Omega (Alpha #3) (6 page)

When we first made love, he’d taken possession of my whole being.
 

I could never go back, now. I could never be a normal girl, dating normal guys. Even if I wanted to—which I didn’t—the experience of Valentine Roth had ruined me for all other men.
 

And it had all started a few hundred vertical feet away from where I sat. The place where Roth was right now personally attending the sale of his building. His home, the core of his company. I wondered if he would walk the halls once more, visit the shower where we’d done…such delicious things to each other. The bedroom, where he’d finally allowed me, of all people, to see the real him, to know him, taste him, feel him.

I thought about the library up there, where Gina Karahalios had shot me in the knee and then kidnapped me. The hallway near the foyer, where I’d first encountered Roth…where I’d seen Eliza’s dead body. Eliza, Roth’s housekeeper, friend, and one of the few people other than Robert, Harris, and me that he truly trusted or cared for. Eliza, the namesake of our ship.
 

I inhaled sharply, then blinked. I ignored Layla’s curious glance at me and focused on breathing and pretending it was just another day. People passed by on the sidewalk just a few feet away, staring curiously, but the windows were mirrored, preventing anyone from seeing in.
 

Long, long minutes later—fifteen minutes, or maybe an hour, I’d lost track, lost in memory—Harris emerged from the rotating doors at the entrance, followed closely by Roth. God, Roth. All seventy-six-point-eight blond-haired, blue-eyed, gloriously gorgeous inches of him, clad in a trim black bespoke suit, crisp white button-down, no tie, top two buttons undone, striding confidently toward the limousine, unfastening the center button of his suit jacket as Harris opened the back door for him. I knew from his expression that my Valentine wasn’t in a good mood. He had on what I thought of as his “shit-kicking” face, brows drawn, lips pressed in a thin flat line, jaw muscles flexing, eyes glittering and shifting.
 

Harris took the driver’s seat, buckled his seat belt and checked his mirrors. “All set, sir?” He glanced in the rear-view mirror through the lowered partition between the front and rear seats.
 

Layla, sitting in a rear-facing jump seat, glanced from me to Roth and back, and then slid toward the passenger door. “Hang on, Harris, I’m coming up front.”
 

She exited and took the front seat beside Harris, who shot another glance back at Roth. A nod from Roth, and Harris pulled the long, powerful vehicle out into the stream of traffic, and then closed the partition.
 

I waited a few minutes more in silence as Roth stared out the window, brooding. Finally I reached out and pried his hand open, threading my fingers through his. “Babe? You okay?”

He shook his head. “No. I hate selling that building. I built it from the ground up. I formed the construction company myself, handpicked the foreman and architect, and chose all the subcontractors myself. Every tile, every slab of marble and every board foot of imported wood, every door handle and cabinet pull and roll of carpeting…I chose it all myself. My handprints are in the foundation. I poured the first load of concrete. It was the first place since I left England as an eighteen year-old boy that really felt like home, you know? It just…sucks.”

“You didn’t have to sell it.”
 

He glanced at me, finally. “Yes, I did. Number one, we need the cash. Number two, could either of us have walked into that library ever again? I couldn’t. I just…couldn’t. I went through the bedrooms, the kitchen, and all the other rooms. But the library…I just couldn’t go in. Couldn’t stand to see the place where she…where Gina….” He shook his head, once, sharply, and then rested his chin in his other hand. “I couldn’t. And, besides, for better or worse, I’m done with New York.”

“So now what?”
 

“Now…Robert condenses the businesses that remain into one umbrella company.” Another glance at me, this time with a small smile. “We’re calling the new structure St. Claire, Incorporated. You’re on the board, and you have your own majority share.”
 

“What?” I stared at him; he never ceased to amaze me.

“You and I are the controlling shareholders, each of us owning a third of the shares, with the remaining third split between a few others.”

“So…what does being a majority shareholder entail?” I asked.

He shrugged. “As much or as little as you want. You can become involved in the day-to-day operations of the company, if you want; I can teach you anything you need to know that you don’t know already. Or, you can just sit back and do nothing and collect the earnings, which will go directly into your personal bank accounts.”

