One glance at the top of the pile sours my mood faster than Pierce’s non-goodbye. Because I recognize that return address.
Gram’s care facility.
I rip open the topmost envelope, and my stomach sinks through the floor, all the way down into Mrs. Bishop’s second floor apartment.
Fuck.
I thought I’d been keeping up relatively well, paying this off in full when I can and in installments when I’m running late. But the unpaid bill in front of me is three times the rate of last month. I dig through the pile of envelopes, find another letter from them and tear that open.
Shit.
They’re raising my premium because I missed too many payments over the summer. I fume, ready to call and argue, but they’ve included a list of payments below, and when I think back, I realize, shit. They’re right. I thought I only missed a month, but now that I think about it, I haven’t sent a full payment since last June. The diner slows down over the summer months, without the usual crowd of college kids stumbling in late at night to binge on nacho fries and $5 alcoholic milkshakes.
“Hey, you okay?” Erin touches my shoulder. I realize too late that she’s standing behind me, and I quickly shove the letters back into an envelope, shuffling them under the mail stack.
“I’m fine. Just got some notices about Gram’s place.”
Erin catches my eye, and the sympathy on her face right now is even worse than the interrogation she gave me about Pierce. If there’s one thing I hate feeling, it’s pitied. “If you need to talk or anything, you know you can tell me, right?” she says, and that just makes me feel even worse.
Because I don’t need to talk. I don’t need to complain about this situation, or vent my feelings. I need to fix it, once and for all.
I need Pierce’s money.
And I’m going to get it. No matter what it takes.
I force a wide smile, and even though it’s fake as hell, I can tell Erin won’t push me on it. “Everything will work out,” I tell her. “I’m a little tight at the moment, but I’m just waiting for back checks from the diner to come in. No biggie.”
She opens her mouth, probably to ask what the hell I mean, because the diner has never held my checks for me before. Luckily, a loud buzzer saves me from answering.
“I’ll get it,” I call, leaping out of my seat toward the intercom. Probably a delivery for Mrs. Bishop again. The delivery guys can never seem to be able to tell 2s from 3s. “Hello?” I ask the intercom.
“Delivery for Bonnie.”
Erin and I exchanged raised-eyebrow looks as I hit the buzzer.
“Did you order anything off Amazon?” she asks. I shake my head. I haven’t been drunk enough to spontaneously buy anything since the start of the semester, when I accidentally ordered 10 spiral bound notebooks instead of one.
When I open the door to the delivery guy, he hands me an enormous box. I frown at the label, but sign for it anyway, and bring it inside. “No return address,” I say, slowly, as a sense of dread begins to fill me.
Shit. Is this . . . But it can’t be from Pierce. He doesn’t know my address.
He dropped you off out front last night, points out the voice at the back of my head. How hard would it have been to check the address on the front door? To look at the labels on the buzzer and figure out which apartment B. Taylor belonged in?
But he wouldn’t do that. Would he?
“Open it already!” Erin demands, and I guess there’s nothing for it. Incriminating or not, I can’t exactly pretend this package didn’t just arrive.
I grab scissors from the kitchen and cut into the box carefully. Sure enough, the moment the tissue paper inside parts, I know who to blame for this.
Luckily the box on top is just the dress. Shorter than the last one he sent me, cut above knee-length, a deep V-neck top with a flowing, satiny skirt.
Pure white.
“Wow, did you get mixed up with a bride?” Erin smirks and dives at the box. Before I can stop her, she pulls out the next gift—high heels, at least four inches tall this time, and narrower than the last pair of heels. Also pure white, so blinding it almost hurts my eyes.
He did not.
That fucking bastard.
She keeps digging, unearthing a box set of jewelry next. When she opens that to find a pair of diamond-encrusted wristlets (which are shaped suspiciously like a pair of handcuffs, if you look at them for too long) and a narrow choker-style necklace to match, Erin nearly drops the whole box in surprise.
