The Hotel 2 (The Billionaire Seduction)

by Darling, Lola

  “Does it, now?” I’m intrigued. “Explain it to me. I’m all ears.”

  She huffs out a breath, exasperated. “That’s not what I meant! I meant, it explains why people assume things about me, not that I’m some kind of nympho or something. I mean, it’s garbage, right? Nobody really believes in this stuff.” She laughs again, and I can feel the warmth in it. Or maybe it’s the drink, because at this point I’ve lost track of how many in I am.

  “How very sensible of you,” I say.

  “I don’t know if I’m sensible. I mean, I’m talking to a stranger on a booty-call app.”

  “Booty-call app? I thought this was for ordering pizza.”

  She giggles again, letting her nerves out, and something about it makes me smile.

  “Sorry, this is my first time using this. Have you done this before?” she asks.

  “What? Spoken to a woman with an incredibly cute laugh? Sure. Not that often, though.”

  “Haha! Very charming. But I meant used this app.”

  “A couple of times,” I say, figuring the white lie will help increase her comfort level. “You? Any internet dating, or—?”

  “Never. It’s not really my…thing. I guess you’d say. This is pretty out of character for me.”

  “Oh yeah?” There’s just something so undeniably appealing about breaking in an uninitiated new booty-caller, I’m happy to listen to her talk about her lack of experience.

  “Yeah. I just saw something about it on TV and figured I’d give it a shot.”

  “People still watch TV?” I tease.

  “Haha! Yeah…I dunno. It was kinda like…fate. The timing was just a little too…perfect.” She sighs. There’s clearly something upsetting her, and although normally I’d do a 180 at the first sign of baggage in a woman, right now it’s nice to know I’m not the only one having a rough time.

  “So signs are garbage, but fate is a thing?”

  “Haha, I know. I’m a mess.” She tries to laugh again, but I hear a tremor in her voice.

  “Maybe. Aren’t we all?”

  “I don’t know. You sound like you’ve got it all figured out.”

  “Believe me, I really don’t.” For some reason, being honest with her is coming to me easily. Partly it’s the whiskey, but she’s just shown me her vulnerability, too. Normally I’d put on my game face and flirt my way past anything heavy, but with the anonymity of this app I can actually just be…myself.

  “Oh yeah?” Her voice is genuinely curious, coaxing more out of me. And I realize: I want to tell her more. Some part of me needs this.

  “Yeah. Right now I’m all alone in a house that’s bigger than the neighborhood I grew up in, I’ve drunk an entire bottle of whiskey since I got up this morning, and if this booty-call app thing doesn’t work out, all that’s left for me to do is hit the gym for the sixth time today.”

  “You still sound better off than me,” she says. “My roommate just kicked me out and I had to move into a studio apartment that’s about the size of my parents’ bathroom, I’m drinking something that’s supposed to be alcohol but which I’m sure is some kind of tractor fuel, and I don’t even know if I’ll have a job to go in to tomorrow. So…yeah.” Her voice catches on this last line, and then I hear her sniffle and take a sip of something.

  “Sounds rough,” I say, meaning it. “But things could be worse.”

  “How?”

  “You could have been connected with somebody else, for one. Rather than this charming drunk Irishman with an absolutely out-of-this-world six pack that you’ll just have to take my word about, unless you’d care to see it for yourself.”

  She laughs, and I can hear a rustling as she adjusts herself. The nerves are gone.

  “Confident, aren’t you?” she says, a little sultriness entering her voice.

  “You’ve got to be, in my line of work.”

  “And what is that?” she asks.

  Shit. If I blow my cover, the fun is over. Sure, being a celebrity has its perks, but I want to keep my anonymity intact. I just want to be a regular guy talking to a regular girl – a girl who’s turned on by the person I am, not the person she thinks I’m supposed to be.

  “Um…animated chicken?” I blurt.

  “Ha! Right. Don’t ask, don’t tell.”

  I relax and don’t speak, letting the silence gather some weight. I listen to her breathing, until she breaks it.

