Sharing the Billioniare Page 19
Inhaling, she took the last few yards towards Giff’s design studio. Josh had pointed the way towards the far end of the rambling house. She knew she’d arrived when she saw the architectural drawing table, the various engines of all sizes, the velocity machine so similar to the one he had made in his basement in Midland when he was ten and named National Science Scholar for its invention. She paused at the brilliance of the sunlight streaming through the roof.
“You are so damn beautiful.” Giff stood, once more in ordinary clothes, if his yummy body in the black chest-hugging T-shirt and taupe trousers could ever be called that. Extending his arm towards a large couch in a sitting area with a view of the ocean, he put down a compass on the table. “Come sit down.”
She had to laugh at that one. She spread out her arms. Still in straps, they were the only part of her body she could move with any grace. “I doubt I can.”
“Perhaps you shouldn’t.” His hell-dark gaze travelled her every inch as if he would gobble her up, body and soul. “You’d hurt yourself. And that I couldn’t bear. Not any longer.”
Ah. We arrive at some hardcore revelation. Like why they had agreed to the interview if they intended to play the whole visit like a bait-and-switch. “For example?”
He blinked, walking towards her from behind the design desk. His expression grew cold, even bitter.
Compelled to step backward, she held her ground.
“Tell me why you came here.”
“Tell me why you let me.” Tell me if you’ll give me a story. Or if you want to chuck the whole idea and let me stay and fuck you both more than once.
“Not obvious?”
She flapped her arms to her sides. Undone. Afraid of his relentless turn because she craved his dominant behaviour. But not at the risk of losing her livelihood and her pride. “I don’t know what you want from me.”
“Well, that is a step in the right direction.” He drew near, so close that she felt warmed by his body heat. Then he caught her chin between his thumb and forefinger and made her look him in the eye. “Do you know what you want from yourself on this visit?”
The submissive in her stepped forward and had an answer. “I told myself I needed this interview.”
“Why?”
“To re-establish my career.”
“And?”
Damn. What part of her could hide from him? What part wanted to? They could stay here for days and eventually he’d pull it from her, wouldn’t he? “To resurrect my self-esteem.”
He waited for more explanation, his dark eyes limpid with sympathy for only a moment before he became once more her master.
“Because I had lost you and Josh so long ago, I had no means to get you back. Who was I compared to the women you associated with now? Occupied with starlets and heiresses, neither of you had a need for the girl who had been your next-door neighbour?”
“You don’t hold yourself very highly.”
“High enough or desperate enough to play on our relationship to get me in the door to see you both. Besides, if you wanted me, you could have found me. A detective. A Google search.” She waved a hand. “Simple.”
“You could have asked us for an interview years ago.”
She nodded. “Sure. But I didn’t want to play the next-door neighbour card. Favouritism. Conduct unbecoming and all that.”
“Neither was what happened between you and Renaldo Costas.”
She winced. Looked away. Ashamed. “I let him play me. Sad but true. He was handsome and I was lonely. Horny. Recognising how primed I was for sex, he turned on the charm, leading me to believe he was separating business from pleasure, that we could hook up without any repercussions. After an evening of rather good vanilla sex, I listened to him tell me what was going to be in my article. Costas was an opportunist. He thought if he laid me, I’d give him nicer ink. Gloss over his shady business dealings with the oil cartels. But I couldn’t.”
“Instead he sued you for libel.”
“I told the truth about him. He’s a jerk. Unethical in his business dealings and I had proof. Well…almost. My publisher didn’t think so. But the taste in Costas’s mouth was bitter enough to ask for damages from the magazine.”
“Was he worthy of you?”
Not like you are. And Josh. She shook her hair over her shoulders. “He had a tiny dick.”
Giff snorted. “Is that all?”
“His idea of fun was chocolate on my nipples and champagne on my mound.”
Giff barked in laughter.
“I need more than that in a lover,” she admitted. “I never really recognised that until after Costas. I haven’t had that many lovers since you and Josh and I parted. A girl like me with huge tits gets propositions that do not come with noble intentions of shared pleasure. A woman my size doesn’t get hit on by guys who have anything better in mind than motor-boating between your breasts and making fun of you afterward.”
Giff nodded, the sadness in his gaze making her flinch.
“I remembered, always, what we were together, the three of us. You two were never anything but respectful with me. Kind and sweet.” She fought molten tears. “And so loving. And after we moved away, you two were gone from my life like ghosts. I had put you away with my daydreams.”
“Why? I wrote to you. Called. You never called me back or—”
“My mother forbade me to do it. She had learned what we were doing. Making love. Me with both of you. The games.”
“What? How’d she know?”
“A few months after we settled in Dallas, she found the nipple clamps that Josh gave me. The little yellow ones. Remember those?”
“I do.”
