As a consolation, I offered it a sweet kiss instead.  With a little bit of tongue.  And perhaps I opened my mouth a slight bit.  Honestly, while I massaged his balls in my hand, using the towel as some ruse of drying them off, I opened my mouth and took the head of his cock between my lips, then swirled my tongue around it.  Asher shuddered and his cock jolted to immediate attention after that.  I leaned forward and took as much of him as I could into my mouth, then I pulled backwards and left him be.

"You're evil," he said with a sly grin.

I laughed as I scampered away to get dressed, leaving him to deal with his erection and his clothes.

That was before.  Maybe five or ten minutes later, Asher received the text from Jeremy.

"You grabbed my vibrator, didn't you?" I asked.

"No?  Should I have?" he asked, grinning at me.  "I thought we could just leave it in the bathroom, sitting on the edge of the tub.  It makes a good decorative piece.  Great conversation starter."

"Asher!  No!"  I laughed and ran over to him, hitting his shoulder before fleeing into the bathroom to grab my toy.  It wasn't at all where he said he left it, though.  I checked everywhere as fast as I could, but... no.

When I exited the bathroom, Asher stood in my bedroom door, waving the sex toy side to side as if he were wagging his finger at me.

"Give me that," I said.  "You can't be trusted with these sorts of things, can you?  Ugh."

He snickered, but let me steal the vibrator away from him.  As soon as I took it, someone knocked on the door.

My heart skipped a beat and I stood there in a panic.  I didn't mean to, and a part of me realized that it was just Jeremy and Elise, but this had happened earlier that evening, too.  When someone had knocked and I went to open the door, there was no one there.  It happened hours ago, and I'd all but forgotten it, until...

Asher squeezed me in his arms and hugged me, kissing my forehead softly.  "It's fine," he said.  "Everything's fine.  I'll get the door, alright?"

I nodded and leaned into his embrace.  "Thank you for being here," I said.

He kissed me again.  "I love you."

After that, he went to answer the front door.  He pulled the door to my bedroom mostly closed on his way out, giving me some privacy but not shutting me out completely.  I smiled and watched him go.

And... I had a vibrator in my hand.  Briefly, I wondered if I had any more batteries for it left over somewhere?  I thought I might.  Not for immediate use, of course, but... maybe Asher and I could use it later?  The dead batteries sort of put a stop to our fun, which was disappointing.  I enjoyed Asher's quick thinking, but I would have liked to enjoy what we were doing without a need for that, too.

Mostly, I really liked the idea of him pleasuring me, but also getting so worked up on his own, that eventually he gave in to his baser needs and ravaged me without remorse.  That would be fun.

It was also not the appropriate time for thinking about these things!  I hurried to my closet and snatched my shoebox of sex toys, then put the vibrator back inside.  I didn't have a lot of sex toys, but I thought maybe Asher and I should look into getting some more.  Hm...

I heard Asher talking to someone in the front entryway, and someone responding in turn, but it was a lower-pitched voice.  Definitely not Elise.  Jeremy?  It didn't sound much like him, either.  Opening the door to the bedroom, I stepped into the halls and peeked around.

Asher stood there, talking with Lucent.  I stared for a second, surprised.  How did Lucent know where we were?  Then I saw Elise, too.  She was standing by herself off to the side in the kitchen area, with a grocery bag filled with ice cream on the peninsula-style counter in front of her.  Asher and Lucent were obviously having a conversation, but it didn't look like Elise was listening or wanted any part of it.  She kept staring at the ice cream, looking lost.  Smeared mascara covered the sides of her eyes, falling towards her cheeks.

She'd obviously been crying.  She sounded scared and frantic on the phone earlier, too.  I worried about her then, but seeing her like this now made me worry even more.  I zipped through my apartment, sneaking behind Asher and Lucent, and coming up beside Elise.

I teased my eyebrows up, almost like a sly sort of backwards wink, and smiled.  "There's spoons in that drawer right in front of you," I whispered, sneaky.

