Bought: A Dark Billionaire Romance Page 4

  Ethan opens the rear door for me, all gentlemanly. As if we’re out on a date. He is utterly perverse. He takes pleasure in taking what should be safe and making it dangerous, taking what should be sweet and making it bitter. I am so far out of my league in contending with this man and we both know it.

  His hand slides across the small of my back as I get into the car. Sore, and obedient. The act of sitting is not pleasant. My jeans pull tight over my ass, and the sharp pain that shoots through my butt as I put weight on my welted cheeks makes me hiss.

  I can feel his smirk. Bastard.

  He shuts the door behind me, and for a brief second I feel a rush of hope and strangely, fear, that he might be sending me somewhere alone. Maybe he’s done with me. Maybe this is all over. Maybe I’ll wake up in my bed tomorrow, and believe whatever I want to believe.

  Then the other passenger door opens, he slides in with a devilish smile, and my stomach begins to churn with nerves again. This is really happening. Ethan Keller is abducting me from my life.

  I could yell. I could scream. As the car starts to move, I think about possibly throwing myself from it in a grand, dramatic gesture. But this is a man who controls everything, including the police, and giving myself road rash at best and serious injury at worst won’t do anything. The time to resist was… fuck. The more I think about it, the more I realize it was a mistake to ever get within a mile of this man.

  As the car sweeps into the night, I sit quietly in the back seat next to him. My ass is still throbbing and I can feel his cum slipping out of me, soaking the gusset of my panties. He’s kept me wet with his seed. I’m marinating in him.

  I need a shower. I need a way out of this mess I’ve got myself into. I need salvation, but the devil is sitting beside me and I know he’s not going to let me go without a fight. The problem is, I don’t have anything in the way of fight left right now. He whipped it out of me and then he took me as his conquest.

  “Are you hungry?”

  The question startles me. “What?”

  “Are you hungry?” He repeats the question.

  “Why, are we going to stop at a drive through?”

  He laughs. “No, but I can have the driver call ahead and order you something.”

  “Of course you can.” I roll my eyes. “I’m not hungry.”

  “Careful,” he says. “You can’t eat scorn.”

  I shoot him a look. He’s an asshole. He’s a fucking sociopath. But I fucked him, so what does that make me?

  I pull my knees closer together, trying to be modest. It does nothing but squeeze more of his cum out of my pussy and into my underwear. He came inside me. I didn’t even try to stop him either. And everybody knows what happens when sperm meets vagina. This is the last thing I thought I’d be doing tonight, wondering if a rogue billionaire just knocked me up.

  I am not on birth control, and he didn’t even ask. I suppose I could have stopped him. Could have at least asked him not to come in me. Damn. Why didn’t I ask him not to come in me?

  Looking out the window is pointless because the windows are tinted, but turning my face away from him allows me to think a little more clearly. And I really have to think, because there’s something about this man that makes my brain shut down.

  He has shown me that he has power beyond the law. But that doesn’t mean his power is endless. He’s not a god. He’s a man. And all men have weaknesses. I’d say Ethan’s twisted proclivities would count as a pretty serious flaw. If he’s willing to beat and fuck someone he just met, someone who knows the dirty little secrets of his business, what else is he prepared to do?

  “You know you’re not going to get away with this.” I grit the words between my teeth, staring straight forward.

  He makes a low chuckling sound. “I already did, Casey.”

  Ethan Keller just made an enemy.

  I’m going to show him that he’s messed with—and made a mess of—the wrong girl. He’s used to throwing his weight around with powerful people. He’s got cops paid off. He’s got thousands of people indebted to him. Millions of people use his products, give him their data. And I just let him fuck me over an interrogation table, but that doesn’t mean he owns me.

  Sitting there, wet and getting increasingly self-righteously angry, I start to formulate a plan. So what if he’s winning right now? So what if I fucked him? So what if I liked it? It doesn’t mean he’ll win in the end. In this game, the only way he wins is if I give up. And I will never give up.