“I loved those canaries. Used them myself,” she whispered, rubbing her palms against the craving of her nipples now to have them on her flesh. “Every night I wore them until my mother found them. She went ballistic. Told my father. He was nuts, too. They told me you had called and said they had burnt letters from you, too. And they vowed that if I ever called you or wrote to you, they’d throw me out. Disown me. I was in my senior year of high school and I wanted so badly to go to college and they knew it, used it all against me. Said they would not pay my way. I had good grades. But not good enough to get me any scholarships. When they were so ugly to me, I knew I had to get out of the house fast. The clamps made them crazy and my mother concluded what else we were doing at your house. She was so right on, I wondered if she ever saw us. And my dad was almost out of his mind with theories of how you two had hurt me. I couldn’t set them straight. They wouldn’t let me. Our relationship was never the same.”
Giff shook his head. “I should have tried to find you. Josh and I were so angry that you didn’t get in touch with us that we wrote you off as lost to us. For that I am very sorry.”
His apology did much to ease the hurt. But what would really help was a new relationship that lasted beyond these few days. “My folks passed away a few years ago.”
“I hope they were proud of you.”
“They were. They weren’t around to endure the Costas trail and my fall from grace.”
He pushed a strand of her hair back over her ear. “So making love became a vanilla event, is that right?”
“All the time. Straight. Vanilla.”
“Poor baby.”
“Bored,” she admitted, closing her eyes as he stroked her cheek. “Hungry for something more. Not finding it with average Joes.”
“Didn’t you ever try to find yourself a Dom?”
“I did. No one ever really appealed to me for long. I didn’t prefer any one type of BDSM. Ropes are fine. But I hated fire play. Liked shibari, but couldn’t assume the positions and hold them.” She winced. “I’m too big a girl to be bound up in elaborate positions for long. Plus, time was an issue. And I had to support myself. Journalism—good reporting—takes time and mental acuity. I summoned both and luckily, I made a living and a name for myself. And at the same time, so did you.”
He wrapped his elegant finge
rs around her nape as he drew nearer. He brushed his lips on hers. His voice caressed her every nerve. “We followed your career. Read your articles. Watched your every triumph. The awards. Read everything about the Costas trial. Won’t let you write anything like that about us.”
She jerked backward. “Why would I?” Had they fucked her to ensure she wouldn’t write anything negative about them? Not repeat the Costas mistake?
“No need to go anywhere, darlin’.” He pressed up against her, one thigh between hers.
Really? I still have a life to lead. A career to make. Separate from yours. “If you don’t let me go, I’ll give your nice trousers a wet spot with my pussy juice.”
He let his nose travel the length of hers and he nibbled at the corner of her mouth. “Do it. I am not setting you free.”
“And if I won’t stay?”
He squeezed her so hard she thought she’d ooze right into his body. “Stay. Be my baby. Be Josh’s. We never, ever loved anyone but you. And now that you’re here and loving our games, why not stay and be our lover all the time?”
She stared at him.
The arch beauty of his face grew stern. This was her master. Her earnest, demanding lover. “Admit you came here for one reason only.”
“Only if you admit you let me come here for one reason only.”
“You bet your beautiful breasts and ass and that hot wet pussy we did.”
Her mouth fell open.
He squeezed her so tight again she thought the leather bands might burst. Then he swung her around. “You’re a good writer, Joanna Carter. And before you became that, you were a great lover. But for us only. Come live with us and be our love.”
“Again?”
“Forever.”
Her head reeled. She dug her nails into his biceps to steady herself. “That’s why you didn’t use a condom.”
“And that’s why you let us ride bareback. You are too savvy not to stop a man who wants to compromise you.”
“You compromised me here!”
“Did we? Or did we act on the information we had from countless private detectives.”
“What?”
“You heard me.” He shook her a little. “You want us as much as we want you. Only you. Josh and I just made it happen in the only way we knew how to get you fast.”
She eyed him askance. “So you never intended to give me an interview.”
“Did you really tell yourself that was your motivation?”
She sighed, sinking against his chest, inhaling the scent of his cologne and the male musk that was Giff Spencer. “If I did, I knew when you and Josh made love to me in there that the only place I want to be is with you both. The only ones I want to love are you.”
He lifted her up in his arms and crushed her close. “Marry me.”
The words rang in her ears. Gasping for joy, she hugged him, then froze. “Why me?”
“First and only woman we ever loved. No one ever laughed as much or played our games so well. Every other woman wanted our money or some headline that made her reputation. We got tired of the greed. It’s why we bought the island, built this house, ended the jet-setting and got down to planning how we could lure you back to us.”
“I’m stunned.”
“Didn’t think we could be wily?” He chuckled.
His note of humour sent a frisson up her spine. She stared at him, askance. “How wily?”
He tipped his head to one side. “Enough.”
“Enough to propose to Mark Waldyn that he hire me to interview you.”
“You could say that, yes.”
“Damn.” Her brain spun. Her heart sank. “Are you telling me that I really am washed up as a journalist and that the only way I got this gig was because you proposed it?”
