Return Billionaire to Sender: A grumpy hero - opposites attract romantic comedy

by Annika Martin

  Suddenly, I’m lost in the crazy pleasure of his tongue.

  I’m dying, reeling, shoving my hands into his hair like an octo-banshee.

  He holds my thighs with an iron grip that feels a little dirty, like he won’t let me go now. He would if I asked, I’m sure, but the sensation is that I’m this caught animal, punished with pleasure by the beastly tongue of Malcolm Blackberg—that’s the madness that is taking over my mind.

  If he keeps going, I won’t have my senses anymore.

  I should stop him—it’s too good, and if he keeps going, it’ll be too late to stop him.

  “Maybe we should transition…” To regular sex, I mean.

  He growls and holds me more tightly, and it just makes everything dirtier and better.

  And suddenly something flips because the way he’s licking me now, I can’t let him stop. I would have to kill him if he stops. It’s too good. And I’m just on the verge of coming.

  I’m gasping, right on the knife edge.

  Then he slides a finger inside me. I’m reeling.

  “Don’t stop,” I gasp. He is so incredibly wicked, the way he holds me with one massive hand and invades me mercilessly with his finger while stroking me with his muscular tongue that feels like it has some kind of space-aged guidance system that tells it just where and how hard to go, a system that is so advanced it must never fall into enemy hands because it could be used to take over the universe.

  But right now, his advanced-guidance tongue is taunting and plying my pussy with pleasure, pushing the good feeling higher and higher, like pushing the most delicious boulder of pleasure up the side of pleasure mountain, higher and higher, and any moment it’s going to come crashing down with total glee.

  At this point I’m basically writhing under his diabolical ministrations. He squeezes my thigh, he licks me once more.

  Then stops.

  “What are you doing?” I protest. “You can’t stop!”

  He presses a kiss to my belly. “Do I get a tick?”

  “No fair!” I grab his hair and twist and try to make him return to business, but he won’t go.

  “Oh my god!” I’m panting.

  “Do I get my tick for today?”

  “I can’t give ticks for sexual favors,” I gasp. “That would be so…”

  “Inappropriate?” He kisses my mound; his lips frustratingly near my pussy. “So inappropriate.” His words are warm heat, so close and yet so far.

  I cry out in frustration, but he won’t relent.

  “Fine. You get a tick.”

  “If I lick your pussy some more I get a tick?”

  “Yes,” I say. “Yes!”

  And then he’s back. Finishing what he started, only it’s better now—because of how intolerable it was that he stopped, and all my nerve endings were straining for his tongue to go back, the proof that absence definitely makes the pussy grow fonder.

  He gives me a few more expertly placed, scarily-advanced-intelligence licks, and that’s it—orgasm comes over me like a zillion spinning stars.

  I’m gasping and panting.

  He keeps me flying, lick action grinding to a halt as I freak underneath him on the bed. He kisses his way up my totally pleasurized and still-shuddering body.

  “That was so not fair,” I say, unbuttoning his shirt with trembling fingers.

  “I know,” he says. He yanks down my bra and kisses my breasts. I half sit up and pull it off for him myself, tossing it aside. I’m down this road so far, nothing really matters.

  “My little country mouse,” he says into my nipple. “You have no idea how sexy you are when you’re making demands. You just have no fucking idea.”

  I’m feverishly undoing his belt—in for a penny, in for a pound, or more specifically, in for Malcolm’s underwear, in for my hand around his cock. I groan, because he’s warm and heavy in my hand and utterly perfect in every way. “Your penis is very you,” I say.

  “I’m glad. I’d hate it to be not mine. Any other cock would not fuck you properly.”

  “Need you in me now,” I say.

  “Say it again, this time with that witchy look,” he says.

  God, this man. He makes me feel new. I give him the look that I think he means. I’m about to repeat what I said, but I decide to surprise him. “Fuck me now, Malcolm.”

  He growls. A condom wrapper crinkles.

