All That He Loves (Volume 2 The Billionaires Seduction)

by Thorne, Olivia

  I checked myself in the mirror. My makeup was smudged beyond repair; I looked like a hot mess.

  No way I was going back down to the party. I’d just call my limo driver and slip out the back of the hotel.

  “Come on… stay,” Connor said, and for the first time he sounded really serious.

  I strutted out of the bathroom in my high heels. I’d waited until I was at least halfway dressed so my bra would push everything nicely into place, and my lacey panties could put on a show as I sashayed my hips.

  As predicted, he couldn’t decide where he wanted to keep his eyes – on my chest or my ass.

  “If you still feel the same after your party… give me a call,” I cooed as I stepped into my dress and pulled it on as seductively as I could.

  Must have been seductive enough, because he watched me like his life depended on it.

  “Could you help me?” I asked coyly, even though I could have done it myself.

  He got out of bed, and now it was my turn to be transfixed by his body. His muscular chest, his broad shoulders, his abs… and his cock, gorgeous and thick even when limp, swaying and dangling tantalizingly between his thighs.

  I had to force myself to look up at his face.

  He was smirking at me as he circled around, moved my hair, and fastened the catch on the back of my dress. “I know what you’re doing.”

  “Oh, you do, do you?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I’m getting dressed.”

  His powerful arms circled me from behind, and I felt his body press against mine, heard his voice murmuring into my ear. “That’s not all you’re doing.”

  I closed my eyes and tilted my head back, wanting him to hold me like that forever. “Mmmm… what else am I doing?” I asked playfully.

  “Let’s cut out the middle part where you leave and I call you, and just stay,” he whispered in my ear.

  I turned and looked at him, my hair brushing his face until our eyes locked.

  “…call me,” I purred.

  He sighed, then stepped over to pick up his boxers. “So you’re going to play hard to get, huh?”

  I grinned. “No, I’m going to enjoy the show.”

  He turned and realized what I meant – and I swear to God, I think he blushed a little as he pulled his boxers over his legs, and his thick, lovely cock was lifted up by the waistband and then disappeared to settle heavily behind the cloth.

  “Well, I’m glad you are. Enjoying the show, I mean.”

  I lay down on the corner of the bed, propped my head up on one hand, and looked at him from head to toe. “Go on.”

  He grinned and shook his head like I don’t believe you, then pulled on his pants, shrugged his way into his shirt, and buttoned it up.

  As he was tying his bowtie in the mirror, I drifted up behind him and put my hands on his ass, then moved them around his front and began to play with his cock through his pants.

  “Careful,” he growled, “or you really will end up staying here for the night.”

  I laughed and picked up his jacket – noting again how heavy and bulky it seemed – then handed it to him. “Turn around and let me look at you.”

  He pulled on the jacket and turned around.

  Damn he was handsome. He was definitely more disheveled than when we’d left the party, but he also looked alive. Vital. Back in the game.

  “Stay,” he whispered, and kissed me tenderly.

  I closed my eyes and luxuriated in the kiss… and then pulled away.

  “Call me afterwards.”

  He sighed and offered his arm. I accepted, and he walked me out of the bedroom, through the penthouse, and out to the elevator.

  40

  He worked on me in the elevator, too, alternating kisses (and well-placed caresses) with requests.

  “Come on.”

  “No,” I giggled as he nibbled my ear.

  “Are you coming back to the party?”

  I pushed him away at arm’s length and gave him an Are you serious?! look. “With my makeup like this? Hell no.”

  He grinned with self-satisfaction. “What? You just look like a beautiful woman who’s had the time of her life.”

  “Ohhhh, aren’t we self-congratulatory!” I said, and tapped the tip of his nose with my finger.

  “Well, I figured it was classier than saying ‘had her brains fucked out.’”

  “Yes, although the second part’s true, too,” I said, stood up on tiptoe, and bit his lower lip softly.

  He grunted… and then leaned over and hit the STOP button on the control panel.

