Borrowed Billionaire #5 Set it on Fire (6 page)

I gasped when the elevator doors opened, but luckily we were at the top floor, still alone.

He led me down the hall and used the key card to open a door.

I hesitated at the doorway, not stepping into the room. I had to have known this was where it was heading. From the moment he'd made the lunch date at the hotel. Of all the places in the city to eat, a hotel?
Oh, Lexie. For a smart girl, you don't always use your brain.

He was already inside the room, hanging up his suit jacket on a wood hanger.

When he saw me, still standing at the door, he stretched out a hand. “Lexie?”

“Luthor, I … I don't know if I should.”

He came over and stood in front of me, just inside the door. The top two buttons of his shirt were unfastened, and I wanted to finish undressing him and run my hands all over his body. But I also didn't want to screw things up, and I knew I would. Just like I had with Jacob, and with every other guy I'd dated.

He looked down and then chuckled nervously. “Don't tell me you asked me out just to get business advice. Please.” He held his hands over his heart. “I don't know if I can take it. I didn't think you cared for me, and then you asked me to meet you, and … I guess it was wishful thinking on my part.” He shook his head. “I'm so stupid.”

I took two steps back, to the middle of the hallway. “Luthor, I don't want to get married and have a bunch of kids and live in the suburbs.”

He looked shocked. “Good god, me neither. Do you think that's what I want?”

“I also don't want to be a possession, a pawn in someone's game. I don't want to be bought. I won't be shipped around for your convenience.”

“Is this because I wasn't on the flight with you? Suzanne said it would be fine.”

I clasped my hands together, then released them and folded my arms. “I guess it's my fault. This whole thing with us has been so bizarre, right from the first time we met.”

“And then you left your panties under my pillow. It drove me crazy. You were in all my dreams. How did you know to do that?”

“My panties? What?” I thought back to the day I'd been hired to arrange the furniture in his bedroom. “That was your assistant, Grace. She actually bought my underwear from me.”

He shook his head. “That stupid bet. So ridiculous.”

“And that bet!” I said, nearly yelling. “What is that all about?”

The elevator doors opened down the hallway and a maid came out with her cart.

Luthor pressed his fingers to his forehead and gave me a crooked smile. “Come inside the room and I'll tell you everything.”

I re-crossed my arms. “No way. If I set foot in there, you'll have my legs in the air and there won't be any conversation.”

“Once I start, I don't stop. Is that so bad?”

“I'm beginning to think it is. I think I
do that
, with people. Well, not with people. With men. I avoid intimacy by making everything about sex.”

The housekeeper had stopped her cart in the middle of the hallway and was pretending to rearrange the items on it while listening, but I didn't care.

“Intimacy is scary,” he said.

I relaxed my stance a little. “I know, right?”

“I probably do the same thing. That was why I made the bet with Grace. I wanted to stop doing anything that had to do with sex, and see if that cleared my head.”

“And did it?”

He held his hands out. “I think you know how that worked out. I tried to do some yard work to take my mind off sex, but that had unexpected results.”

I took one step closer to the doorway. The air conditioning was rather chilly in the hall, and the suite did look warm and inviting.

“I think Grace was trying to sabotage you. She hired me and told me to stay away from you. Naturally, I wanted to do the exact opposite.”

He grinned. “Reverse psychology.”

I spat out, “Games.”

He shrugged. “No more games, then. Absolute honesty.”

“Fine.” I tapped my foot and gave him a skeptical look. “I gave Mr. Hubert a blow job in a department store change room.”

He winced and swallowed hard. “Lucky guy.” He held his hand out to me. “I'd like us to be exclusive from now on. I don't care what you did in the past, just what you'll do in the future.”

I kept tapping my foot. “Did you book this lunch at a hotel because you were planning to sleep with me?”

“Not
planning to
. More like hoping to.” He gave me a big smile. “Is that such a bad thing?”

I glanced over at the cleaning woman, who was rapt.

Still holding my ground, I put my hands on my hips. “So, are we dating, or what?”

“We're dating. If you'll agree, I'd like you to be my girlfriend. Officially. I guess I'll lose my bet with Grace, but I can handle the penalty.”

The cleaning woman sighed.

“I think I might be a little screwed up, and maybe you are too, so ...” I looked into his eyes, and I saw something different.

He wasn't just the man who stood before me, Mr. Luthor Thorne. He was also the boy, the one who lost a brother and was left yearning for more emotional contact. On top of that, though, I saw other versions. He was the man he'd be a year from now, made stronger by our bond, more confident. He was the older version of himself, his temples graying, but still handsome, the same man, but more.

In his eyes, I also saw myself, as he saw me. A smart, confident young woman—a little screwed up, but willing to move beyond the past and be loved. Willing to love. Willing to say the words.

I practically ran into the room, throwing myself into him.

We kissed, our lips crushing into each other. The door closed behind me, and I already had Luthor's shirt unbuttoned.

Something caught my eye and I stopped, pulling back. “Seriously? A grand piano?”

Holding my hand, he walked me over to the baby grand in the corner of the room. I'd seen hotel suites like this in magazine and in movies, even in my fantasies, but not in person. My mouth gaped as I stared around at the opulence, from the crystal chandeliers high overhead to the fine furnishings. One night in this suite was likely more than a month's mortgage payment.

“Do you play?” he asked.

“I can noodle around with a few chords, but no, I don't play piano. Do you?”

He sat on the bench and ran his finger down the keys.

He looked up and caught my gaze, and began to play. “Why don't you pour us some of that champagne?”