“No. Josh and I and Mark have been friends for years. When you went to him with the proposal, Mark came to us with the idea. He wanted us to bless it and give you your advance.”
“And you said yes because you wanted me to come here,” she concluded, not as thrilled with her business acumen as she once had been.
“Write the article, honey. Write whatever you want about me and Josh.”
“Oh, come on.”
“But marry me first.”
“Wow. How objective will that article be?”
“Then don’t write it. Your call. Work your career or not. Your call. But marry me.”
She examined his lips. Firm and lush. The dimple at the corner of his left cheek. The changed and matured man who had never forgotten her. Just as I have never forgotten him or his brother.
“What do you say, darlin’?” he urged her in a small desperate voice.
Oh, the wonder of getting more than she came for. “One condition.”
“Yours. Name it.”
“Let me love Josh, too.”
“All part of the grand bargain. I’ll be your legal husband. We will both be your mates.”
“And will I have the honour of being ridden bareback by both of you?”
“Forever and ever. We want our babies. We want your babies.”
“Then take me back in the dungeon.”
“How about I fuck you right here?”
“To consummate the deal?” She giggled and opened her thighs. “Zip down your fly, sweetie. I need you inside me.”
“And then it’s my turn,” Josh declared as he came up behind them and kissed her nape.
“Funny,” she said as she spread her legs and Giff drove her up into bliss with his steady thrusts.
“Mmm, what’s that?” he asked between rams.
“I came here telling myself I was going to be objective.”
Josh pushed her hair from her ear as he nuzzled her there. “What happened?”
“I lost it when you took my equipment and my luggage. Then you cuffed me.”
“Wanted you all fired up.”
“Oh, honey.” She curled her arm up over Josh’s head as his brother fucked her nice and tight. “For you two, I will always be on fire.”
Giff agreed. “And you’ll always be bound to us.”
About the Author
What’s a gal to do to if she lives deep in the heart of Texas, travels often everywhere, and adores Paris, Florence, London, Tokyo and all points east and west?
Ah.
She becomes an author who can write about those romantic places. With a passion for cowboys, spies, rakes, knights in shining armour and their gutsy women, Cerise DeLand is an author who adores an alpha male with a tender heart and a need for a smouldering erotic love affair with the right woman!
Cerise is a Top 20 Best Selling author on Amazon with more than three dozen works published in erotic romance, and she is also an award-winning author of mystery, mainstream and romance with St Martin’s Press, Pocket Books and Kensington. Her books are on numerous book clubs, including Featured Selections of The Mystery Guild, Doubleday and Rhapsody. And when she isn’t dreaming up fiction or travelling? Cerise is a fabulous cook and an avid history buff.
Busy lady. Happy writer.
Email: cerise.deland@ymail.com
Cerise loves to hear from readers. You can find her contact information, website and author biography at http://www.total-e-bound.com.
Also by Cerise DeLand
Hard Drivin’ Man
Swords of Passion: At Her Service
Swords of Passion: For Her Honour
Tough Texas Hombres: One Tough Hombre
Tough Texas Hombres: Two Tough Hombres
YIELDING FOR HIM
Lauren Fraser
Dedication
To my amazing husband: without your support I wouldn’t be able to chase after my dreams.
Chapter One
“Miss Scott, you can’t go in there,” Donovan James’ secretary yelled.
“It’s fine, he’ll see me, Marianne.”
“No, he asked not to be disturbed,” Marianne called out.
Even through the door he could hear the mad scramble of a chair slidi
ng across the floor and the rapid staccato of high-heeled shoes clicking across the floor. His office door swung open and Lisa Scott stood at the entranceway. “Van, call off your dog.”
His harried secretary Marianne stood beside Lisa. The fierce set of his assistant’s shoulders and her pursed lips almost made him laugh. Part of the reason why he’d hired her was because she intimidated practically everyone, but Lisa wasn’t like most people.
“I told her you were busy,” the older woman told him. Her displeasure with the other woman dripped from her tongue.
“It’s fine, Marianne,” Van assured her.
Lisa rolled her eyes at him then turned to the smaller woman and smiled. “Can I get a cup of tea when you get a chance?”
“Of course,” Marianne gritted.
He bit his lip to hide his amusement at the interplay. Marianne disliked every woman he dated on sight and Lisa had been no different, despite the fact that Lisa had remembered Marianne’s birthday and anniversary. Still, the older woman had no patience for her, now Lisa seemed to take pleasure in annoying his assistant.
Setting his pen down on the mountain of paperwork on his desk, he sighed. So much for getting through his work. Although if he was going to be interrupted, he couldn’t think of a better reason than Lisa. He scanned her body in the fitted skirt and blouse. Her dark brown hair was pulled back into some kind of knot and with her glasses on she had this whole librarian thing going on. And damned if the look didn’t just make him want to muss her up.