  The elevator rapidly slowed and came to a halt.

  “Connor?” I asked, slightly alarmed.

  “We need to talk for a second,” he said.

  There wasn’t the annoying, clanging alarm that you normally hear in an elevator when someone stops it. I didn’t realize its absence, though, until a voice came over the speaker.

  “Is everything alright, sir?” the voice asked.

  “It’s fine,” Connor said. “I just need a minute.”

  “Understood. Call if you need maintenance.”

  “Thank you,” Connor said, then turned down to see my look of alarm. He grinned and shrugged. “We did a study and found out people like to have sex in elevators, so we incorporated that when we built the penthouse.”

  I raised an eyebrow. “Is that what this is?”

  “No, this is just a simple discussion.” He looked at me in silence for a couple of seconds. When he finally started, his voice was incredibly serious. “Lily…”

  I put a finger up to his mouth to stop him. “Later.”

  “I need you to know… I don’t feel like I did two months ago.”

  My stomach plummeted – and I don’t think I hid it well, because he quickly scrambled to clarify.

  “I mean… I don’t feel the same as when you left. When I was being… distant. I made a mistake. A bad one. I want you back in my life.”

  I smiled, nodded ‘yes,’ and stood up on my tiptoes with my lips in the air. He bent down and kissed me, long, slowly, softly.

  When he finally pulled away, he looked into my eyes. “So… you’ll stay?”

  I leaned over and hit the ‘STOP’ button so that the elevator started moving again. “No. But you can call me.”

  He sighed in exasperation. “Seriously?”

  I grinned. “Seriously.”

  “Is this because I didn’t call you for two months?”

  YES.

  “I just don’t think you should get everything you want right away,” I teased him, making a real effort to sound light and seductive.

  He put his arms around me and leaned in close. “Do I get it if I call?”

  I pulled my head back a half an inch – and, as he leaned in to kiss me, I pulled back another half inch – then did it again as he leaned in closer, keeping myself the tiniest fraction of an inch beyond his lips.

  “…maybe,” I whispered with a smile.

  “Arrggghh!” he groaned, and darted in and kissed me as I shrieked happily, struggling in his arms – and then gave in.

  The elevator doors dinged! open, and we broke off the kiss and stepped outside into the hallway.

  The hallway was still largely deserted, except for Johnny a few feet away from the elevator. A server in a white Dubai uniform was walking down the hall, coming towards us from the opposite direction, an empty silver platter balanced on his arm.

  “Jeez, you guys sure took your time,” Johnny said sullenly.

  “Hey, not everybody can wrap up in four minutes like you,” Connor joked.

  “Connor!” I rebuked him, and smacked him on the arm.

  “Thank you, Lily. And it’s four hours,” Johnny said, pointing his finger at him like I got my eye on you, asshole. “And that’s if I’m rushing it.”

  “Yeah, yeah,” Connor smirked, and Johnny moved down the hall, back towards the secret passageway into the ballroom.

  Connor looked down at me. �
�Sure you don’t want to come?”

  “Oh, I want to come,” I whispered in his ear. “Later.”

  He laughed. “I meant go to the party.”

  “Yeah, I know what you meant – and no, thanks.”

  “You’d be the talk of the town,” he grinned.

  “I’ve had enough of that for a lifetime.”

  He dropped the jokey façade and looked at me tenderly. “Stay.”

  I smiled and brushed my hand against his face. I was standing with my back to the elevator; Connor’s back was towards the hall.

  That’s why I saw it and he didn’t.

  There was a glint of light from the silver platter. My eyes darted over automatically, and I saw the servant twelve feet away. The platter was already falling to the floor, and his arm was coming up.

  There was something black clutched in his hand, with a small, metallic cylinder attached to the end.

  “GUN!” I screamed. That was all I had time to get out.

  Connor saw where I was looking, and in the brief second when I glanced back at him, our eyes locked.

