Billionaire Bought: My Billionaire Boss, Part 6 (A BDSM Erotic Romance) (3 page)

I looked around but apart from his mother and Andrea Wright (who'd vanished), I didn't know anyone else. I thought I recognized an old fat man from the first day Mr. Stone had me take notes for his meeting but I wasn't sure. I went over to the bar and ordered a glass of sauvignon blanc .

I don't know much about wine and honestly made most of my purchasing decisions in that area using the criteria of 1) Does the label have something interesting on it and 2) Is it less than ten bucks. The sauvignon blanc was some kind of miracle of deliciousness. I tasted hints of passion fruit and faint oak. This must be what it's like to know about wine.

"Quite an entrance you two made."

I turned around to see Mr. Black standing behind me at the bar. He had a glass in his hand that was more whisky than ice and he took a slurp from at before smiling at me. The bartender behind him shook her head and moved away to serve another guest.

"Good evening Mr. Black."

"You know, you never thanked me that for bacon," he said, slurring slightly. His cheeks were red and I wondered how much he'd had to drink.

"You're right. Thank you for the food. I needed it."

"Don't mention it," he said, raising his glass at me. The whisky slopped up the side and came perilously close to going over the rim but he didn't notice.

"How are you tonight, sir?" I asked.

"Where are you from again? I never asked did I?" he said, not answering my question.

I glanced around the room but Mr. Stone was nowhere to be seen.

"Bedford."

Mr. Black slurped some more whisky and then shook his glass so the ice-cubes clinked before stepping closer to me. I was in a huge ballroom but I felt like I was trapped in a closet with him.

He took another step closer and then ran his finger down the side of my face.

"Bedford. The little town with the environmental problem."

He put the emphasis on
bed
, his breath washing over me stinking of alcohol.

"And what do you know about it?" I asked. I wanted to step back. I wanted to slap his hand away and smack him in the face but I held still.

"The question isn't what I know about it. It's what Jackson Golden Boy Stone knows." He tilted his face down and looked up at me, trying to look demonic but just coming off like an asshole.

"How do you know they have an environmental problem?"

Mr. Black raised his finger to his lips like he was shushing himself and then looked away. "Shame about that fire wasn't it?" he said before walking away.

I felt myself turn cold and had to stop myself from following him. I wanted to smash my wine glass over his head. Instead I swallowed it down and ordered another one. The bartender served me another with an apologetic look on her face.

"He grabbed the bottle from behind the bar," she said, handing me the wine.

"Don't worry about it," I answered automatically. I sipped my wine and looked around to see where Mr. Black was but I couldn't see him. Good riddance.

Just then, a bell rang out over the crowd. I turned along with everyone else to see Mrs. Stone halfway up the stairs ringing a bell.

"The bachelor auction is about to begin! Take your drinks and go through to the next room please!"

The crowd began moving through to an adjoining room while I looked around for Mr. Stone. Where was he?

Mrs. Stone saw me waiting at the bar. She marched over and took my hand. "Come though now Delilah," she said and pulled me away from the bar.

"So good to see Jackson with a lovely young girl," she said to me as we shuffled into the next room along with everyone else. I felt like the crowd was listening to every word she had to say.

"Thank you," I said, talking a surreptitious gulp of wine.

"So many of them were just after his money," she said as though I hadn't spoken at all. "It's difficult to find someone who shares similar values you know. Raised in the same kind of environment. Different worlds, you see."

Okay, I get it. Your son grew up here in a mansion and then became a billionaire. I grew up in a tiny house and became a office worker.

"Where did you grow up?" she asked.

"Bedford."

It was the second time tonight I'd been asked that question and again, the response was surprising.

"Bedford ... Bedford ... I feel like I know that name," she said, frowning.

"Stone Pharma was there. It burned to the ground." Snarky snark. I felt my temperature rising and not in a good way.

"That must have been it," she said distantly. She let go of my arm and without another word moved off into the crowd.

"Don't worry about her," Mr. Stone said in my ear, slipping his hand into mine. I turned and saw he was flushed like he'd been running.

