Shameless Kiss: A Billionaire Possession Novel
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Shameless Kiss
A Billionaire Possession Novel
Amelia Wilde
Contents
Shameless Kiss
Mailing List
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Epilogue
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Books by Amelia Wilde
Shameless Kiss
I don’t take no for an answer.
Women are the world’s most intoxicating prize, and I always win. Money? Check. Charm? Check. Looks? Double check.
It’s a winning combination, and I never settle. I can’t even remember the last time any woman—in New York, Paris, Rome, it doesn’t matter—looked me in the eye and turned me down.
Until Juliet James.
I swear she eye-f*cked me from across the club, practically begging me to take her home and make her moan my name. So I offered her the world, positive she’d accept.
All she offered me was a view of her mind-blowing curves while she walked away.
I don’t lose, and now I’ll stop at nothing to make her mine.
Nothing is ever really free—especially not from Weston Grant.
Just because he’s the sexiest man in New York City, with a body like cut marble underneath a perfectly fitted suit, he thinks I’ll say yes to anything.
He’s not exactly wrong. When he approaches me at work with a proposition, Lord knows I want to say yes to that smoldering gaze and that cocky smirk. But I’ve got rules, and I’m not going to break them for some fling.
I don’t take free money—not from Weston, and not from anyone. Not even when he offers to take me to his penthouse and make me come so hard I forget my own name.
No matter how much I want to.
Shameless Kiss is a steamy billionaire romance with adult language, no cheating, and a happily ever after that will melt your heart.
Mailing List
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Chapter 1
Juliet
“Palsgraf v. Long Island Railroad,” I whisper to myself as I push the drink order from Table Five across to the club’s bartender, Peter. He’s the kind of bartender that makes the ladies weak in the knees—blonde, blue-eyed and tall, broad chest, and arms ripped with well-defined muscles. He looks every part the model off the cover of a romance novel. He’s also an insufferable flirt.
“Looking good tonight, Juliet.” He takes the paper I hand to him from my order pad with a wink.
I give him a tight-lipped grin in return. I look this good every night I work at the White Rose. It’s my job to look this good. At least this good, anyway. I always try to look my best. Looking my best means more and bigger tips, and more and bigger tips means I can buy myself some more time. I’m trading time away from studying for law school right now, but I’ll be damned if I let down my dad. Hence the extra job, on top of the full-time, all-consuming work that is going to law school.
“Palsgraf v. Long Island Railroad,” I repeat as soon as Peter turns away to prepare the drinks. “Palsgraf v. Long Island Railroad, 1928. New York Court of Appeals. Foreseeability.” It’s the Cliffs Notes version of the case, the same Cliffs Notes I spent until the early hours of the morning writing out longhand. Typing out notes just doesn’t give my memory the same juice as writing it all out by hand. “Limits liability to those consequences that could reasonably be foreseen.”
Peter returns with the drinks, and I grab a tray from the other side of the bar, arranging the glasses in a perfect triangle. He watches me with his contemplative blue eyes. “You have an exam in the morning?”
I roll my eyes. “When don’t I have an exam? I’m in law school.”
He shakes his head. “What are you doing here so late if you have an exam to study for tomorrow?”
I balance the tray on one hand and spin him a flirty grin, rubbing the fingers of my other hand together. “Money, Peter. You don’t make any money as a lawyer until you become one.”
He grins back at me, pretending to sniff the air. “You should just wrap one of the club’s members around your finger, and then you’d have all the money you could ever want. It reeks of money in here.”
I take in a deep breath. Peter’s tone is low, rumbling beneath the gentle music playing in the background every single moment the club is open to its members. It’s not the kind of thing we’d be caught dead saying in front of the members, but it’s true. Everything about the White Rose is decadently understated—the dark, rich-textured carpeting that hushes even the most expensive stilettos, the linen tablecloths with higher thread counts than my nice sheets, the paintings placed strategically and inconspicuously on the walls, drop-lit from under their opulent custom-designed frames, several of which are originals from some of the world’s most famous artists.
If the White Rose doesn’t smell like money, I don’t know what it smells like.
I shake my head slowly at Peter. “Sell out? I would never do that.”
Now it’s his turn to roll his eyes dramatically. “I’m not suggesting selling out, I’m just suggesting that there may be a shortcut.”
“I don’t need to take a shortcut.”
