The Billionaire Beast

by Jackie Ashenden

  He bared his teeth in a snarl. “This conversation is getting old. I want you, Phoebe. Tell me I can have you.”

  Electricity snaked down her spine, a white-hot thrill. He was getting impatient and some perverse part of her liked that. Liked that she was pushing him. It made her want to keep doing it. “What if I don’t want you?”

  “Liar.” He raised his hand and jerked the sheet all the way off her.

  Despite herself, she gasped and instinctively reached for the cotton to cover herself, but he was too fast, grabbing both her wrists and holding them in an iron grip.

  She stilled, the breath shuddering in her throat. She should be terrified and yet . . . No, God, that wasn’t fear. At all. It was desire, thick and hot and absolutely overwhelming. And that was the terrifying part.

  Struggling to contain the confusing knot of emotions inside her, she asked in what she hoped was a cool, calm voice, “What are you doing?”

  He said nothing, merely holding her wrists, his gaze locked with hers.

  The smoldering embers inside her began to glow. The look in his eyes was a breath on hot coals, and it made the fear inside her clench tight. Because she didn’t want these feelings, not when she loved another man.

  He never made you feel like this though.

  Without a word, Nero brought her wrists together and transferred them to one large, strong hand, holding on tightly. Then with his free hand he reached down to the long, lacy white nightgown she wore and slid his fingers beneath the hem.

  Phoebe jerked as he touched her, the sound of her indrawn breath loud in the silence of the room. His fingers against her bare calf were so hot, so electric, it felt like he was conducting lightning through the tips of his fingers. “Nero,” she said hoarsely, not quite sure whether she wanted him to stop or . . .

  Keep going?

  He said nothing, his gaze never leaving her face, watching her as his fingers slid to the back of her calf, curling around it, cradling it. Then sliding slowly higher, to the back of her knee.

  The coals inside her got hotter, bursting into a small, insistent flame, while the prickling sensation washing over her skin got more intense. She shivered, the restless, achy feeling she’d experienced in the dream returning.

  “If you don’t want me,” he murmured, low and dark, “then why are you shivering?”

  “I-I’m not.”

  She tried to remain still, but the hand at the back of her knee was moving higher, to her thigh. The tips of his fingers felt a little rough as they trailed over her skin and it felt so good.

  Her mouth dried, and she was abruptly conscious of the press of her cotton nightgown over her breasts, the cotton cool against her tight, aching nipples. And maybe he knew, because his gaze dropped briefly to her chest before lifting her face again, and she could feel herself flushing bright red.

  “Your nipples are hard.” His voice was full of a deep, very masculine kind of satisfaction. “And it’s not cold.”

  “Nero . . .”

  His hand slid higher and higher up her leg, until his palm was beneath the top of her thigh, his fingers brushing lightly against the soft damp cotton of her knickers, right against the crotch. She pulled against his imprisoning grip on her wrists, trying to shift away from his questing fingers. But they followed her movement, brushing over her more firmly, then pressing down.

  The breath escaped her in a sharp rush, pleasure following in its wake, making her go hot all over.

  “You’re wet for me, Phoebe.” His gaze was like a dark fire, consuming her, and for some reason she couldn’t look away. Because it was all there in his eyes, all laid out for her to read, hiding nothing. Raw, primitive desire. Calling to the animal part of herself, the part that was hungry, that wanted him.

  Phoebe shivered, her breathing hoarse, responding to Nero’s dominant touch whether she wanted to or not.

  “Say it.” His fingers moved again, stroking a hot line up the center of her sex, pushing against the fabric of her knickers. “Tell me you want me.”

  She couldn’t speak, the words locking in her throat, the part of her that was still Charles’s fiancé not wanting to give in.

  Nero’s hand moved again, sliding beneath the fabric, and she couldn’t stop the sound that broke from her as his fingers found her hot, damp flesh.

  Phoebe groaned and closed her thighs, but it was too late. His hand was between her legs, big and rough and insistent, spreading her open with his fingers, stroking through the slick folds of her sex with careless skill. As if he knew exactly how to touch her and where.

