Read The Billionaire and I (Part Two) Online
Authors: Ava Claire
The Billionaire and I (Part Two)
The Billionaire And I: Part Two (A Jacob and Leila Story)
Ava Claire
Copyright © 2015
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The Billionaire and I: Part One—September 11, 2015
The Billionaire and I: Part Two— September 18, 2015
The Billionaire and I: Part Three—September 25, 2015
Cover by RBA Designs
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E-book License Edition Notes
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Chapter Six
I
was naked.
Head bowed.
Chin pressed against my chest...and sobbing like the world was crumbling all around me.
The tears blinded me, but I heard Jacob fly from the bed, the hardwood floor magnifying the power of his stride.
"Baby, what's wrong? What happened?"
His arms were around me, his strength, his presence reminding me that I wasn't alone. Still, I couldn't do anything but sob and clutch him tighter.
It took everything in me to keep it together until I got to the bedroom. I made it. But all the pieces were rattling, teetering, so close to the edge that I knew it wouldn't take much to send me plummeting into guilt and regret. Guilt because I felt responsible; Rachel had snapped, going nuclear because I didn’t do my job. I felt remorse because I'd heeded Megan's advice—and refrained from cutting a bitch.
Jacob unfolded his arms, but his embrace lingered. He skimmed his fingertips up my trembling arms, then glided over the crest of my shoulders. He paused, like he was taking on the weight of my pain. Letting it flow from me into him. Honoring my silence and giving me time to let him in.
But you don't have time. The clock is already ticking. Delaying the inevitable doesn't do anyone any good.
I brought a limp hand to my face, wiping the snot from my nose and blinking through the tears. My eyes were still fixed on the floor. My toes were bright red, painted to match the dress I wore for the dinner last night. The dinner where that woman had stormed back into our lives.
Her name rose like vomit and I practically gagged. "It's Rachel."
His grip tightened and the scratch of pain was immediate and welcome. I'd take pain over the anger that was making it hard to breathe. Hard to do anything other than scream. But he let go and the tension returned when he swept his fingertips across my chin.
He lifted my gaze from the floor. A few moments ago, looking at him had reduced me to tears. Now, it gave me strength. I pushed my curls back and took a breath.
"Jessa called while I was downstairs. Rachel gave an interview." The shock of it, the hurt, the anger, came roaring back to me and a fresh stream of tears sliced down my cheeks. "She said that you two broke up because you asked her to be your sex slave."
I expected those words to claw their way across his face. For him to let out a sound that would somehow carry to wherever Rachel sat, smug and confident that she'd dealt some sort of fatal blow to us. That sound would have her running for cover.
But there was no ruthless battle cry.
No tightening of his angular jaw.
No thunderclap in his pale blue eyes.
He just stood there, unblinking, his fingertips flexed beneath my chin. There wasn't even a tremble like he was fighting some internal war that he was struggling to keep under wraps. My Jacob, with those perfect features chiseled from stone—dark wavy hair that seemed to beckon my fingers to run wild, eyes so intensely blue that they held me captive, lips that were crafted for kissing-was literally stone-like.
I pulled my chin away and took a step back. His arms dropped to his sides, but he still didn't blink. It was good to know that my words didn't send him into a complete state of shock.
"Please don't make me repeat that," I whispered, my throat clenching. "I don't know if I can."
His Adam's apple rolled, a crack in the marble. "I heard you, Leila. Loud and clear." He turned from me, striding toward the window. I got a view of his behind that usually erased all else but gripping it and pulling him deeper inside me. But there was no amount of sex, no amount of passion, no amount of anything that could overpower the helpless feeling that paralyzed me. I didn't even think I had it in me to follow him to the window. To look out at a city filled with people who were either clicking on that headline or would hear about it at the water cooler in the morning.
I watched him, every muscle in his back pulled to breaking point. He crossed his arms and released a sigh that was ripe with all the frustration I felt.
"I don't think I've ever shared how I became the way I am." He turned his head slightly, like he could sense my confusion. "How I came to terms with my...needs,” he clarified.
Authority, lust, ferocity—those were all things that seemed to flow from him so naturally. I never even thought to ask why or when. I couldn't picture him as anything other than dominant. Sure of what his needs were and assertive enough to ensure that those needs were taken care of.
I took a step toward him, wrapping my arms around myself. "I'm here, if you want to talk about it."
He let out a rueful laugh that made my heart ache for him. "Well, I don't want to talk about it, but living in the shadows, contracts, it's why we're here now, isn't it?" He wasn't expecting an answer, and he didn't wait for me to give him one. "And if there's one person in this world that I want to know that story, that deserves to know, it's you." He faced me and even from the shadows I saw how heavy the weight of this was. "Come to bed."
I wasted no time heeding that command, even though I knew we weren't about to pick up where we left off before Rachel decided to share her twisted version of reality. We climbed into bed, tangled up in each other, face to face.
My hair was all over the place and my face was a snotty, tear drenched mess, but Jacob just swept my curls behind my ear and gazed adoringly at me before he pressed his lips against my forehead. The moments passed slowly, every second frozen and filled with tension. I knew he felt safe with me, that there was only love and acceptance in my arms, but I had a feeling that back then, he felt anything but.
"I was never Romeo. I had zero interest in romancing with poetry and flowers and promises,” he began. “I had a reputation around campus. Hooking up with me was called the ‘Whitmore Experience'."
