The Billionaire Gets His Way (10 page)

But as he captured her mouth with his more urgently, as his fingers curled more insistently over her hips, her thoughts evaporated. It had been so long since a man had touched her so intimately. So long since she had felt the rush of need rocketing through her that demanded satisfaction. So long since she had wanted and been wanted like this. So long.

Too long…

Still kissing her, Gavin moved a hand upward, over her rib cage, dragging his fingers lightly over each rib as he
passed. Violet sucked in her breath as he pushed his hand higher, holding it when he stopped at the lower curve of her breast. She thought he would close his fingers over her completely but he surprised—and disappointed—her by pushing his hand along the line of her bra to her back. His skin was so warm through the thin fabric of her dress, spreading heat everywhere he touched her—along her spine, over her ribs again, along her shoulder blades. And then he brought his other hand into the exploration, tracing it along her torso until it rested beneath her breast…

Oh. Oh, that felt so good. Too good. So good she didn't ever want it to stop. Didn't want him to stop…

Without even realizing what she was doing, she lifted her hands to his hair and threaded her fingers through the silky tresses. It was evidently all the encouragement he needed, because he immediately deepened the kiss, thrusting his tongue into her mouth to taste her. Vaguely, she felt him draw down the zipper of her dress and unhook her bra, then she felt the heat of his bare hands splaying over her naked back.

She put up no resistance when he skimmed her dress down her torso and her bra down her arms. In response, she jerked his tie free from his collar and went to work on the buttons of his shirt, driving both hands under the soft fabric to explore what was beneath in much the same way he had her. And what was beneath was a collection of finely hewn muscle and sinew, covered by sultry, silky skin and a scattering of dark hair. His shoulders were like molten rock beneath her fingertips, his belly as hard and flat as a steam iron. And his back… Oh, his back. There seemed to be acres and acres of it, and every last inch was hot, satiny steel.

As she curled her fingers over his shoulders, Gavin dipped his head to her neck to drag his damp mouth along the
tender column of her throat, then over the sensitive flesh of her shoulder. And if Violet had had any doubts before about what they were doing—and she was surprised to realize she had none—that would have made them evaporate. She wasn't sure when it had happened, this wanting him the way she did, she only knew she didn't want to fight it. When his mouth returned to hers, she kissed him with a hunger and passion that equaled, and maybe even surpassed, his own. For a long time, they only stood there half-dressed, vying for control of the embrace. Gavin tasted her deeply again and again and again, then opened to grant her the same access.

She felt his hands everywhere, pressing against her naked back, curving over her shoulders, curling around her waist, strumming up her rib cage. Then he was cradling the lower swell of her breasts in both hands, pushing upward, covering the sensitive mounds with sure fingers. When she gasped at the certainty of his possession, he plunged his tongue deeper into her mouth, palming her even more fiercely. As he kissed her and kneaded her soft flesh, it was all she could do not to buckle beneath the onslaught. She felt one hand inching down her torso, to where her dress was bunched at her waist, then felt the fabric sliding as he slowly, slowly—oh, so slowly—pushed it over her hips and legs. In response, her fingers found the button of his fly where she deftly unfastened both it and the zipper.

As Gavin guided his hands under her panties to caress her ass, she drove her fingers into his trousers, her breathing going ragged when she found him full and ready for her. He groaned when she cupped her hand over the head of his shaft and gently began to palm him, then again when she dragged her fingers along his length to its base. He stilled as she repeated the action a few more times, then gasped when she returned her attention to the tip.

And then, before she realized what was happening, he was sweeping her up into his arms and carrying her into her bedroom. The moment he set her on the floor, he began jerking at what was left of her clothing, so Violet stepped out of her shoes and aided him in the process as best she could. She shoved his shirt and jacket off his shoulders at once, and they joined her clothes on the floor. Then she skimmed her hands lightly over his chest again, caressing the dark hair that dusted his abdomen from shoulder to shoulder and from collarbone to navel, tracing the ripple of muscles beneath. He was spectacular-looking, all power and darkness and exhilaration.

“You are so beautiful.”

