Pleasing Him: The Complete Series (An Alpha Billionaire Romance) (10 page)

Taylor had no idea what she doing, but she wasn’t about to sit here and get demeaned by this lady anymore. After all, maybe Colton really did need her help with his next publication. Maybe this wasn’t all a hoax.

The shook hands briefly, then the Barden woman pulled her hand away as fast as she humanly could as she glanced quickly at Taylor’s skimpy nightwear. The agent shook her head in disbelief and said, “I’m sorry, Colton, but can we have a minute alone?”

Taylor felt humiliated as her heart began to pound hard in her chest. There was a long, extremely awkward pause before he spoke.

But then he did, and it was like a symphonic explosion to her ears. “There’s nothing to talk about alone, Monica. The decision is final.”

Monica’s eyes nearly popped out of their sockets. “This is a fucking joke, right Colton? Tell me this is all one big fat fucking joke,” she said.

It wasn’t the first time that Taylor wanted to punch someone in the face, not that she’d ever muster up the courage to do something like that. But she certainly wanted to lay a jab right in between both of this lady’s perfectly symmetrical eyes.

“Do I look like I’m joking?” he said, holding his hands out and raising both of his eyebrows.

Barden chuckled, and then looked directly at Taylor as though she’d never been so bewildered in her entire life. “I’m sorry,
who
are you again?”

Just as Taylor was about to introduce herself, again, Colton chimed in. “Her name is Taylor. Taylor Ward. And she has more talent than most of the top selling authors out there right now.”

Taylor wanted to give her a piece of her mind, but she already pissed enough people off in this world over the past couple of days. And she definitely didn’t mind the fact that Colton seemed to be coming to her aid now that this woman was present.

“Huh…” the agent muttered as she took a step towards Taylor. “Never heard the name before. What’s one of your best sellers?” she asked.

Colton came to her defense, again. “Actually…”

Taylor interrupted, “Actually, I don’t have anything published. In fact, I’ve never even tried to get anything published. In fact, I’ve never even finished a story.”

I think I just went too far.

“I really don’t see why you should explain yourself,” the billionaire interjected.

The agent continued to shake her head in disgust or disbelief or both. “So basically, Colton, I’m supposed to go back and tell Mitch York that your big plan entails hiring an escort to help you write your next novel?”

Whatever shred of confidence Taylor had to begin with had suddenly sailed far, far away from where she was standing. Barden’s words cut to the heart of everything she was worried about. The truth was, she hadn’t had anything published yet. And the only thing that Colton and her had really accomplished so far was a couple of bouts of crazy, mind-blowing sex. Taylor hated the thought that even though this woman was a total bitch, maybe she was dead right.

The billionaire’s voice doubled in volume as he said, “How about this… How about you tell Mitch and everyone else at Hull that they can go fuck themselves if they think I give a shit about their opinions. Hull’s stock quadrupled since I signed on with them. And if it wasn’t for me, you’d still be wearing sweat pants and paying off your student loans.”

Barden stood speechless, albeit seemingly calm, as Colton laid into her. Then she spoke as she gestured towards Taylor’s outfit, “I’ll leave you two alone. I can see you’re hard at work.”

“Great. Thank you,” he said.

His agent turned and walked toward her black sports car. Just as she pressed her thumb into the key remote, the driver’s seat door opened vertically. She stopped dead in her tracks, and then spun to face Colton one last time. “You’re out of your fucking mind, Marcus. But I’ll make sure that I pass along your kind words to Mr. York and the rest of the board members.”

The billionaire chuckled and forced a fake smile across his face. “Please do, Monica. Now get the fuck off my property.”

Taylor’s heart sank as she wondered what the hell she had gotten herself into.

Too tired to stand, she collapsed onto the giant granite step in front of his entry door. She heard Colton let out a deep sigh.

As his agent’s shiny black car disappeared from his property, a long, thick silence engulfed them.

There was no way this was going to end well.

* * *

“Come on, we have work to do,” he said as he reached out his hand for Taylor.

