At the Billionaire's Pleasure Christmas Stocking Read online

  "Well, are you going to tell me anything about these people?" In my head I had visions of the sort of people from the Dom club he had taken me to. Women clad in nothing but lingerie and chains. I swallowed hard. I didn't mind David tying me up and blindfolding me, but the thought of anyone else seeing me in that state was almost a step too far. Almost. A thrill ran through me. I wasn't sure if it was just the fantasy that excited me or if I really could be excited by something like that.

  I knew for certain that I wouldn't tolerate anyone but David touching me. But perhaps being watched would be a different experience. I stopped myself, noticing that I was allowing my imagination to run away with me. I knew nothing about these people. Perhaps they were just business associates. But part of me knew what David's business associates were like and they were all pretty kinky.

  "Where would be the fun in that? I've told you it's a surprise. The people who are coming are all part of the surprise."

  My stomach lurched with nerves and I was sure the fear was written all over my face. David must have saw something there that he wasn't expecting because his expression immediately changed.

  He moved across the bed towards me, the sheet slipping down over his body, revealing him inch by inch. It was like some sort of strip tease and I found myself unable to tear my eyes away from him. He was stunning. All hard muscle, a fine trail of dark hair ran from his belly button and disappeared beneath the sheet. I wanted to reach out and pull the sheet back, revealing what I knew lay beneath but I didn't. Instead I knotted my fingers into the sheet and I allowed David to come to me.

  He kneeled in front of me, the covers pooling around his hips. Slowly he pressed his fingers under my chin and tipped my face up towards his. Whatever he saw in my eyes worried him. It fleetingly crossed his face before disappearing back behind his stony facade.

  "You trust me, Carrie. I know you do. I've witnessed it every time we make love. So why, now, would you suddenly stop trusting me?"

  I swallowed hard. The butterflies in my stomach making me fidget. David's hands closed over mine, holding them steady and preventing them from completing their nervous dance.

  "I'm not sure... I do still trust you, it's just..." I blushed furiously and suddenly David understood. He grinned at me, the smile cutting through the stony expression he had been giving me.

  "You're afraid of yourself. You don't trust you... It's not really me..."

  I dropped my gaze again, unable to meet his. I could feel all of my emotions crowding into the back of my throat, making it almost impossible to breathe.

  But David was determined and now that he knew he was right, it made him even more insistent. He tipped my chin up once more and this time kept his fingers pressed into the soft skin of my face. His eyes had filled once more with the usual intensity that I had come to expect from David.

  "Tell me the truth."

  "Fine! I don't trust myself. I'm worried that you will introduce me to a way of life that I would never have thought I would be interested in... And then I'll like it. Or love it even, and it'll change me. I'm afraid that I'll become something that I'm not. And I'm not sure my little bit of confidence that I have begun to build will be able to cope with it."

  David's smile softened and he loosened his grip on me. Instead he wrapped his arms around my body and tugged me in against his body. He smelt like sex and man. My man.

  A thread of fear ran through me and I trembled. What if I lost him, what if I wasn't enough for him? It was a fear I had grown used to having, it had become almost like a security blanket and I couldn't imagine life without it.

  "I've never met a woman like you, Carrie. A woman who is afraid that she might be introduced to something that she might fall in love with..."

  "Well then all the women you were with were obviously liars." The words came out far more venomous than I had intended. David froze for a second before a slow rumble started up in his chest and moved to his throat and spilled from his lips. Laughter. He was laughing at me. If there was one thing on this earth that could irritate me it was his ability to turn all of my insecurities into insignificant jokes.

  It wasn't particularly a bad thing. And he certainly didn't mean anything nasty by it. But if I wanted to indulge my insecurities I didn't want him pointing out how flawed they were, or how daft I was for having them... Well not all of the time anyway. Part of me knew he was right. That I was being silly and overreacting but a larger part of me didn't want to acknowledge it.

  "Perhaps they were liars, love. But you are not. I didn't mean to make you uncomfortable but trust me when I tell you that you'll enjoy yourself. If you just give yourself the chance to enjoy it..."

  There were those words. If I just gave myself the chance. I couldn't explain it, but the thought terrified me. It was a part of my relationship with David that I constantly struggled with. Giving myself over completely. Trusting that if I just gave myself the chance that I could enjoy myself.

  It was easy in the bedroom. David's hands awakened something within me that required me to submit to him. He was my master in every way. A simple brush of his fingers across my skin was enough to ignite such passion. Where he was concerned I had no choice. But when my brain came into the equation it was a different matter. I over analysed everything.

  "... We leave in the morning, for a week. I didn't think you'd want to spend Christmas there, away from your family. So we're due back the few days before Christmas day itself... But I thought we might use it as an opportunity to have our own little celebration, it being our first official holiday together."

  I couldn't help myself. I leaned in against him and pressed my lips gently to his. It was a chaste kiss but it was enough. David understood. Sometimes I wondered if he knew me better than I knew myself. In that moment in his arms in the bed I was sure that he did.

