HIS (A Billionaire Romance Novel) (5 page)

HIS NEEDS

That night, despite everything that had happened, I dreamt only of Tyler Cross’ cock.

I remembered clearly the way he’d pressed it against me, and I easily conjured its girth in my mind. I felt it rising and swelling against my backside as he held me captive in his tower of pleasure and pain, slowly binding my wrists with the same manacles he’d used on me before.

Click. Click.
The sound of them snapping shut made me quiver as Tyler ran his hands over me, caressing every inch of my smooth back, my jutting shoulder blades, and the sweet curves of my innocent ass. I wondered briefly if he’d violate me there, but then his hands moved lower to spread my thighs and reveal my glistening flower.

My breath came in hard, short gasps as he stroked his fingers along the petals. Then he brought them to his lips, tasting my dew, and I shrieked in anticipatory pleasure.

This time, I wasn’t going to settle for the curl of his fingers inside me or the brush of his knuckles against my thrumming nub. This time, I was going to pull Tyler Cross into my pussy and keep him there until he popped like a bottle of warm champagne and I could feel his foam bubbling inside me.

When he brought his hand, dripping with my juices, across my backside again, I arched and pressed my nipples to the coldness of the wall. I bowed my head backwards and sobbed his name, inviting him to inflict more pain, more ecstasy upon me.

My legs shook. My thighs and buttocks clenched. A wanting grew inside me until I couldn’t take it anymore. My channel spasmed and I pressed against Tyler’s hand, pleading, “Please… please…”

He unzipped his pants and I felt the warm expanse of his flesh on mine, and his wiry hair abraded my welts just enough to make me shiver and moan. His mast pressed up, up into my folds, splitting them until his velvety tip lay firmly against my button brimming with need.

And then he was at my hole, whispering to me the promise of joy and bliss beyond my imagining, spreading me and spreading me until my walls milked his thickness for more, more, more…

And then I woke up.

I checked my phone. It was almost noon. I hadn’t set an alarm last night when I’d drank away every memory of Tyler Cross I’d ever had, only to recall them in spades while I slept. The sun streaming through the blinds was far too bright, but not enough to have woken me. I rubbed my eyes and sat up, wincing as the room spun.

When it happened again, I realized what had done it: Mitchell Darling’s fist pounding on my door.

It had to be him. By this time, he must have heard that I’d failed. Not just failed, but failed so miserably that any chance I’d had of luring Tyler back to his company had been completely and utterly ruined. I’d be out of a job, which would give me plenty of time to dwell on the spark—no,
the fire
that Tyler and I had shared. When my stomach turned, I knew it wasn’t the alcohol.

The rapping came again, harder now, and I gingerly slid my legs over the edge of the bed until my heels touched the cold, hardwood floor. It soothed me, if only a little, as I picked up my robe and wrapped t around my otherwise nude body and shuffled toward the door.

I glanced out the peephole, sure I would see Mitchell’s scowling face. But it wasn’t him. I could tell by the cut of his jaw and the flash of his green-gold eyes. My heart leapt into my throat as my visitor came into focus.

It was Tyler Cross.

Tyler, with his blond hair more carefully coiffed than I’d ever seen it before. Tyler, with his cocky grin flattened into an unamused frown. Tyler, with his big shoulders and hard abs carefully tucked away behind the layers of his much too expensive suit. With what lay beneath those abs bulging subtly through his slacks…

I wet my suddenly dry lips and my mind reeled. What should I do? Should I let him in? Should I pretend not to be home? Fuck, he’d probably heard me coming down the hall, too lazy to pick up my feet. I closed my eyes a moment, wishing with all my might that when I opened them, he’d have gone away.

Yet there he was. And he was knocking again.

“I know you’re in there, Valerie,” he said through the door. “I can see you rattling the knob.”

I looked down. My hand was, indeed, resting on the handle. But I wasn’t rattling it, at least not deliberately. I was quaking as I clutched it, as though exerting some great effort concerning the man on the other side.

But was I fighting to urge to let him in, or trying to keep him out? Just what was my subconscious trying to tell me?

My eyes darted to the peephole again. Though he seemed agitated, Tyler’s face was a blank slate. Whatever the depths of his emotions, he hid them well. He knocked again, and deciding against cowardice, I opened the door.

“Mr. Cross,” I said, leaving the latch on. From his position, he would be able to see my face but not the silky robe I’d wrapped myself in. I hoped I didn’t look too bleary-eyed. “I wasn’t expecting you.”

He wet his lips, his smoldering eyes set on me. He looked thirsty, like a desert exile stumbling upon an oasis. I thought I saw his stomach tighten beneath his blazer, as though he too was making some great effort on my behalf.

I wondered now what
his
subconscious was telling him to do.

Finally, his gaze wandered back up to meet mine. “May I come in?” he asked me.

I hesitated. I knew he’d ask the question, but it still startled me to hear it out loud. I’d let Tyler in once already. I’d let him inside the deepest, darkest part of myself. And that had ended in disaster. Who was to say that letting him into my sanctuary, my home, wouldn’t turn out the same way?

Yet my hand was still there, clutching the knob and refusing to let me slam the door in his face. Instead I closed it slowly and then undid the latch before opening the door again to let him inside.

