BILLIONAIRE (Part 3 & Part 4) (5 page)

Eva’s
eyes widened when she saw Alexander and she was, very uncharacteristically, momentarily speechless.

“Eva, meet Alexander.
  Alexander, my roommate, Eva.”

Alexander took her hand and planted a kiss on the back of her knuckles in an old-fashioned, gentlemanly gesture.  She was positively gushing with excitement.  “Come in, Alexander.  It’s so nice to meet you.”

Eva ushered us into the tiny apartment, which was as clean as I’d ever seen it, if still appearing more than a little run-down, especially after the extreme opulence I’d gotten accustomed to over the past three days.  Extreme opulence, I was finding, was very easy to adjust to.

Eva froze as she noticed my boots, the ones Al
exander had bought me at Barneys.  “Oh my fucking God, Lila.  Are those
Balenciaga
?”  In fact they were.

She was circling me, fingering th
e new dress I was wearing, a thin film of pink cashmere, and the fur neckline of my outstanding new coat, which I’d left untied.  She laughed a little.  “Well, I have to say it.  My makeover barely scratched the surface.  Alexander’s, however, has completely transformed you.”

I smiled back at her, think
ing to myself that her comment might have been the understatement of the millennium.  I felt like an entirely different person to the half-dressed, virginal waif who’d bumbled my way to a random job interview last Thursday.

“We can’t stay long,” I told her, suddenly feeling unusually confined in the tiny room.  The one small window gave an uninspiring view of a brown brick wall.
  “I’ve just come to pick up a few of my things.”  I wasn’t sure how to bring this up casually so I just blurted it out: “We’re leaving for Paris tomorrow.  On business.”

Her mouth dropped open.  She stared at me, then at Alexander, who was sitting on the forlorn plaid couch, looking like some kind of Greek god who’d decided to slum it with the mortals for the afternoon just to see what mundanity felt like for an hour or two before transporting back up to Mount Olympus to drink ambrosia and party the night away with Apollo and Aphrodite.
 

I suddenly didn’t feel like there was anything in this apartment that I actually needed.  I didn’t want any of my old clothes anymore, or my favorite handbag that now seemed cheap and nasty.  Or my bulky canvas duffel bag that I had
thought I might use.

I didn’t want any of it.
  What I wanted to do was leave.

“Will you join us f
or lunch?” Alexander asked Eva.

I loved Eva.  I’d known her since my freshman year at Princeton, when she’d been a sophomore.  When I’d skipped my sophomore year, having completed some college-level classes when I was still in high school, and taking an almost-double load of classes my freshman year, Eva and I had struck up a friendship in our shared American Literature class, as juniors
.  She was a bright spark and a willing listener and she’d brought me out of my shell little by little.  Of course I hadn’t told her
everything
.  Some secrets were just too deeply buried.  But I’d shared more of my life story with her than anyone I’d ever known.  She was a light relief against the dark chasm of my past and my dogged focus on achieving against the odds.

I felt guilty for the
flicker of relief I felt when she said, “I’m so pissed off.  I would so love to come with you two, but the law firm I work for is having a retirement party for one of the old partners this afternoon.  I can’t really get out of it.  It’ll be tedious as hell.  But if I want to land a real job once this internship is up, I’ve got to kiss ass and do as I’m told.”  She turned to me.  “Kind of like you have to do for
your
new employer, right, Lila?”

She meant it as a joke; Eva was too kind-hearted to intend anything callous or mean-spirited
by the playful comment.  But something about the reality of the jibe dug deep.  Was
that
what I was doing?  Kissing his ass and sucking his cock so I could wear Balenciaga boots and be taken out to lunch and flown to Paris?  The perks of my new arrangement were too many to list, too life-changing to analyze.  I wanted all of it.  Right now.  I wanted to distance myself from this shabby little apartment and my depressing history to ride into the sunset with Alexander in his limo, to be met by his lear jet and to rise over a glimmering horizon.

I walked over to Eva and gave her a heartfelt hug.  I honestly didn’t know when I’d see her again.  “Have fun at the party.  I’ll give you a call when we get back.”

She hugged me close.  I could feel her support and also her envy.  Both of us had tears in our eyes as we drew apart.  I don’t think either of us knew what we were crying about except that we could both feel it: a change.  In me.  “What did you want to pick up?” she asked.

“I decided I don’t need anything,” I said.
  “I just wanted to see you.”

