The Billionaire's Bodyguard: Complete Collection

by Jade, Catalina

  Alastair’s fingers finally withdrew. Mike heard the sound of a belt being loosed, button popped and fly unzipped, and then the rustle of fabric. He instinctively braced and then reminded himself to relax. Then there was the hot, hard, slick pressure of Alastair’s cockhead against his entrance.

  He shuddered at the familiar and yet ever-new sensation of Alastair’s hard cock penetrating him, slowly, inch by inch—as though there was no time limit on them, as though they had all the time in the world. Each each dragged along his nerves, chasing sparks up his spine. He shuddered when Alastair rubbed over his prostate, sending a flash of pleasure that tensed him up—and made Alastair groan.

  Alastair leaned over him and whispered in his ear. “Good,” he said, his voice catching like raw silk. “Hold on,” he said. Mike shivered, his fingers clenching on the edge of the desk, the muscles in his thighs tightening as he tried to spread his legs—tried and failed, his pants holding him in place.

  Alastair leaned back and began to fuck him—to really fuck him, in earnest, hard and fast, thundering against him. Each deep thrust flashed whitefire in Mike’s vision; each withdrawal left him gasping for more. He shuddered as lightning crawled down his spine. It built with each stroke, so deep that Alastair’s hips slapped against his ass, the sound obscenely loud in the silent office.

  The building electricity centered at the base of Mike’s spine, his balls drawing up as orgasm approached. It felt as though each touch, each flesh-on-flesh thump, each deep dragging thrust filled and opened him more, spooling up and up and up as his nipples tightened, his scalp tingled, his very teeth ached with the desire for—

  “Do you want to come, Michael?” Alastair asked, close and smooth in his ear.

  “Yes,” Mike gasped, his voice raw.

  “Say it,” Alastair said, punctuating his words with a hard thrust.

  “I want to come,” Mike said—too aroused for dignity, too aroused for anything but pure wanting. “Please, sir, please let me come.”

  “Well done, Michael,” Alastair said, and his hand snaked around, between Mike and the hard desk, rubbing his cock. One—two—three hard strokes and Mike was spilling, gasping, lost. The pleasure crested and spiraled upward in his body and in his brain, rendering him breathless and mindless as he rode the wave, wearing his voice out with his guttural moans.

  He shuddered and trembled as Alastair continued to fuck him, through his orgasm and beyond. “Mine, Michael,” Alastair said, his voice—finally—strained. “All mine. You know what I demand of you.”

  “Yes,” Mike said, his voice raspy. “Everything.”

  “Everything,” Alastair agreed, and then Mike felt the deep pulses as he came, deep inside Mike, spilling and spilling in long, hot jets.

  They lay there a moment, Alastair resting on Mike and Mike pinned to the desk, breathing hard. Then, finally, Alastair straightened and stood up.

  After a moment, Mike did too, feeling wobbly on his feet. He regarded the mess of sweat and come he’d left on Alastair’s desk. It hadn’t touched any of Alastair’s paperwork.

  Alastair had probably planned that.

  Mike cleaned himself up, then pulled up and re-fastened his pants, with one eye on the clock. It would just figure if Flavian Draco arrived while he had his pants down…. But no, he had time.

  He even had time to clean the slick of sweat and come off the desk with a handful of tissues, and to smooth out his rumpled hair. He still smelled of sweat, sex, and come, and so did the whole room. Just swiping the spilled seed off the desk didn’t do anything for the scent. But when he reached for the air freshener, Alastair shook his head.

  “Let them wonder,” he said, his smile sharp and serpentine. “Let them suspect.”

  Mike nodded.

  ***

  Mike was pretty sure they did know, or at least he noticed the way Flavian’s nostrils flared as he came in the room, and the way his eyes narrowed and his pupils expanded. But that was no matter: what Flavian thought, and what he did about it, was Alastair’s to worry about. Mike’s job was to stand behind Alastair, look imposing, and watch for threats.

  The negotiation went about as well as Mike could have expected. In the end, neither Alastair nor Flavian was happy—neither would be happy except by the utter destruction of the other, and that wasn’t possible, at least not now. So they reached a compromise that suited neither of them but also hurt neither of them.

