The Billionaire Shifter's Curvy Match (Billionaire Shifters Club #1) (6 page)

He needed to be alone. His business clients didn’t matter; one of his people would make sure it went smoothly. Because of his unusual genetic makeup, he used figureheads as much as possible with the media and casual business contacts. Even Brazilian plastic surgery couldn’t explain how he’d looked thirty since the turn of the millennium. But he was always there, always directly controlling what was said and what went on.

Just not today.

Nothing to do with the Beat or the One or any of that mystical bullshit. He’d almost gotten a poor woman fired before she’d even started her first shift.

And he’d impelled Eva to reprimand him as if he were a child. Or worse—as if he were Derry.

Two white-haired men he’d promised to talk to waved at him from the bar, but he pretended not to see them. Instinct drove him to head underground, into the cold, dark quiet. The Novo Club downstairs would be perfect, but he didn’t want to risk seeing one of his mocking, critical, insufferable siblings or any one of a dozen cousins. They’d smell Lilah on him. And his need.

That wouldn’t do. He’d end up killing his own kin. In the mood he was in, he might kill all of them.

So he strode across the club, using every scrap of his willpower not to chase Lilah down and carry her out with him over his shoulder, through the back entrance to the service elevator. He got inside, inhaling the scent of her that remained, and took it down into the second oldest, deepest corner of the original building.

The wine cellar.

His decision was already calming him. No longer unsteady with inappropriate lust, he felt his brain clear and his pulse steady. When the doors opened into the cold, brick-lined hallway, he marched into the darkness with his equilibrium renewed.

This was who he was: calm, logical, in control.

He’d stay here until all danger of being otherwise had passed.

L
ilah’s head
would not stop throbbing.

The work itself was a breeze, and Carl was fabulous to work with. By the end of their first hour working together, they were a well-oiled machine. He picked up on her pace and she knew how to keep him organized. As the lounge filled with a crowd estimated at three hundred people, Lilah was busy.

And her shoes stayed comfortable.

Her stomach ached with anxiety at Carl’s warning. What if someone had seen her kissing Gavin? She couldn’t afford to lose her job over a grope and a tongue dance in the elevator.

You know that’s not all it is
, she berated herself silently.

That’s all it is to him
, some other voice replied.

Speaking of
him
, Gavin Stanton had disappeared. This was his party, according to Eva and Carl. Party-boy had made out with her in the elevator and made himself scarce. Typical. Turns out billionaire Brits were just like the average American man.

She served a vodka and soda with a lime to a woman she recognized as a local weather forecaster for Channel 5. Without acknowledging Lilah’s existence, the woman animatedly continued her conversation with a man who looked suspiciously like the governor of Massachusetts.

Slipping away, she headed toward Bloody Mary. Carl had pointed to a variety of people in the crowd and given them nicknames based on their favorite drinks. Cosmo was the head coach for one of the New York NFL teams. White Cosmo was his wife. Sex on the Beach was a reality television celebrity known for her recent nude cover shot for
Vanity Fair
.

Wallbanger was a guy who looked at her as if he was dreaming about banging
her
. Webb, his real name was. Wallbanger Webb. Although he insisted on a weird version of the drink: instead of orange juice, he demanded
Tang
. Ugh.

She swung back to the bar, moving slowly as taught by Eva. (“We never rush. Ever, Lilah. The hallmark of the Platinum Club is that it is a haven for the busiest of the busy. Important people don’t need to be surrounded by people in a frantic hurry.”) Carl caught her eye.

“Lilah! We’re out of our wine selection. I need you to go to the wine cellar and get three bottles of red.” He recited a bunch of French words that made her head fill with gibberish.

“Wait! Slow down,” she said as calmly as possible. “You’re speaking in Klingon.”

He flashed her a devilish grin and grabbed a pen out of his pocket, then a cocktail coaster. A few scribbles later, and he handed her a list.

“Take that downstairs. The red wine is more popular than usual, and our wine runner got caught in traffic. He’ll be here any minute, but in the meantime, you’re it.”

Lilah paused and looked around. All her drinks had been delivered. The atmosphere was all business but serene. Low light, the scent of polished leather and burning beeswax mingled with perfume and cologne. It all oozed money.

If you sniffed hard enough, you might smell that too.

“OK. Will do. All my customers—”

“
Members
,” Carl corrected her.

