Found (Not Quite a Billionaire Book 3) (21 page)

“Yeh. That’s nice, isn’t it? Thinking about how that feels. Thinking about how much you love it. And now that I’ve got you where I want you, I’m untying that little bow. I’m letting that sweet little chemise fall off your body so I can see you, and touch you, and kiss you. Everywhere.”

It was my hand untying the bow, but in my mind, it was his. I had one arm stretched over my head as if it truly were tied there, and the other was tracing around a sensitized, aching breasts. Giving me the gentle touch I needed now, and the teasing I craved.

“You want me to get there,” Hemi said. “You’re begging me to. And I’m going slower. Closer and closer, but not quite there.”

My hand, now, stroking over the valley between my breasts, and even that was enough to make me squirm. Around and around, closer and closer, waiting for permission to touch. Permission to feel.

“You can’t stand it,” Hemi said. “You’re telling me so. And finally, when you think another moment will be too long, my mouth is there, and you’re making those noises, letting me know how much you love it, making me do it more.”

Oh, that felt
good.
My eyes were closed, my head full of the scent of roses, with Hemi’s voice pouring over me like syrup.

He let me enjoy it for a while, and then he told me, “I need to see you now. Take off that thong, sweetheart. Spread your legs for me.”

My eyes opened, and there he was, looking at me. I said, “It’s recording, though.”

“Yeh,” he said, “it is. Do it. Let me see. Let me watch.”

My hands went to the wide band of lace, and I was pulling it down, pulling it off. “That’s right,” he said. “Now spread your legs. Let me look.”

I whimpered, and heard myself do it. And Hemi’s expression changed again, hardened. He stared at me, and slowly, I did it. I spread my legs and showed myself to him. Lace around me, hiding nothing. Open to his gaze, and to his will.

“Touch yourself,” he said. “Because I’m touching you. Tying your ankles now, putting a pillow under your hips so you’re all the way open for me. All the way helpless. Ready for anything I want to do to you.”

I couldn’t have done anything else, but there was no way I was resisting. My hand was caressing, stroking, settling in as Hemi continued to talk. Telling me everything he’d be doing to me, and it was as if he were there. His muscular body on top of mine, taking me over, driving me higher.

I was almost too far gone when he said, “Pick up the vibrator, put some of that lube on it, and turn it on.”

This time, I didn’t protest. I sucked in a breath and did it. And when he said, “Shove it in. Hard. Now,” I did it. My whole body jerked, my torso rising from the bed as both silicone-softened arms assaulted me.

My hand fumbled for the switch, pressed it, but nothing happened, and Hemi . . .
laughed.

“Here’s the special thing, sweetheart,” he told me. “I control it, not you. Just like I’m there. Your job is to hold it inside you. My job is to do everything else. I’m going to drive you wild.”

And he did. I had a hand over my mouth, was biting down, hanging on. And Hemi was doing everything. Harder, then softer, then, when I relaxed, harder again, until I was climbing, needing to soar. He took me ruthlessly back down again, frustrating me mercilessly, making me need to moan, to beg, even as I knew I couldn’t, that I had to be quiet, and that I couldn’t stand to be. Not another minute. Not . . . another . . . no.

That was when the arm inside me began to do something else. It wasn’t just vibrating now. It was
spinning.
And I was gone. My hand hard over my mouth, everything in me stiffening, tightening, winding up so high, I was teetering. And Hemi pushed me higher. He pushed me over, and he pushed me down. And then he did it again.

He wore me out. He drove me crazy. He made me wild.

Hemi

Hope could barely stand it. And neither could I.

I worked the controls from my phone with every bit of finesse I had. By now, I knew how to read Hope’s sighs, her smallest movements, her little noises. But from a distance, without the smell of her, the taste of her, the feel of her—I was missing so much. I was navigating in the dark. It was impossibly, achingly frustrating, and it was exactly what I needed.

Watching Hope be pleased. Watching her burn. Watching her come again and again, each time more intense than the last, losing every bit of her sweet reserve. Watching her surrender to me.

It was too hard. It was too much. It was nowhere close to enough.

When she was lying still at last, sprawled across the bed with her chest rising and falling with the force of her breath, I told her, “Sweetheart. You’re so beautiful. I miss you so much.”

She opened her eyes and smiled at me, slow, sweet, and languorous, and one hand came out to touch the computer screen as if she needed me as much as I needed her, except that wasn’t possible. “I miss you, too,” she said softly. “So much. And I love you. Thank you. I just wish I could do it to you. I wish I could make you feel that good.”

“You have,” I said. “You do. And you will, every time I watch this.”