  “So you’re Irish, you said?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I thought this app was supposed to connect with local people?”

  “Well, I’m in LA. They haven’t banned us from America. Not yet, anyway.”

  She laughs again. “Sorry.”

  “I can do an American accent, if it makes you more comfortable.”

  “Ok. Sure.”

  I put on my worst Southern impression.

  “Gurns. Jayzus. Cowbuwoys.”

  “Enough!” she says, laughing. “Now I’m the one who’s offended.”

  “Welcome to my world.”

  This time she’s the one who leaves the silence, and the tension that rises in it is starting to get me going. I’ve been trying to have a proper conversation with people all day and ended up feeling like a chump for it, but this girl has me feeling like I could spend the whole night just listening to her laugh. My mind races trying to put a face to that voice.

  I don’t even realize it, but my hand is on my cock, massaging the increasing stiffness that’s responding to this girl’s voice even faster than my brain.

  “I…oh Christ…I probably shouldn’t say this…” she says, after a while.

  “Say it,” I say, softly.

  “I…just got out of a relationship. I don’t know what I’m doing…”

  “Why did you break up?”

  She pauses, debating whether to reveal the reason. “He cheated on me.”

  “Ouch.”

  “With my roommate, my best friend – well, ex-best friend.” Her breath hitches.

  “Fucking hell,” I say. “That’s cold.”

  “Hence the lavish new apartment with a dripping sink you can probably hear in the background.”

  “I thought that was you.”

  She’s silent.

  “Sorry, crass joke.” So much for trying to lighten the mood.

  “No. I liked it. I’m smiling.”

  “Good, ‘cause if that offends you then we may as well end the conversation now. It only gets dirtier.”

  “Does it now?”

  “It does if I have anything to do with it.” I set my empty glass on the table and exhale, slow and deep.

  The breathing on the phone gets louder.

  “Tell me what you look like,” I say, my voice low, as if I’m whispering into her ear.

  “What do you want to know?” she says, her words getting drawn out by her fluttering exhalations.

  I swallow. My hand goes to my crotch. I’m already way too hard to be wearing boxers still, but I wanna take this slow. And I don’t want to scare her off either.

  “What color are your eyes?”

  A pause. “Blue. My turn.”

  “Green,” I say. “And how tall are you?”

  “Five six. You?”

  “Six two.”

  I listen to her breathe for a moment more and then take the plunge, keeping my voice strong and steady to keep her in the game.

  “Tell me what you’re wearing.” I’m not asking— this is a demand. But one that’s as respectful as I can make it sound. Because right now she can either hang up on this call or stay on the line and see just how far we can take each other. I wait.

  She’s got the phone so close to her mouth I can hear the gentle wetness of her lips as they part, the soft smack of her tongue in her mouth. I can almost visualize her red lips, open and round as she struggles to control her breathing.

  “I’m wearing…a pink tank top…”

  “How’s it fit?” I prompt her.

  “Um. It’s tight…”
/>   “Anything underneath?”

  “No bra.”

  “Good girl,” I say, and I hear her hiss a little.

  “Touch your tits, and tell me how they feel. Go easy.”

  “They’re…” She shifts the phone, and my mind goes crazy imagining what she’s doing to herself. “Big, but not too big. A little bigger than a handful…”

  “Slowly…”

  “The skin is real soft…smooth…just firm enough that they’ve got a good shape, just soft enough for you to have fun playing with them…” She stops to giggle nervously. “Am I doing this right?”

  “Shh. Touch your nipples…roll your finger around them…squeeze them…” I hear her inhale sharply.

  “Holy shit…” she murmurs. Her arousal is like a lightning bolt to my cock.

  “What else are you wearing?” I go on.

  “A pair of tight, black leggings.”

  “Good,” I growl with approval. “You lying down?”

  “Yeah.” I hear a rustling sound. “I am now.”

  “Put your hand down there.”