I turned around and found a tray with champagne, fluted glasses, and strawberries dipped in chocolate. After just eating lunch, I wasn't hungry, but my mouth watered at the sight of them.

Luthor continued to play—something jazzy, but I couldn't have guessed the name of the song—and coaxed me into opening the champagne myself, even though I was terrified of sending the cork into a priceless chandelier.

He laughed. “I own the chandelier and I give you permission.”

With that, I popped it open and only spilled a little bit near my shoes on the hardwood floor.

“Question for you,” I said. “I swear when we first met, I asked if you owned hotels, and you said you didn't. Does the honesty start right now?”

“Ah. You asked if I owned 'hotel chains' and I don't. I own hotels, but they're all boutique hotels. Not chains.”

“Same difference.”

“Okay, I was evading your question. Can you forgive me? I barely knew you. It's a reflex to be vague about … my business.”

I nodded slowly, as though convincing myself. “Okay, I can sorta see that. Actually, I get it. Sometimes I meet people socially and they're so nosy about what I make as an organizer. I don't want to say the annual figure, because it's up and down, plus it's none of their business, but when they find out the hourly rate we charge, they get all weird and stare at me like I'm Donald Trump or something.”

“You look nothing like Donald Trump.”

I laughed. “You would know. You guys are probably golf buddies.”

Luthor made the funniest face, which I took to mean they were not.

I brought the glasses over to the piano. “Good thing I booked the afternoon off work,” I said.

He peered at me through raised eyebrows. “Had you been planning to seduce me?”

“Not consciously.”

He stopped playing long enough to clink his glass to mine and we both took a sip. The champagne was delicious, the bubbles going straight to my head and heightening my excitement.

“You play beautifully.” I leaned my elbows on the piano and stared at him in awe.

“Music helps me focus. When I was studying in college, I could always study better after I played music.”

“I used to go for long walks.”

He smiled. “That's good too.”

He began to play a new song, a different one, and he started to sing.

If my knees hadn't been weak before, they certainly were after Luthor began to sing. His singing voice was even lower, deeper than his speaking voice, and so rich. At first, I thought I was so overwhelmed I'd stopped understanding words, but he was singing in French.

After a few lines, he'd speak softly after singing a line, translating into English. The song was about a person being reminded of someone in the Fall, when the leaves fell from the trees. It was so beautiful and sad at the same time.

When he finished, he stood and wiped a tear from my cheek—a tear I hadn't realized was there.

He said, “Too dreary, I know. I can play something by Elton John maybe?”

I set down my champagne glass and wrapped my arms around him. “I'm torn. You have an incredible singing voice, but I can't kiss you when you're singing.”

“Mmm,” he said, pressing his lips to mine.

The vibrations of the piano and him singing were still in the room, wrapping around us.

His tongue parted my lips and met mine. His arms went around my waist and we swayed to the memory of the music, our hips moving together. We'd danced like this at the resort, and I was amazed that although we were so new together, we already had so many wonderful memories. And there was still so much more to come.

He picked me up and carried me all the way over to the bed, where we both stood, and he slowly undressed me as I undressed him.

With both of us naked, he rolled down the coverlet of the bed and climbed in, then patted the sheet next to him. It was still mid-day, and the room was brightly lit, the curtains wide open. We'd had plenty of sex before, including at the hotel, but this time it was different. We were being honest.

“I'll want you to meet my mother,” I said.

He pulled the sheet up to cover his erection. “I'd love to. But can we not talk about your mother when we're …
you know
.”

I put one knee up on the bed. “Okay. And I want to meet your family, too.”

“They're dying to meet you, too.”

I pulled my knee off the bed. “I thought we agreed, no more games.”

He rolled toward me and reached for my hand. “I'm not playing. I told them about you, after the stingray. I was so scared, and after you fell asleep, I called my parents and we had a big talk.”

“Luthor, I need to tell you something else. There was another man I was dating.”

He caught my hand and squeezed it. “Is it in the past?”

“The very recent past.”

He pulled me toward him. “Good enough.”

I climbed into the bed and lay alongside him, the length of our naked bodies touching. “I'm all yours now,” I said.

He kissed my hand. “If you'll have me, I am all yours, too.”

A smile spread across my face and a matching one on his. He pulled me in tight to him and kissed me, softly and then fiercely. I lay back, and he moved around me, kissing every inch of me, from the top of my head, to the spot on my leg where the stingray had cut me. He pulled my legs apart and returned to one spot with great interest.

I closed my eyes, feeling only his touch as he pushed his hands against my inner thighs, moving up, and then kissed my mound. He kissed me there, and his tongue came out, parting those intimate lips. As I shuddered from pleasure, he licked up and down, tongue darting along my opening and then moving up, over my nub. He gradually moved the focus up, licking and touching me, nudging a finger into my opening to extend the sensations.

My pulse quickened and my body arched as he deftly brought me to orgasm with his tongue. I sighed and moaned in pleasure, letting him know how good he made me feel.

As I was still trembling with the ripples of pleasure from coming, he moved up on the bed and pressed his cock between my legs and then against my opening. I grabbed his buttocks and pulled him into me.

He moaned in pleasure as his thick shaft moved into me. He moved quickly, and then desperately, thrusting against me, eyes closed.

The tingling around my pussy grew stronger, and my muscles ached with hot pleasure, ready to come again. As he came inside me, his breathing raspy and rough, his whole body wrapping around and inside me at once, I came with him. We moved together, the key and the lock, turning, opening.

When we finished, he had my hair in his mouth and bite marks on his shoulder from where I thought I'd been kissing him, but apparently had done more than that.

We pulled apart, both glistening with sweat.

He shifted up and reached along the wall with one hand.