Dirty Filthy Rich Love by Laurelin Paige
“No!” I couldn’t even entertain the idea. I wouldn’t.
“It’s already done. Just take the call and give him your information.” He pressed the receiver toward my hand.
“I said no!” I jumped up from his chair, away from him and his stupid phone call. “I’m not doing it, Donovan,” I hissed with finality.
It might be tempting to go along with the investigation—for somebody else. There was so much I didn’t know about him, but I didn’t want to learn about him from a report. I wanted him to show me who he was in person. I wanted to uncover him, layer by layer, the way that people do when they meet someone that fascinates them so entirely that they can’t get enough until they hear everything from his own lips.
Donovan’s jaw set, his mouth pressed together in a tight line as he held me in a hard unmoving stare. Several heavy beats passed.
Finally, he brought the receiver back to his own ear, and I let out the breath I’d been holding.
Until he started talking. “Ferris, the order is for a complete background report on me with surveillance. Solo surveillance only. No need for a tail if Sabrina is in my company. Photos. No videos. Send to the email that you have on file for her but send the invoice to me.”
I crossed my arms under my breasts and tried to decide if I was angry or disappointed.
Donovan finished the call and hung up the phone with a sharp clack that suggested he was as frustrated as I was, and for some reason that lessened my irritation a degree or two.
“You don’t have to look so wounded,” he said, coolly. “You said I didn’t have to give this up.”
“That didn’t mean that you should try and force me into the same behavior.” How could he not understand?
“This is what I know, Sabrina. You wanted answers; this is how I know how to give them.”
There was a sincerity in his tone that awoke something in me, made me the one to understand—he wasn’t trying to make me mad. He wasn’t trying to hurt me. He wasn’t trying to overrule my wishes. He was doing the best he could with what he knew, and this was what he knew. Surveillance. Stalking. Sneaking around.
It was up to me to teach him differently. I’d have to teach him trust.
And to teach him trust, I’d first have to show him trust.
“I don’t need that report.” When it came to my email, I’d just delete it, I’d decided. “But if that’s what you need to do, I understand. Right now, what I need is for you to tell me once again that you don’t have feelings for Sun.” I took a deep breath—this was going to be hard. “And I’ll believe you.”
He came to me in three easy steps. Putting his hand on my chin, he tilted it up to meet his eyes. “I don’t feel anything for Sun. I’ve never felt anything for her. She was always just a distraction so that I wouldn’t go crazy from how much I loved you.”
My chest tightened and a knot formed in the back of my throat. I pushed up to the balls of my feet and pressed my forehead to his. “Thank you. I believe you.”
Fifteen
Monday came faster than it seemed possible, as it often did. With Weston gone, my workload had doubled. On top of his absence, the end of the year always brought new campaigns. Existing clients wanted to get a head start on the new year; new clients were knocking on the door with resolutions for a better business going forward.
Fortunately, I had little time for worrying about office gossip or private investigators. I didn't even have time to eat lunch. By afternoon, I realized how easily I could be buried under the demands. I canceled everything unnecessary and came to terms with the fact that I would be running back and forth between my office and Weston's all week.
Wednesday morning I gave up, gathered what was important from my space, and moved into his.
"You look good in a room this size," Donovan said when he came in to check on me that evening.
I looked up from the stacks of strategy reports in front of me and blinked several times. I'd darkened the glass walls of the office so that the other staff members wouldn’t distract me, but it had the downside of closing me off to the world. My phone had died hours ago. I glanced at the window behind me and realized for the first time that it was dark. Nighttime dark.
"I guess I lost track of time." I stretched my legs out in front of me and flexed a foot. I'd long ago slipped off my shoes.
Donovan sat in the chair across from me and rested his ankle on the opposite knee. "You’ve been doing that a lot this week."
It wasn't exactly accusatory, but I had the sense that he was trying to tell me something.
"I'm sorry I haven't had any time for you. I had no idea this would be so hard. I didn't think Weston did anything."
"Weston doesn't do anything. This is the best his job has ever been done. The rest of us are never going to let you leave." He smiled, and I knew he wasn’t saying it just to be kind. "And don't worry about me. I'm taking you away this weekend."
I cocked my head, intrigued with this new information. "Oh really?" I had planned on working all weekend. There was no other way to get through everything I needed to without doing so, even though I'd worked until almost ten every night so far this week.
"You can't work every second of your life and still expect to do a good job, Sabrina. Trust me, I know. You have to have a little downtime."
I folded my arms under my breasts. "And you have so much downtime. Tell me Mr. Kincaid, what hobbies do you have? What occupies your weekends besides work?"
"You."
Okay. He won.
"And I will allow you to have time to work this weekend as well, as long as you occupy part of your weekend with me."
The only reason I didn't say anything right away was because I was too busy melting inside. "You make it really hard for a girl to argue."
"That's the whole point." His brow wrinkled as if he were thinking. "I have to admit, it’s a whole lot easier just telling you to go places. Though it was more fun devising ways to get you where I wanted you to be."
"Asking me. You ask me to go places. You don't tell me."