  Afterward, Alastair got to his feet, with a smooth smile that mostly hid his dissatisfaction with having to compromise at all. “In honor of our new agreement,” he said, “a toast. Let me get champagne from my private stores.”

  Mike made to follow him, but Alastair stopped him with a hand on his shoulder. “I don’t think my secretary is going to murder me,” he said, with a faux-self-deprecating lilt that made Flavian laugh.

  So Mike waited, while Alastair left.

  And as soon as the door had shut, Flavian leaned forward and said, “Michael.”

  “Yes?” Mike said—careful not to utter the customary ‘sir.’

  “I have gotten the impression that you are, perhaps…” Flavian opened his hand. “Not appreciated here as you might be.”

  He waited, as if for a response.

  Mike wasn’t foolish enough to speak. He said nothing, kept his gaze level.

  “If you were so inclined,” Flavian said, his voice the dull roar of a low fire, “there would be a place for you with me. A position of great respect, at the head of security. And there would be… perks.”

  It might have been tempting, two months before. And briefly, Mike fought with himself. Was he so wholly Alastair’s creature that he would say an automatic ‘no’ to another offer? Shouldn’t he at least try to bargain?

  But he remembered Alastair’s silk skin, his cold eyes, his ice-fair hair, the silky confidence of his words.

  No. Mike was committed. He didn’t like to admit that he had a master… but he did, and he wouldn’t change his master for any other.

  “No,” he said, quiet and sure as the sound of a stone dropping into a deep well. “Thank you. No.”

  Flavian’s eyebrows rose, but before he could say as much as a word, the door swung open and Alastair returned.

  Mike didn’t miss the way Alastair’s eyes glittered over the scene—even though there was, in truth, nothing inappropriate about his position, or Flavian’s. But Mike knew he was tense, tense as a statue, and Flavian’s coaxing smile had not left his face.

  For a moment, Mike thought he could feel the oppressive tension, the ozone-sharpness of the air before a storm. And even though the tension passed in a moment—less than a moment—to be followed by Alastair’s smooth charm and the popping of champagne corks… still, Mike knew that the true storm was only just coming.

  ***

  And sure enough, once the champagne was drunk and Flavian was gone, Alastair called Mike back into his office.

  The huge mahogany desk between them should have made Alastair look smaller. Instead he looked larger—not just larger but more intimidating. In the low light his eyes glittered.

  “Why don’t you tell me, Michael,” he said, his voice silky-smooth, “what happened when you were alone in the room with Flavian.”

  “I wasn’t alone, sir,” Mike said. “His staff was with him as well.”

  Alastair waved his hand as though this fact was of less than no importance.

  “He offered me a position. Head of security. I turned him down,” Mike said, heart thundering. He hadn’t done anything wrong, so why did this frighten him so much?

  “He propositioned you.”

  “No,” Mike said. And then, remembering Flavian’s intense look, the way he’d sized Mike up, the mention of ‘perks,’ he said, “…Yes. Not directly. But I suppose he did.”

  “And you turned him down.”

  “Of course, sir,” Mike said, indignation threading its way through his anxiety. “He didn’t even get a chance to finish making his pitch.”

&
nbsp; Alastair was silent and motionless for so long that Mike had to tense his muscles to keep from fidgeting. Finally, quietly, he asked, “And Michael, were you tempted by his… pitch?”

  Mike opened his mouth to deny it, and hesitated—he had been, hadn’t he? For a moment? Would Alastair know if he lied?

  It turned out not to matter: his hesitation was answer enough, apparently. “You were tempted.” Alastair’s voice, always so smooth, was now smooth like the edge of a piece of broken glass: smooth, and so sharp it could cut you bloody.

  “I said ‘no,’” Mike said, frustration rising through his voice. “I said ‘no’ immediately, sir. I don’t know what—”

  “—what I expect? I told you when we began this. Do you remember, Michael?”

