The Pretend Girlfriend (A Billionaire Love Story #1)(101)

He entered her and she locked her ankles at the small of his back, greedy for him, not giving him the chance to escape. Their bodies shuddered together, and it felt like she could barely contain him. Aiden nuzzled at her neck, leaving a trail of wet kisses behind while she ran her nails up and down his shoulders.

She couldn't get enough of him. Her hands explored his body, squeezing his biceps as they held him over her, running down to his tight bottom and feeling the way it flexed with every thrust.

Soon, he moved so that he could put the crooks of her knees against his shoulders, letting him go even deeper inside of her. He kissed her calves while he told her how good she felt, how he wished they could do this all day every day.

For the second time, Gwen's body succumbed to her climax. It built low in her stomach as a tight ball which then burst in the most incredible, blissful energy. Her toes curled up. Even with her eyes squeezed shut, starbursts of color exploded against her eyelids.

Aiden reached his climax at the same time, groaning with the intensity of it. Both of them gasping for air, Aiden leaned down over her and kissed her neck, eschewing his body's need for breath.

And then he collapsed beside her. Sweat slicked both their naked forms, leaving them glistening in the sunlight coming in through the window. Which they'd forgotten to close. Gwen knew she should be concerned about that, but she was so at peace and tranquil at the moment that it was just a thought disconnected from reality.

Her hand found his and they both dozed, the reporter on CSPAN going on about some economic forecast in the background. But even that didn't get to her.

These were the best moments: those few minutes after being intimate. Everything in the world seemed good and right. And even though her body felt exhausted, her mind and spirit were both rejuvenated, ready to take on anything, to do anything. Colors became more vivid, like the deep burgundy of the arm chair. Smells sharper, like the clean scent of Aiden's sweat.

But it couldn't last forever. Gwen clung to those sensations desperately even as they slipped away from her, even as she came crashing back down into reality and all the problems that accompanied it.

She pushed herself off the bed, her rubber band legs trembling so badly that she had to catch herself against the nightstand. She saw the undignified pile of clothes, both hers and Aiden's, mingled on the floor. And the various buttons strewn about the room.

"Your poor shirt! I'm so sorry," Gwen said, remembering the ferocity with which she'd tried to take it off, and the way he'd ripped it from his body for her.

"It was worth it," he replied, looking so peaceful with his head cradled on a frilly pillow and his eyes shut. He looked angelic, even.

Though perhaps devilish, given what they'd just done, would be a better term.

They relaxed for a while longer before getting cleaned up and dressed once more. Aiden pulled on his business shirt, which didn't go nearly so well with his boot-cut jeans. This one didn't set off his eyes in the same way.


First he went over to the window, leaning against the frame, and looked down on Broadway. Then he paced in the few feet of space between the foot of the bed and the dresser above which was mounted the TV.

Gwen followed his movements while she lay on top of the covers, trying to return to that happy dozing state from which the world had pulled her so rudely before. Except she couldn't, not with the sound of his sock feet rustling lightly against the thin carpet.

Giving up on relaxing, Gwen moved onto her stomach head towards the foot of the bed, chin resting on her hands. "Why so pensive?"

"We need to stop running," he replied, stopping to watch the stock report scroll across the TV screen without really seeing it.

"I don't know where you've been since we got to this huge, wonderful bed, but we definitely haven't been running." She knew what it was he meant, but it was more interesting to tease him.

"That's not what I mean and you know it. If we want this to work, we have to take down Henry. We have to discover some way of making my father give up."

"How?" Gwen asked, sitting up and crossing her legs Indian-style.





Chapter 31


How do you stop someone with the resources of a giant multinational corporation behind them? That was the million dollar question. Though, given the circumstances, perhaps hundred billion dollar question was a touch more apt.

They'd ordered room service for supper, neither wanting to risk going outside and being recognized. Maybe it was just that all Gwen's brain blood was in her stomach, digesting the salmon fillet she'd eaten, that kept her from seeing a solution.

"You're sure you don't know anything we could use? You don't have any dirt on him, or whatever?" Gwen said.

"Dirt?" Aiden said, amusement twinkling in his eyes, "Are we in a 1940s gangster movie now?" The sparkle disappeared. "No, I don't have anything like that on him. He was always so careful not to share that sort of thing with me. When I was growing up at home—during those few periods I was allowed home between the private schools he always kept me enrolled in—every time he'd have someone over for business, he'd lock himself and his cohorts away in his study. He even had the maid keep me away from the door, like he was afraid I'd listen in through the keyhole or something like that."

That sounded like Henry all right, keeping an emotional and physical distance from his son. Although, if Gwen really thought about it, it almost sounded protective. Keep his son from learning anything that could incriminate him in his father's misdoings. She thought of how she thought she'd seen in chink in the elder Manning's armor back at his office, after she'd gotten angry and revealed that she knew about his wife.