The Billionaire's Muse Complete Series Box Set

by M. S. Parker

  Eight

  Savannah

  I couldn’t have imagined a more beautiful wedding. Even with everything that had seemed to go wrong today, it had all led us to this point, and I couldn’t find it in myself to think of anything negative about it. Not when I was currently standing in a private room at one of the top restaurants in the city, slow dancing with my gorgeous husband while one of our friends sang the song he’d written for us.

  I couldn’t believe this was my life.

  As our first dance as husband and wife came to an end, Jace kissed the top of my head before escorting me back to our table. We’d originally planned to have Everett and Erik offer toasts at this point, but on our way to the reception, we’d decided to make a little addition.

  “Before we get to our friends’ toasts, Savannah and I want to say something.” Jace picked up his glass. “We would not be here today without our friends. You encouraged us when we needed it, and kicked us in the a…” he grinned, “butt when we needed it.” He grinned at the amused chuckles that rippled through the guests at his self-correction, and then his smile softened as he continued, “And if that wasn’t enough, today, you went above and beyond to give us this perfect day. None of you had to do any of this.” He raised his glass. “Thank you. All of you.”

  As we all drank to Jace’s toast, something out of the corner of my eye caught my attention. I turned toward Tanya as Jace sat down, leaning across Everett to snatch her glass.

  “Sav?” Everett caught me around the waist and eased me back into my seat. “You okay?”

  “What are–?” Tanya’s cheeks flushed as she reached for her glass.

  Before she could get it, I took a sip. “Water?” I asked quietly.

  Or, at least, I’d intended it to be quiet. Unfortunately, my timing wasn’t that great because as soon as I said it, all eyes turned to me, and then to Tanya when everyone realized where I was looking.

  “Well, shit,” she muttered.

  Erik put his hand on her shoulder. “What’s going on, sweetheart?”

  Her face was flushed, but the moment her eyes met his, it was like the rest of us had faded away. “I didn’t want to get your hopes up, not before I knew for sure, and then I couldn’t figure out the best time to tell you, with everything going on. My doctor called yesterday, right before the rehearsal dinner. I’m pregnant.”

  Erik stared at her for a moment, his eyes bright. Then. he pulled her to him and gave her a kiss that set the crowd whistling and cheering. A lump formed in my throat. I knew Tanya had been worried about not being able to get pregnant, and it had broken my heart every time I’d seen her looking at Elise and Patrick with a wistful expression on her face.

  As soon as Erik let her go, I threw my arms around her, ignoring Everett’s protesting yelp. “I’m so happy for you!”

  “I didn’t want to take away from your big day,” she said as she hugged me back. “I swear.”

  I shook my head. “Nonsense. This is the perfect thing to top off a perfect day.”

  I meant it too. As others came forward to offer their congratulations, I leaned back into Jace’s waiting arms. I couldn’t have asked for more than I had right now.

  It felt…strange, thinking about a night without Patrick, but also a little exciting. I loved my son, but I definitely missed being able to spend an entire night with Jace, letting him dominate me, letting him take me, make me come…I had a feeling I was going to be sore by the time we went home tomorrow. The best kind of sore.

  When I walked into the honeymoon suite, the first thing I saw was flowers. Everywhere. Roses of all colors, filling the entire suite with their sweet scent. Various fruits, cheeses, chocolates, and a bottle of champagne in an ice-filled bucket sat on a cart next to a king-sized bed. Later, I was certain I’d appreciate the food and drink, but right now, the bed was what I wanted.

  More specifically, I wanted Jace in bed.

  One look in his direction told me he was thinking the same thing. His jade green eyes had gone so dark they almost looked black, and I could feel the anticipation radiating off him.

  I slipped off my heels and then turned toward him, lifting up my dress as I backed toward the bed. “Jace, you know, you never asked me what I was wearing underneath my dress.”

  He went completely and scarily still. Then his eyes narrowed. “Sav, what are you wearing underneath that dress?”

