TheBillionairesPilot Page 11

  She reluctantly raised her eyes to meet his dark gaze.

  “You do need. I can feel it coming off of you in waves. Don’t hide from me. I want to give you what you need. Now ask me.”

  She blinked to clear the mist that had suddenly swelled in her eyes. He was pressing all her right buttons, but she didn’t know if she could give herself over to another Dom.

  “Trust me, Cassie,” he said in a quieter voice, and she thought she caught a glimpse of something in his eyes, something that almost looked like fear of exposure. He was putting himself out on limb here, too, asking her to submit to him.

  Keeping his gaze locked with hers, he stroked a finger across her panties, as if to remind her where her needs lay.

  A shiver raced down her spine and she took the leap. “I need to be touched,” she said quietly.

  His eyes darkened further. “Where?”

  “My pussy,” she whispered.

  “Good girl.” The praise echoed the approval in his gaze. “Close your eyes, sweet Cassie,” he instructed, “and relax.”

  She lay back in her seat and concentrated on loosening her muscles, letting the heat of her arousal wash through her. Her nipples pebbled, and her breath grew short as his fingers teased and stroked, heightening her desire.

  As she forced herself to keep quiet and motionless, her senses intensified. Knowing proper, stuffy Mr. Jacobs sat behind them added to the kick of the moment by lending it an illicit feel, giving her a heady rush.

  Evan’s touch remained soft and slow and on the outside of her panties, yet it drove her closer and closer to the edge, but not quite over. She wanted to squirm and lift her hips, but she kept still as he’d instructed.

  His gentle strokes were maddening. She craved more, more direct contact, but she hesitated to ask him for it. Would asking for more of what she wanted disrupt the scene he’d initiated?

  Before she could make a decision, he slipped a finger under the elastic leg of her panties. The naked touch was exactly right after she’d waited so long for it. He slid his finger down through her wet heat and back up without touching her clit, making her crave her release even more. Several more times he stroked down and up through her hot, swollen folds until she didn’t think she could take anymore.

  “Ask me, Cassie,” his words were forceful, but not loudly spoken.

  She barely hesitated before begging, “Please may I come?”

  With the barest of brushes, he touched her clit, and her climax rushed through her while she fought to stifle her desperate urge to cry out. She pressed her lips together as he stroked softly, and her body seized with her orgasm. Clutching the blanket in her fists, she shuddered with the force of coming undone, and throughout her body, her muscles tightened as her mind floated free.

  Her breath came back to her in a rush as she came down from her high, and Evan left his large, warm hand on her inner thigh. Slowly, her breathing returned to normal, and her muscles relaxed.

  Before she could open her eyes and express her sincerest appreciation, he spoke in his low, deep voice. “Now, take a nap, Cassie,” he directed, giving a slight squeeze to her leg. “And let me get back to my reports.” He pulled the hem of her dress down as he moved his hand out from under the blanket.

  A small smile played across her lips as she kept her eyes closed and snuggled under the cozy blanket, now thoroughly free of tension and capable of falling asleep. For a moment, she was tempted to cover his lap with the blanket, so she could return the favor, but fatigue overtook her.

  A final thought flitted through her mind before she surrendered to the drugging effects of a good orgasm.

  Landing was going to hurt like hell, but since this bird had already taken off, she might as well enjoy the flight.

  * * * *

  “You’re home, sleepyhead,” Evan whispered against the top of Cassie’s head, as the limo pulled up to the curb in front of her apartment.

  Reluctantly, she eased out of Evan’s hold in the backseat. She’d been lightly dozing in his arms since leaving the airport, and she regretted having to leave his warm embrace.

  Evan opened the door and got out of the car with her, walking her to the front door of her building. Evan’s driver, Tony, followed them and set her new suitcase at her feet before returning to the limo.

  “Do you want to come up?” she asked Evan, willing to sacrifice any sleep she might get for the rest of this short night in order to be with him.

  “Yes.” His response was immediate.

