Page 12 of Vicious Arrangement (Alpha Billionaire Daddies #7)

Chapter Eleven

NOAH

Of all days, today isn’t the day to be late, and it still shows no signs of ending.

But I’m finalizing a tricky multi-million-dollar takeover that will take us from strength to strength and shore up some holes in the industry that are waiting to be picked apart by the unscrupulous.

Mark Wilson’s been riding my ass since I got in, and he’s really pissing me off to the point I’m thinking of firing him. But he knew Oscar well, and probably knows where bones might be buried.

Besides, the man’s excellent at his job.

I read over the final document, letting the peace of a mostly empty office floor slide through me, taking some of the day’s tension with it.

Mark’s still here. So are some others.

Mark didn’t even ride me over work. He felt the need to make snide remarks about my being late and asked which socialite I was up with and who was next on the menu.

He shut up when Felicity, another exec, showed him the wedding photos on Instagram and some socials.

As she left the room, he muttered, “So that’s why you were a no-show on Thursday.”

I bit my tongue then, and I’ll bite it when I hand over the final changes in a few.

I tap my pen on the paper.

I’m more than aware of what this takeover is going to do. Good and bad. They go hand in hand. We buy them out, shore up the holes, take all the contracts and some staff that are worth taking, but…

Shit, I don’t let emotions interfere here. I don’t like them interfering in general.

If things are worse than the evaluations—and in my experience, they almost always are, a lot of people will be out of work, maybe even more than calculated. It’s what happens in buying out smaller, struggling companies.

But while I don’t have to like it, I don’t feel a thing about it. It’s easier that way.

Oscar used to let his fucking emotions, the ones he never had for me, get in the way of business and it showed.

We could have been even more successful.

But now I’m in charge.

Under my leadership, we will be. I’m fucking determined this company reaches its full potential and then some.

With a breath, I finish the annotations, add them to my file on the computer, and send it to my assistant and my other work folder, along with another to Asher, asking him to look over it from an IT perspective.

It doesn’t need that.

But regardless of what people think of me and my so-called hedonistic and reckless ways, I’m exceptionally careful. I’ve always mailed anything on paper that could be changed and faked to myself. Not that anyone here would do it, but old habits…

I drop it off to where Mark and Felicity are working in one of the conference rooms.

“Thanks, Noah,” she says, “this looks good.”

Mark takes it from her, reads through it scan-fast, and then drops it on the table. “See you for the meeting tomorrow. Don’t be late, Noah.”

And he leaves.

Felicity picks it up. “This could have waited?—”

“No, it couldn’t.” I glance after him. “You should go home.”

“We had work to finish up, that’s why we’re here. Don’t tell him I told you that. I know he rides you hard, but…”

“I’m the boss.”

“You’re the boss.”

“Go home. Either order in or take your partner out for a meal on us.” I hand her a company card, one of a few I keep on me for quick last-minute bonuses.”

“There’s five hundred to spend on that. So buy yourself something or have dinner.”

She blushes. “No, that’s?—”

“For a job well done. I trust I can leave this with you.”

She nods and leaves. Then I head out too.

On Washington Street, there’s a bar: Every Second Sunday, I like to go and drink.

It’s dark woods and narrow, no nonsense with low lights.

And it’s quiet, a neighborhood place where I could be the hottest movie star on the planet and no one would blink.

I slide into a seat at the near empty bar and Jenny comes over, one of the bartenders.

“How’s it hanging, Noah?”

“Somewhere between hell and the dark beyond.”

“That good, huh?” She takes down the top-shelf bourbon, Black Dirt, and pours me a glass, adding a single ice cube the way I like it. “The usual.”

“Thanks.”

All the staff know me here, and it’s out of any kind of spotlight. I never bring women here. Jenny leaves me alone to drink in silence, correctly judging my mood.

I take a deep swallow, letting the warm liquor wind through me and ease the tension throb in my head and back of my neck.

Regardless of how I know I did today, of how I handled it all, it was also my first real day as the president of the company. Not the CEO, the president.

It’s insane to me thinking that’s where I am by birth. No matter that I still worked fucking hard to get here.

And it’s just as insane that I fought my way to CEO, and nothing, but nothing would make Oscar move me from third in line to second. Nothing.

