Bound by the Billionaire Read online

  He stood up and grabbed her by the hair. He pushed her head downward. She held her lips closed, only to prolong the game, to feel him force her. She wanted that.

  He pushed his hard, rigid cock against her lips, her teeth. “Open!” he demanded.

  She did and he shoved himself into her mouth. She held him there, licking the end of him with her tongue, and he moaned, his hands braced on the wall above her head. She moved her head and let his cock fall to the side as she mouthed his balls, flicking them apart, sucking them together, pulling at them as she felt him quivering next to her.

  He pulled her to her feet. She watched as he opened a condom and put it on. He pushed his hard cock into her as he held her to him. She wrapped her legs around his waist to force him inside as deeply as possible. He rocked against her, pushing her into the wall behind her. With frenzy, he rammed into her. He thrusted into her, fast and rough, exactly how she wanted him. Rabid and wild, his hardness ripped at her, her body full of him, her cunt squeezing him deeper and tighter, wanting him never to leave.

  He grabbed her hair from behind and pushed her head toward him, kissing her deeply. As she felt him explode inside of her, she bit deep into his shoulder. From deep inside of her, her orgasm rose, forceful and immense. Together they came, shaking and rocking, riding their feelings to their very ends. Then silence as their bodies adjusted to the wave of pleasure that passed through.

  She stayed locked to him, her legs around his waist, his cock deep inside of her. He held her, his warm breath against her neck. She let her head fall on his strong shoulder. He reached behind her and freed her hands. She wrapped her arms around his neck. They sat like this for minutes, hours, they didn’t know. Time stopped, their bodies joined as one.

  He touched his shoulder and looked at his finger, bloodied from the bite she had left there. She laughed, embarrassed, not believing she had done such a thing. He smiled at her.

  “That was amazing, Cinderella.”

  “It was, Prince Charming.”

  In the rush of passion, she forgot about Frank, only reminded when she heard him passing by the closet door on one of his periodic trips to the toilet. When she was sure he was gone, she whispered to Robert, “We’re going to get caught.”

  “Never.” He buttoned his pants and rebuckled his belt. “Don’t worry. I’ll slip out first. You come out later with your cart. He’ll just think you were collecting your equipment.”

  “Good plan,” Kim said, smiling.

  “You’re amazing. I need to see you again. When?” Robert asked.

  Kim knew they were back where they started. “I can’t. Robert, this isn’t me. It’s too crazy and wild. I need normal and calm. This… all of this… it just messes up my head. I want to… I want you, I wish I could, but I know I can’t.”

  They kept quiet as they heard Frank passing back to his desk at the entrance. Once it was quiet again, Robert said, “What can I do to make you stay with me? To give me a chance? A real chance?”

  “Nothing. I’m sorry. I know what’s best for me, and it is not this. I wish so badly that it was, but it’s not. It can never be. I should have never let this happen again.” Kim placed her ear at the door to hear. “Okay, go. Now! You need to go now.”

  Robert reluctantly left. Kim leaned against the door feeling so conflicted. Robert felt amazing, and, more importantly, he made her feel amazing. He set her free. Didn’t everyone want freedom? Why did she choose to remain in her chains? She knew why. She was sure she knew why. But how could she never be with Robert again when he made her feel so wonderful?

  But Kim knew she had to do the right thing, and the right thing meant not seeing Robert.

  Chapter 11

  “Kim, I need to see you.” It was Robert. Kim had been not taking his calls for two days, but she needed to set him right. It could not go on like this. It had to be over once and for all.

  “Robert, please, if you care about me, you won’t try to see me again and you won’t contact me. I don’t want you in my life. It can never work between us. You’re making my life more difficult.”

  “Kim, I know you don’t believe that. Your body shows me that you don’t believe that,” Robert insisted.

  “Unlike you, I can’t let my body’s urges rule my life. I’ve got responsibilities. Please, Robert, do as I request. If you care about me, if you respect me, you will do what I want you to do, which is leave me alone.”

  Surprisingly, that seemed to be the end of it. Robert stopped phoning, and slowly Kim managed to stop thinking about him and what they had done, hidden away at the gallery. She finally stopped thinking about him nearly every minute of every day. Life slowly went back to normal. She had her lunch shifts at Joe’s, her nights cleaning at Rive Gauche and putting up with Frank’s flirting, and her few nights a week at Elixir. She squeezed in some quality time with Derek and her mother, going to the zoo on the weekend, or to play at the lake. And finally she was saving some money. Things were improving, and Kim felt better about everything. She didn’t need the drama that Robert had brought to her life. She could live a perfectly good life without him.

  Kim arrived at the gallery and was surprised to see Sonya just about to leave. Though they were friends, their schedules meant they rarely saw each other.

  “Kim, gosh, I haven’t see you for ages. How’s the job going?” Sonya asked.

  “Good. I really need to thank you again. It’s a great job and I wouldn’t have found it without you.”

  “No, don’t even think of it.”

  “Why are you leaving so late?” Kim asked her.

  “Actually, I was just finishing up a few last things before I leave. I’m off on vacation for three weeks. Me and some friends are going to Mauritius.”

