Catching Fire: New Rules (Billionaire Romance Series Book 2) Read online

  Tino laughed again. “No, I mean do not get emotionally involved.”

  “Oh, I see.”

  Tino stepped close. “No, it could very well be that you may not see.” His eyes turned very cold. “No attachment. Do not allow it to go any further than sex.”

  Rex looked into what he knew were the eyes of a killer, suddenly he remembered what Ava had said before. He already loved her beyond distraction and if he could feel more for the woman, he didn’t know what that could be. “I promise I will not develop any more feeling than I already have.” Wow, another truthful, clever answer!

  “Good, good. I will tell Ava about the arrangement.” Tino looked serene again. “It will start with dinner for just the two of you in one of the starboard suite cabins. A steward will come and get you. “I am going to talk with Mimi now and I hope she takes it well.”

  He figured to not comment about Ava at all, but that tightening in his gut began again. “Mimi will want whatever makes you happy.”

  Tino smiled and went to the door. “Happiness is what it’s all about in the first place, my friend.” He shut the door behind him.

  Rex made his way to the bed and sat his shaky body down. Okay, the game just got turned by a very dangerous player. He couldn’t believe this! Now, I am getting paid to sleep with the woman I love? How is Ava going to take this? She just stated mere hours ago that she wasn’t going to go there again. Now? She has no choice. If she makes a fuss? Tino may guess something is up and she can’t have that.

  Mimi? Oh, she is going to be happy as a clam, but her danger level is up a notch too, considering she hired me to get romantically involved, while her brother hires me to get only sexually involved. Pleasure Cruise? No, it’s a sexual heavenly ride to hell is what it is.

  * * * *

  The cabin was probably luxurious like the rest of the boat, Rex surmised as the steward brought him to the cabin door. He didn’t know if he should knock or just go in. His stomach was tied in knots. Ava was sure to be angry and accuse him even of orchestrating this somehow. Although if I had done it, my new name should be fucking Houdini instead of Harris. He turned the knob and went in.

  The table sat in the center of the room, candle lit, and set for two. Rex looked around. No Ava. I should have guessed she’d found a way around—

  From the bathroom door, she stepped into the room.

  His eyes widened while his body did an entire gripping clench. She was wearing probably the most provocative thing he’d ever seen her in. A crimson velvet dress, no bra and it hugged every delicious, vivacious curve. His dick did a stand at attention in honor of the breathless sight. Breathless was right, he caught himself holding his breath.

  “Hello, Mister Harris,” she greeted him.

  Rex wondered at the formal stiff greeting. Perhaps she felt they might be watched somehow? Yeah, in this wild situation, maybe. So, we don’t know each other well and this will be our first time together. “Hello, Mrs. Pavorelli,” he responded. “Please excuse my hesitation. With a dress and body like that? I first need to wipe the drool from my lip.” He then actually swiped his shirt cuff along his lower lip.

  Ava’s eyes filled with mirth.

  Oh, yes there it is. The light of humor I love so well.

  “Well, please sit and let’s dine.”

  Nodding his head, he stepped to a chair, pulling it out for her.

  “Oh, thank you.” She sat.

  He gently pushed her chair in and leaned down close to get a whiff of the splendor that was Ava’s scent. It almost made him dizzy. How could he have spent the last several years without it? He stood up and went around to seat himself.

  She smiled brightly at him. “I wonder what we are having?”

  He tilted his head a little at her question. “You don’t know?”

  Ava shook her head.

  He reached forward and lifted the silver cover from her dish.

  “Shrimp!” Ava smiled. “My favorite.”

  Rex wanted to laugh uproariously, but wisely kept it to himself. Mimi’s favorite dish! “Yes, prawns and they are huge.” He lifted the cover from his.

  “They also poured our champagne.” She raised her glass.

  Rex grabbed his.

  “Let’s make a toast to new acquaintances?” She tilted her glass forward.

  He smiled and touched her glass with his.

  They both took hefty swallows.