  The rising heat in Mike’s belly was part rage, part fear, and part—he hated himself for this, even as he had to acknowledge it—part desire. “I remember, sir,” he said, keeping his voice level. He couldn’t manage the glass-smooth polished tones that Alastair could, the icy calm that creaked over the endless black crevasse of his fury. But he could keep his tone as hard and solid as stone.

  “I don’t think you do.” Alastair leaned back in his chair, eyes narrowing, not so much blue as simply bright and cold, like diamond chips.

  “I do, sir.”

  A faint flicker of a smile at the edge of Alastair’s mouth. “You contradict me.”

  “You may be a master of many things, sir,” Mike said. “But you still don’t know my thoughts and memories better than I do.”

  Alastair tilted his head to one side. His hair shifted, falling over the side of his face, making him look briefly young—like the young man he truly was, and not like the polished snake that was his persona. “No,” he said, quietly, which surprised Mike. “No, I suppose not. And that is why you continue to fascinated me when so many bore me.” He sat up, his hair falling back, suddenly no longer young but ageless, powerful, a creature of glass and steel and snow. “All right, Michael. Tell me what I expect of you. Tell me what I said.”

  Mike drew a little breath, rage and fear both easing, but still wired with adrenaline and all edge. But he didn’t have any fear that he’d misremember. Alastair’s words from the year before (god, was it that recent?) had burned themselves on his psyche. “You said that you required my complete and personal loyalty, in body and mind.” He hesitated, then continued, from memory, “You said, ‘I expect your complete obedience and your full attention. I expect to be your first thought and your first priority at all times. I don’t want a disinterested team to pretend to have my safety in mind. I want one person, watching my every breath.’”

  Alastair looked at him for so long that Mike felt a spike of fear that he’d misremembered some part of it. But then he smiled. “Very good, Michael. You do remember. So: do you understand where your betrayal was?”

  Mike set his jaw, swallowing down the fire of resentment and ire. “No, sir. I am loyal. I have always been loyal. The fact that Flavian wanted me does not mean that I was disloyal. It means that he was… was greedy.”

  “You were tempted,” Alastair said, as quiet as a dagger in the dark. “I can see it in your eyes. And you have not denied it.”

  “If I was,” Mike said, unable to control himself: “if I was, if I was tempted for a second—for a fraction of a second—what of it? I said no, I gave nothing away, I was loyal.”

  “If you were tempted,” Alastair said, “then there was a moment where I was not your first thought.”

  Mike stilled.

  “There was a moment where you considered your own good before my own,” Alastair finished. His tone was no longer quiet; it was loud as the breaking of an ice shelf. His gaze was steel-cold and steel-hard, unforgiving.

  Mike’s first thought, unbidden and so powerful he almost said it was, You absolute, controlling bastard! The hairs on his neck went up at the sheer—the sheer unfairness of the accusation. You think you own me! You think—

  But that was no shock. Of course Alastair thought he owned Mike. Every movement, every touch, every glance spoke of that. Mike had known that from the beginning.

  He just hadn’t known what it meant, until now.

  “Don’t you have anything to say for yourself, Michael?” Alastair said, the soft tone back, the poison still in it.

  “Nothing that would absolve me to you,” was all that Michael could manage.

  Alastair’s eyes narrowed. “Then we’re done here,” he said, getting abruptly to his feet. “Go home. I’ll let you know when I want to see you again.” If I want to see you again hung, unspoken but very real, in the air between them.

  Mike held absolutely still until Alastair had left the room. It wasn’t until he was alone that he realized that his stillness was the same as that of someone trying to avoid drawing the attention of a cobra.

  ***

  A day stretched to two, two to three, and Alastair didn’t call on Mike.

  Mike wondered who was filling his place. Was anyone? Alastair did have another bodyguard—the mysterious, severe efficient Talitha, who Mike knew almost not at all because their shifts never overlapped—but surely she couldn’t actually guard him twenty-four hours a day.

  His worry swung like a pendulum between two points.

  He worried that he was out of a job—and, just as much, if that meant he should fear for his life. He’d seen many private things, and even more than that, Alastair hated more than anything to lose the things that belonged to him. Would he go so far as to put a bullet in Mike’s brain to keep him silent, to keep him under control?

