The Billionaire's Command (The Silver Cross Club)

by Bec Linder

  I pulled away from him then. Things were moving too quickly. I needed a moment to get my bearings. I crossed the room to the bed and perched on the mattress, feeling it sink comfortingly beneath my weight. “I have to call you something,” I said.

  “Sir,” he said, turning to face me.

  I thought about it, calling him sir as he touched me, and felt an expected heat between my legs. I shifted awkwardly, unsettled by my response to him. I wasn’t in control of my body anymore, and I didn’t like it. With clients, I was always, absolutely, perfectly in control. Nothing they did affected me.

  Everything this man did affected me.

  “If you won’t tell me your name, I’ll have to come up with one for you,” I said. Screw rule 6. “One of my clients, I call him Sasquatch, because he’s very hairy. Another one is Lance Armstrong, because he cycles. And you—”

  “Spare me the indignity,” he said. “You can call me Mr. Turner.”

  “That can’t be your real name,” I said, echoing his words from earlier, “but I won’t press the matter.”

  He laughed, and this time it sounded genuine. “It isn’t. You don’t need to know my real name.”

  “That’s fine,” I said, and leaned back on one hand, lowering my eyelids seductively and arching my chest toward him. “We won’t be doing too much talking, anyway.”

  He crossed his arms and gave me a skeptical look, one eyebrow raised. “Do you think you’re going to be in charge here, little girl?”

  “I always am,” I said, sliding my free hand down to tug open the neck of my robe, just a little bit, just enough to give him a peek at my cleavage.

  He moved so quickly that I didn’t have time to react. He crossed the room in two long strides and slung himself on top of me, his weight bearing me down into the mattress, and he captured my wrists in both hands and drew my arms above my head. He leaned down so that our faces were only inches apart, and said, “Sweetheart, you aren’t in charge anymore.”

  I drew in a deep breath, fighting my first instinct, which was to panic. He was huge and heavy on top of me, and even if I fought, I wouldn’t be able to get away.

  And I wasn’t sure I wanted to, anyway.

  Men touched me. They did it all the time, and I was used to it. None of it meant anything to me. They sucked on my nipples, and I moaned theatrically and pretended that I couldn’t get enough, that I was desperate for more. It was all acting. It was like brushing my teeth, or painting my toenails: not unpleasant, but routine, mechanical.

  But now, with “Mr. Turner” on top of me, I suddenly felt alive again.

  Snap out of it, I told myself sternly. He was still a client. I still had a job to do. I stretched beneath him as much as I could, arching my back slightly, pressing myself against the length of his body. “What are you going to do with me, sir?” I purred.

  “Everything,” he said, and it was both a promise and a threat.

  The heat between my legs intensified.

  He pushed himself onto his elbows. One hand stayed clamped around my wrists, and the other untied the knot at my waist and opened my robe, spreading the silky panels onto the mattress and exposing my bare body to the air. He gave me a long, slow once-over, appraising my body like I was a race-horse he was thinking about buying. He slid his free hand from my shoulder to my hip, and my skin prickled in its wake.

  I closed my eyes.

  “You sweet thing,” he said. “Are you embarrassed? You don’t have any reason to be. Your tits are gorgeous, and I imagine your cunt has similar charms.”

  His crude words should have annoyed me, but instead they increased my arousal. I was an object, a warm body that he would use for his pleasure, and it should have made me angry. I was a person. This was my job, not my purpose in life. I didn’t exist to satisfy any man’s sexual appetites.

  But I wanted to satisfy his.

  I was learning so many new and delightful things about myself.

  Heavy sarcasm on the delightful.

  “You could take a look at it and find out,” I heard myself say, lush and melting, the perfect whore, the perfect bedmate. Only this time I meant it.

  “Mm, warm and willing,” he said. “How much of that is simply for show? I’ll have you dripping wet and begging for me.” His hand moved from my hip to my breasts, sliding across them like he was taking stock of his territory, and then he pinched one of my nipples so hard that I yelped and jolted beneath him.

  “That hurt,” I said.