  Setting his glass down, he picked up a fork. “So, Mrs. Pav—?”

  “Call me Ava, please?”

  “Oh, yes. Ava.” Just be able to say the name to her brought goose bumps to his arms. “Um, I know this could be a forward or rude question, but what kind of sex do you like?”

  Ava’s eyes rounded at him.

  “I really don’t mean to insult or…”

  Her eyes were lit with amusement.

  “I mean, it would help to…”

  “Pour me another champagne, Mister Harris.”

  Grabbing the bottle, he did so. “Please call me Rex.”

  Ava nodded her head and took another large sip.

  He did the same.

  “Well, I like…” Ava faltered. “—well endowed men.”

  Rex nearly choked on his champagne. Daring, very daring.

  Her eyes glittered at him with some emotion that he could not place. “If you could…um…?”

  Rex now remembered the first time this had happened in her Mazzarati, all those years ago. His cock was so hard he almost flinched with the pain of it. “You want me to…?”

  Ava nodded. “I mean, you must be expensive and somehow special for my family to think you’re worth so much?”

  Rex pushed his chair out and stood up.

  “Oh, no! I didn’t mean—?”

  “No, this is my line of business and really, I have no qualms about it.”

  Ava turned three shades of pink if that were possible.

  “I must apologize first though.”

  Her gaze rose from his crotch to his face. “For what, the lack or…?”

  He shook his head at her, she knew better about his measuring up as she just got nailed to a wall by him earlier this very day. “No, for the erection.” He unzipped and tugged bad boy out.

  Ava stared and dropped her glass. “Oh!” She grabbed the empty champagne glass before it fell to the floor.

  Pride for her true acting abilities flooded him, as she’d even managed to look as shocked as the first time he’d showed her his wares. His cock almost stood straight up and he was engorged, his full nine inches filled out completely.

  “My, my…I see now why you could—how you could—“she never finished as her breathing came in gasps.

  Rex gave her his most dazzling smile. “I also have a satisfaction guarantee.”

  Batting her eyes, she swung her gaze from crotch to face. “What?”

  “If you so desire, I will perform in any way that you deem.”

  Looking flustered, she was fanning herself with her napkin. “I’m not sure if—I mean…?”

  He laughed. “For instance? Would you like for me to sit entirely nude while we eat?”

  Her shocked gasp was loud in the cabin while her face visibly paled.

  “Or, I can just do what pleases you.” He walked around the table to where she sat.

  Staring at his face her eyes were luminous and her gaze dropped to his large erection again. “Oh…”

  Her unconscious sound made his dick visibly throb.

  “Oh!” she gasped loudly as she stared at his fully erected now throbbing tool.

  “Whatever you wish for, you will receive…Ava.” His voice was full of politeness as his eyes burned at her.

  Her chest seemed to be rising and falling with rapid breaths. “Yes, um—stand closer, please.” Her eyes were glittering at him again.

  Rex was puzzled by her shifts in mood, her stranger act was playing well, and then she would look angry. He did as she asked and stepped up closer.

  She reached out an
d touched his throbbing erection lightly.

  He kept himself from reacting overly strong to Ava’s magnificent touch.

  “Mmm,” she moaned low and took a sip of champagne.

  Rex used every rule in his please book to seem just slightly affected as he watched her.

  Ava swiveled in her chair with her mouthful of pink bubbles and took his cock straight into her mouth.

  Rex froze where he stood. He wanted to explode right on the spot, but he knew that would be too personal and too unprofessional. His body wanted to shake and tremble. He fought it and pictured Mimi the hateful bitch herself, to tamper down bad boy’s pleasure.

  Ava swirled the drink in her mouth while giving him a good three strokes of oral perfection.

  Rex needed more from his soften the bad boy files to mentally cool off. He thought of her husband and his steely blue killer eyes. Yep, that worked some.

  Ava released that sultry throaty moan.

  Unexpectedly, he grew all the way to nine inches again in her mouth. What the hell was she trying to do, blow this whole thing? At the sexual euphemism, he wanted to laugh again.

