Billionaire's Tragedy (Standalone Book) (Billionaire Bad Boy Romance) (15 page)

"It must have been
really difficult," I said softly.

"I don't know if
it's been difficult or not," he said with a small smile and then quietly
added, "But it's been really lonely."

"I know the feeling,
if that's any consolation," I said looking straight into his eyes. He held
my gaze as he nodded, and I was suddenly very aware of the fact that my hand
was still resting on his leg. I could feel the electricity flowing between us
as he leaned forward and lightly ran his fingers up my arm. I shivered as he
followed a trail along my bare skin until his hand was cupping my cheek and I
could feel my heart pounding in my chest.

"Give me your
glass," he whispered as he leaned closer. I handed it over and he quickly
deposited it next to his own on the coffee table. He was inches from my lips
when he whispered, "Olivia, since the moment I met you, I haven't been sure
whether I wanted to punch you or kiss you, but now I'm sure."

"Sure, sure, lure me
close enough to deliver the fatal blow," I replied in a shaking voice. He
smiled slightly as he leaned even closer. We were now only millimeters apart
and I could feel his breath on my lips. The aching want that I'd felt since I'd
first met him rose to a cacophonous level, but I held back, unsure of where
this was going and yet knowing perfectly well what we both wanted.

"You're so
beautiful, you know that, don't you?" he whispered as his hand moved up
into my hair, searching out the clips and pins that the stylist had used to
tame it. He patiently pulled each pin out tossing it over my shoulder as he
did, but never moving far from my lips. The tension built in a slow, delicious
way as my hair came cascading down and he slipped his hand deep into the
thickness of it. I felt him sigh as he played with the silky strands, winding
them around his fingers and then letting go so he could grab another handful.

"Linc...” I breathed
softly.

"Mmm hmm," he
smiled as he continued his slow sensual exploration of my tresses with one hand
as his other hand stroked the bare skin between my elbow and shoulder. I could
feel my body aflame with want and need, and I wanted to throw my arms around
him and press my lips and body against his. And yet, I never wanted the teasing
to end. The feeling of Linc's hands stroking and massaging my skin was
intoxicating.

"Please?" I
whispered as his fingers slid across my shoulder and up my neck.

"Please what,
Olivia?" he whispered. I could feel the heat radiating from his lips as he
spoke.

"Please, Linc,"
I sighed. "Please..."

"Please, this?"
he asked seconds before he closed the gap and brushed his lips across mine so
lightly that had my eyes not been open, I would have questioned whether I'd
imagined it. I moaned softly as he slid his hand down my side and wrapped his
arm around my waist, pulling me against him as he pressed his lips to mine and
kissed me deeply. I responded by wrapping my arms around his neck and sinking
my fingers into his thick, blond hair as I parted my lips and let his tongue
slip into my mouth.

I heard him groan as I
lashed my tongue against his and kissed him harder. His fingers fumbled with
the zipper on my dress and then found the tab and pulled it down, loosening the
layers of green silk. I was trapped in the layers of fabric, unable to pull it
up or push it down. He wrapped his arms around me and lifted me off the couch
as he stood up. My dress slid down and pooled around my feet in a green puddle,
leaving me wearing nothing but the strapless bra and nude g-string. I heard
Linc's pleasured moan as he slid his hands down and cupped my bare bottom, his
hands sliding over my skin as he kissed me harder.

I pulled back from the kiss
and said, "Reciprocity, Redding, your turn," as I smiled and began
unbuttoning his shirt. He smiled as he slid his hand up into my hair and ran
his fingers through it as I made quick work of the clothes covering his top
half. I leaned forward and rubbed my cheek against his smooth chest and smelled
the scent of his musky cologne floating up around us.

"Olivia," he
whispered as he tipped my chin up and leaned down to kiss me again, and the
damn burst. I wanted this man and obviously he wanted me, too. I quickly
unbuckled his belt and unzipped his pants, slipping my hand inside only to find
he'd gone commando. I grinned as I wrapped my hand around the thick shaft and
began gently squeezing. Linc groaned as he slid his hand between my thighs and
began stroking the thin, soaking wet fabric that barely covered me.

