Chapter Seven
Ilse’s stomach tightened with an aching sensation as he straightened away from her. Why didn’t he just kiss her? The thought shocked and mortified her – it was almost like she was complaining!
Noticing the look of dismay that flitted over her face, the billionaire said abruptly, “Let’s walk.” But he didn’t really give her a choice as he took hold of her hand and he started to move.
As their steps automatically fell in sync with the billionaire deliberately matching her pace, everything just became worse, with the jostling crowd occasionally pushing them against each other, and Ilse unable to help but stiffen every time their sides touched.
When they turned around a corner, the billionaire placed his hand at the small of Ilse’s back, and oh, how that part of her body burned.
They walked and walked, and Ilse’s heart just went on aching.
He had not kissed her. Why?
She had asked him to kiss her, but he had not. Why?
Why?
Ilse stole a glance at the billionaire, and she bit her lip at the unfamiliar, rigid lines of his face. He was always wickedly smiling with her, and now he was...not.
She just didn’t understand him, but then no one else in the world seemed to.
In the past weeks, Ilse had been unable to resist reading up about him, and one thing she had learned was how the corporate world viewed Jaak de Konigh as a wildcard of sorts, a maverick belonging to a rare breed with how his wealth was completely derived from stocks he owned in numerous Fortune 500 companies.
He was a billionaire without his own enterprise, a king without an empire. Countless speculations had been put forth in an effort to explain his seemingly intentional choice, but Jaak had refused to validate any of them.
Ilse had thought about this a lot, and she had come to wonder uneasily if the billionaire viewed ownership as a form of shackles.
But if he did think that way...what then?
Did it mean he didn’t care about making her...his?
Ilse stole another look at the billionaire, and this time she couldn’t help scowling. How unnecessarily complicated life had become, and to think she hadn’t ever asked for this!
The billionaire suddenly stopped walking, and when she blinked up at him, he said mildly, “You were looking at me like you wanted to kill me again.”
Because she did, Ilse thought.
“Was it something I said?”
Ilse shrugged. “It doesn’t matter.”
Gazing at her curiously, the billionaire murmured, “I think it does.”
How terribly perceptive of him, Ilse thought darkly, and she knew this was yet another unexpected discovery of him.
Jaak de Konigh was close to perfection as any man could be.
He had every reason to be self-absorbed, but instead he saw too, too much, often saw beyond what most people were comfortable showing.
“Why didn’t you kiss me?” As soon as the words were out, she wished she could slit her throat for letting such words escape.
The billionaire didn’t answer right away. He hadn’t expected Ilse to be so direct, but then again, he should have. Ilse Muir was anything but predictable, and wasn’t that what had attracted him so in the first place?
When he still didn’t say anything, she said quietly, “You know I have commitments, don’t you?” It was such an impersonal way of referring to Jan, and doing so hurt even though she knew that her brother couldn’t hear her speak in such a way.
“Yes,” the billionaire answered simply. “I do.” And he did. Even when she was so economical with sharing stories about her personal life, Jaak was able to read between the lines, enough to understand that everything she did wasn’t for herself.
“I don’t plan to do anything to make your life harder, Ilse.” Before she could reply, he went on bluntly, “You’re your own person, and that’s what I like most about you. It’s also why you never have to worry about me stopping you from working or telling you how or where to spend your money.”
Running his knuckles down one soft, pale cheek, he murmured, “The only time when I want to be in control of you is in the bedroom—-”
“And yet you don’t want to kiss me,” she couldn’t help point out, hurt confusion underlying her tone.
The billionaire cursed under his breath. Didn’t she realize how hard it was to control himself as it was? Couldn’t she see that he was doing this for her?
Ilse suddenly yanked her hand out of his hold, snarling, “Forget it.”
And then she spun around and walked away.
What the hell?
He caught up to her in moments and spun her back to face him, frustration making his temper match hers in an instant. “Never walk away from me,” he gritted out.
“I’ll do whatever the hell I want—-” She wasn’t able to finish what she had to say, with the billionaire suddenly dragging her to the closest empty alleyway. “What are you—-”
The billionaire pressed Ilse against the wall, and fear and excitement struck her body as she found herself trapped between it and the billionaire’s muscled chest.
She said hoarsely, “Mijnheer—-”
“You’re too fucking innocent.” His tone was as savage as the need that glittered in his blue eyes, and Ilse managed to swallow back the moan that threatened to slip past her lips.
