Filthy Rich

by Raine Miller

  “There is more.”

  I froze. “I am afraid to even hope there is a treatment that doesn’t involve a brain surgeon and a scalpel.”

  He laughed again and kissed the top of my head. “You have a beautiful and brilliant brain, Brooke Casterley. You can think up the cleverest things to say to me at the oddest moments. It must be your British wit.”

  “Maybe so, but you have a beautiful and brilliant heart, Caleb Blackstone. You can do magic with it and in ways I never imagined. It must be your American optimism.”

  He leaned around to speak close against my lips. “There is a medication you can take that makes the episodes far less frequent.”

  “Amazing.”

  “When you’re ready, I want you to see a specialist in the city. Will you do that for me?”

  “Yes. After the wedding is over, I will.” I could feel the warmth of his lips so very close to mine. “I want to do it for me, too.”

  “Thank you, baby.”

  Then he kissed me thoroughly and showed me yet again the range of just how far his beautiful and brilliant heart could go.

  Caleb

  Brooke on her knees with her lips wrapped around my dick was an out-of-this-fucking-world beautiful thing. So beautiful, in fact, I was having another one of those cornea-burning experiences. Yeah, I was gonna go blind soon, but it would feel so good as it happened and I would be smiling when the world went dark.

  “Baby . . . ahhh . . . feels good. Jesus—it’s good.” I guided her head as she took me all the way to the base of my cock again and again. Being inside any part of her without a barrier was the fucking best feeling. She tugged on my nuts and rolled them around in her hand as I felt everything tighten up. “I’m going to come in your mouth. If you don’t want that—stop now,” I ground out, totally on the edge of losing my control. I removed my hands from her head and brought them up to mine, gripping handfuls of my own hair until my scalp stung. “Ahhh . . . fuuuck!” I threw my head back as it started.

  But she did not stop.

  She did not pull her lovely mouth off my cock.

  No, she slid me to the back of her throat instead, and took every shot of my cum until there was no more, her eyes on mine as I emptied into her. It was a perfect moment of intimacy and generosity from her to me—almost. Because although I understood the need to show her patience, there was one thing I regretted.

  She wasn’t yet ready to hear me say I love you. I certainly would have said it in that moment as our eyes connected—because I certainly loved her.

  I hauled her up from where she’d been kneeling and put her on my lap. Pressed us chest to chest and folded her legs alongside my hips. She nestled into me, and I inhaled the intoxicating scent of her. Hair that reminded me of a field of flowers reaching for the sun, and skin that held the essence of oranges for some reason. Maybe it was the perfume or lotion she used, but the scent of oranges would forever be something I associated with her.

  Oranges mingled with the earthy scent of the seed I’d just pumped into her.

  My caveman notions weren’t lost on me, either. I was right there in the mental state of “woman mine—you come under my furs—my cave—we fuck now” with Brooke. She’d turned me into one horny fucking creature, that side of me wanting to get buck-ass naked and lick each other’s privates for a day. The impulse was there; training just taught us to suppress it. But when we were alone with someone who felt the same way, the impulse was triggered, allowing us to act out our very dirty fantasies in a way that was totally liberating. Brooke triggered that impulse for me.

  It was real and it was permanent, of this I was certain—I couldn’t feel this way about anyone else but her, going forward.

  I hadn’t come back to the cottage with her expecting sex, either. We hadn’t made it past her living room couch. It was just something that kept happening with us—our bodies needing the connection physically. There was no denying it was a primal drive with me. I wanted to fuck her every day for the rest of my life. An absolutely crazy idea to wrap my head around, but also brutally accurate for how I felt when we were alone and I could touch her. I craved to see her satisfied and marked with the telltale signs of being well used and pleasured by me. Especially after last night’s soul baring. She’d been through a tremendous ordeal, and nearly lost her life in the process. I could not have the luxury of forgetting that fact or pressing her to move on from her past at a pace faster than she was able.