I bit his lip gently as I
pushed his tuxedo pants down and let them fall to the floor. He tried to remove
his shoes so he could step out of the pants, but I was quick and pushed him
back down on the couch and in an instant, I was straddling his lap as I rubbed
myself against his erection and moaned as it hit all the right spots. He grinned
and tried to reach around to undo my bra, but I smacked his hands and made a
show of slowly unhooking and then letting the garment drop to the floor.

"Jesus, lady,"
he breathed as he cupped my breasts and massaged them before pinching my
nipples just hard enough to make me cry out. He rolled them between his fingers
gently then pinched again and I felt the lightning bolt flash from my nipples
to my clit in an instant. I grabbed a hold of his shoulders and rocked my hips
back and forth until he let go of my nipples and leaned forward to trap one
between his lips and suck. The sensation of his tongue and lips on my already
sensitive breasts made me grind harder, and soon, we were devouring each
other's mouths again as we found a rhythm that felt so good that we got lost in
the sensation of rubbing and grinding, losing track of time and space as we
explored each other's mouths. We bit, licked, and sucked each other’s lips and
tongues as we tried to dive deeper and find release. Linc's hands grabbed my
hips and pushed me down harder onto his thick shaft as he pushed his hips up
and stroked me through my panties. That thin layer of fabric would have been so
easy to push aside and allow us to find even greater pleasure, but we were so
lost in the moment that it wasn't until I heard him groan and felt wet warmth
spreading between us that I realized what we'd done.

"Woman, look what
you made me do," he groaned, half laughing trying to push me off of his
lap. When I refused to move, his blue eyes flashed dangerously and he grabbed
me and flipped me sideways on the couch. On my back, I had little leverage, and
he soon pinned me as his hand, once again, slipped between my thighs and began
stroking and caressing me. I bucked a little, but he grinned and said, "Oh
no, now it's your turn,” as he continued teasing. When he pushed aside the
sopping wet fabric and slipped his fingers between my slippery folds, I moaned
loudly and pushed my hips up to meet his strokes. It didn't take long for him
to bring me close to the edge, and once he did, he held me there for long,
torturous minutes as he slowly circled my hard nub and brought me to the edge
over and over before I begged him for release. Then, with a flick of his
finger, he gave me what I'd begged for and I was falling into the waves of
pleasure as he continued stroking and rubbing.

"Stop! Stop!" I
half laughed and half cried. "I can't take any more!"

"I think you can
take a lot more than that, Olivia," he said as he withdrew his fingers and
watched me closely. His eyes were a deep blue instead of the icy shade I'd seen
earlier, and there was something softer about him.

"Do you now?" I
grinned up at him, suddenly feeling self-conscious about the fact that I was
naked on my couch.

"I would be willing
to bet on it," he grinned back as he leaned down and kissed me again. I
wanted to wrap my arms around him and pull him down on top of me, but before I
could, his phone went off and he gave me an apologetic look as he picked up his
pants and retrieved it.

"Oh shit," he
muttered as he set the phone down and grabbed his pants. He quickly put them on
as he kept an eye on the phone. "Dammit! Not this and not tonight!"

"What's going on,
Redding?" I asked as I looked around for something to cover myself with. I
had nothing except my discarded dress, so I grabbed it and pulled it up in
front of me like a shield.

"I'm so sorry,
Olivia," he said as he pulled on his shirt and grabbed his jacket.
"This is not how I wanted to spend the evening, believe me, but I have to
go. Please, forgive me."

"Yeah, sure,
whatever," I shrugged as I tried to hide my deep disappointment.
"You're a busy guy. I get it."

"This is beyond the
normal level of busy, believe me," he said, giving me an apologetic look.
"I will make it up to you, okay?"

