Taken by the Billionaire (14 page)

I sighed and leaned back sleepily against my pillow, and Peter snuggled up against me and held me close. His chest was warm and soft against my bare skin as I lay naked between the cold sheets.

God, this was so perfect.

As I cuddled up close to him, basking in the warmth of his embrace against the cold night, he kissed me gently on the back of the neck and sent a little tingle down my spine. I giggled and craned my neck up and over my shoulder to kiss him back. His soft, gray eyes gazed down at me lovingly, and he hugged me tightly against him, squeezing all the air out of me in the most delicious way imaginable. I didn’t care that I could barely breathe; I was in his arms and he was with me again.

I wanted him. I wanted him
so much
.

The dream suddenly shifted. I was lying on my back, looking up into those same gorgeous gray eyes of his. The ceiling fan spun lazily in the foggy background behind him, as if my room was fading away and leaving only us and the bed behind. Peter wore tight, black boxer briefs now, but still no shirt. His shoulders and chest looked
stunning
in the pale light streaming in through the unseen window. It would be right next to him, I thought, if my room wasn’t floating away around us.

I was dressed now, too… at least a little. I didn’t know where the strapless red bra with its black lace trim, the matching underwear, and the black stockings had come from, but I was wearing them now. Dreams were strange like that.

Katrina bought you these in Vela Luka
, said my own voice in my mind as Peter leaned in to kiss me.
You wore them beneath your dress at dinner.

Now I recognized them! I’d thought them a bit out of place back then, but they seemed perfect now as Peter kissed me and ran one hand down my neck, delicately over my collarbone, and then cupped my right breast in his hand. A delicious shiver ran through my body at his touch, and his lips muffled my moan as he fondled me through the thin material of my bra. I was so very sensitive tonight!

“How did I get so lucky to meet a girl like you?” he whispered when our lips finally separated again.

Both of his hands were playing with me now, one going back and forth from breast to breast while the other slowly, ticklishly ran down my side and paused just above the waistband of my underwear.

“I don’t know… but whatever luck you had, looks like I got it too,” I whispered back to him breathily. I didn’t mean it to come out quite so airy and cringe-worthy; even in my dreams I wasn’t safe from saying stupid things, apparently. The breathiness, however, I blamed on his fingers making their way down between my legs and into the
perfect
position to torment me. They ran softly—almost infuriatingly so—up and down over my sensitive lips, up and down again, over and over and over, each time sending a slightly stronger wave of pleasure through my body.

Shivers turned to shaking, shaking to writhing and arching my back as the feelings built up inside me. I was drowning in pleasure and I desperately longed to scream in ecstasy and let out the trapped feelings pent up inside my chest.

With one quick motion, his fingers slid up to the waistband of my underwear and then underneath it and back down to my wet lips again.

His touch against my most sensitive of places was almost unbearable; it was a strange mix of agonizing friction and glorious, heavenly ecstasy that threatened to shatter my mind into millions of pieces from its intensity. I whimpered in wonderfully tormented delight as he slowly, torturously stroked his fingers against me, played with me, and tortured me in the most heavenly way imaginable.

I instinctively clamped a hand over my mouth as I felt a scream start to work its way up my throat. What was I so scared of? Why couldn’t I just let myself scream and be done with it? I
wanted
this! I wanted him inside me, to feel the amazing pleasures of his body joining with mine, to scream in delirious ecstasy as orgasm overwhelmed us both…

The pleasures built up into an intensely bright, white-hot ball of ecstasy in my mind. My body convulsed and twitched as I fought to hold back the feelings, but my mouth slowly opened, bit by bit as a scream slowly made its way toward the surface

I woke up with a gasp and bolted upright in my seat. I was in the back of the plane again, drenched in sweat, and feeling incredibly frustrated.

****

Sergei was nowhere to be found when we arrived in JFK Airport, but Anneke and Peter were waiting for me outside the gate when I finally got off the plane.

“Where did you go, Sarah?” signed Anneke worriedly. “You had me worried sick!”