Elise smiled back at me, then glanced down.  Her fingers found the edge of the drawer with the spoons, and she pulled it open slowly.  She still looked sad—or at least like she'd been sad only a short time ago—but she hid a silly grin behind half-pursed lips while reaching for two spoons.  She handed me one, keeping the other for herself.

Reaching into the grocery bag, I pulled out a half gallon of peppermint ice cream.  Elise took the chocolate one.  I waved her towards me and away from the men, then led her down the small hall, past the bathroom, and to my bedroom.  Once we were both inside, I shut the door behind us all the way, then hopped onto my bed.  Elise followed me, but she wasn't smiling or trying to hide a smile anymore.  We sat side by side, quietly.

I didn't know if she wanted to talk or if she just wanted to sit for a little while, so I opened my ice cream container and dipped my spoon in, testing it.  It was sweet, with a hint of vanilla, then a refreshing snap of peppermint.  Elise tried her chocolate ice cream, too, but she didn't look like she was enjoying it much.

"Here," I said.  I didn't want to bother her if she wanted to be left alone for a little while, but... "The ice cream is melted a bit.  I bet it's good for dipping cookies in."  I reached behind me and to the side towards one of my bedside tables.  Asher and I had left the tray of chocolate chip cookies there.  I plucked one up, then offered it to Elise.  "Try it?"

She looked at me and shrugged slightly.  Taking the cookie, she dipped it into the ice cream, then tried a bite.  None of this seemed good or satisfying to her.  I just... I didn't want to meddle, but I wanted to be there for her if she needed someone?  I didn't know what to do.

"What's wrong?" I asked.  "What happened with you two?  I've never heard you like that before?  Did Lucent do something?"

Elise rolled her eyes and laughed, some harsh, dejected sound instead of one of amusement.  "I'm not sure Lucent is who I thought he was," she said.

"What do you mean?"

She stared at me for a second, eyes wavering side to side, unsure.  "Do you know about the, um... the passageways?" she asked.  "Tunnels, I guess?  At your house?"

Oh.  I supposed that would give her a reason to be uncertain.  I didn't know how I should answer, because I'd promised Asher not to talk about that to anyone, but... well, Elise apparently already knew, so...?

Just in case, I said, "The mansion?"

She nodded.  "Yes, there.  Lucent said they go to a saferoom, I guess?"

"Yes."  Lucent and Asher were the only ones besides me who were supposed to know about the passageways and the saferoom.  It wasn't that I wanted to keep it a secret from Elise, but it was just one of those things that needed to be kept a secret.

I'd found out about them on accident a long time ago.  Before Asher and I got together, when I was staying at his guest house in preparation for being a surrogate and egg donor for his now ex-wife, he'd surprised me one night by sneaking into the basement library of the guest house through a secret entryway.  He didn't act like it was any big deal at the time, and um... well, it was strange, but intriguing to me?  It became useful later, too.  I doubted things would have turned out like they had if he'd never surprised me like that.

He told me afterwards that we needed to keep it private, though.  I kind of understood, and I found out more later on.  I... well, it was complicated.  I wasn't entirely sure how I felt about it.

"I didn't," Elise said, snapping me out of my thoughts.  "I wasn't supposed to know, either.  That's what Lucent said.  When the fire alarms started going off, he ended up showing me some secret passageway in one of the bathrooms, and we went down there.  He said there was a fire somewhere, but it shouldn't be there, so we went and... there was someone there, Jessika.  They were trying to steal something.  Lucent got there first and he was fighting with them.  Neither of us saw much, because he wore dark clothes and a hood sort of thing."

I smiled and nodded, trying to remain calm and intent on listening.  I wanted to be there for Elise, to be able to help her, but all of this was unsettling.  Who was in the mansion?  The fire was in the data storage room, and even I didn't have access there.  It wasn't anywhere anyone should really want to go, anyways.  It was just a small room with a bunch of computer stations set up as backups for the Landseer Enterprises computer system.  I had access via a cloud network on my computer, so I could send and store information there.  Everyone in the company had access to some part of it, even if different parts were partitioned away from the rest, some of which were hidden behind increasingly higher levels of security.

