All That He Demands (The Billionaire's Seduction Part 3) (14 page)

He laughed. “See, it wasn’t so bad, was it?”

I poked him in the ribs, and he made a
wuUAaah
sound as he arched away.

“You broke the rules,” I said in a pissed-off voice.

“Nooo, I just
bent
them a little.”

“No ‘in’ through the out door.”

“I think you came up with that rule for something slightly… larger.”

It was true, but…

“This better not turn into ‘give ‘em an inch and they’ll take a mile.’”

“It won’t,” he said with a smile. “And it wasn’t degrading, was it?”

“Nooo, but it
was
a little bit painful.”

“What,” he frowned, “the – ”

“NO, NOT THAT,” I said, blushing furiously, not wanting him to name what he’d done to me. “Just the… the spanking part.”

“Did you like it, though?”

I thought about how to answer. “…yyyyes…”

“Ha HAA!” he crowed.

“ – but that’s not a license to get all crazy on me all the time,” I scolded him.

He grinned. “Only on special occasions.”

“Great.”

“You can always say ‘no.’”

“Mm,” I grunted noncommittally. “So, other than more kinky stuff, what do you want to do tomorrow?”

He lay there in silence for so long, I wondered if he’d fallen asleep. “Are you awake?”

“Yeah,” he said. “I think… I’d like to be normal.”

I frowned and propped myself up on one elbow. “What? You’re normal.”

He looked at me like
Come on.

“Well… you’re
better
that normal,” I amended. “In bed, you’re MUCH much better than normal.”

That
brought a smile back to his face. “Thank you – so are you,” he said, pulled me on top of him, and kissed me sweetly.

After I nestled back down by his side, though, I asked, “What do you mean by ‘normal’?”

“I mean I don’t want to be Connor Templeton,” he said, staring up at the dark ceiling. “I don’t want to drive around with a bodyguard, I don’t want to be ‘the Rich Guy’… I just want to be a normal guy out with his woman, out on a normal date.”

 
His woman.

My heart swelled in my chest.

“What do most people do for a date in LA?” he asked me, his voice sincere. “What would you do if you went out on a date with a guy in Accounting, or somebody you met at the gym?”

“Um, I don’t go to the gym.”

“You know what I mean.”

“Go out for coffee or a movie, I guess.”

“Okay, not
that
normal.”

I poked him in the ribs, and he laughed.

“Let’s do something fun… but something you’d do with just anyone,” he said. “Nothing crazy, nothing that requires a ton of money… just a fun, laidback…
normal
day.”

“So you want
me
to take you out on a date, huh?”

He looked down at me and grinned. “Yeah. I’ll pay, but you choose something – ”

“ – normal. Got it. Do you even
have
any normal clothes?”

He thought for a second. “…no. Not in my suitcase.”

“Okay, then… that’s where we’ll start,” I yawned.

“It’s a date,” he said, and kissed me once more.

And we lay like that, in each other’s arms, until I drifted off to sleep.

We started off the morning with a room service breakfast in the penthouse.

“This isn’t exactly normal,” I pointed out as I ate a bite of the best French toast I’d ever tasted. “In fact, it’s distinctly
ab
normal.”

“Okay, normal starts
after
breakfast, then.”

“In the Bentley?”

“You think you’re sooo clever, don’t you?”

I just gave him a bratty little grin.

“Okay,
after
the limo ride,” he said. “Once we get wherever we’re going.”

Johnny was definitely
not
on board when he found out about it.

“NO.”

“Yes,” Connor said calmly.

“Come on, man – last night was bad enough, but you want to go – where are we going?”

“Santa Monica. Third Street Promenade, then probably to Venice afterwards,” I said.

“Oh,
great
. Crowds, no way to control access to you, wide open spaces – will you at least wear the bulletproof vest?”

“NO, that’s
definitely
not normal. And you’re going to have to change your clothes,” Connor said, pointing to Johnny’s suit and tie.

He frowned. “What?”

“Yeah, you don’t look normal.”

“…
what?!”

“Normal. It’s the theme of the day. You gotta look normal.”