  And yet, almost despite himself, he worried for Alastair. Was he safe, with only one bodyguard? How badly was he handling this?

  Mike missed him, even though he was an arrogant, pushy, controlling bastard. Maybe because of those things, even. He missed the mysterious glint of his eyes, the pretty-boy looks that hid a mind as cold and calculating as blued steel, the sudden surprise of his laughter. And, yes, despite himself he missed the stealthy blowjobs, the rushed sex just before a meeting… the slow, leisurely way Alastair fucked him on his brocade-covered bed.

  He’d been owned. And he’d liked it.

  He wasn’t surprised on the fourth day when his intercomm chimed and it was Talitha. She said, without any preamble, “Buzz me in, I need to talk to you.”

  Was this, finally, Alastair terminating him—literally or figuratively? Mike considered ignoring the request, but if Alastair wanted him dead, it wasn’t like refusing to buzz Talitha in would stop that. Might as well face the music, he thought, and let her in.

  Talitha was a beautiful woman, and the fact that she still left Mike completely cold was a testament to exactly how much Alastair now owned him. She was not tall, but was lean and muscular, with hair a few shades brighter gold than her employer’s and dark eyes that always seemed unmistakably knowing. Mike had always wondered whether she was sleeping with Alastair too, but couldn’t quite bring himself to ask.

  “I’m not here to kill you,” she said as she strode in. Her mouth twitched in a smile. “I’m not even here to fire you. In fact, Alastair didn’t send me at all.”

  “Then why are you here?”

  She didn’t bother to take a seat. “He misses you. —No, he didn’t tell me that; I just know him well enough to tell.”

  “He told me to stay out of his sight until he sends for me again.”

  Talitha looked at him thoughtfully, and then said, “I would recommend breaking that order.”

  Mike smiled mirthlessly. “When he’s already angry at me, I doubt he’ll be happy with my ignoring his commands.”

  “He’s angry at you,” Talitha said, “because he doubts your loyalty. And that makes him frightened, because he hates losing anything, and especially the people whose loyalty he commands—and he also hates being frightened, and so that makes him angrier.”

  The people who he thinks he owns, you mean, Mike thought bitterly. Aloud, he said, “I know he values things if other people
want them.”

  Talitha nodded. “Which is a dangerous game. He values you for many reasons, but one of them is that men like Flavian would covet you as well. And yet that very fact opens him to the possibility that he will lose you to Flavian, or someone like him.”

  “I fail to see what I can possibly do about that.”

  “You need to prove yourself to him. Prove that although you are wanted by others, you are still his.”

  Mike grimaced. “Prove myself how, exactly?”

  A smile grew slowly on Talitha’s face. “I’m afraid that’s up to you to figure out,” she said. Then: “I’ll show myself out.”

  She left Mike alone with his spinning thoughts.

  ***

  Mike wasn’t sure whether he was doing the right thing or a very, very wrong thing when he arrived at Alastair’s apartment the next day, but he knew he was doing the only thing he could do. Whether Talitha was right or wrong... he couldn’t bear any more waiting.

  Alastair’s doormen let him in without question. He couldn’t tell whether that was a good sign. On the one hand, Alastair wasn’t simply turning him away. On the other, perhaps Alistair was willing to let him in so that he could end things cleanly… one way or another. Alastair always had liked things done properly.

  Mike waited in the foyer for a long time; there was no clock available, no doubt deliberately. He didn’t take any of the seats, didn’t want to get too comfortable, but waited at attention as though he was still Alastair’s trusted bodyguard.

  When Alastair finally entered, alone, Mike could see by his face that he was furious. He didn’t show it much: his expression was impassive, his eyes cool, his mouth set in a neutral line. But Mike knew Alastair well enough to catch the subtle flash of those eyes—and that gave him hope. If Alastair was still angry with him, he hadn’t written him off entirely.

  “I thought I made myself quite clear,” Alastair said when the door had shut behind him.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “And yet,” Alastair said, his tones measured, dropping like stones into a deep pool, “still, for some reason, you are here.”