“This pane is only 10x20 inches and takes sixty-three pieces of glass. Once each piece is cut and ground to the appropriate size, I have to wrap each one in lead.” She moved down the table to the opposite side, where a vise held long strips of lead. “Once I can assemble the pieces together and they’re fitting nicely, I can begin to solder them together. Then they still need to be cleaned, cemented and polished, all which can take a full weekend to prep. In the end, I’ll probably have at least fifty hours of work in this single piece, and that’s if everything comes together perfectly the first time.”
Fifty hours for such a small piece. At that rate… “You’re going to need a small army to finish my windows by Christmas, then.”
The look on her face was priceless. She opened her mouth, but she had to take a deep breath and swallow before she could reply. “Christmas? That’s only…”
“Six months.”
“If you want it done so quickly, then I’m not the best person for the job. I don’t work like that.”
“You are the best person for the job. I want you to oversee it, but hire as many workers as you need to finish it.”
She stared down at the worktable. Gnawing on her lip, she removed the rubber band and undid her braid, aimlessly combing her fingers through the thick mass of hair while she thought. “It might take weeks to finalize the design. I don’t even know what the theme is going to be, let alone the colors… Even then, I still have to pick out the glass for each individual pane. It’s a massive undertaking and if I rush it, neither of us will be pleased with it.”
He thought he had her hooked by the idea, and she wasn’t afraid of the scope of the project. It was the deadline overwhelming her. If he pushed too hard, he’d lose her. She wouldn’t risk failing on something—especially to a potential submissive. She had to be in control and confident every step of the way or she wouldn’t accept the job. “I don’t want it rushed, but once I set my mind on something, I want it done yesterday. If we don’t hit Christmas exactly, it won’t be the end of the world. I don’t have an event planned to announce the unveiling. Why don’t you write up a project plan for me? Then I’ll know how quickly you need answers on the theme, design and color, and then we can begin hiring enough workers to finish the windows as quickly as possible.”
He glanced around the garage once again, impressed with what she’d been able to do alone, but also realistic. “You’re going to need a lot more space.”
“Assuming I agree to take on the job.”
“You will.” He gave her a very rare thing indeed—a genuine smile. “You can’t resist a challenge.”
“Are you so sure?”
“For my sake, I hope so.”
She sighed ruefully. “That’s one hell of a good private investigator you hired, Mr. Morgan. How’d you figure out all of this about me from a few sneaky photographs?”
It was his turn to look away and run his hand through his hair. He wanted to take off his tie and loosen the neck of his shirt, but that might be too informal too quickly for her. “I have an instinct for people. That’s why I’ve been able to take a modest family business and turn it into an international billion-dollar company. The numbers are just columns on paper. In the end, it’s the people who make or break a deal.”
He spared a glance at her, not surprised to see her studying him as avidly as he’d done earlier. “You’re a surprising man, Donovan.”
To hell with it. He loosened his tie to relieve some of the pressure on his throat, hoping she wouldn’t sense what really troubled him. He didn’t want to think about it himself.
If I’m going to have something tight on my neck, I want it to be hers. Because she has me collared and bound.
“Very well,” she said. “How soon do you want to meet and go over contracts?”
He locked his knees to keep from sagging with relief. Contracts. Plural. So she’s at least willing to consider taking me on as a submissive in addition to the windows. He waited until he could reply without his voice breaking or cracking like a fool. “Tomorrow morning, nine.”
Her eyebrows rose. “So quickly?”
“I never approach a deal unless I’ve already run my numbers and decided what I want and what I’m willing to give.”
“Eleven. I’m not a morning person.”
No way in hell was he waiting until lunch to settle this. “Ten,” he countered. “And I took the liberty of writing up both contracts to make this deal as expedient as possible. They’re in my car.”
“Contracts?” A sliver of displeasure sharpened her voice. “You’re forgetting my contract. When it comes to Mistress L, my contract is the only one that counts.”
