The Billionaire's Wife (13 page)

“I could eat you up,” he said, his voice low and husky.

I knew he could. He would swallow me alive if I let him. And the
frightening thing was that a part of me did want him to consume me. I just
wanted to fall into him and let him carry me, let him screw me into
incoherence, and then I wouldn't have to think any more. I could just
be.

But what would I
be
afterward? And what would he make me
into, when I could no longer resist?

“Why did you want a wife?” I asked him. My voice was loud and
flat in the shower stall. The sound of the falling water deafened me. “It seems
like you could just marry anyone you wanted.”

“Of course I could,” he said. He seemed utterly fascinated by
the way the water ran over my breasts. His big, warm palms slipped from my shoulders
and migrated over my back while I tried not to melt. “It was simply cleaner
this way.”

“Cleaner?”

He moved in, the heat of his body rolling from his skin.
“Marriage is a legal contract,” he said. “I wanted a woman who would enter into
it as such with me. I don't require love. Simply a companion. It seemed unfair
to ask someone who wanted to fall in love to fulfill the role.”

That brought me up short, planting a wiggle of worry in my
stomach. I
did
want to fall in love. Just not necessarily with him.

“But
why?”
I asked. “Why do you want a... a companion?
You could find someone who was already into this stuff without all the song and
dance, couldn't you?” I could tell I was pushing against some sort of barrier,
one that he kept erected for a reason, but that I couldn't help but scratch at,
like a barely healed wound.

His eyes hardened. “That is none of your business,” he said, and
I quaked as the touch of his hands grew rougher. He reached down to my hip and
grabbed a handful of flesh there, squeezing until I winced. Then he smacked me,
lightly, and I felt the impact reverberate up my body, traveling up my torso to
my breasts. They jiggled under his burning gaze.

“Let's make a deal,” I said. “I do things for you, and you talk
to me.”

“Things?” he said. “What sort of things.”

Jeez. How the hell did I know? He was the experienced freak
here. I was merely a freak-in-training. “Use your imagination,” I hazarded.

His mouth quirked. “I can already persuade you to do whatever I
want, sexually.”

“Then maybe I could persuade you instead.”

He tilted his head, and wet dark locks fell against his
forehead. “Interesting,” he said. “You want to try to turn the tables? Switch
me from dom to sub?”

I shrugged. “How about this: if you don't reduce me to an
incoherent mess of sloppy orgasms, I get to ask you whatever I want and you
have to answer me.
Truthfully.”

“What's in it for me?”

I smiled at him. “Someone to listen to you,” I told him. “And a
happy wife. I've heard that's very important.”

Anton chuckled at that, then he pulled me to him and his mouth
descended on mine.

Desire rose up in me, an inferno that I couldn't tamp down, no
matter how I tried. It spread like wildfire over me, sweeping away my
determination. My skin slipped and slid on his, our thighs, our chests, our
arms and legs and cock and mound, all were smashed together in the hot, soapy
steam. His kiss lifted me up as he nipped at my lips with his teeth, but
somehow I found the strength to resist him. My pussy and ass were still aching
from our earlier encounter, and I was
tired.

He drew back and looked down at me. “Already attempting to
bargain with me?” he asked.

Beneath his words I heard a knife balanced on edge, and I
hastened to assure him this was not the case. “Not at all,” I said as he ran
his hands down my sides. Somehow I was on my tiptoes, my arms around his neck.
How did these things keep
happening?
“I'm just...”

His hands squeezed my backside, and I gasped, stumbling into
him. His hardening erection slid against my abdomen.

“I still want to fuck your ass,” he said conversationally.

“Yes,” I said. “I... I think I want that, too.”

“Then turn around.”

It took all my strength, but I managed it. “N—no.”

He stilled. “What did you say?”

“You said I could say no,” I told him. “So... no.”

He seemed to think about this. “I did say that. What would you
like to do instead?”

I sighed and let my forehead fall against his shoulder. “Sleep.”

I could feel the confusion radiating from him. “Sleep?” he said,
as though it were a foreign word he'd never heard before. “You mean...
sleep
sleep?”

“Yeah. I'd like to get out, dry off, get in bed, and fall
unconscious.”

