HIS (A Billionaire Romance Novel) (8 page)

I didn’t walk up the steps to Orwin Manor. Tyler didn’t give me the chance. As soon as he parked in the circular drive, he went to my side, lifted me from my seat, and carried me over his shoulder inside.

I worried, briefly, that Lucas might see us. But maybe Mr. Cross had given him the day off, because I saw not hide nor hair of him on my way up the stairs.

Tyler didn’t take me to his tower this time. This time, he threw me onto his bed and I scooted back toward the headboard as he growled, “Undress.”

I did as I was told, then spread my legs to show him how wet my pussy was. As he pulled off his blazer, I heard his phone ring.

“Hold on,” he said. I didn’t
want
to hold on, but when he added, “It’s work,” I bit my tongue. So, Tyler was taking work calls again. That was a start. I settled against the pillows and watched him continue to undress with one hand as he held the phone to his ear with the other.

“Tyler Cross,” he said, unbuttoning his shirt. “Yes, well, miracles do happen, I suppose.”

I played with my tits for him as he spoke, and though he glanced over several times, he tried not to let his desire show. I noticed the muscle in his cheek twitch once or twice, but otherwise he was as hard to read as always.

He shrugged off his shirt and let his pants fall all the way down. Naked, he was breathtaking. I moved one hand to my pussy to entice him further as he continued droning on about things I didn’t understand. Nor did I care about them. All I wanted was Tyler’s cock.

I wanted to have sex with him, and I’d make sure it wasn’t anything like what Jackie had done. I’d use pleasure to heal him, not destroy him. And I’d do it because I wanted to make him better, because I wanted to make him happy, because I wanted…

…because I
wanted him.

It was a thought I’d been avoiding since last night. I hadn’t wanted to admit it. After all, we’d only just met—or at least, met in any meaningful way. I soothed myself with the idea that I wasn’t in love with Tyler Cross, but that I was in love with the things he did to me, what he made me feel. And I cared for him on a human level. What had happened to him—what was still happening to him—was awful. Jackie was downright evil. And no one should have to go through that, especially not someone who’d been preyed upon since he was a child.

I believed Mitchell now. He’d told me that Tyler returning to the company would be good for him. I could see that it was. Tyler regaining control over his life, over his business, would show him that he could stand up to Jackie and win. And in the meantime, I’d try to come up with some way for him to get her out of his life once and for all.

“I have to go now. I have a matter I need to attend to.” Tyler hung up the phone and looked at me, surveying my body with a strange frown.

“What is it?” I asked him. “Was it bad news?”

Tyler didn’t answer me. He crawled up the bed very slowly, stalking toward me like a panther closing in on its powerless prey. I bit my lip and scooted back just a little more, which was apparently against the rules, because Tyler grabbed my knee and slid me back down until my pussy was perfectly aligned with his cock.

“Put your legs up,” he told me, and I obeyed. I was panting, ready for it. He lifted my calves up over his shoulders and pressed his tip into my slit, wetting it with my desire as he prepared to impale me.

He watched me rub my clit, but there was something in his eyes that didn’t seem… right. He looked distracted. And yet when he placed his tip right at my entrance, any concern I had for what he might be thinking withered away, leaving me only with a burning desire to have Tyler filling me with everything he had.

“So, you want me to come back to the company?” he asked.

I frowned. Now hardly seemed the time for this talk. “Y-yes, Sir.”

He waved his hand. “None of that. We’re not playing now.” But his dickhead pressing into me told another story. “You came to my home yesterday because you wanted me to come back. Because your job was in jeopardy. Because you were worried about me. That’s it, right?”

I nodded, but a coil of dread was slowly tightening in my belly. “I told you that already. Tyler, what—”

He leaned forward until my knees touched my shoulders. His tip was just millimeters from being inside me now, and my pussy was aching to milk his shaft. I looked into his eyes as his nose nearly met mine. “Yes. You told me that. That’s what you said. You’ve admitted it now.”