Alexander was checkin
g something on his phone and missed the intricacies of our exchange, making the off-hand comment, “We’ll get you anything you need once we get to Paris, Lila.  You won’t have to pack much.”

I went to him, touching his neck
in a feathery stroke, signalling that it was time to go.  When he glanced up at me, he looked a little puzzled, as though he hadn’t expected our visit to be so quick.  He studied my expression with more intent, seeing that I was upset even if he couldn’t decipher the emotion behind it, reading my desire to leave, understanding that there were no material possessions I wanted from this place.  I wanted to move on.  This pleased him, I could see this.  And instead of feeling uncomfortable with his smugness, I welcomed it.  I felt smug, too.  I felt possessive of him to the extreme, and connected.  I wanted to own his beauty.  The silky texture of his mane of black hair was for my fingers alone.  His handsome face was for me.  His smile.  His lips and hands and his body.  Mine.

I forced a light-hearted
wave and smile and promised Eva I’d call her as soon as I could.

The elevator couldn’t come fast enough.  I reveled in every step that took me closer to the decade
nt enclosure of the limo.  As soon as the driver closed the door behind us, sealing us into the rich, luxurious haven, I breathed a sigh of relief.  I crawled onto Alexander’s lap and I let him hold me and kiss me.  I let him ease my coat from my shoulders and lay it on the seat.  I let him roll the film of my cashmere dress up my body to my waist.  He let me unfasten his jeans and hold his silken length in my hands.  I worked him with care until he was massively, rigidly aroused.  He let me straddle him and guide him to the tight cove between my legs.  I let him push his thickness into me, aggressively.  I wasn’t wet; I was too overcome, too confused and yet not confused.  I knew what I wanted.  This.  Him. 

It hurt a little, his forced, invited possession and the tears that had begun when I’d said goodbye to Eva returned, wetting my face.  I wanted him deeper and I ea
sed myself up, bouncing onto him until he was fully inside me.  He pushed my dress higher, revealing my full breasts, taking them in both hands as he guided them to his mouth, sucking one flushed, sensitive nipple, then the other, licking me with his tongue.  He was panting lightly, groaning each time I gyrated my hips against him and squeezed him strongly from within.  I was coming, despite the light pain, and because of it.  The ache was laced with shards of light and longing.  The clenching spasms of my release were manic and wild, sucking him deeper into my body.  Alexander’s growl was feverish and fraught as his colossal cock pulsed violently inside me, filling me with liquid warmth, setting me off again into long, shimmery waves of pure ecstasy.

I had no intention of disengaging.  I writhed and wriggled, holding him in my arms, clasping my pussy around him with devoted, adoring compression, kissing his face as
yet another orgasm flooded through me.  My tears continued to pool, and to fall. 

“It’s all right,” he was whispering, wiping my tears with his fingers
, kissing my face.  “You’re all right.”

I just kept on coming.

Alexander

Monday morning rolled around and for the first time in my goddamn life I was completely uninterested in conquering the world of business, publishing, investments or anything else.  The only thing I was interested in conquering was the luscious depths of Lila’s pink, perfect pussy, which was already softening and awakening under the careful marauding of my tongue as I licked into her, feeding on the nectar of her taste.

I could not fucking get enough of this girl.

The juicy sweetness of her was more addictive than any drug I’d ever experienced.  Not that I’d sampled all that many.  I’d been too preoccupied with trudging my way up the corporate ladder for recreation, chemical or otherwise.  I’d witnessed the effects drugs could have on people from a young age and had decided early on that I wanted nothing to do with the kind of damage I’d worked my entire life to undo.

T
his
addiction was separate from all that and it was bigger than morality, drive or reason. I could only hope that it would begin to fade once I swept her away to Paris for a week to indulge at my whim, without distractions.

Not that indulging my whims, which I had done pretty much constantly since she’d walked into my office late last week, was doing anything at all to slake my desire.  In fact, it was doing the exact opposite.  The more I had of Lila the more I wanted.  Every little feast only made me hungrier.  Every touch only made me more devoted.  Every release only fed my frenzy.

Like now.  I ate at her like a starving man who’d been given the last, ripest fruit on a solitary tree: the
only
fruit.  And that was the most fucked up thing about this.  It almost worried me.  That I might be spoiled for anything else.  Nothing else would ever taste this good.  Like honey and milk and sunshine and moonlight all wrapped up into one squirming little nubile package.

