Billion Dollar Bear: BBW Paranormal Billionaire Romance (Bad Boy Alphas) (6 page)

      Vaguely
she became aware of stepping into a dark room, and then with a flick of his
hand, a light turned on, illuminating the surroundings. In the next second, she
was being lowered onto a cloud-soft mattress covered with a satiny, red
bedspread that felt cool against her heated skin. She watched with hungry eyes
as Jericho paused to remove his shirt, tossing it on a nearby chair.

     
My God,
he is magnificent
, she thought. All tawny, glistening skin poured over
muscle that looked as though it had been carved from the smoothest marble by a
master sculptor, every dip, cut and valley so exactingly precise, as if honed
with a blade’s edge.

      “You’re
gorgeous,” she thought, reaching up so she could pull him toward her. Greedily,
she ran her hands over the powerful muscles in his chest and abdomen, reveling
in the warm, smooth skin, and the way his muscles bunched and curled beneath
her touch.

      Jericho
could barely breathe as Becca ran her hands over his body. Her dark, hungry
gaze seemed to devour him as she glided her hands across his skin, seeming to
savor the feel of his body beneath her fingers. Goosebumps cropped up along his
flesh, but it was a blazing heat she left in her wake rather than a chill, a
heat that threatened to undo him completely.

      “My turn,”
he rasped, grasping both her wrists in one hand and pulling them over her head.
He pressed the length of his body against hers and kissed her deeply until she
was lost in the passion of their embrace once more. Only then did he venture
south, lifting her shirt and discarding it, then popping off the clasp on her
bra before she had a chance to change her mind.

      Her
breasts sprang free of their trappings and directly into his waiting hands,
filling his palms perfectly. He almost moaned as he weighted them in his hands,
gently squeezing and caressing. They were perfectly shaped, high and round and
full, with rosy puckered nipples just begging for a taste.

      “Squeeze
them,” she pleaded, her eyes half closed, and a red-hot wave of heat swept
through him as she demonstrated, lifting her long, elegant fingers to her right
breast. Her lips parted on a breathy sigh as she rolled the nipple between her
thumb and forefinger, and she reached up with her other hand to give her left
breast the same treatment.

      Jericho
beat her to it, leaning in and flicking his tongue across the tip of her left
nipple. A strangled sound escaped Becca’s lips, turning into a full-on moan as
he drew the nipple into his mouth and sucked gently. Her hands slid into his
hair, nails lightly scraping against his scalp as she held him to her breast,
making throaty “Mmmm” noises in the back of her throat that were sexy as hell.
Wanting to feel how wet she was, he slid his free hand beneath the waistband of
her jeans, and cupped her through her damp panties.

      Becca’s
hips jerked off the bed as Jericho cupped her pussy with the fullness of his hand,
sending more waves of heat through her core. Her fingers tightened against his
scalp as he began massaging her gently through her damp panties, tightening the
ball of sensation in her lower belly and making her even wetter.

      “More,”
she demanded, reaching for the top button on her jeans. “I need to feel your
hands on me.”

      Jericho
gave her a devilish grin as she pushed her jeans off her hips, and kicked them
onto the floor. “Someone’s impatient.” He nudged her knees apart so he could
settle between her thighs, and then peeled off her panties using just his
teeth, slowly dragging the scrap of fabric down her legs until she thought she would
scream from all the anticipation.

      “Mmm.” Jericho
unhooked Becca’s panties around her ankle, then lifted the damp fabric to his
nose and inhaled the potent fragrance of her arousal. “You smell so damn good.”
His hungry gaze moved back to the space between her legs, where her pink folds
glistened wetly beneath a curly thatch of reddish brown curls. “And you look
good enough to eat.”

      Becca
trembled as he moved down between her legs, his face hovering so close to her
pussy she could actually feel his warm breath against her clit. She watched
with bated breath as he slid two fingers between her lips, opening her up, all
the while never taking his eyes from hers, a wicked fire burning in his
incredible blues. She swore she’d never seen anything so erotic in her life,
and it only made her burn for him more.

      “Please,”
she said, lifting her hips toward him. “Lick me.”

      Jericho growled
in response, then slid his hands under her ass, and brought her pussy to his
face.

“Oh, I plan to,” he murmured. Becca
opened her mouth, momentarily looking as if she were going to protest, and then
gasped when he slid his wet tongue inside of her. His breathing stopped as he
felt the walls of her pussy clench around him, trying to draw him in, and for
one excruciatingly long moment he struggled against the instinct to rip off his
jeans and bury himself inside her so he could feel her pussy clenching around
her cock.

     
No
,
he reminded himself fiercely.
You promised. Tonight is all about her.

