by Diana Seere
“No thanks. Sex is overrated. Some of us have bigger plans.”
Lilah took Smoky out of her arms and lifted him to her face for a kiss. “You just haven’t met the right guy yet.”
“Get it into your head. I’m not like you. I don’t need another person to make me whole. After I’ve gotten through med school and an internship and started my own practice, maybe then I’ll start dating. If I feel like it, which I probably won’t. I just don’t have time.”
The “make me whole” comment rankled Lilah, but she let it go. Long ago Lilah had decided to stop arguing with her sister about her pledge of chastity. But today, after finding such joy in Gavin’s arms, she couldn’t stop herself. “You can’t die a virgin. You just can’t.”
Jess strode across the room and picked up a textbook lying on the couch. “God, not this again. Tell you what, I’ll pretend I’m happy about you getting married, and you’ll pretend you’re happy about me flying solo. Deal?”
Lilah scratched Smoky behind the ears, thinking that was probably as much as she could hope for right now. Jess was only in her early twenties, after all. She’d change her mind.
Or somebody would change it for her.
Overflowing with thoughts of love, Lilah set Smoky on the sofa and threw her arms around her stubborn baby sister. “Deal.”
“Besides, now that I’m working nights, I won’t have time for anything like that even if I were interested. Which I’m not.”
“They’ve put you on the night shift at the store?” Lilah asked in alarm. With her moving out, it wouldn’t be safe for Jess to live here alone and come home in the dark. “You don’t have to work anywhere. Honestly, Jess, Gavin would love to cover all your expenses. Whether you want him to or not. And after we’re married, of course I’ll have—”
“No.” Jess pushed her away. “Thanks, but I’m not taking a dime from anyone. I won’t need it. I’ve got an incredible new job. It’s not my usual thing, but I’m excited about it. The money is unbelievable.”
“You do? That’s awesome! Something at the school?”
Jess laughed and shook her head. “No. You’re going to love this.”
“Me? Why? Is it—” Lilah cut herself off, her new sixth sense prickling. “No,” she whispered.
“Yes! I’m working at the Platinum Club,” Jess declared proudly. “I start tonight.”
;)
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Jess Murphy walked through the wide doors into the opulent lobby below the Platinum Club, surprised by the butterflies fluttering in her stomach. The building was more ritzy than she’d expected, every inch of glass, steel, and marble gleaming like freshly minted coins. Well-dressed men and women hurried around her over the marble floors.
“Can I help you?” asked a man from behind a vast reception desk decorated with fruit and flowers. He wore a black suit, had gray hair, and sounded like a British butler in a classic film.
“I’m Jessica Murphy,” she said. “I’m, uh, it’s my first day working at the Platinum Club.”
The man tapped something on his screen. “They’re expecting you on eleven,” he said. “You can take either the public or the service elevator.”
She glanced at the posh lobby, the posh people. “I’ll take the service one. Where is it?”
He gestured at a side door behind him.
“Thank you,” she said, taking a deep breath as she walked across the marble floors.
She reminded herself this was only a waitressing job. There was no reason to be nervous; this wasn’t an important career move for her, just a way to pay for medical school. It paid insanely well, better than her old part-time grocery store gig. The clientele was so elite that she’d had to sign a dozen non-disclosure agreements—and submit to a background check, personality test, and three phone interviews.
Her sister had gone through the same thing when she’d been hired. Lilah had worked there until yesterday, before she’d shacked up with her billionaire love god, Gavin Stanton. In fact, they were already planning their wedding. No more money worries for her.
No more worries of any kind, apparently.
Jess walked through a doorway into a space that looked older than the lobby, found a vintage elevator call button, and popped a mint into her mouth as she waited for it to arrive.
The changes that had come over Lilah in the past few weeks made Jess uncomfortable. She was glad Lilah was happy, but it had happened much too fast. At one point her sister had been so sex-crazed, she’d claimed her rich boyfriend had turned into an animal.
Jess sighed. Lilah had always been too lusty for her own good, too easily enchanted by a pretty face.
Gavin Stanton certainly had that. And the rest of him wasn’t bad either. Not Jess’s type, but... not bad.
