Page 41 of A Billion Dollar Romance
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His penthouse was just as I remembered it: soft tans and creams, dark wood furniture, leather chairs into which I wanted to sink and never emerge.
“Do you want a drink, Edie?” he asked, and I nodded. He’d shed his suit jacket, leaving it over the back of the couch, and he looked comfortable, reaching into his cabinet for two wine glasses.
“Thanks,” I said, wandering over to his coffee table. A stack of books were neatly arranged on its surface, the top book showcasing a classic car.
“Do you collect cars?” I asked, half curious, half making conversation.
“What?” he asked, coming to the couch with two glasses of red.
“Classic cars?” I asked, gesturing to the book.
“Oh,” he said. “No, I– No one’s ever asked me about those, honestly. I didn’t even remember what they were about. I assume the interior designer picked them out.”
I raised my eyebrow. “An author, and you don’t even know what books are on your coffee table?”
He huffed out a laugh. “This room is for… Well, this room isn’t for me,” he said.
“But youdohave a room,” I said, my curiosity now in earnest.
“Are you asking to see my bedroom, Edie?” he growled, but his eyes were crinkling at the corner. I’d already seen it. And his bathroom, and his kitchen… He passed me my glass, hesitating for a moment before he nodded his head down the hallway. “I’ll show you.”
The door to his bedroom was cracked open, but past it, a second door was closed tight. “I haven’t been spending a lot of time in here since I’ve been running Verity, but…” He pushed open the door.
There was a desk in the middle of the room, facing a wall of windows, dark curtains half-drawn against the silhouette of the city at night. A leather desk chair, a half-drank cup of cold coffee on the desktop, a few scattered notes, and–my heart flip-flopped–the printed-out pages of my unfinished book. I could see his handwriting even on the first page.
My eyes wandered from the desk to the walls–lined with bookshelves, all of them spilling over with books. “This is your classic car collection?”
“This is my classic car collection,” he said. “That’s exactly right.”
He was half-sitting on his desk in just the way I remembered him doing in the lecture hall, and I let my eyes roam from his dress shoes up his legs, his waist, trim and defined with his dress shirt tucked into the waistband of his pants, that same belt. His shirt, soft and rumpled across his broad shoulders, his jaw highlighted by a slight scruff. His mouth curved into a soft smirk, and his eyes looking back at me. He put his untouched wine down on his desk, and I moved closer to him, standing almost between his legs. I put my own wine down, carefully, next to his.
“You didn’t show me this room the last time I was here.”
“You weren’t Edie the last time you were here.”
“I was Penelope,” I admitted, staring at my wine glass. “I’m sorry about that, again, I don’t know wh–”
“No,” he said, and I looked up at him to find his eyes dark and wanting. His voice was like gravel when he spoke again. “You were Miss Taylor.”
He kissed me.
His hands wrapped around my waist, pulling me flush against him, and his mouth crashed against mine, his teeth nipping at my bottom lip. I gasped, my mouth parting, and he deepened the kiss, sliding his tongue against mine. I could taste the wine we’d drank at dinner, and under it, his own flavor, the one I’d craved since that first night, when his mouth had taken mine again and again–
He stood, spinning us around so that it was me perched on his desk, with him between my legs, and pulled my top up over my head, my hair falling in a mess around my shoulders. My nipples ached against the lace of the bra I’d bought just for tonight, and his mouth trailed from my jaw, to my neck, to the indentation where the strap had been, falling off my shoulder at a gentle tug of his fingers. “You don’t know how long I’ve wanted to do this,” he growled against my skin, and my laugh was cut off by the press of his hard cock against my center, separated by far, far too many layers of clothing.
“I think I have an idea…” I gasped, “professor.”
“Fuck,” he groaned, and I smirked, feeling his cock twitch against me. I’d been right–righter than I even expected–when I’d decided to tease him with that name. I arched into him as he pulled the cups of my bra down below the swell of my breasts, taking them in his hands, his tongue laving over one sensitive nipple, then the other, the heat of his mouth burning in the cool air of the room. He reached behind me, unhooking the clasp of my bra and letting it fall away, and then, with one hand under each of my thighs, he lifted me from the surface of the desk. He carried me easily the few steps from desk to bookshelves, pressing my back against the full shelves. “I wanted you at the fundraiser, like this, I would have fucked you up against the books if that goddamn silent auction hadn’t stopped me.”And I would have let him,I thought,or almost.I shimmied out of his grip, steadying myself on weak knees as my feet met the floor again. I fumbled for the zipper on my skirt, pulling it down around my ankles before kicking it away. His eyes followed the movement hungrily, and a thrill zipped up my spine.
But he didn’t pick me up again to wrap my legs around his waist; instead, he held my face between his hands, kissing me. Softly at first, and then he used one hand to turn my chin, tilting my head to bare my neck, and his mouth was at the base of it, sucking hard enough that I knew it would bruise, before he kissed down to my breasts again, then to my belly. He was kneeling now, and he nudged my legs open wider with strong hands. The ache in my clit was throbbing even before his tongue trailed across the lace of my underwear. I shivered, grasping at his hair, but he removed my hands, placing them carefully on the bookshelves.
“Behave,Miss Taylor,” he said, and my head fell back against the wood with a thump.
His hands kneaded my thighs, spreading them apart, and he kissed over the lace again as I gripped the wooden shelves tightly.
“You always were an exceptional student,” he murmured against my thigh, and I huffed out a laugh.
