The Wicked Billionaire--A Billionaire SEAL Romance

by Jackie Ashenden

  So far, it had been her who’d been the center of his attention. He hadn’t let her touch him and that had been frustrating. Now, though, it was her turn and she wanted to make him as desperate, as bat-shit crazy, as he’d made her the night before. Make that vaunted patience of his slip through his fingers like water.

  But she’d never done this before and she wanted to do it right so badly it scared her.

  She couldn’t stop the tremors in her hands as she spread open the denim of his jeans, staring at the hard length pressing against the cotton of his boxers. Her mouth watered, her breathing almost embarrassingly loud.

  Part of her wanted him to simply take what he wanted from her without her having to do anything, but he didn’t move. He wasn’t going to make her do this herself, was he?

  He’s obviously not impatient enough. Already you’re failing.

  No, shit, that was her dad talking. That was her father telling her she was useless. That she was talentless. That she couldn’t do anything right.

  “Grace.” The sound of her name was a growl, harsh and guttural. “I don’t want you to fucking stare at it. I want you to put it in your mouth.”

  His voice rolled over her, heat and desire, the edge of desperation, and that was all the kick she needed.

  Hell, she was just going to do it. Trust herself. She’d already made him lose it the day before, dragged down onto the floor of the studio. She’d do it again, right here in the kitchen.

  Her hands were steadier as she reached for the waistband of his underwear and pulled it down, taking him out. And as she’d already seen once before this morning, he was as beautiful here as he was everywhere else. Long and thick and perfect.

  She took him in her hand, curling her fingers around him. His skin was unexpectedly soft and smooth, velvet over an iron bar. Another intriguing contrast. She ran her thumb up the length of his cock, the feel of him intoxicating.

  “What did I say about my patience?” Lucas’s voice was almost unrecognizable. “Stop playing and do as you’re told.”

  “Hey,” she said thickly. “It’s my turn now, okay?” Leaning forward, she touched her tongue to him, tasting salt and something else, musky and delicious, and that too was intriguing. He shuddered, so she licked him again, swirling her tongue around the sensitive head. Then his hands were in her hair, holding her still, and his hips were moving, guiding her mouth to him insistently.

  Looked like his famous patience had run out.

  She kept her hand wrapped around the base of him and opened her mouth, letting that long, thick length slide in. The heat of him was astonishing and for a second she could only kneel there in amazement, because this was so much better than she thought it would be. He tasted … delicious and the harsh, raw sound of pleasure he made … God, it was so good.

  Grace tightened her grip and gave an experimental suck, drawing another raw sound from him, his fingers curling painfully in her hair. So she did it again and again, taking him in deeper each time. His hips began to thrust, faster, harder, and she had to grip on to one muscular thigh to brace herself.

  God, she hadn’t realized how powerful this could be. How powerful it would make her feel. There was something about how vulnerable he was right in this moment, with his cock in her mouth, trusting her that she wouldn’t cause him pain, because she could. So easily.

  Grace tipped her head back and glanced up at him, wanting to see how she was affecting him. And was almost flattened by the sheer intensity of the expression in his eyes as her gaze met his.

  He was staring down at her, his focus a laser beam of sharply channeled heat, passion, pleasure. Desire. As if she was the target he was aiming at and nothing would stop him from taking her down.

  It was almost too much and she wanted to look away, but she couldn’t. It was as if he’d hypnotized her. All she could do was kneel there as he thrust into her mouth, as she sucked him down, their gazes locked. Holding …

  His hips moved faster, his hands in her hair painful, but nothing on earth would have dragged her away in this moment.

  “Grace,” he said roughly. “Grace.”

  She tightened her grip, sucked harder, watching as the pleasure began to take him over, the lines of his face sharp with hunger. Then he stiffened, gripping her so tight pinpricks of pain erupted all over her scalp. But she didn’t care. All she could see was the pleasure twisting his beautiful features into something unguarded and utterly open, raw ecstasy.

