Come and Get Me: The Magister Series, Book 2: A Billionaire Romance Read online

  Kristen flopped down on the bench next to her and peeked over her shoulder. “So, this is some of the stuff you’re looking up for Uncle Pennybags?”

  Sandra sighed. “Don’t call him that.”

  “Whatever. What does he want, that Ming Dynasty stuff? The white china with the blue paint. That’s really rare, right?”

  If Charles had broken a Ming Dynasty cup, Sandra would be dancing in the streets with joy. “Not as rare as what I need. This is the sort of thing I’m trying to find.” She Googled and showed Kristen the results.

  Kristen whistled. “Holy shit.”

  “Yeah.”

  “He must really hate money,” Kristen said. “Look at how he’s trying to give it away. Pretty sad, if you ask me.”

  “Oh God, not now,” Sandra groaned.

  “Yeah, yeah, fine. How the hell are you going to find something like that?”

  “I’ll ask Arnaud for help tomorrow. It’s looking pretty impossible from here, but I’ll pull it off.” Somehow.

  “I bet he can do it,” Kristen said. She added quickly, “I mean, I bet you can do it with his help. Is he into Asian stuff?”

  “Not so much. But he’ll give the clients whatever they want.” Sandra looked down at the pictures of delicate blue porcelain. “And so will I.”

  “Yeah, sure, of course you will.” Kristen kicked her heels against the marble mosaic floor. “Anyway, are you through here? I want to keep going and get my culture on.”

  * * *

  “Nothing in the Met, hmm?” Charles asked. He sounded amused.

  Sandra stared up at her ceiling and sighed heavily. “Nope. Not that it would have mattered, I guess.”

  “Of course it would have,” Charles said. “That’s the first step to drilling your way into the display case after dark.”

  Sandra glared at her phone. “Listen to you, funny man.”

  “Sorry. As I told you, my sense of humor has been called defective.”

  The barely suppressed chuckle in his voice made her stomach feel warm. Beyond the bedroom door, Kristen was watching some action movie turned up to the maximum volume before their neighbors would start to complain, granting Sandra and Charles at least a little privacy.

  “I’m going to call around to the other museums, but I’m not sure I’ll have a lot of luck,” she admitted. “I like going in person so I can see the displays, but I just don’t have the time.” She reached for her half-empty wineglass. “I’m surprised Kristen wanted to go, though.”

  “Maybe she wants to see the bourgeois artifacts the People’s Republic will destroy someday.”

  Sandra almost choked on her wine. “Oh my God. Seriously. You two would hate each other.”

  Then she could have bitten out her tongue. It wasn’t like Charles and Kristen were going to meet and start arguing about politics. Kristen couldn’t even know about him.

  The ensuing awkward silence told her that Charles was thinking the same thing. Sandra cleared her throat. “Anyway, that was my morning. How was brunch with Rosalie?”

  “Unremarkable. She’s fussing over the guest list. When she’s done with that, she’ll hand everything over to the wedding planner and continue to micromanage from there.”

  Sandra snorted. “Runs in the family, huh?”

  “No,” Charles said firmly. “I delegate to people I trust and then let them do their jobs while I get on with mine.” Sandra wasn’t sure that was totally accurate, but she kept quiet. “Rosalie wastes her time and energy, but I guess it’s better than sitting around and plotting your demise.”

  “Oh shit,” Sandra blurted. “What did she say about me?”

  “Nothing important,” Charles said. “As usual, she fails to see that Bradley is to blame. But she’s accepted that you will be at the wedding, and both she and Bradley will leave you alone. If they don’t, then I want to know about it.” His voice gentled. “I did promise you I’d take care of it.”

  “Yeah,” Sandra whispered. She curled up on the mattress and smiled at the Klee print hanging on the opposite wall. “I think you like making those promises.”

  “And I like keeping them,” Charles said, sounding offended.

  “Yeah, I know,” Sandra said. “That was my point.”

  “Oh.”

  More silence. Then Sandra said, “When can I see you again?” Once a week wasn’t enough. It wasn’t nearly enough.

  After a pause, Charles said, “I want to take you somewhere.”