  Charles never touched you like this. You never let him . . .

  The thought shuddered through her, a realization she didn’t want. And she tried to shake it away, but it remained stuck in her head all the same. Those times in bed with Charles, giving him all the attention, because it was easier than having him ask her every single time what she liked and what she didn’t. Questions she didn’t know how to answer and never had, even with her first boyfriend. It was like an emptiness opened up inside her every time someone asked her: What do you want? She never had an answer, because she didn’t know what she wanted. And that scared her. For some reason, it felt too hard, too exposing to have to think about, so she ensured she didn’t have to.

  Except now, with Nero touching her, his big, rough hand between her legs, watching her every expression, she felt vulnerable. As if he was uncovering parts of herself she didn’t even know were there.

  But they are there. You just never wanted to acknowledge them.

  “I respect honesty, Phoebe,” Nero said, his voice a rough growl, his fingers sliding through the folds of her sex again, in a long slow downstroke, then testing gently the entrance to her body, circling around it. “So be honest with me now. You want me. Your pussy is all slippery and hot for me. Your body doesn’t lie, so why do you?”

  Another shudder ripped through her, the liquid heat of pleasure flooding every muscle, making her want to lie back and spread her legs, let him touch her however he wanted. To move her hips under his hand and find the cure for this relentless ache.

  Why not? He gave you what you wanted. He told you why he came here.

  Yes, but admitting she wanted him was wrong, and she couldn’t shake that guilt. And yet . . . It had been so long since anyone had touched her and she hadn’t thought she’d miss it. But she did. For the past two years, all she’d had was constant worry and desperate loneliness and anguish. So would it really be so bad to let Nero make her feel good? Just for a night? After all, Charles would never know . . .

  His hand shifted again, his finger finding her achingly sensitive clit and pressing down. She stiffened, her spine a lightning rod conducting the bolt of pleasure that struck her, tearing a moan from her throat.

  “Well?” he demanded. “Tell me, Phoebe. Give me the words.”

  She was shaking now, his finger rocking subtly against her, making her burn, making her sweat. Coaxing out the wild part of her that she didn’t want to admit was there. Something was building inside her, a desperation that both frightened and exhilarated her at the same time.

  It was never Nero you were frightened of. You were frightened of yourself.

  Of course, she was. She was frightened of her own desires, of what she wanted. They felt too raw, too intense. And there was only one way she could cope with them.

  “Yes,” she gasped out. “Yes, I want you. But if we do this, we do it my way.”

  Nero’s stroking fingers paused, his eyes narrowing as he studied her face for one long, aching second. As if he was either trying to work out whether she was lying or not or merely trying to work out what she meant.

  Then his mouth curled in a dark, feral smile. “No,” he murmured roughly.

  And moved.

  Chapter 7

  Nero let go of Phoebe’s wrists and was on the bed, kneeling astride her, before she had a chance to move. Forced back against the pillows, her eyes went wide, her palms coming up to push against his
chest, but he ignored that. Putting his hands on the pillow on either side of her head, he leaned down, watching her eyes get even wider and her pupils dilate. He flared his nostrils, taking in the scent of musk and flowers. Fucking hell. He was going to have to revise his opinion of her not being pretty, because right now, lying back with her red-gold curls spread all over the white pillows, a rosy flush staining her skin and the gold flecks in her eyes glittering, she was a goddess.

  He still didn’t know why his cock was straining against the fly of his pants for her, when apparently the two redheads he’d gotten rid of not twenty minutes earlier hadn’t managed to get it up, but there was no denying the truth.

  He’d kissed one of those women and she’d tasted of the breath mints she’d just eaten, not of heat and honey like Phoebe. Pleasant but unengaging. And when the other woman had touched him, he hadn’t gotten hard. He’d only gotten annoyed. He didn’t want to push them to see if they’d get mad, irritate them to see if they lost their cool. They were beautiful, and yet he didn’t want to watch their faces to see what they were thinking. In fact, he didn’t give a shit what they were thinking at all. He was completely uninterested in them, and apparently, so was his cock.