"Yeah, yeah, yeah,
just go already!" I said as I dredged up a cheerful grin that I did not feel.
"We'll talk later."

"Thanks for
understanding," he said as he bent down and kissed me one last time before
he turned and headed out the door.

After he'd gone, I lay on
the couch and let myself cry for a few minutes before I got up, tossed the
dress in the dry cleaning pile, pulled on a pair of comfortable sweats, and
called the twenty-four hour Chinese place on the corner. I ordered Kung Pao
Chicken and three egg rolls to be delivered. If I was going to sulk, at least I
wasn't going to be hungry while doing it.

CHAPTER
NINETEEN

Linc

I
wasn't happy about
leaving Olivia so abruptly, but business called. When I showed up at the
office, Brant was hunched over his computer pounding out an email to the
Chinese CEO asking him to hold off canceling the contract until the weapons
bill went to the senate for a vote the following week.

"What's going
on?" I asked pulling up a chair and watching Brant negotiate.

"They want to pull
out of the deal before the vote," he said. "They said we're getting
bad press on their end and the risks of being associated with us are going to
cost them other business."

"Tell them that if
they stick with us, we'll make it worth their while in the end," I said as
I pulled out my phone and checked my messages. I quickly tapped out an apology
to Olivia, but hesitated pushing send.

"I'm trying, but
they're edgy about the shootings and how we're dealing with the press,"
Brant replied. "It's not good, Linc."

"Jesus, I'm sick and
tired of Russo always having the upper hand in this debate!" I stood up
and walked to the window. I looked out over the Potomac and thought about what
I wanted most and how to get that. Then, I spoke. "Brant, tell them that
if they don't give us the time we need to get the vote passed, then we'll go
with their competitor."

"But we don't have
any kind of agreement with any of their competitors!" Brant protested.
"That will screw us so badly that we'll be lucky if we can keep the shirts
on our backs, Linc! Don't play chicken with the Chinese!"

"I'm sick of this
whole mess, Pace," I said. "I want out, so we have to go big or go
home. Tell them that they can either be loyal now or suffer the consequences
later when we win."

Brant looked up at me and
shook his head before typing out the message and pressing send. "You are
so going to screw us, man," he sighed. "We've worked so hard to get
to this point and now you're going to piss it away, and for what?"

"I'm not pissing it
away," I said, shaking my head. "I'm taking the hard line so that we
win. Don't you see? If they back out before the vote, then we're definitely
screwed, but if we have plausible deniability, then we can still find a
manufacturer, even if the bill doesn't pass."

He nodded and kept
typing, casually tossing out, "I danced with Mo tonight."

"Great, she shoot
you down again?" I teased him.

"No, actually, she
told me that if she weren't already attached, she'd definitely be interested in
me," he grinned.

"You're shitting
me," I said genuinely surprised that Mo would say something like that. She
never said something if she didn't mean it.

"I shit you not, my
friend," he said as his fingers flew across the keyboard. "I'm doing
to redouble my efforts and see if I can't get her to leave the guy."

"Look, Pace, I know
you've been hot for her, well, your whole life," I said shaking my head.
"But have you really thought this through?"

"Of course, I
have," he said seriously. "I want Mo. I've always wanted her, and I'm
going to convince her that she wants me, too."

"You get that this
is one of the most unlikely parings in the history of the universe, don't
you?" I asked. Sometimes I wasn't sure if Brant was in full possession of
his faculties.

"Linc, I've never
been
more sure
of anything in my life," he told
me as he looked up from his computer. "I've loved her since we were kids.
I just had to wait until I was old enough and rich enough to have something to
offer her. She's going to marry me."

"You're
insane," I said, shaking my head. "Hopelessly insane."

"I'm in love,
buddy," he said seriously. "And you'd do well to follow my lead. What
happened with the reporter?"

"Huh, oh,
yeah," I said, unwilling to share the fact that I'd just come to the
office from her apartment. "We danced and then that scumbag Russo
interrupted us and pissed her off."

