The Billionaire's Ultimatum: His Absolute Need (A BDSM Erotic Romance Novel) (Book One) (15 page)

I was wet.  I
was wet but I was not intentionally aroused.  I did not want Solomon Royce to
do anything to me.  When Asher had looked at me with passion and anger after
I'd destroyed his book, and then picked me up and tossed me onto the alder wood
table in his private meeting room, I'd been shocked and somewhat scared, but
not like this.  I'd... I'd really wanted to know what Asher would do, and when
he did it I felt ecstatic.  Perhaps I shouldn't have, and perhaps I should have
been more upset, but at the time I wasn't.  And then, later, after getting to
know him a little more, I was even less upset.  I really liked Asher.  I liked
him a lot.

I didn't know
Solomon Royce, but I didn't like him at all.  If he felt I was aroused, out of
terrified excitement and nothing more, I knew what would happen.  If he felt
that, realized it, he would take me right then and there.  No matter what I
said afterwards, whether I said no or not, he would do with me what he wished. 
He would deny my pleas and say that I wanted this, say that he could feel how
aroused I was, my wet, sloppy cunt.  I couldn't say how I knew it, but I was
one-hundred percent certain of this fact.

And so, as my
only line of defense, I whimpered, "No.  Please, no.  Stop."

His fingers had
crept beneath my pantyhose and were a mere inch away from my clit.  "What
did you say?" he asked.  "Speak up.  I can't hear you."

"Stop
this," I said, louder now, but feeling quieter and meeker than before. 
"I don't want this.  No.  I'm not supposed to do this."

He removed his
hand from my crotch and pushed hard against my chest, lifting himself up and
off of me.  Then, as if he'd done nothing wrong, he stood up and walked away
from the couch.  Back turned to me, he went to his table with the stacks of
books and began browsing through them.

"Jessika,"
he said without looking at me, eyes cast downwards at one of the books.  He
opened it and began reading to himself.  "Go to office F-7 and tell Henry
I need to meet with him in an hour.  Then head to J-4 and pick up the Alfonse
memorandum.  Once you've brought those here, I want you to call Gelton's and
get me a steak and cheese bomb with a large coffee.  Two sugars, one cream,
plus a side of sour cream for the sub.  Make sure the mushrooms, peppers, and
onions are completely cooked before returning."

I stumbled up
and rolled off the couch, launching myself to my feet immediately.  I fixed my
dress and my jacket and ran out of the room as fast as I could.  F-7, J-4,
steak and cheese, coffee, I repeated in my head.  When I left Solomon's office,
I ran somewhere else so I could write everything down without forgetting it.

I didn't want to
go back there.  I didn't want to do anything for him, either.  But the
alternatives were worse, in my mind.  I wanted to tell Asher, to rush to him
and inform him of what his trusted director of public relations was really
like, but I knew I couldn't.  My problems, while important to me, were
something that Asher couldn't deal with at the moment.  He was busy dealing
with issues that could potentially cost him millions of dollars.  I felt so
horrible, so sick, but I didn't think my issues were anything compared to
possible financial ruin.

I needed to tell
him sometime, though.  Tonight.  Later.  After this, once I finished acting as
Solomon's temporary assistant and Asher finished doing what he needed to do for
the day.  Once Jeremy arrived to drive us home...

No, I reminded
myself, it wasn't my home.  Asher's home.  For dinner, with his wife.  For...

I didn't fit in
here.  I didn't want to be here.  I wanted to leave right now, to ask the head
receptionist to call Jeremy and have him pick me up and bring me back to my
quiet apartment where I could curl up on my couch and read a book and forget
any of this had ever happened.

I wanted to do
that, but was it fair to Asher?  I had to tell him about Solomon, except would
he believe me?  I thought about it, tried to figure it out.  My heels thudded
against the carpeted hallway and I made my way towards the elevator that would
bring me to the sixth floor and Henry at F-7.

At the end of
the day, I found myself in Solomon Royce's office, alone.  He hadn't tried
anything further after his attempt at forced seduction on his couch, for which
I was grateful.  Though, to be fair, I hadn't spent more than a minute in his
presence after that, either.  Always busy, always moving.  I did what he asked
and hurried out of his office as fast as I could.  Now, though, he'd left, and
I was waiting for Asher.

