Chapter 16 #2
Something squirmy happens in my belly–a mixture of excitement and tension. I deny it all. “You don’t know anything about me.”
He tilts his head, still cool as a summer popsicle.
“I know a bit. For the rest, I have some guesses. You want to hear them?” I’m still his captive, my arm twisted behind my back, my front pulled against his body.
I’d fight for my freedom, but he’s right—I love feeling his strength and power. And I want to know what happens next.
I lift my free hand and make a beckoning motion— the kind you see in martial arts movies. Show me what you’ve got, Suit.
“Let’s hear it.”
“You’re attracted to me, but you also actively dislike me. Which is why you don’t want to give me anything, including your smoking hot body. You think you can’t trust me. Understandable. For one thing, I screwed over your best friend–an act I partially regret.”
I open my mouth to demand why only partially, but he’s on a roll.
“For another, you have a hang-up with Wall Street guys in general. Or maybe just the broad swatch of the wealthy. You assume I’m conservative, politically, because I love money, and you’re so far left, you’re coming around the bend to the right.
Regardless, I’m about as far from your type as they come.
” He tilts his head to the side. His gray gaze bores into me. “Maybe that’s part of the attraction.”
Now I interrupt because I can’t let my anger go unregistered. “Why do you only partially regret screwing over Madi?” I demand.
“Protecting Brick from any and all threats to his company is my job. Especially if he’s lost perspective because he’s thinking with his dick—or his heart as the case turned out to be.”
It’s weird to hear Billy Billions speak of anyone’s heart. I wouldn’t think he even knew the organ exists.
“So I don’t regret my impulse to expose any threats. But I do regret that I was mistaken about the direction of the threat, and I hurt them both.”
Hmm. That implies he cares about Madi’s feelings now. That would be a change. Madi still doesn’t trust him, but I believe him.
“But back to you.” He starts to massage the heel of my hand–the one he has bent behind my back. His thumb kneads the aching muscles in my palm. Wow. Who knew my fingers were so achy from painting yesterday?
“Go on.” I’m not sure if I’m encouraging his observations or his touch.
“I think you suspect—and you’d be right—” he arches a sexy brow– “that I can deliver on every fantasy you’ve ever had about giving up control. You want to know what it’s like to be tied up by me.”
He abandons massaging my hand and slides his large palm lightly over my butt cheek.
The heat of his skin registers through my shorts and fishnets.
“Blindfolded in my bed.” He squeezes my ass.
“Cuffed to my ceiling.” His touch lightens again, and I sense one finger trace the seam of my ass cheeks.
Somehow, he hooks one finger to burrow between them, exactly over my anus.
The sensitive nerve endings there respond to the stimulation. Tension coils in my core.
“You want me to pull you across my lap and spank this gorgeous ass until it’s hot to the touch.”
Oh dear lord. I’m going to come again.
He must sense it because I note the smugness creeping into his expression. He goes on, mercilessly. “You want to know what it’s like to be held down while I fuck you hard.”
I find myself breathless, staring into his pale gray eyes. So far, he’s dead on.
He brings his other hand to the front of my hips, between our bodies. The moment he cups me from the front, stimulating both my anus and clit at the same time, I go off.
My hips buck, and I gasp. I’d lose my balance except I’m sandwiched between his strong arms. It’s hardly anything–he’s not moving his fingers. Not rubbing or circling. He’s just applying pressure to both places and making me come like I’ve never been touched before.
He leans his head forward and bites my neck, a little too hard.
I jerk at the sensation.
The bulge of his cock tents his trousers and presses against my belly. I’m about to reach for it and give him pleasure in return, but the smug bastard gloats, “A little over sixty seconds, but still, here we are again.”
I’d push away, but I don’t want it to stop.
Now he starts to slowly slide the fingers cupping my pussy up and down, stroking over my clothes. An aftershock rolls through me like a wave of pleasure washing up on the beach.
“I think you want to have control taken from you so you don’t have to be in charge for a change. You’re a highly capable, intelligent, and creative powerhouse who has been moving mountains all by herself, probably from a young age. You want someone else to take the lead for a change.”
That makes my eyes sting. Maybe he does really see me. Until this moment, I believed he only saw what I wanted him to see. The bad-ass best friend of the girl he screwed over. The one who was going to make him pay for his sins.
