Bedding The Billionaire (3 page)

"Leave them on. If I'm going to do this, I'm
going to do it right."

Abbey had no idea what he meant by that and she didn't
care. She wanted to give this man the pleasure he'd just given her. The
pleasure that came from having no strings attached, no cares other than what's
happening right now.

She kissed him hard, then followed the path similar to
the one he'd traveled on her. Down his throat, across to each nipple, sucking
and biting, then down through the sparse sprinkling of black chest hairs to his
flat stomach.

He groaned when she reached her target, taking him
into her mouth. Tasting him, rolling him around her tongue. Within moments his
groans had intensified, and before long he was shuddering. Finally, his entire
body convulsed as raw energy flowed out of him.

Abbey joined him, lying beside him on the bed. Mission
accomplished. Well and truly accomplished.

Damien wrapped his arms around her and stifled a yawn
as he settled against her breasts, kissing a nipple absently. She curled into
his body, enjoying the heat of him and the sound of his steadily beating heart.
She didn't want to move, not yet. This felt good. Too good.

First she'd have a rest on the large bed, then she'd
go find Lucy, see if she got some good shots.

And she'd try her hardest to forget about Damien Vane
and this night of steamy sex with a complete stranger.

CHAPTER 2

Nick Delaware rolled onto the other side of the bed. Empty.

His eyes flew open. Definitely empty. He thought about
calling out
—
maybe she was in the bathroom
—
but he
didn't want to appear desperate. He wasn't desperate. He just liked to know
what was going on at all times. And right now, he didn't have a clue.

He got up, opened the bathroom door and peered in. Empty.
Same with the lounge and the kitchenette. The woman had definitely left.

Nick sighed and ran a hand through his hair. Who the
hell was she? More importantly,
what
was she? The masseur giving
freebies courtesy of the hotel was almost certainly a line. But why lie?

And why was she so eager to sleep with him?

Eager she definitely was. No preliminaries, no small
talk, nothing. She'd easily slipped into having sex with him as if she expected
it to happen.
Wanted
it to happen. It didn't add up. In his experience,
women didn't have sex with strange men within moments of meeting them.

But he hadn't exactly refused her offer either. In
fact, he hadn't even put up a fight, or even asked any questions. Now that was
stupid. Since when did Nick Delaware jump into something he wasn't absolutely
certain about? He always made sure he knew exactly what was going on at all
times, in all the deals he made.

Except he'd never been confronted with this sort of
woman before. And certainly not in this type of situation.

Whatever that situation was. All he knew was that he'd
just had great oral sex with a woman he didn't know
.
But why?

The only reason he could come up with was one he
didn't like. She'd expected to have sex with him, she didn't bother with
preliminaries, she didn't want to get to know him first
—
she just
dove right in, so to speak. Which meant she could only be one thing.

A hooker.

Nick shook his head, angry at himself for succumbing
to that sort of woman. And so easily.

But she'd been good. Damn good. What man could resist
in the face of that body, those intense blue eyes, mischievous mouth... He
hadn't stood a chance against the—

Wait. He frowned. He hadn't paid her.

He strode to the small table beside the bed and opened
the top drawer. His leather wallet was exactly where he'd left it and still
contained the same amount of money. Even his credit cards were still there.

So she wasn't a thief. But why had she
—
Abbey
—
left
without being paid?

It didn't make sense. In fact, none of this made
sense, including his own behavior. He was not the sort of man who had sex with
strange women. Especially ones he had to pay.

Not that she'd taken any money.

Why hadn't she? Maybe she was prepaid. Perhaps someone
had sent her to him and already given her money in advance.

But who? He didn't know anyone in Melbourne and none
of his Sydney friends would get a kick out of that kind of joke.

None of them would dare.

Nick drew in a deep breath and lay on the bed again. He
could still smell her on the sheets. The sweet, floral scent of expensive
perfume and woman. All woman, as he recalled. Damn, she'd felt good. Soft,
succulent, sexy. The sort of woman he used to go for in his wilder days
—
gorgeous, great breasts, long legs, hair a man could get lost in.

That was over ten years ago. His tastes had mellowed
since then. In recent times he preferred the elegant, the sophisticated. A
woman who'd gone to the right school and spent her days lunching with friends
and looked good on his arm at corporate functions.

Lately, however, work had taken over completely, and
even that sort of woman had failed to entice him away from the office for a
night out.

But that was how he wanted it. Work was far more
satisfying and rewarding than taking some well-bred bimbo out to an expensive
restaurant that served a few pieces of lettuce elegantly arranged on a plate
and called it dinner, then charged him a fortune for it. Work didn't complain
and the conversation was better.

No, there hadn't been a woman he'd wanted to take out
for a very long time.

Not that they hadn't tried to take
him
out. But
he always refused. There was too much work to do, especially since he'd taken
over Software Solutions. Late nights, early mornings
—
including
weekends
—
left little time for dates.

Which probably explained why he slept with that girl
tonight. Too much bottled-up stress and sexual energy that needed to be
released. That must be it. He'd just needed to get primal for awhile and feel a
woman beneath him after all these months of celibacy and work.

And how she'd felt beneath him
—
hot, ready
like a firecracker about to go off, and smooth. Those ripe, pink nipples that
he could still taste on his tongue, and those moist lips, parting, throbbing,
wanting him.

Like he'd wanted her.

Nick groaned and rolled over, hoping to smother the
erection that rose again.