“Oh.” Her eyes widened for a second, and then she said, “All right. It scares me a little to be out there like that, but I want to give you the same pleasure you’ve given me.”

“I’m going to put this in our folder. So you can see it, too, and so you’ll know it’s safe. Our secret, just like everything else we’ve done.”

Her throat moved convulsively as she swallowed. “Josh can’t see it, can he?”

“No,” I promised. “Not possible. Password protected, remember?” Locked behind every safeguard I could think of. To protect my business secrets, and now, to protect something even more precious. To protect Hope.

“You need to go to sleep now,” I told her. “I’m not forgetting how hard you’re working, growing that baby.”

“Mm,” she said, her eyes so soft. “I love growing your baby.”

“Love you, sweetheart,” I told her.

In another minute, we’d disconnected, and my screen was dark. And if my heart ached as much as everything else did, that was because Hope touched all of me. Body and mind. Heart and soul. She touched it, and she took it.

She was mine, and I knew it. But the biggest surprise, the truly shocking development? I was hers just as much. And more.

Hemi

The bombshell my brand-new—and much more aggressive—New Zealand attorney had dropped into the midst of the Kiwi media three days earlier had probably had some effect there. I didn’t know for sure, and I didn’t care. Having it picked up by a few U.S. outlets, though, especially the fashion media—that had worked. The natives were growing much less restless both inside and outside the company.

I had this. A month ago, I’d felt the control slipping from me like sand through my fingers. Now, although the storm was still raging, I was driving my ship again. I had a steady hand on the tiller, and more importantly, a steady mind.

If Anika insisted on going to court after all, it wouldn’t matter. It would cost me, but I was going to win. I knew it in my bones.

People called me lucky, but they didn’t realize it wasn’t luck at all. It was preparation, and it was ruthlessness. If you were always willing to take it one step further than the other bloke, if you were willing to go to the mattresses and he knew it, if your reputation was that you hit first and hit hard, you became a much less attractive target.

Softness and indecision were the killers. That was why I didn’t do them.

On the phone that Friday morning, Walter said, “I’m surprised they haven’t made a settlement offer yet. We could approach them instead, though it wouldn’t be my preference.”

“No,” I answered immediately. “The one who blinks first is the loser. I don’t blink first. If Anika smells blood, she’ll be in for the kill. There’ll be no blood in this water but hers. Those stories won’t have been fun for her whanau to read, and they won’t have helped her anywhere else, either.”

“In my experience,” Walter said dryly, “people who do things like this aren’t too worried about the reactions of their family.”

“Ah,” I said. “But then, you aren’t Maori.”

I’d been working even longer hours than usual these past few weeks, for the simple reason that I didn’t enjoy coming home. Which was why a full twelve hours had passed since that early-morning conversation with Walter when I opened the door to the apartment.

I took off my shoes and slid them into their spot in the oversized entry closet. Hope’s neat little five-and-a-halfs stood like soldiers in the back row, and Karen’s larger shoes were just as meticulously arranged.

No mess anymore for Inez and Hope and me to barely keep on top of. No blaring television or godawful music to greet my arrival, no irritation to rise instantly, full-blown, the moment I stepped through the door. Order and silence, and that was all.

No Hope to keep me company on her kitchen stool while I ate dinner, with Karen adding her saucy contributions and making us both laugh. No sleepy lover to raise her arms to me from our bed, pull me in for a kiss, and let me know she’d welcome so much more. No sweet, soft body to wrap myself around as I fell asleep, and nobody to hold safe through the night. Nobody at all.

I stepped into the living room, dim in the gathering twilight, my hand going automatically to the rocker switch on the wall.

The hair rose on the back of my neck.

I didn’t turn on the light. I backed up fast.

Home invasion. Get out.

I was already grabbing the handle of the front door when I heard it.

“Hemi. Wait.”

It wasn’t a home invasion after all, except it was. It wasn’t Hope, coming home because she’d missed me as much as I’d missed her, and she couldn’t live without me anymore. It was Anika, and she was sitting on my couch.

I walked back into the living room showing no rush, no alarm, and flipped the light switch.

There she was, wearing a yellow-flowered wrap dress and high-heeled sandals, ankles crossed and hands folded in her lap, looking like the bloody Duchess of Cambridge.

“I’m sorry to startle you,” she said. “And you’re going to say I shouldn’t be here,. I’m sorry about that, too. But you wouldn’t have let me in, and I needed to see you.”

“You’re right.” I read the slight widening in her eyes, the parting of her mouth, the indrawn breath of surprise and relief. And then I went on, standing absolutely solid, radiating the stillness and control that were my most potent weapons. “I wouldn’t have let you in, and I’m going to say you shouldn’t be here. Suppose you tell me how you got in and why you came.”