Now I’m suddenly exposed. Wondering how and when he peeked past my fortress of defenses to see a real person, not a caricature.
The finger between my ass cheeks presses in with a slow pulse. I grind against his hand in front.
“You want to pretend you’re at my mercy while knowing you’re safe.” He lifts his head and catches my gaze. I suspect my eyes are glassy because it’s hard to focus on his handsome face. “Aubrey, you can trust if you say no at any point, I’ll respect it.”
Now he’s not observing me, he’s offering something.
“I propose a mutually beneficial arrangement. You retain your right to all your scorn and disdain for me while still submitting to pleasure at my hands.” He gives another delicious rub of his fingers between my legs and another ripple of pleasure releases.
“I guarantee your sexual satisfaction, your physical and emotional safety, and an absence of any commitment or a relationship.”
Billy
Something in Aubrey’s scent turns sour. I catch a flash of anger in her brown eyes.
I immediately release her, and she stumbles back.
As I watch her expression shutter, my wolf surges to the fore. I almost had her. He’s furious I let the opportunity slip by.
“I sense I missed something that is important to you,” I say.
The more we get out in the open, the better I can negotiate. I need to know what her pain points are. What she wants from me. What she won’t stand for.
What did I leave out? She can’t possibly want a relationship. She would never want to be associated with a man like me. Just like I wouldn’t want to be associated with a female like her. A human. A hippie artist who leaves a wake of chaos and trouble behind her.
I shrug my shoulders in the most casual way I can manage. “This is a negotiation. Feel free to submit your counteroffer.”
The mutt she brought to annoy me chooses this moment to bark. He’s some kind of Shih-poo mutt–still a puppy. Probably the runt of the litter. We have that in common.
“Uh-uh.” I make the reprimand sharp, and he instantly responds, lowering his head and rolling to his back to show his belly. At least he’s smart.
Mastering a dog is easy for a shifter. The pup recognizes my alpha dominance, and we share low-level telepathy as fellow pack animals.
Aubrey’s face is flushed, giving her brown skin a glorious glow. She lifts her chin at me. “I’m the one in charge. You submit.”
Ha. She’s fucking adorable. A hundred times cuter than the little rat of a puppy at our feet gazing up at me with his big brown eyes. Aubrey wants on top. I love it.
I’m reminded of last Christmas when Brick’s four-year-old niece, April, put us all in her “jail” and then served us tea with her new china tea set. She was intoxicated by the power gifted to her by six hulking adult male shifters willing to pretend to be at her will for a half an hour.
So, sure. Like with Ruby’s pup that afternoon, I’ll play along.
If Aubrey wants to call the shots in bed, I’ll let her ride on top.
Or sit on my face. Or whatever her wild and weird imagination can conjure.
I’m happy to give her the illusion of control, so long as my wolf gets to taste her.
Nevermind that I could physically overpower her with the twitch of a finger.
Her pillowy lips press together. The silver nose ring winks at me. I can tell she expects me to reject her counter-offer. In fact, she thinks there’s no way in hell I would ever submit to her in bed.
But she underestimates my masculine security.
She couldn’t possibly know I was raised by an alpha who was the definition of toxic masculinity.
His paranoia that my small size as a youth would mean I wouldn’t grow to alpha size and take his place made him relentless in indoctrinating me in all things he considered masculine.
By the time I was ten, I could fight and win any match against sixteen and seventeen-year-olds in my pack.
I fought with claws and teeth to win my battles.
I was vicious. Unrelenting. And always on the offense.
By the time I was a teen and still hadn’t hit the growth curve, I could outwit, outmaneuver, or outrace any adult in the pack.
I didn’t complete my growth spurt until well into college, when my father had already written me off, and I’d won the position as Brick’s second in command. Brick found in me a ferociously loyal pack brother. And beyond that, with him or any of my new pack members, I had nothing to prove.
I don’t need glory. I don’t have to save face. I’ll play the bad guy or take the fall for any of my brothers.
I open my hands and spread them. “I’m yours to command.”
Aubrey
I stare at Billy, shocked.
I would not have seen this coming from any direction. He just…doesn’t strike me as the kind of guy who would ever abase himself. Especially not to someone like me.
I mean, Madi said he’s a classist fuck.
Why would he ever agree to submit to me?
The logic eludes me, but it doesn’t matter.