She didn't realize it was she who had spoken aloud until she heard—and felt—the rumble of laughter bubbling deep inside his chest. When she looked up at his face, she saw him gazing at her with rabid desire, his dark hair tumbling over his forehead above tumultuous blue eyes. “No,” he said softly. “
You're
beautiful.”

Such a simple compliment, and an echo of one she had already paid him. But hearing Gavin say it, the way he did, made Violet feel as if she were the singularly most exquisite creature on the planet.

“What are we doing, Gavin?”

“Isn't it obvious?”

She smiled a little at that. “Okay, then maybe the question should be why are we doing this?”

He smiled, too, more confidently than she had. “Isn't it obvious?”

Instead of answering that question, she said, “I can't help thinking it's not a good idea.”

“Then stop thinking, Violet. And start feeling.”

And without giving her a chance to do anything else, he dipped his head to hers and kissed her again, even more
hungrily than before. As Violet kissed him, she pushed at his trousers, and he helped her shed them, along with his boxers, even though she still wore her panties. When they stood together again, he covered both of her breasts with his hands, thumbing the sensitive peaks until Violet could not only not think, but could barely remember her name.

As he caressed her, he moved forward, walking her backward until the back of her thighs bumped the side of her bed. Then he turned their bodies and sat, pulling her astride him, facing him. Wrapping his arms around her waist, he moved his mouth to her breasts, first one, then the other, stroking her nipples with the flat of his tongue before drawing its tip along the lower curves. She murmured soft, satisfied sounds and threaded her fingers through his hair, desire purling through her entire body before pooling between her legs.

Then his hand was between her legs, petting her with sure fingers through the damp cotton of her panties. Violet gasped again at the intimacy of his touches, instinctively rising in his lap to escape the madness-inducing caresses. But his fingers followed, pushing hard against the fabric, finding and tracing that most sensitive part of her again and again. She cried out as ripples of pleasure wound through her, fighting the climax that began to pull at her center. Gavin seemed to sense how close she was, because he moved his hand to her thigh and gentled his mouth on her breast, barely touching her until her shudders began to subside.

Then he was turning their bodies again, until Violet lay on her back at the center of the bed, his hands going immediately to her panties. She lifted her hips so that he could pull them down, then she, too, was completely naked. For a moment, neither seemed to know what to say or do. Then Gavin covered her hand with his and guided both
downward, through the soft nest of curls between her legs. He halted there and removed his hand from hers, settling it against his hip.

Confused, Violet gazed at him. But he only gazed back, seeming to think she should know what happened next.

“I don't understand,” she finally said softly.

He looked at her curiously, then replied, “Touch yourself for me.”

Her eyebrows shot up at that. “You want me to…?” But she couldn't quite make herself finish the question.

He nodded. “Yes. I do.”

“But…”

He brought his hand back to hers and covered it again, pushing both between her legs until she could feel the wetness of her own response beneath her fingertips. Aligning his fingers with hers, he pushed her hand down deep, and heat shot through her at the contact. Then he drew her hand up again with a long, leisurely stroke…and released her. Tentatively, Violet repeated the action by herself, threading her fingers gently through the damp folds of her flesh. Without thinking about it, she cupped the other hand over her breast, catching the nipple between the V of her index and middle fingers, and pleasured herself that way, too.

The coil of heat that had begun to tense in her belly when Gavin pulled her into his lap cinched tighter still as she touched herself, multiplying when she saw the passion on Gavin's face and heard the rush of his breath as he watched her. Over and over, she stroked herself, even penetrated herself, bending her knees and bringing them to her chest to facilitate herself and titillate him. As her stroking intensified, he began to murmur hot, measured instructions for her, profane words about what she was doing to herself and what he would do to her next.

As he spoke, the waves of her climax began again, but as before, Gavin stopped her before she was lost to them. Then he rolled her onto her belly and lifted her hips so that her knees and shoulders pressed into the mattress. Vaguely, she registered the fact that he was rolling on a condom and didn't question where it had come from—a man like him would always be prepared. Then, grasping her hips in sure fingers, he knelt behind her and thrust himself easily—
deeply
—into her drenched canal from behind.