He had to laugh. He could read legal contracts in his sleep, though his corporate attorney always went over everything with a fine-toothed comb before letting him sign on the dotted line of a major deal. A homemade sexual contract would be nothing to worry about. “I doubt there’s much in your contract that will surprise me.”
She pressed the button to raise one of the garage doors. “I suspect you might be surprised in that regard, Mr. Morgan.”
His eyes narrowed. “Back to formality yet again, Miss Harrison?”
She followed him to his car, waiting patiently while he unlocked the door and retrieved his briefcase. “When you slip into Mr. Douchebag territory, I’m afraid so. If we agree on terms—and that’s a huge if—then I’m afraid I’ll have to resort to corporal punishment to break this insufferable arrogance.”
The thought of punishment made his hands tremble so badly it took him a second try to dial in the combination to the lock he’d done at least a million times. He managed to hand her the stack of papers without dropping them all over her driveway or accidentally touching her. “Insufferable arrogance? That’s rather harsh.”
“You assume you know everything about me just because you were able to discern that I like a challenge before we formally met.” She started scanning the top page. In his opinion, it contained the make-or-break stipulation of the most important contract of all. “That doesn’t mean you know anything else about me. In fact, I’d wager here and now you’ve made several critical errors in judgment when it comes to me.”
“Indeed?” He leaned back against the side of his Jag and crossed his arms. “I doubt that.”
Slowly, she raised her gaze from the paper and locked her eyes on him with such intensity he immediately stiffened. “You want me to break the contracts with my other submissives. That’s a pretty drastic error on your part.”
Stay calm and cool. Don’t let her know how much this means to you. “I’m sure you have escape clauses in their contracts. If not, I’ll simply buy them out.”
“It’s not that simple, Mr. Morgan. I care about these men. I’m not going to drop them like last week’s news just for you.”
She cares about them? He clenched his jaws, fighting to keep from retorting. The Mistress cares for the men paying her to take them in hand. Nice. “I’m not going to share your time. I’m not that kind of man.”
“Maybe it’s about time you learned how to share. You’re not a three-year-old toddler, Mr. Morgan, and I don’t have time—”
With a low growl, he pushed away from the car. “I won’t share you and that’s final.”
Donovan Morgan in his rich asshole role was an extremely handsome man. Something she’d admire in its case, like a gorgeous million-dollar diamond necklace, but never take home. It was just too fancy for her. It wouldn’t fit into her lifestyle. It wasn’t her taste. Even if some women would kill to have it.
Donovan Morgan in his stalking predator I’m-going-to-eat-you role was a shock-and-awe strike to her libido. It was all she could do not to seize him by the cock and jerk him around to bend over the hood of his car.
He thought he was being all alpha I’ll-get-my-way-or-else, but all it did was turn her on.
However, the wording in his contract would keep her from acting on her desire.
Keeping her voice pleasantly
even, she held her ground, although she did cross her arms to keep her hands from roaming unexpectedly. “You’ll share me or I won’t accept your contract.”
As he’d done in his office, he marched right into her personal space, bumping up against her, his eyes glittering, his body heat rising off him in a wave of lust and anger she could feel through her own clothes. Oh, such a wild, handsome beast. It’d be such a challenge to tame him. So much delicious fun. She met his challenge, pushing back so that her arms braced against his chest. Another reason she’d crossed her arms. She didn’t think she’d be able to stand the temptation of having her breasts pressed against him.
“You honestly think I’m going to let you fuck other men while you’re fucking me?”
She took a staggering step back, her arms falling with shock. Pain banded her chest, squeezing her heart until she couldn’t breathe. She was used to people not understanding what she did. Like Marie. She’d never understand, even if she came to one of Lilly’s sessions to watch. But she hadn’t had someone so completely and wrongly jump to such an ugly conclusion, especially when he himself wanted to be a part of her private circle. He’d hunted her down and set her up with this whole commission, just so he could pay to have sex with her?