His jaw twitched and I traced the line of it with my fingers, knowing that he may have worn that badge with pride once, but now, it was something he was far from proud of.
"The Whitmore Experience was basically one night of fucking. No one slept over. No one got to experience it more than once. Maybe twice." He paused and propped his chin on his palm, watching me intently like he was expecting me to tell him that it was too much.
I leaned in and pressed my lips against his, keeping my eyes open so he could see I wasn’t going anywhere. There were no skeletons or secrets from his past that were too much for me to bear.
"Then I met this freshman," he pressed on, his voice low and measured. "To be honest, I don't even remember her name. What I remember is that she didn't just lay there like the others. She didn't just take what I gave her. She told me to hold her down." His nostrils flared. "She told me to hurt her...so I did. I pinched her nipples until she screeched. Choked her, fucked her with complete abandon."
I didn't realize that I was biting my bottom lip until he reached out and stroked the only part that I wasn't tearing into savagely. I let go and heat rushed to my cheeks.
"I don't want you to censor your story for me," I assured him. He didn't look convinced and I didn't blame him. All signs pointed to me not being a huge fan of the direction of this story.
I propped my chin on my palm too, trying to wrangle the conflicting emotions that were squaring off inside me. I was only human. I knew rationally that Jacob was no virgin and had been with other women, but there was a part of me that couldn't stand being reminded of that fact. And yet, I knew that this story was important, and he wasn't sharing it to reminisce about the good ol' days. He was sharing it to give me perspective about why he was drawn to the world of BDSM.
"It's okay," I nodded. "I can handle it."
He scrubbed a hand across his face and I couldn't help but clutch this moment. He wasn't guarded. He didn't have the mask on. His shit was far from together. This was Jacob at his most vulnerable—and it was beautiful.
"All the mindless screwing and one night stands—I knew I was searching for something. The freshman just wanted pain. I definitely got off giving it to her, but there was a key piece that completely changed my views about sex and power. It was her consent that pushed me over the edge. She wanted to be taken. She needed it." His face darkened, that moment of clarity, of finally finding peace, fading to black. "The idea of enslaving someone-"
"Baby..." I couldn't find the words and I didn't need them. I just took his face in my hands and thrust my lips against his. His dark kiss was as addictive as the day we met. Filled with passion and need and a piece of him that whispered to a piece of me.
I held tight, even after my lips had stopped kissing his. I lingered there, our breath mingling, chests rising and falling with the heat of desire ready to take us to a place where Rachel was a distant memory.
He sucked in a breath behind his clenched teeth, the look he gave me making me instantly, hopelessly wet.
"I want you, Lay. I want to just live in this room. In your arms. But I've never run from a fight, and I'll be damned if Rachel Laraby is going to make me start running now." He let me go and I saw the businessman snap back into action. He rose from the bed, powering to the closet. When he emerged, he was in a white t-shirt and jeans, his phone in his hand.
I knew who he was calling before I even asked. "Are you calling her?"
He dipped his head once, tapping the screen with his thumb. The ringing echoed around the room, my stomach churning.
Rachel answered on the fifth ring. "Jakey! I was just thinking about you!"
Her voice made me want to strangle something.
One crisis at a time
. I plucked a pillow from the bed and settled for pretending it was her throat.
"I've heard you've been very busy," he said tersely, all the muscles in his forearm popping as he squeezed the phone. I had a feeling he was fighting his own urges too. "I'm not sure what you think you're doing-"
"Me?" Rachel almost sounded innocent. "I'm doing us all a favor. It's so much better out here in the open. No secrets. No lies. A new beginning."
I jumped from the bed, flying to where Jacob stood, fuming. "Are you crazy? Jacob never had that kind of a relationship with you. And he's never had a 'sex slave'. What you're doing is slander. And if you think we're going to let you undo all the work he's done because I hurt your feelings-"
"It's only slander if it's not the truth, dear," Rachel talked to me like she was explaining astrophysics to a fifth grader. "I thought you had a degree? You at least know how to read. Or maybe you're one of those people that just scrolls to the end instead of reading the contract they're signing?"
My eyes snapped to Jacob. She had a copy of the contract? There was nothing about sex slavery in that document, but there was enough salaciousness in it that it could ruin him. Ruin us. I could already see the comparisons to the worldwide best-selling trilogy. A real life BDSM love story. But it wouldn't be a love story with a happy ending. Who would want to work with or be represented by a company where the CEO was embroiled in his very own public relations disaster?
All the color drained from Jacob's face and if I didn't cup the hand that held the phone, I had a feeling it was about to fall to the floor. Or go soaring in the direction of the wall.
"Honestly, I thought you two would be thrilled. Leila told me the world was consumed by my colorful activities instead of my movie. I can assure you, right now, the last thing they're thinking about is the fact that I like to party." The sound of victory in her voice radiated, pulsing like a fresh wound. "They're thinking no wonder I like to booze it up...the love of my life is some sexual deviant. Pity ticket sales are better than no sales at all, right?"
I
was no stranger to working after hours at Whitmore and Creighton, but when we pulled up to the building, I swore the calendar fast forwarded to Halloween. The building was was imposing in the daylight but tonight it was infinitely more so, dozens of floors stretching to the sky like tombstones. The thing that went bump in the night was us—and the other staff members Jacob called in for the emergency meeting.