"What'd he do?"

I spent the next half
hour recounting the details of Russo's insults and swearing that I'd get
revenge while Brant seconded my emotion and kept typing.

"Aren't you done
yet?" I asked impatiently.

"Dude, I'm typing
this out in Chinese, it's not easy!" he shot back.

"When did you learn
Chinese?" I said, astonished that I hadn't known he'd been engaged in such
a task.

"I've been taking
lessons for years," he sighed. "You really don't pay attention to
much outside of the business, do you?"

I didn't answer that. I
knew I'd been busy building GRIPTech and pursuing the passage of legislation
that would make us wealthy beyond our wildest dreams, but I hadn't realized how
much I'd missed as I'd immersed myself in it.

"You know, Linc, you
really should take some time off and learn to relax," he said as he sat
back and hit send. "It's not like you're going to have another life, you
know?"

"I know, but there's
a lot riding on this, Pace," I said as I ran my hand through my hair.
"A lot of people are depending on me and I need to make sure that I don't
let them down."

"Your parents would
be proud of you no matter how this turns out, Linc," he said quietly. I
nodded, but said nothing. A few minutes later, Brant spoke again, "They
got the message, now we wait to see what they say about our proposal. I think
it was solid, so they shouldn't have a problem with it."

"I want out after
this, Pace," I said as he stared at the screen waiting for a response from
the Chinese CEO. “I'm tired of living my life under this weight of what
happened and not being able to talk about it with anyone but you or Mo."

"You can talk about
it, though," Brant said encouragingly. "You are allowed to own your
past."

"Yeah, but if I do,
then my whole identity goes back to being the guy whose parents were shot to
death by a nut job with a gun," I said. "I don't want to be that guy
for the rest of my life, you know? When I don’t talk about it in public, then
people pretend like it didn’t happen."

"So, instead, you'll
be the rich corporate guy who supports gun legislation so that you can make a
huge profit?"

"I don't want to be
that guy, either!" I protested.

"Then speak up and
own all of the different facets, Linc," he urged. "There's no law
that says you are limited to being only one side of yourself. You can be the
corporate guy or the do-gooder or the good old-fashioned boyfriend of some hot
chick you met in a coffee shop."

"Let's not go too
far," I said.

"What I'm saying is
that you've let the need to be cloaked in secrecy outlast its use," he said.
"After your parents died, it made sense. Mo was protecting you so that you
didn't have to be weighed down by something that was beyond your control. But
now, fifteen years later, you've defined yourself on your own. It's okay if you
want to reclaim the past and then move on to live your future."

"What the hell
happened to you, Pace?" I asked. "It's like you've become some kind
of philosopher or something."

"No, I've just been
caught in the trap of the corporate grind, and I'm tired of it," he said
as he lowered his head and rested it in his hands. "I don't want to do
this for the rest of my life, Linc. I want to convince Mo to be with me and
then I want to spend my life trying to be happy with her."

"What about a family
or kids?" I asked. "Don't you want those things? I mean, no offense,
but she's too old to have kids and even if she could, they're not really her
thing."

"I've never wanted
that life," he said, looking up. "You know that. I've wanted to live
adventurously, not tied to a house or kids or a white picket fence. That's your
thing, Linc."

"I don't want that
either!"

"Please, you want
something like what you grew up with," he said. "I never grew up with
that kind of life, so I never wanted it."

"I don't know what I
want." I ran my hand through my hair again.

"Yeah you do,"
he smiled. "You just aren't ready to admit it yet."

"Why the hell do you
annoy me so much, Pace?" I grinned back at him. "You get in my head
and you buzz around like a fly!"

"It's because I'm
one of the few people who will tell you the truth, Linc," he said
seriously. "There aren't many of us, so when you find one, you should hang
on as tight as you can."

I stood staring at my
best friend, thinking about how all I wanted to be hanging on to was a
beautiful, stubborn redhead who, thus far, had not failed to tell me the truth.