HIS (A Billionaire Romance Novel) (4 page)

With the straps in place, Tyler pulled my hair back from my face and looked hard into my eyes. “You’re so beautiful,” he told me. And as I blushed, he led me to the manacles, not the ones on the ceiling but a set on the wall.

“We’ll keep things simple this time,” he said as he clamped each one around my wrists. I was surprised that he’d made me face the wall instead of him, although it gave him unfettered access to my ass. “If you’re good and if you don’t close your legs on me or try to squirm away, I won’t use the spreader bar to keep you open. Understand?”

I nodded. But that wasn’t enough for him.

“Say it,” he said.

It was nearly impossible with the gag in my mouth. “Yes, Sir,” I told him, but it sounded nothing like that.

He was satisfied regardless. With my cheek against the wall, I watched through my peripheral vision as Tyler shrugged off his robe. He was shirtless underneath with a chiseled body that rivaled that of an
Abercrombie and Fitch
model. His buff chest sloped down into a hilly valley of abs flanked by Adonis lines set deep into his flesh. They disappeared into the waistband of his track pants, through which I could see a distinctive bulge.

My eyes widened. It was bigger than Mitchell’s.

By a lot.

My own muscles seized as Tyler lifted the cat o’ nine tails from its place on the wall. He ran it over his palm a few times as though caressing a lover he’d been separated from for far too long. Then he stepped behind me and gently pulled on my hips so that my back arched and my ass stuck out straight toward him.

“Show me the safeword,” he said.

I was shaking all over, yet I still managed to make the sign with my right hand. Tyler nodded in approval.

“Good girl,” he said. “Now, hold still.”

He ran a hand slowly down my back, passing along my spine until he reached my tail bone. Then, with the other hand, he brought the lashes down onto my left ass cheek and burned a trail of fire onto my flesh.

I pulled in a wet, fluttery breath past the gag in my mouth and dug my nails into the wall, whimpering. Tears stung my eyes and my breasts heaved. My toes curled and I tried desperately not to pull away, even though everything in my body wanted to.

“You shouldn’t have come here, Miss Hartwick,” he said. “You shouldn’t have been so eager to see me. So eager to find out the kind of monster I am.”

He struck me again and I wheezed, saliva flooding my mouth. But this time the shock didn’t hit me, and now amidst the pain, I felt a certain pleasure.

It was slight at first. Mostly, I felt the stinging. After only two strikes, I could feel my skin welting. And when Tyler very gently, almost reverently grazed the surprisingly soft tails over that red and rising skin, a calm enveloped me. I found it soothing. My eyes fluttered closed.

Then he lashed me again, this time across my right cheek, and I wailed once more. The sound was different now, and when I sucked down air, a little moan came with it. Tyler cracked the tails over me a fourth time and I bucked unexpectedly, my thighs gaping and exposing the slippery lips of my wanting pussy.

This time, when he caressed the skin on my bottom, my clit throbbed. I turned away, closing my eyes as I tried not to give in to the desire welling inside of me.

“Your back, now,” he warned, “but gently.” I braced and he struck, but it didn’t feel so much like a serpent’s fangs now. Now it felt like bliss, a burst of white hot sensation followed by endorphins and rapture. There was nectar in my veins sweetening my nerves. My cunt was dripping and I was drooling on Tyler’s wall, but I didn’t care. I was lost to the frenzy he was inflicting on me, to his grunts of restraint and my own coos of pleasure. When my nipples rubbed against the wall in front of me it was almost too much and I sawed my hips against nothingness, frustration rising in my gut.

“Just keep breathing,” he told me. And then: “Do you want me to touch you?”

I shouldn’t. I couldn’t. This was exactly what I’d been avoiding, why I’d agreed to come this far, but to go no further. I couldn’t do this for the money. That would make me a whore.

And yet I wasn’t doing it for the money. I realized, with a start, that I was doing it because
I wanted to.
Because the idea of him stimulating me made my mind reel. Because he’d been stimulating me already, except this was a little different. This might be his finger and not the tails leaving love bites on my back.

And there was my fear to think of, the one that crippled me every time I tried to take things father with a man. Although here, I couldn’t feel it, or at least it wasn’t as potent as it was outside of this room. Something about letting Tyler have control like this made things easier, made me feel more comfortable, more capable.

I could do this. Not just for the company, but for myself too. I squirmed before finally nodding.

Tyler transferred the cat o’ nine tails to his other hand. With his right, he began to prod a fingertip into my hole.