  “HOW do you feel about birth control?” The time had come for me to ask the question.

  “I am all for it,” she said with witty sassiness plus a stealthily delivered dig into my side with her hand. She got me good, zinging me before I could tamp it down, revealing my weakness.

  “Oh, you are so getting tickled for that little move, beautiful.” I launched my attack, pinning her onto the couch with one hand and going to town on her ribs with the other. She shrieked and writhed, trying to escape my onslaught, but to no avail. Because my inner caveman impulses were being triggered by the sight of her perfect tits and flushed skin moving beneath me, ready to go another round of fucking.

  “Noooo! Caaaleb, I’m sorry for starting it—really—I—I was going to bring it uuuuup to you.”

  “Oh, you were? Are you sure you don’t just want me to stop tickling you, baby?”

  “I want you to stop, aaaaaand we can talk about it,” she begged.

  I quickly moved my tickling hand down between her legs and found my way into her slippery folds with my fingers. “Oh yeah, you’re wet for me.” I stroked her in measured circles and watched her reaction to my touch. She came alive with movement, and her eyes flared in passion as she moved against my hand. “Because I want to be right in here with nothing between us. I want it, Brooke.”

  I lowered my lips to hers and plunged my tongue deep, claiming her mouth in suggestion of how I wanted to claim her with my cock where my fingers were buried in her slick, wet heat right now. I curled my fingers inward and found the place where the texture changed and worked her G-spot mercilessly. My tongue impaled her mouth and my fingers her cunt—mine completely in the moment. I was a motherfucking caveman with my woman beneath me.

  The experience was incomparable.

  She moaned into my mouth and gripped her inner walls around my fingers as she rode her way to climax. I felt her clench and spasm. I heard her gasps of pleasure as she came. I tasted her sweetness. Her breath gusted against my mouth as I used my teeth to nip at her lips while she descended from the high. I relished the way her whole body softened in my arms as I held her to me—a fusion of body and spirit.

  I readjusted our bodies so she could lie on top of me, and drew the throw blanket from the back of the couch over us. I could have carried her up the stairs to her bed, but I didn’t want to lose the moment we’d just shared. It was something too special to interrupt.

  “Caleb?” she asked in a soft voice, after a few minutes had passed.

  “Hmm?”

  “I was only ever with Marcus . . . before you . . . and with him it was nothing like it is with you. I never knew sex could be so good until you showed me. I’d heard stories, of course, but it wasn’t my experience. I just wanted you to know.” She lifted her head to rest her chin on my sternum so we could see each other. She smiled. “And to thank you for healing that part of me, which was very much in need of it.”

  Her words gutted me in a way that was both wonderful and shameful. Wonderful that I’d been the one to show Brooke sexual pleasure for the first time—and shameful for being the guy who’d had his dick in countless women before her, women who were nothing more than a screw that ended in an orgasm. Nothing to be proud of there. Not something I wanted to discuss, either.

  With my finger, I traced from the corner of her eye, down her cheek, and over her lips before I spoke. “Brooke, I feel like you are the one healing me.” She shook her head in doubt. “No, I mean that. It’s one hundred percent the truth. I’ve been with many, but none have made me feel
the way I do with you.”

  “And how is that?” she asked wistfully.

  “Like we have to be the only ones to work on healing each other from now on.”

  “Ahh . . . so Sexual Healing should be our song then?”

  “Amusing. You say the wittiest things, baby.”

  “I only do it because you seem to like it so much.”

  “You’re right, and I think you should keep right on being witty for me, too.” I pulled her lips to mine and kissed her thoroughly, mentally preparing myself to tell her the part I wished I didn’t have to bring up. “I want you to know I was with someone before I met you. She left me in doubt about what she was doing, and who she was doing it with when I wasn’t around. Even though we always used protection, I still got tested immediately after we split. I’m clean. I never would’ve gone there with you just now if I wasn’t, Brooke. You can trust me.”

