Close Quarters: The Forbidden Billionaire (Part One) (BDSM And Domination Erotic Romance Novelette) (7 page)

He hadn’t explained anything, so Alice could only assume that she was correct in her thinking. Employment as Cal’s “personal assistant” meant being kept, meant being a whore, paid for her “sexual services”. She’d asked him about his job offer several times, only to be met with the same answer; he was “putting her to the test”.

Well
, Alice thought miserably,
I’ve failed
. She knew there were any number of women who would envy her position right now, would jump at the chance to be at Cal’s beck and call, to wear beautiful clothes, live a life of luxury – but at what cost? Her self-respect, her pride? She glanced toward the window where the morning sun was coloring the world a misty gold. She leaned back into Cal’s warmth and breathed a long sigh. She just didn’t want to think about it right now. She just wanted to enjoy this - just this. She wanted to imagine for a moment that he had feelings for her as well, that they were a couple, and behind her, Cal tightened his hold on her body as if he could hear her thoughts. She placed her hand over his, a small tear coming to her eye.
I love you,
she thought.
Please don’t let me leave you.

Cal nuzzled her ear. “Come here,” he whispered, and Alice turned in his arms. She could not help herself. She came face to face, body to body with him, looking up into his handsome face. How she loved waking up with him in the mornings! And now… She lowered her lashes, not wanting him to see the sadness there.

He kissed her. Alice moved in his arms, coming to him as one who is thirsty comes to water. Even though last night’s escapades, and the tender lovemaking that followed afterward was only hours past, she was hungry for him again, voracious in fact, knowing that this was most likely their final tryst. She opened her mouth against his, drinking him in, and wound her legs about him, an invitation to love.

He slid into her softly, into her folds, still swollen, bruised from the previous evening, and even so, it had never felt better to have him inside her, and Alice marveled that his thick hardness could be at the same time so soft and tender, probing, seeking, pleasuring her in the gentlest of ways. He moved his hand to her breast, caressing it gently, bent his head to her nipple and surrounded it with his tongue, and then they rolled gently, changing positions with Alice on top.

She placed her hands on his chest, feeling his hard body beneath her, her gorgeous mass of burnished hair falling over her shoulder like red water. She took him deep into her body, moving her hips, taking her pleasure from him. He reached up then, touching her cheek. “Alice,” he said, his breath coming faster, “Look at me.” And she tried, she really did, but the sight of his face, lost in the rapture of lovemaking was more that she could bear. She did not want him to see her cry. She turned her face away, and even that was not enough. So, instead, she buried her face in his shoulder, her hips grinding against him, and he rose to meet her again and again until together they melted, wetting the sheets beneath them.

They stood on the dock, facing one another. Alice was in the jeans and tee shirt she’d boarded the FORBIDDEN in nearly two weeks ago, her duffle slung over one shoulder. Cal had offered her any
and all of the beautiful clothing she’d wanted from the closet on board, but she left only with what she’d had when she came onboard. She could not think of taking anything she could construe as “payment”. She did not want to say good-bye, and instead looked past him, over his shoulder, at the long, black limousine that awaited him, and Watkins, now in a black uniform standing at the ready near the car. He was gazing out at the water, giving them their privacy.

“Please,” Cal was saying. “Let me drive you back.”

The breeze off the water lifted Alice’s hair from her face. “Thank you,” she said, more formally than she meant to. “I really prefer to take a cab.”

“Alice-“

“Yes?” She allowed herself to look at him, hoping.

“You’re sure you won’t…” he shifted uncomfortably from foot to foot. “- continue on?”

Alice looked away, swallowing her tears and a good bit of anger. Even in the last waves of their morning lovemaking, he hadn’t explained a thing, and Alice had been too stubborn to ask him again, either. She’d needed him to make some sort of overture, give some kind of clarity, but he’d left things hanging, and in fact, seemed almost surprised at her decision to go back to her life. The university. Her job – if she still had one, in fact. The struggling.
Dullness
. But, Alice reasoned, all of that was preferable to being with a man she was in love with who did not love her back – one who paid her to be with him, at that!

She put out her hand and Cal looked at it a moment, as if confused, before taking it. “You’ve been – very gracious to me,” Alice said.

There was an awkward silence between then, then Alice gestured to Watkins. “Looks like you’re getting the nod,” she said. “I don’t want to hold up your schedule.” They both turned as Alice’s cab pulled up alongside the limo. “There, you see? I’m set.”

“Well, then,” said Cal, his mouth in a tight line. “Shall we?”

They walked together toward their respective vehicles. The cab driver got out and opened the back door for Alice. She threw her bag in the back seat and turned to Cal. “Thank you, again,” she said.

He leaned toward her and pecked her on the cheek, then mouth set got in the limo and closed the door abruptly. Watkins gave Alice remorseful look, then he, too, entered the limo. Alice got in the cab and watched Cal’s car drive off ahead of her, tears in her eyes. It took her a moment to realize that the cabbie was speaking to her.

“Miss? You okay, huh?”

Alice wiped at her eyes with her sleeve. “Yes. Sorry.”

The man smiled at her. “Is always hard to leave people you love, eh?”

Alice narrowed her eyes at the unwelcome intrusion to her emotions. She coldly gave the town and address.

“That’s more than a two hour drive, Miss-“

“Yes,” she said, donning her sunglasses, dismissing him.

The cabbie shrugged his shoulders. “Okay,” he said. “Your dime.”

