The Wicked Billionaire--A Billionaire SEAL Romance

by Jackie Ashenden

  The company stuff he could handle. It was tracking down who was after Grace that was the real issue. There were a number of players who could be responsible, but narrowing them down had proved to be surprisingly difficult. The file his father had e-mailed him had contained photos of Griffin with various different people and that had given Lucas a couple of names to start with, but whether it was just one asshole who was trying to recover his money from Grace or a few of them he didn’t know.

  Over the past couple of days, he’d discovered that Grace’s apartment was being watched, as was Tate Oil. Both of which he’d expected. Since they’d been seen together, they were now linked, so it made sense that whoever was after her was now trying to find him too. Except they wouldn’t find him.

  Whenever he left the apartment, he made sure it was at different times and via different exits, so there was no pattern for anyone to latch on to. He had his features obscured with his bike helmet and then, once or twice, had taken the nondescript black sedan he kept for emergencies just like this one, in case anyone was looking for a bike.

  He’d gotten in touch with a special Tate employee who had various useful contacts in the criminal underworld and who’d provided information to Lucas’s father on a number of occasions. But even that guy had come up with nothing.

  Whoever was gunning for Grace didn’t want to be found.

  Which meant Lucas was probably going to have to go with his next plan of action: take down one of the bastards doing the surveillance of Grace’s apartment and ask him a few important questions.

  It wasn’t a step Lucas particularly wanted to take, since it would mean alerting whoever was doing this to the fact that he was investigating them—at least if he left any unlucky asshole he happened to question alive. Then again, there were ways around that, that didn’t involve actual murder.

  Still, he’d been hoping the Tate informant would have had more information for him and he could go direct, so to speak. Set up a meeting. Make like he was going to pay whichever bastard it was the money he was owed. Because he wasn’t going to actually pay the pricks. He did, however, need a plan for what to do about them instead. Probably killing each and every one of them, plus their supporters, wasn’t really the done thing in the middle of New York. More’s the pity.

  He lifted his beer to his mouth and took a swallow.

  Christ, he needed to handle this, and quickly, because the sooner he solved Grace’s little arms-dealer issue, the sooner he could get back to base and forget about her.

  Isn’t this supposed to be a test? And don’t you pass all your tests?

  Lucas took another sip of his beer, the liquid cold down the back of his throat. Yes, he passed all his tests. With flying colors. He’d just … had no idea this particular one would be so difficult.

  Above his head he heard footsteps, and he stilled automatically, tuning all his senses into the sound. It was Grace, he could tell by the rhythm. She was moving down the hallway upstairs, in the direction of the bathroom. A few seconds later he heard the water pipes shudder into life as she turned on … the bath. Yes, it was the bath. She liked baths, he knew because he’d come into that bathroom a number of times to find vestiges of bubbles in the tub and a wet bath mat in front of it. He had no idea where she’d found bubble bath liquid because he sure as hell didn’t have any, yet it looked like she was definitely indulging in bubble baths.

  He made a mental note to get some more bath liquid for her. She was so … feminine. Bracelets and floaty dresses. Sparkly nail polish and bubble baths. Long, silky apricot-colored hair. And yet, as she’d sat on the floor at his feet, her hand moving across the paper had been bold and sure, drawing dark, thick lines on the pad.

  He still didn’t know why he’d let her draw him. Perhaps it had been the way she’d looked up at him and asked him if he was afraid. Like she knew something about himself that he didn’t. It had been a challenge pure and simple, and he never turned down a challenge.

  Above his head he heard her move back down the hallway, going into her bedroom, then back out again. Obviously preparing for her bath.

  He took another sip of his beer, fighting the inexplicable urge to go and look at the drawing she’d done. Inexplicable because he didn’t give a shit what that drawing looked like. Did he?

  The sound of the bathroom door shutting came, and before he was even conscious of having made a decision he’d put the beer down on the counter and was moving, fast and soundlessly, out of the kitchen and up the stairs. He ducked into the room she was using as a studio, checking the corner where she kept her art supplies to see if he could spot her drawing pad. But it wasn’t there.

  He should have left it then, gone back downstairs and picked up his beer again, but he didn’t. Moving down the hallway, he stopped at the entrance to her bedroom and glanced in.

  She was such an untidy thing, the purple dress she’d been wearing thrown over the back of the armchair that sat in one corner, a small pile of what looked like lacy underwear on the floor beside it. The bag she’d brought with her was on the armchair itself, stuff spilling out of it.

  He took a cautious step into the room, scanning around, unable to help himself.

  There were four bedrooms in the apartment, but it was obvious why she’d chosen this one. The great rose window that was front and center in the living area below reached up into this room too, creating tall, high arched windows that let in bars of colored light over the white walls and dark wooden floor, over the heavy white linen of the bedclothes.

  She did like color, he knew that much, and she’d already talked to him on more than one occasion about how much she liked the stained glass too. He didn’t much care about the window. He’d bought the building because it still looked like a church on the outside and he hoped people wouldn’t think there were apartments on the inside. A bolt-hole was useless if it looked like a bolt-hole, after all.

