The Christmas Gamble

by Sienna Ciles

  When I felt her shaking, when I heard her moans turning into almost-shrieks of pleasure, I knew I had her right where I wanted her. The moment when she came, I had to almost bite my tongue to keep from losing myself too. I held back for a few more seconds, maybe a minute, and then I couldn’t help myself. I came, holding Bethany’s body against mine, thrusting into her hard and fast as her orgasm waned and then crested again, all around me.

  We both collapsed, holding each other, gasping for breath, and it was the best argument I could have possibly made for her to agree to my proposal. The only thing I could do was wait and see if she would go through with it. If she was brave enough to take the leap.

  I kissed her forehead, her eyelids, her nose, her lips, and I waited for her to recover, and I waited for her to say something about my confession and proposition.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Bethany

  We didn’t end up talking about Ransom’s idea at all the rest of the night. At first it was because his suggestion had overwhelmed me, and all I wanted to do was keep the night and all the pleasure I was getting out of it going, without thinking about the future. We took a shower together, and finished up the bottle we’d ordered, and ordered midnight room service: grilled cheese sandwiches made with a blend of “gourmet” cheeses, tomato bisque, and french fries. And as soon as we’d eaten, we made love again.

  But the next morning, I knew I had to make a decision. It wasn’t that I doubted Ransom--it was that I wasn’t sure if I could actually manage a relationship, even with someone like him. Even if he had managed to give me what I’d been missing for so long.

  “How serious are you about wanting to be with me?”

  Ransom pulled me close to him in the bed and kissed my forehead. “If you want it, I will go get my car from my parents’ place, and drive back to the city with you today,” he said. “I can stay in a hotel if you want your own space. Or get an apartment of my own.”

  “You’d do that just to give us a chance?”

  “I don’t have anywhere in particular that I need to be,” he said, nodding. “My money is good anywhere in the world.”

  “I mean more the getting an apartment in a new city, or a hotel room,” I said.

  “Oh--that. It’s no big deal,” he said, shrugging. “I like new cities. And I like sex with you. Seems like a no-brainer.”

  We lay in bed for about an hour, talking about it, and finally I decided. I wasn’t about to just give up on the orgasms I’d suddenly started having. If Ransom was able to get me off, and if he liked me--and I knew I liked him, above and beyond the sex--then it would be crazy not to see if we could really be together.

  “Why did you say you’d go get your car?” I asked.

  Ransom started pulling on a pair of pajama pants and I was almost disappointed; I’d half-hoped we were going to have sex again, or at least fool around a little more intensely.

  “I figure it would make more sense for us to drive up together, and I can get someone to transport your car back to your place. I’ve got a great, comfortable car we can take back to the city,” he said.

  “Now you’re just showing off how much money you have,” I half-protested.

  Ransom laughed. “You’re the one who offered me twenty thousand dollars to be your fake boyfriend for a weekend,” he pointed out.

  “That took me a good couple of years of saving,” I countered.

  “You’ve been saving for years for a fake boyfriend?”

  I rolled my eyes. “I’ve been saving for years, and when I figured out I wanted a fake boyfriend, I decided to use the money for that.”

  Ransom threw himself down on the bed next to me and kissed me lightly on the lips.

  “Well, now you won’t have to pay someone to be your boyfriend,” he said. “You can just have me. And I’m going to warn you--I fully intend to spend most of our time alone together trying to make up for all the orgasms you should have had by now.”

  “That is kind of a big challenge,” I told him.

  Ransom grinned. “Good. I like challenges. Especially ambitious ones.”

  We made our plan and then it was checkout time, and I kept the sapphire ring on as we headed down to the lobby to turn in our key-cards, since I thought there would be more than a few stragglers other than us, and I wanted to keep up the story Ransom and I had come up with. Of course, it had become truer than anyone other than us knew, but I wasn’t planning on getting actually engaged to Ransom anytime soon.