Chapter Six

For a while, Alice watched the coastline from the road, her eyes wandering out toward the horizon and the open water, her stomach clenching, replaying scenes of the past two weeks in her mind; the moment she’d been discovered on the ship and the sexual encounter that ensued, her dominance and Cal’s willingness to participate in her game. She smiled sadly, remembering how she’d thought him a crew member, only to discover he was one of the most elusive, eligible bachelors on the planet. She thought about the lovely nights, the moon and stars making a celestial chandelier for them as they danced on the deck, sipping wine, slipping naked into the pool. About their games and wild escapades, the heights of sexual pleasure she’d found with him, but most of all, Alice thought about waking in the night to find him spooned around her. She thought about lying on his chest with his arm wrapped around her waist. About the muzzy look in his eyes and the sweet way his hair was rumpled up when they woke in the mornings, still wrapped together, a human knot. She swallowed, to keep the tears down, and leaned her head back against the seat, closing her eyes. The movement of the cab lulled her, and soon she was asleep.

She dreamed of the sea, azure water swirling. She was in the ocean, under water, swimming, and in the dream could breathe as if she were a mermaid. Above her the sun was shining on the water, making everything sparkle, the coral, shells, sand. It lit the plantlife, which wove around her, dancing a ballet. She swirled and turned, weightless, moving gracefully, a feeling of happiness enveloping her.

Suddenly there was another, swimming out of the mist and swirling seaweed, one she would know anywhere, his skin, his body, his scent. Cal swam toward her and they spun together in an undersea waltz, odd, watery music playing softly in the background of the dream. Fingers outstretched toward each other, they darted in and out of rock, coral, and plant like two young otters, naked and laughing. They came together and so realistic was the dream that in the cab Alice moaned and sighed, the cabbie looking knowingly at her in the mirror. It was as if she could feel the smoothness of Cal’s skin, her fingers knowing the map of his body, and in the dream she searched it, touching every inch of him, watching him grow long and hard and strong.

She swam down grasping his cock in her hand, moving it over the shaft, looking up to see his eyes narrow in pleasure, and then she bent, taking it in her mouth, reveling in the taste of him, salty like the sea. She swallowed him, in the dream an expert in oral pleasures, licking, sucking, her tongue flicking over him, making him moan, and when she pulled away, little pearls of cum issued from him and turned to real pearls. He reached down and tied them at her neck, adorning his mermaid. She wrapped her legs around him then and he entered her, larger than ever before, and as he did, as they connected, another Cal appeared and another. In the dream, Alice smiled, not alarmed in the least at this development. She moved her hips against Cal in pleasure, reveling in the way his cock filled her. The second Cal moved behind her then, his erect penis rubbing against the cleft of her ass, probing, seeking entry. Alice felt the initial pain of the head of his cock entering her from behind and then the pleasure of him sliding up into her, two cocks moving together within her creating friction, pleasure, heat. There was a tingling in her nipples, held in the fingers of Cal and Cal, and then the third Cal appeared above her, his beautiful cock smooth and hard and inviting, and she opened her lips and took him in, every orifice, filled with him, and she was exploding.

She woke with a start, her hand between her legs and the cabbie glancing at her in the mirror more than he was keeping his eyes on the road. Alice jerked herself upright, her face blazing. She cringed against the door, opening the window a bit for some air, even though it was chill. She pulled her sweatshirt tightly around her shoulders. She was never more happy to see the entrance of her building looming in sight, and when the cab pulled up to her stoop, she did not hesitate, but jumped from the car, throwing her fare and a healthy tip on the front seat, and bounded into her building.

Once inside, Alice leaned against the front door, the sounds of the street muffled by the heavy wood and glass. She glanced at the empty lobby, the thick oak stairs, the black and white checked flooring, the wall of mailboxes, and the elevator. She breathed in the smell of polish and floor wax. So, this was reality. She’d been living a dream and now she was here.
Home
. Back to her real life. She felt odd, however; out of place, as if she were a stranger here. How could a few short days have made this happen? Alice sighed, making her way to the mailbox. She knew it wasn’t just the fact that she had been out on the water, caught in another world. The change was within her, in her heart. She’d fallen in love.

Well, she told herself, steeling her emotions as she put the key in the lock of her mailbox, she was just going to have to fall
out
of love. She would have to realize that for Cal, this had just been a dalliance, a chance encounter – and hadn’t it been lovely? At least, she thought, she could be grateful that like some crushes, she didn’t have to deal with the sight of Cal Landon on a daily basis. Didn’t have to see him at work, at the university, on the street. Cal Landon was from another world. A world she had no place in. She pushed the envelopes she’d extracted into her bag and mounted the stairs, forgoing the elevator. She wanted to take her time getting back to reality.

It was the middle of the day and the building was quiet, her neighbors off to work or school. Alice pushed the door to her floor open and stepped into the carpeted hall. As she walked toward her apartment door, her stomach clenched and she stopped a few feet away looking at the door to her home. It was slightly ajar. Alice placed her hand on her bag, feeling for her cell phone, her first instinct to call for help. She listened, but all around her the silence pervaded, large and looming. She stepped toward the door and put her hand on the frame. “Hello?” she said softly, listening, but there was no response.

She pushed the door open and peered inside. Everything looked normal and in its place, just as she’d left it that morning on her way to the university; the vase of flowers on the table, dried and brown now, her books and drawing pad on the coffee table, her coffee cup on the sink, right where she’d left it. Sun streamed in the windows, shining on her many plants, green and healthy as she’d left them, though some craved a bit of water, to be sure. She set her bag down on the table and slouched off her hoodie sweatshirt. “Hello?” she said again, halfheartedly, to no one, a sob suddenly catching in her chest. She was home. Back to her life. Alone.