Never had she felt so full, so complete. When Gavin drove himself deeper still, Violet cried out and instinctively pushed her bottom against him. He withdrew a few scant inches, then propelled himself forward again, burying himself inside her until she wasn't sure where his body ended and hers began.

Again and again he penetrated her that way, his movements powerful, vigorous and intense. When he finally rolled her over to her back “—I want to watch your face when it happens—” he hooked her legs around his waist, and ground into her again. Violet's climax came almost immediately, with the rush of a hundred boiling oceans, wave after wave of pleasure coursing through her. But Gavin wasn't quite finished yet, and, still pounding into her, gently fingered her sensitized flesh, bringing her to a second cataclysm. She heard his voice crying out in chorus with her own, felt one final flash of utter and complete ecstasy, and then collapsed against the sweat-dampened sheet beside her.

Never in her life had she experienced the sensations and emotions Gavin had roused in her, and all she wanted in that moment of spent joy was to experience them again. Soon, she thought. Very soon. Right after she remembered who and where she was…

G
avin watched Violet sleep, his mind completely at odds with the peaceful picture that she was. Now she lay on her stomach in a shaft of ambient city light spilling from the window on the other side of the room. One hand rested on the pillow near her face, her fingers curled loosely as if she were holding on to something invisible and precious. Which, of course, she was, but Gavin didn't want to think about that right now.

The luscious, creamy expanse of her back looked silvery and otherworldly in the near-darkness, bared as it was by the sheet dipping low above her delectable derriere. A sheet, he noted, not for the first time, that was decorated with cartoon cats. Never in his life had he dated a woman who put sheets on her bed that were decorated with cartoon cats. The rest of Violet's bedroom was as quirky, a collection of flowers and fringe, beads and bangles, whorls and whimsy.

He did his best not to wake Violet as he rose, retrieving
his shorts and trousers from the floor and silently pulling on both. He shrugged into his shirt, too, but didn't bother buttoning it, then, with another glance at a still-sleeping Violet, made his way to the bedroom door. Sex always made him ravenous—especially when it was as vigorous as it had been with Violet, and especially when he'd missed a meal beforehand.

When he flicked the wall switch in her kitchen, he muttered irritably at the light that filled the minuscule room. He poked through the cabinets until he found a modest cache of sweets, which were in no way appealing. The refrigerator was a little better stocked, though the bulk of it was staples of the feminine diet—yogurt, fruit, salad stuff. He finally hit pay dirt—sort of—with a trio of cheeses in the dairy compartment. Grabbing a couple of pears, he sliced those along with the Brie, Edam and whatever the hell the other one was and placed all on an oversize plate. A basket on the counter yielded a reasonably fresh baguette for him to slice, and he found a surprisingly good, if inexpensive, pinot noir tucked behind a potted plant near the sink.

Not bad for an impromptu feast, he thought after opening that last. He gathered two wineglasses—neither of which matched the other—from one of the cabinets, then he assembled everything on a tray and headed out. His plan was to serve Violet in bed, but as he passed through the living room, his gaze lit on a candle in a ruby-red votive anchoring a stack of papers on the end table and decided it would add nicely to the arrangement on the tray.

Smiling at his own bit of whimsy, he went to retrieve it, but his hand halted just shy of closing around it. Because the papers it was sitting on were glossy pages that had been torn from a magazine, and the top one featured photographs of a very familiar sight. From a photo spread of the same
that had appeared in
Chicago Homes
magazine a year and a half ago.

Gavin placed the tray of food on the coffee table and sat on the sofa, plucked the votive from the stack of papers, and began to sort through them. In addition to the
Chicago Homes
piece, there were pages torn from other magazines featuring other people's homes, along with articles about all things male-related. Or, more specifically, rich male-related. There was information on expensive clothing—including a photo from
GQ
that depicted a model wearing a twenty-five-hundred-dollar Canali suit—wool and cashmere, of course—and Santoni loafers that would set a man back at least another fifteen hundred. His tie was a silk Hermès and his shirt was a fine cotton Ferragamo.