Gathering her composure, she took a deep, shaking breath. Another. She’d already made the mistake of letting him into her home. She’d made another mistake by reacting to his hurtful words and backing down from his threat. No more mistakes, Lil. You have to nip this in the bud here and now.
Deliberately, she kept her voice soft and broken, letting the hurt vibrate through each word. “That’s what you think I do? You think I’m a prostitute?”
Surprise flickered across his face and he hesitated. He looked at her, really looked at her.
She kept her body language small, shoulders slumped, arms hugging herself for protection and wrinkling his contracts into a hopeless mess, eyes big and hopefully shimmering with emotion, her lips wobbling. Feminine distress at its finest, and it worked. It knocked him off balance and he abandoned his aggressive attack.
“I didn’t say that,” he began. She sniffed loudly and his eyes widened with alarm. “I’m sorry, Miss Harrison, truly. I thought—”
“You thought I’m a prostitute. That’s the only kind of woman who’d be fucking ten men.” She repeated his own words and he flinched at the language. “Two of them are married. That’s the kind of woman you think I am. That’s the kind of woman you want to hire to be your Mistress. Or should I say mistress with a lowercase M? Because that’s all you’re really looking for. A fuck buddy. Casual sex. Pay me a couple of thousand dollars and then throw me in the trash on your way to your next business meeting.”
“No, not at all. I didn’t—”
“Oh, I know, Mr. Morgan would pay me considerably more, right? Nothing but the best for you. You’d pay me…how much was it? A hundred thousand dollars a month. That’s a lot of fucking, Mr. Morgan.”
“Well yes, but…”
She let out a shaking sob and he realized what he’d said. Horror washed the color from his face and he started to babble. “That’s not what I meant at all, Miss Harrison. Not at all. I’m sorry, please, forgive me.” He jerked at his tie until it hung askew and ran his other hand through his hair until he looked like he’d been mugged on a subway. “It seems I’ve made a terrible mistake.”
“Yes, yes you have.” She laughed softly. “Like I said, a critical error in judgment, Mr. Morgan.”
It took him a moment to realize it was laughter and not tears after all. His cheeks flushed scarlet and he stared at her, his jaw working like he was chewing on gravel. But he said nothing. Probably because he’s so furious he’s afraid he’d say something even more unforgivable than accusing me of being a prostitute.
“Good boy, Donovan.” She turned without glancing back to see how he reacted. “I’ll bring my contract in tomorrow morning and you can see how Mistress L handles her business. Good night.”
In the safety of her house away from his prying eyes, she let down the Mistress L facade. The way he’d jumped to such conclusions hurt. It said a lot about his needs, though. Some men could separate BDSM from the sex. It wasn’t intercourse they were after at all, but rather the release of control. They needed someone else—preferably a beautiful woman—to take them in hand. To take away their choice and all the pressures of their daily life. And for one hour a week, Mistress L gave them exactly what they wanted. She told them to strip, and they did. She told them to crawl, and they dropped to their knees. She told them to kiss her, and they pressed their mouths to her prettily painted toes. Not her lips.
It was the submission and yes, humiliation, they craved.
Some men wanted to be punished by a woman. They needed the release of pain, of being bound and forced to submit just for a while. Mistress L could give that to them too. And yeah, sometimes the men came in the midst of the pain because it was a release. If not, she was sure they jacked off in the privacy of the hotel room she’d left them in, but she was very clear about what she would and wouldn’t do.
Mistress L didn’t touch her submissives sexually. Ever.
So it said a lot about her own needs when it came to Donovan Morgan if the first thing she wanted to do was grab his cock and bend him over that sleek black Jaguar to see if she could make him roar like the powerful engine under the hood.
With a sigh, she texted Marie the all clear, even though her thoughts about the man were far from it. She wanted to accept his challenge. He was an incredibly complex man, and she suspected he was on the edge. He had to be pretty desperate to hire a private investigator to find him a Mistress. There had to be dozens of Mistresses in the Twin Cities area alone and they would have been at the clubs, easier to contact. Easier to negotiate exactly what he wanted. Yet he’d come after her with the single-minded purpose that had made him a billionaire.