  * * *

  We roll into a compound in the hills above Silicon Valley. High walls surround the perimeter, of course. Rich men can’t help but turn their homes into fortresses. Gates more than twice as high as I am tall swing open for the car and we proceed up a long tree-lined drive toward a house that is built precisely the way I’d expect it to be. This is a home for a modern emperor, two great wings spanning the drive that circles around the front of the house. There are people here, but not family or friends. I see them as silhouetted sentinels. They’re soldiers for hire, men who I am sure have guns, even if I can’t see the weapons themselves.

  Even in the dark, the house is impressive. It’s big enough for a small village to live in, but I doubt he shares it with anyone. I doubt he shares anything.

  The entrance swallows me as I step out of the car. I find myself between large stone columns that tower in clusters leading to the grand front doors. This is a home built for giants. Everything is designed to impress, and to dwarf. Except Ethan does not seem diminished by it. He’s tall and this all fits him. Old style and modern dominance are blended in every part of him and this home.

  I glance over my shoulder as Ethan strides toward the front door. He’s not even keeping hold of me now. He’s taking my presence and my compliance for granted. I could run right now. I could head for the bushes and hide among the trees. This part of the hills is pretty wild, and though I could follow the road back down to the city, the idea of doing it in the dark is more frightening than the idea of staying where I am.

  There are probably mountain lions out there, maybe coyotes, maybe bears. I’m a city girl at heart and by nature. I’m happy when there are four walls close around me and a flow of traffic outside keeping me connected with the world.

  This place is isolated by wealth. I can feel the absence of humanity around us. It’s freeing, but it’s also scary. We all live in Ethan’s world, but I am being drawn ever more into the swirling core of his villainy.

  My thoughts are dramatic, but this situation is nothing but drama. He’s pushed me further than I knew I could go. And he will take me further, if I’m not careful. Maybe too far. Maybe so far I can never come back.

  The door opens just as Ethan gets to it. At first I think he has them on some kind of auto-open mechanism like the gates, but then I see a man standing inside, his hands on each of the handles as he sweeps them open with a flourish.

  “Welcome home, sir.”

  “Thank you, Forsyth.”

  Of course Ethan has a British butler. I roll my eyes in the dark. He loves everything connected with power. I bet there’s a throne somewhere in this house, sitting on a dais, and I bet he sits on it and dreams of the day everyone bends a knee for him.

  “This is Casey. She will be a guest here,” Ethan introduces me. “She can have the princess room.”

  “The princess room?” I snort.

  Forsyth looks me up and down, his dour eyes running the length of my body, taking in the jeans, scuffed shoes, faded hooded sweater. His upper lip curls just a hair of a fraction and I know instantly that he does not approve of me. Good. I don’t approve of him, or this place, or Ethan either. I’m going to be here one night, and then I’m going to bring Ethan Keller down so hard he’ll have to sell this place just to afford his legal bills.

  “The princess room is prepared, sir,” he says, an oh-so faint note of long suffering sigh in his refined tones.

  He knows what I know. I’m no princess.

  “Would you like
me to escort the… lady?”

  He pauses just a moment before saying lady. This British dude is throwing some serious shade in my direction, and if I weren’t basically a captive, I’d be even more offended than I am.

  “I’ll take her,” Ethan says.

  “Very good, sir,” Forsyth says flatly.

  I bet if I were here in a designer dress, all perfectly made up, he’d be fawning over me. He wouldn’t be looking relieved that he doesn’t have to have anything to do with me. I give him a look that returns his scorn in spades, and I turn my attention to the rest of my surroundings, which go even further toward making me feel like a fish out of water.

  The interior of the home is no less impressive than the exterior. The floors are marble and then rich hardwood, the walls are molded, the ceilings boast chandeliers festooned with shining crystal.