Seeing that made him sit up a little straighter. It was the same outfit he'd read aloud about at his office, the one in chapter twenty-eight of Violet's book, where her protagonist Roxanne first met the much ballyhooed Ethan. The ensemble was almost identical to the one Gavin owned himself. Now that he thought about it, he may have even bought the pieces after reading the
GQ
article himself.

He sifted through other items about cigars, whisky and cognac that highlighted the very brands he enjoyed himself. A story about jazz music featured the very artists he most often listened to himself. There was an article about the Chicago gym where he worked out. There were reviews of restaurants where he ate and bars to which he enjoyed taking potential clients. There were stories about the exclusive men's shops where he bought his clothes and accessories. And then…

Then there was a small clipping about an exclusive, little-known shop in Alsace that made silk undergarments for men whose designs were completely unique.

He shook his head. Evidently he and Violet had both been
modeling characters after the same image. But where she had made hers completely fictional, Gavin had done his best to make his real. To make himself real. Except that, now that he thought about it, he was probably no more factual than Ethan was. He was…

Ah, hell. He was a cliché. Because of his humble beginnings, he'd had to educate himself—the same way Violet had—about what made a successful man stand out in a crowd. He still did that. He probably consulted a lot of the same sources Violet had. That was why he and Ethan had so much in common.

Good God. He really was chapter twenty-eight, Ethan. But it was he himself who had created the character, not Violet. Or, at least, he had created Ethan before she had. Strange that the two of them would think so similarly about something like that.

As he gathered up the sheaves of paper that had become scattered as he'd looked at them, he realized there was more to them than just research. There were also some printed out manuscript pages that bore signs of having been edited. Gavin smiled. Her new book. Had to be. Unable to help himself, he deftly put the pages in order and began to read.

Only to immediately wish he'd left well enough alone.

The passage started far into the book—page three hundred and fifteen—and described a confrontation between a woman who seemed to be the book's protagonist and a “character” named Mason Gavin who, it quickly became obvious, was a first-class, prime rate, see-exhibit-A SOB. On the upside, at least he was good-looking…

Hmm. Color him alarmist, but it didn't look like Mason Gavin was going to come out smelling like a bed of roses in this story.

Please, Gavin thought. He was six-three and a hundred and ninety pounds. And every inch was pure muscle.

Now that was just hyperbolic.

He continued reading through to the last printed page, noting that Violet's editorial changes hadn't softened Mason Gavin, but had instead made him even more severe. He'd heard stories about authors who modeled characters in their novels after their enemies and then made them suffer heinous deaths, but Violet didn't seem to want death for her Mason Gavin. She merely wanted to antagonize and berate him. A lot. And she wanted her heroine to bring him down a peg or two. Or ten. When he finished the last page, he collected the rest of the scene from the cushion beside
himself and began to straighten the pages. As he added them to the tidied articles, he glanced up.

Violet stood framed by the bedroom entrance, leaning against the doorjamb with her arms crossed and one foot crossed over the other.

She had gotten dressed, too—kind of—and was wearing a pair of baggy, low-riding pajama bottoms spattered with a snowflake print, topped by a snug cropped T-shirt that rode high enough to expose a delectable stretch of flesh between the two garments.

“I was kind of mad at you the day I wrote that passage,” she said. “I wasn't going to keep that name for him. Wouldn't want to get sued for libel and defamation, after all.”

There was something in her voice that belied her casual posture, though whether that was because she was afraid of how he was going to react to what she'd written or because she was having second thoughts about what had happened between them, he couldn't have said. Yes, she'd enjoyed their lovemaking as much as he had. But in the harsh light of waking—both literal and figurative—people often had regrets.

“What I think,” he began carefully, “is that…” He sighed heavily. He held up the manuscript pages and said, “Have I really been this bad?”

She pushed herself away from the doorjamb and braved a few steps forward. “Yes,” she told him, making something inside him twist painfully. Then she amended, “In the beginning, you were,” and he relaxed. Some. When she took a few more steps forward, he relaxed even more. “But I guess,” she continued, “in the beginning, maybe you had a reason to be.”

