What Money Can Buy 3 - to Have & to Hold (5 page)

"Do you want me to press
'
play
'
?" Jason asked.

"She won't believe it. I
'll
tell her I was tricked. She'll see me pass out."

"Don't worry," Jason grinned. "She won't get to that part. Have I ever told you how easy it is to use iMovie? Wonderful stuff. The amount of editing you can do while someone's having a sleep is mind
-
blowing."

"You fucking son of a bitch."

"That's now my
fiancée
and my mother you've called that. Real charmer, aren't you? Don't push me on this, Michael. Louise is a good woman and you have two beautiful children who just happen to be lumbered with an insufferable prick for a father. Not their fault, but we don't want to ruin their lives now, do we?"

"No," Michael muttered quietly.

"This is
n't
all we've got, you know. Your PC back at the office has been locked down. I've revoked your network rights. Your fucking hard drive is absolutely full of porn. Some of it…
w
ell, I'm sure you already know it's not the sort of thing a family man should be looking at, is it?"

Michael looked at Jason, then at me. His eyes were wide and scared, like an animal who'd been cornered. He knew there was no way out of this, no escape. It was the oldest trick in the book, but he'd fallen for it – a good old-fashioned honey trap, the sort of thing so
clichéd
that
you would find it hard to believe any man could be so gullible. And yet, here we were. For a brief moment, I almost felt sorry for him. Then I remembered how he treated Jason after becoming a millionaire in his shadow; how he had tried to take advantage of me in my office. My empathy fell away, and I saw him once again for the pathetic, selfish loser he was. I didn't feel sorry for him, just
his
family.

We got you
, I thought.
We got you, you bastard.

"Let's get this over with, Michael. There's no need to embarrass yourself any further."

Jason walked over to the bedside cabinet and handed him a sheet of paper and a pen.

"I took the liberty of preparing your resignation. It's effective immediately. You'll rescind all your shares and live off the proceeds, if you're smart, for the rest of your life. It also recommends to the board that you unequivocally support my decision to step down from the company. I've even given you a Mont
B
lanc pen to sign
it
with. I want it back, mind you."

I desperately tried to contain a laugh at Jason's sarcasm. This was now bordering on cruel.

Michael looked down at the paper and knew he had no choice. He scrawled his signature and handed it back to Jason. "What will I tell my wife?"
h
e said, his voice cracking.

"That's your problem," Jason replied. "Tell her you had a
mid-life
crisis or something, that you've decided you want to travel the world. I don't know. Now get the fuck out of my sight before I beat the living shit out of you."

Michael glanced at me briefly before heading towards the door, clutching what remained of his clothes as he went. He painted a sad figure, but I had learned that Jason's no-nonsense attitude came from years of dealing with people like him. What most people misunderstood as arrogance was simply toughness. Jason would never have survived this long in business, at this level, by tolerating people like Michael Bridges.

"It didn't have to end like this, Michael," Jason said as he reached the door. "I'm not in the business of seeing people destroyed."

"But you did it anyway."

"No, Michael. You destroyed yourself. I care more about your family than you do. I didn't need to give you those shares. Don't waste them."

Without another word, he was gone. I looked at Jason and couldn't contain my smile any longer. "We did it," I whispered. I reached out my fist and he bumped his onto mine.

"I'm yours now," he grinned. "You know what that makes us?"

I shook my head.

"Unstoppable."

I jumped up and sat next to him on the bed, throwing my arms around him and kissing his warm lips. "Let's get married, Mr King."

I saw the tears well up in Jason's eyes as I approached him, my father proudly linking his arm through mine. The wind was light, enough to gently let the aroma of the sea permeate the air around the guests who had assembled near the beach. The sky was clear. No storms ahead.

As I stood next to Jason, about to be married, he whispered into my ear. "I wish I could find a way to tell you how beautiful you look, Lauren. But you've left me without words."

It took every ounce of willpower to stop tears streaming down my face.

We had made it. My dad had told me how proud he was earlier, how he knew that not only was Jason a good man, but the right man for me. "I don't need to worry about you any more, my angel," he had smiled. "You're made for each other. You couldn't come from two more different worlds, yet it's such a beautiful collision. You remind me of myself and your mother. Totally in love and completely inseparable."

At the moment Jason slipped the
wedding
ring onto my finger, I felt like life was moving in slow motion. I had pinched myself
a thousand
times in the last year. Something about this incredible turnaround in my life never quite felt real, like I would wake up from it at any moment and find it was all a dream. I dreaded the day when I opened my eyes to find myself alone in bed, longing for the man I had fallen in love with so deeply and yet knowing that he was just a figment of my imagination.

I dreaded the day where I would have to
fall back to Earth with a bump
,
back
to my normal life
and
my terrible apartment. I envisaged more dead-end jobs with awful bosses, my father still ill from cancer. Things like this just don't happen to people like me. I had almost begun to convince myself
I was in a waking dream
.

But
I
wasn't. I never woke up.

And, here I was, finally married to the most loving, compassionate, exciting, dangerous and wonderful man I had ever met in my life. Someone who made the world better by his mere existence. As the vicar told us we were now husband and wife and could kiss each other, I sank into him. He held me tightly, in front of everyone, and the world around me disappeared. As our lips parted he whispered into my ear, "I'll never let you go, Lauren. I'll never let you down."

