The Billionaire's Innocent

“I am not a good man. This is not safe place.” But he reached over and pulled a long blond wave between his fingers, and it made her heart stutter. And for absolutely no reason at all, she felt far safer in that moment than she had all night. Protected, somehow. “There is nothing I won’t do to get what I want, Nora. No one I won’t hurt. Even you.”

She ached in a different way then. The air around them seemed heavy, spiked. It was too hard to breathe. And every instinct she had called her to step forward, to take him in her arms, to soothe him. To tell him everything he wanted to know, because maybe he could help her. And because maybe she could help him, too.

But she couldn’t risk it.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” she whispered, and the lie seemed to light up the room, casting them both in its harsh, unforgiving glare. “I came to France to—”

“To fuck,” he finished for her. He let her hair drop from between his fingers and there was no reason on earth that the grave look on his face should make her breath catch in her throat. “Yes, I know.”

“Zair—” She didn’t know what she meant to say, though she was horrified it might be too much. Too many things she couldn’t take back if she was wrong about him.

And of course she was wrong about him. He hadn’t been on that yacht by accident, and he hadn’t been there for her. And the yacht that Harlow had last been seen on had been registered to the Port of Ruyi.

“One last chance,” he whispered.

She didn’t hesitate again. “Is this your normal routine? All this talking? Because I feel pretty confident you wouldn’t have to pay a girl for that. You could just go out and talk to one.” She let her smile sharpen. “Or maybe not. Is that your problem, Zair? Are you incapable of closing the deal with a girl who might refuse?”

Zair altered somehow, standing right there before her. He shifted. His face became stern, dark, even more forbidding than usual. His green eyes glittered, and his mouth was so hard she thought it might bruise her if it touched her.

And she was obviously sick unto her soul, because she wanted him anyway. Maybe even a little bit more than before.

“Go on, then,” he said, in the coldest voice she’d ever heard him use. “Strip. And Nora? I wouldn’t disobey me again, if I were you.”

* * *

He didn’t think she’d do it. He expected her to balk—

But Nora Grant was proving to be far more of a puzzle than Zair had anticipated. She swayed slightly on her feet. She blinked, as if trying to clear her head. And then she looked him right in the eye as she reached down and took hold of the hem of the peach-colored dress she wore, pulling it up over her head and off of her in a single smooth motion.

It went straight to his head.

She was perfect. Her curves were lush for her slender form and the smooth expanse of her belly beneath the small pout of her navel made his mouth water. And all those sun-kissed limbs of hers that he wanted to explore until he knew every inch of her secrets seemed to go straight to his head. Because he knew, now, how her pleasure felt in his hand. How she fell apart so quickly. Gave herself so completely.

She was so gorgeous it made him ache.

“Do you need me to explain the mechanics of stripping to you?” he asked, and he didn’t do a single thing to modify his harsh tone. His reward was the widening of her summer-blue eyes, the erratic beat of that pulse in her neck.

God help him, the ways he wanted her.

She reached behind her and unclipped her bra. Then slowly peeled it down her arms, and it didn’t take a particularly keen observer to recognize that she wasn’t trying to be alluring. She was stalling.

He waited for her to call it off.

Instead, Nora took a breath so hard he heard it, then let the bra drop to the floor. She stepped out of her shoes, and then her hands moved to the top of those hot pink panties he imagined would linger in his mind for years to come.

Her gaze flickered to his. He stared back, implacable. He saw her jaw move and realized she’d clenched her teeth.

Good, he thought.

Then she reached down and whisked the panties from her body as if she was afraid that if she thought about it any further she wouldn’t do it. Leaving her naked, at last.

“Turn around,” he said with a relentless calm he wished he felt. “In a circle.”

She flushed with what he assumed was temper, though it could have been shame. He’d take either one, if it worked. He thought she’d break then, but she glared daggers at him instead. She also turned. Slowly. In a circle. And he prayed to the God he was certain had abandoned him a long time ago for his usual control. For the strength to resist.

Because there were some things even he refused to do. Some places he could not allow himself to go, down here in this darkness that was his life. And this woman’s allowing him to have sex with her while she thought the absolute worst of him was, it turned out, high atop that list.

Not that he wanted Nora to know that.

“Get on the bed,” he ordered her.

“The bed.” As though she’d never heard the words before. But she caught herself—or she saw the look he was sure he was wearing on his face and she jolted slightly. She threw a look over her shoulder. “You mean that bed.”

“I do.”

She turned and walked to it, and he had to force himself to breathe low and deep and even despite the perfect curve of that ass. He had to force his head into this game again, because this was much too close to any one of the fantasies he’d tortured himself with in the years since he’d done the noble thing and turned her down flat.

He took his time with his own shirt, and he liked the way she swallowed when he threw it to the side. He liked the way her face blanked out altogether when he kicked off his trousers. And he deeply enjoyed the way her cheeks reddened when she looked down at the hardest part of him at last, and the arousal he made no attempt to hide.

But he couldn’t indulge himself.

Not like this. Not even if he could make her forget who she thought he was.

“Get on your hands and knees,” he said, mercilessly, and she shuddered, her pretty face draining of color.

But then that tilt of her chin again, and she did it.

And she was lithe and lovely beyond measure and he thought this really was going to kill him, because she still didn’t break. She assumed the position. She waited.

So he closed the last of the distance between them, steeling himself to what he had to do now. How he had to push her, and not in a fun way that would get them both off. This was not that fantasy. This was darker. He climbed up behind her and he put his hands on her hips and took hold of her. Hard.

“What…?” She didn’t finish the question. He suspected, from her tone, that she hadn’t meant to ask it.

“You wanted to fuck,” he growled. “This is how I fuck. If I were you, I’d brace myself.”

He gripped her again, pitilessly. He hauled her that last little bit closer, and that was when he felt her wavering. Finally. First it was a ripple that snaked through her perfect form, but she fought it off. She steadied herself, dug her hands deeper into the mattress.

Zair smoothed his hand over one perfectly shaped half of her bottom, ignored the storm raging inside him, and then smacked it. The crack reverberated through the room—and through Nora.

She shuddered hard once, then again, and then she began to shake as if she’d never stop. At last. He was two seconds away from forgetting himself and destroying them both.

Nora lunged to the side and he let her go with some mixture of relief and regret, watching as she rolled and then scrambled all the way to the head of the bed and curled up there with her knees to her chin, effectively shielding herself from his view. Tears streamed down her face and her eyes were dark, bruised shadows and Zair knew that he would carry this moment with him for the rest of his life.

It was one more scar. They never did quite heal.

“Problem?” he asked icily.

“I can’t,” she said, though her voice was thick and the words were broken, and he’d take that with him, too. “I can’t.”