  All I felt was panic – but the thing I remember about his eyes was the steeliness in them, the complete and utter resolve.

  That moment felt like an eternity, though it couldn’t have lasted for more than a split second, because Connor stepped to the side – between me and the gunman – and wrapped his arms around me, his body completely shielding me, cocooning me, enveloping me, so that even my head was wrapped in darkness from his chest pressing against my face.

  The gunshots sounded small and distant. I don’t know if that was because of Connor’s body protecting me, or if the cylinder on the gun was some kind of silencer, but there were two sharp noises –

  POP POP!

  – and I felt Connor’s body jerk against me.

  Then he collapsed, his weight dragging down my body with him. Even though he was falling, he still kept me safe as he stumbled to his knees, surrounding me the entire time as we slumped to the floor and he fell on top of me.

  I barely heard the roar of the third gunshot, the one without a silencer, because by then I was screaming.

  ALL THAT HE LOVES

  Part 7

  1

  In the overwhelming chaos, I didn’t know what was happening. All I knew was that Connor had slumped against me and we had fallen to the floor. He was lying on top of me, unconscious.

  At least, I prayed that’s all it was.

  Or I would have been praying if I hadn’t been screaming frantically.

  Suddenly Connor rolled to the side, and I thanked God that he was alright –

  Except his eyes were closed and he sagged like a rag doll, no reaction on his face.

  “CONNOR!” I screamed, clutching at his limp body. “CONNOR – ”

  And then Johnny was there above me, just a foot away, ten times more panicked than I had ever seen him. He looked like a man who had just lost his entire family in some horrible, sudden tragedy, right before his very eyes.

  “Lily, are you hit?!” he yelled.

  “Connor – ”

  “LILY, ARE YOU SHOT?!”

  “No, no, I’m okay,” I babbled, and immediately burst into tears.

  I needed to tell him – I needed to tell him how Connor had sensed the danger, and had wrapped his arms around me, shielding me from any harm –

  Johnny looked partially relieved and turned back to Connor’s limp body, flipping up his jacket for some reason, looking at his back.

  I expected it to be soaked with blood, but the shirt was inexplicably crisp and white.

  Johnny yelled into his radio, “GET THE FUCKING EMT GUYS HERE NOW!”

  I stumbled onto my elbows and rolled towards Connor, put my hands on his slack face. “Connor – Connor, can you hear me?! CONNOR!”

  There was the sound of footsteps running somewhere behind me. Johnny put his arms around me and pulled me forcibly away. “Lily, get back, they need to get to him – ”

  “Connor – is he alright?! Connor – oh my God!”

  It wasn’t anything about Connor that caused that last statement.

  It was the bright red spray of blood along the corridor walls, fifteen feet away.

  As Johnny pulled me back and two men in EMT uniforms descended on Connor, I saw a body lying on the hallway floor. I couldn’t see more than his feet and legs, but I knew instantly it was the server, the man with the gun and the silver tray I had seen just seconds before.

  He was dead. Even without seeing the upper half of his body, there was no other explanation for how still he lay, or how his legs had fallen in such an unnatural, contorted position.

  “Don’t look,” Johnny whispered in my ear, his voice anguished. “Don’t look.”

  “What happened to Connor?” I cried. “What happened to – ”

  “Shhh,” Johnny whispered. “He’s going to be okay, he’s going to be okay.”

  One of the EMTs glanced back at Johnny. “Where’s he hit? I don’t see anything.”

  “Lower to mid back, left of the spine,” Johnny snapped.

  “There’s no blood – ”

  “He had on a bulletproof vest.”

  A bulletproof vest?!

  I had no idea exactly what one looked like, but I sure as hell hadn’t seen anything that would remotely qualify.

  “Get him on,” the EMT ordered to his partner. “Moving him on one, two, three – ”

  They rolled and hoisted him onto the stretcher they had brought.

  Meanwhile, a crowd had gathered. Twenty feet away, men in suits and earpieces had blocked off the corridor and were holding back other people, one of whom was struggling to get through.