  He took another couple of steps, his gaze narrowing on one of the nightstands. The pad was sitting on the one closest to the window, a couple of pencils on top of the pad.

  What the fuck are you doing? Sneaking around in her room like a fucking pervert?

  Lucas ignored the voice in his head. He wanted to see the drawing and who cared why? He just wanted to and so he would.

  Skirting around the side of the bed, he then stopped beside the nightstand and carefully moved the pencils to one side. Then he picked up the pad and began to leaf through it. There were lots of sketches in it, all of people. A woman on a park bench trying to coax a bird closer with a piece of bread. A man lying on his back looking up at the sky. A teenager throwing a basketball through a hoop.

  Simple sketches of people doing everyday things, and yet each drawing was full of movement and life. Even the ones that were more restful and contemplative seemed to leap off the page.

  He knew nothing about art, nothing whatsoever, but he was pretty certain that what he was looking at was good. No, better than good. Amazing.

  Flipping over a drawing of a group of teenagers sitting on some steps and laughing, he found himself looking down at a picture of what looked like the devil himself. Except this devil had his face.

  Lucas stilled, staring at the sketch.

  She’d drawn him from her point of view sitting on the floor, so he was looming over her. For some reason she’d given him some wings and devil’s horns and there was a pitchfork held loosely in his fingers. A long, spiked tail curled over his shoulder.

  But really, those were just details. It was his face he couldn’t drag his gaze away from. That and the look in his eyes. Because somehow, even though his expression was cold and somehow menacing, she’d managed to capture heat in his gaze.

  That discomfort he’d felt looking at the drawing of himself with the punching bag gripped him again. Like he’d been exposed or had something of himself stripped from him.

  Jesus, had he given himself away? Had he somehow let slip his strange attraction to her? Did she know? Because he’d been looki
ng straight at her as she’d drawn him. And if she’d seen that heat inside him—

  There was a sudden movement near the doorway and Lucas became a statue.

  Grace came into the room, humming to herself. She had one of his big white bath towels wrapped around her, her shoulders and most of her legs bare.

  He was very good at being still, very good at blending into the background, and the area where he stood was shadowed. She didn’t seem to notice him as she moved over to the armchair and bent to rummage around in that little bag of hers.

  He should say something. Move. Tell her he was here. Yet he stayed exactly where he was, motionless. Watching her.

  Her towel had started to slip, so she muttered a curse and straightened, pulling out the corner of the towel and unwrapping herself, holding the fabric straight out on either side of her, presumably to get it centered again.

  It also gave him a front-row seat to her naked body.

  Colored light fell over her, painting her milky pale skin with gold. She was dusted all over with freckles, even over the small high, round breasts and their pretty shell-pink nipples, and the light made it look like someone had sprinkled gold dust all over her.

  His breath caught.

  She was long and elegant, her waist a delicious curve and her hips narrow. The red-gold on her head matched the little thatch of curls between her slender thighs, and all he could think about was running his fingers through them to see if they were as soft as they looked. Or spreading them apart so he could see the delicate pink flesh beneath them.

  The light fell on her hair too, catching the red-gold lights in it and setting it ablaze. Setting her ablaze. She burned like a flame in the white bedroom, red and gold and pink and orange, and all the colors in between.

  He couldn’t believe he’d ever thought she was plain. No, hers wasn’t a conventional beauty, but she had it nonetheless. And it wasn’t just her undeniably lovely body either. Her angular face, with its long nose and strong jaw, looked somehow as naked and vulnerable as she was underneath that towel. Not plain, not plain in the slightest, but unique and utterly compelling.

  She was color and heat and flame, and he wanted her. Jesus Christ, he just fucking wanted her.

  She was looking toward the window, a distant expression in her lovely amber eyes as she rewrapped the towel around herself, tucking the tail of it more securely between her breasts. And he could feel his cock getting hard, getting demanding, his pulse beating like the fucking march of doom in his head.

  It would be so easy to close the distance between them. To pull away that towel and let him see that gorgeous body of hers again. To touch her, feel her silky skin under his fingertips. Take one of her nipples in his mouth, suckle hard on it, see if it tasted as sweet as they looked. Spread her thighs and—

  Abruptly Grace blinked, her head turning slightly in his direction. Then her eyes went huge, open fear flashing across her face, her hands lifting to clutch at her towel. “Lucas?” Her voice was sharp and high.

  Now you’ve scared her, you fucking tool. Perhaps you shouldn’t have been standing in the corner of her bedroom watching her like a peeping tom.

  Lust was beating at him like an out-of-control fire behind a closed door, heating him up, making it difficult to breathe. Making it difficult to stand there and not close that distance between them, put his hands on her.

  Calm the fuck down.

  But he couldn’t. Somehow she’d lit a blaze inside him and he couldn’t seem to put it out.

  “Yes, it’s me.” He had to force himself to speak, and when the words came out it didn’t even sound like him.

  A wave of deep pink washed over her face. “What the hell are you doing in my bedroom? Oh my God, did you see—” She broke off, her eyes going even wider, because he was moving, skirting around the bed, the decision made before he’d fully thought about it.