  As much as it pained me to mention Janice, even in the past tense, I felt better telling her myself, because the Internet was loaded with a multitude of stories and photos about me. If Brooke wanted to know about Janice and others I’d been with, the pictures were there for her to find in living color right along with some gossip’s take on where I’d been, with whom, and for what purpose. She’d probably seen some of it already. I hoped Brooke realized most of it was absolute bullshit, too. The kind of press I loathed because it was paparazzi reporting based only on my name and personal wealth. Nobody wanted pictures of men with barely two cents to rub together when out with a date. Just once I’d love for some press on the clean well water Blackstone Global was bringing to third-world farm villages to be plastered next to my picture. I wouldn’t hold my breath, but it would sure be fucking nice for a change.

  “I know I can trust you, Caleb Blackstone.” She reached up and held my face. I wondered if she knew I was her captive when she did small things like touch her hand to my face. “So, about the birth control . . .” She rubbed her thumb over my lower lip, which I struggled to resist from claiming by pulling it into my mouth. “Before I left the shelter they offered testing and an exam, which I had done. The doctor gave me a prescription for pills. I never filled it because it felt like I would be putting myself out there for casual sex, and I wasn’t ready. I wasn’t ready emotionally for much of anything when I first returned to Boston. I needed those five months to work and take care of Nan and rediscover myself even. But that was before I met you, Caleb. I can’t deny that after meeting you, it was different for me, too. I wanted to be with you. I knew that you would be good for me, and I could safely entrust my body and my heart to you. My point is, I can have my prescription filled now and start them. We should be protected by the time you return from Abu Dhabi.”

  She gave me a look when I didn’t respond in an appropriate amount of time, and then a little squeeze to my cheek where her hand still rested.

  I guess I was too busy falling more in love with her to notice.

  THE Black Bay Club was situated right on the rocks, overlooking the bay from its miles of manicured green fairways that were prized by golfers the world over. Golf had been my father’s game, but it wasn’t mine. I’d kept the exorbitant dues at his private golf club current after he’d died, though. You never knew when it might be useful, and tonight being a member of Black Bay was very useful—affording me a private venue for taking Brooke to dinner and saying my dreaded good-bye before I took off for Abu Dhabi around midnight. She’d cooked for me and spoiled me rotten for two solid days, and now I insisted she have a break.

  The thought of leaving her behind on the island was a bit easier to take than the idea of leaving her in Boston. I knew she was taking the rest of the week off from work to help her grandmother get settled after her release from physical therapy. I couldn’t deny being pleased my girl would be tucked away safely on the island for most of my business trip. I didn’t trust the media getting hold of Brooke and my relationship with her. I knew it would happen in time, and hopefully when it did, I could have her more under the shell of my protection to shield her from the worst of their scrutiny. The paparazzi were fuckers, pure and simple. They would dig up any dirt to be dug up and share it with the world just to sell a few papers. I didn’t want her hurt by their certain insensitivity to her past or anything to do with her life before I’d met her.

  “I haven’t had a chance to hear about your work much. What inspired you to become an interior designer?”

  “I was following in my mother’s footsteps at first I suppose.”

  “How so?”

  “Well, she attended Suffolk University when she was in college, and she studied design. I told you how she met my father while on a semester in London.”

  “Right, I remember.” I’d seen a picture of her parents on display at the cottage. Her mother looked like a 1990s version of Brooke in the photo—the same beauty easily recognizable in their shared features. “You said ‘at first.’”

  “Yes, I think I liked the idea of learning the same material as what she had studied, and even going to the same school. It gave me a way to feel close to her by having something in common.” She rubbed the back of the left side of her neck, which was a tell as clear as day from where I was sitting. I hadn’t earned my billions without learning to read people over the years. “I love my job. I really enjoy the challenge of finding the perfect design for a client’s vision,” she said.

  “Why do I hear a but at the end of that statement?”

  She gave me a sweet smile. “You are observant, Caleb.”