"I met Mr. Black too. He was drunk and very interested in my home town." For some reason I felt peeved he'd left me with these people.

"I saw him also. Shortly before he started throwing up in the bushes." Mr. Stone seemed unconcerned about the state of his business partner. "The bidding is about to begin. Remember, no limit and then we can get out of here." He squeezed my hand and gave me a look that made my knees go weak.

He led me to a chair and I sat down after removing the red numbered paddle from it. All throughout the room people were sitting down as various young men in suits made their way to the front where there sat a line of chairs. Mrs. Stone had made her way to a podium and was tapping a microphone that crackled as she touched it. Mr. Stone quickly walked to the front of the room and put his hand over the microphone before speaking with his mother. She seemed to protest something but then waved her hands at him in resignation. He moved past her and sat down.

"Tonight we are raising money to help with the refurbishment of the sixth street art gallery. Each young man has put themselves up for sale. You are buying a night of dinner, dancing and whatever your heart desires," Mrs. Stone said. Members of the crowd laughed.

"A slight change in the program - the first up is Jackson Stone, my son."

Jackson stood up and gave a slight bow to the crowd. The red of his cheeks had faded and he was looking as cool and collected as ever.

"One of the two owners of Stone-Black and one of the finest bachelors this city has to offer. Coming from a line of impeccable parentage." At this she bowed also and more people laughed. "Shall we start the bidding at ... say ... one million?"

My eyes widened and my breath caught in my throat. A million dollars? Who had a million dollars to spend at a bachelor auction?

"One million."

I turned to see a young blonde woman with cheekbones like razor blades wave her paddle in the air.

"One million! Do we have-"

"One point one million." An older woman from the back.

There was a blur of bids then and before I knew it, Jackson Stone was up to three million thanks to the blonde with the sharp cheekbones.

"Four million," said a voice from the back.

The crowd turned around to see Mr. Black standing in the doorway. His shirt was untucked and one knee of his pants looked wet. As everyone turned around he made an attempt to fix up his shirt but just showed everyone how drunk he really was.

"Um ... we have four million. Are you feeling okay, Mr. Black?"

He nodded and leaned against the door frame.

"Do we have any other bids?" Mrs. Stone asked. She looked towards the blonde who shook her head.

I took a deep breath and clenched the paddle. "Four point one million," I said.

Mrs. Stone smiled and looked across at her son. He was glaring at Mr. Black as though he was ready to hit him.

"Four point one million dollars from Delilah Neri. Whom you all know from earlier with the kissing."

My ears went red as the crowd laughed but then I saw Mrs. Stone wink at me.

"Five million," Mr. Black bid again.

Jackson stepped across to his mother and whispered something in her ear. She nodded and then cleared her throat, unfortunately into the microphone.

"If we don't have any other bids then we are finishing at four point one million for Delilah Neri," she said.

"Six million!" shouted Mr. Black and laughed.

"Going once. Going twice. And done," Mrs. Stone said.

"A hundred and ninety one million!" shouted Mr. Black. Two men in suits appeared next to him and as the crowd watched, gently maneuvered him out.

Mr. Stone came striding down off the stage, holding out his hand to me. As we swept out of the room I heard Mrs. Stone nervously clear her throat again and start to introduce the next bachelor.

We walked through the ballroom, Mr. Stone holding my hand firmly in his grasp and up the staircase. Mr. Black was nowhere to be seen. We rushed down the corridor and out the front door where Mi-oh was waiting with the car. As we walked out however, Mr. Black spoke up from the grass beside the driveway.

"Hey, I bought you for a hundred ninety one mil," he said.

Jackson guided me into the car and then turned around. "You need to go home," he said to his business partner.

"And you need ... you need to go to fucking Swaziland!" Mr. Black shouted back at him and then laughed like a hyena.

"Sleep it off," Mr. Stone said and got into the car beside me. Mi-oh floored it and we took off, leaving Mr. Black shouting at us in the distance.