That coil turned into a knot. “Admitted what?” I didn’t understand. What the hell was going on?

“That you’re a liar,” Tyler said. He didn’t even blink. “That you’re just as willing to manipulate me for your own benefit as anyone else is. Just like
Jackie
is.”

My mouth fell open. It would have hurt less if he’d just slapped me across my face. “What the fuck are you talking about?!” I whispered. It was hard to breathe with my legs against my chest like this.

“There’s many things I don’t do with liars, Valerie,” he said, pulling away from me. I got up on my elbows and was about to pursue him when he said, “I don’t trust them. I don’t let them stay in my house. And I sure as hell don’t fuck them.”

My mouth ran dry. Even though I’d wanted so badly to keep my face the emotionless slate he wore without trouble, my eyes widened. Shit. He knew. Even if he hadn’t before, the look on my face spoke the truth now.

Still naked, Tyler opened the door to his bedroom. His face was tight and his voice quavered just a little as he said, “You can show yourself out, Valerie.” When I didn’t get up, he added, “N-n-now.”

For the second time in as many days, I was being thrown out of Tyler Cross’ home. Last time, his jealous ex-wife had hurled me into the rain. This time, it was Tyler who was leaving me high and dry.

And this time, I couldn’t help but feel like maybe I deserved it.

HIS FOREVER

It took three weeks for Tyler Cross to forgive me. In that time, he made me suffer.

I had never known such torture before. The agony he inflicted on me not only wracked my body, but my soul. In return for some relief, I gave him what he wanted. And at the end of it all, he gave me what I wanted—what I needed—too.

But maybe I’m getting ahead of myself.

The first thing Tyler did was try to throw me out of his home. But then his mood changed and he grabbed me so hard by my naked arms that I yelped and bruised almost instantly.

“You lied to me,” he hissed. “Everything I told you, everything I gave you, and this whole time you’ve been
using
me.”

There was such rage in his eyes that it swept all my words away. There was nothing I could say to him to undo the damage I’d done, nothing I could do that would make any of this right. There were no excuses; only reasons. I doubted they would help, but he deserved to hear them anyway.

Except my jaw wouldn’t move. My lip quivered, but no sound emerged. That was when Tyler’s face softened and he loosened his grip on me, giving a slow, small shake of his head as he stared into my eyes.

“Why, Valerie? Why would you do this to me?”

I sucked in a breath that trembled all the way down my throat. When he moved his hands from my arms to my face, I finally mustered the courage to answer.

“Mitchell Darling.”

For a moment, Tyler’s face was as cold and hard as steel. Then he cocked his head to the side, his eyes glinting with more than a hint of intrigue. “Go on.”

Those two words had come easily. The rest were much harder to get out. “He… was worried about you. About the company. And he offered me a lot of money to solve the problem, to bring you back so that we’d both get to keep our jobs.”

Tyler grimaced. “How much money?”

“A lot,” I whispered.

He was heating up again. There was a flash of fury in his eyes when he asked, “How much, Valerie? How much did it take to buy out your convictions?”

I winced as though he’d struck me. Part of me almost wished he had. It would have been an easier sting to take. His words, and the way he spoke them, hurt much, much worse.

“Half a million dollars,” I told him. “But it wasn’t just that. I wanted to keep my job. I’ve devoted years of my life to the company—
your
company—and just like Mitchell, I couldn’t bear to see it crumble around us. And when I got to know you, when I realized what you were going through, everything changed.”

Tyler snorted. “And just what am I ‘going through,’ Valerie? You seem to have so much of me figured out. You’d have to, to play me like you did.”

“Jackie is trying to destroy you,” I said, at least confident of this much. “She’s ruining your life. She’s got you holed up here like a shut-in, hiding from the awful truth of what she did to you. And the longer you give in, the longer you ignore your company’s needs as well as your own, the bigger her victory will be. She’s a toxic harpy, a snake in the grass, and because of the abuse you’ve suffered, you can’t see any outcome where you get out of this intact.”