  “I’m sure it did,” he said. “I think you liked it.” He bent his head and put his mouth to the same nipple he had just pinched, and flicked his tongue across it, teasing it into full hardness. He switched to my other breast and gave that nipple the same treatment, moving back and forth until I was shivering and cradling his head in my hands, wanting more, wanting everything, and unwilling to ask for it.

  None of this, after all, was about my pleasure.

  He pulled away at last and rolled to one side, freeing me. “Stand up,” he said. “I want to see you walk.”

  I obeyed without thinking, and then teetered in my shoes as gravity sucked all the blood out of my head. “You want me to—walk?”

  “That’s right,” he said. “I want you to walk to one end of the room and back, so that I can watch your ass.” He spoke slowly, like he thought I was kind of dumb.

  Well, compared to him, I probably was. But I had something that he wanted, and I had years of practice at making myself appealing to men. Smarts weren’t everything. What was between my ears had never paid the bills. It was the stuff between my legs that mattered.

  I spun and strolled across the room, very slowly, deliberately planting one foot directly in front of the other so that my hips swayed back and forth. I had a slim waist and a round ass, and I knew I looked good. When I reached the far wall, I stopped and looked back over my shoulder.

  He was definitely staring at my ass.

  The heat in his gaze sent a slow pulse of desire through my body. I had never wanted anyone to touch me so badly.

  I turned again and walked back toward him with the same slow, deliberate steps. I watched his gaze flicker between my breasts and my hips, and I felt the same sense of power that I did when I was on stage. He was lying on the bed, propped up on one elbow, watching me, and as I came closer he sat up and moved to the edge of the mattress. I kept walking until I stood between his splayed thighs, close enough to touch, my bare body his to conquer.

  I wanted things that I couldn’t even name.

  “Very nice,” he said, and slid one hand over the crest of my hip and down to cup my ass, leaving trails of fire in its wake. He gave a firm squeeze and pulled me closer. “Your ass could make angels weep. Now tell me, Sassy Belle, what is it that you enjoy?”

  What sort of a question was that? Did he mean in general, or during sex? I wasn’t even sure what I liked during sex. It had been years since I’d had sex that I wanted, and that was just adolescent fumbling with a boy I dated in high school. Not exactly sophisticated seduction. But I didn’t know what he wanted me to say, and so I dodged the question. “I enjoy you, Mr. Turner.” I looked up at him through my eyelashes, feigning shyness.

  His grip tightened. “Spare me the flattery. I’m sure that works with most of your clients, but it won’t work with me. I asked you a question.”

  I sighed. Fine: if he didn’t want the “oh you’re so handsome and the only man for me” act, I wasn’t going to bother playing nice. “I’m not sure what you’re asking me,” I said.

  “Sexually,” he said. “I can’t imagine this is a difficult concept for you. You don’t let your clients fuck you, so what is it that you do with them?”

  It was interesting that he thought my enjoyment had anything to do with how I interacted with my clients. “One of them likes me to read to him,” I said. “Naked.”

  He raised an eyebrow. “You… read to him.”

  I nodded. “I think he’s too old to, you know. So I read him erotica.” />
  “You fascinate me, Sassy Belle,” he said. “A whore who uses euphemisms for the act of coitus. Well, go on, then. Surely not all of your clients are too decrepit to take full advantage of what’s on offer.”

  He was making fun of me. I crossed my arms, feeling oddly defenseless and exposed. None of my clients wanted to talk this much. Most of them just got straight to business: me naked, and their fingers in my pussy. I wasn’t sure what Turner expected me to do or say, and it made me nervous. I didn’t want to do the wrong thing. I shifted my weight onto one foot and said, “Some of them like lap dances.”

  “Ah, a time-honored tradition,” he said. “And a clever way to get around your so-called ground rule. Must be hell on their cleaning bills, though. What else?”

  God, was he going to make me list everything? We would be there all night. “One of them likes bubble baths.”

  “Kinky,” he said. “What else?”

  I sighed again. “You’re like that thing in Spain. When they tortured people.”

