The Billionaire Shifter's Curvy Match (Billionaire Shifters Club #1) (9 page)

His mouth came down on hers for a quick, devastating kiss. He drew back just an inch, pinning her with his gaze. “Yes, you are. You definitely are.” His voice was like gravel.

And then Manny was there opening the door, and after an infinitesimal pause, her head spinning, she climbed in.

“Only because you’re doing my laundry,” she said.

“Manny is doing your laundry.” He sat next to her and reached for a bottle. “I noticed you liked the California wines, but there’s nothing quite like French, is there?” While he poured, she read the label and nearly choked.

“That’s six hundred dollars a bottle,” she said.

“Not when I bought it.” He held out the glass.

What the hell. She took it and brought it to her lips. “I’m not on the clock. I don’t care what you told Eva, this is personal time.”

Eyes crinkling, he leaned back against the seat and brushed one long finger along her thigh. “I’m so glad to hear it.”

T
he restaurant was
one she’d heard of but never expected to visit herself. Until she’d been hired at the Platinum Club, she would’ve assumed that even working at Ellipses would have been unrealistic. The waitstaff had degrees from the finest culinary academies. Even the people bussing tables had college degrees. And the people in the kitchen were hosts of reality television shows, magazine writers, nutritional gurus with bestselling cookbooks—a different one every night.

These celebrity chefs and their team were visible at all times, cooking in the vast open kitchen in the middle of the warehouse floor like theatre in the round. Cameras followed them, recording an episode for the website or TV station, broadcasting in real time on giant screens hovering around the room.

Gavin took one look around and scowled. “This is not what I expected. I’ll take you somewhere else.”

“I’ve always been curious about this place,” she said.

“You have?”

“It’s genius. The food, the service, the merchandising, the show business...” She nodded at the table closest to the door, where a man in a chef’s uniform was bowing next to a beautiful woman in her seventies, presenting a bouquet of greens. The woman looked them over, nodded, and he retreated to the kitchen.

“If you like it, we’ll stay,” he conceded.

Being in a noisy, crowded restaurant was just what she needed to distract her from the feel, smell, and taste of his body. If she was going to have to work with him on an event, she’d have to get used to controlling her feelings.

“I like it.”

He waved a finger, and in moments a man in black sat them at a corner table. She knew Gavin had to be rich, but the way the waiter deferred to him surprised her. He seemed to have never been there before yet was well known. Water goblets appeared instantly. A basket of bread, a plate of olive oil. A dish of salted pecans.

“May I get you something from the bar?” the waiter asked her, ducking his head.

“Iced tea,” she said.

“Wonderful,” he replied, gesturing to a woman who hurried over with a pitcher and another glass.

“Meyer lemon?” the waitress asked, extending a bowl of sliced fruit.

“Please,” Lilah replied. “Thank you.” She wanted to delay the moment she was alone with the man who spoke in her mind and kissed her soul. Her nipples had been erect since the moment she’d seen him outside her apartment.

The menus were on digital tablets. They selected what they wanted and waited for the food to arrive.

“It’s fun, don’t you think?” she asked Gavin.

He rested his chin on his hand and gazed into her eyes. “Very fun.” His voice, low and aristocratic, sent shivers down her back. What was it about British accents that made her so instantly aroused?

“They seem to know you,” she said.

He looked down at her hands, removed the glass, and captured her fingers in his. “You seem to know me, too.” His thumb slipped between their hands, stroking her palm. “And I you. Had you noticed?”

“Of course I noticed,” she whispered, heart pounding.

They sat in silence, holding hands, the world falling away.

“I came back for you,” he said.

Oh, oh, oh. Heat rushed through her veins. She tried to free her hands, but he tightened his grip. “Eva told me if I sleep with a member of the club, I’m fired.”

“An empty threat.”

“It’s not your neck on the line,” she said.
Or paycheck.

“No.” He lifted her hand to his lips. She felt his warm breath on her knuckles. “It’s my heart.”

If she hadn’t already been sitting down, her knees would’ve buckled.
God help me
. She had to at least try to resist his smooth talk. But no words would come.

“It’s strange,” he continued. “Until you, I didn’t know I had a heart. My passion was for business. Science. My employees. Helping to manage my family’s estate.”

If she could get him to talk about his career, she might be able to start breathing again. “You’re in biotech, I heard.”

He nodded, kissing her knuckles. “I have a business I’ve worked hard to build,” he said. “But none of that is as important as it used to be.”