“My
members
are in good shape. Where’s the wine cellar?”

He gave her the floor number and a series of directions. Lilah had never been in a wine cellar before, and as she waited for the elevator, she wondered what it would be like. A minute ticked by. Two minutes. Three.

And in those three minutes, she’d earned enough to buy herself a latte tomorrow. Already tonight, she’d made more in a handful of hours than she’d netted in a week at the mortgage company.

The elevator doors opened, and Lilah felt a mixture of relief and disappointment. This was the same elevator she’d ridden in with him.

Him.

The scar on her forehead had been twitching since she’d seen Gavin, and she reached up to rub it. No relief. Nervous, she shifted her weight from one foot to the other as the elevator descended below the lobby, two floors down, opening to a floor where the carpet was gone.

In its place were cobblestones.

This is weird
, she thought, but stepped out, heading left, then right, then finding a door labeled TPC.

The Platinum Club. Carl had given her the code, and she punched the four numbers in.

With a pneumatic release, the door popped open an inch and she walked into the cool room, her head absolutely pounding now.

As she turned around to close the door (“The room must remain temperature controlled at all times,” Carl had warned her), the skin at the nape of her neck began to tingle. She turned to look at the room. A wide square, the walls were covered floor to ceiling with wine bottles on their sides, necks facing her. Nothing was labeled.

How would she find the wines Carl mentioned?

Peering in the dim light, she browsed the wall like a library shelf. As her vision adjusted, she saw there was an organization system. Australia, California, Chile, Argentina, and ah—France.

The French wine took an entire wall that turned out of the room. Another hallway? Just how big was this wine cellar? Lilah continued to the end of the room, finding her hunch was right. Another hallway that led to what appeared to be a second room.

God, her head was killing her. Leaning against a thick oak table, the kind of distressed wood that was popular in home decorating magazines and big enough to seat sixteen people, Lilah took a few deep breaths. This job was so out of her realm of understanding. This was a world of human beings that she didn’t know existed. Wealth on top of power, all in a single club that didn’t exist. The very real paycheck was proof it did, though.

The tingling spread to her shoulders, her arms, down to her fingertips and the backs of her knees as she opened her eyes.

She was not alone.

“Hello?” she called out.

Movement. Someone was in here with her. But they said nothing back.

And then Gavin Stanton appeared at the opening to the second room, his blue eyes glowing in the dim light.

“Lilah,” he said.

“Oh no,” Lilah answered, her body throbbing like her head. “Mr. Stanton, we really shouldn’t be in here alone—”

“I know we shouldn’t,” he said softly. He was so tall, with broad shoulders and a rhythm to the way he walked, shoulders and hips moving so gracefully and with power. Like a big game lion.

Before she could open her mouth to protest, he was an arm’s length away, heat radiating off him like a sauna. She was warm. Oh, so warm.

And wet.

All Lilah could hear was the sound of their breath, joining in the air, off beat and full of anticipation. Her heels made her nearly the same height, their eyes evenly matched.

“I...I’m not supposed to do this with members,” she said dumbly. Her body screamed for his touch, head and clit throbbing in unison, every cell of her skin crying out to be caressed, stroked, laved and released.

“I’ll resign my membership immediately,” he said, and then he kissed her like he had every right to do so.

Lilah inhaled sharply with surprise, the pleasure of his lips on her, his hands sinking into her hair and pulling at the clip at the base of her neck. His touch mixed with the scent of stone and man. Gavin’s mouth was greedy, tongue sweeping through her, teeth nipping at her lips, her own kiss back lost in the waves of desire he poured out through his fevered attention.

Arms like steel bands wrapped around her waist and shoulders, pulling her tight against him, his heat burning her. Passion flared like a roaring fire between them, her own hands seeking refuge in the thick cloth of his suit jacket, digging underneath to find his shirt, pulling it out of his waistline to touch him. Feel him. Connect her palm with his tanned skin.

His hand grasped her breast, thumb teasing the nipple, making her groan without control. What was she doing? She could lose her job! She’d already lost her mind; she couldn’t afford to lose anything else.

Lilah knew she should stop him. She knew this was against the rules. The people-pleaser in her, the good little do-bee, fought with the part of her that wanted Gavin inside her, shoved up against the stone wall, his mouth everywhere at once, cock pounding her to match the throb in her head.