I was drifting on sensation, immersed in the pleasure wholly derived from her taste, which leached into me through my mouth and drugged me with warm, zealous lust. 
I let my tongue dip into her as I kissed and sucked and ate into the softness.  My cock was hot, aching and ferociously hard.  Painful but in an almost succulent way, like I was getting ready to burst, riding the high but holding on.  I was spilling but not yet coming.

She
was awake but still drowsy.  Her fingers weaved themselves through my hair.  She pushed weakly against my head as though to displace me.

“Alexander,” she cooed
, scooching an inch up the bed. Retreating.  “Don’t.”

At first I thought I misunderstood
her. 
Don’t?

A dart of panic flickered somewhere outside the periphery of my bliss.  She couldn’t mean ‘
don’t.’  She probably meant ‘more’ or ‘faster’ or ‘please.’  None of those words, true, sounded anything like ‘don’t.’  And she was pushing again at my head.

It was fucking pathetic and I cursed myself even as I was doing it.  I was about to obey her, to look up at her and see what this was about.  But first I wound my hands more securely around her hips and pulled her closer.  I sucked on her pussy lips, touching her clit with m
y tongue, circling and teasing, hoping it would be enough to make her forget whatever small protest she was about to make.

She did moan
, softly, but there was that word again.  The one that made me want to behave like some sort of psycho caveman and tie her down and
make
her give in to me.  She’d allowed me anything I wanted so far and the thought of her refusing me now sent a billow of dark despair through my gut.

She said my name again, curling it acro
ss her tongue like a flavor.  Just the sound of it, like a wet dream on a hot night, was  enough to almost fucking undo me.

Hell
.

It took a ridiculous amount of effort to disengage.  I looked up at her.  Her golden hair was all disheveled, framing her face in a
wild-kittenish halo.  Her rose-colored lips were sultry and plump, her pale face touched by pink flashes of color just under her cheekbones.  Her breasts were full and young and unbelievably beautiful.

“It’s Monday morning.”  She pointed to her watch.
  Her cheap, black plastic one.  It looked chunky and wrong on her peachy perfection.  I put it on my mental list to buy her a gold one at my very first opportunity.  “Almost nine o’clock.  You might want to … you know.  Not do that right now.  Just in case.”

Ah.  The reason we’d abandoned any
pretence at birth control, after the fact.

I felt
absurdly relieved.  That
that
was all this was about.  She wasn’t pulling back from me or calling foul or wanting less.

She was warning me.  Her time of the month was upon us.

Always before, with past girlfriends, any reference to the ins and outs of womanly cycles and whatnot had been enough to find me extra busy at work for five days straight.  Dinners out.  Meetings and trips and whatever.  Disinterest spurred by the smallest dose of disgust was normal behavior.  I was a man and therefore one step removed.  As it should be.

Or so I thought.

As with everything else, Lila redefined the way I felt about this.  In fact I felt more turned on than ever.  The relief that had cooled the poisonous effect of my initial panic fed my fire.  Milk and honey.  Sweetness and sex.  Life.  Blood.  Death.  It was all one thing.  Right here in this suddenly-shy little nymph who made me feel more human and manly and alive than I ever had.  I wanted to taste her fertility.  To bask in it.  To own it.

“I don’t care about that,” I said.
  “Let me.”

I kissed her pussy, very softly.  She was
propped up on her elbows, watching me.  “Alexander,” she said again.

I waited
, breathing on her, letting her feel the humid strikes of my breath on her sex, wetting her, warming her.  “I want to taste you, honey girl,” I said, low and almost pleading.  “It’s all right.”

She liked this
endearment, this reassurance.  She drank it in, like she had yesterday in the limo.  For some reason, she absolutely craved these comforting murmurs.

And if there was something Lila craved, I was going to fucking give it to her.  As much as she wanted, times ten.  “It’s all right,”
I crooned, softly, carefully, kissing her again.  “I want to taste you so bad.  I won’t hurt you.  It’ll feel good.  I’ll make you come, then well take a shower and I’ll wash you.  I’ll help you pack.”  I punctuated each sentence with a light, open-mouthed kiss on her blossoming pussy.  I could already tell she was beginning to relent.  The movement of my mouth against her sex was having its effect.  “We’ll go to your doctor’s appointment and get your pills.  I’ll tie up a few loose ends in my office and we’ll get the night flight to Paris.”  A gentle, sucking caress.  “We can sleep on the plane.  I’ve got a king-sized bed on my jet.  You don’t have to worry about anything.”  I licked her, and let my tongue sink deeper into her tight core.  When I looked back up at her face, her lips were parted.  Her nipples were beginning to bud.  “There’s a little five-star hotel on the Left Bank that keeps a room for me.  You can see the Eiffel Tower from the window, and there’s a balcony.  I’ll buy you anything you need.  Anything you want.  I’ll show you the sights.  I’ll take you places you’ve never been.  I’ll take care of everything.  I’ll take care of you.”