  Sandra sat up straight. “You do? Where?” She was up for anything, but it wasn’t like they could go to any of the places Charles usually frequented. Well, maybe she could pick somewhere. A deli, a pizzeria, somewhere nobody would recognize him. In a city of eight million, what were the odds?

  Or they could go for a walk. Sit on a park bench. Just somewhere they could be together, sharing a little slice of the world outside his apartment—looking at people, at trees and dogs and soccer games, at whatever there was to see. Experiencing life, even if it was small and humble.

  “Italy, perhaps?” Charles said. “I’ve got a villa in the Val d’Orcia. Have you ever been to Tuscany?”

  Okay, they could do a walk in the park, or they could do Tuscany. Either worked. “No,” Sandra said. “Um, are you serious? Or just sort of…daydreaming?”

  “Yes,” Charles said. “This is one of those idle fancies I’m so well known for. Of course I’m not daydreaming. Let’s go to Italy.”

  Sandra curled up even tighter on the mattress. She warned herself not to get too excited, but she couldn’t keep from wiggling her toes. There was no way she could just pop out of town and leave work at a moment’s notice—and neither could he, if he didn’t want everyone on Wall Street to shit their pants.

  “How?” she asked. “When?”

  Charles made a thoughtful sound. “After Christmas. Stephen will leave for his honeymoon, Rosalie and Bradley will go to Aspen, and I’ll say I want some peace and quiet. Then you and I ring in the New Year with Prosecco. Just the two of us.”

  Oh. Well, that sounded awesome. But also a long way away. Almost two months away. Sandra managed a laugh. “My passport’s current, so sign me up.”

  “Just make sure you don’t already have plans with Larry,” Charles said. “That could be embarrassing.”

  This time, her laugh was real. “No kidding. I’d hate to let Larry down. He’s a handsome bastard. Kind of bossy, but great in bed.”

  “Is he?” Charles asked. “How great?”

  Sandra rolled her eyes. “Pretty fantastic, except when he fishes for compliments.”

  “Is he a daydreamer?”

  “I doubt it.” She raised her wineglass to her lips.

  “Well, maybe he daydreams sometimes about throwing you on a conference table and finger-fucking you until you gush.”

  Sandra spat out her wine.

  “Hypothetically,” Charles added.

  “Um.” Thank God the wine was Chardonnay. Although red wine would probably go great with her complexion right about now. “Uh, I don’t know.” She fumbled for the Kleenex on her nightstand. “He’s never mentioned it before.”

  “Oh, he probably thinks about it from time to time,” Charles said casually. “In fact, if he was at an interminable meeting last week, he might have thought about it in some detail.”

  Sandra’s cheeks felt like they were on fire as she dabbed at her T-shirt. “Um…is Larry the exhibitionist type? Like, would he actually want to do that in front of a room full of people?”

  “You tell me. He’s your fake boyfriend. Though I’m starting to like him in spite of myself.”

  “I don’t know,” Sandra said. “I don’t know what I think about a man who’d want to share me like that.”

  After a pause, Charles said, “Then you’d better drop Larry and stick with a man who won’t share you. Ever.”

  That tone of voice would have terrified the pants off anybody else. It made Sandra want to get her pants off for a different reason. “Do you
know any men like that?” she asked softly. “What would you do if a roomful of other men wanted to look at me when I’m ready for you?”

  “Jesus Christ, Sandra,” he said hoarsely.

  Sandra took a deep breath. She’d locked her bedroom door. The TV was still playing at top volume. She untied the drawstring on her yoga pants and shimmied them down her thighs.

  “Well?” she said, hoping he’d be willing to go for this. She’d offered before, and they’d wound up having sex in a stairwell instead. Which had been amazing, but sort of impossible right now.

  “I’d never let them look at you,” he said. “Never.”

  “But you could show them I was yours,” she reminded him. Then she wondered if he’d want that. Their whole deal was secrecy, after all. Maybe this would actually turn him off.

  “I could,” he agreed. Was it her imagination, or was he a little out of breath? “But I also couldn’t.”

