Lexie awoke the next morning sorer than she had ever remembered being in her entire lifetime; it felt like every muscle in her body was aching.
She moaned softly as she rolled over from her stomach to her back. The events of the previous night came rushing back and it occurred to her that she wasn’t home in her bed but still at the club, sleeping in Vince’s king-sized one. He’d insisted she stay the night after he finished fucking her in the dungeon and had carried her to his bedroom and laid her naked in his bed before slipping in with her.
A soft smile touched her lips as she reached out beside her for Vince, but came up empty. Slowly, she opened her eyes to see the room illuminated by the sunshine peeping in through a six-inch part in the drapes. She immediately felt someone watching her and her head whipped around to find Vince sitting in an overstuffed, blue velvet, Victorian-styled chair.
The heat rose to her cheeks as she suddenly felt self-conscious and gripped the sheet over her naked breasts. “Good morning,” she murmured, giving him a soft, embarrassed smile. Thoughts of what they’d done together the previous night came flooding back to her and she could feel her cheeks growing hotter. After everything they experienced together the previous evening, she couldn’t help but wonder what he thought of her.
“Good morning.” He didn’t return her smile but stared impassively at her, jaw clenched. She didn’t know him well, but it was evident he was holding back his anger.
The reason for his anger quickly became painfully clear. Lexie gasped as her eyes caught sight of what was sitting on the end table beside his chair. Her video and audio recorder. This was bad. This was bad.
“Who do you work for?” he demanded, his tone steady and low, but with a hint of venom.
“Vince. No. I -”
“I will ask you once more. Lie to me and management will be informed about you and your little friend the shooter girl, who I assume was the one who gave you that badge and got you in here in the first place.”
Oh shit! She clutched the sheet tighter to her and silently cursed herself for being so stupid. She had done the one thing she’d promised
Nadine she wouldn’t do… She had gotten caught. She had no choice; all she could do was come clean and pray he found it in his heart to not have
Nadine fired or worse.
She sighed loudly and lowered her eyes to the floor, unable to look at him any longer. “I’m a columnist for The Whisperer.”
“Fuck!” he growled and she heard him getting to his feet.
She cringed but forced herself to look back up at him. She watched as Vince marched over to the dresser, grabbed her dress, corset, and panties, and tossed them at her. “I’m sorry Vince.” She had no idea what to say other than that. What could she say to make it better? She had no clue.
He shook his head at her in disgust. “If you put out a story about this place and about me in that fucking shit paper, you and your little friend will be in for a world of trouble. I hope you understand that.” His voice raised several octaves and he was now visibly struggling to keep control of his temper.
Lexie scrambled off of the bed and got dressed as quickly as possible, silently cursing herself for being so stupid; even more so, she
cursed herself for liking him. She should never have let anything happen between herself and Vince. Sure, it had been one of the most intense and incredible nights of her life, but now what? She should have known it
would only be asking for trouble while getting her nowhere.
Before she drifted off to sleep in his arms, he had mentioned he
wanted to see her again. He’d wanted to take her out and spend the day with her. He seemed to have genuinely liked her. It was evident none of that was going to happen since he couldn’t stand the sight of her now that he knew the truth. She had planned on telling him, in her way, and in her own time if things had progressed to that point. But that was not going to be happening now.
“Security is outside the door; they will escort you out of the building. I don’t think I need to warn you about the consequences of printing the story you came here for.” He glared at her, challenging her to defy him.
Lexie gulped down the panic that was threatening to consume her. “No, Sir.”
He growled, low and deep in the back of his throat, and then closed the distance between them, startling her. She instinctively took several steps back until he had her pinned against the wall, his hard body pressed against hers with a hand on either side of her head, trapping her.
He lowered his mouth to her ear and the warmth of his breath on her neck sent an unwelcomed shiver through her, igniting her arousal. “We
could have been so good together, Lexie. It’s too bad. Now get the fuck out of my suite,” he whispered, the harshness in his tone stinging worse than the words. As abruptly as he went to her, he turned and stormed out of the bedroom. Seconds later, two large security guards entered the room and
escorted her shamefully from the building.
****
“You must have had one helluva night! I gotta say, I never would have bet on you spending the night with Vince. My roomie is such a little hoochie.” Nadine greeted with a grin as Lexie entered their apartment, roughly a half-hour after being thrown, literally, from the Billionaires’
Club. “I just put some bacon and eggs on, want some? You must be starving.”
Despite the amazing smell of frying bacon greeting her as she
entered the apartment, food was the last thing on Lexie’s mind. “No thanks,” Lexie shook her head as she flopped herself in the floral armchair and began to unzip her left boot.
“What’s wrong?” Nadine frowned. Leaving the bacon sizzling in the pan she rushed to her friend’s side. “What did that asshole do to you?”
Nadine immediately began to check Lexie for marks or bruises. “Some of those fuckers can be animals.”
Despite her dour mood, Lexie couldn’t help but laugh as she shook her head, pulling the first boot off, tossing it under the coffee table, and
working on the second. “No, nothing like that. The sex was amazing. Vince was amazing.” Until he found out I was lying through my teeth to him, she mused. Lexie couldn’t blame him for his reaction, though. She was sure
she’d have been equally, if not more, furious if the roles had been reversed.
In truth, he handled himself with more restraint than she would have, she imagined.
Nadine grinned. “He was that good was he?” Her expression turned mischievous, her dark eyes gleaming. “So what did he do to ya? He’s so fucking hot, I’m dying to know what he’s into.”
Lexie rolled her eyes and shook her head. “My lips are sealed on that account. But I need you to sit down a minute. There’s something I have to tell you.” Lexie groaned inwardly at the thought of having to tell her friend the truth. She’d been caught and Nadine’s job – one that she loved – may be in jeopardy because of her.
She didn’t need to say it. As Nadine’s eyes caught hers, she concluded herself. “Oh, fuck me, Lexie… How did he find out?” Nadine took a few steps backward and flopped herself back onto the sofa.
Lexie shrugged. “I woke up this morning to find him sitting in a chair, waiting for me to wake up with the recorders sitting beside him.”
Closing her eyes, Nadine let her head drop back against the back of her sofa. “What is he going to do? Do I still have a job?”
“Well, he told me if I kept the story out of the papers, he wouldn’t notify management of your involvement.”
“Seriously?” Nadine’s eyes sprung open and she sat back up. Lexie nodded her confirmation.
A relieved smile touched Nadine’s lips. “How did you manage to make him agree to that?”
“I didn’t. He’d already made his mind up on how it was going to go down before I woke up.”
Nadine’s smile slowly retreated, giving Lexie a look of sympathy. “But your job… isn’t your editor expecting the story tonight? You’ll lose your job if you don’t write it.”
It wasn’t that she didn’t want to write the article. She could handle Vince’s threats on her career, but she wouldn’t gamble with Nadine’s
employment. “I can’t.”
“But you went to school to be a journalist. All I do is get people drunk so they’ll have kinky-ass sex.” Nadine took a deep breath in and slowly released it. “Write the article, Lexie.”
“No.” Lexie raked her hand through her red locks. How could her conscience allow her to do such a thing?
“Write the article, Lexie,” Nadine’s tone took on a sharp edge,
causing Lexie to raise her eyes to meet her gaze once again. “You went to
college to be a journalist,” she shrugged. “I can be a shooter girl anywhere.” Her attempt at being nonchalant over the matter failed miserably,
but Lexie loved her friend for the attempt. There had to be a way to satisfy her editor and allow Nadine to keep her job. There had to be…