Once again, life in slow motion.

***

Our wedding had been perfect, but it had never been about the day or the venue or the guests or how much money we had spent. When you marry a billionaire, certain things become normal. A Mercedes is a way of life instead of a Ford. Luxury hotel suites are par for the course. Manolo Blahnik wedding shoes and designer Italian dresses cost nothing in the scheme of things. And yet, all this materialism meant nothing if I couldn't have Jason. I was
a
lucky, lucky girl. I could now have anything I wanted, yet all I ever really needed was that man.

As the last of our guests disappeared and we were left alone in our magnificent hotel suite, Jason turned to me. "So, you did the impossible."

"What's that?"

"You tamed Jason King, the man nobody else wanted."

"I didn't tame you," I laughed. "I just made you better."

He walked over and wrapped his arms around me, slowly pulling down the zip on the back of my dress. "Yes you did, Lauren. Absolutely no question
about that
.
You made me so much better than I ever was before.
"

As we began to kiss, I felt my dress fall away. I slowly undid the buttons of his shirt, removed his belt, never letting my lips or tongue leave his. Once my delicate fingers ma
de
contact with the rippling muscles of his chest, my first rush of warm juices arrived between my legs. My nipples threatened to slice through the thin white lace of my bridal lingerie and I felt my breathing become heavy, causing my breasts to rise and fall before him.

I took a step back and admired my new husband. He stripped down to just his tight black boxer shorts and that magnificent erection looked even bigger than ever, ready to penetrate me and claim me for the first time as his wife.

I slowly walked over to our balcony doors, looking back at Jason with a mischievous smile. He knew exactly what I was about to do and made no attempt to stop me. I opened the doors, the light but warm breeze outside instantly entering the room and causing the silk curtains to flow inwards. I stepped out onto the huge fourth floor balcony, looking out to the sea as darkness wrapped itself around my body. We were virtually alone here, and completely private. Ye
t
, there was something daring about walking outside in nothing but white lingerie and high heels with the sole intention of making love without
a
bed beneath us.

Jason stood
just
inside the doorway
with
his
muscular arms
hanging at his sides,
admiring my body
. I placed my firm buttocks against the cold steel of the balcony railing, facing my new husband. Without hesitation, I began to run my hands over my
skin
, slowly pausing to pinch my nipples through their expensive French underwear. I felt my heart rate rise as I lowered
a
hand down into my soaking wet panties. I
th
ought back to that moment in the bridal shop, where I had stood in these very same clothes and masturbated. Now, I was doing it not just for myself but also for him.

My fingers found a clit so delicate and sensitive I could barely touch it. Each brush of a finger against it caused my body to feel electrified, for my nipples harden even more. I was moaning out now, softly but audibly, as my lips parted and I looked straight at the cobalt blue eyes of my gorgeous husband. The hardness between his legs was now at its fullest, and he needed to be released from his underwear.

"Come to me," I gasped.

As he approached, I began to crouch down, ready to receive his manhood. I peeled off his boxer shorts slowly, gasping as inch after rock
-
hard inch spr
a
ng from them. I looked up at him one last time and, without breaking eye contact, ran my tongue up
hi
s length, savouring the salty taste of his pre-come on his swollen head. As he began to breathe heavily, I close
d
my eyes and took him into my mouth. His cock felt more satisfying than ever, maybe because of the adrenaline coursing through me at the
thought
of what we were doing.

It was hard to believe that the man who had taken me in an Italian palace, who had ripped off my own panties and gagged me with them while fucking me mercilessly over the desk in his office, was now submitting to me.
I
had walked out onto this balcony.
I
had opened those doors. Now,
I
was the one choosing to suck his naked manhood
in the open air
. No longer the good little girl,
I had instigated this
. We had come full circle. Jason had taught me to be brave in more ways than one. Now, in outrageously sexy lingerie with my tongue rolling around his erection, I ha
d
no more walls to break down. I had never felt more alive.

I released him with a gasp, exhausted at my own efforts, but never more ready to make love. I stood before him and kissed him, his full lips slowly caressing mine before tracing a line down my neck. Now, it was his turn to kneel before me. I moaned out as he slowly slipped off my panties, the cool air hitting my saturated pussy. I instinctively moved my legs apart, ready for him to do as he wished. He placed his hands on my high heels before sliding
his fingers
up my legs, encased in their smooth white stockings. As he reached the bare flesh of my thighs, he turned his attention to my buttocks, taking one in each hand and squeezing them gently. With a single motion he tilted my hips forward, presenting my pussy to him. I placed my hands on the railing
behind me
and prepared for sheer pleasure.

As always, he didn't let me down. Jason ran his tongue slowly and agonisingly
upwards
from the base of my slick folds all the way to my tortured clit. I immediately made an involuntary sound, more a cry than a moan, as the tip of his tongue parted me and darted inside along its journey. Flicking motions over my desperately sensitive nub were sheer, exquisite agony. Jason knew this, my moans becoming rapid and louder, and turned his attention to my inner walls. He slipped his tongue deep inside me, managing to even catch the base of my g-spot, before literally drinking the
sweet
juices that were flowing from me.
My pussy and anus were soaked and
I felt
the warm liquid
trickle down my inner thighs. An orgasm began to build and I held on to the railing as if my life depended on it.