Why me?
She knew. The same reason she wanted to accept even though it went against her carefully constructed rules.
He’d looked at those pictures and seen a Mistress he also wanted sexually. He saw the woman and the Mistress and he wanted them both.
She looked at him in all his arrogant pride and explosive temper, and saw a man she’d love to muss up. She wanted to knock him off balance and watch him stammer. She wanted to make him so furious he’d explode with lust. And then she wanted to bring him to his knees with the force of his need.
Only for me.
With a sigh, she flipped open her laptop and began going through her contacts, clients and colleagues on both sides of her professions. Donovan Morgan was right in one regard. If she was going to accept his BDSM contract, it was a one woman/one man job. On the other contract, though, she’d need every stained glass artist on call that she knew.
I’ll need all my focus on him if I’m going to survive both of his contracts.
Chapter Four
Just before ten the next morning, Donovan paced frantically back and forth in front of the windows of his office. He’d been up since five and hadn’t slept well the few hours he’d tried to rest. He’d jogged on the treadmill until he wanted to drop. He’d jacked off twice last night and again this morning, trying to take the edge off. To gain a little control. A little separation from the desperate aching need like a bowling ball in the pit of his stomach. But all it took was one thought of Lilly Harrison and he went rock hard again.
Damn it.
He reached down and adjusted himself. This is ridiculous. He glared at his eager dick pushing against the seam of his trousers. You’re not a randy teenager getting a woody every time a pretty girl walks by. You can control this.
The intercom buzzed and he sucked in a deep breath, his cock surging so hard he was afraid the material wouldn’t hold. He threw himself down into his chair and pressed the answer button. “Yes?”
His voice vibrated with what he hoped his secretary thought was fury.
“Mr. Morgan?” Miss Wruthers squeaked, i
f possible even higher and more irritating than normal. The way every one of her sentences seemed to end in a question put his teeth on edge, but he didn’t respond. Shouting at the poor woman to stop being so hesitant surely wouldn’t help. “Miss Harrison is here?”
“Thank you.” He forced himself to speak slowly and calmly. “Send her in.”
This time, he wouldn’t rise and greet her politely. I can’t. Or she’ll see the massive hard-on threatening to tear my pants. She’ll just have to assume I’m being my normal arrogant self.
When Lilly walked into his office, he frantically thanked every deity known to man that he’d remained seated. Because he would have thoroughly humiliated himself. As it was, he nearly came in his pants.
She wore a high-collared, low-cut red blouse the same color as her painted toes, a tight, black pencil skirt hugging every inch of her glorious hips, and those shoes. The ones from the pictures. So high he didn’t know how a woman could possibly walk in them. But she did, each step swaying her hips in a hypnotic dance that made his mouth go dry with lust. When she sat down and crossed her legs, the short black skirt rode up enough to show him the top of her stockings.
He gulped, sweat breaking out on his forehead. Real thigh-high stockings and a garter belt. A thin strip of bare thigh tantalized him above the silk. It made him think about sliding his hand up that skirt, seeking what else she might have on beneath the material. Or better yet, nothing at all.
“Good morning, Mr. Morgan.” She leaned down to set her portfolio beside her on the floor, giving him a good, long look down her shirt. No bra met his gaze, just plump breasts lifted by what looked like a black corset. “Did you sleep well last night?”
Dear God. A corset. Stockings. If she pulls a crop out of her bag I’m going to pass out when my dick explodes.
He jammed a finger at the intercom and barked, “Coffee,” at his secretary.
“Evidently not.” Lilly laughed softly, a deep velvety purr making him quiver in his chair. “Too bad. You’re going to need all your wits about you for this contract negotiation.”
The Billionaire Submissive (Billionaires in Bondage) Page 4