Incompetence hangs like a specter over me. I can’t rid myself of it, even though I’m far from that. I’m good at what I do. I might party hard, but I work harder. Even the times I’ve rocked in late, I’ve worked three times as hard as others. I’ve delivered each and every time.

But there are a lot of people waiting for me to fail, starting, I’m more than aware, with Mark Wilson, the vice fucking president.

I’m pretty fucking sure my grandfather promised him the position of president. He expects it either way, and he was livid when my name was announced. What did he expect, the heir to move aside?

But I’m more than aware that on top of the wedding, to keep the position of president—I’d still reap all the rewards if I wasn’t, which isn’t the fucking point—I have to comply all the way with the will and show I can do it.

If I fail the marriage part then he gets the job and I stay either CEO or rich boy on granddaddy’s dime for life.

Neither of which sits at all with me.

Not now. Not ever.

And the prick is waiting, watching. Poking.

I don’t need to move my glass for Jenny to take it and refill it before moving back to conversation with the woman at the other end of the bar.

I take a smaller sip, going slow on this one because I don’t want to get wasted, I just want to unwind for a few hours, so I need to pace myself.

But it’s hard. I know what people think of me. How they see me.

To the world, I’m a fuck boy, a player who cares more about having fun than hard work. But that’s not who I am anymore. And when it comes to work, it’s not who I’ve ever been.

And really, I’m not sure I am the player I made myself into, either. Sure, I had fun, but each time left something in me a little colder and reaching for more to try and warm that spot.

Only one person has warmed it, and she’s in my space with her creature from hell.

Christ, I’d drink hard, fucking do cocaine to sober up and show how great a party animal I was and fuck all the pretty, eager, and willing women, avoiding people who meant something because it was all I was good for.

The drunk fuck boy mess helped me forget I’m such a fuck up my father was a monster to me and my mother and that all ended in blood and death. And my grandfather… He looked at me like I was nothing more than my father waiting to happen. He hated me, I know it. He liked others. Not me.

So there must be absolutely something wrong with me.

But now he’s gone, and I’m not interested in getting wasted and doing drugs. I’m not interested in fucking a different girl each night if I chose to. So where the fuck does that leave me?

There are kink clubs online, kink meeting places. I like tying someone up, but I keep myself from that and other things I fear I might like in case the girl tells the media.

And that was before I got myself the prettiest fucking, sharpest tongued, smart girl around. One that’s hot as fuck.

So what do I do? I can’t fuck Aria again, and I can’t go out and fuck random women or even ones I meet online for hookups, something I’ve never quite brought myself to do. Last thing I want is my profile out there.

I do know one thing. Catching feelings for Aria’s a bad move right now, no matter how attracted I am.

Work comes first.

I need to focus on that, not screw up the legacy I’ve been given. The one I mean to shape into my own.

When I finally finish my drink, Jenny comes up. “Another?”

“Sure, with a water back.”

“Coming right up.”

It’s late when I get my car home.

And, honestly, it’s not until I put my hand in my jacket pocket to unlock the front door that I touch a second set of keys.

Fuck.

I never gave these to Aria.

“You really are an asshole,” I mutter, calling the lift and putting my key in the lock for my floor before pressing second button to take me to the second floor.

When the elevator doors open, I’m opposite the living room. The door’s open, a breeze and the muted sounds of the city below filtering in. The double walls of the outside keep the sounds down, but I love the sound of the city, its rush and life and?—

A black furry head rises above the back of one of my white sofas and growls. “Christ, go away demon dog.”

But I’m not going to be intimidated in my house so I go up to close the door, but then I see Aria and stop, staring.

She’s asleep on the sofa, a plate that had cheese and crackers sits on the coffee table along with a half full glass of white wine.

I know it had crackers and cheese, because bits of them are on the floor and crumbs of crackers stick to the dog’s whiskers.

“Ugh.”

Then it hits me. Was she waiting for me to get home? She could have borrowed Carrie’s keys, or called me, but it’s like she was… waiting…

I’ve never had someone waiting for me.

Maybe Josh, but I’m not sure a four-year-old counts.

She’s so…

A pang hits my heart, making it squeeze as guilt slithers in.