“Oh? Since when?” She was afraid to hear him say it, more afraid he wouldn’t.

“Since I met you.”

The salad arrived, forcing their hands apart. Trembling, Lilah grabbed her fork and stabbed the radicchio.

“They’ve got terrible timing,” he mumbled under his breath, picking up his own fork.

Seeing this flash of boyish vulnerability, she relaxed, smiling around a mouthful of greens. “It’s great. I was starving.”

“Is Eva not paying you enough to buy what you need?”

“Not literally starving,” she said, laughing. “Don’t worry.”

“I do worry about you, Lilah.”

It didn’t seem like a come-on. Just the truth. She studied the curve of his brow, the faint lines of his face, wondering how old he was, how long he’d lived in America, if he felt the same magnetic familiarity when he looked into her eyes as she felt when she looked into his.

“I worry about you too, Gavin,” she said softly.

His eyes darted to hers, questioning, hopeful. And then he reached for his wine, suddenly looking uncomfortable, and when she saw the blush rising in his cheeks, she knew she was falling in love.

* * *

P
erhaps he had made
a grave error.

Vulnerability like this came at a price, and his price appeared to be the rapidly beating heart that tried to crawl out of his chest and embed itself in Lilah’s soul.

This loud, open restaurant was not what he wanted, but it pleased her, and so it pleased him too. She looked lovely, her wide, warm eyes taking him in. Studying him. Really seeing him.

“I’m hardly someone to worry about,” he replied, clearing his throat. She was looking at him with expectation and he had to say something other than
I want to spend the rest of my life buried in you
.

He thought she would laugh at his response, but instead her eyebrows drew in, her eyes soft with concern.

“You’re human too, Gavin.”

Well, partly.

“And you seem to work so hard,” she continued. “You’re so intense. And this connection—whatever you call it—between us makes me feel something for you that sets me on alert. It makes me.... ” Lilah clearly struggled for clarity. Gavin understood.

“It makes you feel as if you have something to lose.” He stroked the soft web of skin between her thumb and index finger, and she blinked rapidly, eyes darting away.

“Yes,” she whispered.

“Me too. If you need to worry about me, Lilah, then worry about how I crave you the moment I awake. The feeling follows me all day, a relentless pounding like a—”

“Drumbeat,” they said in unison.

The One
, she said in his mind.

She yanked her hand away, the gesture brutal in its intensity, her hand curling into a fist against her heart.

Gavin had bedded hundreds of women. The exact number was unknown, for the last detail he needed to waste time on was calculating his libido in precise terms. For a shifter in his eighth decade who looked like a human in his early thirties, his sexual appetites were no surprise. He was, after all, a being who could live two centuries or more. Genetics determined lifespan.

Magic seemed to determine love.

No woman had ever had this effect on him. Ever. He had sampled freely from the well of luscious female tastes and it was Lilah alone who quenched his thirst.

And at the same time, all he wanted was to drink more of her. Forever.

She was staring at him with a look of need and wariness.

“What is this? Really?” she asked, a begging tone making his own breath hitch. “Please. I don’t understand. Am I going crazy? It’s like we share a-a—”

“Soul.” His word rang out between the two of them, the intensity unsettling and yet so welcome.

“Lobster mac ’n’ cheese!” The server interrupted with such a peppy voice Gavin wanted to stuff him into a Jack in the Box toy where he belonged as the man slid the hot plate in front of Lilah.

“And a big old slab of the finest, aged dead cow you could possibly enjoy,” the server added as he presented Gavin with his rare filet mignon, grinning like a clown, face frozen in what could only be an affect required by the owners.

American customer service was so undignified. And the timing was atrocious.

Lilah and Gavin ignored him, her demure manners appearing to have evaporated, his own long gone. He did not suffer fools nor commentary on his culinary choices, gladly.

And not when the love of his life was standing on the precipice of an emotional abyss, ready to jump into his willing arms but holding back, for reasons unknown.

“I’ll let you two lovebirds enjoy!” the server said, giving Lilah a beseeching look.

Gavin was pleased she ignored him, eyes on his own.

Alone again, he waited for her response.

And waited.

And waited.

He had plenty of time.

She turned her head and cleared her throat, reaching for her iced tea and drinking half in one long, drawn out series of gulps, the fine lines of her neck moving with grace and ardor. His lips yearned to kiss the pulse that throbbed from jaw to collarbone.

That was a finer taste than the aged dead cow currently cooling on the plate below his nose.