  I gave him a coy smile. “Why don’t you come find out?”

  Most Doms would hate their subs talking back like I did, but it’d been one of the things that had first drawn Jace to me, and even as I learned more about what it meant to be a part of the BDSM world, that hadn’t changed.

  He came toward me, all muscles and grace making my mouth go dry, and my stomach tighten. Without looking away from my face, he pulled my dress up until he was able to slide a hand underneath. I gasped as he pushed two fingers inside me. He gripped my hip with his free hand, holding me in place as he drove his fingers into me, twisting them with every stroke so that his knuckles rubbed against my g-spot. I came within seconds, gushing all over his hand as he worked me through the orgasm.

  “I wish you would have told me before that you were naked under there,” Jace said as he withdrew his hand and licked his fingers clean. “I would’ve fucked you half a dozen times before now. In the bathroom. Against a wall. In the limo.”

  I reached behind me and unzipped my dress, letting it fall to the floor before I stepped out of it.

  “Sit down.”

  I sat on the bed, the comforter soft against my bare skin. My nipples were two hard little pebbles, just begging to be touched, to be sucked, but I wouldn’t ask for it. Jace would give me what I needed. He always did.

  He undid his pants as he moved to stand in front of me. He used his leg to nudge apart my knees, then cupped my chin and raised my head. “Before you get to come again, you’re going to apologize for not giving me the opportunity to bury myself in your tight little pussy at every possible chance today. You’re going to drink every drop, and only then will you get to feel my tongue in your cunt.”

  I shivered as his words washed over me, and then I opened my mouth to let him slip between my lips. I loved going down on him, loved the taste and weight of him.

  “Hands behind your back,” he ordered.

  I did as I was told, staring up at him as he used my hair to control my movement. He started off slow, then pressed deeper and deeper until he was reaching my throat and his balls nudged my chin. Little pricks of pain moved through my scalp as his fingers involuntarily tightened. He was close, and when he finally came with a groan, I swallowed, not losing a single drop.

  He was still half-hard when he pulled out of my mouth, and I knew it wouldn’t take him long to recover, but this time, we wouldn’t need to rush. He could take his time using his mouth on me. Take his time making love to me as gentle or as rough as he wanted to be. We had all night, and after that, we had the rest of our lives.

  He leaned down and covered my mouth with his, tongue slowly and thoroughly exploring, promising all the delightful things that I knew he could deliver. He believed I was his muse, bringing him back to the place where he could create again, but what he didn’t understand was that he was mine as well. Not for art, but for life. He’d opened my eyes, inspired me to be the woman I’d always been meant to be.

  “I love you,” I said as he released my mouth.

  “I love you, too.” He smiled and brushed his hand across my cheek. “Now, let’s get you up on that bed. I have a whole list of things I plan on doing to you tonight.”

  “Yes, please.”

  And this was just the beginning.

  Turn the page to read a free preview of my latest series, The Boss.

  One

  Nate

  “As always, the room is paid through the weekend,” I said as I reached for my suit jacket. “You’re welcome to stay, and I encourage you to do so as this will be your last opportunity.”

  Roma str
aightened, her robe opening far enough for me to see one swollen nipple. “What does that mean?”

  “Tonight was our swan song,” I said evenly. “Our final scene.”

  “I know what swan song means,” she snapped, her expression twisting into something ugly. “What I’m asking is what the hell you think you’re doing.”

  I raised an eyebrow. Her anger wasn’t surprising. One of the things that had appealed to me about Roma was seeing someone with such a temper submitting to me, even when I infuriated her. It had been exciting at first. At present, it was just annoying.

  “I’m ending this arrangement,” I said. “I was trying to be polite about it, but since you seem determined to make me be blunt, I will. We’re done.”

  “No.” She stood up, not appearing to notice that her robe was hanging open, exposing the red lines the robes had made, the bruised flesh from the clamps. “You don’t end this until we both say we’re done.”

