Rock Star Billionaire: A Standalone Novel (An Alpha Billionaire Romance Love Story)

by Claire Adams

  THE BOSS #2

  Chapter 1

  Aria

  This was my fifth attempt to pay attention in class. The professor was babbling something about regression models, there were numbers on the board, and I think I was in Statistics II. Maybe. Honestly, I wouldn’t have noticed if I had walked into the wrong class right now; my mind was far, far away from this classroom, in a whole other room altogether. All the chatter, people talking in the hallways, the professor being obnoxious – things that usually bothered me to no end – now sounded like a mildly pleasant distraction coming from another dimension in space and time. It had been like this all week. Nothing in the whole world could faze me.

  I still couldn’t believe what had happened. And how perfect it was. My mind once again drifted back to that night in Zayden’s office one week ago.

  Right after we had made love – no, no not made love, done it, had sex, any other term for what had happened – we both collapsed onto the couch, locked in an embrace. It felt like forever when we were both able to function again, and the first thing he said was, “God dammit, Aria, why did you lie?”

  “Wow, you sure know how to flatter a woman after sex,” I rolled my eyes.

  He got up and looked at me with his head resting on his elbow. There was real concern in his face. “I’m serious. Why did you lie about your virginity?”

  “What?” I snapped. “I wasn’t a virgin, and it’s not like that stopped you from trying to get into my pants when you thought I was! I’ve only had sex once and it lasted a whole minute. Why the sudden concern? Did I really suck that bad?”

  “It’s not like that,” he said, running his index finger over the contours of my face. “I just… it would have gone differently if I had known the truth. If I knew you were a virgin or even that you had only been fucked once, I would have been more… gentle. I should have known better, but I was overwhelmed with you. If I had just kept my head straight, I would have gone much slower, done much better, made this better. Hell, we weren’t even in a real bed! You will always have to remember your first and second time being shitty.”

  He looked angry with himself before he finally added: “You’re a smart and young girl; so sorry it had to be this way.”

  I gently caressed the stubble on his cheek and said, “Believe me when I say this, it was perfect, Zayden. I had a great time.” I looked down coyly for a few minutes. “The pleasure…” I finished in a barely audible voice.

  He laughed. “I love how bashful you get. It’s really cute, considering the way I just fucked you.”

  I looked away from him, trying not to focus on the fact that he had used the word “love”. It wasn’t like he was saying he loved me; this was the equivalent of saying he loves the taste of ice-cream, yet I couldn’t help but feel a tingle of excitement.

  “I am not bashful.” I looked at him again. “I can talk dirty and everything.”

  He started chuckling. “Oh, really? Let’s hear it then.”

  I could feel my face turning a shade of deep red. “Huh?” I looked at him as though I had no idea what he was saying. I was trapped.

  “Let me hear you talk dirty,” he said with a twinkle in his eyes. “‘And everything.’”

  Covering my face with both my hands, I sighed. Okay, okay I can do this.

  “I’m… dirty. I’m a dirty, dirty girl, who likes to have a lot of sex and stuff. And in weird positions. Like this one time when Stacey and I found this video from Nick’s stash where the girl like bends against the guy from underneath him like a gymnast – like that, and I can-“ I made the mistake of looking at his eyes and we both burst into a bout of uncontrollable laughter.

  “Okay.” I shrugged. “So I can’t actually talk dirty. And everything.”

  “Yet.” He winked and leaned in to kiss my neck.

  “Mmm,” I moaned.

  “Ready for round two?” he mumbled against my neck. “I’ll be gentle this time, I promise.”

  “No,” I whispered and he broke off to look at me in confusion. I clarified, “No, don’t be gentle.”

  Then I boldly proceeded to unzip his pants and take him in my mouth. He began to fuck my face uncontrollably. The power I felt from being able to make him lose control like that was glorious. I licked his shaft while occasionally sucking the tip. It clearly worked because he climaxed in no time, making me feel incredibly proud of myself.