  It’s beautiful and classy. Everything I’m not. Standing between these two men with a billionaire’s semen still dripping from my pussy, pooling in my panties and bathing my sex in his seed, I feel a blush of shame coming over me as I compare myself to the surroundings and find myself as wanting as the butler just did.

  “You like?” Ethan moves up beside me and bends to murmur the question in my ear.

  “Looks like an oversized dollhouse for unimaginative people with too much money,” I snark.

  There is a disapproving clearing of the throat from Forsyth, and a dark chuckle from Ethan.

  “Maybe your room will be more to your liking.”

  “My room? Or my cell?” I fold my arms over my chest and look at him defiantly. I’m not going to stand here and tell him what a lovely home he has. He already knows he has a nice house.

  “You’re tired,” he says smoothly, apparently not caring that I’m referring to his misdeeds in front of Forsyth. The butler is probably in on it. Butlers always are. “You need rest. You would not get any rest if you were in my room.”

  There is openly lascivious threat in his tone, enough to make me blush. He might have used me like a whore, but being spoken to like one in front of the most proper man in the universe brings it home. Ethan likes an audience. He’s made sure to have one every step of the way so far.

  “Whatever.” I roll my eyes. It’s hardly an award-winning response, but it’s the easiest thing I can think of to say that imparts my disdain for him. It also saves me from sounding either disappointed or relieved about that, though I am both. The prospect of spending the night in Ethan Keller’s bed is a charged one.

  He starts walking, and I am left without choice but to follow him. I trail after him, down a hall and up a staircase and around a corner and to a door that opens into a room that is larger than my apartment.

  “I suspect you’re the sort of woman who needs her space,” he says, ignoring my snark. “There’s plenty here. You’ll be comfortable.”

  I won’t be comfortable. This place is nice, but it’s the kind of nice people make things when they’re trying to imagine what nice would be and not when they have to live in it. There’s a chaise I can already tell would only be comfortable if you were all angles.

  The bed looks more promising. It’s a super super extra king, or something like that, because you could fit three people and a Great Dane on it. It’s covered in a neutral beige quilt that just screams ‘guest room.’

  “What do you think?”

  “I think it’s better than the cell you were threatening me with earlier,” I say. Okay, so I fucked him. That does not mean I surrender. As soon as I can, I’m out of here. I don’t care that this place is the most incredible place I’ve ever been.

  “That old-fashioned contraption next to the bed is a phone,” he says. “If you lift it up, you will be connected to one of the staff. They will attend to your needs. You can request anything. Food. Drink…” he gives me a significant look, “clothing.”

  “You have a team of seamstresses held in the basement to make me clothes on demand?”

  “No, but they can go out and get you what you want. In the meantime, I’d prefer you stayed in this room until I come and see you.”

  I look at him, astounded by his arrogance. “You want me to keep myself prisoner for you, is that it?”

  “I want you to avoid getting into any more trouble than you’re already in.”

  “Sure, you’re concerned for my welfare.”

  An expression I find difficult to read passes over his face. “You’d be surprised to learn that I actually am concerned for you, wouldn’t you, Casey.”

  “I’d be downright shocked,” I bite back.

  The expression fades. He smiles. “There is a bathroom through that door. I’m sure you know how the rest of this works.”

  He leaves me in there. Alone. Feeling naked without my laptop and my phone. This wouldn’t be a problem if I could get connected to the outside world, but I am guessing the phone in the corner of the room isn’t connected to anything outside this house.

  I walk over to the door he indicated before, and check the bathroom out. It’s huge. Of course. Marble. Of course. As nice as all this is… I keep thinking nice, but it’s not nice. It’s fucking insane. It’s beautiful and grotesquely grandiose. This is a display of wealth and power like nothing I’ve ever seen and it’s serving to make me feel small and scared.

  It might impress me, if I had interest in him. Or, if he had any real interest in me besides wanting to control me. What we shared in that police room was just fluids. It wasn’t intimacy. I don’t know him, and he definitely doesn’t know me. I’m just a data stream to him.

