Billionaire's Caress Read online

  To make matters worse, nothing I seemed to do in the business met with his standards. Be it decisions about hiring, payroll or almost anything else, Grey insisted on being involved and most of the time, as in every single time, having the final say.

  Even though he owned zero percent of the business, he nonetheless maintained a grip on every single thing that went on because he controlled the money. And until I could build up enough of a customer base to run things on my own, I had no choice but to accept his funds – and his orders.

  After another long day, I sat in my office and glanced out the window. The heat from the setting sun felt warmer than normal against my skin as I looked out over the parking lot next to my offices. I’d moved to the West Coast to escape the drudgery of gray Midwestern skies and endless, punishing winters. And now, here I was separated from the sunny skies once again.

  How could this have happened? I wanted to close the blinds and just be left alone. No employees, no clients and for the first time, no Grey Sincl… But, no sooner did the last thought enter my mind than my office phone started to ring.

  It was Grey calling from his cell.

  For the first time since I met him, I could honestly say I didn’t want to speak with the man. Unfortunately, in the short time I’d known him, I was well aware that when he wanted something, you kept him waiting at your peril. But, I couldn’t keep going like this. For what? Some money?

  No.

  Just no.

  He needed to know the effect this ‘agreement’ had on me. Us! Hah! Not that there was an ‘us’ or anything. Ugh, what the hell had I gotten myself into? After the third ring, I exhaled and snatched it from its cradle.

  Listless, I brought the phone to my ear. “Hello.”

  After a brief moment of silence, Grey spoke. “Maddie? What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing,” I began. “I’m fine.”

  Holding the receiver up to my right ear, I leaned forward in my chair and straightened my left arm across the clear glass which covered my desk. After laying it flat on the surface, I lowered my head until my ear pressed against it. I was so freaking tired, I could have fallen asleep if he’d stopped talking.

  I am not even joking. Three minutes… tops.

  “You don’t sound fine,” Grey replied.

  I don’t know whether it was long hours or the fatigue I’d accumulated battling with Grey over every minuscule detail of the business, but something inside me needed relief. Frustrated, I blurted out a response and confirmed his suspicion.

  “You’re right, Grey,” I began. “I’m not. Are you happy that I’m not fine or would you like to tell me why I should be and how grateful I should be to you that I even have this ‘opportunity’ to begin with?”

  As I spoke, I actually mustered an air quote gesture at the word ‘opportunity’ and hoped that by some strange cosmic force, my sarcasm would travel over the phone lines, into his ear and form a giant cartoon fist and then punch him right in the mouth.

  “Maddie, hey,” he said with a sharp tone. “If something is wrong, you need to tell me what it is so I can help.”

  Thinning my lips, I pushed myself up and sat straight in my chair.

  “I don’t want your help, Grey!” I exclaimed. “As a matter of fact, I don’t want any of this anymore. I am sick of all of it. This is way too much work for what I’m having to put up with from you.”

  I heard him scoff through the receiver. “Sorry to hear that, Maddie but a deal is a deal.”

  “And that’s another thing. You seem to love, love, love reminding me of that fact. Every time I turn around it’s our deal this and the agreement that. Well you know what? I’m sick of it!”

  “Okay,” he replied. “Well, if you want out, pay me back all the money I loaned you.”

  “Uh!” I replied. I balled my hand into a fist, causing the tops of my knuckles to whiten. “You know I don’t have it yet. I still won’t collect my first round of invoices for another month.”

  Grey exhaled. There was a hint of disappointment in the sound.

  “What? Why did you make that noise?”

  “It’s simple, Maddie. I have high expectations for you,” he replied. He paused for a moment before continuing, “So, no. I don’t think there will be any changes to our arrangement. You will figure it out. In the long run, it will be the best thing for you.”

  Jumping to my feet, I pressed the phone hard against my ear and shouted.

  “Screw you, Grey! Where the hell do you get off telling me what to do? I don’t need to take any crap from you. I won’t. I’m sick of it. Do you hear me?”