I turn away from the bar, running a mental assessment of tonight’s ensemble—is the strapless black dress still in place? Has it curved with the sway of my hips and become crooked? No, and no. Every step I take is calculated to just the right degree in the swing of my hips. I might not be the most attractive waitress at the Rose, but damn if I can’t play the part.
Table Five this evening is occupied by a bachelor’s party. I don’t know how the hell this group of guys in their tailored summer suits and too-wide grins even got this table. On nights like tonight, when the August air is clear and no humid haze masks the cityscape, Table Five boasts the best view in the house. It s
its directly in front of a wide, circular window that overlooks the Manhattan skyline. Tonight it’s sparkling below us, dark and clean and mysterious from this high up.
It’s a damn good view. Some nights, when the last of the club’s members have gone home and the guest parties have trickled out, I like to look out over that view and imagine that I’m someone else—at least, someone who’s on the other side of all this...preparation, and waiting, and knows where she’s going for sure in the future.
It would be so much easier if it wasn’t for Dad.
The thought of him makes my throat tighten, but I swallow it away without divulging anything in my expression. I’ve perfected the look—a little smile, like I’m thinking of something slightly naughty—that seems to get me the best tips. People here like a waitress with a little mystery, a little allure. Or that’s what I try to make myself believe. I can’t imagine what it would be like to have their lives. Well, I guess that’s not exactly true—I can imagine it. I just can’t imagine it for myself. Most of the men here—who I might add, are wearing custom-designed shirts that cost more than I make in a week—acquired their money from family businesses. Because of their family names. Or else they used family money to start companies that soared to the top of the market, dumping cash into their pocket hand over first.
Someday I’ll have a little taste of what that type of freedom is like. Someday, when I’m out of law school and have passed the bar and joined a firm—I’ll accept the highest offer—I’ll finally be free of the weight that’s heavy on my shoulders even now, when I’m pretending to be someone I’m not: a sultry, sexy princess with perfect posture and not a problem in the world.
Time? That’s something I might never have. But at least I’ll have earned what I get.
I just have to keep working, keep earning tips. And if that means approaching Table Five with a seductive grin and an obvious sway of my hips, then so be it.
“Drinks,” I say, keeping the tone of my voice balanced somewhere between sultry and absolutely professional. I slide the tray onto the table and deliver the correct cocktail in front of the man who ordered it, fluttering my eyelashes at each one in turn. Eye contact earns tips. “Where did all your friends go?”
They were a party of six when they arrived earlier in the evening, but now they’re down to three. The one sitting closest to me, who ordered a whiskey neat, looks at me with eyes so dark they’re almost black under the club’s mood lighting. “We’re making some changes in personnel.”
I laugh, noticing his other hand rising up from his lap, and step away, flicking my gaze around the table to the others. “Is there anything I can get you in the meantime, while you wait for your new crew to arrive?”
The second man at the table, his dark reddish hair combed in such a way there’s not a lock out of place, murmurs something to Mr. Dark Eyes. He grins at me, his teeth leering and reminding me of a wolf. It’s at moments like these that I’m glad for the extra security hired on by the Rose, just in case. Usually everyone is on their best behavior, but with such wealthy men, some who feel entitled because of their success, I’m always on my guard. The smile on my face stays planted firmly in its position. “Tell you what,” I say, picking up the tray from the table. “You let me know if you need anything.”
“Oh, we will. We will.”
I turn and walk away, working my hips a little more, even though the hairs on the back of my neck are raised.
Law school. Dad’s bills. Tips.
I lock my thoughts on those things.
Consequences that can reasonably be foreseen....
Chapter 2
Weston
“Where the hell are we going again?”
Gideon turns to me with a wide smile and signals to his driver to stop. “We have one last place to be tonight.”
“I don’t have one last place to be.” In fact, I want to be back in my penthouse, stretching out on my bed after a long night of searching that has, so far, resulted in absolutely nothing. Gideon is only in town for the weekend, and he promised me a good time if we went out. For once, I had an empty space on my calendar. That doesn’t happen often. It’s even rarer that Gideon is in New York City at all—he and his Kennedy are constantly out of the country, those adventurous in-love fools. I don’t know how he manages to run his company from a different tropical beach every week, but somehow he manages.
“Yes, you do. We’ve got to make an appearance at Cross’s bachelor’s party.”
“At the White Rose?”
“I didn’t pick the place.”
