A Billionaire for Christmas

“Okay.” Raji was breathless at the thought. “Okay. I’ll figure it out. I’ll trade shifts and save up time. Just for a day or two.”

He kissed her and murmured, “I’m glad.”

While she showered, Peyton ordered them some room service, because of course, they did not go out to restaurants and were never seen in public together.

Raji wondered just how they were going to manage necking at the top of the Eiffel Tower without someone recognizing the rock star.Chapter SixteenSan DiegoIn a penthouse hotel suite in San Diego, Raji sat on the balcony, basking in the June sunshine and cool breeze like a lizard on a warm rock and reading the latest New England Journal of Medicine on her tablet.

Peyton was lying on the other chaise lounge, squinting at sheet music displayed on an oversized tablet while he strummed a guitar. His swim trunks rode low on his hips, and his muscular body was slowly turning bronze in the sunlight.

A thick safety wall surrounded the balcony. No one could see the two of them lying up here, and the privacy of it felt wonderful.

His guitar had six strings, Raji noted, and it was the one he always carried and noodled on when they met. “Why don’t you work on a bass guitar?”

He shrugged one strong shoulder. “A bass is easy to play. I’m just messing around with this music.”

“Is it a Killer Valentine song?”

“No.”

“Are you writing songs?”

“No.” He frowned. “Sort of. Not really. I’m just messing around.”

“You should write. You should play your songs for me. We could open a spreadsheet and set some goals for numbers and deadlines and deliverables—”

“Killer Valentine is working on some music for a new album. We’ve got three new songs to cut demos for. Do you want to hear one of the new ones?”

“Sure!”

Peyton set aside his guitar, balancing it on a table beside their pitcher of margaritas. Sunlight fell all around him, turning his hair yet more golden. “After I fuck you.”

“I—what?”

“Come here.” His voice had deepened, and he pointed to the cement balcony floor right beside his chair.

God help her, she set her tablet aside, padded over to him on that bright balcony, and stood where he had indicated.

“Take your swimsuit off.”

Raji looked at the sky around them. No other hotels were as tall as theirs, and a solid wall ringed the balcony. “Someone will see.”

“Take it off.”

Raji untied the top and stepped out of the bottoms, leaving the black bits of cloth lying on the deck.

“Turn around and sit across my legs.”

She did, and she ended up facing away from him while his hands roved her body, caressing her breasts, while his warm mouth traveled up her spine to the back of her neck. The suntan oil that he had rubbed on her back steamed in the sun, faintly coconutty.

His hand dipped into her cleft, touching her until she was whimpering.

He pulled her ass back and stroked into her core, holding her hips and controlling her body as he pounded up into her. His hardness shoved inside her, rubbing. Behind Raji’s back, Peyton growled as he thrust, a primal sound deep in his throat. His strong fingers clutched her hips.

Raji panted, tightening around his cock.

Peyton angled her hips backward, and her clit rubbed across his balls.

Ah, Peyton.Chapter SeventeenXan ForbidsIn a hotel lobby somewhere on the Eastern seaboard, Peyton hauled a guitar case around himself and settled the backpack straps over his shoulders, hitching it up on his back. His tee shirt rode up, baring his flat stomach for a moment, and he hurried to pull the shirt down.

His smaller roller bag stood beside him, packed tightly. He had a couple of days between shows, so he was flying to L.A. to hang out with Raji. The coast-to-coast flights were so long that they would only have thirty-six hours together before he had to turn around and fly back, but she didn’t have time to meet him halfway like she sometimes did.

His computer backpack held his laptop and tablet so he could work on some music on the flights.

Not that his music mattered, anyway. Killer Valentine was glutted with songs now that Xan and Cadell were writing again like a two-headed, twenty-fingered, symbiotic beast. Georgie orchestrated their writing sessions like a lion tamer.

That was how the band had begun, years before Peyton had joined it, with the lead singer and lead guitarist noodling over beers when they had both been sophomores at Juilliard.

Peyton had been writing, though. Being around creativity fomented creativity. He had written art songs and caprices for the piano in college, all highly structured pieces that could have been written in the 1700s or 1800s without the slightest changes.

Rock music was influencing him, just like his friends had warned him when he had announced his decision to chuck it all and fall in with the Killer Valentine guys. His music now had intimations of Led Zepplin and Jimmi Hendrix that mixed with the classical strains of Bach and Liszt.