  We took my car to Ransom’s parents’ place, and I teased him about his comments to me about how he’d need to get a hotel anyway. “I try not to stay here too much,” he explained. “Nothing against this place--it just feels cold without my parents living here.”

  “Maybe we can stay here the next time we’re in town,” I suggested.

  “Maybe,” Ransom agreed. He grinned at me and opened the huge garage door, where I saw a good four or five cars, all of them under dust cloths. “I like that you’re thinking ahead to that.”

  “I like it too,” I admitted. As Ransom chose the car he wanted to drive us back to the city in--an SUV with all the luxuries, as it turned out--I thought about the weekend. By the time we had our suitcases loaded up, and had seen my Prius off on its trip on a transporter truck, back to the city, I’d made up my mind.

  I took a picture of Ransom and me together in his car, and opened up Instagram. Back to reality with my boo, I wrote in the spot for the caption. It would be a perfectly normal thing for my former classmates who followed me to see, but I would probably need to text Jess and let her know the details of what had happened. I actually had a boyfriend, and I had actually figured out how to achieve an orgasm--as long as Ransom was there to make it happen to me. I was pretty sure that he was going to teach me plenty more about what I’d been missing out on, and I could use my position at the agency to help him get in touch with his birth father, and help him get the details he wanted to know about his early life. It was definitely a fair exchange, and I couldn’t think of anything more that I could have possibly wanted from the reunion. It had all gone so much better than I even could have imagined, and I was definitely ready for more.

  Hard for Her

  A Billionaire Romance

  By

  Sienna Ciles

  www.SiennaCiles.com

  Chapter 1

  Alex

  “Congratulations! Ten big years. How’s it feel?” Alicia stood in the office doorway and stared at me with her overly white smile. “I got you a little something to celebrate.” She padded over to my desk with the box of bourbon in her hands. It was strategically held so her breasts rested on top with the bow perched in between them.

  “Thanks,” I said with a grin. “You… really didn’t need to.” I played with the ring on my hand, twisting it. It was a nervous habit, and something about Alicia made me nervous. Her five-foot-two frame made all six-foot-one of me nervous, mostly because I wasn’t sure what she would do next.

  “So, can we drink it tonight?” Alicia flipped her blond hair over her back, revealing her shoulder and neck. Then she slowly placed the box on my desk. Her cleavage hung in the pink sundress that definitely wasn’t suitable for the office. No one seemed to mind that she didn’t follow the dress code, though.

  I took a long stare and then looked up, meeting her blue eyes that had caught me stealing a glance. Alicia smiled and stood up straighter, accentuating her curves and breasts.

  “Raincheck?” I said. “I have a meeting tonight with a client.” I pushed the box of bourbon aside and grabbed the portfolio on my desk and flipped it open.

  “Sounds perfect. It’s a date!” She giggled as she lingered a bit longer and then pretended to pick a piece of something from my suit. “Is this a new client?”

  “It’s an athlete… I’m hoping to land an endorsement deal. We’ll see.” I pushed past Alicia and headed toward the door. “Do you know if Charles is still in the office?”

  “His light was on wh
en I walked past.” Alicia followed behind as I left my office and headed down the hall of the Westbrooke, Inc. headquarters. “So, next week then?”

  “Sure.” I quickened my pace toward Charles’s office. Charles. My father had always insisted I call him by his first name while in the office. As if everyone didn’t know I was his son. It seemed ridiculous but he wouldn’t even answer if I called him Dad. I did it anyway—oftentimes when I just wanted to get a rise out of him and piss him off.

  When it really counted, I addressed him by Charles, and this particular instance just happened to count. A possible endorsement deal with a popular former athlete had come across my desk and I knew that my father would likely be interested in this particular individual.

  Alicia continued down the hall toward the elevator, much to my relief, and had all but disappeared from my view as I approached my father’s private office. As I raised my hand to knock on the door, surprisingly, it opened as soon as my hand touched the cherry wood surface.

