Bound to the Billionaire

Chapter Two: Kiss, Kiss, Bang

 I pulled my hand out of his, banging it on the cart. The heat from the ballroom on my shivering body was searing. The dusky evening light on the polished floors, the whispers of the patrons, it all blurred around this man. My mate. Nico Asim, if he were to be believed. He smiled down at me, all white teeth and red lips. His eyes, so bright they could pull the stars out of alignment. They roamed my body and I stepped back, clients be damned.

“Oh, sir.” My voice cracked. “T-thank you for having me. I think I’ll…go.”

“It’s okay,” he said, peeling away the soft pink wrapper of another cupcake. I was entranced by the graceful movement, that way he held up his head and sighed out at the view. “If you’re scared.”

I was more than scared, I was trapped. Between his heat and the whirl of people and my own desperate desire to touch him. I closed my eyes and drank in his clean scent that made warmth kick up in the pit of my belly. The wolf in me was pacing, whining, crazed. I clasped my hands behind my back. “I have no idea what you mean,” I said, shuffling for the door. “Goodbye, Asim.”

Eyes followed me as I broke out of the ballroom, conversations that once filled the hall lulling. My escape was hindered by my missing shoe, my gait a lopsided flip-flop, like a wounded animals. The long hallway felt even darker now, a scary length that had to be crossed The receptionist waved. “No favor?” Her mouth jibed into a sneer.

I flung open the lobby door, welcoming a battering of thick flakes and icy winds into the glass cage of a foyer.

I’d wait him out, I decided. Slip in, talk to a few patrons, take my cart and pretend I never met the man. Flawed, I thought as I clutched my pounding heart, but a plan still. What else was I to do? Talk to him? Run? Run wouldn't have been a bad idea either.

Outside the sidewalk was sleeted black and the street clotted with luxury cars. My wolf whined and snatched at panicked rhythm of thoughts flowing through my head. It wanted the broad, brooding man. Lusted for him, for his bite. Such a desperate need that it fried me with panic.

The man’s jacket still hung over my shoulders. I balled it up and stuffed it into the nearest garbage can. The jacket must've cost over a hundred dollars.

I was still shivering as I climbed into the driver’s seat of my beloved van. I didn’t want him, I told myself. Couldn’t want him. His scent still crawled all over my skin and my heart crushed itself against my ribs. I was lying to myself, and it knew it. I laid my head on the steering wheek, panting, my shoulders trembling, and I wasn’t sure if I was crying or laughing.

I’d found my mate. A man with enough power to pull me like a puppet on a string. I’d decided I didn’t want that, and yet, when I thought of him, the curve of his mocking smile, the glow of those black eyes, how he sucked his fingers, I knew I wanted him. It should’ve been lust. Just lust. But the image of him wouldn’t leave me. I fit my fingers against my eye sockets and breathed in sharply. A knot was growing in the back of my throat.

“Dimitri?” I hadn’t given much thought to the man’s voice. But now, as I stood in the waning light of the parking garage, the passenger-side door beeping as it hung open, I’d decided it was low and nearly purring. “Are you feeling well?”

“I don’t have time for you.” I buried my head in my arms. They were like ice. “You can’t be my mate.”

He slipped into into the passenger side. I heard the crinkle of his shirt against the seat, the sound of fabric wresting skin. My hands curled. His delicious scent and his cologne that smelled so thick and musky was dizzying in its nearness, drawing drool to the corners of my mouth.

“It doesn’t work like that. It comes down to this: do you want me?” That voice. So deep as it drawled, slow and gentle and polite. My breath was hitched. When his knee bumped mine the small contact drew heat to my skin. I didn’t need a jacket with him around, and I hated him, hated myself for it.

I lifted my head and stared at the flickering light ahead of the windshield. “Does that matter if we’re destined to love each other?”