  My entire body shook with frantic energy as I waited for him to lay into me. If this was to be a knockdown, drag out brawl, I was ready.

  “Grey!” I yelled. “Say something damn it!”

  Nothing.

  I pulled the phone away from my head and glanced down at the console.

  Disconnected.

  The sonofabitch hung up on me!

  “Shit!” I screamed as I slammed the phone back down in the cradle.

  GREY

  I slid my cell phone back down inside the inner pocket of my suit coat. Straightening my tie and assuring its alignment in a reflection off the glass, I pulled open the front door to the office building and walked inside. It was well after six o’clock now and I had business to take care of, no matter the consequences to my love life.

  After checking the building directory, I walked to the elevator and took it up to the third floor. Once there, I made my way down the hall and came upon the entrance to Suite 302. After entering, I took a look around at the decor and nodded. Tasteful, elegant and discreet. Perfect. Exactly what the business demanded.

  Glancing around, I saw no one in the immediate area, so after walking past a large conference room with half-toned, floor-to-ceiling frosted glass windows, I made my way to the largest, and last, doorway at the end of the hall. I approached the eight foot high mahogany door, grabbed hold of the handle and pushed it open.

  “Grey!” Maddie shouted as I entered.

  I had no clue if she’d fight me or fuck me after the conversation we’d just had. If I was lucky, I’d get less of the former and more of the latter. As I looked at her, she came around the desk and marched in my direction. She still seemed pissed, of course, but damn, did she look finer than I remembered. Had it really been almost a month already?

  “What the hell are you doing here, Grey? And why did you hang up on me?”

  I smiled. “Nice to see you too, kitten.”

  Her arms flashed in front of her chest as she crossed them and closed herself off from me.

  “Don’t try to sweet talk me, Grey. I am seriously pissed at you right now.”

  Maddie had her hair pulled back in an elegant ponytail. She wore a white sleeveless blouse, which cut tight across her ample tits. A black pencil skirt hugged her hips and cinched her waist in at the perfect spot. My eyes trailed down her taut, trim legs to a sexy pair of suede ankle boots.

  “Grey!” she shouted, snapping me out of my lustful state.

  “Yes, Beautiful?” I said with a smile.

  “No, no, no!” she yelled. A hard-lined scowl etched across her youthful face as she tilted her head down at me in disgust. “I am not going to stand here while you just pretend like none of what I said on the phone to you matters!”

  As she scolded me, I realized I should do something to diffuse the situation. After all, we were running a business here and in spite of her complaints about how we’d been communicating, I’d heard nothing but good things about the way she handled it.

  But hey, business is stressful. That’s life.

  If it wasn’t, they’d call it resting, or sleeping or some other shit.

  It’s hard and it's about time Maddie accepted it. Because whether she realized it or not, feeling this sort of pressure was the best thing for her. I came to encourage her but now, to be honest, she was pissing me off a bit. I really didn’t care for the victim act and the ind
ignation, in spite of everything I'd done, was wearing a little thin on me as well. As a gesture of goodwill, I stepped towards her and touched her arm with my fingertips.

  “Don’t!” she snapped, as she turned around and walked back towards her desk. I shook my head while I watched her hips sway from side-to-side. Damn, it had been too long. Just then, she slid into her chair and rolled it into position, slipping her legs underneath her desk as she came to a stop.

  “Nice offices,” I said, as I approached the desk. She remained silent, looking at me with all the emotion of a cement garden ornament.

  “I’m in no laughing mood, Grey. I know you probably think I’m being dramatic and ridiculous, but that’s not the case. Not at all.”

  I looked down at her and nodded.

  “All right, Maddie,” I replied, sitting down in one of the chairs across from her desk. “Go ahead. I’m right here. Say what you you’ve got to say.”

  With her forearms flat on the surface of her desk, I watched as her hands gathered into tiny, angry balls of rage.

  “I already told you, Grey. On the phone? Fifteen minutes ago? Remember? You hung up on me?”