“I’m afraid it’s not as extravagant as your home, Mr. Cross, but hopefully it will do.”

Tyler didn’t look like he was thinking about any of that. He ignored my flimsy drapes, my IKEA furniture, and the drab, eggshell walls surrounding us and turned to face me as I shut the door.

“We need to talk,” he said. “About yesterday.”

“Then I’m going to need some coffee,” I muttered, heading into the kitchen. “Can I get you any?”

He waved his hand, and I took that to mean he had no interest. While I went through the motions of setting up my coffee maker, he paced the length of the counter, one of his hands working steadily across his nape. His skin was turning red there. I noted it as one of his tells.

I should have been more nervous than he was. But he couldn’t even stand still. It wasn’t until I’d made my first cup of coffee that I was able to get him to stop wearing a track in the hardwood.

“Sit,” I told him, gesturing to my small kitchen table. I had a little nook near where I kept the pantry. It was all I needed, really. I didn’t have many friends or family.

Sitting there with Tyler made it feel strangely crowded. It was as though his presence took the place of two or more people, like the width of his shoulders and the furrowing of his brow consumed the space around him, closing me in.

“Were you drinking?” he asked as I took my first sip.

There was no point in lying, and I wasn’t ashamed anyhow. “Last night.” I set my mug down, letting it warm my hands. “I had a lot to think about, and since I didn’t feel like thinking about any of it, it seemed the right thing to do at the time.”

Tyler pursed his lips. Then he said, “You won’t do that again.”

I blinked. Surely, I’d misheard him. “Pardon?”

“I’m not in the habit of repeating myself,” he said, staring into my eyes with such intensity that I could feel it in my soul. “No more drinking. Ever. Do you understand?”

My lips parted, but no sound would emerge. A hot fury rose inside me and burned in my cheeks. “You come into my home and judge me after your wife throws me out of your house for cheating on her?” I snorted, partly in disbelief and partly in disgust. “Just who the hell do you think you are?”

“I’m your Dom,” he replied without blinking. “And you are my sub. This is what you agreed to—remember?”

I did, in fact, remember. I remembered very clearly all the things Tyler and I had done. My ass still stung from some of them and desire still flooded my veins. I narrowed my eyes. “I do. I also clearly recall you leaving out the fact that you’re married.”

Tyler stood up then and turned his back on me. “I’m not.” He moved into my living room and studied the walls, the fan, the decidedly inelegant furniture. “Anymore.”

I sat back in my chair and watched him as he perused my things. The way he scrutinized my book collection made me feel like this was some kind of evaluation, like I was the one on trial and not him. But what had I done wrong? I had only given myself to him and agreed to play his game. He was the one who had lied about the rules.

“Anymore?” I echoed. “So now that she knows what you did, you’re getting a divorce?”

“We divorced a long time ago,” Tyler said over his shoulder. That was hard to believe. He was still a young man. He hadn’t even touched his thirties. How could he have been married and divorced already in such a short period of time?

It struck me that Tyler was the sort who’d had to grow up fast. He was heir to a corporation that netted billions of dollars in revenue every year—of course he’d have been burdened with responsibilities exceeding the scope of what other men his age were expected to manage. Running this company and living this demanding, high-powered life was likely something he’d been groomed for since he was in kindergarten.

It was just as likely that he was expected to produce heirs. I knew a lot of wealthy people had what more or less amounted to arranged marriages, even in this day and age. A “good match” would bolster both families’ wealth and status. Maybe that was what had happened to Tyler.

Still, he ought to have told me about her. He could have warned me, instead of letting me get blindsided by his psychotic ex.

And then another thought came buzzing to the surface. Did he owe me that, really? We’d known each other mere hours, before which we’d had virtually no relationship to speak of. Then, too, I thought of the reason why I’d been at Tyler’s mansion in the first place: to find some way to lure him back to Cumberland & Cross without letting him know I’d been put up to it. Even though I’d made it clear he needed to return, I hadn’t exactly been forthcoming about why.

Just like Tyler hadn’t been eager to explain—or even mention—his divorce.

I drummed my fingers on the table and sighed.
All right. Fair enough.

“Why was she there?” I asked him. “You can at least tell me that much.”

He glanced at me and cocked a brow, and I almost expected him not to answer. Then he plucked a book from one of my shelves and began leafing through it.
Les Misérables.

“I met Jackie when I was fourteen,” he said, his eyes never leaving the pages. That surprised me. She looked quite a bit older than he was. “Of course, I called her Doctor Mansfield back then. She was my speech therapist.”

“Your stutter,” I interjected without thinking.

Tyler gave me such a harsh look that he might as well have punched me in the gut. I swallowed and set my jaw, enduring his punishing gaze until he turned his attention elsewhere.

“Yes. A stutter brought on by an anxiety disorder. I suppose that happens to a lot of kids whose parents control fortunes like mine—the anxiety bit, not the stutter.” His smirk was mirthless. “That trouble was exclusively my own.”

He shelved the book in its proper place and trailed his fingers along the spines of the others. “At any rate, Jackie worked on more than just my stutter. She was a psychologist, one who specialized in adolescents. But she never saw me that way. As I quickly learned, she only saw me as a troubled, but very charming, young
man.
”