  I swallowed back all of my nerves, determined that I would give myself the chance to enjoy it. David would never put me in a situation where I would be too uncomfortable. He wasn't like that.

  He flicked off the light beside the bed and dragged me down under the covers once more with him. His hands stroking little circles across my skin, raising my heartbeat once more and making me gasp when he touched me all of my most sensitive places. No David wasn't like that. But he did know just what to do, in order to put my mind and body at ease. His mouth engulfed mine with a hot kiss, stealing my breath and sending my mind spinning. I didn't care about my nervousness anymore. All I wanted was him.

  ***

  The sheets were tangled around my legs when I woke the next morning. A thin shaft of icy cold light had cut through the gap in the curtains and lay across my face. Rolling over in the bed I tried to cover my face and hide from the morning. It had never been my favourite time of the day. It usually signalled the beginning of a long boring day at work. Or at least that was how it used to be.

  Ever since David had sent me that faithfully pm through the office computer work had never been the same. When he wasn't there, the hours dragged. More often than not he took me with him on business trips, using me as a personal secretary during the day, and something far more intimate at night.

  When he was in the office, that was when life became far more risqué. David liked to play games, pushing me to the edge of my comfort zone, but never so far that I couldn't trust him. He knew me. Knew what I could take, which usually turned out to be far more than I had thought possible myself.

  One particular memory sprang to mind. David's fingers buried inside my body as I had tried to furiously type up the minutes from a conference call he was having. Trying to keep my breathing under control and my moaning to a minimum had been the hardest part. Every time I thought about it, it brought a blush to my cheeks and things low in my body tightened with excitement. David had enjoyed making the torture even worse by insisting on asking me questions during the call, his fingers going into overdrive each time I was forced to answer him. I had thought about completely giving the game away, and giving into his sweet t
orture but my own sense of decency stopped me.

  David stepped into the room, breaking my thoughts and making me blush furiously. My nipples were hard and I was breathing hard as though I had just run up a flight of stairs.

  He watched me silently from the door way as he sipped his coffee, as though willing me to carry on. I didn't, choosing instead to sit up in the bed and wrap the sheet tightly around my body as I made my way into the shower.

  Something gleamed in David's eyes as he followed me in and leaned against the sink. I stood for a minute. Neither of us had spoken and I didn't want to be the one to break the silence now. It had become a game of wills. I knew he would win, but it was always nice to put up a fight. I needed that.

  Staring into his eyes I dropped the sheet from my body. My teeth biting into my bottom lip as I tried to stop a blush from crawling up and over my cheeks. The way he watched me, he made it feel like I was stripping for him for the first time, every time. I couldn't understand how he did it. But the nervous butterflies in my tummy made me giddy.

  In my haste to step into the shower my foot slipped on the edge of the tile, sending me crashing backwards. I didn't scream, I didn't even have the chance. One minute I was stepping into the shower and spending far too much time watching David and the next I was heading for a collision with the cold marble floor.

  The sound of a splintering mug met my ears a split second before David's warm strong arms wrapped around my body. He scooped me up and pulled me tight in against his chest, cradling me there as though I weighed little more than a feather. It surprised me that he could do that. But then David was full of surprises.

  Opening my eyes I peeked up at him. The nervous butterflies had decided to become tremors that shook my entire body. David grinned at me, the look in his eyes saying it all. I burst into laughter. A combination of relief and the sheer ridiculousness of the situation. I wasn't clumsy when I was on my own. But when I put David in the mix I became a walking klutz.

  David's grin widened and he chuckled as he propped me back on my feet. A brush of his lips against my forehead was all I got as he retreated from the bathroom.

  "I'll wait for you out here... I think it's safer." His voice was still filled with laughter as he moved away.

  Glancing down I caught sight of the smashed cup on the floor. A small puddle of coffee surrounded the white ceramic and I felt a little bad. I wasn't sure why and it was utterly irrational but I couldn't help it. With a shake of my head I climbed into the shower and let the water soothe away all of my worries.

  I didn't really have time to be feeling bad about things out of my control. I had bigger fish to fry, in the form of who would I meet at the Chalet. My nerves made my stomach turn. I hadn't eaten a thing but that wasn't enough to deter my nausea. It was silly to be so nervous about meeting David's friends. If I trusted him the way I seemed to think that I did, then surely I shouldn't be as nervous as I was.

  I had gone into business meetings with him, I had even met his mother and brother. But for some reason this weekend away, just before Christmas bothered me more than anything else had.

  The faint sound of David's voice drifted to me from the other room. Shutting off the water I climbed out of the shower and wrapped one of the large white fluffy towels around my body. His voice was much clearer now. And there was something in his tone that made my blood run cold.

  "... It will be fantastic to see you again, meeting for lunch just wasn't enough..." There was a pause. My heart beat faster with each passing second and I could imagine what was being said to David on the other end of the line. My heart wanted it just to be a friend. One that we would meet this weekend and it would all prove to be completely innocent. But my head said otherwise.

  "No, she won't see it coming..." David's voice faded as he moved out of the bedroom and further into the apartment.