  Her sleepiness dropped away at once as she grinned up at him. Images of him naked in her bed flashed through her brain.

  “But I’m sorry I can’t,” he continued.

  “Can’t?”

  “It’s been an unbelievably long day.” His voice was heavy with his apology. “I’m a zombie, barely still on my feet, and I have to be in the office tomorrow morning for a six o’clock conference call with the German office.”

  “Damn. That’s early. You should have my boss talk to your boss. I don’t have to be in until eight to fly my guy to a meeting upstate.”

  “I’ve met your boss.” He tucked a stray hair behind her ear. “He’s pretty damn awesome.”

  “Yeah, he kind of is,” she agreed without much enthusiasm, enjoying the chance to tease him back.

  His eyes widened. “Kind of?”

  She leaned up and kissed him briefly on the lips. “Yeah, kind of. Now, get home to bed before you turn into a frog.”

  “I think you’ve got your fairy tales mixed up.”

  She made a show of checking her watch. “Do you really want to talk about fairy tales when you need to be at work in five hours?”

  He groaned. “Oh God, is that all I’ve got left of tonight?”

  “Yes, boss man. This is goodnight for you.” She kissed him again on the lips, grabbed her luggage, and scooted inside the vestibule before he could grab her and further delay his leaving. She gave him a quick wave through the glass panel and headed for the stairs, refusing to stand there and watch him leave like a schoolgirl with a crush.

  Lugging her suitcase with all her new clothes up to the third floor, she smiled as she remembered the way she’d responded so quickly to his touch on the plane. The man seriously turned her on with his dominance. She’d have some great fantasies to keep her warm in bed tonight, and she would refuse to worry about the eventual outcome, at least for tonight.

  She reached the top floor of the building and dragged the rolling suitcase to her door. The hallway bulb was burnt out, so she didn’t notice the paper stuck to her door until her key didn’t work in the lock. She tore down the sheet and squinted in the dim light reflecting up from the second floor.

  Damn it to hell! Her landlord had used her weekend away as an opportunity to evict her.

  She cursed several choice words under her breath as she stomped her foot on the hardwood floor.

  “Knock it off up there. People are trying to sleep down here,” a voice yelled from the second floor.

  “I’m sorry, Mrs. Clive,” she called back.

  “Is that you, Cassie?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Come down here, girl. I’ve got a message for you.”

  Cassie left her suitcase at the top of the stairs and joined her neighbor on the second floor. “I’m really sorry to wake you, Mrs. Clive,” she said to the white-haired woman, who stood in her doorway in a housecoat covered in a thick layer of cat fur.

  The older woman waved her hand. “No worries, my dear. I was up watching late night reruns. I haven’t been able to get to sleep at a decent hour since the first Bush’s administration.”

  “Did you say you had a message for me?” Cassie got to the point before Mrs. Clive could get started on her political discourse. She was entertaining when Cassie had a few hours to spare, but right now, Cassie had more pressing concerns, like where she was going to sleep tonight.

  “Yes, yes. It was from our most sympathetic landlord.” Sarcasm thickened her words.
“He told me to tell you, if I saw you, that he had your stuff boxed up and stored in the basement. He didn’t want to advertise in that note on your door that your stuff was down there unsecured.”

  “Well, that was thoughtful of him, wasn’t it?” Cassie matched Mrs. Clive’s sarcasm.

  “You got a place to stay tonight, dear?”

  “Oh, yes. I’ll be fine.” No matter how limited her options, there was no way Cassie was staying with Mrs. Clive and her fifty cats. The stench of cat pee seeped out into the hallway from the open doorway. Cassie couldn’t imagine being surrounded by it overnight. “Thanks for delivering the message. You have a good night.”

  “Goodnight, dear.” Mrs. Clive closed the door, and Cassie listened to the three deadbolts clicking into place.