“Sorry. I went to the back of Coach where the seats were empty and took a nap.”

“Couldn’t stand to be around me anymore?” she signed to me with a wry smile, and I grinned back.

“You weren’t the problem, Anneke,” I answered, and I motioned toward Peter as he walked along beside her and held her gently by the arm. For all his idiocy and inconsideration toward me, I had to admit that he treated his mother like gold.

Anneke shot me a knowing smile.

I walked in silence alongside her, ignoring Peter with every ounce of my willpower, until we parted ways at the baggage claim. I had nothing to claim since my trip to Croatia had come as a complete surprise to me.

Anneke waved goodbye to me as I headed toward the taxi stand, and I smiled at her and waved back.

“Don’t you worry about anything, okay?” she signed to me. “Everything will be just fine.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” I signed back to her, raising an eyebrow. Why did nobody in the Ibramovic family ever say what they actually meant?

She winked at me and then grabbed her cane and headed for the baggage claim.

Peter looked over his shoulder at me as he guided his mother toward the carousel, and I was completely stunned by the look of sorrow on his face. He looked like he was about to burst into tears.

I wasn’t sure if I wanted to laugh at him or burst into tears myself. God, how I hated that I loved him.

I turned on my heels and headed for the taxi stand before I lost my composure.

Why couldn’t I have fallen for someone normal? Sure, Peter was incredibly sexy—even thinking about our nights together was enough to get me excited—but he certainly came with enough baggage!

I gave the cab driver the address of my apartment out in Astoria, and I sighed and stared out the window as we pulled away from the curb.

I could’ve had a perfectly boring affair with an accountant
, I thought, shaking my head.
But no, I had to fall in love with a shady billionaire.

T
he mailbox was completely overflowing when I got home, but I had no intention of dealing with it today. I’d gone through enough traumatic experiences over the last few days without having to pay bills on top of it all. Instead, I grabbed the entire pile and heaved it on the end-table just inside the door. It had been content to sit in the mailbox for almost a week, and it would be just fine for another day or two while I unwound.

It was a good thing that I didn’t get a cat last year like I’d wanted to, I thought as I took off my shoes and tossed them on the floor of the closet. My surprise trip to Croatia would have had even more disastrous results than it already had. The worst I had to deal with now was a little dusting and maybe a refrigerator full of expired food.

I sighed contentedly, sat down on the sofa in my sparsely decorated living room, and stared silently at the blank walls as I decompressed after the flight. The walls stared silently right back at me. The silence was almost oppressive, and the sound of an occasional car passing outside only made it even more noticeable. Something had changed about my apartment, but I wasn’t certain what, exactly.

Why does it feel so empty now?

This was my apartment, my little hideaway from the outside world, but somehow it felt empty in a way that it never had before. I’d never had very much furniture—I couldn’t exactly afford many luxuries on my salary—but it felt empty in a strange, alien way now. Something about my apartment was different.

Everything would be different now, I realized. In only a few short days, my entire life had been turned upside down. The life I’d had before—going to work, translating for my gorgeous boss, sometimes coming home and fantasizing about him around the apartment afterward—had changed forever.

The apartment hadn’t changed. I had changed.

I couldn’t go back there now. I didn’t
dare
go back to that job, not with Peter there. If I’d thought it awkward to be fantasizing about him in conference calls before, I couldn’t even imagine how awkward it’d be after days and days of passionate and sometimes wonderfully dirty sex, followed by an angry break-up.

Especially since he didn’t care about me, either. He’d set me up to get killed.

But he does care about you!
argued a voice inside me.
Remember how upset he was when you got shot?

Maybe. Either he cared about me but was the biggest idiot in the world sometimes, or he only cared in so much as he was upset about losing his darling little puppet before he even got her home to meet his mother.

One of these seemed more likely than the other, and it wasn’t the romantically-favorable option.

I kicked the arm of the sofa in aggravation as I leaned back on the couch. God, why was it so fucking hard to figure out what I thought about Peter?