  “You finished?” I asked.

  “Yes,” she fired back. “No! Wait, I’m not. All right, yes, I am. Oh hell, just say something would you?”

  Shaking my head, I drew my eyebrows together as I looked at her.

  “I’ve given you everything you’ve asked for Maddie and more. Frankly, I don’t understand what the problem is.”

  “Not everything,” she snapped.

  I narrowed my eyes at her as she finished speaking. “What do you mean? Of course I have. You’ve got a new apartment, new offices and cash in the bank. If that’s not everything, I don’t know what is.”

  She nodded her head quickly as if she couldn’t wait for me to finish. Maddie thinned her lips.

  “That’s exactly it, Grey. You don’t know the first thing about what I want.”

  I craned my neck forward as I glared at her. “What are you trying to say, Maddie?”

  Maddie leaned back in her chair and shrugged her shoulders. “I don’t think I’m trying to say anything, Grey. I just said it. You don’t know the first thing about what I want.”

  I’d had about enough of this. She’d gotten right to the edge of my cardinal rule. Never take crap from anyone…

  Ever.

  And, if this had been simple business deal or only a romantic interlude, I wouldn’t have listened to another utterance, but here I’d gone and done it to myself all over again — mixing business with pleasure. The only problem was, I wanted this damn woman as much as I wanted a piece of this business. Even so, she had to learn the boundaries.

  I leaned back, stood from the chair and straightened my tie.

  “Let’s talk about this over dinner,” I said.

  “What?” she scoffed. “You really think I want to go to dinner with you right now? You can’t be serious, Grey.”

  I smiled and turned my back to her. As I began to head to the door of her office, she called out, “Grey! Come back here!”

  I continued to walk and replied, “I’ll have Armando come and pick you up. We’ll have a nice meal, a bit of wine and some civilized conversation.”

  “Grey!” she screamed.

  I heard the motion of the chair as it rolled out from under Maddie and slammed into the window behind her. The impact of it against the aluminum blinds echoed off the walls, as I reached for the door handle. I felt a rush of wind pass by my ear and then the flash of a large object as it smashed against the door. I leaned away in the last instant as Maddie’s office phone crashed on the floor next to me and broke apart into several large chunks.

  As the clatter from it ceased, I slowly turned back to face her.

  Maddie stood behind her desk, her chair still half-caught in the blinds. A loose strand of hair hung down across her face, a casualty of her throwing motion a moment earlier. After a quick glance at her hands to make sure she held no other potential projectiles, I headed straight for her. Her chest heaved with hard, deep breaths as I crossed the room in her direction. For a moment, she remained motionless until, seeing I had no intention of stopping, she suddenly raised her right arm in the air.

  “Grey,” she pleaded. “I’m sorry. Don’t do something you’re gonna regret.”

  No sooner had she finished speaking than I rounded the desk. I yanked her chair aside and tossed it behind me as I continued towards her. As it rolled away, it banged into a large credenza that stretched along the length of the wall. It rattled as the chair collided with it, tipping over a decorative vase in the process.

  Maddie staggered back towards the opposite wall as the vase fell to the ground. The crack of shards splintering in every direction was the only sound I heard, aside from each frantic breath that escaped from Maddie. I continued to draw closer until at last, she could retreat no further.

  Her mouth, those delicious lips, spread wide as she gasped for air. Her breasts heaved in fright as I hovered near her. And her eyes, those goddamn sapphire devils, cut right into me and took the dangerous edge off my anger. I raised my hand to my lips and wiped it across them.

  “Go ahead, Maddie,” I dared her. “Do it. You know it’s what you want.”

  She thinned her lips. The lava of her rage bubbled beneath her fair skin, flushing it crimson, as she hesitated. I could see her trying to think it through, rationalize it and make it okay.

  “Now, goddamn it!” I yelled.

  In a flash, her mouth dropped open and then snapped shut as she reached back with her right hand and came at me with everything she had. I felt a rush of wind, just ahead of the strike, and reacted in a flash, stopping her by snatching her at the wrist. Maddie’s eyes widened at the force of my grip and she struggled to break free. Instead of allowing it, I pressed my torso against hers, pinning her into the wall.