Solomon hadn't
said anything before he left, he just did it.  I saw him leaving his office as
I was walking down the hallway to get my next task from him.  He saw me, gave
me a curt nod, then walked away.  I had stared after him for awhile, watching
him enter the elevator, and when I was certain he'd left I went into his office
to wait.

Not on the
couch.  I didn't want to go anywhere near his couch.  Instead, I waited by his
desk.  I sat in the office chair facing the window.  Not a great view, but the
skyline looked nice from here.  The setting sun lay somewhere off to the side,
but the sky in front of me contained a myriad of oranges and yellows.  I stared,
thinking, wondering what I should do.

I decided I
couldn't tell Asher about what happened.  Maybe it was a fluke?  Some office
game?  Did they hire strippers for newly returned executives sometimes?  I
doubted it, but perhaps.  Probably not.  But, either way, if I told Asher, it
would cause issues.  Asher needed and trusted Solomon to do good work, and from
everything I knew the man had performed well over the years.  Also, maybe
Solomon had an arrangement with his regular assistant, Daphne?  Some sexual agreement? 
How should I know?  If he assumed Daphne primed me on that, and told me what to
expect, then that was understandable.

Actually, none
of it was understandable.  No matter what, Solomon Royce shouldn't have done
what he did.  It wasn't excusable and I hated myself a little bit for trying to
rationalize his behavior.  The point stood, though, that if I told Asher he
would probably do something about it.  What that was, I had no idea.  The
obvious solution would be to remove me from the equation, since I was likely of
little business use to someone like Asher Landseer.

I didn't like
that idea.  I wanted to be important, something more, but at the moment I
couldn't.  And yet, why would I want that?  For who, too?  It wasn't that I
wanted it, per se, but more that I didn't want Asher to have a good reason to
not want me around.  I had very scant few reasons for him to take notice of me
as it was, so giving him even less would ruin that.

Except, was that
the kind of person Asher was?  No, not really.  Asher was a businessman, a
billionaire, and the CEO of a company.  He was a husband, and a reader, and a
lover of silly old movies like
The Goonies
.  He liked
Alice's
Adventures in Wonderland
and
Dante's Inferno
and
The Time
Traveler's Wife
.  He liked pizza with chicken and feta cheese and tomatoes
and onions, and he was controlling sometimes, a bit demanding, but not without
reason.  Unknown reasons, hidden somewhere in the depths of his mind, but I
never doubted that he had very specific and important reasons for every single
thing he said or did.

Or, maybe not
everything, but most things.  Sometimes he talked regularly, as if he were an
average person.  Casual conversation.  We'd stayed up late last night talking
about nothing important, but it was fun and amazing.  I knew his favorite
color(blue) and that he didn't like raisins, especially in cookies.  He knew
that I liked to read and wanted to review books as a job, and that I realized I
probably couldn't make a living off that but that I loved it anyways.  I'd even
shown him my small website with some of my book reviews, too.  On his smart
phone, he browsed through it, humming and hawing as he looked at what I'd done.

He never made
fun of me for any of it, either.  He didn't say it was dumb or useless and he
seemed genuinely interested in what I did.  Maybe it was dumb and useless(in
fact, I was fairly certain of it), but it was my passion and so he accepted
it.  He accepted me in some ways that I'd never really felt accepted before.  I
felt like I could tell Asher stupid things that were important to me, and
probably no one else.  Things that sounded silly and trivial, except he
wouldn't laugh or mock me.  He would listen and nod and understand.

I stared out the
window at the skyline, thinking these things.  Out of the corner of my eye, I
noticed a bottle of perfume sitting on Solomon's desk.  Tucked away in a
corner, behind a short stack of books, looking quite out of place.  I reached
for it and picked it up and looked at the front.

Ambre et Vanille
parfum, it read.  Emblazoned on the front was a French woman's name, somewhat
like my own but probably entirely different.  I didn't know a lot of French and
the flowery, calligraphic writing made it hard to read.  Unstoppering the
bottle, I sniffed at the perfume.