  I don’t know what happens next. I can’t stay here forever. He won’t want me here forever. I’m today’s problem. Tomorrow, there will be another problem. Maybe he’ll just lose interest. That seems to be how it is for a lot of these hyper-rich men. Right now, I’m presenting him with a challenge. I’m resisting him. So of course he’s trying to pursue me. That’s what he does. I’ve been triggering his prey drive, as surely as if he were an aggressive dog, and I were some small, squeaky prey rushing about the place.

  What if I stop being interesting? He’s already fucked me. His sexual curiosity has been sated. A lot of men lose interest after sex. What if I stop trying to fight him as well? What if I do my best to just relax, get comfortable, and wait for something shiny to come over the horizon?

  No. Fuck that. That means giving in to him. And I refuse to give in to him. There are a lot of ways a man like Ethan Keller can use a woman before he gets bored. Tomorrow, I’m getting out of here. Tomorrow, I’m going to blow so many whistles on this guy it’s going to sound like a whistle convention is in town.

  Thinking rebellious thoughts, I check out what the bathroom has to offer. The shower has three heads. When I turn it on, a cascade of water erupts out of all three of them. It’s more than large enough for two people too. I find my thoughts turning to the indecent. All sorts of things could happen in this shower. Most of them already happened in the interrogation room.

  My nerves are starting to return. In his absence, this place is cavernous. He has left me to feel my inadequacy, to let it sink in. Alone, I have nothing to fight, except myself. My desire. My shame. My aching ass. My sticky sex.

  God, do I need a shower.

  I decide to pull myself together, settle in, get comfortable. Maybe make believe that I’m on some kind of business trip and this is a hotel I’m staying in. It seems silly to be playing pretend right now, but what I’m wanting to pretend is much saner than what’s actually happening.

  I strip my clothes off, leave them on the floor, and step into the shower. The three jets of water assail me immediately, and it’s some effort to keep them from hitting me dead on the ass. The mirror across the way doesn’t fog, of course. I can see myself in the shower, my curves, my nakedness. My bottom bears the marks of Ethan’s belt. There are several places where the leather left a mark, and as my skin heats with the shower, those marks become brighter and pinker. He thrashed me from the middle of my ass all the way to the
very bottom, where my cheeks meet my thighs. There’s a methodical placement to them. I see the skill he brought to bear on my flesh, the precise location of each and every one of them. My ass looks like it’s been tiled with hot fire. And it feels like it too.

  There’s more to Ethan Keller than meets the eye. I never expected him to do something like this. I never expected him to take such highly personal interest in me. He doesn’t have to do any of this. It’s actually somewhat stupid of him to be doing this. He could have paid for someone to make me disappear, or just to get me out of the way. He could have set me up with the cops, and left me with a real sentence to serve, but instead he proved his twisted point and took me home.

  I don’t know what he’s thinking. I don’t know why he’s doing these things. It could just be for his entertainment. It could be for some other reason I don’t understand yet. In fact I’m sure it’s for a reason I don’t understand.

  Ethan is twisted, and he’s dark and he’s dangerous. But that’s not all he is. He runs a multinational company that has revolutionized the way data is handled. He is a revolutionary. If he hadn’t been such an asshole tonight, I’d be spending this evening pinching myself to believe that I’d actually met him.

  I get out of the shower and dry myself off on the softest, most comfortable towel I’ve ever used. I’ve met Ethan Keller. I’ve fucked Ethan Keller. And now I’m being held captive by the man. There are so many conflicting emotions chasing through my body, especially in his absence.

  The shower washed away his semen, but the tenderness remains. He fucks like a god. I’d never admit it to his face, but that was the best sex of my existence.

  “Don’t you fucking dare,” I lecture myself. “Don’t you dare start liking him.”

  This is not a grand romance. This is a fucked up, twisted series of events and I cannot let myself turn it into something it isn’t. Tomorrow, I’m getting out of here, and I’m getting my own back. He will pay for every welt and mark he left on my body.