*

We drove for ten minutes in silence, Mr. Stone holding my hand and looking out the window. I was nervously chewing my lip unsure of what I was meant to do here. Make a joke about how I bought him? Talk about his mother? Comment about his drunken business partner?

"He wasn't always like that," Mr. Stone said.

"Do you mean drunk?"

He nodded and sighed before taking out his phone. He tapped on it and then turned so we could both see.

"This is us, age twenty," he said, showing me a picture of him and Mr. Black. They were dressed in business suits and both looked shockingly young. "We started working together when we were just sixteen. Did you know that?"

I shook my head. I'd done my research on Stone-Black but the official records only went so far back.

"I used to call him my brother. We were rivals but when it came down to it, we'd always choose each other over any woman, any business. Nothing could come between us. By the time both us of were twenty we'd already made our first million. Then one day I was visiting a supplier overseas. They were taking me on a tour and then I went my own direction through the wrong door. There were kids sleeping on the floor next to this massive machine. It practically ran twenty-four hours a day. He denied that he knew about it but it wasn't the truth. He always pushed on the edge of the law and now we were tied up in this contract with a company using children for workers."

I squeezed his hand and silently prayed for Mi-oh to slow down so this spell wouldn't be broken.

"I told him I needed some time and went to Swaziland. Built mud-brick houses. Met a girl."

He stopped as a wash of pain went across him.

"I was going to stay there forever. Then one day he turns up. I was so happy to see him. He joined us. Build mud-brick houses too."

He flicked his thumb across the surface of the phone and showed me two photos. In the first he had a shaved head, up to his knees in mud, helping build a mud-brick home. The next was him laughing, his arm around the waist of a stunning black girl.

"Did you love her?" I could barely hear my own voice over the rushing sound of my heart thumping.

He looked down at the photo and for an instant I saw the twenty-year-old appear. Unbroken. Softer.

"I did. But that was a lifetime ago. That kid ... he's dead and gone. Black seduced her and she left me. Made her promises of giving her a mansion to live in, jewels, more money than she could imagine."

I held my breath, questions piling up but I didn't want to speak and have him close down.

"I came home. Build a red mud-brick replica in the garden and let plants grow over it."
I remembered seeing it in the garden - it was right after Mr. Stone had asked me to be his slave and I'd refused.

"He came back too, without her. We knew it had happened but like all good families we pretended the giant problem didn't exist. My father's business was failing then and ours was thriving. We made an offer which he rejected. He could never give up control. Then he passed away four months later and the board accepted our offer. Suddenly we were in control of an organization on the brink of bankruptcy and had to work to save it. We split it up and he was the one who looked after Stone Pharma."

We were nearly at his mansion and I knew time was running short.

"I found contracts today. They had your name on them..."

"You don't trust me." He voice was low and hard.

We pulled up in front of his mansion and Mr. Stone turned to me. "Come with me. Now."

I followed him out of the car and up the front steps, my stomach churning. He took me by the hand and pulled me inside and up the stairs, heading for his study. We stopped in there and he suddenly turned and grabbed the leather collar around my throat.

"You need to be punished for your lack of trust," he said.

I felt the strength of his body close to mine and trembled at the tone in his voice. Why had I said that? He'd opened himself to me and my response was that I found contracts with his name on them? I could have said anything and I blundered in with that?

Mr. Stone opened the door to his sex dungeon and pushed me inside ahead of him, never letting go of my collar.

We stopped in the middle of the room and I saw the bench he'd tied me to before going down on me with a mouth full of hot tea.

"Take off your clothes," he said in my ear.

I complied, slipping out of my dress and stepping down from my high heels. Without any warning Mr. Stone smacked me on the ass, the crack of his hand echoing through the room. I squealed and tried to turn away but he had hold of my collar.

"You will answer yes, sir."

"Yes, sir," I said quickly and wiped away a tear.

"I said to take off your clothes," he said.

"Yes, sir," I said and unclipped my bra before slipping my underwear off. He kicked my pile of clothes to the side and continued to stand behind me, holding my collar. I could hear his breathing, low and fast and despite the sting on my skin, or maybe because of it, I felt myself getting wet.