Damn, why had she left while he was asleep? If she'd
just stayed around, lain with him on the bed, they could be in the middle of
round two by now. He could've gotten hotel management to send up condoms. They
could've done it properly this time
—
he could've entered her, felt
her tight wetness sucking him in...

Nick groaned and got up. He tried to dismiss the image
of Abbey's naked body from his mind lest he do something he hadn't done since
he was a teenager.

Abbey. He didn't even know her last name. He didn't
even know why she was there. She'd called him Damien Vane, which meant she
didn't know who he really was. Vane, his VP of Marketing who was supposed to be
on this trip but had skipped town at the last minute and was probably drunk
with some whore somewhere...

Vane! The woman was meant for Vane not him! Someone
who knew Vane's penchant for loose, sexy women and someone who didn't mind
picking up the tab.

Or maybe Vane was a regular at a local brothel
whenever he was in Melbourne. Somewhere where they knew him well enough and he
had a running tab. Maybe he organized this little rendezvous in advance. Perhaps
the new girl, not having met Vane before, just assumed Nick was him.

For some reason he couldn't quite fathom, it galled
him to think that the hot little woman with the killer legs and delicious
breasts was meant for someone else. Someone who'd have no appreciation of her
finer points
—
her bright blue eyes, her masses of chestnut hair and
her slightly upturned nose.

Nick shook his head, annoyed at himself. What was he
thinking?
You aren't supposed to appreciate the finer points of a woman like
that.

He sighed. He couldn't believe he'd slept with a
hooker.

He glanced at the clock beside the bed. Two AM. He'd
best get some sleep. Tomorrow was the first day of the seminar and he had to be
in good shape for the presentation. He had all of Vane's notes plus his laptop
and he knew everything about the product, probably more than Vane did, thanks
to some late nights and thorough briefing over the past few days. He was ready
for this. He had to be. The future of Software Solutions, his investment, was
riding on it.

Trouble was, how could he sleep with Abbey's taste
still on his lips and her face still in his mind?

***

"What do you mean you didn't get it?" Abbey
didn't know whether to kill Lucy or hug her.

"The camera's broken." Lucy held up a small,
black object that was supposed to be attached to the large camera that stood on
a tripod at the window. She shrugged thin, bare shoulders. "Sorry. I sort
of dropped it when I was setting up."

"Sorry! You're sorry! I just slept with a
complete stranger so you could get those shots and you tell me the damn thing's
broken!" Abbey drew in a deep breath and placed both hands on her hips.

Lucy grinned, lighting up her pretty face.

"I knew you slept with him! That's fantastic! He
was gorgeous." She hugged her friend. "So the broken camera isn't
such a bad thing after all
—
at least now you'll get to do it all
over again."

Abbey laughed despite herself. Trust Lucy to look at
it like that. Always the wild one, she could pick up a guy in a bar, sleep with
him that night, then never call him again. And not feel bad about it. Abbey
couldn't.

Until tonight.

Lucy and Abbey went back a long way. They'd become
instant friends when they met at university over ten years ago. Lucy had graduated
and joined the police force since she could think of nothing better to do. A
year later, she'd quit, stifled by the protocol and paperwork. She'd taken on
odd jobs after that, and it was while working in a dry cleaning store that
she'd got her big break.

Her boss suspected her husband was cheating on her but
he was clever and proving it was difficult. So instead of letting it go on,
Lucy decided to test his fidelity without her boss knowing the favor she was
doing her. She asked a friend to photograph her having sex with the man. She
gave the photos to her boss, but instead of dumping him, the woman fired Lucy
for sleeping with her husband.

It didn't matter because Lucy had already realized she
could make better money taking photos of cheating husbands in compromising
positions than working in a dry cleaning store. So she got her private
investigator's license, got herself an office and placed some ads in newspapers
and magazines. The calls had trickled in ever since. The only modification she
made was to hire someone else to get the men in compromising positions while
she took the photos.

Abbey often thought it was because her friend liked to
watch, but she never questioned her motive.

While Lucy had gone into P.I. work, Abbey had taken
the more traveled route and gone into P.A. work. She had been the personal
assistant to the managing director of a pharmaceuticals company for four years.
She'd been his lover for two of those, until today when she'd arrived at the
office after a two week holiday on her own in Fiji and found Tarken kissing
Melinda from Accounts, a woman Abbey had considered a friend.

She'd quit on the spot. It was the most radical thing
she'd ever done, but she didn't regret it. It seemed today was turning out to
be a day to do radical things.

"Do it again?" Abbey stood back and surveyed
Lucy's cheeky pixie-like face in the moonlight. "I can't!" As soon as
she said it, Abbey knew it was a lie.

"Why not? Wasn't it any good?" Lucy's eyes
glinted in the semi-dark fifth floor office. She'd got the keys off the
building supervisor, someone she'd slept with a few months ago, probably on the
promise that she'd do it again soon, Abbey presumed.

Abbey looked around her, avoiding Lucy's mischievous
stare. "It was great." Wonderful in fact. The best oral sex she'd
ever had. Probably because it was with a complete stranger. "But
—
"

"Well,
then, just do it."

Abbey bit the inside of her lip. It might be nice to
repeat the experience she'd just had with Damien Vane. He was one gorgeous man,
after all, and his tongue had been, well, lizard-like. He was skillful...and
masterful. He knew exactly what he wanted, and exactly what she needed, and how
to do it.

She definitely wouldn't mind doing it again. The
thought of him inside her this time, large and thick, reaching into her soul,
was enticing. Exciting.

She felt hot.

And Lucy, damn her, could tell. She fanned her
friend's face with her hand, her eyes alight with mischief.