  I fumble with his buttons.

  “Country mouse, so careful and gentle,” he says in his sexy accent.

  It feels like a challenge or an insult, maybe both, and there’s only one way to answer—I rip open his shirt.

  “Fuck,” he says.

  “Uh, sorry…” I mean it, actually.

  He laughs, and then I do, too. How do I feel so comfortable with him? I press my hands to his chest as he enters me, thick and huge.

  “Fuck,” I gasp.

  “Too fast?”

  “No, I meant, fuck yes.” That is totally what the witchy-look girl would say. I grab ripped shirt fabric, pulling him to me. He pushes into me again and again as I consume his skin with hungry palms.

  And at some point I’m on top of him, moving on him. He grasps my nipples, scissors-style, between his fingers. He just holds them gently but firmly, but it creates this wicked tug as I move over him, a tug that I’m free to exploit, and I go for it, just taking the nipple action as I take my pleasure from his body.

  It’s midnight and there’s no yesterday and no tomorrow and I’ve gotten lost with the villain in my story.

  I’ve eaten the croissants and all the cheese and crackers and at this point I’m moving on to the chocolate cake. I’m plowing through the cake, plowing through the ice cream, and maybe even some bruschetta. I’m consuming everything delicious about him. It’s ludicrous that I’m going to come again, but I know that I will. I’m feasting on the whole world.

  We come very nearly together, or more, I come, and then he starts when I’m coming down—enough that I feel the exciting vibration of his orgasm inside me.

  Afterwards, we collapse on the bed. And I look over at him. And I run one finger down his cheek.

  And for a second we feel like partners, balanced evenly on a fulcrum, perfectly in sync in this one true moment.

  22

  Malcolm

  Not wanting or needing things is a bit of a superpower when you’re a child, and even more so when you’re an adult—especially when you combine it with being a known bad guy.

  But lying here with Elle, feeling this strange sense of peace with her, I have this troubling sense that I care very much about her.

  An outlandish amount, actually.

  She’s different from everybody else—better, somehow, or maybe just more interesting and exciting. Certainly hotter—no other woman is even in the same ballpark of hotness. And then there’s the easy way we fit. How is it that things can be so easy?

  And there’s the way she looks at me. Like I’m somebody good.

  I’m a bit conflicted about it. She’s dead wrong, yet at the same time, I’m soaking it in. I’m a pirate, hoarding the glittering jewels of her regard, burying them deep.

  And it’s not enough. It may never be.

  I can’t allow myself to be cut off from her—that’s what I’m thinking right now.

  I love how I feel around her, I love the way she looks at me, I love the secrets in her eyes, and the hidden bravery in her heart. I love the way her nose curves and the freckle next to her mouth. I love the way she juts out her chin when she’s trying to be bold. I love the way her pale brown hair glitters gold in the sunlight. I love that she can’t be bought. As if she’s priceless.

  She’s a bright thing that I didn’t know I craved, the essential cherry on top of my hierarchy of needs.

  She’s also temporary. We’re well over halfway through her program. What happens when it’s over?

  What happens when she goes back to Trenton. Or worse, takes on another client? Somebody else to create a ridiculous program for. So
mebody else to believe in.

  But for now, she’s here.

  I plaster on a cool smile and turn to her, expecting to see her all sated and happy, being that we just had the best sex ever.

  But she looks horrified.

  Something unpleasant grips my chest.

  “Oh my god.” She sits up and smooths her hair. “This can never happen again.”

  “But it was so good,” I say, with a lightness I don’t feel. “What’s the problem?”

  “The problem is that last I checked, I had a moral code that didn’t involve giving check marks in exchange for sexual favors!”

  “Moral codes are so boring,” I say.

  “Don’t do that,” she says. “Please, just don’t.”

  “Don’t what?”

  “You know, your whole…enchanting darkly alluring thing.”

  “You don’t like my enchanting darkly alluring thing?” I say.