  She went back upstairs to where she’d left her suitcase. Sitting on the top step, she assessed her current situation. She had no space on any of her credit cards, and Evan hadn’t handed over her payment yet for the weekend. He said he’d have a check waiting for her at work in the morning. So, there was no way to pay for a hotel room, and she was smart enough not to attempt to sleep in her car.

  She glanced around the darkened hallway. She’d certainly slept in dirtier, more uncomfortable, and less safe places in Afghanistan than this deserted, top floor hallway in a relatively safe area of New York City. Plus, the only ones with access to the building were the tenants with keys to the outer door. Besides, hers was the only apartment up here. No one would have any reason to come up here tonight.

  She was just lucky her key had still worked in the outer door, probably because her landlord didn’t want to make the effort of changing all the tenants’ keys to fit a new lock. The guy was predictably lazy.

  In the morning, she could put on last Thursday’s suit that was tucked in her suitcase under all her new clothes. She’d get to work early and wash up in the ladies’ room. At lunchtime, she’d call her landlord and make arrangements to hand over the cash she’d earned this weekend. That should be plenty to get her back into her apartment.

  With that all settled in her mind, she dug into her suitcase and changed in the dim hallway from her sundress into some lounge pants and the Texas T-shirt she’d picked up at the airport when she didn’t know where she’d be spending the night. She wrapped her cardigan tightly around herself and attempted to find a comfortable position on the dirty hardwood floor.

  Fortunately, hot air rose, and she wasn’t too terribly cold on this spring night at the top of her apartment building, but she had to force herself to keep her mind off of the memory of her soft, plush mattress that was probably now home to a family of rats in the basement.

  Unfortunately, stress and exhaustion seemed to trigger her nightmares. During the limited time she had to sleep, she jolted awake twice from bad dreams, stifling the scream that lodged in her throat as her helicopter spun out of control in a ball of flames.

  When morning came, she was grateful to get up and move forward with her day, even though her body ached from the hard floor, and her mind was sluggish from lack of sleep. At least one of those could be cured by stopping for a cup of coffee on the way in to the office.

  She changed into her ugly suit and repacked her suitcase. She couldn’t leave it here in the hallway all day, so unfortunately, she was going to have to drag it into work with her, stash it under her office desk, and hope no one noticed. Yeah, and she might as well hope to win the lotto while she was at it.

  God, her first week at her new job was not working out so well. And the highlights? She was nearly having an affair with her boss, and she was wearing his engagement ring.

  Chapter Eleven

  At the knock on his office door, Evan looked up from the reports he was reviewing on his desk. “Come in,” he called out, glad for the interruption. Quarter two projections were looking depressingly bleak. He hoped whoever was coming in was bringing good news.

  “Whoa,” he said when he caught sight of Cassie in his doorway. His ultra-feminine fake fiancée from the weekend had been replaced by the androgynous helicopter pilot again.

  “I’m sorry to interrupt you. Do you have a minute?” she asked formally.

  Standing, he beckoned her into his office. “Of course, anything for my fiancée.” He grimaced at her hideous suit and tightly pulled back hair as she shut the door behind her and approached him. “What happened to all your nice clothes from the weekend?”

  “Nothing,” she answered briskly, “but they’re hardly appropriate for flying helicopters.”

  “I suppose, but isn’t this look a little too far in the opposite direction? You are my alleged fiancée after all.”

  “I’m not here to talk about my clothes, Evan,” she snapped.

  He was taken aback by her abrupt attitude. “What’s going on, Cassie?”

  “Do you have my payment for the weekend?”

  That wasn’t the first thing he’d expected her to say after how close they’d gotten, especially in the past twenty-four hours. “Of course, I have the money I promised you.”

  She held out her hand. “I’d appreciate being paid this morning.”

  He stared at her. It was like she’d switched back to the old Cassie, and the one he’d gotten to know over the weekend had been a figment of his imagination. What happened to the woman who’d melted under his touch last night on the plane, then slept so sweetly in his arms in the back of the limo?