      Becca
groaned low in her throat when Jericho lifted his mouth from her, only to slide
his fingers inside of her, massaging her g-spot. Fiery sensation spiraled
through her core, tightening her inner muscles so that they pulsed and throbbed
with need. Part of her wanted to lean back and close her eyes, but she couldn’t
look away from the wickedly hot expression on Jericho’s face as he
finger-fucked her.

      “Do you
like the way this feels?” he asked softly, his hot breath gusting against her
swollen clit.

      “Yes,” she
moaned, arching her hips closer to him as she fisted her hands in the sheets.

      “Do you
want more?” He pressed his thumb against her clit and she cried out,
shuddering.

      “Yes!
Please, yes,” she panted, and then bucked wildly beneath him when he put lowered
his mouth to her pussy once again. He licked and sucked gently on her clit, fluttering
his velvet-like tongue over her sweet bud, sending wave after wave of pleasure
through her body, all the while pumping his fingers in and out of her pussy.
The combination drove her off the edge, and she dug her fingers into his hair as
she screamed his name, drowning in her own desire.

      Jericho
hardly noticed, too caught up in the fierceness of her climax. He watched her
coffee-brown eyes go blind as they opened wide with pleasure, watched her
sensuous mouth fall open as she screamed his name, her beautiful body
shuddering beneath him.

      “Oh my
God,” she breathed, her grip on his head relaxing as she sank into the bed.
“That was… incredible.”

      “You were
incredible.” He lay down beside her and pulled her pliant, sated body next to
his. “And you tasted amazing.”

      Becca
giggled, curling against his chest. She felt so comfortable, so right, cuddled
up against him.
A little too right
, a voice in her head warned, and she
stilled.
Just what was she doing here, exactly, anyway?

      “Becca?” Jericho
tilted her chin up so that she was looking into his eyes. His cobalt blue gaze
shimmered with concern for her. “Are you alright? I didn’t… hurt you in any
way, did I?”

      “No, of
course not.” The idea that anything he’d done to her tonight might have been
construed as pain was laughable. But the fact that the concern in his eyes
threatened to melt her heart worried her deeply, and she pushed away. “I have
to get back, though.”

      Jericho
sat up, frowning as he watched her retrieve her clothing. “You’re not going to
stay the night?” A deep sense of loss filled him – he’d been looking
forward to curling around her naked body, and holding her close. Of tasting her
more and hearing his name on her lips again and again.

      Guilt burned
a hole in Becca’s chest at the hurt in Jericho’s voice, and she refused to look
at him, not wanting to look into his gorgeous eyes because she knew they would
undo her. “I’ve got a cat at home that needs feeding,” she explained as she
shoved her legs into her jeans, “and I don’t have a change of clothes. I really
ought to get home now.”

      “Alright.”
Jericho sat up and reached for the cell phone still tucked into his jeans.
Disappointment still simmered in his chest, but he understood her position and
knew that if he pushed he would only distance her. “Let me call you a cab, at
least.”

Becca pulled her shirt on over her head,
then flashed him a quick smile. “No need,” she said, shoving her feet into her
shoes. “I’ve got it. See you tomorrow morning, okay? We’ll meet in the lobby.”
And then she disappeared, her feet pattering light and fast down the carpeted
stairway, and in the next second the apartment door clicked shut.

She was gone.

Jericho rolled over to look at the alarm
clock on the nightstand, and then groaned.
3:00 A.M
., the digital
readout blinked obnoxiously at him, and he flopped onto his back, staring up at
the ceiling, wondering if sleep would ever come tonight.

      Every time
he closed his eyes, all he could think about was Becca. The way her
reddish-brown hair curled becomingly around her face, the way her whiskey eyes
sparkled when she talked about historic monuments and priceless pieces of art.
Her vanilla-cinnamon scent lingered in his nostrils, and he could still taste
just a hint of her pussy every time he swallowed.

      She was
embedded in his system, as firmly as any of the strands of DNA encoded into his
genetic makeup, and the idea terrified him.

     
How the
fuck had this happened?
He’d only intended to slake her lust, and maybe a
little of his own, and now he couldn’t get the woman out of his head. His cock
burned and throbbed, every time it brushed against the sheets, and he gritted
his teeth, trying to fight against a serious case of blue balls.

     
Think
of Ravena, waiting for you back home
, he thought.
That should kill your
erection.

      He tried
to summon up the image of the prissy she-bear, and slowly a picture of her
elegant beauty formed in his mind. But as he stared at her, the sharp lines of
her face softened into the shape of a heart, and her cloud of blonde hair
cascaded into reddish brown curls that gleamed in the lamplight.

      Becca.

      He groaned
as his hand involuntarily brushed against his cock, and before he knew it, he
had wrapped his fingers around the turgid length. Kicking off the sheets, he
spread his legs wide and cupped his balls with one hand, massaging his cock
with the other, as he closed his eyes and thought of the woman who’d writhed
naked on his bed beneath his hands and mouth, and cried his name to the heavens.