  “Lucas?” Her voice sounded uncertain.

  But he didn’t say a word, heading straight toward her. She took a couple of quick steps back, yet he didn’t stop then either. He kept on coming until she hit the wall and there was nowhere left for her to go.

  What the fuck do you think you’re doing now?

  Grace’s eyes had gone huge and he could see the panicked beat of her pulse at the base of her throat. He could hear her breathing too, fast and hard, and the scent of her was suddenly everywhere. Damp skin, all sweet and musky, and that faint, tantalizing hint of apples.

  He didn’t know what he was doing. He didn’t know why he’d backed her up against the wall when what he should have done was turn around and walk out. He didn’t know why he’d come into her fucking bedroom in the first place, because he sure as shit didn’t need to look at that goddamn drawing.

  But he’d done all those things and now she was here, so achingly close, staring up at him with those whisky eyes. And it wasn’t fear in them, he saw that now. It was something far worse than that.

  “Lucas,” she said again, shakily, and it wasn’t a question.

  And all he wanted to do was put his mouth over that frantically beating pulse. Taste her skin. Pull away her towel and lift one of those long legs up, wrap it around his waist. Jerk down his zipper and get his cock out, sink into her, feel her heat for himself …

  Except to do that would admit defeat. Would be to fail the test. Would be to acknowledge that somehow she’d managed to do what no one else had ever done since he was thirteen: make him lose control.

  He couldn’t do that. It was a defeat he couldn’t risk.

  “What the fuck…” Carefully he placed one hand on the wall, then the other, on either side of her head. “Are you…” He leaned in close, staring into her eyes. “Doing to me?”

  She blinked, her skin stained a deep rose pink, her mouth opening but no sound coming out. There were flames in her eyes, and when her gaze dipped to his mouth for a split second he knew there was no coming back from this.

  Because, no, it wasn’t fear in her eyes. It was the opposite.

  She wanted him. And now this whole situation had become a thousand times worse.

  “No,” he said softly, coldly. “It will never happen.”

  Then he finally did what he should have done a good five minutes earlier. He pushed himself away from her and walked out of the room.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Grace wrapped her fingers around her hot coffee mug and glanced up at the clock on the wall of the kitchen. It was clean, minimalist, like everything else in the rest of Lucas’s apartment. So much so that there weren’t even any numbers on it. Still, looked more or less like it was 6:00 P.M. Far too late for coffee, but she didn’t care. She needed it.

  Raising the mug, she sipped, but the hot liquid did nothing to steady her. Lucas had been gone all day, and at first she’d been glad, because after that scene in her bedroom the afternoon before she didn’t know if she wanted to see him.

  Heat filled her at the memory, along with a painful embarrassment that made her put down her coffee mug and cover her face with her hands.

  God, she’d been stupid. First of all she’d wandered into her bedroom to find an elastic to tie her hair back with, completely missing the fact that six foot two of pure male muscle was standing by the nightstand next to her bed. Then her stupid towel had slipped and she’d opened it up to rewrap herself and naturally she hadn’t been wearing anything underneath it.

  She couldn’t quite think of what had made her aware of him, only that she’d turned her head and seen a male figure standing there. She’d gone instantly cold with fear even as a part of her told her that it was Lucas. Then he’d spoken, his voice strangely roughened, and then—

  Grace swallowed, her throat abruptly dry.

  Then he’d come at her, backing her up against the wall before she’d even known what had happened, his big, rangy body caging her in. Shocking her, because all that silver in his eyes had burned away, leaving an intense blue flame that felt like it was scorching her both inside and out.

&nb
sp; “What the fuck … Are you … Doing to me?”

  It had been like a veil had been ripped away. As if she were seeing him for the first time and what she saw wasn’t ice but wildfire.

  He burned and all she could think about was how desperately she wanted to burn with him. And of course he’d seen, because she’d never been able to hide her feelings.

  “No. It will never happen.”

  She took another sip of her coffee, hoping it would make the shakiness inside her go away. But it didn’t. Because she didn’t need him to explain. She knew what he meant and part of her was still reeling from the fact that apparently this chemistry was mutual, that she’d somehow managed to affect him. Yet part of her had dropped away in an intense disappointment that even now she couldn’t bring herself to accept.

  But no, it was good. Yes, it was good that nothing would happen between them, because she didn’t even know if she wanted that.

  You don’t know if you can handle him, you mean.

  The breath escaped her in an explosive rush and she turned, putting the mug down on the counter and then leaning against it.

  She’d never considered herself a particularly sexual person. Sex with Griffin had been pleasant and he’d always been a considerate lover, but she’d never felt like she would die if he didn’t touch her. She’d missed his hugs but not the sex when he was on deployment. After all, she had a perfectly good vibrator when the mood took her and it didn’t often take her.

  So she didn’t understand the ferocity of the hunger that had gripped her when Lucas had backed her against the wall. Didn’t know where it had come from, only that it was linked to that buzzing, restless feeling she always felt around him. That he appeared to feel too.