Ah, yes, my private bank accounts. Roth had set them up for me after Harris and I had rescued him from Gina. They were my insurance, in case anything happened to Roth, or if—god forbid—I either left or became separated from Roth. The accounts were mine, and only mine. He had no access to them. In my purse there were debit cards, checkbooks, and a slip of paper with series of codes written on it, allowing me access to…six accounts? Seven? I wasn’t sure. There were a whole bunch of Swiss and offshore accounts, each in my name.
 

They contained, in total, something in the neighborhood of eight hundred million dollars.

Every once in a while, I would remember I had that money, and I would try to imagine what it meant. Eight hundred million dollars. It was a gobsmacking amount of money. Enough that I could live in utterly ridiculous luxury for the rest of my life and never have to work another day, never have to pay taxes—something that was handled without my needing to do a thing. I wasn’t sure how he’d worked that magic, and didn’t honestly care; he wasn’t a criminal anymore, so it was all legal. Of that I was positive.

“I tend to forget about those bank accounts, honestly,” I said.

Roth laughed. “How do you forget about nearly a billion dollars, Kyrie?”

I strived to look innocent. “Out of sight, out of mind? I don’t use the money since you take care of everything for me.” I shrugged as if it didn’t matter, which to me it really didn’t. I had total confidence in Roth’s ability to provide for us financially. “So…why did you add me to the business, and why name it after me?”

He grinned, a cute, sexy tilt of his lips. “Because you’re half of me, sweetheart. And everything I have is yours. All of it is meaningless, without you.” He turned toward me, finally. “I’ve never exactly been
poor
, but I can tell you without hesitation that I would live my life in utter poverty, as long as I could do it with you.”

I shook my head. “Roth, baby. You’re a spoiled brat. You have no idea what poverty is like. But…I believe you.”

He laughed. “I only said I’d do it, not that I’d like it.”
 

“You would hate it.”
 

He nodded seriously. “I’m sure I would. I have a taste for the best things in life. But I assure you, my love, if we were to somehow lose everything, every penny, every company and subsidiary and property and stock share, we wouldn’t remain poor for long. I would work day and night until you were provided for as you deserve.”
 

“I know it, Valentine. I have absolute faith in you.”
 

He just smiled and squeezed my hand. After another few minutes of silence, the vehicle stopping and starting and weaving through traffic, I recognized that our path was leading to the airport. “So, where next?”
 

“A private airfield a few hours from the city.”

I furrowed my brow. “Private airfield? Like your own airport?”

He shrugged. “Sort of. It’s nothing but a few acres in the middle of nowhere with a hangar and a landing strip. But it’s owned by a dummy corporation and was purchased through a complicated series of transactions that would be…very difficult to trace back to me. It’s a secure facility, surrounded by razor wire and protected by heavily armed guards from Harris’s security company.”

“Wow.” Roth never ceased to amaze me. “When did you do all this?”

“Oh, I’ve had the airfield for years. I first purchased it back when I was still running guns, but I essentially sold it to myself via a long and complicated process to erase any connection to me personally. And then I just let it sit, kept it maintained, but that was it. Then, a few months ago I had it overhauled, had the landing strip repaved, upgraded the fence, and had Harris set a guard. I had a feeling we might need a place to fly in and out of that was totally off the radar.”

“And where are we going from the airfield?”
 

“It’s a surprise.”
 

“A wedding surprise?”

He grinned. “Maybe.”

“But Layla and I haven’t done any real planning.”

“Once we’re at our destination, you two can go crazy. As long as you follow Harris’s security rules, anything goes.”

“What are the rules?”

“He’ll tell you when we get there.”
 

“When will that be?”

Roth lifted an eyebrow at me. “Soon.” He turned toward me and lifted the armrest up out of the way. “You aren’t eager at all, are you?”

I slid away from him, putting my back to the door. “No,” I gulped. “Not at all.”
 

He was all over me, a hand cupping my hip and tugging me down, toward him, pulling me horizontal. The movement made my knee-length skirt hike up to mid-thigh, and then Roth’s hands were helping it upward, pushing it up around my hips, baring me to him.