“You even have to ask me why I don’t kiss you—-”
Aaaaah. His eyes roamed her body in a way that couldn’t be described as anything but lustful, and Ilse desperately tried not to think about the way her breasts had started to ache.
“It’s because I know if I have just one taste of your mouth...”
Ilse had been the recipient of just about every kind of proposition there was in her line of work, and yet none of those indecent proposals had made her feel so unbearably hot and bothered, none of them able to make heat sinuously dance over her spine the way the billionaire’s words could.
“I don’t think I’ll be able to stop.”
The billionaire moved closer, and this time a whimper escaped Ilse as her aching breasts swelled even more. Her nipples puckered to life, grazing his chest, and she whimpered anew.
“I’d want to fuck you.”
Liquid heat spread to the lower half of her body, and Ilse hurriedly pressed her legs together in a futile effort to stifle her body’s reaction.
She had asked for this, Ilse thought dazedly, and now she was paying for it.
Even seeing how his words had shocked and frightened her, the billionaire could also see arousal flaring into life in her beautiful brown eyes, and the sight stoked his need to new heights.
“Do you hear me, babe,” he rasped. “I’d want to fuck you over and over—-”
Aaaaaah. Ilse’s hands flew up to cover her trembling mouth as the billionaire pressed his body harder towards her—-
And that was when she felt it.
And that was when she started to struggle.
But it was too late.
Jaak ground his erection harder towards her, and Ilse’s fingers curled against his chest.
“Jaak—-”
His nostrils flared. It was her first time to call him by his name, and he had never heard something more arousing in his life.
“Say it again,” he growled. “Say my name, babe. Say it—-”
“Jaak,” she choked out, helpless against the command in his tone.
His control almost snapped, and his hands swept down the sides of her body.
She bit her lip hard at the feel of the billionaire’s hands caressing and roaming over her skin—-
But then she felt his fingers cup her ass.
Her eyes flew to his just as his fingers dug into the soft, plump skin, and then he was pulling her closer towards him—-
The unmistakable rigid and throbbing feel of his erection rubbed against the triangle between her legs, and Ilse shuddered.
Oooooooooh...Gooooooood...
“If I kiss you, I fuck you. Do you understand?”
Ilse knew she should say something, do something, but God, it was so hard to think with the way the billionaire’s cock kept rubbing against her core, its head nudging her aroused clit.
“I only have to listen to you having a shower, and I could cum—-”
Her lips parted in a silent moan.
“And it’s the same for you, isn’t it?” His cock throbbed against her quivering pussy with every word, and whatever inhibitions she had left faded at the mounting desire inside of her.
It didn’t matter that they were outside, where anyone could find out what they were doing.
None of it mattered except—-
The billionaire chose that moment to bend his head and lick the tender skin of her neck, and she arched against him with a moan. The movement had his cock pressing harder into her folds, and she moaned again.
The naked sound of her desire made the billionaire swear.
“You’re so fucking hot, babe.” He started to suck hard on her neck and was rewarded with Ilse pressing her shuddering body closer to him.
“You like how you turn me on, don’t you?
When you take a shower, and you know I’m listening, you’ve probably thought of me imagining you.
..and you like that you drive me mad, don’t you? ”
Yes.
Yes.
Yes.
And Ilse’s control threatened to slip as the agonizing truth of his words swept over her highly sensitized skin.
And then she felt it—-
His hands starting to move under her skirt, skimming her bare thighs—-
All of a sudden, her brother’s face popped into her mind.
Jan—-
Jan, who only had her—-
Jan, who needed her to be strong and whole—-
A cry escaped her as Ilse somehow found the strength to place her hands against the billionaire’s chest as she tried pushing him away. “S-stop. Please.”
Even though it was a shamefully weak attempt, the billionaire slowly loosened his hold at the first sign of resistance, and Ilse scrambled away, panting.
The billionaire was also breathing hard, but his blue eyes stayed with her, hard and intense, and she knew then that there was no going back from here.
“I’m sorry.”
The billionaire’s hardened expression didn’t change. “You wanted it as much as I did.” When she only gave him a small nod, he demanded furiously, “Then what changed?” He watched her turn her head away from him, and his frustration seethed.
And then he heard her whisper, “I started reading articles about you.”