  “Wow! That sounds fantastic. Have fun, Sonya. I’ll see you when you get back. Make sure you take lots of photos.”

  “I intend to have a blast. I’ll take heaps of photos. I’ll see you when I get back. I hope you’ll still recognize me with my great tan.”

  Kim watched Sonya head out. How nice it would be to go on vacation to some faraway beach, Kim thought. One day. One day, she would take her mother and Derek and they’d have a great time and she’d be the one coming back with the great tan. She smiled thinking about it.

  She opened the door to the janitor’s closet to get her cleaning cart, but then her gaze caught on something in the corner. She moved the vacuum cleaner and went to investigate. There was a flat velvet box with a tag on top written: “For Cinderella.”

  Kim opened the box. Inside was a platinum bracelet set with gorgeous blue tanzanite stones. She lifted it out of the box and put it on her wrist. She held her arm up toward the light and admired the deep blues and the flashing silver. It looked gorgeous.

  Of course it was from Robert, which meant she could not keep it. Sadly she took off the bracelet, put it in its box, and closed the lid. She pushed the box back to its hiding place and left the closet.

  From that night on, gifts kept appearing. One night a gold necklace with a little crystal Cinderella slipper pendant. Another night a broach with her initials in blue sapphires. The one that startled her most was a complete art set with professional-quality oil paints and brushes. How did he know she once dreamed of becoming a painter? Had Sonya told him? She’d opened the wooden box and looked through the small metal tubes of paint. She smelled the linseed and felt the fine tips of the brushes. She closed the lid and put the gift back where she had found it and promised herself one day she would buy her own paints and start painting again.

  It all frightened her though. It was too easy to take the gifts. Too easy to let him into her life. But she had to be vigilant. Sometimes a person had to say yes to themself and to their own best interests. Kim knew that was the case here. It was difficult, but it was the right thing to do.

  While Sonya was away, despite the fact that she needed the money which was very good, Kim told the stand-in manager that she would have to resign from the cleaning job at the g
allery. She couldn’t trust herself to not give in to Robert. It was best she was out of his range, where she could be safe from making the wrong decision.

  ***

  “Kimmy! Customer, table three!” Joe shouted back to Kim in the kitchen, where she’d been cutting onions. She washed her hands, drying them on her apron as she went out to the dining room.

  It had been three weeks since she left the gallery. She’d managed to pick up a few breakfast shifts at Joe’s, and Mr. Washington had helped her get three nights a week cleaning at the meatpacking plant—thankfully only the offices, so it wasn’t too bad. But still, money was tighter than before. She’d already been forced to dip into her savings, which she didn’t like. She’d needed to find something better soon if she was going to keep on track.

  Kim picked the coffeepot on the way to table three.

  “Good morning, would you like some coffee?” Kim asked, looking down to get her order pad from the pocket of her uniform.

  “Yes, thanks, I’d like some coffee.”

  Kim’s heart stopped. She looked up and there was Robert.

  “How did you find me?” she managed to squeak out.

  “Why did you leave the gallery?” Robert said, ignoring her question.

  “You know why.”

  She told herself to stay firm in her resolve, but her body was not behaving. Just seeing him brought everything back to her. Suddenly they were making love; he was tying her hands and taking control of her body. She could feel the thick cord of sexual tension that held them together, that she suspected would always hold them together. The strength of the feelings scared her. She had convinced herself she was free from his pull, but she was not.

  “I’ve missed you. I’ve been sick with want for you,” he said.

  Kim suspected he was telling her the truth. He looked tired and thinner. But that wasn’t her problem.

  “Please, you need to go.”

  Robert grabbed her hand and said, “Don’t push me away again. Go with me. Anywhere. I need to talk to you. I need you to understand. I need to touch you.”

  She pulled her hand back roughly. “No. Go. I mean it. You’re ruining my life. Go.”

  Kim went back to the kitchen and stayed there until she saw Robert leave the restaurant.

  Chapter 12

  Despite having worked there for nearly two years, Kim had no option but to leave Joe’s. She could not chance Robert finding her again. Her finances were in a dire state now though. She had the three nights cleaning at the meatpacking factory, and she picked up a couple of lunch shifts at Elixir to add to her three evenings, but it was not enough and it gave her a lot of stress.

  The upside, though, was that she got to spend more time with Derek. She picked him up from school most days now, which gave her mother some time off.

  “Hi, Mommy!” Derek said, running out to the playground where Kim waited for him.

  “Hi, D, how was school?”

  “Good. Can we go to the lake on the way home?”

  Though the lake was not really on their way home, an extra bus even to get there, she decided it was a good idea. She didn’t work tonight, so they had all the time they wanted.

  It was a gorgeous summer day, with a cloudless sky, and the lake responded in kind, blue and calm, like an answer to the sky’s greeting. Kim and Derek walked along the promenade and then took off their shoes and walked down to the water. Even in mid-summer, the water was ice-cold, but they still dipped their feet in. Then Kim sat to the side, and Derek attempted to build a sand castle.