  Her response is immediate, a small gasp. “Fuck…I’m so…”

  “That’s a good thing. Just go with it. Now close your eyes…”

  “Ok…”

  “Squeeze your hand between your thighs…”

  “Yes…”

  “That’s where I wanna be. Smelling you. Tasting you. Devouring you,” I whisper, with just enough authority in my voice to let her know how much I mean it. My hand’s fully in my boxers now, releasing my cock, which is so stiff even the tightness of my designer underwear can’t strangle it.

  “Fuck…” she pants, and then I hear her gasping for air like she just ran a marathon. “Stop…stop. This is way too much, way too early for me.”

  Damn. Game over, and my dick is still hard enough to cut diamonds with. “Ok, yeah. We can take a break. What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing…nothing’s wrong. That’s kinda the problem.”

  “You’re gonna have to explain that to me.”

  “I don’t know anything about you. And here I am fucking…wet…just from the sound of your voice.”

  I take a second to absorb her words, but they’re not adding up yet. “Ok? I still don’t see where the problem is.” I laugh, trying to put her at ease again.

  “I literally just got out of a relationship – like yesterday.”

  Though my hand’s still on my cock, even I can’t jerk it to relationship talk. She’s feeling guilty, that’s what it is. I can fix that.

  “Exactly. Yesterday – not today. Not now. Right now you’re a single woman who’s looking for some intimacy, and I’m a single man looking for a night of distraction. That’s it.”

  She pauses, and I hope she’s getting back in the zone. “Still, it’s…”

  “You’re rationalizing this, but I know for a fact your body’s telling you something different,” I soothe. “We’re both consenting adults, right? Come out and meet me.”

  I don’t want to push her too hard, but there’s something in her voice that’s practically begging me to take her out of her comfort zone and give her a night she’ll never forget.

  I tuck my cock back in my pants and get up from the couch.

  “I…” She hesitates, still breathing hard. “I want to, but I can’t…”

  “Take a shower and come and meet me at my place. I live in the hills. Trust me, you’re gonna love it. If not, you can turn around and go home. No harm, no foul.”

  She giggles a little, and I can still hear how her nerves are unsteady.

  “This is…so unlike me.”

  I start making my way around the den, picking up the empty bottles that I’ve left around there throughout the day. I’ve made up my mind: this is the girl I’m going to fuck tonight, even if I have to clean up to do it.

  “It’s pretty out of character for me too, which is why it’ll be perfect.” It’s partially true, at least. I’ve never had one of these booty-callers come directly to my house before. But for some reason I trust this girl.

  “This is crazy…”

  “Come on. If I can make you wet with my voice, just imagine what I can do with my hands. I can be gentle, too.”

  She laughs again. The anxiety falling away piece by piece. I know she’s not trying to play hard to get, but I have to admit I’m kind of enjoying the chase.

  “And what happens, exactly? We fuck, and then, bye?”

  “Put a little emphasis on the fucking part.”

  “That doesn’t sound like it would work. I’ve never done the whole one night stand thing.”

  I bring the bottles into the kitchen and make my way back to the den, where I settle on the couch again.

  “Call it a ‘greasy pancake fuck,’ then.”

  “A what?”

  “A ‘greasy pancake fuck.’ You’ve never heard of a ‘greasy pancake fuck’? Don’t tell me I have to explain what a ‘greasy pancake fuck’ is.”

  “Would you stop saying ‘greasy pancake fuck’?”

  “Sorry.”

  I let the silence hang in the air.

  “Ok,” she says, giving up. “What’s a ‘greasy pancake fuck’?”

  “I’m glad you asked,” I say, with a smile she can probably hear. “Well you’re single now, and soon enough you’ll be dating again; seeing what the world has to offer beyond that ex of yours – who sounds like a real scumbag by the way. You’ll be meeting guys, living life, and having sex. Well, if you come over tonight, it’ll be the ‘greasy pancake.’”

  “The ‘greasy pancake,’” she repeats, unconvinced.