  My heart sank like a stone in my chest. I knew I shouldn't have listened in on his private call, but it hadn't been intentional. I knew him. I knew him as well as he knew me and that tone in his voice told me everything I needed to know about that call. Add to that what he had said...

  I swallowed back the tears that threatened to cascade down my cheeks. They were right there on the back of my tongue. But I didn't want David to know that I had been upset. In fact I didn't want him to know anything. Mentally I had been preparing for this day ever since David had taken an interest in me. It just didn't seem right that a man like him would ever have an interest in a woman like me.

  I wasn't slim and clothes didn't look good on me the way they did some women. I was attractive but not beautiful. And David had seen me naked. He knew every flaw on my body and part of me had started to believe that he really did see my flaws as beautiful. That they were simply a part of me and he loved them anyway.

  But I could never compete with some of the women David was exposed to in his world. Some of them were truly stunning. Models and it wasn't always their job description. Some women were just drop dead gorgeous and then there was me. I would never be like them. I would never look like them. And there was no way on earth that David would ever want to stay with the likes of me when he had such beauty to chose from.

  I clamped my hand over my mouth in an attempt to control my breathing. It hurt. It hurt everywhere. I wanted to believe that I was wrong. That what I was feeling was simply an overreaction. That everything would work out hunky-dory, but my mind refused to let go of his words. I repeated them over and over in my brain, turning them this way and that in an attempt to reconcile it. But it was pointless.

  The sound of him re-entering the bedroom had me panicking for a minute. He would know I was finished in the shower. If I didn't emerge soon he would think something was wrong...

  I gripped the edge of the sink and sucked in several deep breaths. If I could just regain control of myself once more I would be able to deal with it. Perhaps all was not lost? He hadn't left me... yet, and that meant there was still a chance to bring it back. If I could prove to him that he needed me, that I was just as good as any of the other women out there, then perhaps I stood a chance of changing his mind.

  A small giggle escaped me. It was so absurd. It reminded me of the romantic comedies I liked to watch. If only life was really like that. A simple misunderstanding and everything could be sorted out.

  A different thought hit me then. In all of the movies I loved to watch the one ridiculous thing that had always struck me was why didn't they just talk about the misunderstanding before it blew up? I could ask David. And I was almost one hundred percent certain that he would give me a straight answer.

  Squaring my shoulders I pushed my damp hair back over my shoulder and made my way to the door. I caught sight of my reflection in the mirror and as my hand rested on the door handle all of my confidence fled. I looked at my reflection and the words I had prepared in my mind died on my tongue. I couldn't confront him. It was stupid and childish but I couldn't do it. I would have this weekend with David and whatever else happened I would simply accept it.

  In that few seconds as I stared at my own reflection I was ashamed of myself. Ashamed of my lack of back bone and my inability to talk to the man I loved. Releasing a sigh I shut my eyes. I didn't want to cry anymore. There would be plenty of time later for regrets. For now all I wanted was to feel David's arms around me. After everything we had been through, in his arms was where I felt safest. And I knew it would never change... Not even when the weekend ended and so did the relationship. I prayed I was wrong. And if I was, I promised that I would be more confident, that I would finally believe what David was telling me. But I knew deep down it was an empty promise. And those are the easiest to make... And break.

  ***

  Getting dressed without alerting David to a problem was trickier than I had anticipated. Every time his fingers trailed across my skin, or his lips pressed to my neck I imagined him saying goodbye. I couldn't help it and I didn't want to but it happened.

  "Lucia, rang while you were in the shower
. She can't wait to meet you and apparently the lake up there is entirely frozen over... Have you ever been ice skating?" David's voice was filled with joy. He was so excited about the trip. But his telling me who had phoned at least made me feel a little better.

  "No never, I can't imagine I'd be very good at it either." I imagined myself out on the ice and it wasn't a pretty picture. It would be just my luck that the ice would crack and I'd fall through. It was a sobering thought. "I don't think I've heard you mention a Lucia before?" I couldn't resist asking about her.

  "We go way back. Spent a lot of winters together in the Chalet, her family knows mine. We've been friends forever."

  I nodded my head slowly and plastered a smile across my lips. David frowned for a moment as though sensing my unease and the fact that I was keeping something from him. He opened his mouth to add something but the sound of the door buzzer prevented him.

  He left and I turned and picked up my own cell phone. One message flashed on the screen. I wasn't expecting to hear from anyone. Friends and family knew I would be away, another thing David had taken care of. Pressing the screen I waited for the message to flash up. When it did, my heart faltered in my chest and my stomach turned over with unease.

  I miss you. xxx

  I knew who the message was from without even reading the name. Richard. It had been a long time since he had last dared to contact me. The moment David had found out about it he had gone ballistic. And if I was honest I couldn't blame him. Richard was a nasty piece of work. I had plenty of nightmares about that last night he had been in my apartment. The way he had pawed at me and pinned me beneath him. If David hadn't arrived when he did... Well there was no doubt in my mind that Richard would have raped me. He was drunk and in his mind he couldn't see what he was doing as wrong. I was a slut in his eyes and one he could use whenever he wanted... Even after we had broken up.