Page 45 of How to Blow It with a Billionaire

He shook his head.

“Can I stay, then?” Wow. That was just pathetic. I felt like a broken traffic light, flicking back and forth at random between signals. In my case: needy, flirty, and pushy.

“It’s really not necessary.”

“I want to.” I joined him at the window, watching the silver towers with their fleeting golden crowns.

If I could manage to shut up for five seconds, maybe he’d relax. Put his arm around me. Draw me in close. Let me snuggle. I wasn’t a morning person but if this was what life with Caspian meant…I was game to try.

Then my mouth happened. “Why don’t you trust me?”

There was a brief hesitation and then, with devastating patience, “I do trust you. If I didn’t, you wouldn’t be here.”

“And where exactly is here, Caspian?” My brain was screaming at me to stop. But I didn’t. Couldn’t. And I had no idea if this was coming from my better self or my worst. “In your bed but not in your arms? In your body but not in your heart?”

Oh what was the fuck was I expecting? For music to swell and lightning to flash from the sky as Caspian pulled me into a fierce embrace. Covered my mouth with his and—between deep, desperate kisses—told me in a voice hoarse with passion how much I meant to him. How much he needed me. The light in his dark, the balm of his soul, the jam in his doughnut. Whatever.

He was frowning. “We fucked in my office—which would have been entirely against my better judgment, had you not so comprehensively overthrown it. And now you’re staying in a place where only I stay. What more do you want? What more can I give you?”

“How about the truth? Why can’t you be with me like you were with Nathaniel? How come you can’t sleep at night? What’s”—and the words rushed out before I could stop them—“with the locked door?”

“The locked door?”

“Yes.” I pointed wildly. “The one over there.”

“It’s…it’s not important.”

I made a sound. It wasn’t a very dignified sound. Honestly, it was kind of a scream.

“I just meant,” he said quickly, “it’s a room I don’t use anymore.”

“Why? What’s in there? Your fucking guitar collection?”

He’d gone horribly pale. “No.”

“When were you last there?”

“With Nathaniel.”

“Show me.” I felt like this lurching fleshmonster of a person, sewn together from anger and hurt and confusion. “Show me.”

His eyes met mine in the glass, wavery blue shadows that revealed absolutely nothing. I might as well have tried to fish the moon from its reflection in a pond. “As you wish.”

He crossed the room to the table where he’d left his keys. Picked them up and tossed them to me. Of course I missed them and had to go scrabbling around on the ground. But I got them, minus five to personal dignity, and bolted for the door before Caspian could change his mind.

He followed me silently into the corridor, arms folded tightly across his chest, leaving me to try all the keys as if I was a contestant on the world’s shittiest game show. Finally, though, I found the right one and pushed the door open.

And stepped like Alice into a kinky wonderland.

Chapter 12

I mean holy shit. We were talking the real deal, the full shebang: a lavishly furnished, luxury bondage dungeon complete with four-poster bed and implements hanging on the wall. God. So many implements. Cuffs, crops, spreaders, floggers, stuff I didn’t even recognize, gleaming softly in the mellow light. Everything was dark leather and dark wood, occasionally relieved by accents of burgundy and gold, opulent and forbidding and sexy as hell. And some of the furniture in there I couldn’t even look at for fear of insta-blushing. I hadn’t quite realized how many ways there existed to immobilize and expose someone.

Though, let’s be clear, I was up for all of them.

“Oh my God.” I spun back to Caspian. “I always guessed what you were into, but this is amazing.”

“It was built a long time ago.”