If he’d chosen the place, we’d be cliff-diving off some treacherous-as-hell cliff in the middle of nowhere, which is why most people don’t risk asking Gideon to be the best man at their wedding.
“Did you even get invited?”
Cross is the kind of guy who has more friends than he knows what to do with, but it’s mostly because he never knows when to stop.
Not that I can talk about knowing when to stop.
Gideon shrugs. “It was a last-minute invitation.”
“Oh, so the rest of his party bailed, and you’re stepping in to bail him out?”
Gideon’s driver pulls open the door behind him, and he steps out onto the curb, smoothing out his jacket. He only put the jacket on recently, after we left the last club, which turned out to be a public place that was more dive bar than exclusive dining establishment. It was a good place to have a few drinks. It was not a good place to find a woman I could be interested in. It wasn’t that plenty of ladies didn’t throw themselves at me, which they did, but there was just no spark.
I scooch across the seat and step out after Gideon, straightening my own jacket when I stand to my full height. At least the Rose has a membership requirement that keeps the quality relatively high.
“That’s about the size of it.”
I punch him lightly on the shoulder. “It’s after one o’clock, and you’re dragging me to some half-finished bachelor party?”
“I think we both know it’s the other company that’s more worthwhile,” Gideon retorts with a laugh, bounding toward the steps and entering the lobby. “For you, anyway. I’m all set.”
The familiar buzz of the impending chase lights up in my chest, tingling down my arms to my hands. Gideon knows me too well. That’s what going to college with an infectiously adventurous housemate will do for you. Years later, he’ll still be convincing you to go out when you know you should go home instead. I should go home, but now that he’s got me here, I have to see what’s inside.
Or rather, who is inside. That’s more accurate.
I’m pretty well versed about who’s who in the New York City scene, but you never know. There could be a woman who’s flown under the radar, and those are the most intriguing ones. The less I know about them, the more I—
“Come on, Wes,” Gideon calls from the elevator, where he’s already holding open the doors. “The ladies are upstairs. You’re never going to find one dragging ass like that.”
The White Rose isn’t as empty as I’d expected it to be, and the low hum of conversation throughout the room makes my heart start beating faster. I want to know what all these people are talking about. More than that, I want to know who is at every table. I start scanning the room as we cross over toward the table positioned in front of the window. If nothing else, Table Five is my favorite table in the place. The Rose is a sea of pretty faces and breasts and narrowed eyes, pursed lips, while I’m being seen, like I’m seeing all of them.
A few of the faces register, but none of them make my heart race. There’s more than one been-there-done-that situation that I meet with an noncommittal grin that could mean anything, and one or two lingering glances, but the walk through the club is one strikeout after another.
Gideon waves, getting Cross’s attention at the table, and he stands up by his seat, saying something to the two other guys sitting there. I stop to let a woman in something too pink and on the verge of being too short pass by, a
llowing Gideon to get a few steps ahead of me, and then he turns to the side, calling out something to Cross.
That’s when I see her.
From behind Gideon appears the most gorgeous woman I’ve ever seen.
Time slows down like it’s being throttled by the need that’s suddenly raging through me, flooding all of my veins by storm, and my vision sharpens in a way that’s like something out of the goddamn movies. I’ve seen beautiful blonde women before, but something about this one has me rock hard, my heart beating so violently it feels like it’s about to fly out of my chest.
She’s walking perfection in a black, strapless dress that hugs a lithe landscape of curves somewhere straddling delectable and athletic, her petite frame lengthened by stilettos that are on the border between sensual and slutty. I want to explore every inch of her with my eyes, from the wisps of silky blonde hair swept up in a flawless twist right down to her delicate ankles, but I can’t tear myself away from her eyes. Her eyes are a mesmerizing violet blue, and like nothing I’ve encountered in any club, or at any mansion, or…anywhere…around the globe.
I swallow hard, feeling almost a little breathless and faint, a strange desperation overtaking my senses. I want her to part those cherry-red lips and speak to me, just so I can hear what her voice sounds like, just so I can ask her what she’s thinking, because the little private smile she’s wearing on those lips has me ready to wrap an arm around her waist, lean in close, and command her to tell me every one of her secrets, right now.
And the walk—damn, does she know how to move.
She takes a second step, and time screeches back into the present. Her eyes are still hooked on mine, sending shockwaves jolting down my spine.
My mind spins into overdrive. What the hell am I going to say to her? I’m always ready with something, but right now I’m speechless.