  “Let go of me!” Sebastian cried out in anguish. “Johnny?! Lily?!”

  “Let him through, let him through!” Johnny called out.

  Sebastian burst through the line of security men, and as his eyes fell on Connor, his face went ashen grey. “Oh my God,” he choked out.

  “Sebastian – Sebastian!” Johnny yelled, jerking Sebastian back to reality. “Help me get Lily up on her feet!”

  Sebastian raced over and grabbed one of my arms, and he and Johnny hoisted me to my feet as I continued to stare at Connor. He looked so silent and still on the stretcher, his face completely blank, his eyes closed like he was sleeping.

  “He saved me,” I said quietly, still in shock – and then I broke down sobbing. “He saved me, he saved my life – ”

  “You saved him, too,” Johnny said. “If you hadn’t yelled when you saw the gun, we would’ve all been dead.”

  The EMTs were bracing Connor’s neck, and then they were lifting his stretcher into the air. They started down the hallway, away from the crowd.

  “Take Lily, I’ve got to go with him,” Johnny ordered as he handed me off to Sebastian.

  “I want to go,” I sobbed. “Johnny, please – ”

  “There’s no room, I’ve got to go with him in case – ”

  Johnny paused, and looked stricken.

  “ – in case they try again.”

  “GO!” Sebastian yelled at him. “We’ll meet you at – where, Westside General?”

  “Yeah,” Johnny nodded, and then tore off after the medics.

  In less than ten seconds they burst through a pair of double doors and disappeared.

  I turned my head against Sebastian’s chest and sobbed.

  “We have to go,” he said, his voice feeble and weak. “We have to go now…”

  “What about the police?” one of the security men called out. “They’re going to be here any – ”

  “Tell them we’ll be at the hospital,” Sebastian barked, suddenly back in control. “You two, come with me and get us outside!”

  With two of the security men acting as shields, Sebastian led me out of the hallway, out towards the lobby and into the crowds of people standing around jabbering and straining to see what had happened.

  2

  By the time Sebastian and I were th
rough the lobby, my head had cleared somewhat.

  Connor had been shot, but I hadn’t seen any blood anywhere on him – which had to be good.

  But he was unconscious, which was bad. How bad, I didn’t know.

  The gunman was dead, apparently killed by Johnny.

  And now we were on our way to the closest hospital – and one of the most respected ones in all of Los Angeles.

  “God, my car’s down in valet,” Sebastian muttered as we stumbled through the lobby, his arm around me. I hadn’t seen him cry back in the hallway, but his eyes were red and his cheeks were streaked with tears. I immediately wanted to hug him and tell him that it was going to be okay…

  …but I didn’t know that myself.

  “We’re never going to be able to get out of here, not with the cops showing up – damn it – ”

  “Todd,” I said, remembering the name like a detail out of a dream.

  “Todd?”

  “My limo driver… the one you hired,” I said, and pulled the business card out of my clutch purse. “I told him to go get food… he might be out on Sunset somewhere.”

  “Thank God,” Sebastian said as he pulled out his cell and dialed the number on the card. “Todd? You drove Lily Ross earlier – where are you? Good, excellent. Meet us at the corner of Sunset and – I don’t know, a couple of streets west of the Dubai, stay on the phone and tell me where you are, we’ll come find you.”

  Sebastian and I stumbled out of the Dubai into the darkness just as the cop cars came roaring up in front of the hotel, sirens blasting. The limos and Lamborghinis and Bentleys were still so thick in the valet area that a couple of the police cruisers drove up on the sidewalk.

  Sebastian and I escaped through the crowds and hobbled up Sunset until we saw a black limo waiting on a side street, with Todd standing by the rear door.

  When he saw our faces, he knew something was horribly wrong. “What happened?”

  “Never mind! Do you know where Westside General Hospital is?”

  “Yes.”

  “Get us there ASAP – go!”

  3