  She was changing directions on him again, but he was getting to the root of the cause this time. “Are you backing out of our engagement?”

  “No, I plan to honor our deal.”

  “Then, what’s with this look,” he waved a hand at her ensemble, “and this attitude?”

  She drew in a deep breath and let it out with a sigh. “I’m sorry. I’m having a little money problem.” She quickly added, “Nothing that this weekend’s earnings won’t resolve.”

  “If you needed money, why didn’t you ask?”

  “I just did.”

  “Fine.” He blew out his own sigh. Obviously, she had an issue with asking for help and wasn’t willing to reveal anything about her private life. Two things he would plow through if he were her Dom, but they weren’t anywhere near that stage in their relationship.

  Yet, rang through his head.

  Reaching into his desk drawer for his checkbook, he asked her, “Will four thousand be enough for your problem, or do you need more?”

  “Four thousand is what we agreed upon for my assistance this weekend. I will not take more from you until I’ve followed through on my part of the deal.”

  “You mean, until you’ve been seen around town with me on a weekly basis.”

  She nodded, and his frustration with her grew. Why the hell wouldn’t she just tell him what kind of trouble she was in?

  He signed the check and handed it over the desk to her.

  She glanced at it then raised startled eyes to him. Reaching towards him with the check, she tried to hand it back. “I can’t take this.”

  “Why not? It’s exactly what you just asked for.”

  “It’s a personal check. This is your money.” She waved the slip of paper at him.

  He shook his head. “No, it’s your money now. You earned it.”

  “But it’s a personal check. You didn’t pay me from a business account.”

  “It doesn’t matter, Cassie. I can write it off as a business expense,” he explained.

  Shaking her head, she folded the check in half and put it in her suit coat pocket. “It does matter,” she said softly to herself. “But I guess beggars can’t be choosy.” She turned and headed for the door.

  His patience snapped, and he whipped around the side of his desk, catching her upper arm before she grabbed the doorknob. He spun her so she faced him. “What the hell is going on, Cassie?”

  “Nothing.” Her eyes narrowed, reminding him of her self-defense abilities.

  He loosened his hold on her arm and prepared to block a possible attack. “Yo
u’re not leaving until you tell me what’s really wrong.”

  “I said it’s nothing.” Her words came out tightly pinched.

  He squinted at her neck. With his thumb, he rubbed at a dark spot. “Have you been rolling around in the dirt this morning?”

  “Evan, please.” There was a pleading note in her tone that he’d never heard before. “Let me go. This isn’t your problem.”

  He studied her face closer. Dark shadows under her eyes spoke of a bad night’s sleep, or perhaps too few hours of sleep, which he could relate to. But something was definitely off with her this morning.

  “You’re my fiancée. Your problems are mine.”

  “Your fake fiancée.” She wiggled her arm as if to get out of his grasp.

  “Either way, I still need to know what’s going on in your life.”

  “I can handle it.” Her words came out clipped.

  “Let me help,” he insisted and wondered how he was going to breach this impasse.

  She glared at him for a minute more.

  “Cassie, why won’t you let me help?” He tried a slightly different approach.

  Finally, she seemed to relent when he didn’t back down. “Everything’s going to be fine. If you really need to know the details, I was evicted for overdue rent. But now, I have cash and can pay my landlord and get back into my apartment.”

  Anger flared in his chest. “Where did you sleep last night?”

  She hesitated, and his hand involuntarily tightened on her biceps.

  “In the hallway,” she said quietly and continued to meet his gaze, almost daring him to lose his cool because they both knew she was capable of taking him down.

  He dropped his hand and took a step back. He forced his voice to sound calm. “Why didn’t you call me?”

  “It was late, and you had to get up early. I was fine where I was. You didn’t need to rescue me.”

  But damn, he did want to rescue her. He wanted to be the one she turned to with her problems. He wanted her to trust him. He wanted to make it his responsibility to take care of her. “You can’t be sleeping in apartment hallways, Cassie.”