  You did that to him. You made him look like that.

  She did. She had.

  As the climax took him, she kept watching, his lips peeling back, a savage roar breaking from him. He didn’t look away and she had the sudden sense that this was a part of him no one else ever saw. And that he was letting her see it. Deliberately.

  Still think you can protect yourself from him?

  She would.

  She would have to.

  * * *

  “Keep still.”

  “I’m trying.”

  “If you move again you’ll get polish on the couch cushions and then I won’t be happy.” Lucas frowned at the long, elegant foot that was currently sitting in his lap. Applying nail polish was a lot more difficult than it looked. Carefully he painted a little more of the sparkly gold polish on her nail, trying not to get it on her skin. Unfortunately, it appeared that Grace was ticklish and she kept jerking every time he took hold of her toe, which was not helping the application process.

  “I kind of want to see you very unhappy,” Grace said, shifting restlessly yet again. “Are you like the Hulk? Do you go green and rip your clothes?”

  Lucas wrapped his fingers around her slender ankle to hold her still, frowning at a spot he’d missed. “What do you think?”

  “I’m guessing not.” She sighed. “How disappointing. I’d like to see you in ripped clothes.”

  “Make me get polish on my couch and maybe you will.” He leaned forward and dipped the brush in the bottle on the coffee table in front of him, then applied a little more.

  Her foot felt warm, the skin of her ankle smooth beneath his fingers, making the ever-present desire for her tighten inside him. But he was in no hurry to do anything about it quite yet, content to simply sit there and enjoy the feeling of her bare skin against his fingertips.

  If someone had told him two weeks ago that he’d be sitting on a couch painting a woman’s toenails he would have dismissed it as insanity. Yet here he was, sitting on a couch with Grace’s foot in his lap, applying one of her favorite polishes. Apparently.

  He still didn’t know how he’d gotten here.

  After she’d given him the world’s best blow job, that sweet mouth nearly taking the top of his head off, he’d picked her up, carried her back upstairs, stripped her bare, spread her thighs, and proceeded to give her back every bit of what she’d given him. With interest.

  Around the middle of the day, they’d both fallen asleep, waking again in the afternoon to sate themselves on each other again. Then Grace had decided it was time to eat, insisting that even though she couldn’t cook, she could do a mean steak. He was used to cooking for himself and told her he’d handle it, but she ignored him, making him sit at the table in the kitchen while she bustled around making a salad and cooking the steak. She even forced him to open a bottle of wine, though he wasn’t a drinker, and made him have one with her.

  “Chill out,” she’d told him as he’d gazed at the glass suspiciously. “One won’t kill you.”

  Indeed, it hadn’t. It was even nice to sip slowly at it, sitting and watching her move around the kitchen like she owned it, creating a meal with the same flair as she created pictures on a canvas.

  He hadn’t done that for … Shit, when was the last time he’d sat sipping wine while someone else cooked for him? He hadn’t done that ever, probably. Even when he hadn’t been on deployment, he’d spent his free time honing his skills. While some of the other guys had vacations, returning home to family and friends, he’d stayed on ba
se. Van would always go back to the ranch when he was on leave, while Wolf tended to cut loose on trips to Vegas and various other party cities. But Lucas would stay and polish the skills he’d already spent years honing.

  He didn’t need vacations. He didn’t need to cut loose. Griffin often told him he needed to relax more, but Lucas had ignored him. Fact was, he couldn’t afford to relax. Absolute control, absolute focus, was what kept him sane, what kept all those powerful, impossible needs at bay.

  So really, he shouldn’t be sitting in a kitchen with Grace, drinking wine and listening to her chatter as she cooked him a steak. Couldn’t be letting his guard down. But he did it anyway, because it made her happy.

  He wasn’t sure when making her happy had become important to him. Perhaps it had been earlier that morning, in the kitchen, when she’d looked up at him almost fearfully, telling him that she was scared of what was happening between them. That he could hurt her without meaning to.