“Why, Kyrie…” he whispered, pressing his lips to my ear. “You aren’t wearing any underwear.”
 

“You know what being in a limousine does to me.”
 

“We have company up front.” His fingers trailed up my leg, tracing from calf to knee to thigh. “You’ll have to be silent.”

“I can do that.”
 

Roth just huffed a laugh in my ear. “No, you can’t. You are many, many things, my love, but quiet during orgasm isn’t one of them.”

“I can’t help it if you have a knack for making me scream,” I said, and then lost the capacity to formulate sentences, because Roth’s fingers were inside me, scissoring, spearing, withdrawing, smearing my juices over my clit and sliding back in.

I moaned, and Roth covered my mouth with his, not kissing but rather eating my groan, swallowing my sigh, smothering my whimper. I slid further beneath Roth, arched my back, ground my core against his fingers. Eager, hungry, ready. I rode his fingers, writhed against him, sucked his tongue into my mouth and tasted him, bit his lip. I fisted my fingers in his hair and let my knee fall aside, opening myself for him, hooking my other heel on the back of the seat.
 

“Are you close, Kyrie?” Roth whispered against my lips.

“Yes…fuck yes.”
 

“Squeeze my fingers, darling. Don’t make a sound.” He had his index and middle fingers deep inside me, and now pressed his thumb against my clit. I clenched my teeth on the shoulder of his suit coat, groaning, writhing, stifling a scream. “You’re there, aren’t you? You want to come, don’t you?”

“I need it, Roth,” I said past gritted teeth.

“Not yet.” He slowed his plunging fingers, curled them inside me to knead his fingertips against that perfect spot, the ridge high on the upper wall, circling my throbbing clit with his thumb.

I was wet, dripping wet, each motion of his hand making a thick squelching sound. He was alternating now, circling with his thumb and pressing with his fingers, and then switching so his fingertips swiped and scraped and pressed inside me while his thumb was stilled against my clit. No rhythm, no predictability. Just enough to make me need it more, driving me crazy.

I knew what he wanted.

I clamped down with my vaginal muscles, and he started fucking me with his fingers, giving me rhythm now. In and curl, thumb pressing in hard and fast circles. Harder. Faster.

I bit his earlobe and moaned as softly as I could, which…wasn’t very quiet.
 

“Shush, Kyrie, love. Keep quiet for me.”

“Can’t.”

“You can. Or I’ll stop.” He made good on his threat when I moaned again, his hand going still.
 

I whimpered in frustration, writhing against him, needing to come, needing to fall over the edge. “Roth,
please
.”
 

“Yeah? Not above begging, are you, sweetheart?”

“Hell no. I need it, Roth. Let me come. Please let me come.”
 

“Not yet. I don’t think you’re desperate enough.” He went to work again, starting all over, kneading, circling, and finger-fucking arrhythmically, slowly, maddeningly, until I was grinding and biting his sleeve and trying desperately not to scream from the raging need inside me, the whirling fireball of need, the hurricane of sexual desperation.
 

“
Please
, Valentine, please. God, I can’t take anymore.” I whispered this in his ear in my quietest voice, barely audible.
 

He thrust a third finger inside me, hooking them to rub against that spot, fucking in and out faster and faster, the only sound now my ragged breathing and the wet sucking of his fingers.
 

I felt the edge approaching like an on-rushing cliff, like a detonation building, building. Every muscle tensed, my spine arched off the quilted leather, my heels were pressed against the opposite door to keep me aloft, and my teeth clenched against the scream.
 

I squeezed his fingers as they fucked in and out, in and out, and then I was beyond all control, focusing only on not screaming. He was in control now, his three fingers and one thumb ruling my universe.
 

He pressed his lips to my ear, and nibbled my earlobe. “Come for me, Kyrie. Come
now
.”
 

I had to clench my teeth so hard my molars ached as the orgasm blasted through me with nuclear force. I felt myself gush, squirting all over his hand and wrist, and he kept finger-fucking me with relentless speed, pushing my climax to the absolute zenith, pushing it until I was frantic and writhing helplessly, coming and coming and coming.