"Yeah. That's what I do." He smirked, and I couldn't decide if he was indulging me or if I was indulging him, but when I thought about it, I didn't really want to find out.
"So where is it that you want me to be this weekend?" I asked, gathering the papers in front of me into organized piles for the morning. I’d worked long enough today. My brain was mush at this point. "Do I get to know? Or is it a surprise?"
He considered before answering. "My parents’ country house in Washington, Connecticut. They will be there as well. I apologize for that. My mother hates the city in the winter, and she pretty much stays in Washington from the weekend after Thanksgiving until New Year's. But it's a big house, and my father is just as much of a workaholic as we are, so we won't have to spend very much time with them."
I couldn't stop smiling. "You're taking me to meet your parents?”
He raised a brow. "Did you hear anything else I said?"
"Not really." I was practically giddy. Schoolgirl giddy. "Meeting the guy’s parents, Donovan… That's a big deal. I’m really kind of flustered right now."
His eyes grew warm and soft like melted cookies. "You're a big deal to me," he said quietly, and the air left my lungs. With more energy, he went on. "I'm serious, though. My parents are cold and formal. Don't expect much from them. They will engage with you transactionally."
I thought it wasn’t a good idea quite yet to remind him that he'd engaged with me transactionally as well. "Then why their country house? We could go someplace else."
"Because it's beautiful, even in the winter. Especially in the winter. I want to share it with you.”
Almost as an afterthought, he said, “And I want them to meet you. Even though they don't deserve to know you."
Silently, I ran my hand flat along the surface I had just cleared on the desk, overwhelmed by the things he’d just said. When I found my voice again, I agreed. "I'd like to go there. Please. I'd like to m
"We’re driving out at four sharp on Friday. Have everything you need here and ready by then. We'll take a driver so we can even work on the ride up. I can help you with anything you're behind on. I should have all my operations projections in place before we leave."
"All that sounds really fucking fantastic."
He was staring at me, hard and deep, the way he did when he was unearthing me, bringing what was buried inside me to the surface.
Also the way he looked at me when he was scheming. When he wanted to test my boundaries. When he wanted to play.
I was afraid to ask. "What?"
"Take off your panties."
"What?" I'd heard him, I just didn't know if he was teasing or not.
"It's after nine. You and I are the last people here. Take off your panties."
What was I thinking? He was never just teasing.
"Why?" I wasn’t disagreeing. But I wanted to know.
"I'm going to fuck you on Weston's desk."
Oh God.
Now I needed to take off my panties because they were drenched. Why did that turn me on so fucking much? Because it was someone else's property? Because it was my boss’s desk? Because I could sense the primitive alpha reasoning behind Donovan's desire to do it?
"There are probably cameras," I said, scanning the most likely spots for their location.
"I know there are cameras. They are visual only. Weston will be able to see everything we do if he decides to look through the security footage. Don't tell me that doesn't turn you on, because we both know it does."
Yep. That sure did.
My breath shuddered as I drew it in. The reality was Weston would have no reason to look at the footage. I'd been there for three months and we’d never looked at security footage. In all my years at Now, Inc. we’d never once looked at the cameras. They were always there, “just in case.” “Just in case” never happened.
But. There was always the possibility that Weston could.
I was already going to do it. I was already slipping on my shoes, standing up, coming around the desk to Donovan.
“What about you? Are you into this because the voyeurism turns you on as well, or because you want to show Weston I’m yours?" I pulled the skirt of my dress up so that my panties were visible and turned, as if making a show of it for the cameras. Then I tugged them down my legs seductively, maneuvered them over my heels and handed them to Donovan.
His expression said he was pleased with my performance, if not also a bit surprised. He took the panties I offered him, sniffed them, and tucked them in his front suit pocket. “Both,” he answered. "Definitely both."
He pulled me to him and kissed me, sucking on my tongue, before swiftly turning me around and bending me over the desk. The skirt I was wearing was full and easy to gather. Donovan pulled it up around my waist so that my pussy and backside were on display.
I felt vulnerable and exposed—so very exposed—knowing that there were cameras in the room. Knowing that Weston could see any of this one day. Even certain that he would never watch, I wasn't sure I would do this if it was anybody but Weston. He had seen me naked before. He wasn’t seeing anything new.
But what about Donovan? How did he feel about exposing me to another man? Was he not bothered by the idea that Weston, specifically, might see me?
I was both tormented and turned on by that strange juxtaposition of ideas—Donovan wanting to keep me to himself and also owning me so completely that it was his prerogative if he wanted to show me off.
It turned out he had his own conflicting desires.
He removed his jacket, undid the cufflinks at his wrists, and put them in his pocket. After he pushed up the sleeves of his shirt, he glided his palm along my ass. "All of this, Sabrina, belongs to me," he said, definitively. "No one gets to touch your ass but me." He moved his fingers to my pussy and dipped inside. "No one gets to touch your pussy but me. No one gets to see any of this but me."
I moaned as he stroked in and out of my hole. He hadn't even touched my clit, but I was so aroused, I didn't need it.