  After a few more rounds, we fell asleep on the couch and I woke up in the middle of the night.

  “I have to go.” I rubbed his nose. “Class tomorrow. And people will start coming in here in like 4 hours. They can’t see this.”

  He groaned. “That’s why we should’ve taken this to my place. Next time, my place!”

  Next time. So there would be a next time. I tried not to seem as excited as I actually was. “I’ll see you tomorrow,” I said, leaning in for a kiss.

  “You won’t,” he said, sighing. “I’m going to New York for business for two days. We are trying to set up a branch in the East Coast and see how we may advance.”

  “Lucky! I’ve never been to New York. Is it as amazing as it is on TV?”

  He shrugged. “It’s just a city. But I’ll take you there sometime.”

  “No thank you,” I said, a little too quickly. Of course I wanted to be taken to New York someday. Every person in the world wanted to be taken to New York someday. But I couldn’t let Zayden do me any more favors. Plus, I was afraid I would take his promises too seriously and assume this whole deal meant a whole lot more than it actually did. I wasn’t quite sure where we stood right now. There was, of course, the contract. We had a full five months of that left, so he wasn’t going to discard me until then for sure. But what about after that? It would probably be goodbye and he would be done with me forever.

  I tried not to dwell on that and instead focused on the wonderful night I had. I didn’t remember the last time I had truly had fun, not worrying about anything. I didn’t remember the last time I was simply happy. This might have been temporary, but in that moment I decided that for the next five months, I would focus on one thing: being happy. What happened after didn’t matter.

  “Ms. Roberts, what is the formula for standard deviation?” I heard a voice come from a distance. It sounded a little like my name…

  Oh shit. I was transported back into a classroom full of college students and a frustrated-looking teacher staring down at me. “Ms. Roberts, are you still with us?”

  “Yes, sorry!” I snapped out. “The formula for standard deviation...”

  I knew this. I did. Why couldn’t I remember it right that second though? I needed to stop thinking about Zayden and that night in class. I was never unable to answer a question.

  “Ms. Roberts,” the teacher said. “I would really appreciate it if you paid some attention in class. Nobody wants to be here, even I don’t want to be here to try and explain statistics to disengaged students. But it’s my job, and you could make my job a lot easier by feigning some interest. The unintentional side effect would be some good grades. Do you know what those look like?”

  I nodded, feeling humiliated. If only he knew that I was a straight-A student. A teacher had never berated me in my life before this. I really needed to get my shit together. “I’m sorry. I am just having a rough day. It won’t happen again.”

  “Good, because your mid-term exam for this class is tomorrow,” he said, now addressing the whole class.

  Phew. Mid-term. I’d ace that and everything would be okay again. No more thinking about sex in class though. What was even happening to me? I was going to kill Zayden Sinclair when he returned from New York. He was beginning to interfere with my everyday life.

  Chapter 2

  Zayden

  Did she have to be in class? I hated not having the view of her ass from my office. All I had to look at was old Mrs. Brian, who seemed to think frowning at every customer that walked in was company policy.

  I picked up my phone to call Aria, wondering if
I could demand that she become present at work instantly, but she probably wouldn’t answer her phone in class. Grunting, I thought about how much fun we were going to have when I took her home tonight. I had made some plans, all right.

  We hadn’t quite had the chance to do it after that night in the office. First I had to rush off to New York, and when I got back, there was a whole pile of work waiting for me to return to, and countless annoying meetings. At least I had found a way to make work interesting the day I had returned from New York. I thought back to that morning, when Aria had seen me walk into the office from her teller’s booth and was visibly struggling not to run to me. She didn’t want to tarnish her reputation and worsen mine. Thank god she was clever. So I had to devise a plan to get her to come into my office. And keep her there.

  I called her phone.

  “Good morning, Mrs. Roberts,” I grinned at her from the distance. “How are you doing, today?”