Her
smoky green eyes were rounded and shiny.  She lay back, her tension easing, and her hands were in my hair, grabbing fistfuls.  “Alexander,” she said.  But this time there was no doubt in her voice.  She said my name like I was a savior and a saint, not a debauched, hedonistic addict.

I didn’t know what I was.

But the metallic, liquid tang of her was new to me.  The flavor and the experience blew over my soul like a breeze from wonderland.  I feasted like a hunter consuming its prey.  I wasn’t a scoundrel and I wasn’t a beast, but I was completely
alive
.  She came several times and I barely noticed.  I was entranced in mists of tenderness and need.  And when it occurred to me to climb up her body and immerse myself in all that lovely, gory beauty, I lasted only minutes.  Like some kind of Dracula-turned-Neanderthal, all I could think about was releasing my
seed
into that exquisite, ravenous mess.  Nothing had ever felt so pure, or so
real
.  I loved it I loved it I loved it.

Even worse, I loved
her
.  And I was going to keep her to myself and show her the best time of her life in Paris and London and New York and everywhere else.  I was going to give her everything I had.

I loved her.

Fuck
.

She was curled up by the window, looking out at the moonlit clouds and the darkness of the night.

“I can’t believe we’re flying over the middle of the ocean,” she said in her angel’s voice.

She was nervous about flying
.  She’d never flown before and her vulnerabilities were more amplified tonight.  She was naked, wrapped in a quilted down comforter.  I was feeding her bites of filet mignon I’d asked the chef to prepare.  Iron and protein, that’s what she needed at times like these, so I’d read somewhere.  But she hadn’t eaten much.  She sipped from a champagne flute.

“I think we’ve just about reached the coast
,” I told her.  “Do you want to sleep a little?”

“No.  I can’t sleep
.”  She looked small and lost despite the plushness of her surroundings.  I knew she’d never been off American soil before and that her excitement was laced with a tinge of unease.  Something about her position, almost fetal with her arms hugging her bent knees like that, flicked up a haunting déjà vu.  Of Jake, sitting just like that, at a window in our beach shack, watching – although I hadn’t known it at the time – for the predator that sometimes came in the night.  I forced the image into the dark recesses of my mind, but the protective melancholy lingered.  It wasn’t the first time the vulnerabilities in Lila reminded me of my brother, who I’d spent my entire life doggedly, fiercely safeguarding.  And it made me wonder about her.  About what her insecurities stemmed from. 

I’d already admitt
ed to myself that I loved her.

And I knew almost nothing about her.

This was not terribly unusual.  I’d been accused, more than once, of being disinterested and disengaged from my love interests of the past.  Cold workaholic.  Commitment phobic.  Uncaring asshole.  Self-absorbed prick.  I’d been charged with every crime in the relationship book.  And I’d accepted the accusations willingly.  They were true, after all.  I knew this about myself.  Until now, I hadn’t really cared to change what I’d assumed was just a glitch in the mechanics of my soul.

With Lila, though,
I found I wanted to learn.  Everything.  All of it.  I wanted to gently, carefully dig into the painful memories in her past, whatever they might be, and fix them.  With sex and diamonds and lust and clothes and travel and excess, I wanted to ease whatever burdens she carried.

For her, I wanted to
learn
how to love.

What bothered me was that I didn’
t have the first goddamn clue about how to go about doing this.  Love was unchartered territory for me and I’ll admit the whole idea of it was fucking freaking me out.  But at the same time, I was willing to step off the nearest cliff for this coiled up little nymphet with the mussed-up hair and the shadowed green eyes.

Where to start?  Something that might frame the bigger picture, maybe.  A detail that would provide the beginnings of context.  “Where were you born, Lila?”  It sounded strange.  Overly random.  Out of place.  But I was now committed to
eking some of this story from her in an attempt to begin to get closer.

She stared at me
-
glared
, actually – and her mouth tightened into a puffy little pout.  I could see that she had no intention of answering me.

“I
want some chocolate cake,” she said, and the youthful petulance had returned.

All right.  So she needed more time before she would let me
past even barrier number one.

I had time.  I had a
ll the time in the world.