Commanding the Billionaire: Ache of Desire, #2

By Cara Delacroix

It takes a strong man to surrender to a strict woman.

 

Closed heart…
Bernadette Holt isn't looking for love. A child of divorce, she knows it's just a lie. All she wants is a man who can handle discipline. At her five-year high school reunion, she meets up with Max—the kid who once followed her like a puppy—who's grown into a successful entrepreneur and a sculpted hunk of man muscle. As devoted as ever, he seems eager to obey her orders. Max's humble adoration slowly wears down the barriers around her heart, but she doesn't trust those feelings.

 

Selfless devotion…
Tech whiz Max Martinov is CEO of a billion-dollar company, where he makes tough decisions all day. At home, he wants to relax, while someone else is in charge. Bernadette, with her steely exterior and soft heart, has been his dream girl since high school. The tall, beautiful redhead carries deep wounds from childhood that he longs to help heal. But when the ghosts from her past resurface, his love may not be enough to save her.

 

This steamy romance is for a mature audience. It contains sweet kisses, sensation toys, a well-equipped dungeon, a bossy Domme, and a confident sub who sometimes gets too toppy.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Artesian Well Publishing
• Release date: Nov 20, 2015
• ISBN: 9781942198031

Cara Delacroix

Cara Delacroix is the author of BDSM romance and erotica with guaranteed happy endings. When she's not writing, you can find her walking along a secluded Caribbean beach with her husband, or curled up in a quiet corner with a dozing cat, a steaming cup of coffee, and a good book. Sign up for her newsletter: https://caradelacroix.com/about/#reader-list

Book preview

Commanding the Billionaire

Ache of Desire, Book 2

Cara Delacroix

Artesian Well Publishing

Copyright © 2015 Andrea Dalling and Cara Delacroix

All Rights Reserved Worldwide

ISBN 978-1-942198-03-1

First ebook edition, November 2015

∞∞∞

This book is a work of fiction. All names, characters, locations, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

∞∞∞

This ebook is licensed to the original purchaser only. Duplication or distribution via any means is illegal and a violation of international copyright law, and subject to criminal prosecution. An ebook format cannot legally be loaned or given to others. No portion of this literary work may be sold, manipulated, transmitted, copied, reproduced, or distributed, in any form or format, by any means or in any manner whatsoever, without the express written permission of the author, except for brief excerpts used for the purpose of review. To request written permission, contact Artesian Well Publishing at www.ArtWellPub.com.

All trademarks used herein are the property of their respective owners.

Any person depicted on the cover is a model.

Published in the United States of America.

Contents

Title Page

Copyright

About the Book

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9—Epilogue

About the Author

About the Book

It takes a strong man to surrender to a strict woman.

Closed heart…

Bernadette Holt isn't looking for love. A child of divorce, she knows it's just a lie. All she wants is a man who can handle discipline. At her five-year high school reunion, she meets up with Max—the kid who once followed her like a puppy—who's grown into a successful entrepreneur and a sculpted hunk of man muscle. As devoted as ever, he seems eager to obey her orders. Max's humble adoration slowly wears down the barriers around her heart, but she doesn't trust those feelings.

Selfless devotion…

Tech whiz Max Martinov is CEO of a billion-dollar company, where he makes tough decisions all day. At home, he wants to relax, while someone else is in charge. Bernadette, with her steely exterior and soft heart, has been his dream girl since high school. The tall, beautiful redhead carries deep wounds from childhood that he longs to help heal. But when the ghosts from her past resurface, his love may not be enough to save her.

This steamy romance is for a mature audience. It contains sweet kisses, sensation toys, a well-equipped dungeon, a bossy Domme, and a confident sub who sometimes gets too toppy.

Chapter 1

Max Martinov threaded his fingers through his thick hair. He adjusted the Bluetooth receiver of his cell phone, neck cramping at the taut sound in the voice at the other end of the line. Fucking incompetent ass.

