I Married a Billionaire: Lost and Found(19)

He didn't look at me, drawing the rope across the length of the headboard and looping it around the opposite post. "Oh, right - I forgot. You don't get anything out of this, do you?"

"Only the exquisite pleasure of making you happy," I replied, with a grin. "But, hey. I'm a giver." He'd finished fastening my other wrist. I tested the knots halfheartedly, tugging on them without any real intention of trying to get free. They were solid. Of course.

"Did Little Miss Tantra teach you about this, too?" I asked, referring to the woman he'd once told me he hired to teach him the finer arts of pleasure. I was pretty sure he deeply regretting telling me about it, based on the faces he'd pull every time I brought it up.

"You're obsessed with that woman," he said, stepping back and taking a look at his handiwork. "Why don't you forget about her for a while, and start focusing on your own development?"

I arched my back, very consciously, watching how his eyes bored into my chest while I did. "Are you saying I need to be better developed?" I purred.

He was on top of me in a second, his whole body looming over me, his eyes like flint - but if I was being perfectly honest with myself, this was how I liked him best.

Without another word, he leaned down and kissed me fiercely. His hand slid under the back of my head, grabbing a handful of my hair by the roots and holding on. Not pulling; just possessing. His tongue was firm and demanding inside my mouth. I loved every moment of it. When he got like this, I couldn't help but believe it was because he was so overwhelmed, so consumed by his need for me, that he forgot how to be gentle. It was intoxicating.

He reached down and grabbed either side of my blouse, ripping it open in one swift motion. I squealed in halfhearted protest. It was old - and besides, I was already dizzy with desire. He got up on his knees and pushed my skirt up over my hips. When he yanked my panties off and tossed them aside, I swore I heard him growl.

He unzipped, and then he was lifting me with both hands, positioning me right where he wanted. I bit my lip. Anticipation was buzzing through my veins.

Then, in one swift movement, he was inside me. I cried out, my hands tugging uselessly at the rope, not because I wanted to get free so much as that I simply couldn't keep myself still. I thrashed and moaned, and I wasn't really sure whether I was the one doing most of the moving, or if he was moving me. All I knew was that the bed was shaking, the headboard knocking against the wall with at least every other thrust, and I really, really hoped that our neighbors weren't home.

Not that they'd ever complained before.

Pleasure and tension were coiled inside me, tightly, like a spring that was ready to let go at any moment. I couldn't stop myself from whimpering every time I exhaled. His eyes looked like they had gone completely dark, but I wasn't sure if I was just imagining it.

The spring was tighter and tighter, quivering, and then it suddenly released. I screamed out his name, feeling my body convulse somewhere distantly in the back of my mind.

For a moment, I was lost. I came back slowly, blinking. My neck and head ached. Daniel was untying the knots, rubbing my wrists where the rope had left depressions in my skin. I curled up on my side and focused on my breathing, just the way he'd taught me.

In and out, in and out. Over and over again.

***

I woke up the next morning with a pit in my stomach. After how peaceful I'd felt last night, I supposed it was only a matter of time before it all caught up with me. No matter how seamlessly we managed to connect when we slipped into the roles of dominant and submissive, none of our problems were really solved.

Daniel was still asleep when I got up. I tiptoed down the stairs to avoid waking him, starting the coffee and poking at the basil's soil to make sure it didn't need more water. As I walked over to the living room to turn on the TV, I noticed something stuck under the door. I went and pulled it out, curious.

It was a copy of one of the popular technology journals, and on the front, of course, was Daniel.

It wasn't a picture of him that I had ever seen before. He was standing behind a podium, giving some kind of presentation, and they'd managed to catch him at a moment when he looked remarkably like a dictator. The headline said:

DANIEL IN THE LION'S DEN

And underneath was the tagline:

Billionaire in danger of losing it all?

Despite my better judgment, I flipped to the article and began reading.

Like many before him, billionaire tech mogul Daniel Thorne is being weighed, measured, and may be found wanting. Accusations of insider trading have brought the formerly private mogul into the limelight, and it's not very flattering…

So, more of the usual. Rolling my eyes, I skipped a few pages.

…the source, who insisted on remaining anonymous, says that she dated Thorne for several years before he became such a runaway success. But even then, she claims he was arrogant and self-righteous - and that he often hinted at beliefs that rules didn't apply to him the same way the did to other people.

Hurriedly, I crumpled up the magazine and shoved it into the little garbage compactor under the sink, burying it under some coffee grounds. I had no idea when it started coming, but he certainly didn't need to see that and find out that his utterly insane ex-girlfriend Flo, who'd once tried to ruin our lives, was out there talking about him.

I'd caught a few of the headlines that had been coming out since this whole mess exploded. I tried to avoid them as much as I could, for my sanity's sake, but I'd caught Daniel looking at a few of them online - stuff like THORNE IN DISGRACE from the tabloid rags, while the serious business outlets ran multi-page stories dissecting every aspect of his life history that they knew. But this was something different. This was so…personal. I had a horrible, crawling sensation on the back of my neck.