  “Better now,” she grinned back. “For no particular reason, though.”

  “There seems to be a steady number of reinforcements for your tasks at the teller’s booth over there. There’s Mrs. Brian, and the new kid should be arriving. Do you think you could make yourself available for some executive-level assistance?”

  “What did you have in mind?” She winked at me. It was so damn sexy.

  “What I really have in mind is bending you over my desk and making you come over and over again.” I watched her flush. It was so satisfying. “Since it’s the middle of the day, however, and we have a lot of company, I will settle for you coming into my office and sorting through my filing cabinet.”

  She looked taken aback, but said, “Oh yeah, sure, anything you want. You’re the boss.”

  “I’m not finished,” I added with a wink. She wasn’t the only one who could do that. “I want you to sort through my filing cabinet, but first I want you to go to the bathroom and take your panties off, so that I get a nice view of your ass and pussy when you’re filing.”

  She gasped. “Are you serious?”

  “I don’t joke about pussy, Aria. Go take your panties off. Now.” And then I hung up. Watching her from a distance, I could tell she was equally as frustrated as she was aroused, and my cock was already throbbing hard from that conversation.

  She walked into my office a few moments later and I said: “Where are they?”

  “What?” She looked confused.

  “Your panties.”

  She raised her eyebrows. “In my purse. Why does it matter?”

  I pulled my top desk drawer out and said, “Place them there. So you can’t cheat in case I step out of my desk.”

  “You’re being ridiculous,” she whispered, sounding more frustrated than aroused now.

  “Panties. Now.” I stared at her with a stern face until she gave up and stormed to place them where I had asked. “Anything else? Do you want me to strip naked so everyone in the office can have a nice show, too?”

  She was angrier than I had realized. “Just calm down,” I said, gently. “I thought you’d find it sexy.”

  “I do and it’s annoying. I don’t want to find it sexy. I was looking forward to your return from New York, and wanted to ask you about your trip, and tell you about my progress on the Econ paper, and so much more. But as soon as you walked in, all I could think about was the other night.”

  She paused for a second as though very nervous about what was to come next, then added, “All I could think about was the other night, and how much I wanted to repeat it. Right now.”

  “Aria,” I gasped, getting super hard. “We can book a hotel room around the corner and—”

  “No,” she said quickly. “This is exactly what I am talking about. I would love to accompany you to a hotel room and have you do me as you please. It pisses me off though that you do this while I’m at work. I need these hours. I need to be able to work while at work.”

  “I’ll pay you double to take the day off.”

  “Stop saying that, it’s disrespectful. I want to earn the money I make.”

  “I didn’t mean to offend you… I just figured, you want it, I want it, there seems to be no logical reason that either of us should be clothed right now.”

  “But there is,” she sighed. “It’s called my job. And yours!”

  “Meh,” I said shrugging. “I own the company, that’s hardly a job.”

  “After work,” she snapped. “After everyone leaves, we can hang around in your office and do whatever it is that you want to do.”

  “You make it sound like such a chore. How flattering,” I snapped back. “And despite that charming proposition, I’ll have to decline in favor of a sausage fest. Board meeting tonight.”

  “We don’t have to be at each other’s throats like this you know,” she said, sighing deeply.

  “Well, the fucking sexual tension in the room is making us act this way.”

  “Yeah, it’s something like that,” she said, staring at her feet.

  “Not to change the subject but I got you something,” I said, producing a tiny box from inside my suit pocket.

  “What is it?” She looked nervous.

  “Not a ring, obviously,” I said, handing her a box.

  “Oh really? I was so convinced that it was a ring, and that one steamy night with me had made you decide you wanted me for the rest of your life. Cause that’s how things work,” she laughed, opening the box and gasped when the contents were revealed.

  “These are beautiful,” she exclaimed, examining the diamond Liberty locket I had gotten her. “Is this a real diamond?”