There was no excuse for this software bug making it through quality control. Instead of warning that the deadline was at risk, the guy had cut corners, and now a customer was complaining on Twitter.

From atop the mahogany desktop in his home office suite, he picked up a red stress ball and squeezed. His butler entered discreetly and laid a selection of neckties on the credenza before quietly withdrawing.

Max forced an authoritative tone. I don’t see any other solution. Your staff will have to work over the weekend. I hate to insist, but we need to resolve this before the Nikkei opens on Monday. We’re a public company now, and responsible to our shareholders.

Yes, sir, we’ll take care of it.

Max ended the call and massaged his temples with his thumbs. He hated being a hard-ass, but the company’s reputation was built on quality and customer delight. Usability errors were intolerable.

As the company had grown, he’d gotten further removed from the developers. But even as CEO, he understood the human cost to take care of it, especially the weekend before Thanksgiving. Car trips delayed. Reservations canceled. Harried moms using airport Wi-Fi while dads wrangled toddlers and tried to keep them from having a meltdown.

Anxiety edged up his spine. He’d gone too long without a release.

He stood and looked over the ties his butler had set out for him, rejecting the red right away. Didn’t need a power color tonight. Lording his success over his classmates would be petty, and would make him feel as conspicuous as he had in high school. He wanted this night to be a chance to reconnect with old friends, people who knew him before one of the game apps he developed became the latest rage and rocketed his company into the Fortune 1000.

Instead, he chose the turquoise one, which his mother had bought because she said it matched his eyes. The starched collar, the crisp Windsor knot gave him the professional look he wanted, his gold Rolex adding a hint of indulgence.

After all, he had his corporate brand to consider. No doubt his classmates would post surreptitious cell phone photos of him on Instagram that night. He’d become a minor celebrity, a media darling—not what anyone had expected from the geeky kid he’d been in high school.

The narrative sold magazines—the twenty-two-year-old wunderkind who had built an empire while still in college—but reality had been very different. His dad was a venture capitalist with roots in Silicon Valley. His mom had spent almost a decade as COO of a software manufacturer. He developed the product, but they built the business. He’d just been smart enough to listen to them.

Being the face and voice of the company was hard for someone who’d rather sit behind a computer monitor than stand in front of an audience. He did it because that’s what the business needed. And with training and a ton of practice, he’d even become good at it. His experience working as a child actor in a few commercials helped. CEO was just another role he played. But wearing that mask all day was exhausting.

The desire to give up control spread through his system like a crack in a car windshield. Nothing grounded and centered him like being blindfolded, bound, and on his knees. The crotch of his cashmere suit tightened at the thought of it.

He took out his phone and opened the Facebook app, scrolling through photos of Bernadette Holt, the girl he’d had a crush on all through high school. Long red hair, even longer legs. Though her profile didn’t say she was into the BDSM lifestyle, some of her friends posted openly about it. It wasn’t too much of a leap to assume she might be. As a teen, she’d seemed like a natural-born Domme, though at the time he couldn’t have expressed it that way.

With hopes of getting closer to her that night, he’d canceled his date with the closeted lesbian swimsuit model who often decorated his arm. Their arrangement served him well, but he was ready for something real, and he wanted Bernadette.

And after two years as CEO of a billion-dollar company, he was used to getting what he wanted.

Wen, his butler, appeared noiselessly, a graying Vietnamese-American his mother had hired to run the household. The Maserati is waiting out front when you’re ready.

Max nodded, only half-listening, eyes fixed on Bernadette’s half-smirking smile.

Are you sure you want to drive, sir? I don’t mind taking you in the Bentley.

Max shut off his phone and slipped it into his inside suit pocket. Thanks, but I gave the driver the night off for a reason. I haven’t had a chance to drive myself in months.

I wouldn’t want you to be tempted to take a phone call, Wen said in a soft, solicitous voice.

I’m forwarding my business calls to my father tonight. He can contact me on my personal phone if anything needs my attention.