"Do you understand? This, right now, in front of these cameras, is on my terms. And it's the last time Weston has a chance of ever seeing you like this. Tell me you understand, Sabrina."
"I understand." Two words and they were so hard to get out while he was massaging that spot inside me.
But I understood. I got it. Donovan was claiming me, and I had absolutely zero problem with it.
Suddenly, his hand was gone. Then it was back, landing on my behind with a crisp smack.
I jumped with a yelp but Donovan was already smoothing away the ache.
“That was for teasing me, Sabrina. For flirting with Weston in front of me that night at the restaurant."
Uh, what?
He spanked me again, this time on my other cheek, harder. I whimpered as he chased the pain with a circular massage of his palm. "This is for dancing with him at his wedding when you should've been in my arms."
He was punishing me. Punishing me for being with Weston.
Fuck. That was hot.
I pressed my thighs together as though that could ease the buzz between them, as though it could stop the liquid dripping from my cunt.
Another smack and my orgasm was already building. "That was for accepting the job when he offered it to you, when I worked so hard to provide you with a nice career in Los Angeles." His tone was more strained, more ragged with each new strike.
The next hit came closer in spacing, with barely enough time to achieve relief from the last. "This is for the doe eyes you gave him every day for half a semester at Harvard. And this one is for thinking even for one minute that he could ever give you anything you needed."
That blow was the worst, the pain bringing tears to my eyes, but it wasn't any worse than hearing the pain in Donovan's voice, pain he’d carried for years. Pain I'd never known about, that he'd never truly blamed me for, and if I could in this small way feel it for him, then I would take a hundred more blows.
But that wasn't what he had in mind for me.
"And this," he said as I heard his belt being worked open, his zipper being drawn down. "This is for spending a weekend in his bed. You were never his to give him what you let him take."
I reached across the desk and held onto the opposite edge, attempting to prepare for Donovan's thrust.
Still, he caught me off guard, slamming into me with such force that it felt like he was hitting the very end of me, like he’d found every single part of me there was to know, every last secret, every last hidden sin, and had driven it out of me with his entry.
He didn't let up, pounding into me with quick, frenzied, punishing strokes, and I knew he was chasing his own demons, and that this fuck was maybe more for him than any other time I'd spread my legs.
But this was for me too, as everything he did was for me. And any last worry I had about Sun Le Chen was fucked into a bad memory. There was no way that he could need me this much, be this hurt by my relationship with Weston, and be carrying a torch for someone else. It just wasn't possible. He’d said to me once that if I could see inside him that I would know that there was no one else.
Well, I couldn't see inside him, but I could feel. He was making me feel everything he felt, and it was raw and jagged and dirty and hard.
But it was love, and it was rich, and he lavished me with it.
His speed and tempo were erratic. His balls slapped against my clit. That, plus the erotic scenario sent me toward climax, despite the lack of manual stimulation. Donovan still came before I did, rutting into me as he released, even after he was completely empty, as if he needed to be sure that every drop had been spilled inside me. And when it was, he lifted me so that my back was against his chest, then reached around and massaged my clit. Just a little nudge was all it took before I was spiraling into a sea of bright lights and warmth and pleasure.
I was still spinning when Donovan turned me around to face him and kissed me sw
Finally he broke away. "I don't want to stop touching you,” he said, straightening my clothing.
I kissed him again. And again, because I didn't want to stop touching him either. But I hadn't brought any clothes with me to stay the night at his house, and I had to be to work too early in the morning with too much to do the next day to risk not getting a good night’s sleep.
But it didn't mean he couldn't come to my place.
"You could—" I started to say.
"I'm coming to your place," he said at the same time.
“Good.” I had a feeling it was the only way we were getting out of here tonight. I pulled myself away and went to the closet to get my coat and purse while he straightened out his sleeves and put on his jacket.
"Ready?" I asked, standing at the doorway.
"Just one thing first." He went to one of the shelves where Weston kept his comic books displayed, and picked one up. "I wanted to borrow his first edition of The Walking Dead,” he explained on the way out.
I was too tired to make anything of it at the time, even though it was immediately strange—Donovan reading comic books? But it wasn't until I was drifting off to sleep in his arms much later that night that I realized:
When Weston found his possession missing, he was going to watch the security tapes.
Sixteen
Washington, Connecticut was two hours outside the city. We left on Friday afternoon shortly before four o'clock so that I could stop by my house and pick up my weekend bag before hitting the road. I hadn't wanted to take it to the office with me. Even if most of the staff knew that I was dating Donovan, they didn't need to know what we were doing with our free time. I certainly didn't want to feed their imagination.
We took the Tesla, which was equipped with an all-wheel drive system that made the car exceptional in all weather, according to Donovan. Apparently he was quite proud of his cars and extremely willing to boast about them when prodded, a rather fascinating fact to learn about him. Since he'd brought his driver along, we were both passengers, and the two of us knocked out a bunch of the work that had lingered from the week on the ride up, so by the time we turned down the tree-lined lane, white from snow, I felt relaxed and ready for some social engagement.