He reached out and tipped up my chin, his fingertips just cupping my face so my eyes met his. His, burning with intensity as he leaned over the console. My lips tingled. The collar had been left open, hinting at smooth bronze skin underneath. I stared at it. He leaned toward me and drew in a long breath of my scent, his nose brushing my ear. I quivered at his touch. “I would’ve never guessed my mate would be the cynical type.” His laughter, sultry and honeyed. “Hello, Dimitri. I’m Nico. We should talk sometime, and—”

“You’re an alpha,” I said, my voice flat. I pressed my hands in my lap to keep them from roaming over his body, tracing the flat planes of muscle showing through the folds of his shirt. He looked damned delicious, leaning back against my cinnamon-cream headrest.

He raised an eyebrow. “And you’re…”

I turned my cheek toward the window. A lean hand slid through my hair and twisted at in the back, but the touch was so soft, so soothing, I glanced back into his eyes and thought my heart would burst. I don’t want my rank, I wanted to say, I don’t believe in ranks. I don’t believe in mates, don’t believe in love, don’t want my wolf, but I didn’t. I snaked out a hand and ran it up the buttons of his shirt, trembling fingers brushing the vein pulsing in his neck. The flesh, hot and creamy. The scent of cologne and sweat, hitching my breath. “I’m no alpha, really. I’m just yours, if this mating stuff is correct.”

Nico Asim smiled, a wicked curve on gleaming lips, like the thought of me belonging to him appealed to him. It appealed to me too, on a primal sort of level. Fantasies had cropped unbidden to my mind. I knew nothing about him. Just a name and a job description, but I was already imagining him stripping me down. It was his hands, I think, drawing down the back of my neck, his fingertips tracing my shoulder blades. They left trails of sensitivity as they drew down my skin. His body, coaxing mine forward with every breath, every touch.

“What do you want, Dimitri?” His head tipped toward mine, his fingers toying with my hair, his lips so close to I felt his breath puff against my mouth. It smelt of peppermint, and the corner of his lip was stained pink with strawberry frosting.

I wanted him. Repercussions be damned, mates be damned. I wanted his body wrapped around my hips, his hands caging mine, his lips pressed to my mouth. Wanted his heat, his touch. I gripped the back of his neck by the soft feathers of his slicked hair and yanked his head to mine. My mouth met his. He nipped my lower lip, his arms curling down around my waist and pressing me against him with the strength of steel bands.

I needed this. Needed him.

How could I do this? I thought. In a car? At a party? I was already breathing heavy, and he seized the opening of my mouth to deepen the kiss. Our tongues moved together. Blood rushed to my head. Somewhere, hidden behind a fog manufactured by my own lust, I remembered a vague fear of men like Nico, men with money enough to buy whatever and whoever they wanted. Deeper still, I remembered a vague reassurance that this was not something I wanted, a man, a mate.

But my knees had already scrambled onto the console. I was moved by something hotter, more primal. I was climbing toward him, yanking his head closer to mine. I wanted him, this kiss, smooth and deep, filling me with heat. It had me crawling with sensation. His long fingers, tracing down my back until they cupped the underside of my thigh. I was moaning into his mouth, neck arching into windshield as I situated myself in his lap, rubbing against his lap. He was still gripping my ass as I fondled his smooth chest and tugged the buttons on his shirt. I like the smoothness of his skin, the soft raised ridges of his scars. His mouth pulled away, dripping froth. He was panting, grinning a lopsided smile from a ruddied face. “Do you still have my jacket by any chance?”

“I threw it away.”

“Oh.” He was still smiling. It damn near fascinated me.

Many men seemed to regard sex and seduction as things done with an expression of grim duty. But Nico, flushed and smirking, was anything but, and his glistening mouth filled me with desire not only for his body, but for me to learn about him. That desire scared me. I didn’t know a thing about him, his favorite color, his favorite food, but still, in those moments I was so sure it was him I wanted, not the body, but the man. He seized my wrists.

I was a small, wiry creature, and he was all muscle under his now damp shirt. The other hand pulled up my shirt. I could feel the heat rising through his pants, the smell of salt and sweat and fading cologne so thick I tasted it when we kissed. 

“Nico.”