  “Don’t be funny, either. Don’t you see a problem here? Making you do sexual favors in exchange for check marks instead of making you watch the video?”

  “Personally, it was one of my favorite sessions so far.”

  “Not funny,” she whispers. She looks like she’s going to cry. This really is serious.

  “It wasn’t literally sex in exchange for anything. We were just joking—”

  She shakes her head, having none of it. Her eyes begin to fill with tears. My heart hitches.

  During negotiations, I always know what to say to pull a person toward a given goal, a given destination.

  What do I say when a person herself is the goal? When she is the destination? Her feelings, her well-being.

  I should reassure her and comfort her, but I’m not sure how. Comforting and caring about a person might be one of those use-it-or-lose-it muscles. Howie would know.

  “I know this program isn’t important to you, but it’s important to me,” she says.

  “Elle.” I sit up, brush a bit of hair from her forehead. “It doesn’t matter what you do. Your empathy program was doomed from the start. You have to know that.”

  She starts to cry.

  My gut clenches. Why is she crying? I don’t want her to cry. Crying rarely moves me, but Elle doing it feels like a knife. I try to think how I can get her to stop. I settle a hand onto her shoulder. “Hey,” I say. “It’s just a job.”

  “It’s not just a job,” she sobs. “Haven’t you been paying attention? It’s more than just a job. It’s a whole…” She waves her hand, as if it defies description. “The whole building and the people and everything.”

  “Buildings come down,” I try, “and they go up.”

  She presses her hands to her face. “I just always let everyone down.”

  “How can you say that?” I ask. “You’re one of the most diligent, hard-working coaches anybody could ever imagine. You passed up a million dollars.”

  “You don’t understand,” she sniffles.

  “Make me understand,” I say. “I can’t imagine you letting down anybody. If anything, you’re too conscientious. If I ever needed anybody fighting for me, I’d want it to be you,” I add. It’s the truth, and surprises me. “It would be you,” I say.

  “You wouldn’t say that if you really knew anything,” she says. “I have let people down. You have no idea.”

  “I can’t imagine it,” I say.

  She shakes her head. Somehow I just know she needs to tell me.

  Usually I goad people into telling me things because the knowledge gives me power. This is different. I want to be with her in it.

  “Tell me, I won’t judge,” I say. “You couldn’t have done anything worse than what I do on a daily basis. And you know what they say about confessing things to terrible people, people far worse than you? It cleanses the soul way better than confessing to priests. Terrible people won’t judge you for your transgressions. Terrible people get it.”

  “For one thing you’re not terrible. Also, you don’t know anything about me,” she sniffles. “I’m not what you think.”

  “You’re saying that you’ve done worse things than I have? That’s what you’re saying? Because I’m going to go with a ‘highly unlikely’ rating on that.”

  She snorts through her tears. She seems about to speak, but then she stops. Then, “For starters, did you let somebody die?”

  “No,” I say softly.

  “My mother died of cancer,” she continues. “You probably know that already.”

  “Yeah,” I say.

  “What it doesn’t say is that I let her die.”

  “When it comes to cancer, we usually don’t have a choice,” I say.

  “You don’t understand. I was all she had. And it was a weird kind of cancer where I had to fight with the insurance company on getting it classified the way it should’ve. I was on the internet all the time, and I never knew what was reasonable to ask for from them, or what was extreme. It’s complicated, but they pushed back on everything all the time. And she’d get better, and then worse.”

  “And it was just you,” I prompt.

  “Yeah. Non-entity dad. My mom loved being on her own. She was a banjo player. The bossiest woman ever, and she did a great job of raising me. So fiercely independent. Anyway, I read about this treatment that was accepting people for trials, it was for her exact kind of cancer. It would’ve cost something to get her there, to get her in, but I felt like it would help, and they refused, and they kept refusing. They said she was too far gone.” She wipes her eyes. “But I felt sure they were on the fence. I felt sure they were thinking about saying yes. I had this relationship with one of the people at the headquarters. I mean, I’d been calling for two years for things when she got bad, and I woke up one day and I felt sure that if I took my savings and cashed in part of my 401K, I could fly down to Texas, and maybe fly both of us down if she was having a good week, and they wouldn’t be able to say no—not to her face, and not to my face. I felt sure that if they saw her humanity, they would have to say yes.”