      His cock
exploded, jetting white-hot all over his hand, and he groaned as his body
shuddered with the force of his climax.

     
There
was no point in denying it
, he thought to himself as he collapsed back
against the mattress, his body sated and yet still humming with sexual energy.
He
wanted Becca fiercely, so what was the point of denying himself?
He wasn’t
officially promised to Ravena, or anyone else yet, so it wasn’t as if he were
betraying anyone by having a fling with her.

     
They
would set boundaries
, he told himself as he cleaned up, and pulled the
sheets back over his body again. He didn’t want either of them to suffer when
he had to go back to America, something that would happen all too soon. But he
also refused to let their mutual desire go unfulfilled while there was
opportunity to give them both what they wanted.

      Smiling,
he dropped into sleep, a plan already half-formed in his head on how he would
overcome Becca’s objections, and take them both to a place of pleasure she’d
never have imagined.

* * *

Becca fought against the urge to cross
her arms and tap her foot impatiently as she waited in the lobby for Jericho to
come downstairs. He’d assured her he would be down in ‘just a second’ when
she’d asked the front desk to call up to him, and that was over ten minutes
ago.

      Of course,
she could always go upstairs and pound on his door, but she had a feeling that
was just what he wanted, and it was a bad idea. There was no way she was going
to be able to set foot in his hotel room again without being bombarded with
memories of their lovemaking last night.

      Hell, she
could barely think of Jericho himself without seeing him lying between her
legs, giving her the incredible pleasure of her life.

      Becca
gritted her teeth as heat flooded her body.
Seriously?
She had to get a
hold of herself before he came downstairs, because the smell of her arousal
would only let him know exactly how he made her feel, and what control he
really had over her. No matter how good last night was, she couldn’t allow it
to happen again. There was no way she was opening herself up to something that
could easily leave her broken-hearted again. It had been hard enough to walk
away last night, and she wasn’t sure she would be able to manage it a second
time.

     
No, it
was best for them to get through the tour that he hired her to give him, and
just leave things as they are. 

      She caught
the scent of spicy, masculinity that was becoming all-too familiar, and turned
to see him exiting one of the bank of gold elevators with a brown paper bag
stamped with the hotel’s logo clutched in his fist, and a Styrofoam cup in the
other. He wore sunshades and a black leather jacket over his shirt and jeans
today, and the outfit added an extra edge of danger and mystery to him that was
way too damned appealing, if the turning female heads around him were any
indication.

      Not that
she cared.

      “Good
morning.” He slipped the shades up over his dark hair, revealing sparkling blue
eyes that made him look ridiculously bright eyed and bushy tailed as he grinned
at her. He looked well-rested and full of energy.

      “Good
morning,” she returned, trying not to sound irritated, but it was hard since
she’d been tossing and turning most of the night. If not for the triple
espresso shot she’d grabbed this morning, she likely would have spent the last
ten minutes snoozing in one of the hotel lobby chairs. “You look like you slept
well.”

      Jericho
smiled a little ruefully. “One of the perks to having an excellent metabolism,
I’m afraid,” he said, then lowered his voice, a spark of intensity blazing in
his eyes. “I was actually up all night. I couldn’t stop thinking about you.”

      Her breath
caught at the rough timber in his voice, stealing away whatever retort she was
about to make. He’d been up thinking about her too? The knowledge suffused her
with warmth and satisfaction, which she damn well knew she shouldn’t be
feeling, but she couldn’t seem to help it.

      “I’m sorry
I’m so late,” he said, his voice and eyes lightening again, as if nothing
untoward had been said. “I wanted to bring you some breakfast, but room service
was taking longer than I’d anticipated.” He held out the Styrofoam cup and the
paper bag. “For you.”

      “Oh.”
Touched, she took them without thinking about it. “Thank you.” The scent of
coffee wafted from the hot Styrofoam cup, along with a hint of cream and sugar.
Unable to resist, she peaked into the bag. “Oh my goodness. Croissants.”

      He smiled.
“When in France.”

      A chuckle
escaped her lips. “You’re such a scoundrel,” she scolded, then turned and
headed for the exit.

      He
followed her, a smirk playing at his sinful lips as they headed for her car. “I
don’t know what you’re talking about.”

      “I know
you’re trying to charm me,” she said as she slid into the driver’s seat and
buckled herself in. “And it’s not going to work.” As she started the engine,
she dug one of the croissants out of the bag and took a big bite, then moaned
as the buttery, flaky bread sank into her tongue.

      “You sure
about that?” he lifted a challenging brow, and her cheeks flushed a little.

      “Just
because I don’t plan on giving in to your seduction doesn’t mean I’m not going
to enjoy your efforts along the way.” She lifted her chin and pulled into
traffic, officially ending the conversation.

      But not,
she knew, the battle that had only just begun.