The Billionaire Bachelor (Billionaire Bad boys #1)(52)

Her arm wrapped around his, Merina turned. He walked with her, a smile tickling the edge of his mouth and a twitch coming from the recesses of his tuxedo pants. Bawdy and refined. That was his Merina.

His.

At least for now.

"Now find us a closet so I can kiss you," she said as they left the ballroom.

Right fucking now.

"No closet." He flattened her back to the wall outside the door. Her eyes flared, her mouth curving into a pleased smile. He leaned close and brushed her nose with his. "Let 'em watch."

Then he tipped her jaw and covered her lips with his and kissed her for all he was worth.

Chapter 13

Monday morning, Reese surfaced from sleep when a soft sigh paired with tugging the covers from his shoulder reminded him that he had company.

He usually slept on the couch next to the bed, save for the time after Merina had gone down on him and left him prostrate and dead to the world. Even then he hadn't woken up next to her. She'd risen before him and he'd found her downstairs sipping coffee out of his favorite mug.

Well, that and Saturday night after the retirement party. He'd gone from kissing her in that hallway (and getting busted by Bob) to going back in for the party until they could make their escape. After, they'd gone straight to bed, but then, too, Merina had been up and reading the Wall Street Journal when his eyes opened.

This morning she hadn't scampered out of bed, for reasons he guessed he was responsible for, and that made him proud. He felt her finger touch his lips and opened his eyes.

"Cocky bastard," she grumbled. Merina was rumpled and sleepy, her eyes barely open, her hair in complete disarray. And so gorgeous with the sun filtering in behind her, he had to blink to make sure she was real. "Do you always wake up smiling?"

He pulled her close, because in his huge bed, she was too far away. Then he rolled, threw a leg over her body, wrapped an arm tightly at her back, and kissed her neck.

"I wake smiling," he said, kissing her ear next, "whenever the woman I go to bed with has six screaming orgasms."

"Six!" she protested, pushing against his bare chest with both hands.

"Was it seven? I lost count." He loosened his hold on her and pulled back to find her rolling her eyes.

"Hardly." She wiggled away from him, then climbed out of bed. She was wearing almost nothing: a barely-there pair of panties and a silky tank top. When she was on her feet, she grabbed a pillow and tossed it over his face.

"I'm still smiling," he said, his voice muffled.

She grumbled something else and he moved the pillow in time to watch her fantastic ass wiggle into the bathroom. Then he rolled over, and despite the shining sun, closed his eyes and went back to sleep.

* * *

An hour later, Reese emerged wearing a suit and tie, looking bright-eyed and bushy-tailed and ready to take over hotel chains and turn them into dust. Merina was dressed in her usual uniform of pencil-skirt-and-blouse but doubted she looked either bright or bushy. Unless you counted her hair, which she'd wrestled with for nearly twenty minutes before giving up and pinning it back in a low ponytail.

"I was going to run this morning, but you wiped me out last night." he said in greeting, moving to the coffeepot. His gaze strayed to the mug in her hands.

"What?"

"I have a cabinet full of mugs and that's the one you choose."

"I like it." She cradled her coffee protectively.

"Of course you do."

"It's comforting."

"Of course it is."

The black mug with gold writing on it was the last thing she'd ever expected to find in Reese's sterile, clean environment. It added a touch of whimsy, which was shocking.

"You mean this is…yours?" She turned the mug and read the message aloud. "'Sometimes all you need is a billion dollars.'"

Reese grinned and Merina almost had to reach behind her to grab the chair for support. He was ridiculously gorgeous, and remembering the sight of him between her thighs last night wringing orgasms from her made her want to grab his tie and lead him upstairs now too. And, yeah, her orgasms had numbered around seven, but she wasn't ready to admit he could separate her body from her brain so thoroughly.

"Tag bought it," Reese said. "He thinks he's funny."

At the mention of her brother-in-law, she hummed.

Reese came to her, his own mug white and plain and boring. For the first time, she thought how that didn't fit him. Which made her frown. She didn't like that he kept surprising her.

"What did he say at the party that pissed you off so much?"

"It wasn't what he said. It was…I don't know."

But she did know. She didn't want to admit it, but she knew. It was the way Tag instructed her to seduce Reese. The suggestion that what she and Reese had was for show…which it was. But she didn't like to talk about him or what they had in such obvious, sterile terms. Tag had made their marriage sound cold, but with her, Reese wasn't cold. That night, last night, and hell, even this morning, there was considerable warmth between them.

"I was just pissed about Gwyneth," she fibbed.

"Ah." Satisfied with that answer, he nodded. "You handled her and Hayes beautifully, which was why you received so many presents last night." He stole a kiss. "Like I said, I was going to go for a run today, but you let me sleep in."

"You needed it. We had a stressful weekend." Though yesterday had been an almost lazy Sunday by comparison. Reese took calls, and she did some work on her laptop, but mostly, they sat in the sunroom and watched it rain. Magda delivered lunch to the room and had left a casserole in the oven for dinner. Merina and Reese ate at the counter rather than at the table and ended up going up to bed sooner than either of them expected for the sex he'd previously been bragging about.

"Are you sure you don't want to tell me more about your sordid past?" She fluttered her lashes. She didn't know the story behind Gwyneth and Hayes, only the bleached, censored version Reese had mumbled at the party. But as the woman who had thwarted Dumb and Dumber at the party, she was due an explanation.

Reese disagreed.

"Nice try." He finished his coffee and put the mug in the sink. "I can drop you at work, but I have to go to a dinner meeting at eight, so you'll have to find your own way home.