“Dude.” She whistles under her breath, eyes still bugging out of her head. Then she spots a little note attached to the bracelet case. “‘For my blushing Bonnie.’ Who did you say this spy of yours was again? And more importantly, does he have any friends he’d like to introduce me to?” She grins.
I snatch the jewelry boxes from her hands, blushing furiously. “He’s being ridiculous. I never asked for any of this.”
“Is he trying to propose or something? What the hell is with all the white?” She’s reaching into the box again, pulling out the last package, which of course is a matching set of barely-there lace panties and a filigree bra.
I grab that from her before she can inspect it too closely. “No, he’s just teasing me.” Because he is. White for my purity. White for virginal, innocent Bonnie.
If this is his idea of making a big deal of me losing it, I wish I had just fucked him in the car last night and been done with it. Shit.
On the other hand . . . I eyeball the bracelets, which Erin is busy trying on experimentally. I could probably resell those for at least a few hundred apiece. Which will pay back a decent chunk of that bill I just received.
Maybe grabbing the attention of a rich spend-crazy billionaire isn’t such a bad thing after all, even if he has an irritating way of pushing my buttons as he tries to spoil me.
At the bottom of the box, thankfully undiscovered by Erin, I find another note.
Pick you up at 7 tonight. He signed it simply—P.P., but even that much of a clue would be a giveaway to my sleuth of a brilliant best friend. How many billionaires could be living in the city with those initials? I haven’t googled him yet, mostly because I don’t want to know more than he’s told me, not until this thing is over and done with. But Erin would not have the same restraint, I know. Especially not if she thought he was mistreating me in any way.
I shove the note into my pocket. “Well. Looks like I need to call out of the diner again,” I say, and Erin grins sideways at me.
“That job takes advantage of you anyway. Let me call; I’ll tell them you’re in the hospital. Dad can forge you a doctor’s note if you need it.”
Sometimes, for all her nosiness and encouragement of misbehavior, I really do love my best friend.
7
At 7PM on the dot, I’m standing out front of my apartment in the ridiculous dress. I feel like a runaway bride on her way to city hall, in the white dress and sparkling diamonds and towering heels. But I also, I have to admit, feel more than a little sexy. The lingerie does something to me, boosts my confidence and makes me stand straighter, curve my hips more sharply as I stand in place.
Just knowing how good I look underneath this dress makes me all the more confident that I look amazing with it on, somehow. And this time, I’m not going to let him get the drop on me. I’m going to keep my eyes on the prize. This is business, even if it is mixed with a huge dose of pleasure. I’m getting that money from him, one way or another.
Preferably in a way that also involves him fucking me senseless with that thick cock of his . . .
Still, for all this confidence, my jaw can’t help dropping when the freaking limo turns down my street. I shoot a glance over my shoulder at Erin, who’s curled up on our third floor fire escape in PJs, cradling a bowl of popcorn like she’s watching the ending to Pretty Woman. I roll my eyes, wondering if she can see it from that high up, but she just waves excitedly at the limo, then shoots me two thumbs up, nearly dropping her popcorn in the proc
ess.
The limo pulls to a halt, and a driver in a suit steps around to open the back door for me. I climb into it carefully, and realize as I step in that this is the same limo he sent to pick me up from the waxing salon.
Maybe he does plan to fuck me in here after all.
Pierce is already inside, reclining on the far seat, near the bar. He has a glass of what looks like whiskey or bourbon clutched loosely in one hand, but he doesn’t even seem to be aware he’s holding it. His eyes lock onto me hungrily the second I climb inside, and I can’t help doing the same to him. He looks fucking amazing in his dark gray three-piece suit, the darker gray tie the perfect subtle color accent to the rest of the outfit. His cufflinks, which flash in the limo’s lighting as he lifts the glass of whiskey to his mouth, match my bracelets. They flash with diamonds, and as I bend down and move closer to him in the limo, I realize they’re tiny diamond keys.
Keys to fit my handcuff bracelets. Cute.
“I’m glad you like them,” he says, offering me a wrist so I can inspect it closer. I blush and slide into a seat along the wall next to him, far enough away that we aren’t touching, because I don’t trust myself this close to him.