“We do?” she asked, intentionally ignoring his hand and propping herself to her own two feet.

He smirked, but somehow didn’t look amused. “Yes, you already took the job. Now we need to go over the ground rules.”

“Sounds like a lot of fun,” she said.

He pressed his lips together in a straight line. “This probably isn’t the best time to start getting defiant with me.”

She was finally starting to feel more comfortable around him as she flashed a smirk of her own. “I don’t mind waiting then. What else do I have to lose?”

“Trust me, Ms. Ward, you have plenty more to lose. Now let’s go,” he said. Then he turned and walked back into his house, if one could even call it simply a house.

Back to a last name basis? This can’t be good.

She figured she’d already pushed him enough for now so she decided to follow after him.
Maybe he’s right
, she mused.
Maybe I do have a lot more to lose
.

Although after everything that had happened over the last few days, that seemed nearly impossible.

He led her back inside, through the kitchen, and down a long, barren corridor filled with nothing more than plush grey carpeting and linen white walls. She immediately noticed the contrast between this section of his home and the rest of the rooms that she had already seen.

One thing was certain; this was not where the billionaire author did most of his entertaining.

Her heart started to beat much faster than usual, but not out of fear. There was something about being alone with Colton that made her feel like her insides were on fire.

Get a grip Taylor, it’s all business from here on out.

She was done letting him do as she pleased with her body.

At least that’s what she tried to tell herself.

They came upon a door with a security panel.

“I won’t look,” Taylor half-teased as she covered her eyes.

“Actually, I appreciate that. It’s not personal, but I have a lot to protect,” he said back to her.

She heard two beeps and then the sound of a door opening.

“All clear,” he said. “You can stop playing peekaboo,” he said lightly.

“Are you sure you trust me enough to look?” she asked as she continued to cover her eyes.

“Now I do,” he said.

She uncovered her eyes and looked into what appeared to be an extremely ordinary-looking room. The off-white walls, like the corridor that led to this room, were completely barren. There were no furnishings whatsoever apart from a small desk in the far right corner of the room.

“I love what you’ve done with the place,” she said sarcastically.

He chuckled and said, “I know. I have a real knack for interior design.”

“What are we doing in here?” she asked.

“This,” he paused as he proudly gestured towards the entire room with his hand, “is where you will work.”

She cleared her throat and adjusted her posture, as if somehow that was going to help her in any way right now. “You’re joking, right?” she asked.

He shook his head from side to side. “Not at all.”

Her eyes widened as she talked in a fast-pitched voice. “I can’t work in here! I need light. I need nature. I need inspiration. I need…”

“You need to work hard. Nothing more, nothing less,” he interrupted.

She looked around the room again. She didn’t particularly enjoy being locked away in secluded rooms to begin with, but she was convinced she’d go insane if she had to create best-selling fiction in a place like this.

“Sooo… I take it I don’t have a choice,” she said.

He smirked and pressed three digits into a panel on the wall. Taylor startled as part of the wall opened up, revealing a window that faced a beautiful row of tall pines in the back of his estate. “There’s your nature.”

Colton walked around the empty room and surveyed it for longer than what made sense given that there wasn’t much to look at in the first place, at least not from what she could tell.

The billionaire walked around the room and traced his fingers along the wall as he spoke. “Ground rule number one… Don’t touch anything without asking.”

She let out an embarrassingly loud belly laugh. “You’re…” she started to say, but when she saw the deadpan look in his eyes she make a quick adjustment and simply nodded her head up and down. “You’re serious. Got it. No touching,” she bumbled.

“Ground rule number two…” he paused as he walked towards her. “I decide when and where you will work. And for now, I say this room is where you’ll be doing most of your work.”

She watched him cautiously as he rubbed his chin, the muscle in his biceps forming a hard, pointy rock as he unintentionally flexed his arm. “Go ahead, make yourself comfortable,” he said as he gestured towards the desk that sat in the far corner of the workspace.

She swallowed hard as she looked around the room, then at the desk.