  Sandra froze in the middle of sliding her fingertips beneath the waistband of her panties. “What do you mean?” Maybe he was about to bring home the reality of their situation, kill her fantasy.

  “I’d have to put everybody’s eyes out afterward. That sort of thing is usually frowned upon.”

  Sandra gulped. She probably shouldn’t find that so hot.

  Charles continued, “Of course, I suppose we could do it and keep your clothes mostly on. They could watch me slide my hand beneath your skirt.” His voice dropped into a growl. “But then they’d see your face when you come and hear your voice. No. No, I couldn’t have that.”

  “Oh God.”

  “And I’d lose myself,” he continued. “I always do. I forget about everything but fucking you. There’s nothing in the world but you.” She couldn’t get enough air. “There’s no point in having an audience. It would still just be you and me.”

  Sandra closed her eyes and slid her fingers further beneath her panties. Okay. Being alone with him wasn’t a bad thing either.

  “So we’d be alone in the conference room?” she whispered.

  “Of course.”

  “But everybody’s just outside the door. Anybody could look in, and your whole office would know what we were up to.”

  After another pause, he breathed, “Sandra, what are you doing?”

  She took in a deep breath and licked her lips. “I’m doing myself,” she said. “Wanna help?”

  * * *

  All right, Charles thought. Once, he’d objected to the idea, but this was different. For one thing, he wasn’t in his office but in bed, and not in his suit but in silk pajamas that suddenly felt very light and teasing against his skin. For another thing—why the hell not?

  “Where are you?” he said.

  “In my room. The door’s locked. Kristen’s watching TV because she can’t do homework without some kind of noise. It’s so loud I swear to God she must be going deaf.” Sandra giggled. “I mean, you can’t make me scream this time, but we should be pretty safe.”

  “What are you wearing?” He couldn’t visualize her bedroom, but he could sketch in a few details that were good enough. The clothing, though, was another thing.

  “Nothing silk or lace,” she said. “Just cotton panties and a T-shirt. I already took off my pants while you were talking.”

  It sounded like what she’d had on the first time he’d taken her. He felt arousal curl in his lower belly. “No bra beneath the shirt, I assume,” he said. “Just your nipples hard beneath.”

  “Oh, yeah,” she said. He had to close his eyes so he could picture it better: Sandra lying against a bed with her hand beneath those black cotton panties, nipples peaked through a tiny T-shirt. Her red hair fanned out over the pillows.

  “I’m touching them,” she added. “Pinching them. You know I like it a little hard.”

  He could practically feel them between his own fingers, could imagine them growing tighter against the pad of his tongue. And— “You like it when I use my teeth,” he growled.

  “Yeah, just a little. You…” She gulped. “You take them in your teeth, and you tug on them, and just when it’s too much you start licking them, and I swear to God I could almost come from that.”

  He’d intended this to be about her. Charles gave up on that idea immediately and rose from the bed. He stalked toward the bathroom, his arousal growing heavier between his legs. Where was the—ah yes, in the cabinet beneath the sink. Lotion.

  She’d asked him once how often he masturbated. Almost never was the answer. If he wanted real satisfaction, he needed the real thing; if he just wanted a moment’s relief, then that was a base impulse he must control. He was his own master.

  But now he’d taken a mistress, and he wondered if there might not be multiple layers to that word.

  “What are you doing?” Sandra asked.

  “Getting ready to join you,” Charles replied as he returned to the bed, bottle in hand.

  “Ooh, really?” By now, he could match the look on her face to the delight in her voice. She’d be wearing a huge smile, and her blue eyes would be shining. “I’d love to see that. I loved it when you did it for me before.”

  “Who says it was for you?” He turned on the speakerphone function and laid the phone on the pillow next to him.

  “Oh. Well, that’s true.” She sounded a little embarrassed.

  Charles kicked off his pajama pants, because he was going to want to play with his balls this time. After a moment’s consideration, he took off his shirt too. It felt right to be naked.

  “I don’t know what you expected me to do,” he told her as he tossed the shirt to the end of the bed and settled back into the soft duvet. “You were walking around in lingerie and high heels. I’m not even sure I did it on purpose. I saw your ass and next thing I knew, my cock was in my hand.”