  “The Spanish Inquisition,” he said, and when I nodded, he smirked and said, “You know, they say that nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition.”

  His expression told me that he was making some kind of joke, but I didn’t get it. “Look, do you want to screw around or do you just want to listen to me talk about screwing around with other men?”

  “You make a good point,” he said. “Let’s go with the former.” He curled his left arm around my waist, holding me there, and slid his right hand down between my legs to cup my overheated flesh. “Answer a question for me.”

  “What?” I asked, a little breathless just from the pressure of his hand.

  “Is your pussy wet for me already?” he asked, and without warning slid one finger inside me.

  I gasped aloud, without meaning to, and my hands flew to his shoulders for balance. I was wet, and he easily sank into me until the base of his wrist was pressed firmly against my clit. He rolled the heel of his hand in a slow arc, grinding against me, and I gasped again and closed my eyes at the sensations that flooded through my body.

  “Wet and ready,” he said, his voice interrupting the delirious state I had sunk into so quickly. I opened my eyes and met his gaze. He rotated his wrist again and said, “I think I can deduce what it is that you want.”

  “Good work, Sherlock,” I said, because it was easier to make smart remarks than to think about what he was doing to me, and how I was responding. I wasn’t supposed to like this so much.

  “You’re really living up to your name,” he said. “Do you talk back to that sweet old man who just wants you to read him some porn?”

  “No, because he’s sweet,” I said.

  He slid another finger into me and pulsed his hand again, and I was glad I’d had the foresight to hold onto his shoulders, because my knees threatened to give way beneath me. He tightened his left arm around my waist and said, “I’m not going to be sweet to you, but I don’t think you’ll have any complaints. Now stop digging your claws into my shoulders, I’m not going to let you fall.”

  “I don’t have claws,” I protested, but my words came out sounding weak and unconvincing. I believed what I was saying, but the way he kept pressing his hand against me made it hard to put any conviction into my voice.

  “Talons, then,” he said. “Christ, do you pay someone to file them into dagger points?”

  I opened my mouth to respond, but he moved his fingers again, and whatever I had been about to say was wiped clear out of my head. I made a pitiful, helpless whimpering noise and tightened my grip on his shoulders. There was no room for dignity anymore; I just had to focus on staying upright.

  “What a temptation you are,” he said, his fingers moving steadily. “So responsive. You were made to quiver at a man’s touch.” He leaned forward and spoke into my ear, his words a hot puff of breath gusting across my cheek. “How soon will you come for me, sweetheart?”

  I wanted to tell him that I wouldn’t, that I had never come for a client, that every orgasm was faked, and that he wouldn’t be the first to shatter my control. But I couldn’t say any of those things, because I wasn’t sure the last bit was true. My body responded to him in ways I didn’t understand and couldn’t account for, and if he kept touching me like that, I was going to totally embarrass myself.

  Because it would be embarrassing. Losing control like that. I was a professional: calm, cool, and collected. Clients didn’t matter to me. They came and went. Nothing they did affected me. They touched me, and I smiled and cooed at them and pretended to be swept away, but none of it really mattered.

  It didn’t matter. And I held onto that like a totem, something to shelter me from the reality of what I did for a living. As long as they didn’t really touch me, I was safe. I was just doing it for the money.

  But if Turner broke through, if he made me crumble and want him—well, then everything he said was true. I was a slut. A common whore, desperate for a man’s caress.

  I fought it. God knows I tried. I kept my eyes open and stared at him, trying for “defiant” but falling short and landing somewhere around “scared and rebellious” instead. He met my gaze evenly, maintaining steady eye contact even as he alternately rolled my clit in slow circles with his thumb and thrust his fingers in and out of my pussy. I wanted him to break first and look away, and then I would win and be able to maintain some illusion of control, even though my thighs shook and my nipples hardened into tight buds. I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of seeing me look away first.

  And so I stared at him, forcing my eyes to stay open, as he rubbed my clit faster and I felt the orgasm I both longed for and dreaded rise and crest over me like a wave.