Shaking her head, Jess walked onto the car—a gorgeous old thing with wood paneling—and pressed the button for the eleventh floor as instructed. Time to focus on the job at hand. Love was the last thing on her agenda. And sex was second to last. If she was going to survive the long slog through med school and internships to become a doctor, she couldn’t get distracted with trivialities. She had to keep her eye on the prize. Work, school, work, school, work. And more work.
The elevator stopped, not on the eleventh floor, but the tenth. Jess looked down at herself, uneasy with the tight jeans and T-shirt she wore. They’d told her the club would provide a uniform when she arrived. Hopefully, whoever joined her in the elevator was just another wage-slave, not anyone important in management. She wanted to make a good impression on her first day. Her impressively curvy figure looked respectable in formal clothes, but in a T-shirt, her F-cup chest had a knack for distracting people.
Damn, I should’ve worn a jacket. But it had been so hot today. Early autumn in Boston could still get steamy.
The doors slid open, revealing an extremely tall, thickly muscular man with long black hair and bright blue eyes that slid over her body so thoroughly she sucked in a breath.
Talk about steamy. Now this guy was her type. He was huge. Dark. Powerful.
Dangerous.
She felt beads of sweat form at the small of her back, under her breasts, her arms. What had he bathed in that morning—testosterone? She could smell it. She could taste it. She couldn’t help sucking it in, breath after breath, eager for another hit.A slow smile spread over his full, sensual lips. “Why, hello there,” he said. Was that a British accent?
Every alarm bell she had was clamoring so loudly in her head, she was amazed she’d been able to hear him speak.
“Hi,” she said, stepping aside instinctively. Getting too close to this man would be a mistake.
“I don’t believe we’ve had the pleasure.” Oh, crap. It was a British accent. He held out a hand. “McDermott Stanton. My intimates call me Derry.” The way he said intimates made her toes curl.
Stanton? Her sister’s new squeeze was a Stanton, and a member of this fancy club. Gingerly, she took his hand. “Any relation to Gavin Stanton?”
As he squeezed her hand between two massive palms, the wine-red birthmark on her neck, presently hidden under expensive concealer, began to tingle and burn.
“If you’re here to see my brother,” he said, his slanted brows coming together in a frown, “my condolences. He’s recently become engaged.” Then he grinned, white teeth flashing, as the elevator began to rise. “But I, as it happens, have not.”
This flirting had to stop. She pulled her hand free. “Lilah’s my sister.”
His grin, however, only widened. “What good fortune, then, that we should meet.”
“I’m going to be working here,” she
said. “You’ll see me all the time.”
“My fortune grows.”
She fixed him with her best balls-shriveling stare. “I won’t get personally involved with any of the members. I’ve signed a contract.”
“Contracts don’t apply to family members, surely,” he said, looking wounded. “Even Eva wouldn’t be so cruel.”
Eva was the woman at the employment agency who had hired her. “We’re not family yet,” she said. Why was the elevator taking so long? They only had to go one floor, damn it. She moved past him and stabbed the button again. At last it began to rise. So did the temperature. Turning away from him, she took a deep breath and pretended her heart wasn’t racing like a hummingbird on meth.
Being close to him made her feel strange, as if he sucked up all the oxygen.
“No,” he agreed. “Not yet.”
Him, a voice inside her said. She startled, the word crystal clear, as if someone were standing behind her and whispering it straight to her soul.
The car came to a stop. She pressed the button to open the doors. Yeah, it was him all right—too much blue-eyed brawn for such a small, dark, enclosed space. His cologne filled her nose with an intoxicating blend of spice and leather, blanketing her brain in a rosy fog. She wasn’t a fool; she knew she could be as hormonally affected as other people. The trick was not to trigger the hormones in the first place.
As soon as the doors were open wide enough, she strode off the car into a brightly-lit hallway.
“Such a pleasure,” Derry’s voice rumbled behind her, rich and smooth as honey.
She waved but didn’t turn around.
It had been pleasurable. Far too much.
Derry made a dismissive snort and shook his head twice, quickly, like a dog ridding itself of something annoying. That was quite the brush off. He opened his hand and pressed the palm against a piece of stainless steel. Anyone who did not know about the ultra-exclusive Novo Club eight floors beneath the ground would think nothing of the spot.