That good little do-bee Lilah was long done as Gavin ripped open the sash of her wrap dress and she stood before him wearing nothing but the blood-red corset, garters, a red thong, and heels.

Cold air struck the wave of exposed, flushed flesh, and she shivered, less from the chill and more from the look in Gavin’s eyes.

She’d never seen a man so hungry for her.

So wild.

Like an animal.

All restraint disappeared when she looked at those eyes, full of need for her. Only her. Words that shouldn’t be in her head filled her thoughts as his hands worshipped her skin, mouth suckling a spot in the hollow of her throat, his hips pressing against her thigh as he bent to taste her.

“You are so luscious,” he whispered, the words stripping layer after layer from her rational mind.

Mine
, the voice inside her said.
You’re mine, Lilah
. It was Gavin’s voice, and as she opened her mouth to ask why she could hear him without sound, his lips touched hers and ended the impulse to ask.

Her hands reached for his belt buckle, opening the leather band with such skill it felt unnatural, as if she were drawing on some unknown force within that guided her. His pants pooled at their feet and she reached up for his shirt, the buttons opening as if she willed it. Still kissing her, he stripped out of his own clothes, the thick hardness of his erection nudging her belly, making her blossom inside. She wasn’t just wet and eager to have him enter her.

She would die if he didn’t.

He yanked at the laces of her corset; Lilah heard a dim popping sound and vaguely wondered if she shouldn’t ask him to be more careful, but the rough pull of the fabric separating, leaving her naked from the waist up, made the question pointless.

“My God,” he said in a quiet voice that rumbled through the room with such deep vibration she marveled that the wine bottles didn’t rattle against each other. “You’re more stunning than I’d dreamed.” His hands roamed the curves of her body like he was memorizing them.

“You’ve dreamed of me?” Lilah asked, finding her voice. Or had she? Was her mouth moving?

“For longer than you could possibly imagine,” he said as his body descended on hers.

* * *

T
he scent
of her embedded itself in each neuron in his brain, in every pore of his skin, in all the bones in his body. Lilah tasted like sugar and beeswax, her nipples pliant and tender, like licking a rose petal with the morning dew clinging in the sunshine.

He knew this woman. Her mind communicated with his on some primal level, her voice in his head as her thigh was clenched in his palm, his knee helping to spread her legs. As he caressed her hip he tore the thong away, her little bleating sound of surprise making his cock stand up higher. Harder.

More.

She was timeless, a goddess in the flesh before him, the dim light obscuring her divinity. Gavin smelled the fear and the want in her, the hesitation dissipating like a dandelion gone to seed, and as he suckled one breast he pulled back and blew gently on the tender skin.

She gasped and shuddered, her hand seeking his cock and making him shudder in concert.

Their bodies were nude enough, and the press of torso to torso put their heartbeats in rhythm, the Beat coming through like a symphony, her eyes wide with shock as she recognized it too.

He felt it but the Beat was no match for the blind arousal that coursed through his blood like a sickness, and Lilah was the cure.

His fingers sought her red nub, swollen and aching for him, her sex slick and sweet like an appetizer. Pushing her against the thick farmer’s table, he lifted her up by the ass, hands sinking into the creamy fullness of her, then spread her legs wide, her scent wafting up and making him delirious.

While instinct drove him to sink into her and ride out this maddening urge, he was a gentleman, after all.

Ladies first.

“What are you—oh!” Lilah said, her voice fractured by the touch of his tongue against her honeyed juices, legs strained and tight. Within seconds he felt her fingers sink into his hair and he smiled against her soft, succulent lips.

Let go
, he told her without speaking.
Just let go
.

She obeyed the order, a deep moan vibrating from beneath her navel through those gorgeous lips, and as Gavin stole a look, he wished he could pause time and simply study her. Lilah was a vision of unrestrained sensual beauty, head tipped back, breasts pulled high as her back arched, her thighs now pulling closer to his cheeks, encasing him.

But again, a gentleman keeps his promises.

More strokes, the sweet rolling tease of her hooded pleasure point against his tongue and she was pushing against him, his finger slipping inside her soaking walls, now ready for what would come next.

“You,” she whispered. “You.”

He moved up and kissed her, her mouth searching for his, eyes closed and hands roaming over his back. The animal within began to emerge and he knew he needed to be in her—
now right now oh yes
—or he would reveal his true nature.