She still couldn’t fathom that he was serious about her writing for him or with him or whatever it was that he wanted her to do.

She walked over to the desk and ran the tips of her fingers along the dark, smooth finish. As crazy as she thought this entire idea was, she had to admit that she felt some sort of energy from the desk itself, as if it had some sort of direct link to the writing gods themselves. As she continued to run her soft flesh along the top of the desk, she found herself immediately getting lost in a trance-like state.

“That should suit you well,” he rasped right behind her ear, startling her out of her own private love affair with the billionaire’s desk.

“It’s a really nice desk,” she said as she carefully rested her palm on its surface.

“I know. It’s the same one I used when I first broke through as a writer.”

Then it hit Taylor.

Hard.

Here she was, in the home of Colton Marcus. She had dreamed of becoming a writer for most of her life, and now she was being propositioned by this god-like man of a writer, in
his
goddamn home, to help
him
write his next book.

She was literally about to pinch herself, just to make sure she wasn’t dreaming, until he stopped her dead in her tracks.

“Ground rule number three,” he said, pausing as he reached into the front pocket of his jeans. Taylor’s jaw nearly smashed to the floor as he pulled out another red pocket square; it appeared identical to the one that he had used to blindfold her in the conference room at Baldpate. “You work for me now… which means, no more touching.”

Taylor nearly swallowed her own tongue as she watched him fiddle with the red, silky fabric; yes, it was definitely the same make and model of the one he had used to blindfold her within minutes of meeting her. “Wha… What are you doing with that then?” she stammered.

“This?” he asked as he held it up in the air, admiring it like it was an Oscar trophy. “This is to stimulate excessive amounts of pleasure.”

He stepped closer towards her, backing her into the mystical desk. She had no room to move as the backs of her bare legs pressed into the desk’s hard surface.

All she could conclude was that Colton Marcus was either really twisted or…

He wanted her badly.

Either way, he was confusing the hell out of her
and
her body.

“I… I thought you said no touching?” she stammered. She could feel whatever control she had left slipping away in his presence.

He stretched the red pocket square from end to end, the knuckles in his fists turning bright white as he did so. “I did. And I meant it.”

She gestured towards the silky fabric that he held so taught. Her voice trembled slightly as she spoke. “Then what’s up with that thing?”

“Oh, this?” he said as his lips formed a wicked smile. “Technically speaking, we haven’t begun our work together.” He glanced across her thighs as he moved another step towards her.

You can’t let this happen, Taylor.

She knew what she needed to do- put up her hand and let him know that they weren’t going to have sex again.

But as she opened her mouth and tried to speak, the only thing she could do was bite down on her lower lip.

The billionaire’s eyes grew wide. “If you keep that up I might not be able to stop myself this time,” he rasped.

“
This
time?” she asked as electricity seemed to erupt in her panties.

She tried to do the right thing, no matter how impossible it seemed right now.

Be strong girl. You can do this.

She released her lip from her own teeth and pressed her palms into the desk behind her. Then she made a huge mistake- she let her eyes wander across his strong jaw, down the stubble of his sun-kissed neck, over his broad, chiseled chest…

Taylor found herself clenching her thighs together, doing anything she possibly could to keep herself from surrendering to Colton Marcus completely.

The problem was, every cell in her body wanted nothing more than to please this man. Maybe it was the way he had so had already fucked her senseless before, or the fact that he was richer than most Fortune 500 CEO’s, or worse…

Maybe it was that look in his eyes; that look that said one thing and one thing only: he wanted her badly and he would stop at absolutely nothing until he got her.

Yup, that’s it. That’s the reason he drives me totally crazy inside.

He leaned in and grabbed both sides of her waist so quickly that she gasped out loud.

“Relax, baby. I’ll take it from her.”

Oh fuck
, she thought.

She used what last bit of resistance she could muster as she said, “We shouldn’t do…”

But before she could get the words out, he pulled her hips into his body fast and hard. She moaned out loud as his hardness pressed into her sweet spot.