Sleeping with the Billionaire (Rendezvous with the Billionaire Book 3) (4 page)

I hitched my legs open, my other hand delving between my wet folds, massaging the bud to a hard peak. I let out something between a whimper and a moan, my hips bucking from the steady rhythm I was making. For one instant my eyes closed, forced shut from the pleasure, but I snapped them back open to watch Evan watch me. This was some torture for the both of us. I saw him palm his cock, giving it a swift caress before letting go. Pleasure rippled through me, taking me to the edge of orgasm from the sight.

God, I wanted to touch him. But we were playing by his rules right now. “Faster,” I panted. Evan looked confused so I clarified. “Stroke yourself faster.” It was a labor to get out the words, but I was swiftly rewarded.

He took himself in to hand and worked up and down, his own hand matching the speed of my fingers. After another minute I felt the telltale convulsion of orgasm and cried out. He captured my cry with his lips. He grabbed for the night table beside the bed and ripped open the condom wrapper blind. He must have stopped stroking his cock, but I was too engulfed in the kiss to care.

With ease he rolled the condom over himself and repositioned us. I lay under him, exposed and waiting. He guided his cock inside, seated himself to the hilt and paused. We looked at each other. This wasn’t like the last time. Not at all. At the hotel Evan had been a stranger, someone I thought was hot but that I didn’t know. Now there was something between us. It was still young, we were still getting our bearings, but if we let it, it could grow into something amazing.

All of that passed between us in a silent moment. And then he moved. I didn’t hold back, urging him on faster. Another orgasm ripped through me, this one even stronger than the last. But Evan was a man determined. He reached between us to stroke my sensitive clit. Sweat beaded on my forehead from the exertion, from the pleasure. He quickened his pace, thrusting harder and harder.

I was gasping out tiny breaths, barely able to breathe, let alone think. And with a shout I came once more, shuddering around him as he joined me. We lay there enjoined for a long moment, unwilling to move, unwilling to part.

The sun was hitting me at the wrong angle. The fact that it was hitting me at all should have tipped me off that I wasn’t in my room. Maricela and I had an agreement to keep the shades down and the room as dark as possible any time before noon on the weekends. But there was something pleasant about the early morning sun when we were so high up. I didn’t hear car alarms or anyone shouting at street level and there were no strange shadows cast by buildings obscuring the view of the sky. If I ever won the lottery, maybe I’d consider a penthouse of my own.

I rolled over and stretched my arms out, in Evan’s huge bed I had more than enough room to do so without hitting him. But he wasn’t there, and I couldn’t say I was surprised. He didn’t strike me as the stay around to make out in the morning type.

There was no clock in sight to tell me the time, though if the sun was any indication it was early yet. Before nine, at least. His room was massive by New York apartment standards. He fit a king sized bed, a loveseat next to the window, a huge, glossy, black chest of drawers and a TV greater than 60 inches with room to spare. I had three doors to choose from to figure out how to get back to the main part of the penthouse. The one close to the window was probably a closet, and then there was another one on that same wall and one perpendicular to it.

Okay, I’d gotten into the room somehow, why couldn’t I remember which door I came in? Heat lanced through me at the memory of last night. Right, that explained the confusion, who could be bothered to remember tiny details like that when they were horny out of their mind?

After scooping up Evan’s discarded shirt and pulling it on, I tried one of the doors and found the master bathroom. That was even better than finding the hallway. It continued on with the gray and gold theme of the rest of the place. Rough gray stone tiles lined the floor and the walls were painted a light gray. I ran my hand over the marble on the sink, the stone looked dark and shot through with white and gold. He had one of those waterfall showers that I’d wanted to try since I heard of them and then there was the masterpiece of the room. A huge bathtub sat against the wall with steps leading up to it. I was sure there were jets in there and it looked big enough that I could nearly do laps. Damn it paid to be rich.

