Shattered: A Billionaire Romance Series (Contemporary Romance Novels)

by Love, Michelle

He gestures to the back seat and I find myself getting into his car. Without a word, I move over and put my seatbelt on and find him sliding in. “Thank you,” he says as he puts his seatbelt on too. “I really could use your company after this trying day. I can’t think of a better person to wind down with after all I’ve seen and heard today.”

  “Glad to be of help to you,” I say.

  He’s holding himself in a tense posture and his eyes look tired. I recall that look. We all had it when we started the training to become nurses. My first stint in the terminal ward nearly killed me.

  “It gets easier. I know it’s hard to believe but it does. You aren’t thinking of bailing out now, are you?” I ask him as he looks vacantly out the window at the streetlights that flash as we go underneath them.

  “I will not be bailing. I made a commitment and I intend to keep it. I always fulfill my commitments. I think I need to learn how to reign in these emotions. I can do it in business, I just have to figure out how to do it with poor, little sick kids too.”

  “I think it’s important to feel things. And with time, it gets easier. You still feel empathy but you gain an understanding and can control the crying or in your case the complete sadness. I know men don’t cry,” I say and giggle.

  “Men cry,” he says. “I should probably just break down and do that, huh?”

  My heart stops as he admits this to me. I’ve never known a man who would let me see that deep into them. I’m not sure if I could handle it. It might be too much to take.

  I watch as he takes off his seatbelt then gets off the seat and onto his knees in front of me. His hands move up the sides of my thighs as he looks up at me. I run my hands through his dark blond waves and look back into his eyes.

  “Or I could kiss you,” I say without thinking.

  “That might help too,” he says then moves up until our lips are so close I can feel the warmth of his breath on mine.

  He waits with them that close then I realize I said I could kiss him. He’s waiting for me to come to him!

  I can’t believe I am going to do this!

  My hands come around to cup his face in them without me thinking about what I’m doing and I pull him the rest of the very short distance to press my lips to his. His lips are soft and supple and I want to feel more.

  I feel his hands moving back and forth along my outer thighs, stirring heat inside of me. I’ve gone this far. I might as well go a little further.

  My tongue moves over his lower lip and he parts them. Slowly, I move mine past his lips and find his. His hands move up my sides until he’s gripping my waist as his mouth goes soft and yielding to mine.

  I cannot believe I initiated this. But damn, I’m glad I did!

  When he pulls back, slowly, ending the kiss, I find myself breathing a bit on the hard side. “Thank you,” he whispers with a throaty voice.

  “Thank you,” I say as my head is so light it feels as if I’m drunk. Who needs alcohol when one kiss from the man on his knees in front of you can intoxicate you. And there’s no fear of a hangover!

  “Did that help?” I ask as I run my hand under his chin as he gazes at me.

  He nods. “Wanna help me some more?”

  I nod and find his mouth back on mine, now he’s taking control of the kiss and unbuckling my seatbelt and pulling me to him. We end up on the floor, me on top of him. His manhood is swelling under my crotch, making me go wet for him.

  This is by far the fastest any man has ever made me this horny and hot!

  Rolling over, he pins me underneath him and pulls his mouth away only a little, as he says, “How about drinks at my place then we can take a quick dip in the indoor swimming pool? My cook can make us something great for dinner.”

  “That’s probably a bad idea,” I say with a hoarseness to my voice I don’t ever recall having before.

  “Why is it a bad idea?” he says then kisses my neck as he grinds into me.

  “I think we both know why it’s a bad idea.”

  “I won’t do anything you don’t want to, Delaney,” he says then my earlobe is between his teeth, sending a shot of pure ecstasy through me.

  The only problem with that, is I think it would be damn hard to say no to this man. I can’t be that girl. That slutty chick who has sex right off the bat with a man. I barely know him!

  And he is my family’s mortal enemy. What am I doing?

  Chapter 8

  BLAINE

  I knew it was a long shot that she’d accept my offer to take her to my place, but I had to ask. So I get off her and pull her up with me to take our seats. “Sorry, I had to ask.” I buckle her in as she looks a little discombobulated.