“You’re observant,” I murmur, glancing from the cufflinks to his expression.
He laughs softly. “You say that like it’s a bad thing.”
“It is a little unnerving how much you notice.”
His smile widens. “I think it’s a good thing that I pay such close attention. A blessing, really. After all, it’s thanks to my keen attention to detail that I found your ad online.”
I glance behind him at the driver, but the limo divider is raised. It’s glass, but it looks solid, and it’s tinted dark. I don’t think he can hear us from up there. I lean closer to Pierce, tilting my head. “Why were you on that site, anyway?” I ask.
“Why were you?” he counters.
But I shake my head. “My situation is different. You’re wealthy, smart, successful, hot as hell.” I flush a little as his smile widens, realizing what I just admitted. But hell, he already knows that. He must. He owns mirrors, I’m sure.
His amused smile fades, and he rolls his shoulders, almost a shrug. “The girls on that site want money. I have money. It seems like a match to me.”
“That’s not much of an answer,” I counter. “I mean, why go on there, instead of dating people in real life? You could have any woman you wanted. A few, even. Why pay for sex?”
His mouth clamps into a thin line, and his eyes flash. For the first time since I’ve met him, he looks genuinely irritated. Not just frustrated at something I’ve done, but annoyed. Almost . . . hurt.
He turns away from me to look out the window, and takes another long sip of his whiskey. “You didn’t answer me either,” he replies after a moment. “We were both on that site, Bonnie. Our reasons are our own. The here and now is what matters.”
“I . . .” I shake my head. I don’t want to talk about my grandmother with him, or why I need money so desperately. I guess he has a similar reason, though I can’t possibly imagine what it could be, wealthy and drop-dead gorgeous as he is. I sigh. “I’m sorry, Pierce. You’re right. And thanks for the dress,” I add after a moment’s pause, smoothing it with my fingertips. “And the jewelry, even though that seems over-the-top for a second date.”
He laughs. “You think that’s over the top? Just wait until we get to the actual date.”
I lean across the seats to nudge his foot with mine. “No fair. What are you trying to do, make me like you or something?” I groan in fake complaint, but when our eyes catch again, there’s a genuine emotion in his that makes my heart seize.
Does he? Does he actually care what I think, and want to impress me?
Or is this all an act? Part of his power-play fantasy, in which I am a paid actor, here in the role of the innocent damsel he’s deflowering.
It’s the latter, I decide. It has to be.
Otherwise, shit is about to get way too complicated.
“Here we are,” he announces, breaking up the moment of solemn eye contact. I glance to the window beside us, and I can’t help it. I sit up in my seat and actually squee in delight.
Because there’s a helicopter parked right beside us.
“Oh my god are we going on it?” I beam at him.
Pierce laughs, hard. “I thought this would make you more nervous than excited.”
“Are you kidding?” I cry. “I love flying! My Gram was a pilot, she used to take me up in her chopper every summer over the Rockies—I . . .” Shit. I stop dead, realizing my current situation. I shouldn’t reveal so much about myself. And if I don’t want him to know why I’m so desperate for cash, then I need to stop talking about Gram, now, before I talk myself into an awkward reveal.
“A pilot, huh? That’s unusual for a woman in her generation, I’d imagine,” Pierce comments as he slides out of the limo and holds the door open for me.
I step out beside him, my hair whipping across my cheeks in the heavy wind from the chopper blades, as someone starts its engine. “I guess so,” I shout back over the sound of the chopper blades, flushed. “She’s young for being a grandmother, though,” I add, to try and cover. She’s not. She was one of the first female pilots hired to work a major airline ever, and only because she had experience flying as a vet before that. But again. Identifying information. Don’t give too much away.
I run my hand through my flyaway curls and change the subject. “Where are we going?” I shout over the rising sound of the motor.