  It had infuriated him that he couldn’t get them out of the door fast enough, and yet the moment they’d gone, his thoughts had returned to Phoebe. To the kiss he’d taken. To the taste of her mouth and the way it had opened under his at the very last moment, as if she’d lost her grip on the resistance she was holding so hard onto.

  He didn’t know why she’d run out on him, and he didn’t know why there had been a tear on her cheek. And after those women had gone, he’d prowled into his control room, flicking open the screen with the camera feed of her room, unable to help herself.

  The camera had an infra-red mode so he could see her lying in her bed in the dark, tossing and turning, restless as he was himself. Then she’d let out a low moan and it had sounded like fear, and for some reason every muscle in his body had tensed. But that hadn’t been the worst part, because then she’d screamed, high and terrified, and he was up and out of his control room, out into the hallway and walking fast in the direction of her bedroom before he was even conscious of moving.

  It was only when the hallway began to telescope in front of him and the walls began to loom, making him feel like he was at the bottom of a massive canyon, that he realized what he was doing. That he was out in the rest of the house, beyond the small collection of rooms he lived his life in.

  His mind began to whisper a truth he didn’t want to hear, making him think about how long it had been since he’d gone farther than the three steps it took to get from his office to his library door. But he knew if he thought about that, he’d never make it to Phoebe’s room.

  So he didn’t think about it. He kept on walking, trying to ignore the way everything felt too big and too large, and how small he was in comparison. How it felt like he couldn’t breathe. As if he’d be crushed by the empty immensity of the space around him.

  No, he just kept on going until he’d gotten to her room, forcing himself to push open that door and step inside. And there she’d been, half-asleep and warm, her hair everywhere, fear from her nightmare still large in her eyes.

  She’d given him something to focus on and focus on her he had, so he didn’t have to think about the larger truth that tapped on the door he kept locked in his mind. So he didn’t have to hear it.

  But the sound of her voice and her sweet scent weren’t enough.

  He needed more. He always needed more.

  “No?” There was a throaty note in the word that brushed over his skin like cool, delicate fingers. “What do you mean no?”

  Was that alarm in her eyes? Yes, maybe it was. And there was that fear, too, the same fear he’d seen in her face as she’d fled from him back in the library.

  He routinely scared those who came to his door, and he knew what it looked like when people were afraid of him. But the fear in Phoebe’s gaze wasn’t that fear. It was something else, and he had a feeling it was something to do with that desire she was so desperately trying to hide.

  Why? What was she so afraid of? She was a sensual woman. He’d observed it through his cameras, and yet she seemed to be afraid of the passion inside her.

  “Why are you afraid?” It came out as a demand, but he didn’t bother to soften it. Instead he slid a hand beneath the back of her neck and lifted her slightly so her head fell back, exposing the long, pale arch of milky skin and the fragile, blue tracery of veins just beneath the surface of it. At the base of her throat was her pulse, beating hard and fast. Too fast.

  “I’m not afraid of you.” She was trembling.

  “That wasn’t what I asked.” He lowered his head, pressing his mouth to that frantically beating pulse, then touched his tongue to her skin, tasting the faint salty flavor of her. Holy fuck, she tasted good. He growled, opening his mouth to bite the side of her neck gently, feeling the delicious give of her flesh, more of that salty flavor exploding on his tongue.

  She made a desperate noise, her body shuddering then stiffening, pushing against his shoulders. Yet he could feel her hard nipples against his chest, and the wetness from her pussy was still coating his fingers. “I know you’re not afraid of me,” he went on. “You’re afraid of this.” And he licked her throat before trailing a line of tiny bites up it, his hand gripping the back of her neck firmly.

  She shuddered again, twisting beneath him, pushing harder. Her breathing was loud and ragged, her voice breathless as she gasped, “I’m not. I’m just . . . Please, let me touch you, Nero.”