  Finally, she shoved her hands down hard into her lap and her mouth released his cock. “Oh my!” she gasped breathlessly.

  His eyes narrowed down at her as he smiled politely. She is pushing me, while we are trying to play it cool?

  “Please? Sit back down, Mister—I mean Rex?” she asked in a panting voice and dabbed at her mouth with her napkin.

  Obliging whatever she asked, he walked back around the table.

  “Please stay unzipped?” she requested politely again.

  Quietly, he sat and swiveled his chair forward to the table, allowing his champagne toasted cock to hang in front of him.

  “I would like it very much, if we could just eat and talk, maybe for awhile?”

  Rex studied her flushed face. Hot then cold? “Sure.” He picked up his fork.

  Ava took a bite and nodded her head. “Good shrimp.”

  He nodded as well. He felt her foot come up and graze across his softening dick. His body grew rigid but he held steady and did not visibly react otherwise.

  “So, how did you get into this line of work, Rex?” Her foot slid along his bare cock back and forth.

  No, she did not just ask that! What the hell was she doing? He looked across the table at the woman he’d dreamed of for so long, the very one who’d got him into this work. “What?”

  Ava took another drink from her glass, and then sat it down. “I am just curious to know. I mean—How someone gets into your line of work?” She smoothed her ankle up and over his shaft as she spoke.

  Rex was a trained actor, but he was a man too and her foot play was heating him up beneath the tablecloth. He held steady and showed no visible emotion. “Well, there’s no college degree involved that I know of,” he quipped and tried hard not to flinch, while her other soft foot rose up and she smoothed them along each side of his cock as though chafing it “Although, some have said that I must a PhD in it.”

  Her tinkling laughter echoed at him and those gosse bumps rose on his arms. He grew stiff and hard again. Well, truth got him this far, while he was now being paid to sleep with the woman of his heart. And by her husband, no fucking less! “Actually, I sort of fell into it…” He gazed into her bright eyes. “Accidentally.”

  Ava’s eyes widened at him.

  Yes, dear Ava, the truth shall set you free.

  Her foot chafing built as though she were trying to prevent him from telling it.

  “I was on out on the street one day when a gorgeous woman asked me to hop into her car.”

  Ava leaned forward. “Really?” Her eyes now sparkled at him.

  “A woman like none I’ve ever known and I think I,” he halted and shook his head.

  “What?” she asked with a gasp in her voice. “I mean it sounds seedy to me.” Her gaze dropped to her plate.

  “Seedy?”

  “Yeah, like a streetwalker thing and some desperate old lady picks you up?” Her gaze swung back up.

  “You’d think so, right?”He shook his head. “No, this was the most mesmerizing woman I’d ever laid eyes on.”

  Ava stilled and seemed to swallow heavily.

  “At the time, I really couldn’t figure out how I got so lucky actually, and it started out as all about sex, of course.”

  Ava took a bite of her shrimp while looking calm and unaffected by the story.

  “But we spent a long time after, just enjoying each other and I even began to think that…” His story fell away again.

  “That...?”

  Truth, remember? “I fell in love with her.”

  Ava really grew still as he spoke and she looked like a living statue.

  Get it out there—tell! “I even forgot for a while that it was—a job. A pay for sex arrangement.”

  She seemed to struggle as though trying to look serene but he saw the glistening of tears in her eyes. “I didn’t mean to pry, really. I mean you don’t have to—”

  “No, no. I never tell the story— have never told it.” He lifted his glass and took a sip, as her feet slipped away from his hard cock beneath the table. “I was going to ask her to stay with me. Even though I knew I had nothing to offer her in the way of stability.” He set his glass down. “Then, when I finally got the courage up? I woke up one morning, and she was gone.”

  “Oh, I am—”

  “Oh, don’t say you’re sorry!” His voice grew loud and he sat up straight in his chair. “I went on with what she started. I made lots of money by using the talent she showed me that I possessed.”

  Ava took her napkin up and swiped a tear. “It’s just so sad.” Her voice broke for real.