  She shook her head from side-to-side and cried out, “No!”

  I captured her jaw with my hand and held her head against the wall, claiming her. Unlike the violent signals she’d sent moments earlier, as soon as I invaded the softness of her lips, mouth and tongue, Maddie’s malice fused into need as she groped me. Our heads twisted back and forth. We kissed as if our existence demanded it. And judging by the hardness of my cock inside my pants, it probably did.

  “Oh, Grey,” she moaned in between kisses. “Oh, fuck.”

  I reached down and lifted her left leg, placing it on top of a nearby side table. With a vicious swipe, I tossed a lamp which rested on it across the room and sent it to a similar fate suffered by the vase on the credenza a few minutes before. As the light fixture rattled around in defeat, I reached up underneath Maddie’s skirt and hooked my fingers at one side of her thong.

  She moaned, buried her head in my neck and reached for my pants as I cleared the offending undergarment from my path. While I did, Maddie masterfully unfastened my pants and with a single tug, yanked my boxer briefs down. A raging, borderline painful, hard-on flared as I shoved her back against the wall once again.

  I wrapped my hand around her throat. Pushing her head back, I invaded her mouth with my tongue. As I did, Maddie reached down and closed her fingers around my stiff shaft. I shook my head and pulled her hand away, slamming it hard against the wall and breaking my lips from hers in the process.

  “Don’t,” I warned.

  Her mouth fell open as she gasped for a single breath. I took one last look into those beautiful blue eyes, now glazed over with the look of a woman on the verge of complete and utter surrender. She nodded in slow silence as I held the base of my cock and guided it up underneath her skirt.

  I’d been hard for weeks thinking about this moment. I had no idea how or when it would happen. But whether Maddie realized it or not, I was prepared to move mountains to get inside her again. Now, as I slid up the length of her thigh, my bliss was within reach.

  Just as I neared the point of no return, Maddie kicked her left leg that much wider and al
lowed me unfettered access as soon as I saw fit. And I wasted no time whatsoever, seizing the moment and driving the full length of my cock inside her. Maddie’s body bucked as I slid in. I’d never felt anything like it… so tight, so wet, so utterly perfect.

  As I entered, my body sunk into hers for an instant as the satisfaction of penetration washed over me. Maddie moaned and dropped her head over my shoulder, draping me with her long, soft blond hair.

  “Fuck me, Grey,” she whispered, as she caressed the edges of my ears with her fingers. I felt every slight twitch inside her. The tiniest of movements sent shockwaves through my body as I pinned her against the wall with my dick in her. She began to make her away around to my mouth, peppering tiny kisses along my five o’clock shadow until at last she hovered just in front of my lips.

  “Fuck me… please,” she sighed.

  MADDIE

  Awareness returned to my mind as the orange glow of the morning sun permeated the paper thin skin of my eyelids. Like warm fingers, the streaks reached across my skin, coaxing me back into consciousness. Sighing, I rolled in the bed and flopped my right arm over. I took my first deep breath of the day, and then a familiar scent moved to the forefront of my awareness.

  Grey.

  I propped myself up on my elbows and pulled my hair away from my eyes as I scanned the room for any sign of him. Suddenly, the memories of yesterday came flooding back. The fight followed by sex at the office, dinner and then back here for yet more sex. I hadn’t even had that much to drink. Maybe it was the stress getting to me.

  “Screw it,” I muttered as I pushed myself up and slid out of bed.

  My feet hit the reassuring firmness of the Berber carpet. Making fists with my toes, I craned my neck to determine where Grey might be. To my left, I noticed his shirt and tie strewn across a chaise lounge near the floor-to-ceiling windows. Beyond them, a panoramic view of Beverly Hills and sounds of the city stirring to life below. Just then, I heard a noise come from the direction of the kitchen and as it did, another thought occurred to me.