Very good, sir. You deserve a night off. With a slight nod, Wen withdrew.

Max watched him go, grateful to the grandfatherly man who looked after him so well. On nights when the stress of making decisions all day overwhelmed him, Wen brought him an aspirin or a scotch as the situation demanded, then made sure he ate and got into bed at a decent hour.

But having a butler to look after him was no substitute for a woman’s touch. Max’s few attempts at dating had left him isolated and confused. Women saw his money. They didn’t see him.

Bernadette had known him before the money. Maybe things would be different with her. His relationship with her in high school had been awkward and undefined, but he was sure she had felt the connection, same as he had. Affection, at least, if not attraction.

He couldn’t really blame her. Part of his success at winning roles in commercials was that he could pass for twelve at fifteen. That quality was not so great for winning girls.

He took one last look in the mirror. Blond hair perfectly styled, goatee neat. He brushed his hands over his charcoal suit to smooth it. Yes, he looked every bit the successful businessman he had become. He wanted—needed—to show Bernadette that aspect of him, to win her respect. But he also wanted her to see the submissive inside him, the yang to her yin, eager to give her the adoration she craved.

He slipped his coat on and opened the front door, a heavy carved oak. A shiver rushed over his skin. Night enfolded him as he got into the ocean blue Maserati sport convertible and shut the door with a soft thud. Waiting for the security gates to open, he turned the satellite radio to meditation music, a lilting piano to soothe his mind. Fastened securely in his seat belt, he drove out onto the familiar streets of Philadelphia’s Main Line and headed for the expressway.

∞∞∞

Bernadette Holt strolled through the hotel parking lot on four-inch heels, her black wool coat open to reveal a red silk dress in a floral damask pattern. The cold November air bit the tender flesh of her exposed cleavage, but she liked the sensation.

She wasn’t sure what she was doing, coming dateless to her five-year class reunion. Who did she want to see, anyway? The girls who were mean to her when she’d grown a foot the summer before freshman year and towered over everyone in class? The boys who were too intimidated to ask her out?

Only two guys from high school had seen through her tough façade, made her feel soft and feminine. Trent Weber, her first boyfriend, and Max Martinov, the dorky kid who’d followed her around like a homeless puppy.

Ironic, looking back. Max had started some tech business in college and made millions. He’d been featured in Forbes, and the photos showed not the boy she remembered, but a delicious hunk of man meat, tall and broad, with eyes so blue you could swim in them. And he was coming to the reunion, she was sure, to throw his success in their faces.

And maybe, especially, in her face.

Okay, she’d been cruel to him. Openly, unrepentantly cruel. That was how she was wired: the more men worshipped her, the more she mocked them. She was a Domme. Humiliating men turned her on. And oh, how she had loved humiliating little Max.

Not that she had any regrets. She was happy for him, but she’d never thought about him sexually. At least, not until she’d seen the magazine photo. Thick, blond hair. Shirt open at the collar, sleeves rolled up to show his sinewy forearms. Yum.

Not-so-little Max would probably show up with some silicone-enhanced piece of arm candy. That was okay. It wasn’t like she wanted him. She just wanted to get laid, but her stupid date had canceled at the last minute.

At least, that was the CliffsNotes version.

She’d been dating this sub for a few weeks and she’d finally let him have it. He’d been a disobedient, smart-mouthed brat, and she gave him the beating he deserved. The beating he wanted, for fuck’s sake. He’d come as soon as she put her lips on his cock. But the little crybaby got all pissy with her the next day. Some men just couldn’t handle their own submissive tendencies. It made them feel like less of a man, and instead of sucking it up, they blamed the Domme.

Some Dommes second-guessed themselves, wondering if they’d read the situation wrong. But Bernadette didn’t let the sniveling babies get to her. The sub would come running back in a few days, apologetic, begging her to take him back. And she’d agree, as long as he submitted to a caning again, even harsher than the first.

But that didn’t help