Why would someone be in that room?  What did they want to do?  Someone had broken into my office and used my computer, too.  At first I thought they'd just done it to be mean, but what if there was more?  I didn't have any information about how to break into the data storage room at the mansion on my computer, though.  Were the two incidents even connected?

One other thing struck me as disturbing, too.  Obviously Asher didn't keep our private pictures stored on the company computers or cloud network, so how did the nude photos and intimate tapes of Asher and I making love get leaked to the media?

There was just so much going on, and since it all happened together, it seemed like maybe it was linked in some way, but... how?

I needed to talk to Asher about this, but I couldn't right now.  I didn't want to alarm or upset Elise, either.  She was telling me about what happened, and I wanted to be there for her.  I was her friend, no matter what, and I knew she was mine, too.  She'd been through at least as much as me throughout all of this.  I wouldn't abandon her.

I would talk to Asher later.  Now, I needed—no, I wanted—to listen to Elise and to help her.

We talked and she explained, and I listened.  I smiled and she opened up a little more.  This was nice.  This was the Elise that I knew.  She was kind of quiet and shy sometimes, but I didn't think she was actually like that.  She was just sort of her own person, you know?  She liked to do things on her own.  It was kind of funny, because that's how Lucent was, too.  Except if you put them together, they were nearly inseparable.

I'd watched them once, completely confused and curious how they did it.  They sat side by side, almost touching, while he scanned through some documents on his laptop in his office, and she wrote stories on hers.  They didn't talk, they just sat there and worked, except there was more to it, too.  She leaned her head against his shoulder sometimes, and he would bring his hand up to touch her cheek.  She'd just randomly sneak in and kiss him on the cheek, and he'd smile and give her a kiss on the forehead in return.  Then they'd go back to work.

I loved Asher, but I wanted to talk with him and do things with him a lot of the time, too.  We could never work like Elise and Lucent did.  First off, I'd get distracted and get nothing done.  I thought Asher would, too.  Second, if he was in the room, I didn't think I could stay quiet that long.

Elise and Lucent just seemed like they really enjoyed each other's company and presence, quietly or otherwise.  I didn't want them to be angry with each other.  I thought they made such a great couple.  Honestly, I kind of wondered when they were going to get married, but I never told either of them that.  I didn't want to be pushy or anything...

And then... well...

"Lucent's done a lot of illegal things, I guess," Elise said.  "Maybe you know already, and I'm the only one who doesn't.  I wish someone had told me.  It seemed bad at first, but maybe not too bad?  Maybe it was fine.  Maybe I... I could deal with it.  And I tried, too."  She choked on her words for a moment.  "I thought we could work it out, except there was more.  And then he said we could go somewhere safe and hide, except there was more again.  I knew, Jessika.  I mean, of course I knew, because how could I expect him not to have dated before me?  I dated, too, but... maybe dating isn't the right word.  We went somewhere, to one of his ex's apartments, and when we got there, she... she just bent down on hands and knees and started worshiping him, almost.  She called him Master Storme."

I stared at her, incredulous.  I... well, I sort of knew about some of the illegal things.  The passageways and the saferoom under the Landseer mansion were some of them.  Not strictly approved by the city building council, but Asher, along with Lucent's help and expertise, had started construction anyways.  This happened before I met him, but apparently they used building the guest house as a front for the passageways and the saferoom.  If anyone found out, we might be forced to completely demolish the mansion because of unapproved and potentially unsafe architectural plans.

I trusted Asher and I trusted Lucent, but... it just didn't seem like something someone should do, you know?  I understood that Asher wanted a place where we could be absolutely safe in the event of an emergency, but still.  Was the risk worth it?  Were we ever going to be put in a disastrous situation like that, where we needed a saferoom that no one knew about?  They even brought in illegal workers from outside the country who didn't speak English to do the construction work, creating a fake construction company in order to hide it from the city council.

I wasn't going to tell anyone, but it just seemed a little excessive.  And now Lucent had dragged Elise into it, too.  Not only that, but he brought her to his ex-girlfriend's house?  That was more than a little rude.