Derry, unlike most people, knew damn well. You had to be a bit of an animal to be a member.
Or more than a bit.
His phone buzzed in his pants. Funny how they were a little tighter than usual. That long, brown hair. Those eyes. The slope of her cheekbone. The tightness at her throat as she struggled with her own arousal. He’d smelled it.
The damn phone was like a child’s dollhouse book in his giant hands. Fumbling, he finally slid the lock and barked into the mouthpiece.
“Stanton,” he snapped.
“Stanton squared.”
“Oh. It’s you, Gavin. Just met your future sister-in-law. She’s a... treat.” He sniffed the air, catching the last of her scent. Mint, dog shampoo, roses and rubbing alcohol. Now that was a combination. Was she a veterinarian?
That would be a bit serendipitous.
“Don’t even think about it, Derry,” his brother warned. The threat was implied.
The growl was real.
“Too late. I was thinking about it long before I laid eyes on her,” Derry said airily. He loved taunting Gavin about as much as Gavin loved watching his precious football team, the New England Patriots.
“She’s off-limits.”
Derry raised his eyebrows and held the phone away from his ear in mock shock. “You think that will stop me?”
“She’s not your type.”
“She has tits and a pussy, no? Then she’s my type. In fact, she could have a secret penis and—”
“We are not going to rehash that Bangkok trip. My bank account still has flashbacks. You cost me a solid five figures in bribes to get you out,” Gavin chided.
Derry sighed, Jess—Jessica?—Lilah’s sister’s scent permeating his thoughts. Something about her was appealing in a Jane Austen sort of way. She was closed off and rather prim. A career woman, he imagined. Someone who wouldn’t give a playboy billionaire rake the time of day.
And yet...why did her scent bedevil him? It should have dissipated by now.
“Derry? You there?” Gavin sounded annoyed. Derry knew it was less about Lilah’s sister and more about being ignored.
“Where else would I go?” Derry asked, looking around the tiny elevator. It felt like a coffin.
“You will not come on to her, make passes at her, brush up against her, kiss her, fondle her—”
“Are you reading from a contract, Gavin?” Derry asked in alarm. Gavin was the type to actually have a contract for this sort of thing.
“No. But I can have my lawyers draw one up if need be.”
See?
“I get the picture,” Derry mumbled. “Virgin sister-in-law is kryptonite. No touching.”
“No thinking.”
“You can’t censor my fantasies,” Derry insisted. Thank God.
“I would if I thought it would do any good.”
Ding! The elevator stopped and the doors slid open as if propelled by magic. Morgan, the Novo Club’s stalwart master, stood holding a tray with Derry’s favorite drink.
Home Sweet Club.
Her.
That damn woman’s scent grew stronger. How could that be? She wasn’t here. She wasn’t a shifter.
“Derry?” Gavin’s voice held a question, and it wasn’t Are you there?
“Fine, fine. I have hundreds of other women I can substitute for your future wife’s sister. I’ll console myself with the runners up for Miss Universe.”
“I’m sure you can find one to keep you occupied,” his brother said as Derry took the drink and nodded thanks to Morgan, who disappeared.
Derry took a sip of fifty-year-old Glenfiddich Scotch. The slightly woody taste of dark berries, almond, smoke and warm oak made him relax and smolder at the same time. The Scotch was infuriatingly delicious.
It tasted and smelled exactly like Jessica Murphy, damn it..
“One? Oh, you think so small, Gavin. I intend to have them all. Tonight. At the same time.”
Gavin laughed and ended the call, leaving Derry with a delicious Scotch.
And the lingering scent of a woman he just promised he would never touch.
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The Billionaire Shifter Series
THE BILLIONAIRE SHIFTER’S CURVY MATCH - 9/13/16
THE BILLIONAIRE SHIFTER’S VIRGIN MATE: - 10/11/16
THE BILLIONAIRE SHIFTER’S SECOND CHANCE - 11/15/16
About the Author
Diana Seere was raised by wolves in the forests outside San Francisco and Boston. The only time she spends in packs these days is at romance writing conventions. In truth, Diana is two New York Times and USA Today bestselling authors who decided to write shifter romance and have more fun. You can find “her” on Facebook at Diana Seere’s Facebook Page
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