The Billionaire's Command (The Silver Cross Club) (27 page)

“Oh, are you going to put that on for me? Probably for the best,” I said. “I’ve never done it, you know.”

She rolled her eyes, but she was smiling. “Didn’t you ever practice with a banana?” she asked. “They made us do that in sex ed in fifth grade. We were all so embarrassed that we just giggled the entire time.”

“I don’t want to think about you in fifth grade,” I said. “Unless you were already fully developed and seducing the gym teacher, in which case, I’m always game for a little role-play.”

She rolled her eyes again, and then, steadying my cock with one hand curled around the base, rolled the condom onto me.

The touch of her hand nearly undid me, and I was wholly lost when she rose onto her knees and positioned me at her entrance, and then sank down, inch by agonizing inch, taking me inside.

“My God,” I said, and she laughed at me. She was always laughing at me.

I never wanted her to stop.

She rose and fell above me, riding me expertly, and I watched her, my hands gripping her generous hips, as she moved and gasped and made the most delightful noises I had ever heard. Her breasts swayed with each movement. Her belly curved outward below her navel. Her thighs enclosed my hips, holding me fast. She was everything a woman should be. It was like watching porn, only better, because it was Sasha.

“You love this, don’t you?” I asked. “Riding my dick. If I kept you in my bed all the time, if I never let you go outside—”

“That would be creepy,” she said.

“I suppose we would have to eat at some point,” I said. “But otherwise...
Christ
, you feel good.”

She grinned, and then arched backwards, face turned up toward the ceiling, and started moving faster. Her hair brushed against the tops of my legs. Time elongated strangely: a moment became an hour of watching her mouth open around a moan, and then things sped up again, and she was moving too quickly, escaping my grasp. I hadn’t done drugs in years, not since that crazy summer in Greece when I was in college, but it was that same feeling: the lifting, the ecstasy, the sensation of somehow being outside myself.

If I could bottle Sasha and sell her on the black market, I’d be a far wealthier man than I already was.

I couldn’t have said how long it lasted. My cock was hard and throbbing and ready to explode, but I held on, determined that I wasn’t going to give in before she did.

“Alex,” she said, clear and sweet, looking down at me.

It was so good to hear her call me that, and the pleading note in her voice was even better. I loved to hear her beg.

But she had asked, albeit not in so many words, and I wouldn’t deny her what she wanted. I moved one of my hands from her hips and slid it between our bodies, between her thighs, down to where we were joined together.

She let out a long, contented groan and leaned backward slightly to give me better access, bracing herself with her palms on my legs, just above my knees. I took full advantage of the new position, moving my thumb in slow circles against her clit, and then faster, as she pressed her hips into my touch, hungry for it.

“You’re ready to come for me now,” I said. “Aren’t you?”

She shook her head, but her body told me the truth. Her hips moved in a frantic rhythm, and she was squeezing around me so hard that I knew she was close. I ground my thumb against her, giving her plenty of friction and pressure, stroking her as quickly as I could. Her thighs quivered. She bit her lower lip, her eyebrows drawing down into a look of intense concentration. Almost—

And then she was there, shaking on top of me, frozen in place as she came. The tremors running through her body fluttered almost painfully around my cock, ecstatic torture, and I fought to hold back my own orgasm.

I slid my hands up her back, soothing her, easing her back to earth.

She opened her eyes again, after a few moments, and gave me a wicked smile.

Then she started moving again.

This time I had no reason to hold off, and couldn’t have even if I tried. My fingers dug into her hips as I slammed against her with every thrust. She was soft, wet, and melting around me, and even with the condom it was the best sex of my life.

Each time I was with her was better than the last. Eventually it would probably kill me.

With a groan, I let go.

Afterward, when we had both cleaned up and climbed back into bed, with her head pillowed on my chest and my arm around her shoulders, she said, “That was really nice.”

“Oh?” I asked, feeling pleased with myself.
Nice
was good.
Mind-blowing
would be have been better, and
holy shit I thought I saw God
would have been the best of all, but I would settle for what I could get.

“Yeah,” she said. “I mean, I like the kinky stuff, don’t get me wrong. But sometimes it’s nice to just, you know. Have sex.”

“Sweetheart, billionaires don’t have sex,” I said. “We
make love
.”

She laughed and slapped me lightly on the stomach, and then walked her fingers down to toy with the thatch of hair below my navel. “You’re funny,” she said. “And you’re a lot nicer than I thought you were.”

“I’m not nice,” I said. “Where did you get that idea?”

“Yeah, I know. You’re really tough. You’re all man. You make your underlings cry.” She pushed herself up on one elbow, gazing down at me. “I liked the roses.” She bent to kiss me. “And the peonies.” Another kiss. “And the tulips.”

“I’ll buy you all the flowers you want,” I said, feeling drunk on her presence. “Gladioli. Lilacs. Poppies.”

“How about you just take me to a movie?” she asked.

I raised my eyebrows. “You want to go to the movies.”

She nodded.

“Right now?”

She nodded again.

“Okay,” I said. “Sure. Why the hell not?”

* * *

In the sober light of Monday morning, I started having second thoughts.

I went to work as usual, and even got a decent start on reviewing the latest quarterly earnings projections, but by mid-morning I found myself searching online for the perfect flowers to send to Sasha: elegant yet understated, unusual without being ostentatious. I finally settled on hydrangeas, and arranged to have them delivered to her apartment that afternoon.

I got off the phone with the florist, feeling pleased with myself, and it struck me, then, like a bolt from the blue. I had known this girl for all of two weeks—two weeks and a few days—and there I was, mooning over her like a lovesick adolescent, sending her flowers from work, and thinking about when I would get to see her next.