  He released a breath and smiled. “The truth is I tried to fuck her memory out of my brain.”

  Ava looked away. “Did it work?”

  Rex laughed.

  Her eyes shot back over.

  “Hell no!”

  She laughed too, even though tears streamed along her cheeks.

  Deciding to move this along and pass the subject of his love for her and how he’d felt when she’d left him years before, he stood up from the table.

  Her gaze dropped to his groin again.

  Noting her focus change, he chuckled and stuck bad boy away into his pants.

  “So, tell me how you did it?”

  Going around, he pulled her chair out. “Did it?”

  Ava stood up. “Yes, I mean the job.”

  “You don’t want me to tell all—“

  “Yes, I do!” she cut him short. “It’s fascinating.”

  He gazed at her face and there was a desperation in her eyes. “Well, I set it up at the very place we—I mean where my first trick was.”

  Ava laughed a little.

  “I then had a service that screened all my clients and I built a lucrative business from that.”

  “Wow! Can I ask how many?”

  Shaking his head, he again chuckled. “Nope.”

  “Oh, okay. So, how do we do this?”

  Halting, he stared at her.

  She smiled at him.

  He reached across and scooped her up into his arm.

  Gasping, her face reddened.

  “I suppose I could use my acting ability and be your knight in armor, your willing slave or your school teacher?” He grinned at her. ”But I was paid to please you and that is what I shall do.”

  Ava’s body trembled in his arms as he carried her to the bed.

  Her face was flaming red now and he knew that it had to be because she felt that they were possibly on camera or something like that. He lowered her down. “In a few minutes come and look for me,” he whispered to her ear. Dropping her to the bed, he stood back up. “Um, can you excuse me for a minute?”

  She gave a slight nod.

  Turning away, he went over to the bathroom and went in. Hurrying, he looked all over the small room for any hidden device and found nothing. He then stripped d
own and turned the shower on. “Oh, Ava?” he called out. “Could you come in here for a moment?”

  The door cracked open and she timidly stepped in. Her eyes rounded at his nude form.

  “Shower?” he asked and stepped close, lowering her gown from her shoulders. He gladly tugged it further until it passed her lovely curving hips. It dropped to the floor in a puddle of velvet at her feet and he stepped back to gaze at her. “Every woman was you. Every night, you were in my mind’s eye as the only woman I was fucking.”

  Her eyes grew even rounder.

  He grasped her face with both hands. “I only ever loved one woman in my whole life—you.”

  Ava paled and raised her shaky hands up over her mouth.

  “Don’t worry, I checked all over and this room is clear.”

  She nearly lunged from the floor and jumped up on him.

  Rex caught her and sat her straight down onto his cock.

  “Ahhh!” she groaned with pleasure.

  He lifted her up and ground her back down.

  Her hands rose up to cover her scream, he yanked them down and her shout of ecstasy rent the air. He moved his lips to hers. “I wanna hear every moan and every response, do you hear me?”

  Seemingly helpless while her body quaked, Ava panted as her chest heaved and she nodded.

  He rose her hips slowly up while their eyes remained locked, then he lowered her down with a slamming force.

  Ava threw her head back and released a full blown yell.

  Rex pumped her up and down as she moaned and cried aloud. Her sounds drove him crazy her wet silken pussy felt as glorious as always, sheathing him so perfectly. This woman was made for me, as I am for her. He pounded her sweet body and he knew he could do it for as long as she wanted. “Let me hear it, sweet Ava…” he whispered to her ear. “Scream for me.”

  Her body was already coiling with her oncoming orgasm. “Ahh! Oh! Oh, God!” she shouted as she climaxed.

  Her pussy tightened around him and he throbbed inside of her. Rex felt himself coming with her and he latched onto her mouth with all that he felt, kissing her until they were both breathless from it.

  The steam from the shower fogged up the room and their hair was pasted to their foreheads. He finally removed his mouth from hers and looked into her eyes, while they both were still sweating and panting. “I am sorry that…”