Interesting, I
thought.  Very feminine.  Did Solomon have a lady friend he intended on giving
it to?  Or—and this was odd of me to think—had he intended on giving it to
me?  A way of apology?  For some reason I couldn't even begin to imagine that;
it didn't seem in his character, what little I knew of him.  I stoppered the
bottle and put it back where I'd found it.

The window,
staring, thinking, and...

"Jessika?" 
Asher poked his head into Solomon's office, knocking lightly on the door as he
did.  "Are you finished?"

I stood up and
faced him, smiling.  "Yes, I'm all done.  I was waiting for you."

Asher grinned
and beckoned for me to come.  I walked across Solomon's office and joined him
in the doorway.  He took my arm in his, very gentlemanly, and escorted me down
the hallway and to the elevator.

"Was
everything alright?" he asked.  There were other people in the building
still, but none leaving right now.  When the elevator dinged, the doors
opening, we had the entire six-by-five foot compartment to ourselves. 
"Solomon can be confusing at times," he added.  "I hope he
wasn't too difficult."

I gulped,
briefly reconsidering what I'd decided.  I should tell him; I wanted to tell
him.  And yet when it came to it, I said, "He was fine.  I managed to do
everything he asked."

Everything, I
thought, except for the first thing.  And I was very, very glad of that.

Jeremy drove us
home and Asher brought me back to his guest home.  Once inside, he said,
"So, if Beatrice agrees, then I think it would be best if you stayed here
during... everything.  Would that be alright with you?"

I glanced around
the guest house, pretending to think about it.  Alright?  It would be perfect! 
This place was wonderful, and then—as much as I tried not to think it—I'd be
closer to Asher.  If his wife left again, like he said she did often, he and I
could spend more time together.  Watch movies, order pizza, maybe even go to
fancy Japanese restaurants.  Not that I needed anything excessive, but I
couldn't imagine Asher taking me to a hotdog stand and ordering a chili dog.  I
would absolutely love it if he did—I'd love going anywhere with him,
really—but it didn't seem like the kind of thing a billionaire would do.  I'd
be perfectly happy staying in, both of us reading quietly next to each other. 
I could write up a book review and post it on my website and then show him
after.  And...

"Yes,"
I said, perhaps smiling too widely.  "Of course that would be fine.  I
actually really like it here."

"I'd hope
so," he said with a hint of a tease in his voice.  "You did refuse to
leave, so there must have been a reason."

Yes, I thought. 
You.  But I couldn't say that.  I couldn't tell him any of it.  He must know by
now, must have realized it, but because of his wife and his marriage we couldn't
talk about it.  No matter what I felt, those feelings couldn't exist.

"I've been
thinking," he said.  His voice trailed off.

I looked at him,
head tilted slightly to the side.  "Yes?"

"I don't
think it's a good idea to tell Beatrice about what happened," he said.

"Oh."

"Not that I
agree with what we did or accept it.  It can't happen again, please understand
that.  But I think it would complicate matters.  Needlessly.  Do you
understand?  I don't... Jessika, I really don't want you to think that I'm trying
to excuse what happened.  I just think it would be best if we both understood
what happened won't happen again, and press forward.  Are you alright with
that?"

"Well, I
certainly don't want to tell her, so I'm fine with it!" I said, teasing. 
He looked so serious, and I understood why, but I thought adding a little
lightheartedness to the conversation might help.

"Me
either!" he said, grinning.  He became solemn again and added, "But,
I would.  If I thought it would help, and if I absolutely needed to, then I
would tell her without a moment's hesitation.  I'm not trying to make excuses,
but I really think it won't be necessary, though.  We're both adults and we
should be able to understand that and act responsibly."

"Yes." 
I nodded.  "Of course."

Responsibly, I
thought, which did not include secretly giving Asher a blowjob while he slept. 
Granted, he shouldn't have gotten me off on his meeting room table in his
office, and I shouldn't have seduced him into having sex with me during our
photography session and he shouldn't have...

We probably
shouldn't have done a lot of things.  We probably shouldn't even be in the same
room together now, nor should we discuss not telling his wife about anything,
but we were and it seemed like he had come to some internal decision about all
of it, with personal and valid reasoning.  I could go along with it.