  “With you, even more so than usual.” It was the truth. I wanted to know everything about her. “So, if you could do anything at all, what would you choose to be?”

  She answered quickly. “I would choose to be a Marni Cole.”

  I tilted my head and waited for her to explain, certain it would be an interesting story at the very least.

  “When I was first at the women’s shelter in San Diego, I was probably still in shock. And I know I was grieving the loss of my baby. I named her Sophia. I didn’t even know she was a girl until after I woke up from my coma because I hadn’t had the second-trimester sonogram yet—the one where the sex of the baby can be revealed if the technician can get a good enough view between little squirmy legs.” Her eyes grew glassy, but I didn’t interrupt. I was spellbound by her story and wanted to hear more. “Even though I hadn’t wanted to be a mother at such a young age, I still bonded with my baby, and it was . . . hard . . . to let go emotionally once I didn’t have her inside me anymore.”

  I reached across the table and took her hand in mine.

  “I didn’t want to socialize or do much of anything at first. Like I told you before, I just wanted to find some peace from the awful noise in my head. When you live in a state of constant turmoil, tranquility becomes a precious commodity.”

  I turned her hand so her palm was facing up.

  “Shelters run on volunteers who come and do a variety of jobs that need to be done. Some work in the kitchen and help with meals, some offer counseling or legal assistance, others might balance the books, or work the phones—usually the volunteer offers their time, doing whatever their regular day job is or providing a skill they have. There was this woman named Marni and her skill was gardening. I found out she was a certified master gardener during the course of knowing her. She would come to the shelter and work her magic with the flowers. Being San Diego, the growing season is nearly the entire year, and the weather rarely prevents a person from being outside, so Marni came often. As soon as I arrived at the shelter, craving the peace I hadn’t known for more than a year, I was immediately drawn to the gardens. I’d sit out there among the flowers and basically started to heal . . . in my coveted peaceful place. A beautiful garden surrounded with blooms, where nobody screamed in mindless rages, or toyed with my head, or got perverse pleasure from scaring me.”

  I traced the letter I on her palm with my finger.

  “Marni didn’t push me to talk about my past. In fact,
she didn’t talk very much at all. Marni was in need of her own peaceful place, and coming to the shelter to volunteer was helping her as much as it was helping the facility. One day she just handed me a garden trowel and pointed to some weeds that needed thinning and that was when I really started my healing journey. As I spent time in the garden with Marni, we got to know each other. I learned she had a husband who was a pediatric surgeon and lived in a lovely home in La Jolla with her dogs and a koi pond in the backyard. She told me about her son, Phillip. He had been an only child with his whole life ahead of him when he was killed in a car accident one week before Christmas at the age of twenty. It was the Friday school let out for winter break, so drivers were jittery when Phillip was exiting the freeway on his way to work. A delivery truck on a deadline jumped lanes without looking first, and just obliterated Marni’s only son in the blink of an eye. He was gone.”

  I traced the shape of a heart three times.

  “Marni told me how she lost herself for quite some time. She took drugs to silence the voices in her head and became addicted. She was found wandering the streets dressed in clothing that had been put on inside out and backward, high on pills with no memories of days and weeks that had passed. Her husband had her committed to a private clinic for recovery and rehab, and in time she improved and was able to come home. Marni was lucky in the sense that she had the monetary resources for the help she needed, and someone who loved her enough to make sure she received it.”

  I wrote out the letters Y-O-U-R slowly.

  “After she came home, Marni started volunteering at the shelter in San Diego. She said that it helped her more than anything. Volunteering gave her a reason to get up and live the rest of her life one day at a time without Phillip, because making the world more beautiful was a good reason. I agreed with her. Because by then I’d shared with Marni how the only thing I wanted to find was a peaceful place and that her beautiful garden had been it.” Brooke lifted her golden eyes to mine. “So, I realize that was just a very long answer to your question and I hope I didn’t make you uncomfortable with my rambling. I’ve never shared that story with anyone before.”