  Her ponytail has gotten messed up so I pull the rubber band all the way out and use my hands to fan it out and fix it a little. It looks great, just like I knew it would.

  She blinks a few times in rapid succession. “Sorry, that’s not like me.”

  “Don’t be sorry. I can see you’re no tramp. So what bar do you like to go to?” I ask her as I put my seatbelt on. I can see I’ve affected the hell out of her and it has me on cloud nine.

  I would jump up and down if she wasn’t around to see it!

  Her head falls back on the headrest and she looks at me with shining green eyes. “That really isn’t like me, Blaine. I want you to know that and I want you to know I won’t ever do that again.”

  “Well, that’s some real bad news. I liked that a lot and I am going to want to do that a lot more.” I reach over to adjust her shirt as half her bra is showing. “Nice bra!”

  Her head snaps forward as she finally notices what I’m doing and bats at my hands. “I can do it!”

  “Where did you get that?” I ask her as she puts herself back into place.

  “What?” she asks.

  “The pink lacey bra? Fredrick’s? It’s sexy,” I say and lean toward her then take her hands to stop her from messing around with her shirt. “You’re sexy.”

  “Ha! I really fucked up!” she says as she looks at me with scared little rabbit eyes.

  “I can see you’re scared.”

  Before I can finish she laughs. “I’m not scared. I am smart! You are a rich, rich man and my family’s sworn enemy! I can’t get into bed with you!”

  “Sworn enemy? Well, that’s not cool, is it? But I have a plan that will completely fix that. I don’t like being the sworn enemy of anyone. That was never my intention when I started my business. And what’s this talk about getting into bed with me?” I wait for her response and smile when her cheeks go nearly as red as her hair.

  “Don’t act like that wasn’t your intentions,” she says. “You asked me to come to your house. You know what you wanted. I’m just saying it out loud.”

  “I think I said I wouldn’t do anything you didn’t want me to. I don’t recall asking you to sleep over. It seems to me your inner mind is telling you that it’s something you want to do. If that’s the case I need you to know that I am all for that idea. You can sleep over if you want. I’ll lend you a T-shirt, or better yet, you can sleep naked. I think that’s an even better idea. Should I tell Mr. Green to take us home then?”

  “You’re making me dizzy with all of your intellect, Blaine. Let’s go to that club over there. It’s all lit up and seems to be hopping. No going to your home to swim, and eat, and have sex,” she says then gestures for me to roll the window down to let my driver know I want to stop there.

  I roll the window down. “Can you drop us at the club, Mr. Green? We’ll hang out there while you go take your wife to dinner. My treat.” I just thought of that brilliant plan. That way I’ll have her to myself for the next couple of hours.

  “Oh, how nice of you, sir. Thanks so much!” he says then rolls the window back up.

  “That’ll take a couple of hours, Blaine. I meant a drink or two,” she says.

  “I’m not going to be pouring them down your throat, Delaney. We can dance, talk, kiss some more. There’s more to do than just drink in t
hese kinds of places.”

  “We can’t kiss anymore. That was a mistake,” she says as we pull to a stop in front of the club.

  Grabbing her hand, I get out and meet my driver at the door and slide a couple of hundreds into his palm. “Give us at least two hours, please.”

  He nods and smiles. “I like you two together. You balance each other out very well. Mrs. Green is going to love to meet you, Nurse Richards. I’ll have her with me when I come back for you two.”

  “That sounds nice, Mr. Green,” she says then I pull her away to go to the door with the loud music rocking behind it.

  “I feel weird going out in scrubs,” she says as we go inside.

  “Tomorrow, we can go home first and change then go out, if you want to.”

  She looks at me kind of funny as I pay the guy at the door and he stamps our hands then we head into the crowd of people. Her hand is tight in mine as the sea of people make us stay close together. Pulling her through the people like this is slow going to get across the dancefloor to the bar. So I pull her around in front of me and hold her tight as I dance across the floor with her in my arms.