Johnny shook his head. “Oh,
hell
no.”

But he ended up giving in.

We drove down to Santa Monica, which is one of the beach communities in LA. Very expensive houses and fairly pricey shops and restaurants – though upper-middle-class pricey, not like Rodeo Drive or Beverly Hills. After we parked the Bentley (which got some stares, let me tell you), we went down to an Urban Outfitter’s on Third Street. The entire avenue is blocked off to traffic for half a mile, and thousands of people were walking along in the Sunday morning sunshine.

Inside, I made Connor trade in his dark slacks for some cargo shorts that showed off his muscular calves. He also bought some leather flip-flops and a loose linen shirt. Me, I chose a red tank top and blue jean cut-offs.

Johnny was resistant to the whole thing, but Connor made him pick. He settled on a black T, a dark Hawaiian shirt that hid his gun holster, green shorts, and some Chuck Taylors.

“Thank you,” I said as we exited in our new ‘normal’ outfits, our designer threads stuffed in Urban Outfitters bags.

“You’re welcome,” Connor smiled. “Thank
you
for indulging me.”

I raised one eyebrow. “Why do I get the feeling you’re not just talking about the clothes?”

He just laughed at that one.

We wandered the street, with Johnny staying about ten feet behind us the entire time, scanning the crowd restlessly from behind his black sunglasses. I forgot about him after a few minutes, and he just let us be.

We went into one of my favorite stores on the Promenade, a toy shop that has
everything,
from all your regular Barbies and toys to giant statues of Star Wars characters. There were hundreds of different models, antique dolls with beautiful dresses, chess sets painted to mimic Alice In Wonderland and Star Trek characters, Japanese sci-fi mecha, and all sorts of crazy foreign toys.

We went in several funky clothing shops, a couple of bookstores, and the Apple store, too. When Connor saw me playing with a $2500 laptop, he asked, “You like it?”

“It’s nice.”

“I’ll get it for you.”

I gave him a look. “That’s not a normal date thing.”

He shrugged. “We can make an exception – ”

“ – but we’re not going to.”

He grinned and kissed me. “Okay, okay. Window shopping only.”

“I don't need any Microsoft products, either,” I joked.

Connor just rolled his eyes and groaned.

We ate at a cool little bistro out in the sun – nothing fancy, but good food. Then we went back to the limo and Johnny drove us to the Venice Beach promenade.

If you’ve never been to Venice Beach, it’s basically the weirdest place in all of Los Angeles. Maybe all of Southern California. The area is still largely rent-controlled, so you have all these stoners and hippies who live in cheap apartments and hang out in one of the priciest real estate neighborhoods in the country.

A promenade stretches along the coast. On one side is the beach and a grassy lawn filled with palm trees. The other side looks like it was frozen in time circa 1972. The shops are dingy, slightly rundown, with bright, crazy colors painted over the cement walls. We strolled along the head shops, smelling marijuana in the air, browsed the t-shirt stalls, listened to crazy bongo players, watched artists hawking their paintings, and saw the Rastafarian guy who rollerblades up and down the promenade playing an electric guitar with an amp strapped to his back.

“I don’t think this is ‘normal,’” Connor commented.

“Too much for you?” I teased.

“No. I’m just stating the obvious, that’s all.”

We hung out there until the sun started to get lower in the sky, then we strolled north along the beach.

“Don’t get in the water,” I warned.

“Why?” he asked, concerned.

“It’s gross. Stuff gets dumped in it.”

He wrinkled his nose. “Too much normal, if you ask me.”

I thought of making a joke about us going to Fiji or Aruba, then caught myself.

There wasn’t going to
be
anything after this.

It made me incredibly sad. Like, verge-of-tears sad. I knew the weekend was coming to a close… but we weren’t there yet, so I pushed the thought away.

There’s a set of adult-sized jungle gym rings near the Santa Monica pier. I egged Connor on until he finally attempted to swing from ring to ring. It took him a couple of tries, but he made it down all eight rings and then back. I just enjoyed the view of his forearms flexing and his pecs bulging at the neck of his shirt.