No. I wasn’t going to work for him anymore. Even if he didn’t fire me first thing on Monday, I wasn’t going to do it. I’d have to find a new job somewhere, but I needed a fresh start anyway. I’d grab a new apartment, I decided, and try something new.

I’d meet some else.

Yeah, right.

I shook my head and climbed up off the sofa. I needed to eat something.

The refrigerator was completely empty; I forgot that my surprise trip happened on grocery day. I’d meant to go grocery shopping after I finished the conference call, but instead I’d gone to Croatia. That sentence was
way up there
on my list of things I never thought I’d say.

The pantry contained nothing but a single lonely glass jar of cashews. There was no way I was eating a dinner of pure cashews.

“How the hell do I have so little food?” I grumbled to myself as I stomped to the coat closet. I could have sworn the pantry was full when I left! With a sigh, I grabbed my shoes, put them on, and headed out to the corner market. It was time for me to settle back down into reality again.

Peter seemed to occupy my every thought as I walked along the sidewalk. A young couple strolled arm in arm in front of me, chatting happily to each other, and I envisioned myself walking beside Peter in their places. If I could have gotten past that wall he erected around his feelings—if he’d have let me in—maybe we could have been like that someday. We’d certainly hit it off well enough.

A second happy couple sat together on a bench beneath a short and squat Japanese maple, holding each other in their arms and kissing. There was suddenly a hollow spot in my chest where a piece of my heart ought to have been. This just wasn’t fair.

The crossing signal started to flash, and I hurried across the street to the next block. As I crossed, I saw, through a dark second floor window, the silhouette of a busty woman slowly rocking up and down—most likely astride a very lucky man. Peter and I had
certainly
been there before; why did it have to all go wrong like this?

I shook my head sadly and tried to push my sudden misery out of my mind. Somehow, even though he’d nearly gotten me killed twice, I couldn’t sustain enough anger at Peter to keep from missing him. What the hell was wrong with me?

I wanted to be with him… but more importantly, I wanted to be with the Peter I’d seen glimpses of through the cracks in his executive façade—the Peter with emotions that stretched beyond domination both inside and outside the corporate world. I loved the intensity of his conquests—the burning, animal desire radiating from him in the bedroom—but behind it was something else, something softer.

I wanted that part of him, and now… well, too late now, I guessed. I tried once again to push him out of my mind as I dodged around the street vendors selling pirated movies and headed into the store to get my groceries.

Fifteen minutes later, I was out the door of the corner market and heading back to my apartment, armed with several cans of tuna, spicy mayonnaise, a green pepper and a package of spinach wraps. The bags swung back and forth from my arms as I crossed the street and headed up the block.

Why couldn’t I get Peter out of my mind?

Well duh… the best sex in my entire life. T

No, I thought. There was more to it than that. It was that magical something hiding behind his selfish, egotistical side. If I could have gotten past that… well, maybe he wouldn’t have set me up as a meat shield for his mother then.

Oh, right,
I reminded myself.
Can’t forget the trying to get you killed part! That’s a wee bit more important than the sex.

By the time I reached the front door and made it inside, I’d managed to get myself angry at him again. Anger somehow seemed more appealing right now, and I’d take what I could get.

I put away the milk and tossed the veggies on the counter, but just as I grabbed the can opener to get started on the tuna, the doorbell rang.

“Hang on a sec!” I called out, and I poured a handful of cashews into a bowl, picked it up, and headed to the door while munching on my snack.

“Hey there, Sarah!” called out Sergei with bubbly enthusiasm as I opened the door, and I nearly had a heart attack.

He was wearing a nicely-fitted, button-down green shirt with black slacks, shoes that shined like the sun, and he was… oh god, he was holding a bouquet of flowers.

No, just
no
. I wasn’t doing this.

“Hey, I missed you on the plane, figured I’d stop by and catch up with you a bit. How’re you doing?” he asked, and he held out the flowers to me.

My legs started to turn to jelly from nervousness. I wanted nothing to do with him. What was I supposed to do? I was scared to turn him down; what if Peter was right and he really had tried to murder me?