  “You looked so hot,” Sandra breathed. “Like you couldn’t help yourself. And then you knelt over me and jerked yourself off.”

  Yes. He’d almost come from that, the sight of her flushed face and open mouth beneath him, his pre-come dripping over her smooth belly. She’d wanted him to. Charles rubbed the lotion between his hands to warm it up. When he took himself in hand, he groaned without meaning to.

  “Fuck,” Sandra said. “Are you doing it?”

  “Yes,” he grunted. “You?”

  “I stopped to listen to you. I’m not sure I can do both.”

  “What the hell kind of designer are you if you can’t multi task? Should I fire you?”

  “I prefer to give something my full attention when I’m doing it,” she murmured.

  “Then pay attention to fucking yourself,” Charles said. He forced his own hand to move slowly as he worked himself to full hardness. “How many fingers do you have in?”

  “I—none.” She sounded almost hesitant. “I don’t usually mess around with that when it’s just me.”

  “It’s not just you,” Charles reminded her. They were in this together. With his free hand, he began hefting and stroking his balls. Ah God, that was good. Maybe next time he could get her to spend some more time on these. The barest brush of a woman’s tongue there could send him through the roof. “You like having fingers in you. You like my cock.”

  “I like having your fingers in me. I wouldn’t like my fingernails.”

  Charles winced. Fair point.

  “But as for your cock…hold on.” It took him a second to realize she didn’t mean it literally. “There we go.”

  “What?” he asked.

  “I’m getting my vibrator,” she whispered. “It’s not as big as you, but, ah—” Then she sighed. “I’m already so wet. Ohhh. Oh, yeah. It’s in.”

  Charles put his hands on his thighs so he could compose himself. “What does it look like?” he asked, imagining one of those pink bunny rabbit things.

  “Um.” She sounded embarrassed. “It’s a rabbit vibe. It’s purple.”

  Close enough. “Turn it on.”

  “It’d be too loud.” She sighed. “I’m just gonna h
ave to fuck myself with it the old-fashioned way. Mmm.”

  His mental image changed: now Sandra was still in the little T-shirt but with her legs splayed wide as she worked her cunt with a purple silicone cock. He could picture it getting slicker every time she slid it out.

  “Wanna listen?” she asked.

  “I am listening,” he said. “Your voice is so…”

  “Not to my voice.”

  He heard another noise, something soft and rhythmic and wet. She’d put her phone between her legs. That was the sound of the vibrator going in and out as she fucked herself.

  He felt his own hand on his cock again, without his volition, and his groan split the air. He jerked himself as he listened to her, hearing her uneven breathing in the background. He knew what that meant. She was already getting close. She was so gloriously sensual.

  Suddenly, he didn’t imagine her in a little T-shirt; he imagined her naked but for the robe he’d bought her. She’d untied the sash, and the black silk spread out beneath her, baring her pale body. She looked like a fallen empress. Fallen, but indomitable, teasing her would-be conqueror with what he couldn’t have.

  “Sandra,” he panted. “Can you hear me?”

  “Oh.” Her voice broke on a little whimper. “Yes. Yes. Oh Jesus, you sound so turned on.”

  “You have no idea.” He moaned again as he touched himself, a slow stroke upward that ended with a squeeze. Both lotion and pre-come slicked his hand. “I want to be with you right now. I want to fuck you so hard—”

  “How hard?” she whispered. “How hard can you give it to me?”

  He stopped stroking before he could come, determined to prolong his pleasure. “Hard enough that you’ll wonder what you ever saw in a goddamn purple rabbit.”

  “This rabbit’s been really good to me,” she teased.

  “That rabbit’s never going to tie you to the bed and lick your pussy until you see the face of God.” He could just picture how wide her eyes had gone. “I, on the other hand…”

  “You—wha—fuck, Charles!” she gasped. He heard indistinct noises.

  “What are you doing?” he demanded. “Tell me.”

  “I—I’m getting under the blankets.” She exhaled shakily. “I have to turn the vibe on. I can’t help it.”