What the fuck was wrong with me?

I didn’t
moon
. I didn’t waste time trying to get women to like me. They liked me or they didn’t, and most of them were savvy enough to like me; but either way, I never devoted any attention to it.

Something about Sasha had made me lose my goddamn mind.

I thought about calling the florist to cancel my order, but that would have been truly pathetic. Better to just let this be the last delivery. I had apologized. I had groveled enough. I shouldn’t have cared if she forgave me. If she thought I was an asshole—well, so fucking what? I didn’t need to
impress
her. I didn’t owe her anything. I hadn’t made her any promises.

I was thick in the midst of those dark thoughts when my phone buzzed with a text message from one of my business school “buddies,” Trevor. He was a world-class cretin: a womanizer, probably racist, and not particularly bright—but he certainly knew how to party. I still saw him and the rest of the Columbia crew every few weeks, and it was always a good time, although I could have done without the resultant hangovers.

Trevor wanted to go out that night: drinks at some new hotspot downtown. Sure. Why the hell not. I replied,
What time?

In the end, I got caught up at work and arrived half an hour late. By that time, Trevor and the rest of them were three drinks in, already a little rowdy. “Alexander!” one of them bellowed as I walked toward their table in the back of the bar. In the dim lighting, I wasn’t entirely sure who it was, but it didn’t entirely matter. Men drinking, I had found, usually became an indistinguishable mass, full of lust and stupidity. I was proud to count myself among them.

I took a seat in the one empty chair at the table. “Sorry I’m late,” I said. “Work.”

Trevor, beside me, slapped my back. “Work blows!” he said. “Have a drink!”

“Trevor, my friend,” I said, “that is a truly excellent idea.”

I downed three shots in quick succession, enough to establish the beginnings of a healthy buzz. Around me, conversation veered from the offensive to the absurd. Trevor claimed he had fucked a midget; one of the other guys pointed out that
midget
was considered offensive; Trevor told him to quit being a politically correct pussy. I rolled my eyes and signaled the waitress for another drink. Ten minutes around Trevor never failed to remind me why ten minutes was more than enough.

The waitress brought me my drink, a middling whiskey, and I sipped at it and looked around the table. Colin, sitting across from me, was staring down at his beer, a look on his face like someone had just run over his dog. I leaned toward him and said, half-shouting to hear myself over the sound system, “Rough day?”

He glanced up at me, realized who had spoken to him, and forced a smile. “Sorry. Girl problems. I don’t mean to be a wet blanket.”

I liked Colin. He was by far my favorite of the Columbia morons, and the only one I thought I might have been actual friends with had we met in a different context. And so, even though I didn’t particularly care about his girl problems, I got up and went around to the other side of the table, told Jim to switch with me, sat down beside Colin and said, “I intend to get quite drunk tonight, so if you’d like to talk about your feelings, there’s a fairly good chance I won’t remember any of this tomorrow.”

He smiled again, and this time it was closer to being an actual smile instead of a pitiful grimace. “The state of American masculinity: emotions are only acceptable under the pretense of alcoholism.”

“You’ve got it, buddy,” I said. “Spill. You can buy me a beer to make up for it.”

He shook his head, his hands curled around his pint glass. “You know how it is. Everything’s great until it isn’t. Elizabeth, you know—you’ve met her.” I nodded. “Well, it’s not great. It’s over.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” I said, and I genuinely was. Colin had been dating Elizabeth for several years, and the last I had heard, he was thinking about proposing to her. They had seemed well-matched. Happy.

“Yeah, well, you know,” he said. “Now it’s back on the dating carousel. Meet someone, fuck her, forget to call her. Rinse, repeat. It blows. You think you’ve met the right one, and it’s good and it’s the real thing, and then it turns out you were wrong.” He shook his head. “It fucking blows. I should have—I don’t know what I should have done differently. Appreciated her more. Realized what an incredible fucking thing I had going and held onto her with all my might.”

I groaned and rubbed my face with both hands. The universe, at times, lacked subtlety.

Okay, I said silently, to whatever higher power was listening. I get it. You win.

“What you need, my friend, is a wild night,” I told Colin, setting one hand on his shoulder. “Drink your troubles away. And lucky you, you’re here with Trevor, who—”

“Whose mission in life is to make sure everyone is as drunk as possible at all times,” Colin said. “You’re right.”

“And the women aren’t bad, either,” I said, gazing around the bar. “Our waitress is quite stunning, actually.” Watching her walk toward us, I realized that she
was
stunning: tall, slender, with wavy red hair spilling down her back. And somehow, despite the fact that she had brought me four drinks and smiled at me winningly each time, I hadn’t really
seen
her until that moment.

Sasha had ruined me for other women.

I didn’t stay out late that night. I didn’t drink to the point of insensibility, as I had originally planned. I chatted up a willowy blond sitting at the bar until she agreed to keep Colin company, and I left him leaning into her with a dazed look on his face, like he couldn’t believe his good luck.

And then I went home, alone and far too sober.

There was no helping it: I would have to accept my fate.

Sasha had me hooked. There was no helping it. Whatever weird chemistry there was between us, whatever magnetic draw, I would be a coward if I didn’t see it through to its natural conclusion. Maybe that conclusion would be misery, like Colin had found.

Maybe it would be joy.

Having decided there was no point in resisting, I succumbed completely. Over the next week, I spent the vast majority of my free time with Sasha. When I wasn’t at work, I was with her. We went out for ice cream, watched movies at my apartment, and even had dinner once with Yolanda and Will at a hole-in-the-wall burrito place near NYU. And the rest of the time we spent in bed. After sex, when we were relaxed and sweaty and full of endorphins, we talked for hours, sharing secrets, laughing about nothing in particular.