  I turned to face her, sliding my hands into my pockets to keep the image of the calm, unruffled Dom. “The arrangement was, either one of us could end things at any point. This is me, ending the arrangement. Now. Tonight.”

  She shook her head, cheeks coloring even as the finger she pointed at me shook. “No. No! After all the shit I’ve done for you and let you do to me, you owe me. That’s what this arrangement was about, asshole! I play your little fucktoy, and you get me what I want.”

  I inhaled slowly and then let out the breath just as slowly. This had happened to me before, but it didn’t make it any more pleasant. “You understood exactly what this was when you agreed to it. We fucked, and you enjoyed it because you like men fawning all over you. Wasn’t that your fantasy tonight? To have more than one man fuck you while I watched? So I could see how they all want you?”

  “Fuck you!” She had tears in her eyes, but they weren’t because she was hurt. She was furious. Or she was trying to manipulate me. Either one didn’t do anything but confirm that I was making the right choice.

  “It’s not my fault you got more involved than you should have,” I started toward the door. “You knew the score going into this. You got great sex and got to be seen on my arm at big events, meet all of my connections. I was supposed to get a sub without all this drama. If anyone should be pissed, it’s me.”

  A glass hit the wall next to the door, shattering all over the carpet.

  “Don’t you dare walk away from me, you fucking bastard!”

  I paused but didn’t turn. I kept my voice calm, even though I was seething inside. She was going too far. “Roma, I will call security to throw you out on your ass if you can’t behave like an adult.”

  “You’re a real son of a bitch, you know that?”

  “Yes, well, you’re a bitch, so I guess we’re about even.”

  I left before she could throw something else at me. I’d pay for the damage that’d happened before I walked out, but if she trashed the hotel room, I’d have her ass arrested and held accountable for the rest of it. She could be as pissed at me as she wanted, but she was acting like a child. If I’d known she’d come with that much drama, I wouldn’t have even bothered.

  The sex hadn’t been that good.

  Two

  Ashlee

  “Dammit!” I spun around, socks slipping on the linoleum floor as I attempted to stop my forward momentum. I caught myself on the edge of the counter and managed to yank open the microwave door before disaster struck.

  I removed the fork from the plastic bowl of popcorn and tossed it into the sink. I sighed, closing my eyes for a moment. That could have been disastrous, and the worst part was, it wasn’t the first time I’d nearly blown up my microwave because I’d forgotten to remove a metal utensil from something I was heating up. I didn’t even have a good excuse this time. Other times I’d done stuff this absent-minded, I’d at least been able to claim that I had something more important on my mind. A doctor’s trip with Mom. A final I wasn’t sure I could pass. A job interview.

  Tonight, I’d been dancing around my kitchen to a song I’d heard at work. It was a brand-new single from Unraveling, and it’d been playing all over the place. I generally only liked Unraveling’s older stuff, back from when they’d first been signed, but this felt more like that rather than their last album. I may only have been a runner at Manhattan Records when “Threads of My Mind” had been released, but even I’d known how unhappy everyone had been about its performance.

  I shook my popcorn bowl, even though the butter and salt hadn’t had much time to settle, then double-checked to make sure I hadn’t left anything else behind before turning the microwave back on. While I waited for my snack, I washed the fork, dried it, and put it away, my thoughts wandering as I did the mundane task.

  What was it about “Fire and Light” that made it so much better than anything Unraveling had done the last time? One of the things I enjoyed about working at Manhattan Records was getting to better understand the intricacies of how it all worked. Not only how an album came together, but all of the different roles people played in the process. Being in the A&R department – Artists and Repertoire – I would eventually get to see all sorts of aspects of the music industry as I continued my rise in the company.

  As much as I liked my work, I wasn’t the sort of person who took it home with me, but this song just wouldn’t get out of my head, which made it hard to stop thinking about work. I’d even had music streaming while I’d cleaned today, but I’d caught myself humming the song in the shower.