  The surprised look on her face is priceless then her arms go around my neck as she gets what I’m doing. “You’re very smart.”

  “I know,” I say then kiss the tip of her nose. “You’re very beautiful.”

  “I know,” she says with no hesitation.

  It’s pretty obvious she knows how beautiful she is. She knows she’s smart and talented too. She hasn’t got an insecure bone in her body and her sweet, kind, giving soul pulls the whole thing, which is Delaney Richards, together into one tight little package.

  Picking her up when I reach the outer edge of the dancefloor, I carry her to the bar as she smiles at me. “Name your poison, sugar.”

  “I’ll have whatever you’re having,” she says as I place her feet on the ground.

  Pressing my lips to her ear, I say, “What I really want, they don’t serve here.”

  She shakes her head and laughs. “I get it. Give me a gin and tonic.”

  Wiggling my finger at the young bar tender who can’t keep her eyes off me, I ask her, “Do you make a good gin and tonic?”

  “I can make you a good anything, handsome,” she says and I see my little redhead’s cheeks go red.

  She holds her tongue, though. So I decide I’ll press it a bit. “Hey, honey, can you tell me what your specialty is?”

  The bartender, who I can tell is a real easy woman, is quick to say, “My specialty is the cock and balls. I can administer pleasure to them for hours.” She laughs a high pitched laugh then puts two fingers over her mouth. “Oh, you meant what drinks, didn’t you?”

  I barely catch Delaney as she cracks her neck then leans over the bar. “Hey, bitch! Ease up there, honey. I guess you can’t see. He’s with me!”

  “So,” the poor fool says and I barely catch the empty shot glass that was sitting on the bar. Delaney had snatched it up and threw right at the other woman’s head.

  “Whoa,” I say and take Delaney’s hands into mine. “Where did that come from?”

  “Let’s go to your place. This place is making me sick!” she says.

  I find myself hurrying to leave as I hold her close to me again and dance her back across the dancefloor. “I’ll get us a cab and call my driver to let him know he has the rest of the night off.”

  “You do that,” she says as she looks into my eyes. “I want to have a sleepover.”

  Holy shit!

  To be continue

  The Complete Billionaires Gift Series Will be published by the end of October

  The Dark Season Series

  An Alpha Billionaire Romance

  Preview Books 1,2 & 3

  By Michelle Love

  The Dark Season Series

  An Alpha Billionaire Romance

  Le Petite Mort

  Book 1

  By Michelle Love

  Description

  In an exclusive 1920’s Paris sex club, heartbroken over a lost engagement, Emile makes love to a beautiful woman, Seraphina, only to discover she was murdered hours before. Unable to believe that the most erotic night of his life never happened, he returns to the club on Christmas Eve and finds his dead lover waiting for him. He is overjoyed and pledges to make this mysterious, enigmatic woman his wife. They enjoy another passion-filled night but as the clock ticks down to midnight, Emile discovers his new love is not all she seems and that to spend eternity with her, there’s a high price to pay…

  Le Petite Mort

  Paris, 1926…

  Emile St Jacques sat in the back of the cab as they moved through the snow-choked Parisian streets. The cold was breath-taking and yet he did not feel it. His only thoughts were of Iseult and her words to him the previous week.

  ‘Emile, my heart will not allow me to accept you as my partner in life. I am sorry for the pain this will cause you.’

  So sincere, so genuine. Except he knew different. He had known Iseult was cheating on him with his best friend Gaston and after Iseult’s calm and absolute breaking of Emile’s heart, he had taken a cab straight around to Gaston’s home and beaten him senseless. It had taken both Django and Hippolyte to drag him away from his friend before he killed him.

  He stared out of the cab window at the wintry scene outside. A week before Christmas and the street were filled with people shopping, huddling around the braziers of the vendors selling hot chestnuts and cinnamon spiced mulled wine. Steam rose from these carts, mixing with the falling snow, making the streets slushy and slippery.

  Emile sighed. Normally, this was his favorite time of year, riotous parties, gatherings of friends and family. This year, as luck would have it, his parents had decided to winter in Lucerne and now that he and Iseult had parted, he would be spending most of the time alone.