I took care of business, freshening myself up and using my finger and some toothpaste to clean my teeth. I still looked like I’d just woken up, but was edging into presentable. It looked like Evan didn’t own a brush, but careful use of his comb took care of most of the knots in my hair.

Back in the bedroom I heard a buzz that sounded suspiciously like my phone. A quick search around the bed found my pants sticking out from under the bed skirt. The light blinked, indicating a waiting text. I unlocked the screen and nearly dropped the phone back to the floor.

There was that stupid picture that I’d taken the first night Evan and I were together. He wasn’t in it, really, there was nothing incriminating at all. But I had no idea how this had been sent to me. I hadn’t shown anyone, told anyone, that I took a picture that night. It was just supposed to be a stupid souvenir. I checked to make sure that this was definitely the text message and that I hadn’t somehow swiped into my pictures folder, but it didn’t look that way. A new text a few seconds later confirmed it.

Time is running out. Do your part.

The blackmailer. Between Evan pouring his heart out to me and then everything that happened after I’d pushed it to the back of my mind. I couldn’t forget it, but I’d let myself focus on other things. It looked like I wasn’t allowed to do that.

While thoughts were jumbling around in my head I heard the door open, but I didn’t look up. What the hell was I going to do? I couldn’t turn Evan in, after last night I couldn’t make myself. I didn’t know the extent of the feelings I had for the guy, but it would make me beyond unforgiveable if I did it.

I felt Evan’s hand on my cheek as he turned my head to face his. His eyes bore into mine, his brows wrinkled as he looked at me. “What’s wrong, Amy?” He spoke it like he was repeating himself, though I could have sworn he hadn’t said anything before.

If I told Evan, the blackmailer would release the video. I stood up. “I need to go.” My pants were on the bed where I’d left them after grabbing my phone and I struggled into them for a moment before realizing that I wasn’t wearing any underwear.

No big deal, I’d go commando. I just needed to get out of there right now.

“I’m sorry,” Evan sounded both confused and like he was trying to be soothing. “I thought that you wanted to do this? You were into it last night.”

He was giving me an out, even if he didn’t know it. All I needed to do was to tell him I hadn’t wanted it, that we weren’t a thing that was going to happen. But I didn’t want to lie, and if there was the smallest chance of us happening, I didn’t want to take that away.

It took me a moment to find the right words. “Someone found out that you and I are…seeing each other.” Perhaps I shouldn’t have used the euphemism. Evan didn’t understand. “Someone is blackmailing me. With video of you and I being intimate.”

It was like I’d punched him. Evan’s head jerked back and he put a hand up to his mouth, covering it with half his fist. “How long?”

“I got the first notice a couple of days ago, when I went home sick. He sent me a clip of that time it was just you and me in your office.” I could tell that he knew exactly which time I was talking about. “I have a friend trying to trace it, but no luck yet.” And here was the hard part, but if I was going to tell him some, I needed to tell him all. “He, at least I think it’s a he, wants me to go to the cops and tell them that I found evidence of you killing Nicholas Bitterman.”

His voice took on a mask of utter calm, of menace. “And you didn’t to think of telling me this last night before you had sex with me?”

My fear congealed into icy anger. “If it wasn’t for you I wouldn’t be in this mess in the first place. So I’m sorry if your feelings weren’t the first thing I thought of while trying to figure out how to save my reputation without utterly ruining myself as a person. Did you think I was actually going to the police to accuse you?”

He stood, paced once across the room and whipped back towards me. “You said your ass was on the line, why would I assume that you wouldn’t throw me to the cops?”

Was he kidding me with this? I stalked towards him and got close enough to poke him in the chest with one finger. “I already lied to the cops for you, I haven’t told people about us because you asked me not to. I came here when you asked; I covered with your fiancée for you, twice! What exactly have I done to make you think I’d sell you out?”