He rests his hand on the small of my back and guides me toward the chopper. As we reach it, his hand dips lower to squeeze my ass tightly. “That, my dear, is a secret.” Then he catches my eye and grins. “Unless, of course, you know how to fly this thing, in which case I’m happy to give our pilot the night off.” He lets go of my ass, only to slap it.
My cheeks flush an even brighter red, but I grin back at him. “I’d say yes, but, it’s been a few years since I last flew, and if I don’t know where we’re going, and it’s nighttime . . .”
“Good call,” he chuckles softly in my ear as we climb aboard. We settle into seats side-by-side, and when he catches my hand and curls his fingers through mine, I shoot him a happy smile, squeezing his palm gently. It feels natural to sit here like this beside him, our helmets on, but neither of us talking through the loudspeaker. We’re just enjoying the view, especially once we take off and begin to sail across the familiar landscape of San Francisco, and then eastern California.
As the ride continues, he lets go of my hand and brushes my thigh instead. As his fingers inch higher, I return the favor, trailing my fingertips along his inner thigh. His hand reaches my crotch, and he spreads his palm against my mound, thumb grazing my pussy through the thin fabric of this dress.
I shiver and trace the outline of his cock straining against his pants.
All the while, we chat, mostly about the routes I’ve flown before. Both of us pretend we aren’t groping one another in the process, though every now and then one of us will hit a sensitive spot, making the other one gasp faintly. It’s quickly becoming my favorite game; as I relax against him and stroke his cock, his fingers slip beneath my dress to toy with my panties.
He talks about other trips he’s taken, and his favorite spots. He insists that the helicopter tour he once took of Iceland’s Golden Circle, and the volcanoes that lie to the north of it, was the best circuit he ever flew on. I tell him I’m jealous of his travels, and he grins at me, squeezing my pussy slightly at the same time. “Maybe I’ll take you there sometime,” he murmurs, and I swear, just the sound of his voice like that, so close in my ear over the speakers in our helmets, could sustain me all night long.
Over and over throughout the flight, he gets me close to orgasm. But every time, the second he feels my body tense, he draws his hand away. Waits for me to calm down before he starts stroking me all over again. I think I might go crazy. To make matters worse, even after I half
-unbutton his pants and wrap my fist around him fully, I can’t seem to make him get close to finishing. He’s way too in control—of everything. It’s frustrating as hell.
I’m nearing another orgasm when the chopper shifts beneath us. We’re pulling into a landing pattern, I realize.
I disentangle myself from his hand for a second to peer out his side of the chopper, and recognize the skyline immediately, even though I’ve never been here. It’s iconic enough that I think anyone would know it at once.
“Vegas?” I raise an eyebrow at him, smirking. “Did you bring me here to gamble away all your savings, or just to buy a few more girls to share me with?”
He laughs. I love his real laugh, the one he lets out when he thinks I’m not really paying attention, or when no one is watching. It’s hearty, deep, full-body. He shakes his head, still grinning. “Relax, hot stuff. We’re here to see a show.” He catches my eye, the smirk deepening. “That is, unless you’re eager to skip the show and get right to making our own.” His hand is back at my center, his fingers wet with my desire. He slides one inside me, so slowly it makes me squirm.
My heart skips, but I tighten my hand around the base of his cock, hard. “You know me. I’m always eager to go. Anytime, anywhere.” I stroke him gently to emphasize that point. But his palm has gone still against my mound, his finger unmoving inside me.
We stare at one another for a long moment, as the chopper lands. The engines cut out overhead, plunging us into sudden ear-ringing silence.
“And you know me,” he finally replies, so softly I almost don’t hear him. “I want to make this last.”
Then he’s pulling out of me, climbing out of the chopper before I can react. In a second, he’s refastened his pants and descended to the landing pad below, offering me his hand. We’ve landed on a rooftop, I realize as I accept his help and jump down beside him. The cool desert night air whips my curls around my face, and I breathe in deep, savoring how dry and chilly it is. The pad beneath us still sizzles with the leftover heat from the sun, but outside Vegas, in the real desert, night is a cold thing.
Best of Penny Wylder: Virgin Romance Page 24