  “Alex?” My father’s voice filled my ears as his piercing blue eyes met mine.

  Everyone at the company said we looked a lot alike. I’d definitely inherited his deep blue eye color and thick brown hair. Also, my strong, well-defined chin and the ability to grow a perfect goatee were two other traits that were passed on to me by Charles Michael Westbrooke.

  Another similarity was that I’ve been six-foot-one since my third year of high school and my current weight is roughly 215—give or take a pound or two. Back in my college days, I was an avid football player and fan, and over the years, I’ve been able to maintain my athletic frame pretty well.

  “Charles,” I replied, clearing my throat, attempting to sound more in control than I actually felt.

  “Come on in,” he said firmly, briefly raising his eyes up from whatever paperwork he was currently working on. I could see that he was on a business call, and the tone of his voice made it evident to me that it was likely an important one.

  I entered his office quietly, taking in the wooden bookshelves and the large metal desk he was sitting at. Sitting down in one of the leather chairs, I made myself comfortable, still watching him intently as I waited for him to finish his call. He signaled me with his pointer finger and a fervent wink of his eye.

  After what seemed like forever, he finally hung up the phone and turned his attention to me.

  “So, I hear that you have some good news for me, then?” he asked, brushing his graying goatee between his fingers and raising his left eyebrow as he spoke.

  “Ah, yes.” I set the folder I was holding down on his desk in front of him. “A former pro-football player. We may be able to talk him into an endorsement deal that will benefit our company and his career.”

  Putting on his reading glasses, my father opened the folder and began to browse through its contents. Something about him always made me feel self-conscious whenever I was in his presence. I reached up and adjusted my tie as I watched him look over the athlete’s file.

  “Well, Alex, seeing as you’ll take my place as the CEO of this company when I finally retire next year, perhaps you should be the one handling this particular deal,” he said sternly, closing the folder and sliding it across the desk back over toward me.

  A small, sly grin was playing at the corner of his lips as he eyed me with a concentrated stare.

  He had been discussing this shift in ownership of the company for the past several months. I had been the president of Westbrooke, Inc. for the past ten years but my dad had always been the CEO. When he announced his plan to retire a few months ago, he named me as the sole heir and future CEO of the company. Somehow, though, he had this way of making me feel intimidated by the way that he looked at me and addressed me whenever it came to important business matters and situations.

  Though I’ve never felt exactly inferior to him in anyway, he just has a way of making me wonder whether or not I “measure up” to the incredibly high standards he has always had when it comes to leadership and responsibility. Knowing that I will have to “fill his shoes” one day soon is a constant reminder that it’s time to for me to put my playboy days behind me and man up to the task. Not just in my business life, but in my personal life as well.

  This was one of the main reasons why women like my gorgeous and overly-flirtatious assistant, Alicia, are no longer on my personal “to-do list.” A few years ago, I would’ve had her bent over the desk in my private office and probably would’ve carried on a superficial fling with her until I became bored and moved on to another hot, big-tittied, long-legged vixen. However, with the constant pressure I’ve been getting from both of my parents to settle down and start acting like a “grown man,” I’ve had to stifle my boyish, superficial passions and start looking for a more meaningful relationship with a woman of actual depth and profundity.

  Believe it or not, though, for a wealthy businessman like myself, that has actually been more difficult to find than pretty much anything else in my luxurious, sumptuous little world.

  My father founded Westbrooke, Inc. nearly twenty years ago, and he and my mother built the company from the ground up. The patents their company invented on footwear and clothing technology helped them turn it into a multi-billion-dollar conglomerate within the first five years. Ten years ago this week, I’d graduated from Yale with a master’s degree in business management, and my father made me the company president. That was why Alicia had been so adamant about celebrating with the box of bourbon.

  Now, at thirty-five years old, I was preparing to take over as CEO, and my father was giving me more responsibility than ever, yet his expectations had not wavered in the least.