He cooed a shhh sound at me, his grip tightening around the wrists he held over my head, bumping my knuckles against the ceiling. His fingertips explored the hot, damp skin under my shirt. A blush rose to my face. They roamed over my hips, teased the soft ridges of muscle around my belly. The belt of my pants slid low on my hips.

“Nico—”

He bent me over the dash and kissed me on the lips, his tongue swiping my teeth. My body wriggled underneath his, my brain a smattering of fragmented sentences and sensations. Him. Me. Warmth. I moaned, heat expanding through me, from my core to my skin. My eyes were squeezed shut as he lifted his mouth and trailed his kisses down my throat, soft, quick, feathery touches that pulled me into him, the deep musk of his cologne that hinted of spice and burnished wood. It made me hope he wanted me as much as I wanted him.

He was pulling my shirt over my chest, and I could’ve dug up some Vaseline in the glove compartment and let him have me across the passenger seat, content to react to his body, wriggling and arching and moaning. But it was his teeth, so close to my throat, that drove me past the heat and pressure, back to rationality. Further than rationality. Panic. He couldn’t force me to become his mate, could he? Mark me and keep me and get away with it, too?

My eyes shot open wide.

“I don’t want your mark. Not yet. Please, Nico. I don’t—I don’t—”

His grip cinched so hard around my wrists he drove a gasp from me. I’d tensed to fight him, my body cringing against the plastic paneling. Then, as if swept up in a tidal wave of calm, he released me. I leaned back against the seat, panting as my wet shirt rolled down over my abdomen. Silence dawned between us. Our foreheads were pressed together while my chest rose and crashed for breath. Nico growled and I swung back into the driver’s seat, the throbbing between my legs making movement a sore.

I drummed my fingers on the window and I held my gaze away from him, drawing in a long breath to gather up all my courage.

“I don’t think I can deal with a mate,” I said, staring out at the darkness of the parking garage. It was all silence and that eerie flicker of orange light.

“Can’t handle me?” Nico cranked back the seat, lacing his feet on the dash. The growling had stopped, and his voice had taken on a pleasant tone once more. His black eyes glinted in the window. He was beautiful and I turned my eyes away, toward a smudge on the glass.

“Not you in particular. Just, a mate. In theory.” I pushed my nose against the glass, the scents of gasoline and car wax suddenly dizzying, but preferable to the smell of Nico. After the closeness we’d just experienced, I was electric with need and fear. His body, the feel him against me. I needed him to fuck me. But I knew what could happen to me if he did.

“Oh, I see.” His lips shone as he licked them, his eyes dancing with a wicked glint. I shut my eyes, sick of watching his glowing reflection. My wolf whined. “You can’t handle me in theory.”

“Not what I meant.” I clenched my apron in my shaking hands, wolf whimpering. The pain, suddenly unbearable. My gaze whipped over to him, scrutinizing the lean features on his roguish face. “Don’t you have a party to get back to?”

He blinked his thick lashes. That beautiful smile, the wicked curve of his lips, crinkled into a frown. "What are we going to do now? Don’t you want me?”

“I want to fuck you,” I admitted, reaching for the keys at the bottom of my pocket. I still hadn’t plugged it into the ignition, so cold climbed into the aluminum interior and ice sleeted the windows. “You should probably get back to your party.”

Nico’s smile returned, and his eyes shone, full of light. When he raked his gaze down my body they brought a flush to my skin. I wanted him to find me as attractive as I found him.

“I’ve been waiting for you, Dimitri. I like this ‘mating stuff.’ It’s comforting to know I’m destined to love someone so beautiful.” He winked, tucking a stray strand of hair behind my ear. His touch warmed me, and my mouth quivered. No one had called me that before, and I hated him for it.

“You may be an alpha, and you may be a billionaire, ” I said, crossing my arms over my chest, “but this is my van. Get out.”

He swung the door open. When he smiled, I wanted to trail my hands down every groove of his body, draw the warmth of his skin to my fingers. The kiss had been too short. Even if I couldn't be with him, even if I didn't want him, I still missed him fitted against me, the pressure of his body, the scent of his skin.

“You’re mine,” he said, his voice lifting.

And I think, at that moment, I was.