Aria is, since the moment she tried to help me with the napkins, a nice girl, someone sweet and giving; she’s a nurse for fuck’s sake.

She deserves my respect, not me using her for sex like I did. I might think nothing of it, but someone like her sure would.

Being forced to marry a stranger and give up her space has got to be hard. I don’t even want to share with this slobbering, cracker and cheese stealing, cushion murdering machine.

So I think, at the very least, I could stop being such an asshole for her.

Especially since this arrangement is forever.

She doesn’t know that. I never told her. But there are levels to an arrangement.

I sigh, not wanting to think about it.

I can’t let her stay on the sofa, so I carefully scoop her up, ignoring Angus’s growls, and carry her to her room, which is bathed in buttery light. I place her on the bed.

The door’s open in here, too. I pull down the privacy blind, making sure there’s space for her giant dog to go out on the terrace.

Because I’m certainly not cleaning any doggy mess from my apartment.

Then I pull her covers up over her and her sweats. I freeze a moment as I take in the slight flush of sleep on her face, the softness of her lips, the way her hair curls around her.

Christ, she’s fucking beautiful.

And even in sweats, she’s fucking sexy.

My cock twitches as she rolls over on her side, the T-shirt riding up as the covers shift, revealing her back and hip.

Shit.

I adjust her covers, turn off her light, and close her door.

Then I head to my suite.

In there, I fucking wish I was drunk and not just feeling good. But I strip off and jump under my shower, not even the cold water doing a thing to cool the desire heating my blood.

I start to soap up, and my brain shifts from work to Aria.

Those magnificent tits call to me again, and I want to know if her areola, are pink or peach pale, if her nipples are given to turning hard in a moment’s notice, or if they’re something a man needs to suck on and play with until they can be coaxed into peaks of pure delight.

Are they sweet tiny pebbles or long and bite-worthy?

What am I thinking? All nipples are bite-worthy.

I want to suck on them, bite them, pull. I fucking want to experiment with pegs and tie them to see just how exquisitely sensitive she can get.

And I want to whip them, see how she feels. I grab my cock and start to pull, long, hard strokes as I let my fantasy world slip down into all the perverted thoughts I’ve had.

Whip her to perfection, the place where pain and pleasure collide and create that perfect storm and where she comes without me touching her.

I want to fucking spank her and finger-fuck her out the same time. Shove her down and have my way with her, slamming into her ass, balls deep, using her as my vessel of pleasure as I get her off, too.

I slow down on my administrations. I need this to last. This is mind foreplay, I’m readying for the meat.

Aria, on her knees, crawling to me to lick her way up my thighs to my dick, Aria ready for me. Aria as my plaything to share— I pull back from that. It’s a fantasy I’ve had, as just a fantasy, but with her, my head draws a hard line of no beneath it.

But I could take her outside and chase her down, fuck her in public, make her beg and plead for my cock.

There are so many damn things I want to fucking do.

All those things I’ve fantasized about but never done make my cock jerk when I think of trying them with her. Oh, I’ve played a little with general bondage, and that’s pleasing enough, but with Aria, I’d like to play slightly further, see what she’s into.

I want to sink into all her holes. Ass, cunt, mouth.

Her mouth on my cock would be heaven, me slamming into her, hard and fast.

This is the meat. And I beat mine as I picture how she’ll suck, how she’ll take me when I hit her throat. I want her drooling and coughing and gagging, and coming back for me. I want her sucking me hard. My fist is her mouth, and the pressure is real. I’ll make her drink every fucking drop.

I’ll come so fucking hard down the back of her throat I just might pass out, and she’ll slap my legs so she can breathe, but I’ll hold off to the last second because I need her to milk every last drop. And then I’ll let her go.

My balls draw up, and my spine is lit, a fuse of need that burns right down to my cock, and I come, hard, hitting the wall of the shower. I shudder and shake and put my hand on the warm tile, breathing hard, letting the water sluice down on me.

When I’m finally back to normal, I wash the shower wall, and turn the hot water back on, and finish my shower.

It’s enough. It should be enough.

But when I go to bed, lights off, the last thing in my mind before I drift off to sleep is her.

Aria.