Taken by Him (The Billionaire's Club 2)

“Come on, you have to smile and look pretty.”

Luke smiled delightedly as Peyton posed for his iPhone again. “Your friends will think I’m such a slut after they saw my butt,” she complained.

“I’ve told you several times they didn’t see your butt. Baby girl, that picture’s mine.”

She seemed only marginally happier as she shook her long, sable

hair. “I still feel so weird meeting them like this.”

“You’ll meet them when it’s poker night here next week. But now I want them to know I’ve got myself a lady and they can’t mess with her…”

He clicked on the picture, and then stared down at it, his heart tangled up in his chest. Peyton was smiling, dressed in a white button-down shirt and a black little skirt, seeming shy and beautiful. Luke opened a new e-mail, added his friends’ addresses—Graves, Daniel, Cade, and Andrew Fairchild’s. Although Andrew had been away for almost three years, the guys always copied his cell number in case he was back in the city—then he punched on the keyboard.

Gang, meet my lady. U assholes better be nice when u meet her @ poker night! And you better stay the fuck quiet about what a fucking dickhead I am because I plan to keep this woman for good. Her name is Peyton and she is MINE.

—Luke

He sent it out, then set the phone aside and grinned as he rose from the bed and headed toward her, watching her arrange the papers she’d been reading last night into her briefcase. He palmed her butt, and when she swung around, he swept his lips down for a short but heady kiss. “I like the way you look in the morning,” he murmured. He squeezed the lovely curve of her rump, and caught her earlobe between his teeth, tugging.

Her eyes darkened when he yanked her skirt up to her waist with one sure, now-expert move, and she moaned out a protest and shook her head. “Luke, I should leave. I can’t be late again today if I want to face my boss.”

“Baby, once I hand my staggering portfolio over to you he’ll be begging you to please me and concede to my dirtiest wishes. He’ll double your salary. Whatever it takes to keep me satisfied. Hell, you’ll probably be your boss’s boss—and if you get any sort of crap today just blame me and I’ll buy the fucking business for you.”

She laughed, then kissed him. “Oh, Luke.”

“Can you blame me when you feel so damned good?” He whispered against her face, sweeping her into his arms and carrying her back to the bed. He set her in the center and settled on his side facing her, stroking her face with his fingers. “I heard you talking to your friends yesterday,” he taunted in a husky whisper as he lowered a hand to fully cup the lush curve of her breast. “I heard you tell them about me.”

Oh, yeah, he’d heard. The excitement in her voice. The love. And now he wanted to make her say it. The little bubbles in his chest demanded it, were popping like crazy at the mere prospect.

“I just wanted them to stop asking about my mysterious new man,” Peyton said with a sigh.

He chuckled at that. “No, Pey. What you wanted was to hang up quickly so you could come in my face. Yet you missed telling them the best part. That you’re in love with this lucky dude.” Slowly his thumb tortured her nipple through the fabric of her silk blouse.

“Maybe,” she breathed, her eyes sparkling.

“You’re so in love with me, Peyton, I can feel it all around me like a halo,” he said, watching her cheeks go pink and getting hard instantly.

He reached between her legs and under her skirt, and he could see Peyton could barely speak as his finger slipped into her panty, then eased into her wet sex.

“You? With a halo, Luke?” She panted, sinking all five fingers of one hand into his hair.

“You’ve fallen hard for me, baby,” he continued, mercilessly stroking inside her channel.

She stared at him, her lovely cheeks heated with desire and an endearing shyness. “And if I admit it?” She caught her lower lip as if to keep from moaning. “What…will you do?”

“I’ll marry you,” he conceded as he lowered his face and brushed his lips to hers. “So I can call you Mrs. Preston and carry you around like another limb. So legally I can demand you to be here every night…so I can blow your sweet kitty anytime I want, fuck you anywhere I want…”

“Oh, God,” she gasped as his fingers continued their assault.

“Say it, baby,” he whispered. “I know you want to. You know I feel the same.”

She groaned as she fought it. “It’ll go to your head. You’re too cocky for your own good,” she gasped, but her body said otherwise, and she melted back against the mattress.

“I’m not going to let you come until you say it,” he purred, retrieving his fingers. She groaned in protest, then glanced straight into his eyes with her dark ones.

“I love you,” she whispered.

He smiled in satisfaction and slipped his finger inside her pussy again. “That’s better.”