  It tumbled me to shore and dragged me under and back out to sea. I had never felt anything so powerful, such a strong physical sensation of powerlessness and joy. In that moment, he owned me. My eyelids dropped shut without my permission, and I felt every muscle in my body tense and quiver and then loosen all as one as the ecstasy slowly ebbed.

  It ended, and I opened my eyes again, humiliated to find him still watching me steadily.

  I felt my face flame hot, and I turned my head aside, not wanting to see the dark triumph in his gaze.

  But he didn’t gloat, like I expected him to. Instead, he bent toward me and pressed a kiss to the hollow of my throat, right between my collarbones. And then he pulled his fingers from my body, and took his arm from around my waist, and lay back on the bed.

  The bulge between his legs drew my gaze, and I flushed again when he saw me looking and spread his thighs slightly, inviting me to look more.

  “Unzip my trousers,” he said, his voice rough and low.

  I shook my head, opening my mouth to remind him of my ground rule, but he spoke before I could. “My hand is wet,” he said. “That’s your fault. You wouldn’t want me to ruin my pants.”

  I was hardly a blushing virgin, but the things he said made me feel so ashamed and off-kilter. I didn’t want to think about his hand, wet from my body, and so the path of least resistance was to do as he said. Still, I hesitated, seeing his erection outlined by the thin wool of his trousers, and then I told myself that I was being an idiot and bent down to unzip his pants.

  There was a hook closure, and a button, and I could feel him hard and hot beneath my fingers as I fumbled with the unfamiliar fastenings. It wasn’t like I took off a man’s pants every night of the week. Everything was backward, and he was looking at me, and I finally managed to find the tab of his zipper and tugged it down with a feeling of relief.

  He was wearing boxers, or boxer-briefs—I couldn’t tell for sure—in some silky, dark material, and my fingers brushed over the fabric, and over the hot flesh beneath, before I flinched away.

  Jesus Christ. I straightened again, and ran one hand through my hair, gathering myself. I had already crossed too many lines with him. I wasn’t going to touch him again.

  “No happy ending for me, then,” he said, accurately reading my exp
ression. “That’s fine. I’ll do a better job of it anyway.” And he reached down to draw his cock from his boxers, and wrapped his hand around it.

  I had seen clients in almost every state: hungry, tired, lustful, irritated, weeping. They told me their secrets, complained about their wives, and touched me in every manner imaginable. I had witnessed the full range of human emotion and weakness.

  But I had never seen an attractive man jerk off in front of me.

  Well. First time for everything.

  I stood there, still feeling wobbly from my orgasm, and watched him touch himself, his strong fingers rubbing at his thick cock. He was big, in a think-twice, shit-I’ll-be-feeling-that-tomorrow kind of way, but he didn’t show off the way some guys did. He didn’t seem to care about my reaction at all. I wasn’t an audience for him to perform for. I just happened to be there. He didn’t care what I thought about his dick; he just wanted to get off.

  Watching him touch his cock, his eyes closed and his lips slightly parted, kindled new heat between my thighs. I didn’t want to watch. I didn’t want to be turned on by this.

  I closed my eyes.

  “No you don’t,” he said. “Look at me.”

  I shook my head, eyes still closed.

  “Sassy,” he said. “Open your eyes.” A pause. “That’s an order.”

  I swallowed, gathering my courage, and opened my eyes again.

  “Don’t ever hesitate when I tell you to do something,” he said, brow furrowed, hand still working at his cock.

  I nodded. There was nothing else I could do.

  “Christ,” he said, and threw his head back and came into his cupped palm.

  I couldn’t have looked away even if I wanted to. He bit his lip and arched his back and surrendered to it in a way that surprised me. The men I knew were so concerned with their masculinity that they avoided any situation that even hinted at vulnerability. But Turner didn’t seem to care that I was watching him fall apart. He had told me to watch. He wanted me to see him like this.

  Maybe it was a back-handed statement of power: I was so insignificant that it didn’t matter if I saw his soft underbelly. I would never be able to hurt him.