  For now, though, he thought with relief, there was still the gentlemen’s club. He was on the way there now to meet Django and Hippolyte; his best friends, determined to shake him out of the funk he’d been in, had promised him a night he would never forget. Knowing the caddishness of his friends and their louche, lotus-eater like existences, he didn’t doubt it.

  For himself, a night rich in wine and song would come as a relief from his work. Unlike his friends, he did not come from old money, and the only reason he could live the life he could was due to his talent – Emile was the finest architect in Paris, some would say, in the whole of France. His latest project, a hotel in the Art Deco style which was now the fashion, was his masterpiece. Begun a mere four months ago, Emile’s unerring eye for design had already meant that although opening was still a year away, the hotel was booked solid for the next five years. Five years. Emile thought about that now, and it cheered him to think of it.

  At his gentlemen’s club, the maître domo took his coat and hat and directed him into the lounge, where fires crackled in the grate, and the room smelled of warm brandy and expensive cologne.

  Django, his oldest friend, waved him over. ‘Bonsoir, old man, come sit with me and play a hand or two, si tu plait. Hippolyte is, as usual, late.’ There were cards laid out on the table in front of him – bridge - but Emile smiled.

  ‘I don’t seem to have the effort in me,’ he said, sitting opposite his friend. Django eyed him.

  At thirty-two, Emile had the weary sadness of someone two decades older. His work – although he loved it – exhausted him, taking up, as it was, most of his time. Now that he thought about it, perhaps it was not surprising that Iseult had strayed – she never saw Emile except on the weekends…Emile brushed the thought away. He wasn’t ready to think that way yet; he wanted to wallow a while longer in self-pity.

  ‘So, where is this club you’re insisting on dragging me to tonight?’ He smiled at his friend as Django gathered up the playing cards and stacked them into their wooden box. Django smiled.

  ‘It’s Le Cabaret d’Hiver.’

  Emile was horrified. ‘Django, have you gone completely
out of your mind? None of us can risk being seen there!’ Le Cabaret d’Hiver was Paris’s shame; its debauched shows the talk of the town. Located in the Pigalle, near the famous Moulin Rouge and twice as scandalous, its place on the Boulevard de Clichy was enough to seal its fate as a den of iniquity and degradation. To be seen to publicly attend such a place was social suicide; it didn’t stop the bourgeoisie seeking out private shows of course.

  Django smirked. ‘Emile, for once, stop worrying about your public persona and give yourself over to the relief one can find at such a place. There is nothing more guaranteed to make you forget Iseult and Gaston than a night experiencing such carnal pleasures of the flesh.’

  Emile shook his head and gathered his bag. ‘No, Django, I cannot – ‘

  ‘Yes, you can.’ Hippolyte was there then, his hand firmly on Emile’s shoulder. ‘We insist. Just relax, friend, and let us take care of everything.’

  Emile had always been a little afraid of Hippolyte. The man stood a good head taller than himself – and Emile was not diminutive himself – and possessed a quiet strength that Emile had always suspected could explode into a fiery temper if pushed. He nodded now, not wanting to test that theory as there was a curious, burning look in Hippolyte’s eyes that dared him to dissemble.

  Django drained the last of his brandy and stood. ‘Why wait any longer? Gentlemen, shall we?’

  Back inside another cab, squeezed between Hippolyte and Django, Emile wondered what he had let himself in for but as the car pulled through the crowded winter streets, he felt his spirits lift with the thrill of adventure. He hadn’t been born so high that he didn’t enjoy a little raucous fun now and again and Le Cabaret d’Hiver certainly promised that.

  The ornate entrance promised much. Wood elves and nymphs twisted around trees which were covered in frosted leaves all carved out of stone. Emile could not help but run his hand over the carvings. Freezing cold to the touch, they nevertheless felt almost real – stone hard, of course, but Emile got the impression as he ran his hand over the leg of a tree elf that she might come to life and slap his hand away.