Frantically, I made the sign. I was certain he wouldn’t stop. And yet he did. His finger went no further. And when he slid it instead up my slit to touch and tease my buzzing clit, I made no other sign but purred and banged my forehead on the wall, overcome by a scorching delight.

He lashed me on my ass with the tails again, but this time it was softer. My sensitive, raised skin burst into flame, but that only heightened my pleasure. I was soaring, grinding and vibrating on Tyler’s skilled hand, working myself toward nirvana as he struck and stroked me. I could hear the sloppy wet sounds of him playing in my soaked channel, and that only brought me closer to cumming.

He whispered in my ear, “Next time, you will wait for permission to cum. But this time, I’ll go easy on you.”

I threw my head back and moaned as Tyler picked up the pace. Sweet release overcame me and I was lost.

I was only vaguely aware of my thrashing, of clamping my thighs down on Tyler’s wrist, of braying like an animal as my orgasm annihilated me. The searing pain on my ass cheeks and the soreness on my back only drove me higher, spiraling me into the stratosphere as I pumped against Tyler’s still wiggling finger. My eyes rolled back into my skull and I saw the stars. And then I came crashing down again, burning up on reentry and raining down in bits and pieces all over his floor.

My knees gave out beneath me. I almost fell limp against the wall. But Tyler abandoned the cat o’ nine tails and held me, one strong arm across my waist, and let me ride out the last of my ecstasy in his embrace.

My head lolled as he undid my restraints. He removed the gag and I closed my mouth, licking my chapped lips and preparing to say something, anything. But I couldn’t get the words out.

Tyler was staring at me, scrutinizing me again, though this time there was concern in his gaze. “Are you all right?”

“Yes,” I whispered. My throat was a little scratchy. “Sir.”

He shook his head. “It’s okay. We’re done. You don’t have to call me that anymore.” Then he brushed my hair away from my forehead and off my cheek. “This part is all about you.”

I didn’t know what he meant, but I almost didn’t have the strength to fight him. He led me to a plush chaise at the other end of the room and pulled me against him, letting me bury my face in his chest.

He smelled so good, and the way he trailed his fingers across the crisscrossed welts on my back made me shiver and moan. He was so gentle with me, so tender, so different from the way he’d been only moments ago.

The bulge was still there in his pants, though it was hardly as prevalent as it was before. He seemed focused on the task at hand, running his fingers through my hair and soothing me in every way possible.

It was far more intimate than I’d expected. When I shook now, it was in my soul—my core.

“Is this something you can manage?” he asked me, rubbing his stubbled cheek against the top of my head. “Something you could enjoy, perhaps even love?”

My head was foggy and my lips were too loose. There were a thousand things I wanted to say, but none of them seemed appropriate even lying naked in my boss’ arms.

“Maybe,” I said. It was stupid, but it also kept me from committing to anything. Tyler shifted beside me, though for the moment, he seemed satisfied.

“Okay,” he answered. And as he passed his fingers over me, worshipping my body again and again, praising it for all it had endured, I did the stupidest thing I’d done all day.

I fell asleep in Tyler Cross’ arms.

I opened my eyes to pitch darkness and almost screamed.

I didn’t know where I was. I didn’t even know the time. All I knew for certain was that I was somewhere I was not meant to be. I didn’t recognize this place. I was alone.

I also knew the sheets around me were soft and the mattress seemed to have been crafted out of a cloud. As that juxtaposition threw me, memories of what must have been hours ago seeped into the front of my mind and I threw my head back onto the pillows, willing the adrenaline to leave me.

I was at Tyler Cross’ manor. I’d come here of my own free will in an attempt to persuade him back into the limelight. Mitchell Darling had sent me, and I’d agreed to let Tyler dominate me in exchange for…

For what, exactly?

I sat up again and the adrenaline returned. Tyler had never agreed to anything. I’d entered the deal without even thinking to ask him the terms. This all could very well have been for nothing.

Heat rose in my cheeks. I was a stupid girl. A very stupid girl.

I raised up out of Tyler’s bed and finger-combed my hair back as I searched for a light switch. I found the drapes instead and pulled them aside, wincing as sunlight slapped me right in the face. Clouds were gathering on the horizon, dark and moving swiftly toward us. Afternoon storms weren’t unusual this time of year. Well, at least I hadn’t been asleep for too long.