  The microwave dinged, and I retrieved my popcorn, carrying it the short distance to the other side of the room where my second-hand couch sat across from a small, but more than serviceable, television. My place wasn’t big, and my things weren’t new, but I didn’t mind. I was twenty-three years old, and I had my own apartment. I’d started as an intern at Manhattan Records when I was barely twenty, moved up to runner shortly after I graduated from NYU, and three months ago, I’d gotten a promotion.

  Life was good.

  It hadn’t always been that way, but if I’d learned anything, it’d been to appreciate what I had when I had it.

  I pulled my feet up under me, wrapped an arm around my popcorn bowl, and picked up my remote. I’d been waiting all week to binge the second season of my newest guilty pleasure. A fictional show about a reality show. I’d stumbled on the first season a couple weeks ago and finished it up last Sunday afternoon, but this past week had been too busy for me to be able to watch more than an episode or two a night, so I’d decided to give myself a little reward for hard work well done and spend my Saturday night watching TV while snacking to my heart’s content.

  I shifted, frowning as I couldn’t quite get comfortable. Something was lumpy right against the middle of my back, and it took me a moment to realize it was my hair. It hung nearly to my waist, and I hadn’t felt like taking the time to completely dry it after my shower, which meant the only way to keep it from becoming a tangled mess was to braid it.

  The door across the hall slammed, and I heard a burst of laughter as my neighbors headed out for the night. I’d lived here for a couple months and had met them a day or two after I’d moved in. Perry and Gary. Nice guys. About my age and fellow NYU graduates. They hadn’t been in the communications program, but we’d shared a couple of the same teachers, though not at the same time.

  We’d talked a few times, whenever we happened to run into each other in the hall or at the mailboxes. Once, I’d been downstairs doing my laundry, and they’d come down and spent an hour with me. Gary was a flirt, but he never took things too far, and I definitely wasn’t Perry’s type considering he was gay. I hadn’t been worried about moving to Lower Manhattan on my own, but Mom hadn’t been thrilled. When I told her about Perry and Gary, she’d felt much better.

  I may have exaggerated my ‘friendship’ with them, but if it made her worry less, the little white lie was worth it. Besides, I had a feeling they were the sort of neighbors who’d at least keep an eye out for anythi
ng suspicious. We’d had a couple of those in the Staten Island neighborhood where I’d grown up.

  As if the thought of her had prompted it, Mom’s text tone went off on my phone. I went to my favorite streaming app, then leaned forward to pick up my phone.

  Did you see last night’s Murder Mysteries? I think that suspect looks like Lauren Lopez’s Uncle Mauro.

  I laughed and shook my head. Mom’s newest obsession was anything about unsolved murders. She was convinced she was going to solve one of the cold cases, and every so often, she’d send me a text with her thoughts on a specific episode. Sometimes I watched them, sometimes I didn’t, but I always listened to her theories. She was never actually serious, but it was a thing of ours. We’d always made a point of having something we could talk about that had nothing to do with real life. It had been our way of dealing with things when they’d gotten bad, and we’d continued it even as life had gotten better.

  Last year, we’d discussed bird watching. The year before that, it’d been musicals. Whenever an Olympic year came around, we’d share tidbits about athletes and countries and cultures.

  Was Uncle Mauro the one with the limp or the one who was missing the tip of his left pinky finger?

  Two mouthfuls of popcorn later, Mom’s response came through.

  Dammit. I guess that would discount him since they had a set of full fingerprints and he was reported running away from the scene.

  I started the first episode, fully aware that I would probably continue to have minor interruptions for the next couple hours until Mom decided it was time for her to go to bed. I wouldn’t trade it for the world, though. We still lived in the same city, but I didn’t get home to visit as much as I wanted. This was a good way for me to stay in touch as my schedule grew busier and busier.