He placed his hand on top of mine and held it tight, keeping me from poking him again. “You just said you told your friend about the video, which means you told her about us. And…” He trailed off, his brow furrowing. “You really weren’t going to betray me?” He said it like it couldn’t be true. How horrible that must have been, to constantly live with the thought that your friends would turn against you at the slightest provocation.

I tried not to think too hard about the fact that I’d considered it. Maybe that made me a bad person, but I couldn’t pretend that I lived anywhere but the real world. And in the real world I had to examine every option, no matter how horrible, if I was going to make it on my own.

“No,” I took my other hand and covered his, now holding it with both hands. “I’m not.” It left me in a very bad place, but that was the choice I was going to live with. “I’ll figure something out. The video might cause you some trouble, and it will get bad for me.” It would suck, I just needed to kiss my career as it stood goodbye. “Maybe I can find the guy who has the video, I don’t know, that’s something you can sue somebody for, I think? I’ll be alright, just know that it’s coming. I mean, you’re a guy, so a sex tape shouldn’t hurt you that bad.”

He crushed me to him, his free arm hugging me close and trapping our hands in between us. Evan planted a kiss on my head. “You’re not on your own with this. I will help you, I promise.”

I sank into his hold, my face pressing against the soft cotton of his shirt. The comforting scent of him let me relax just a little.

“I’ll stop the video from getting out, trust me with it. And if I can’t, I will do everything in my power to make sure that you’re protected. No one gets to fuck with us, understood?”

I had to squeeze my eyes shut to keep any tears from leaking out. Evan had the one thing that Andrea and I didn’t: extensive resources. I nodded my head against him, afraid to speak in case my voice broke with hope. “He gave me 72 hours from last night to turn you in or he releases the video.”

Evan let me go and took a step back. I needed a second to keep my cool and he didn’t speak until it was obvious that I wasn’t going to break down. “I need all the information you have.” He tilted my chin up and gave me a quick kiss. “Just go home and don’t do anything. I’ll tell you what we need to do next after I talk to some people.”

“I can’t just sit at home while you fix everything, that’s not going to work.” I had to do something, even if I didn’t know what.

His face grew serious. “The turn around on this is quick, and because of that it may not all be above board. There needs to be as much space between you and whatever goes down as possible. Please, just let me do this.”

It was clearly important to him in ways that I didn’t understand. I knew on some level that it wasn’t all to do with keeping me squeaky clean if something nasty came up. Evan wanted to protect me, wanted to prove to himself that he could protect me. And while I balked at the need on some level, another part of me was positively delighted. At least when I didn’t focus on the consequences of failure. No, I couldn’t do that. I was going to trust him.

But I couldn’t let it go completely. “You call me at least every 24 hours until this is solved, okay?”

He smiled, his whole face lighting up. My heart flipped over in my chest and my lips tilted up without any thought. Oh no, I was already in way deeper than I ever meant to be. I was in so much trouble.

I made it out of his place far more confident than I had been going in. If we were really lucky and everything went just right, maybe Evan and I would both escape this thing unscathed. Or course, I had to tell Andrea that Evan knew and that he was helping. Maybe she could point his searchers in the right direction.

I hadn’t even told her about the second threat yet.

I almost called her before I walked out of the building, but I didn’t want to risk discussing something so private out in the open. It would be soon enough by the time I got home. I doubted that she was even awake, and I didn’t know what more she could do with the information now instead of an hour from now.

But I was so busy analyzing what to say to her that I didn’t notice the bigger problem right in front of me.

Amanda Marquez was standing in the lobby of Evan’s building, looking right at me. She wore finely tailored jeans and a black tunic top. Her long blond hair provided stark contrast.

Every time I’d seen her before, she’d exuded a bright and bubbly niceness, even when she was clearly troubled. That bubbliness had transformed into something cloudy, her dark brows narrowed over blue eyes. Now that she wasn’t bothering to smile she looked cold, sinister, like she could plan the downfall of nations over tea. When we first met I assumed that she wasn’t as nice as she pretended to be, but I never expected her to actually be mean.