  Of course he could. He’d hurt people before, hadn’t he? But he wouldn’t if he kept himself in control of this, and if there was one thing he was very good at it was control. As long as he kept every decision deliberate, it would work. Honesty too helped because it kept expectations realistic. He couldn’t give her anything more than what was happening between them right now, but while he was here he’d give her everything he could. And he’d meant it.

  The steak had been excellent and he’d told her so. And after they’d eaten, she’d confessed to an unexpected love of soccer and that there was a game on she really wanted to watch and would he mind. He’d never gotten into sports particularly, but he was happy enough to sit there while she watched it.

  Especially watching her. She was vocal and passionate about the game, trying to explain to him the rules, all the while yelling at the TV when the ref made an apparent bad call. Lucas told her the game seemed to be more about rolling around on the ground pretending to be injured than it was about scoring goals, so she hit him with a cushion.

  Then she got out her nail polishes, removing the tiny little roses she had on her toes in preparation for painting on something else. Given how distracted she was with the game, he wouldn’t have been surprised if she got polish all over his white cushions, so he calmly took the bottle from her and took over himself.

  It was surprisingly restful, giving him something to focus on, which he always liked to do. Though he could have done without her being ticklish, it had to be said.

  “Why did you want to be a sniper?” she asked unexpectedly.

  He didn’t look up from what he was doing. “Aren’t you supposed to be watching the game?”

  “It’s halftime. Come on, spill.”

  He raised his head and surveyed his handiwork. It would do. “I liked the discipline involved.” He started on another toenail. “Both mental and physical. You have to be very focused, very patient, and very controlled. You also have to like being alone, which I do.”

  “Yeah, I get it. And I guess it’s not a surprise about the control stuff given you’re a major control freak.”

  He said nothing, since there was nothing for him to disagree with. He was a control freak and that was exactly the way he liked it.

  Another long pause.

  “How many people have you … um … you know.” She sounded hesitant.

  “Confirmed kills you mean?” No point in beating about the bush. “Just over two hundred.”

  “Oh.”

  Was that shock in her voice? It probably was, since people always were shocked when he told them. But then he saw no reason to lie to her. He was what he was, one of the best in the business.

  Carefully he finished off the nail before dipping the brush in the polish and moving on to the next one. “It’s war, Grace. I’m not there to put roses in the muzzles of people’s guns. I’m there to take out the people I’m ordered to take out, to protect our forces. To protect civilians.”

  She’d gone still, and when he lifted his head briefly to look at her he found her pretty amber gaze staring back. He couldn’t read the expression in it, but it wasn’t horror or disgust, or any of the other emotions he’d seen in people’s eyes when he answered their questions. Because they always asked questions. They always wanted to know how many people he’d killed.

  “I know it’s war. I mean, Griffin was a SEAL too. I just…” She stopped. “Is it hard to pull that trigger? Or do those people simply become targets to you?”

  “The first time? It was difficult.” He could still remember it. “There was a young guy strapped with explosive approaching a checkpoint. A kid, really. It crossed my mind that he was someone’s son, someone’s brother, and that taking him out wouldn’t simply get rid of a threat but affect a whole lot of other people who cared about this guy. But he was going to kill people, people I knew, and since he was going to die anyway, I took the shot.” He didn’t add that afterwards he’d had to lower his rifle, get up, and walk around to stop himself from throwing up. “They became simply targets after that because I couldn’t afford to make them into people. Hesitations cost lives and that’s not why I was there. I was there to keep the body count down by taking out strategic targets, not make it any worse.”

  There was a strange expression on her face, as if he’d turned into someone she hadn’t quite expected. “You’re pretty lethal then.”

  He was and he wasn’t going to pretend to be someone different or pretty it up for sensitive civilian feelings. Yes, he killed people, but like he’d already told her, it was war. And in war people died.

  “That’s what I’m paid for,” he said flatly.