I let the venom slip from my voice as I looked up at him, remembering the pain in his eyes, the desolation he must feel. “You can win, Tyler. Trust me, you can—”

“
Trust
you?” he laughed, pushing me away. “I’m supposed to
trust you
, the woman who’s deceived me right from the start.”

“Maybe I wasn’t always honest about my intentions, but they were
always
in your best interests,” I argued. A low flame of anger had sprung in my belly and was working its way through my chest. “So I didn’t tell you Mitchell had sent me. So I didn’t tell you that I was being paid. What the fuck does that
really
matter, when all I’ve done is play your games and submit to your desires?”

“Which I could have paid a hooker far less to do,” Tyler said.

I’d never thought myself the type to resort to physical violence. But the coldness on his face, the smugness in his tone, the self-righteousness I saw in his eyes—it all turned that low flame into an inferno, and without even thinking, I took a step forward and slapped the shit out of him.

I think it hurt my hand more than it hurt him, but the impact still echoed like a gunshot through his bedroom. Tyler stood, an unmovable object, his head slightly turned to the side and his eyes unblinking. As my palm reddened, so did his cheek. His welt was a perfect imprint of my hand, and of my shame. I’d never hit anyone before.

Especially not a man. And
especially
not a man like Tyler Cross.

“Tyler,” I whispered, but then my voice trailed off. I couldn’t think of anything to say. “I’m sorry” seemed too small.

Silence hung heavy between us, pressing on my chest until my heart pounded like a war drum. When Tyler finally looked at me again, I could see a strangeness in his eyes, a light that flickered like a livewire in a storm.

Something about that look scared me, told me that I’d crossed a boundary we never could return from. But I was frozen, crippled by uncertainty and the intensity of his raw, smoldering glare.

He struck with all the speed of a cobra and the force of a freight train, grabbing me around my throat and pushing me back against his bedroom wall. I flailed, a whimper dying before it could even reach my lips as Tyler covered them with his own.

Fear swept through me like a cold wind, and on its tail came a hot breath of desire. I dug my nails into Tyler’s shoulders as he felt the pulse in my neck with his thumb.

His mouth on mine hurt. His tongue was scalding. His naked skin burned every inch of me until I was sure I would collapse into a pile of ash at his feet.

I couldn’t move. I couldn’t breathe. I could only kiss him back and meet his rage with some of my own.

When Tyler’s lips left me, the distance between us felt like a yawning chasm, fathomless and dark. He swung me around and pushed me, hard this time, away from him. I stumbled, nearly tripping over my own feet and he grabbed me, his fingers digging into my waist and kneading, searching, bruising. I gasped as a second push knocked me onto the bed, and then again when Tyler thrust his hard cock toward me.

I could smell my scent on him from when he’d almost fucked me before. I vividly recalled his taste and the way his thatch of nether hair had felt downy soft against my nose as I’d buried my face into his hips. I looked up at him just as he wound a fist around my hair and clenched, a silent warning that
he
was in control.

My clit was drumming right along with my pulse, and when Tyler pulled me forward and forced his cock into my mouth, it quickened its pace into a frantic, desperate beat.

I swallowed him whole, reaching up to dig my nails into his skin. This was going to hurt, but I
wanted
it to. I craved his punishment almost as much as I craved that sweet release he brought to me so effortlessly. I had fucked up, and I needed Tyler to put me in my place.

He certainly wasn’t pulling any punches. I tried to relax my throat as he face-fucked me, using his grip on my hair to saw my head along the impossible length and girth of his cock. My eyes watered and I suppressed a gag as he found my tonsils again and again, cramming as much of himself inside of me as he could.

He gave a hard push of his hips and forced me to stay in place, grunting and shuddering as his balls pulsed against my chin. I couldn’t help it this time. I gagged, hard, and Tyler sucked in a breath through his teeth in ecstasy.