  I thanked him for the opportunity and stood up to leave his office. Just as I was about to walk out the door, he called out to me one last time.

  “Alex,” he said sternly. I turned around to face him with my hand still on the doorknob.

  “Yes, Da—er—Charles?” I replied, stammering over my words like a nervous, bumbling schoolboy.

  “Don’t let me down, son,” he warned, winking. Had I not known any better, I’d have taken it as a playful, friendly comment. But, having been the only son of CEO Charles Michael Westbrooke, I absolutely knew better than to think that.

  “Yes, sir,” I replied coolly, and then let his office door shut behind me.

  Chapter 2

  Holly

  Am I really about to do this? Shaking my head, I made my way out to my small silver sedan parked in the far-left end of the Grantville Elementary School parking lot.

  It was a few minutes after four o’clock and I had stupidly let my best friend Joana Wharton talk me into going out on a blind date. My date, a guy named Martin Langley, was supposed to be meeting me at a lavish restaurant called the Lovehouse—one of the nicest eateries in the area, which was actually the main reason why I’d even agreed to go in the first place. I figured that if the guy could afford to take me to the Lovehouse on our first date, he just might be someone worth getting to know.

  Joana had told me that Martin was a friend of her brother’s and that he worked in the financial planning department at a huge corporation on the other side of town. Apparently, she thought that he’d be perfect for me because he seemed to be everything that my ex-fiancé was not.

  I had been single now for several months, and ever since the break-up I’d been focusing most of my time and energy on my teaching career. I had finally broken things off with my ex because his work was more important to him than I ever was.

  We had been dating for nearly three years when he’d finally gotten around to proposing to me, and the way that it happened was way fucking far from the romantic, dreamy type of marriage proposal that most women fantasize about. To this day, I still wonder why I accepted.

  We had just had a big fight, one of the worst fights of our relationship, and I was ready to call it quits for good. I had started packing up all of my things and had just filled my second suitcase when he came back to the condo after having stormed ou
t in a fit of anger less than an hour earlier.

  He walked in the front door and his jaw hit the floor when he saw that I was in the middle of packing all of my stuff up. Without saying a word, he rushed down the hall and went into the extra bedroom he often used as his personal office space. Less than a minute later, he came back out to the living room and stood in front of me, looking at me in silence. He no longer appeared to be angry, and he was holding something in his hand.

  “Holly,” he’d said softly. “Please don’t go.”

  But I was still in tears and my mind was all but made up. “Babe, all we ever do is fight anymore. Your job always comes before me, no matter what, and I just can’t live like this,” I explained through tear-streaked eyes.

  “Holly,” he said again, bending down on one knee.

  I stopped dead in my tracks and looked down at him. I really did still love him, but our relationship had become so strained and so unhealthy that I was sad, disappointed, and upset much more often than I was ever happy. But when he got down on one knee and held up his hand, it was like some kind of invisible switch in my brain totally turned “off” and my heart just completely took over.

  He opened his hand and there was a little gold ring box inside of it. When he opened it, a huge, gorgeous, sparkly diamond was the first thing I saw. It was bigger than any other piece of jewelry he had ever given me before. It was absolutely beautiful. I placed both of my hands on my cheeks and my mouth dropped open.

  “Holly, if you stay, I promise I will marry you,” he said softly, removing the ring from the box and taking my left hand into his.

  I was so stunned that I couldn’t even speak. I just stood there and let him slide the ring onto my finger. It hadn’t even registered yet that he had not even actually asked me to be his wife. So much for romance, huh?

  Completely caught up in the moment, I had simply answered yes. Of course, I had been saying yes to both staying and becoming his wife. Though, to this day, I still have no idea how or why I thought that agreeing to be his wife would somehow make things better between us. He didn’t change at all, and things never got any better—they actually got way fucking worse. He became controlling, manipulative, and emotionally abusive. Six months later, I packed up all of my belongings while he was out of town on a business trip and I moved out.