  “That wasn’t a judgment, Lucas. It’s just … interesting. That you’re this incredibly dangerous man and yet you’re sitting on the couch painting my toenails.” Color crept into her cheeks, her mouth curving. “I feel like I’ve tamed a wild beast or something.”

  He didn’t know what it was about her expression that made his chest tighten. Maybe it was the note of satisfaction in her voice, as if she was pleased with herself. It almost dragged a smile from him.

  Are you sure sitting here like this with her is a good idea?

  Maybe it wasn’t. But sitting here with her wasn’t going to change what he was going to do after all this was over. He was still going back to base, no matter what happened. Yes, he’d decided to take her, take everything, indulge himself totally in all the things he wanted that he never normally let himself have.

  But afterwards, when this had burned itself out, he was going to walk away.

  And hope he didn’t leave a pile of ashes behind him.

  He looked back down at what he was doing, taking her little toe between his fingers. Another shudder went through her and he heard the sound of a quickly stifled giggle.

  This time he allowed himself a faint smile. “Keep still.”

  “I am, I am.” She cleared her throat. “So, uh, how about teaching me to shoot?”

  The nail on her toe was tiny and required a steady hand. Luckily, his was the steadiest in the business. “You don’t need to learn to shoot. Not when I’m here.”

  “But what if I want to? What if these guys somehow manage to capture me?”

  “They won’t. I’ll make sure of it.”

  “Oh come on. Wouldn’t you want me to be prepared for every eventuality?”

  He gave her a glance. “Why do you want to do that?”

  A wicked little grin was playing around her lovely mouth, the amber of her eyes luminous. She was wearing that floaty lavender dress again and he happened to know that she didn’t have anything else on underneath it. At least his cock remembered, hardening like Pavlov’s fucking dog at the thought. “Hey, you’re painting my toenails, so why can’t I shoot your guns?”

  Well, and why not? After all, she did have a point about being prepared. Yes, he was going to make sure she was nowhere near any danger that threatened, but it wouldn’t hurt to give her a little training. Make sure she was able to defend herself should the worst happen.


  It would give them both something to do until he heard from that asshole he’d released back to the people who’d sent him anyway. He couldn’t do anything until he knew who he was dealing with. Oliveira, the guy had said.

  Lucas had sent the name to various contacts, including the Tate employee who was currently helping him with his investigations, but so far had gotten nothing concrete back. Whatever, he wasn’t actually going to pay these assholes any money, but once he knew who they were, then he could devise a plan to take them out.

  Or you could go straight to the source of the problem.

  Cesare de Santis. The prick who’d started all of this by recruiting Griffin to be his salesman. Yeah, maybe he should.

  “Okay, I’ll teach you to shoot.” He straightened up, put the brush back in the bottle, then released her ankle, keeping his hand open. “Other foot.”

  “Yay.” Grace shifted, letting him take her unpainted foot. “Is it wrong that I’m excited about that?”

  Hell, he could almost get excited about it, if only because it made her so happy.

  Be careful. Caring is where it all starts to go wrong, remember?

  Oh yes, he remembered. But he’d be able to turn it off when the time came. He’d have to.

  Gripping on to her ankle, he leaned forward and grabbed the brush out of the pot, wiping it carefully before starting with her big toe. “It’s not a game, Grace, remember that. You’d don’t actually want to be in the situation of having to shoot a gun at someone.”

  “No, I know that.” She sighed. “It’s not only about wanting to shoot guns. I kind of want to help. I mean, I’m just sitting around here being the damsel in distress, which really isn’t me.”

  “You have arms dealers after you. Protecting yourself from them alone isn’t an option. If you were a guy I’d be suggesting the same thing I’m suggesting to you now, which is to stay here and let me handle it.”

  “Okay, okay. I hear you. I just wish I could do something. If I still had any of Griffin’s stuff I’d offer to look through it, see if we could find something there, but I gave most of it to Goodwill and threw the rest away.”