  “Two carat. Not much, but since you had never been to New York before, I thought I’d bring a piece of it back to you.”

  I was playing this smooth.

  She laughed. “Yeah, just two carat, no big deal. It’s not like that’s more than any valuable item I have ever owned. Seriously, though, it’s beautiful. But I can’t accept it. You need to stop buying me expensive presents.”

  “It was nothing,” I said. It was just a couple of thousand dollars and that wasn’t much to me. “Just take it, Aria. Otherwise it’s just going to be thrown away.”

  “I can’t. I don’t feel comfortable taking gifts from my boss.” She sighed.

  “I’m not just your boss.”

  “I know.” Her eyes widened. “That’s not what I meant to imply. You’re…” She started fidgeting with the pendant in her hand and flushed to match the color of her red shirt. “You’re... I think of you as… as…” It was like someone asked her to name every state in the U.S. alphabetically in descending order. “A friend,” she finished after a lot of struggle.

  “Ah, so you let all your friends do what I did to you the other night?” I tried to look severe, although I was laughing inside at her struggle to speak.

  “No! Of course not! You know that I had never – that I was a –“ She caught my eyes and realized I was just teasing her. “I’m going to kill you.”

  “Great, then you can keep the pendant as memorabilia for when you miss me after my death.”

  She grunted. “I feel bad, though!”

  “If you really think of me as a friend, then please, take this small present from your friend.”

  “Fine,” she finally said. “But one condition: no more presents, no more spending a single penny outside of our contract on me. Promise?”

  “I promise,” I smiled. “Now start shelving and let me enjoy the view.”

  “That’s okay. I’ve got to get back to work. Enjoy my underwear,” she said, laughing as she waltzed out of my office.

  She was just as good as I was at this game.

  Chapter 3

  Aria

  I was walking out of class, disgruntled again from the second encounter in a row with my Statistics professor. It was beginning to be an every class thing. Then I heard someone call my name.

  Dick.

  “Excuse me?” a blond guy of medium build said.

  I may have said Dick out loud
. “That’s your name, isn’t it?”

  “It’s Rick. But thanks,” my ex-boyfriend grinned. “I’ve been meaning to run into you, Aria.”

  “Oh, that’s neat. You don’t even have any classes in the Econ and Finance building. I suppose this is a ‘run-in’ and not a stalking attempt. Go away, dick,” I said, walking on.

  He ran after me. “Listen, I tried calling you a bunch of times.”

  I turned around and snapped, “Right. And me completely not answering any of those gazillion phone calls over the last few months did not give you the slightest hint that I want nothing to do with you?”

  “It did, but I am still here, doesn’t that say something?”

  “Yes, it says it’s really late and I have to get out of here. You’re just a dirty scumbag who cheated on me on our anniversary and is now stalking me outside of evening class.”

  “You never even gave me a chance to explain!” He was shouting now.

  “Explain! What the hell is there to explain, Dick? I saw everything that needed to be seen. Do I care about your made-up sob story where you were doing a dying girl a favor or any kind of other bullshit that you can come up with? No.”

  “But you still care about me! Or you wouldn’t be this angry,” he had the nerve to say.

  I could almost slap him that moment and tried to ease my trembling fingers. “I cared about you once. You know that. But you hurt me, Ricky. It took me a very long time to recover from that. Of course I’m still angry for what you did to me! But that in no way indicates any remaining feelings for you. I have really truly moved on, and I suggest you do the same. Though let’s be honest, you kind of already had before we even broke up.”

  He sighed. “I am really, really sorry, Aria. I am not going to stand here and give you a long and twisted version of a lie you aren’t going to believe. I fucked up, plain and simple. I don’t have some grandiose reasoning behind it; I was just a stupid kid thinking with everything other than my head. And Sally – the girl you found me with – had been going after me for months and I just lost control.”

  “I’m sorry for you and your inability to keep it in your pants, but I am not sure how this is supposed to make anything better.”