He shook his head. “No, I didn't. I realize that now.”

She smiled a little tentatively, completed the last step necessary to bring her next to the sofa, but didn't sit beside
him. Instead, she gestured with her chin toward the stack of magazine pages on the end table. “I guess I could have shown you that in the beginning, so you could see how I did my research. It might have saved us both some trouble. Maybe if you could have seen then how universal a man Ethan is, and how there was nothing in my research to link him to you—”

“Except for my penthouse, you mean.”

She frowned. “What are you talking about? I got Ethan's penthouse from a spread in
Chicago Homes.
I'm using it in the new book, too, because I liked it so much.”

This time Gavin was the one to grin. “A spread that was done about my home.”

“What?”

He sorted through the articles until he found that one. But instead of getting up from the sofa to bring it to her, he patted the cushion on the side of him in silent invitation. After only a moment's hesitation, Violet joined him. But she crowded herself deep into the corner so that a good six inches of space remained between them. He wasn't sure what that meant, after what the two of them had shared. He wasn't sure he should try to figure it out, either. One thing at a time.

“Here,” he said, pointing to a line in the first paragraph. “It identifies the residence as the Chicago penthouse of CEO Gavin Mason.”

Violet read the sentence he indicated, but shook her head. “I swear, I don't remember that at all. I'm not even sure I read the article. I just thumbtacked it above my desk so I could look at the pictures while I was writing.”

“Well, even if you did read it, you read it a long time ago and couldn't have remembered my name. Or made the association when you learned it.”

She smiled at that. It wasn't a big smile, but it wasn't
bad. “So you really do believe me,” she said. “You're finally convinced you're not Ethan?”

He made a noncommittal sound at that. No need to get into that again.

“I mean, how could the book be anything but fiction, you know?” she asked further. “A woman not being taken advantage of or brutalized in the sex trade? A woman actually controlling her own sexual destiny in a male-dominated world? A woman finding sexual gratification every single time she has sex, with every single man, and never having to fake an orgasm? As if.”

Gavin had started to smile, too, as she spoke, but the smile fled as she voiced that last part. “Are you saying you've faked an orgasm before?”

She bit her lower lip, a gesture that made him want to nibble it, too. “Um, yeah, Gavin. Every woman has at some point.”

“Did you…tonight?” he asked, surprising himself. He'd never wondered whether or not a woman had faked it with him. And, honestly, he wasn't sure he would have cared if one had, as long as he'd found satisfaction himself. Suddenly, though, with this woman, he did care. He cared a lot.

She laughed. “You're kidding, right? How can you even ask me that?”

The relief that washed over him was almost palpable. Until he realized she hadn't actually answered the question. “So that's a no?”

“Do I have to spell it out for you?”

“Yes.”

“No.”

That was better.

She blushed becomingly again—he wasn't sure he would ever stop being fascinated by that—and her gaze skittered nervously away from his, falling on the papers he'd been
sifting through. “So…I guess seeing all this means you're really not going to be suing me, right?”

There was still clear doubt in her voice, and he was surprised she could still ask the question. Although, after the way he'd threatened her, maybe she needed him to spell it out for her, too.

“No. I know the book is fiction. I know that I'm not Ethan. And I know that you never worked as a call girl.”

She nodded at that, returned her gaze to his, and smiled. “Good.” Then she sighed halfheartedly. “Now if only I could convince everyone else in the world that I'm not Roxanne,” she said of her book's protagonist. “That I'm not even Raven French. I'm Violet Tandy. I'm just like everyone else.” She lifted her shoulders and let them drop. “Oh, well.” Okay, that
wasn't
true. No way was Violet Tandy like everyone else. She wasn't like anyone he'd ever met before. But just who was she? And why did he suddenly want so badly to find out?

“That is going to be a problem,” he said. “For both of us.”

Her head reared back a bit at that. She studied him for a moment, then said, “Why would it be a problem for both of us? I mean, it's really not even that big of a problem for me. Annoying, yes, but not a problem.”

He expelled a single, humorless chuckle. “Well, I can't have my friends thinking I'm dating a call girl. Especially now that it isn't true.”