“Gavin, I’ve been under a great deal of stress lately, with my mother, and—”

“Your mother? Is she ill?” He knew the answer already. Manny had given him a dossier on Lilah. Twenty-five, a recent college graduate. One sister, younger and still in school, hoping to be a doctor. A mother with a medical condition and questionable finances.

Gavin could make all of her worries go away.

And yet he carried a secret that made all of her life’s problems seem like child’s play.

“Yes. She needs a new hip, which will mean she needs help at home for a while. That’s one reason the job at the Platinum Club is such a godsend, and I really can’t jeopardize it for this.” She rubbed a small scar above her eyebrow and frowned.

“This?”

She waved her hands as if shooing a fly. “This. Whatever this is between us. I don’t play the part of a billionaire’s pet. It’s not who I am.” She looked down at her food and stuffed a bite in her mouth, making a soundless moan at the taste.

Pet? The word rang through his mind like an ominous gong.

He followed her lead and cut into his steak, taking a bite. It tasted like ashes.

After a long sip of water he finally found his words. “Pet? You think that’s all this is, Lilah? That I want to use you like a toy?”

She looked down at her food, long lashes feathering in a perfect arc below her eyes as she took another bite. When she was done she looked up, chin still tipped down, and asked, “What more could someone like me be for someone like you?”

Everything
, he thought.

“Let me assure you,” he said, draining the whisky he had ordered and holding up the glass to receive another, “that I do not own pets.”

“Perhaps you rent them.”

The anger rose within him like a slow boil, heat rising through the skin along his spine, spreading to his shoulders, pouring through his face.

“Your opinion of me leaves much to be desired, Lilah.” His own desire, however, was at full throttle. The idea that she would deny what was between them, that she would think him so frivolous, so shallow—

“Have I offended you?” she asked in a suddenly cold voice, wiping her mouth with her napkin and setting it on the table. “I’m so sorry. I try very hard not to offend men who corner me in wine cellars and fuck me on the table like I’m part of the membership fee.”

And with that, she rose and stormed out of the restaurant’s main doors, leaving Gavin utterly taken aback by the swift turn of conversation.

As the doors swung shut he threw a fistful of cash on the table, leapt to his feet and followed her, the Beat guiding his footsteps.

B
linking away angry tears
, Lilah hurried through the doors in the back of the restaurant. She needed to be alone for a minute, to get ahold of herself. When she saw stairs, she headed toward them eagerly. With the restaurant packed, the bathroom might not offer any privacy. She began to climb.

It’s not as if Gavin would follow her. Not after she’d said
that
. Her head was splitting, that damn throbbing headache back as soon as they sat at the table, and while the lobster mac ’n’ cheese was the best meal she’d eaten in her entire life, the handful of bites sat in her stomach like rocks.

What had she been thinking? A powerful billionaire like Gavin Stanton didn’t want her. He wanted the
idea
of her. Guys like him picked their little fuck toys, used them for amusement like a cat with a ball of yarn, and then they discarded them.

After Lilah climbed up three flights of stairs, she found herself at a dead end. “Roof Top Access: Authorized Personnel Only,” the sign said.

Screw it. She authorized herself and opened the door.

Cool air hit her eyes as she stepped out of the small alcove that housed the door. To her right, a trio of patio chairs faced the brilliant array of building lights. The city of Boston and parts of Cambridge lit up like a work of art.

Taking a deep breath, she looked up at the stars. With so much light from the city, you couldn’t see many constellations, but she identified Orion’s Belt.

Suddenly overwhelmed, she sank into one of the chairs. “God damn it,” she muttered to herself, dropping her forehead to her knees. He’d never want her, not the way she wanted him. That time in the wine cellar was burned into her like a brand.
His
brand. She craved him night and day. He was like oxygen.

She hated that feeling. Wanting something she couldn’t have.

I’m part of the membership fee
. Ouch. Her words stung just thinking about them, but they were visceral. Honest. Raw. A part of her wanted to believe all the sweet nothings he’d been saying, but another part knew they were just that—nothing. A rich guy had fucked her, taken her out for a meal, and she was thinking he was her soul mate.

The One.

She was even hearing voices in her head when she was around him. She was way too crazy for any guy, much less this one, to be with her.

Tears finally got the best of her, and as she cried her head began to ring like church bells, the pain so bad and the sound in her head so loud it drowned out the city noise.