The soreness hit me as I was putting on my clothes. Tyler had left them for me draped across the back of a chair. Putting on my bra was unbearable. The stripes he’d left across my shoulder blades became infernos of pain when I tried to cinch the band across them. I left it off for now and put on my much looser blouse instead, breathing a sigh of relief when the pain died.

Maybe I hadn’t gotten Tyler to agree to come back to work yet, but I had gotten him to trust me. And that was a very powerful tool I could wield against him, although the very thought of it turned my stomach.

It was clear that something really was wrong with him. Not sexually—what we’d done was no different than what hundreds of thousands of others did every day—but the way he’d reacted in the drawing room hadn’t been normal. He was using domination and submission to heal a problem, and I wasn’t sure it was working. The desperation in his voice made me wonder if it wasn’t actually making things worse.

He needed to face whatever it was. But the reality was that it wasn’t my job to make him see that. My job was to get him to return to Cumberland & Cross by any means necessary. And that meant making him trust me and my judgment.

I left my heels and stockings off and prepared myself to face Tyler. I’d have to work the matter into our conversation somehow, and I needed to seem both composed and organic about it. It couldn’t sound rehearsed, but I couldn’t be an awkward, stammering mess, either.

Inadvertently, I’d reminded myself of the way Tyler had stuttered when I’d struck a nerve. I’d never heard him sound that way before. What the hell was that about?

I shook the thoughts from my head. I was on a mission. I couldn’t let my curiosity or concern distract me. This was a business deal, and I needed to treat it like one.

By the time I’d steeled myself enough to walk out into the hallway, thunder was already rumbling outside. The storm was coming on quick, which meant I’d be stuck in Orwin Manor much longer than anticipated.

What if it lasted the night? Surely, Tyler had a car here. Maybe he could take me home. Maybe he could even swing by the office on his way and I could collect my quarter mil and treat myself to a nice, long bubble bath and a bottle of champagne. The real kind, not the fifteen-dollar bottles at…

I stopped when I heard voices. It wasn’t Lucas or even Tyler. It was a woman, and it was coming from the drawing room where we’d had tea earlier.

I carefully made my way down the steps. The door was partway opened; whatever they were discussing clearly wasn’t meant to be private. I was quiet anyway. It wasn’t polite to eavesdrop, no matter the circumstance. But the woman seemed angry, and I had to know if this was the reason Tyler had locked himself away.

“Please. You enjoyed every minute of it,” she was saying. I could only see the back of her head and her long, dark curls cascading down her back. She was wearing a very nice designer dress with equally nice shoes. The red soles matched her nails. “You always act like what I did was such a bad thing. I don’t recall you complaining at the time, Tyler.”

She slinked closer to him. My stomach dropped. Was he involved with someone? What about what we’d just done? What we’d shared?

Stop it. You’re acting like you have feelings for the guy. He doesn’t owe you anything.

And yet I couldn’t stop my chest from tightening as the woman ran a scarlet nail down the center of Tyler’s chest.

“You always came so hard for me, Tyler,” she purred. “That cock was so big and thick, even back then. And I know you still like it rough.” She was whispering in his ear now. “I know you still enjoy everything I taught you from my little bag of tricks…”

Tyler wasn’t pulling away from her. He stood stock still, staring into her eyes as she lifted her mouth to his.

And then his gaze flicked to me so abruptly I gasped out loud.

“V-V-V…” he began. He was stuttering again. He had to force the whole sound. “Valerie…”

The woman in his arms turned. Her amber eyes flared.

“What the fuck?”

I took a step back, but she closed the distance quickly. Her hand was around my throat before I could even raise my arms up to defend myself. I felt her nails digging into me and shrieked, grabbing her arm.

“Who the fuck are you, bitch? Huh?” she hissed, shoving me backward and toward the front doors. “What the hell are you doing in my house?”

Her house?
My eyes widened.
Tyler has a wife?!

Regardless, her grip was strong and she was hurting me. I slapped her hard across the face. She let go of my throat, but a moment later, she had me by the hair.

“Get out!” she raged, twisting hard and pulling several strands free from my scalp. “Get your whore-ass back to the gutter where you belong!”

She used her free hand to open the door and wrenched me to the ground outside. I fell hard, pain blooming in my elbows as they collided with the marble stoop. Cold rain hit my back, matting my hair to my face and my shirt to my body as I looked up through my bangs to see the woman standing triumphantly on the other side of the door. Then she was gone, closing it in my face before I could get to my feet.

I was soaked. I was cold. That bitch had pulled some of my hair out and my elbow was already bruising.

Lightning flashed and thunder followed. What the hell had just happened?