  “Right. The first pancake you make of a batch, the one that’s just there to soak up all the grease. You’re probably angry at your ex right now. Maybe depressed. Maybe lost. You could spend weeks getting over him. Flicking through the photographs, reliving the arguments in your head, throwing out the fluffy stuffed animal he bought you for your birthday that you thought was cute but was actually just a last-minute purchase at the gas station.”

  She laughs. “It was a keychain, actually. And some wilted flowers.”

  “Or, you can come over here, and just fuck all of that shit away. A big blow-out. Just let yourself loose, and cut yourself off from the past. Mentally, emotionally.”

  “Physically,” she adds.

  “Exactly.”

  She pauses, and I hear her inhaling deeply as she considers my argument.

  “You make it sound pretty easy.”

  “Because it is.”

  “I barely know you though. We’ve spoken for – what, twenty minutes?”

  I glance at my phone and realize, to my shock, it’s been almost forty. “What’s the difference if it’s twenty days? The only thing that happens when you wait too long is you miss out. You’re frustrated, I’m bored – the stars are aligned right now. And I like you.”

  “There you go with the astrology again.”

  “Like you said – it’s fate.”

  She sighs.

  “If you feel uncomfortable at any moment,” I say, “you have my permission to kick me in the balls and run away. Just don’t steal any of my stuff, please.”

  I wait for what feels like years until she answers again.

  “Ok. But I don’t even know what you look like.”

  “Believe me, you won’t be disappointed.”

  I give her directions to my house, and we break the call. I toss the phone onto the table and lie there for a few moments, staring up at the ceiling. Her voice is still echoing in my mind, that colorful laugh, and the stuttering gasps. I’ve been called a superficial bastard many times in my life, but if those people could see how turned on I am right now by nothing but a disembodied voice and a snappy wit they’d retract their statements. Ok, maybe it’s still true, and maybe I’m still hoping she’ll be a knockout, but frankly, even if she isn’t, I’m ready to put in a prize-winning bedroom performance on her.

  I get up and shake my limbs like a prize fighter g
etting ready for the fight of his life. My balls are aching from how fucking hard she got me, and it’s all I can do to save myself for when Miss Mysterious shows up.

  “Shit,” I mutter to myself, as I take out a bottle of nice wine and some glasses, “what if she doesn’t even show up?”

  I stamp the thought all the way into the back of my mind – like I do most things these days – and jog on up to the second floor to change.

  I get dressed, comb my hair, and go back downstairs. I put a little music on in the den, something slow, but edgy – none of that sugary shit. I like a little dirt in my music. Then I proceed to walk around the room, checking my watch as I pace like I’m scared of getting stood up in my own home.

  I stop as soon as I hear a sound, not sure if it’s real, and too involved in my own imagination to hear it properly. Was that a car door slamming? I hear footsteps on my porch.

  And there goes the fucking doorbell.

  Dylan and Gemma’s sexy adventure continues in BOOTYCALL: PART ONE

  Order now!

  Discover the Sexy Bastard series: five friends, one bar, and a whole lot of trouble. From Eve Jagger – out now!

  HARD

  RYDER

  CH. 1

  There are two smells in the world I love more than any others: a woman right before sex and this warehouse right before a fight. They’re different, of course. There’s nothing like a naked, wet, waiting woman, the scent of her skin salty with sweat but sweet at the same time, like swimming through an ocean of roses. The warehouse’s odor is far less pleasurable, phantoms of last round’s knocked-out teeth, bruised faces, and aching bones making the air heavy, grimy, stifling, like the smell of fresh dirt. But both are thrilling and unpredictable and make me want to explode.

  Even when it was me in the ring a few years ago, my ribs about to get punched, my knuckles about to crash into someone’s cheekbone, the smell of this place would intoxicate me. Facing off with a guy whose sole intention for the next several minutes is to pummel you into submission is as terrifying as it sounds. And as exhilarating. The policy of bare-knuckles brawls is no shirt, no shoes, big problem standing right across from you. But all I had to do to calm myself was take a big inhale of this warehouse air, let the molecules seep into my lungs, into my bloodstream, and I won every match.

  I always win.