When he finally let me up for air, my face was red and I gulped in oxygen like it was in short supply. I’d drooled all over Tyler’s dick and a long, crystalline strand of him still connected him to me.

He gripped his base and beat his dick against my puffy lips. I flicked my tongue at his tip and swallowed the thick, juicy bead of precum that spouted from it, savoring his taste. When I drew bright red lines down his thighs with my nails, he spun me around on all fours and then pulled my legs out from under me.

I yelped, clawing at the sheets for traction as he pulled me up, up, up. When my knees encased his ribs, he let go with one hand and spanked me hard and swift, giving me no time in between to comprehend what was happening to me.

The sounds I made for him then weren’t even human. Electric arcs stung my skin and sizzled until his hand came down again with a sharp thunderclap. My ass cheeks jiggled under his onslaught and when he gave my pussy lips a little slap, I rewarded him with a rush of juice.

“This is what gets you wet, huh?” he growled, using his thumb to play with my slippery mess. “You like that I know, don’t you? That I’ve found out your dirty secret?”

I hissed and rubbed my nipples against the bed, my toes clenching as Tyler stopped just short of penetrating me. He saved that for his dick, lowering me just enough to impale me with it.

The sudden violation make me scream. His cock stretched me, spreading my walls wide as he ploughed between them and straight into my wanting core.

I buried my face in his expensive sheets and wailed. The sound of his balls slapping against my wetness was almost louder, his strokes so fevered and forceful that I was sure he was going to rip me apart.

My pussy had never been so full before, and it had been ages since I’d had a man inside me. But even if I’d been fucked just yesterday, nothing would have prepared me for Tyler Cross’ enormous, pumping cock.

This was not the man I knew. This was not the cool, calm, and collected Dom who was always in control, not just of me, but of himself too. This was an animal, a predator, a beast whose carnal desires far surpassed any human instinct left inside him.

“F-fuck,” I stammered, biting my lip so hard it bled. I sucked on the wound, relishing the coppery taste as my flower bloomed for Tyler’s dick. The last part of me had finally submitted to him, and the beating he gave it in return was enough to conjure stars to dance in front of my eyes.

By the time he wound an arm around my thigh to push his fingers into my slit, I was already so close. Tyler tickled my clit, his fingers slipping and sliding against it, against the motion of my body and the motion of his, and the friction proved just too much to take.

Tyler did not demand I wait. He did not threaten punishment if I couldn’t hold out. He didn’t keep me waiting on the precipice until I was nearly a quivering mass of despair. This time, he sped me toward nirvana until I collided with it, my cunt walls pulsating around his cock and begging for more, more, more.

“Tyler!” I screeched, thrashing so hard he nearly lost his grip on me. “Oh, God. Oh, fuck!”

He made a short, strangled sound and I knew he was close, too. But he was fucking me bareback and I wasn’t on the pill, and a little seed of worry germinated inside of me as I wondered what he would do.

Tyler pulled out of me, and with one hand he slathered my creamy lust up into the valley between my ass cheeks. I arched when he inserted the tip of not one, but two fingers into my virgin star, plundering that uncharted territory all the way up to his knuckles. At first it was uncomfortable. I felt stretched much too wide and stuffed much too full. But then, as he wiggled and pistoned his fingers, massaging me from the inside, I relaxed. Everything changed once I did.

This was a new sensory experience, one that truly pushed the limits of my body and challenged everything I knew about myself. I moaned and pushed back against Tyler’s fingers, sighing with dark delight as he explored my forbidden crevice.

“I’m going to cum inside you,” he told me. “I’m going to make you mine. I’m going to make sure you never work for anyone but me ever again.” Then he withdrew his fingers and I whined at the emptiness, craving the dirty pleasure he’d given me before. I heard him spit onto his dick, felt him saturate it in my nectar, and then sucked in a breath through my teeth as he inserted his dickhead into my asshole.