He didn't say anything for a moment. “I don't suppose you'd let
me fuck you while you're asleep, would you?” he said.

Indignant, I drew back, ready to give him a piece of my mind,
and he laughed. “Relax, Felicia. I would never.”

“That's goddamn right. Which reminds me, shouldn't I have a
safeword or something?”

His mouth twisted. “Yes, you should,” he said. “Especially given
how you responded to me this afternoon. I've been very irresponsible not to
give you one.”

I raised my eyebrows, waiting for him to bestow upon me the word
that would keep me safe from whatever horrors he wanted to visit upon me.

He smiled. “How about... Jonathan?”

I made a face. “My dad's name? Ew. Ew, ew,
ew.
No, that's
gross.”
I gave him a little shove as he laughed at me again. “You are
gross,
Anton Waters.”

“I never claimed otherwise,” he told me. “Fine, you pick.”

I chewed my lip and absently drew away from him, letting the
water cascade over me and wash the soap away. “How about... Trixie?”

This time it was Anton's turn to make a face. “Trixie?” he said.
“What kind of name is that?”

“My first dog's name,” I said defensively.

“Well, it'll definitely stop me in my tracks,” he said. “Very
well. Trixie it is.”

“Good,” I said, washed the last of the soap from my body, then
pushed past him and got out.

“Where are you going?” he wanted to know.

“To sleep!” I told him, grabbing a towel and exiting the
bathroom.

I was already snuggled in bed and half-dreaming when he slid
under the covers with me. He reached out and pulled me to him. I didn't resist.
Laying my cheek on his bare shoulder, I reveled in the warmth we shared and
kept my eyes firmly shut. I wouldn't be tempted by the hard thighs pressed
against mine. Not at
all.

“I have to return to New York tomorrow,” he said after a moment.
“I canceled meetings left and right to come here.”

“Hmm,” I said. Meetings.
Boring.

“We'll need to make living arrangements,” he continued, and I
heard an edge come into his voice, a bit of a strain. “I meant to discuss them
with you before we wed, but...”

He trailed off. I was beginning to suspect that he was feeling a
little embarrassed about his hasty decision to marry me without any kind of
notice to anyone, let alone me. His need to control everything around him was a
weakness, and I knew I could use it to find the answers I sought.

Anton cleared his throat. “Anyway, my schedule is packed
tomorrow afternoon. I've arranged for an assistant to help you organize your
things and plan out the next few weeks while we settle in.”

I saw an opening. “I actually have an assistant,” I said.

“You do?” He sounded amused.

“Yes. And by assistant, I mean a friend who needs a job.”

He was quiet. “Very well. I will give the job to your friend.
Conditionally
based on performance.”

Oooh, that would go over well with Sadie. “Done,” I said. Hey,
she needed rent.

He continued. “And we'll talk about the honeymoon this
weekend...”

My ears perked up at that. “Honeymoon?” I said. “Where?”

He ran his fingers through my hair. An affectionate gesture. I
yawned. “Anywhere you like,” he said. He was starting to sound far away. “And I
think we should still go shopping for your wedding boudoir.”

“Boudoir?” I mumbled.

“Yes. You'll need toys and things that are all your own.”

A fetish and sex toy shopping spree all for me. How romantic.

“Well,” I said, “I already liked that buttplug you used. We can
keep that. There. That's one thing off the list.”

“You like it?” Anton said, and he sounded far away to my foggy
brain. “We will keep it. Consider it one of my wedding presents to you.”

Who the fuck gives a buttplug to the wife they barely even
know as a wedding present?
I wanted to ask him, but I was too tired.
Besides, I already knew the answer: Anton Waters did.

Anton Waters did a lot of strange things. And I wanted to know
why.

But for now, I needed to sleep, so I drifted off, nestled
against Anton's chest, listening to the beat of his heart.

I slept like a baby.

Chapter Five:

Bartered Submission

So it turns out that when you get secretly married to one of the
richest guys on the planet, it doesn't stay a secret for long.

I slept on the plane back to New York while Anton worked. His
desire to bone until we both ended up in the Emergency Room with third degree
burns on our genitals seemed to be doused in the cold light of a hundred and
fifty urgent emails dinging on his phone the next morning. We'd grabbed only
coffee and pastries for breakfast in Anton's haste to get back to work. By the
time the plane touched down, the news was spreading, and I knew it was only a
matter of time before it reached people I knew, if it hadn't already. Sadie had
a
really
big mouth.