  A boat was passing in the distance, and Kim wondered if it might be Robert’s yacht. It was too far to see. He’d sent her a few messages after he came into Joe’s that day, but she never replied to them.

  She wondered why they were so sexually connected to each other. She also wondered if she would ever find someone like that again. She doubted it. Robert was so attractive, even without all of his money and the things that money could buy. And even though he lived in a world that she would struggle to find a place in, he was right, they did seem to have a lot in common. But the way he made her feel frightened her. Something about him made her lose all inhibitions and become reckless. It was too much. Maybe she was just someone destined to have a small, uneventful, and tame life. Many people had such lives; there was nothing to be ashamed about in living in that way, she told herself.

  She watched her son, so careful in his building, so serious and intentioned. He’d had enough craziness even for that short time they lived in Montana with Bruce. And she’d had enough. One thing Montana and her marriage taught her was that a small, safe life with her mother in the tiny house Kim had grown up in was also a good sort of life to have. She also never wanted to have to rely on someone again. Even if there was a way to fit into Robert’s big luxurious life, he would take over everything. She would be beholden to him. He would have all of the control. She didn’t want that either. She liked her small safe life, a life that she had control over, a life where she was in control of herself too. She was not going to run away from that into another disaster.

  Sometimes her mother asked her about the man and the limousine date.

  “It didn’t work out,” Kim said.

  “Why? You’ve never explained why,” her mother said.

  “You know, sometimes people are just not suited for each other.”

  “Do you think me and your father were ever suited for each other? We loved each other, and that was good enough. The rest sorts itself out.”

  “Sometimes. But sometimes not. You guys were lucky,” Kim said.

  “Maybe. But Kimmy, I think sometimes you think wrong.”

  “Ah Ma, what does that mean? Think wrong? I think just right,” Kim teased her mother.

  “Laugh all you want, but I’ve seen women like you. Women who men have beaten down and made them think less of themselves. That’s what makes me the angriest about Bruce. You went out to Montana a woman brimming with a love of life and confidence. You came back smaller, Kimmy. You came back looking only right in front of you and thinking that’s all you deserve. You deserve the world. You need to recover from those horrible things Bruce said to you. You need to see that you deserve every single thing, and most of all you deserve happiness. So stop running away from it, Kimmy.”

  At the time, Kim laughed it all off. What did her mother know about anything? When she and Kim’s dad were young and falling in love, things were easier. Things were tough now. Decisions were more difficult. Life was not so kind.

  Every once in a while, though, Kim wondered if her mother was right. Had Montana changed her so much that she couldn’t even see happiness when it was being given to her on a silver platter?

  Kim looked at her watch. They’d get home late for supper and her mother wouldn’t be happy.

  “Let’s go, D, we need to get home!” she called out to her son standing proudly next to his about-to-fall sand castle.

  Chapter 13

  Robert looked at the plate of food the chef set down in front of him, a Thai lemon chicken stir fry. Any other time he would have been pleased with such food, but today he just pushed it away and filled his glass from the whiskey decanter he’d brought to the table.

  He was eating too little and drinking too much. He hadn’t entered his gym for weeks. Nothing seemed to matter anymore. On his worst days, he wished he had never met Kim, that he had never spotted her across that gallery, that she had not walked into the janitor’s closet, that they had not made love… that he had not fallen in love with her. He wished he could erase all thoughts of her from his mind. Maybe if he could do that, he could go on with his life.

  Right now he was stuck in some purgatory of punishment. She quit the gallery after he’d left a few gifts for her. When Debra told him she’d resigned, he was devastated. It took weeks to find the restaurant she worked at, some pub in the meatpacking district. He saw her first through the window; even in her drab waitress uniform, she looked so gorgeous he’d lost his breath.
When she came to his table, he had to restrain himself from pulling her to him. The ache for her was so strong.

  But she’d chased him away yet again. When he went back after she would not pick up his calls or respond to his texts, they told her she’d resigned. She was gone again. He decided then there was no use in finding her; she would just keep running away from him. She didn’t want him in her life. It was as simple as that. He needed to try to accept the reality that there would be nothing more between them, but he was finding that very hard.

  They were meant to be together—why couldn’t she see that? He didn’t understand her thinking. She told him it was all too much, that he made her behave in ways she didn’t like, ways that scared her, that made her feel irresponsible. She reminded him that she was a mother and that she did not have the freedom that he did. She thought she could never fit in in his world, but she was wrong. Right now his world was full of her, if only in his mind.

  If only she could see that he would do anything for her. He could be responsible too. He could help her in so many ways. She wouldn’t have to work so hard; she wouldn’t have to work at all. They could live a dream life. What woman would run away from that?

  He knew the answer: Kim, the only woman in the world that he wanted.

  A spike of anger pushed through his mind—why was she making things so difficult? Fuck her, he thought. Fine, he was not going to fight for her. He was done. If Kim Davidson thought she was too good for him, then let it be. He was done with her!

  ***

  It was the usual crowd at Club Infinity. Robert looked around trying to identify people through his drink-blurred eyes. He spotted Graham and headed for his table.