Page 10 of The Billionaire's Beauty

My heart sinks. I have no way of knowing. I may well waste my entire evening up here by myself, waiting for someone who never plans to come.

“Your guess is as good as mine.”

“I say give him another half an hour,” she says. “And then if he doesn’t show—”

Knock–knock–knock.

“Oh my God,” I say, bolting upright and getting up. “Someone’s at the door.”

“It’s him!”

“Either that, or housekeeping with a chocolate for my pillow.”

“It’s him. I know it. Enjoy yourself. Have a fuck for me, since I won’t be getting any anytime soon.”

“I’ll try,” I say, laughing. “Gotta go.”

I hang up, put the phone on the nightstand, hurry to the door, check the peephole and see that it is him. I die a thousand little deaths while I stare at his distorted image and try to decide whether he’s come to tell me to get a grip or to take me up on my offer. Then I decide that there’s only one way to find out for sure, take a deep breath to steady my racing pulse and swing the door open.

He comes inside without a word, smelling like bergamot and cedar. A warm and inviting scent that has quietly tortured me every day for the last year. And suddenly there he is. My boss, the Beast. As overwhelmingly masculine and commanding here as he is at the office. As out of place in a bedroom of mine as a silverback gorilla at the MAC counter at Nordstrom.

I shut the door, meet his gaze and wonder what the hell happens next.

Tall to begin with, a good six-two or so, he towers over my medium height now that I’ve taken off my shoes and makes me feel way overmatched. In a thrilling way. He’s got all the usual features you’d expect to see in a sex god. Broad-shouldered and slim-hipped with a great ass, he’s wearing his work uniform of a custom dark suit and white shirt, although he’s stripped off the gray tie from earlier and has it tucked into his jacket pocket. The top button of his shirt is undone now, revealing the top of a white T-shirt and, much more interestingly, the honeyed skin at the base of his throat.

But you’re probably wondering about his face.

Allow me to tell you that he’s fucking gorgeous.

He’s got a halo of sun-streaked golden hair that’s much too long. It curls around his ears and collar because he’s too busy and impatient to sit still long enough for anyone to trim it regularly. His sleek nose and high cheekbones combine with the divot in his chin to give him insane good looks. The kind that inspire men to march into their plastic surgeon’s offices and say, Give me one of those. Yeah, all of it. He sports a sexy five o’clock shadow because of course. He glows with health, his complexion dusted with freckles and the slight weathering of someone who spends as much time as he can outside engaged in sweaty activities.

And his eyes…

They’re the electric blue of the flame on your stove, if someone took that color and purified it, making it so bright that you could hardly stand to look at it. He scowls a lot. You should know that. His lush mouth talks on the phone, makes deals and barks out orders. If you’re ever lucky enough to catch him in a smile, you’ve got about half a second to note his flashing white teeth and dimples. His heavy brows are several shades darker than his hair, intensifying his attention when he looks at you and making you feel as though every interaction is a test that you’d better not fail.

Especially now, when, surprisingly, there’s no scowl in sight. Only the relentless focus of a man who likes what he sees and knows what he wants as he gives me a swift and heated once-over.

That is not the look of a man who plans to either fire me or let me down easy. It’s the look of—

He’s on me without warning, catching me entirely off guard. There’s no greeting. No discussion of terms for this one-off tryst. Just him crossing that line between us and suddenly right there in my space. In my face, where he’s never been before, and his extraordinary eyes are the only things I can see. Just his hands on either side of my face and his indistinct murmur of triumph as he leans down to kiss me.

A sweeping wave of euphoria threatens to knock me flat on my ass before I can reach for him.

Oh, God.

I’d expected things with him to be next level.

This is next universe.

His lips are velvety and surprisingly tender as they slant over mine, taking control and keeping it. His mouth glides and explores, fitting with mine in every possible combination, each one more exciting than the one before. I cannot respond urgently enough, covering his hands with mine to make sure he doesn’t let me go, rising to my tiptoes and surging to meet him. He helps himself to hanks of my hair, gripping it to angle my head the way he wants it. I’m ready when he touches his tongue to my mouth, opening and taking him deep with a helpless groan.

A shudder ripples through his big body, telegraphing the effect I have on him as we mutually help him out of his jacket and drop it to the floor. Which is good, because now I don’t feel so out of control for trembling like this and melting down when he touches me. I can’t help it that he turns my blood to molten gold when he slowly tugs my wrap off and strokes the sides of my neck and my bare shoulders. No one ever told me that a man’s touch could bring me right up to the brink of a screaming orgasm before he ever even approached my breasts or the cleft between my legs.

But he can. This one can.

I give my sexual history a solid meh up to this point, with fumbling boyfriends who tend to approach, say, women’s breasts as cool things to fiddle around with rather than vehicles through which a man can give exquisite pleasure. But now Griffin seems determined to make up for lost time. He sneaks in like a pickpocket, unzipping the back of my dress and easing it down and out of his way before I even suspect anything is happening.

A little shimmy and the thing drops to the floor, where I step out of it and kick it away. The next thing I know, his hands are right there at the edges of my strapless bra, stroking up and down my sides to my hips, ignoring my aching nipples. His touch is languid. Maddening. I endure it for as long as I can, whispering nonsensical encouragement to him with my tingling lips as goosebumps erupt all over my skin, until I can’t take it anymore. Shameless and greedy, I grab his wrists and drag his hands to where I need them, flattening them over my breasts in a rough caress.

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