Slam!
The rooftop door flew open and a dark, swift figure stalked toward her. She stood, terrified, until she realized it was Gavin. She smoothed her hair back and wiped her eyes, embarrassed.
Way to screw everything up again, Lilah.

She needed to get out of here, go home, cuddle with Smoky and pretend this never happened. “I’m sorry, Gavin. I really am. I never should have—”

He cut off her words with a kiss, his palms gently capturing her face, the pulse of his blood pounding through his mouth, his chest, his pelvis all filling her. Slowly his tongue licked along the seam of her mouth, his breath mingling with hers, waiting until she parted her lips for him to thrust his tongue inside and taste her. Caress her.

Then he pulled back, eyes filled with raw need, with longing. “Tell me no, Lilah. Say the words. You tell me no and I’ll walk away right now.”

“I-I—” She pressed the back of her hand to her bruised lips.

“Look me in the eye and tell me you don’t feel this.” He took her hand and pressed the palm against his chest, over his heart. His other hand reached up to the scar on her face, the one that was the source of so many headaches.

Like an electrical circuit, the hands touching each part created a connection that shot an otherworldly impulse through them. His eyes widened and his breath halted. He felt it too.

And then he cradled her face again between his warm, strong hands. “If you can look me in the eye and tell me that there’s nothing deeper between us, then I’ll leave you alone.” He ducked his head so that their foreheads were touching. "Just say no.”

She
could’
ve said no to the arrogant, demanding billionaire, but this man caressing her face was her heart’s other half. She could feel it in the current that crackled between them. She could see it in his serious eyes.

And as she let go of the anger and the fear, calm need took its place. Calm because she wasn’t going to fight it anymore. She was going to claim
him
. Here. Now.

She grasped his wrists and pulled them away from her face. He furrowed his brow, but he didn’t fight her. He took a deep, uneven breath and closed his eyes as if flinching to ward off a blow.

Her own breathing was labored, but for different reasons. Tingling all over, aware of his nearness, she craved to be closer, as close as possible. And she needed to erase the pain she saw on his face.

Licking her lips, she moved his hands, still captured in hers, to her breasts.

His eyes flew open. He locked her in place with a dark, electrifying gaze.

She nodded slowly.

He closed his eyes again, this time with a different kind of pain. A slow smile curved his lips as he explored the contours of her chest under the tight T-shirt she wore. He traced the deep crevice between her breasts, the wide outside curves, the tightening nipple.

"Lilah.” Lowering his head, he breathed her name into her hair. She could hear him inhale her scent. She could hear his heartbeat pounding with hers.

Now that she was ready, she was
ready
. She reached for his belt, feeling the hard bulge there, and considered the patio chairs. Not big enough for them together, but if she used them for balance while he took her from behind...

Oh yeah.

She leaned forward, licked his throat, and yanked the buckle apart. The taste of his skin and the feel of the chest hair under her tongue were making her wet, so wet, aching for him, hating the time they’d wasted.

"Wait,” he said roughly, catching her hands.

"We’ve waited long enough.” She stretched up on tiptoe and kissed his jaw, delighting in the rough texture of stubble under her lips, the smell of his cologne in her nose. No, it wasn’t cologne. No cologne had ever driven her to madness like this. She wanted to pour him into a glass and drink him.

Tightening his grip on her hands, he pulled her with him over to one of the chairs. “Have a seat, my darling.”

“Thought of that.” She kissed his chin, wishing he’d let her hands go so she could feel his hard, velvety cock. A few stolen seconds in the cellar of the Platinum Club weren’t nearly enough. “Not room for both of us.” She rubbed her erect nipples against his chest, needing anything to relieve the coiling tension low in her belly.

“Don’t worry about me.” Grinning, he dropped a quick kiss on her lips. Much too quick.

She felt the back of the chair behind her legs but resisted sitting in it. “Let me go, and I’ll turn around. So you can, you know...”

His leg hooked her behind the ankle, and her bottom fell into the chair.

Just as she was going to protest, he dropped to his knees in front of her.

If she thought she’d been ready before...

“It’s not my pleasure that drives me,” he said. “It’s yours.”

She tried to laugh to relieve her sudden embarrassment, but the noise caught in her throat and she whimpered instead.

Deft and confident, he unzipped her jeans, slipped both hands under the waistband, and slid them over her ass. She paused for breath before lifting her hips, sending her damp panties upward. Toward his face.