Then we continued down to Santa Monica pier. It’s huge and gaudy, but incredibly fun, with a giant ferris wheel as the centerpiece. The lights had already come on in the dusk, and the massive circle of orange and yellow lights turned slowly against the purple sky.

We ate corndogs, drank sodas, played Whack-a-Mole at one of the video arcades, walked along and watched the ocean churning twenty feet below us, and then turned to the rides. First the rollercoaster, which is small but kind of fun, owing to the amazing view more than the ride itself. And then we stood in line for the ferris wheel.

“This is a new sensation,” Connor commented.

“What?”

“Standing in line.”

“Ha! See, normal
sucks.
”

“Actually,” he said, “this day has been one of the most fun I can remember… in years. My entire life, maybe.”

I blushed a little, and my heart melted.

“Except for last night,” he added with a grin. “And yesterday afternoon by the pool. And the night before that…”

I blushed furiously and smacked his arm as he laughed.

Finally we got on the ride and rode up into sky, watching the sea stretch out in front of us, with the sun halfway below the horizon, and the sky on fire with orange and red clouds. I clutched his arm tighter and tighter the higher we went.

“You’re not scared of heights, are you?”

“Yes!” I half cried out, half laughed.

“Then why’d you want to come up here?”

“Because it’s worth it.”

After several times around, the ride stopped with us at the very top so people could get off and on at the bottom of the wheel. As we were hanging there, suspended midair, he turned to me, brushed back my hair from my face, and kissed me.

And kissed me.

And kissed me.

The warm breeze blew over us, and the sun dipped below the horizon, and the world faded away as we kissed the entire time, until the wheel started again and the ride was finally over.

Johnny refused to leave us there unprotected while he went and got the limo, so we took a cab back to the parking lot.

“You’re kind of the third wheel here, man,” Connor joked as we all sat scrunched in the back of the taxi.

“After what you put me through today, you and I are not talking,” Johnny said. I thought he was seriously angry, but then I caught his eye, and he gave me a wink and a quick smile before turning his face to stone again.

We got in the limo and started back towards Los Angeles. Now the feelings that I’d been trying to push away the entire day suddenly reared their ugly head in full force.

It was coming to an end.

I didn’t have him for much longer.

In fact, I would probably never see him again.

I snuggled in tight beside him, with his arm wrapped around me, and I tried to be happy, thinking about all the amazing things I’d done and felt in the last 48 hours…

…but all I could think of was how much I was going to be hurting very, very soon.

Connor noticed I was glum, but he didn’t comment on it. Instead, he chattered on as though nothing was wrong.

Which depressed me a little bit more.

It seemed like he wasn’t that sad to see the weekend end…

…which just made me feel alone.

“That was incredible,” he said as he held me close.

“You never did anything like that?”

“No. Not my entire life.”

“You’ve never been on a ferris wheel before?” I asked, my surprise overwhelming my sad mood.

“Well, yeah… but I never got to kiss a beautiful girl at the top of one.”

I smiled and rested my head against his chest, the sadness turning bittersweet.

“Where do you live?” he asked.

“Oh… it’s near Hollywood and Vine. But I left my work clothes back at the hotel – ”

“Johnny already got them dry-cleaned at the Dubai. They’re in the trunk.”

“…oh.”

For some reason that only made me more upset. Like he was so eager to get rid of me that he had made sure there was no reason to return to the hotel.

No last night together.

I almost started crying.

We pulled up in front of my apartment building in relative silence. Connor seemed to sense how distraught I was. I don’t know if he really knew how I felt – maybe he thought I was moody.

In reality, I was already grieving for what I was about to lose.

Connor hit the intercom button. “Johnny, could you just wait in here and pop the trunk?”

“I don’t think – ”

“If I survived the day at Venice Beach, I think I’ll be okay here.”

“Fine,”
Johnny grumbled.

I got out of the door on my own, and Connor followed me out.

“Can I say goodbye to him?” I asked.

“Who, Johnny?” Connor asked, shocked. “Yeah… sure.”

I walked around to the driver’s side window and tapped on the glass. The window rolled down, and Johnny looked up at me, a little puzzled. “Did you need anything?”