  “You have a pretty high opinion of people,” I say. “I don’t think insurance companies operate like that.”

  “No, I don’t think my opinion of people is too high,” she says after a bit.

  “Okay,” I say dubiously.

  She gives me a warning look and I raise my eyebrows. Go on, my raised eyebrows say.

  “But then…I just didn’t. I let the window close. I did nothing and then it was too late.”

  “They wouldn’t have changed their mind.”

  “You don’t know that. If I’d gone the extra mile—going the extra mile makes a difference to people. But part of me wanted her to die. I can’t believe I’m telling you this. But she was so sick.”

  “She was suffering,” I say.

  “I could’ve kept going. Going the extra mile.”

  “It’s normal to want people to stop suffering.”

  “But she didn’t want to die,” she says.

  “Do you know how common that is, what you’re telling me?” I say. “Aside from the crazy idea of the heroic jaunt to Texas where you would’ve used the last of your meager savings for nothing?”

  “Part of me wanted her to die. Just to have it over with for myself. It was the easy way out.”

  “Look, you get to hold conflicting feelings,” I say. “You get to want to save her and want it to be over with. You get to want her to live and want her to stop suffering, even when she wants to keep on suffering. You get to be messy.”

  “The treatment saved other people at her stage,” she says. “I could’ve gone the extra mile. I can be persuasive.”

  “You think you should’ve gone the extra mile.”

  “Yes,” she says.

  I wrap my arms around her, wanting to save her from her guilt, wishing I could. “I’ve never met somebody so fucking conscientious,” I say into her hair.

  She sniffs softly. “You won’t change my mind.”

  I bury my nose in her hair. I know a black swan when
I see one, and this is hers, paddling lazily up the stream. The reason she rejected a million dollars. “Are you going the extra mile to save that building?” I ask.

  She pulls back with a wary look.

  “Do you think, if you save the building, that will make up for it?”

  “Nothing can make up for it,” she says.

  “But maybe a little bit?” I try. “Saving the building from destruction won’t change what happened with your mom, but maybe a little bit?”

  “I’ve learned from it, that’s all,” she says. “I’ve learned to go the extra mile. I’ve learned that it’s important to do your best. You of all people should understand. You don’t need money. You don’t need to work ever again, yet you go around making your deals and turning companies inside out. Why?”

  It’s not lost on me that she’s turning the spotlight back onto me. I allow it. “When I see something that needs to be done, I can’t unsee it. I need to act. It’s almost painful if I don’t. Like an uncompleted melody and you’re waiting for that last note, for that resolution. These companies, these buildings, they’re like square pegs next to square holes, and nobody doing anything about it. It drives me crazy seeing what could be, what should be. It’s a type of tension, I suppose.”

  “Right?” she says. “And when you put things right, the world feels right.”

  “For a little while,” I say.

  “It’s like with me and the mail…” She turns on her side, props up her head on her hand, and I can see that she’s preparing to make yet another confession. And I’m excited to hear it, like a schoolgirl at a sleepover or something.

  “Putting the world right, that’s how I always felt about the mail,” she says. “At the beginning of the day, the mail bag is full of square pegs, each with one specific place to go. Delivering it feels like putting the world right. Getting things where they need to be. It feels amazing.”

  I love that she’s as passionate about putting the mail right as I am about putting the world of commerce right. And now she’s a coach, trying to get the big, bad wolves to see the humanity of Little Red Riding Hoods.

  “You know if you save the building, there’ll just be something else or someone else you need to save. It won’t go away until you forgive yourself.”