Into
his face. Nuzzling the aching heat between her thighs, he tugged the jeans down over her knees to her ankles. There they caught on her boots, which filled her with anxiety—thinking rationally was increasingly difficult—but he gracefully slipped the black leather heels off one by one. Blindly, because he kept his face buried between her legs, his nose pressing a cavern into the slick nylon.

Ohgodohgod...

Breathless, she gripped the arms of the chair. The wood was soft from exposure, and her nails dug out divots as she waited.

“Do you like this?” he asked, his voice muffled.

She nodded.
Yes
, she added silently.

I don’t want to take
, his voice replied.
I want to make
you
take, Lilah
.
Until you can’t receive any more and beg for mercy...

He tore off her underwear, freeing it from one foot, pushing her knees apart, and settling himself on his knees between them. Exposed and vulnerable, she clutched the chair and tried to breathe.

With one finger, he teased her folds from the bottom to the top, then leaned down and blew on her wet, trembling flesh.

“Oh, Gavin...” An agonized groan escaped her. “Please...now...please...”

Say my name again
.

“Gavin, Gavin, Gavin.” She sank lower in the chair.

Both hands opened her and then his tongue licked her hard and deep, unraveling what thoughts she had left.

Good girl
. He found her clit and lapped at it while his fingers began making love to her, in and out, sliding into her wet heat.

“Gavin,” she said again. Anything to make him continue.

You’re not my pet
, his voice rumbled in her mind. He sucked her nub into his mouth at the same time his powerful fingers found a sensitive spot deep inside her core and twisted.
But I am your master.

Gasping, she threw her head back. The shimmering stars spun before her vision, adding to the sense that this was a dream, an unearthly trip. “You’re mine,” she whispered.

Mine
, his voice murmured.

Fully dressed and on his knees, he continued to suck and stroke, caress and tongue fuck her. At the same time, his low, silent voice rumbled in her mind, encouraging her to enjoy it, take him, let it go. The tension inside her grew so tight she thought she would die from it. Tortured pleasure that rose higher and higher without breaking...

Let it go
.

Was this the end? Would she die here, so close to impossible joy? His voice spoke in her mind, his heart beat in her breast, his touch reached her soul...

Oh, Lilah
, he said, a sigh in her mind, and that was what did it for her, and she shot over the peak and tumbled through the sky into the glimmering stars overlooking the city, the world they shared together.

* * *

H
e kept
his fingers deep inside her, savoring the aftershocks that were racking her body. Stroking with the spasms, he kept her spiraling in the heights of pleasure, willing his own needs to wait. Her lush figure arched in the chair, breasts jutting forward, demanding he drive his cock into her for his own release, see what joyous expression would light her face when he sank into her depths.

Rising to his feet, he kissed his way up her belly to her mouth, letting her taste herself on him. She made soft noises in the back of her throat, and she was still limp from coming, but she lifted soft hands to either side of his face and eagerly returned his kisses. Thinking about how he was tasting her juices on her mouth after drinking from the honey between her legs heated his blood, shattering his control.

He drove his fingers through her hair and slanted his lips over hers, stabbing his tongue deep into her mouth, demanding she accept the impossibility of this bond between them. Accept him, accept all of him.

Except she couldn’t know quite who she was embracing...quite
what
she was opening herself to...

He shoved that thought aside and pulled her up to her feet. “Now, darling,” he said, sliding his hand over her glorious curves, the hollow of her spine, the roundness of her ass. Pulling aside the hem of her T-shirt, he licked her collarbone and scraped his teeth along her soft, supple flesh. He felt her trembling as she reached under his trousers, wiggled her fingers down his shaft, and freed his hard, straining cock.

Flames of lust shot through him. The feel of the cold air and her hot fingers nearly made him come right then all over her belly and her thighs, marking her under the stars as
mine, mine, mine
.

With the discipline of several decades of lovemaking, he reined in his desires long enough to turn her away from him, his teeth still pressing into her shoulder as he stroked and patted her bottom.

Bend over
, he commanded silently.

Audibly panting, she nodded and dropped her hands to the edge of the chair. Her ass thrust into his hips, making him suck in his breath through his teeth at how the starlight danced over her skin like she was a goddess in heaven. A goddess with a cleft in her ass that cradled his throbbing, rigid erection...

He reached around and fingered her clit, demanding she stay as aroused as he was. More. Just because she’d come once didn’t mean her ride was over.

Shifting his hips, he stroked her wet flesh with the tip of his cock. While he teased, she strained her hips up higher, inviting him. Begging him.

Do you want me?
he asked.