Page 11 of Dedicated Billionaire

She looks grateful as I lead her away, but I ignore her until we’re outside my room, then I open the door and motion for her to go in. She raises an eyebrow at me but steps inside and I follow her, shutting the door behind us.

“Why don’t you just flat out tell them all to fuck off?” I demand.

“I told you yesterday,” she says, leaning back against the door as she looks up at me. “I’m not in control of anything. I get to do what I want, for now. I’ve always known they were going to pull the rug out from under me. My art degree might be useful in the company, so I get to at least study what I want, but the pushback on this internship has been extreme.” She pauses and sighs. “I’ve never had any real control over my life. These last few years in college have been an illusion. They’re going to end up pushing me into the mold they’ve always wanted, and I think I’m just too tired to fight it anymore.”

“Ah, Carly,” I say, tracing a line down the side of her face.

“Matt’s lucky he wants all the same things they do. It makes him seem even more like the golden boy, even though he doesn’t mean to be that way. And it makes me seem even more stubborn and bratty.”

She continues on, letting out her pent up feelings, and I can’t really say I’m surprised to hear a lot of it. There were a few times Matt tried to branch out during college but was always firmly brought back into line. He was content and happy, but like Carly said, that was pure luck. Thinking about her artistic and giving nature being stifled at her parents’ company, or even worse, having to be shackled to someone she didn’t care about, someone who wasn’t me, made me come to a realization.

No one was making decisions for my woman but her and I’m going to step in and make sure everyone knows that if I have to. Somewhere while she was talking I took her hands and she clung to them as she poured her heart out to me.

“It’s all going to end up the way they want in the end,” she says. “And I’ll get used to it and probably even be kind of happy eventually.”

“Fuck that,” I say, and she giggles weakly. I press her hands to my chest and repeat my sentiment. “What do you want to do right now?”

She shrugs, her palms splaying out on my chest. “I want to do something just for me.”

“Anything you want. I’ll make it happen. You’re always going to be able to make your own decisions as long as I’m around.”

She just keeps looking at me. It’s taking everything in me to wait for her go ahead, to not just take her against this door right now.

“Come on, Carly. Tell me what you want.”

She tips her head back, her eyelids lowering. “Kiss me again,” she says, barely a whisper.

I grip her shoulders, my whole body stiffening. “If I do that, I’m not going to be able to stop. Or let you go. If I kiss you the way I want to, you’re going to be mine and no one else’s. Idon’t share. You think I don’t take anything seriously, but I don’t start things I’m not interested in doing for the rest of my life.”

Her lush lips curl in a smile. “I’m glad someone is taking me seriously for once. And I’m glad it’s you.” She pauses, rising on her toes. “I only ever wanted it to be you.”

I crush her to me, her soft curves molding to my body as her arms entwine around my neck. My mouth finds hers and my hands slide down her arms to grip her waist. Her gasp brushes my lips as I trace my tongue along the seam of her mouth. We both moan as she opens her mouth to me, letting me inside. She tastes of sweet orange juice and the heady fragrance of vanilla and honey fills my nostrils as I breathe her in.

She presses closer and my cock rises instantly at the feel of her clinging to me. Instead of pulling back, she tightens her grip around my neck, pulling her body up to rub against my rock hard shaft that’s straining against my jeans.

In this moment, there’s only Carly, trying to find friction against me. No one has ever felt as good as her, and in this moment I know I am totally fucked.

I mutter her name as I ease my hands under her top and she makes a disgruntled sound that our lips should be apart for a split second. Her velvety skin under my palms lights me on fire and I reach behind her to lock my bedroom door.

I pull away to look down at her, a warning and a question at the same time. I told her there’d be no going back. Not to the way things were. That isn’t how I worked. Carly is already mine.

She nods. “Don’t stop, Braden,” she says, pulling my head back down to claim her lips again.

Chapter 7

Carly

I can’t stand it if he pulls away. Not now that he’s started what I’ve been dreaming about since… well, since the plane ride if I’m honest. Long before that if I count those years I had the crush. This is something much deeper than peeking at him and wishing he’d see me as an adult. We’ve turned a corner, and if he’s being serious, we’re not turning back.

He runs his fingers through my hair, his fist tightening around a handful as he tips my head back to claim my mouth again. I open eagerly, desperate for his tongue. And his hands, which slide from my hair, down my shoulders, raising goosebumps on my arms.

He smells like leather and the fancy little bottles of shampoo my mom equipped the cabin bathrooms with. Like every good memory I’ve ever had, because it seems like Braden was there for all of them.

Gripping his shirt, I try to get closer, so hungry I can’t think straight. This hunger goes far deeper than anything that’s out on the breakfast buffet. I’m insatiable, getting more ravenous with every stroke of his fingers on my heated skin. He starts shuffling backwards toward the bed, keeping a firm grasp on my waist.

When his legs hit the edge of the bed, he stops, moving his hands to the sides of my face, pulling back to look at me. I see thesame hunger in his deep blue eyes, a crazed sort of desire that makes my heart pound even harder.

“You’re so damn gorgeous, Carly,” he tells me in a rough voice.

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