  “Stop,” he growled, losing patience. “And answer the fucking question.”

  “But you’d like it if I touched you.” She wriggled beneath him, shoving him. “Let go, Nero.”

  He didn’t move. Her hands on his skin felt good, though not so much the shoving. Not that she could shift him, since she was very small and he was big, and grown men had had trouble making him move when he didn’t want to.

  But he didn’t want her to touch him or at least not yet. He wanted her to give him a damn answer.

  What does it matter to you why she’s afraid?

  He didn’t know, and he didn’t want to think about why that mattered. He just . . . needed to know.

  He let her back down and grabbed her hands once again, crossing her wrists then lifting her arms above her head and easing them down. Pressing them hard into the softness of the pillow and keeping them there.

  She panted, her face flushed, the anger in her eyes bright gold. “I thought you wanted me.”

  “Don’t change the subject,” he ordered. “Give me an answer.”

  Her throat moved as she swallowed, her chest rising and falling in a quick, hard rhythm. “I have a fiancé. I shouldn’t . . . w-want you.”

  “Except you do.”

  She turned her head away, but he wasn’t having that. So, keeping her wrists locked above her head with his free hand, he gripped her chin and turned her back to face him with the other. He could feel her resistance, could see the fury in her gaze. “You do,” he repeated insistently, looking down into her fascinating eyes. “You told me. Too late to deny it now.”

  Her attention shifted, dropping to his mouth as if she couldn’t help herself. “I . . . can’t . . .”

  “Can’t what?”

  She took another breath. “I can’t want you. I can’t like this. It’s wrong.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I’m still engaged. I was supposed to be faithful.”

  Ah, her fiancé. The man who’d been unconscious for two years.

  “Faithful to a man in a coma,” Nero said. “Two years is a long time for a passionate woman like you to be celibate.”

  She blinked at him. “But I’m not a passionate woman.”

  What? Where the fuck had she gotten that idea from? From her fool of a fiancé? Jesus Christ, if the man hadn’t been in a coma, Nero would have punched him in the face
for that crime alone.

  “Aren’t you?” He stared at her, holding her gaze. “Is that what you really think?”

  “I . . .” She stopped, emotion flickering over her face. Emotion he didn’t know how to read.

  Christ, why was he talking? Why wasn’t he simply taking what he wanted the way he always did? Yet he couldn’t. A soft, protective feeling was pressing against his ribs, making him want to go slowly, carefully. Not frighten her the way he had in his library.

  Because it occurred to him suddenly that he knew fear. Back when he’d been a kid, when the police had come, dragging him out of that room and into the bright light, he’d been so afraid. He hadn’t wanted to go, had fought to stay in there, back where it was safe. He’d screamed when they’d carried him out and even though it had been a rescue, all he’d felt was violation.

  Had she felt that back in the library? Did she feel that right now? As if she was being dragged out of her place of safety? Was that why she was fighting him so hard? Why she was resisting?

  It was strange to get a glimpse of understanding another person, or at least imagine he understood. It was strange, too, to have the answer.

  He didn’t want that for her. He didn’t want her to be afraid. Yet he didn’t want her and all that red and gold fire she blazed with, that he knew burned beneath that tightly coiled bun and those prim little pencil skirts, to be trapped and suffocated, either.

  He wanted to set it free. He wanted to see it burn. And he wanted to burn with it.

  “I can show you, Phoebe,” he said softly, intently. “I can show you how much bullshit that is.”

  Her chin firmed, something sparking in her eyes. “No, you can’t. Charles couldn’t and I love him. I mean, I was with him for years, and I never even—” She stopped all of a sudden, flushing.

  Nero frowned. “You never even what?”

  Her red-gold lashes fell, veiling her gaze. “It’s nothing. Forget I said anything.”

  Oh, no, he wasn’t having that.

  Firming his grip on her chin, he lowered his head so they were almost nose to nose. “You know I don’t like to repeat myself, Phoebe Taylor. So tell me what the fuck you were talking about.”