"Keep your head down," Anton advised as we ducked into
his town car.

"What?" I said, looking around. "Why?"

Anton gave an exasperated sigh. "Because," he said
patiently, as though explaining something to a very small child or a
particularly dim hamster, "there's paparazzi everywhere, and you just gave
them a great shot of your face. Congratulations."

"What?" Shit!" I was not at my chipper best.
Slingshotting to Nevada and back had made me crazy jetlagged and I wasn't even
sure what time it was. All I knew is that I wanted a Filet o' Fish and a Dr.
Pepper the size of my arm, and my chances of getting one were vanishing with
every merry
ding
of Anton's phone. I let my hair fall over my cheeks as
the driver—sadly, not Zachary—shut my door, and breathed a sigh of relief when
I realized the windows were tinted to hell and back.

"It's inevitable that we will be uncovered," Anton said
as he scrolled through yet another email, "but you may perhaps wish to do
so on your own terms." He gave me an almost teasing look from the corner
of his eye. "Makeup, perhaps. And you might want to have your hair done."

Distressed, I patted my face and hair, but to my surprise, Anton
reached out and grabbed my hand. "You look lovely, Felicia," he said
before releasing me. "Don't worry about it too much."

"Easy for you to say," I snapped at him. "Not all
of us were born into this world with perfect looks."

His brows twitched. "You think I look perfect?"

Oh, jeez.
"Don't be a girl," I said. "You
practically rolled out of bed and into your clothes this morning, and you look
like you could be on GQ."

"I
have
been on GQ. And there's nothing wrong with
being a girl."

"Yes, I
know,
but if they were daily they'd just show
up at your door every morning and take a photo."

Anton tilted his head, and I saw that faint smile on his face
suddenly bloom into... dare I say? Almost a full blown grin. No teeth yet. I'd
get there someday.

"Thank you, Felicia," he said.

We stared at each other for a long moment, until the air between
us crackled and sizzled.

He broke contact first and shifted in his seat, as though he had
suddenly become uncomfortable. "At any rate," he said, far more
brusquely than usual, "we need to talk about living arrangements."

"What?" I said. "Oh. Right. Shouldn't I just
come... live with you?" Crap. I didn't know
where
he lived. Or what
his house looked like. What if it was one of those really spare modern places
with chairs you couldn't sit in? Did it have a sex dungeon? It had to have a
sex dungeon. If it didn't have a sex dungeon I was going to have to question
everything I knew about Anton Waters, which still wasn't much.

But every minute I spent with him taught me more.

His phone rang. Checking the screen, he cursed under his breath.
"Sorry, Felicia, I have to take this."

"Sure," I said, and pretended to inspect my nails as I
observed him from the corner of my eye.

"Waters," he said into the phone. "Yes. Yes. No.
That's not going to work." I listened as the person on the other line
burbled for a while. Anton sat with the phone to his ear and smiled that faint
smile. He was like a Buddha. A business Buddha. Eventually the person on the
other end of the line realized he was talking to a brick wall and trailed off.
Anton waited.

He'd used this very same tactic with me, and it was incredibly
effective. After a moment the voice burbled again, this time sounding very contrite.

"Yes, thank you," Anton told them, and hung up, then
dialed a new number. "Arthur, I need to speak to Don Schmidt as soon as I
get into the office. Yes, clear that appointment." The whole time he spoke
in a slow, calm manner, his voice almost soothing, unless, I suppose, you had
fucked up in some way. Then it probably sounded like a bomb about to go off.
Unpredictable. And yet I'd never heard him yell, and he'd only become closed
off and angry once or twice with me in private.

He had incredible control. I'd observed last night that his need
for control was consuming, and could be a weakness. Say what you like about my
father, but he tried to teach me—between rounds at the golf course when he
forced me to be his caddy—about the business world. Some of it had sunk in,
despite my best efforts, and I found myself falling back on them now, trying to
decipher the enigma Anton presented. Before our ill-fated shopping trip, I'd
read up on him on the internet.