The Billionaire’s Ultimatum: His Absolute Need(38)
Author: Cerys du Lys

"I don’t want to let you go," I said. "I won’t."

He laughed. "Alright. I’m not going anywhere."

My orgasm still tremored through me, minor fits of pleasure. "I’m going to keep you here until you’re hard again," I said. "Then we’re going to do this again."

"That might not take too long." He grinned.

"That was so good. Did you like it, too?"

"It was wonderful. You’re wonderful."

"I love you."

"I love you, too."

…

We made love another time. I squirmed and writhed and wiggled beneath him, begging him for everything. I doubted I made sense after awhile, I was so caught up in my passion, but I didn’t care. Asher didn’t seem to care, either. After we finished for a second time, he rolled to the side of me when I forgot to hold on tight to him.

"No," I said, whimpering like a little child. "I need you more."

"More!" He laughed. "We can’t just make love in my office forever, you know?"

"Why not?" I asked, pouting.

"Well, first off, Jeremy’s waiting for us. And second, you need to explain what you were doing in Solomon’s office. I heard a little about it, but I don’t quite understand."

"Oh," I said. Yes, we should do that. And then make love again, if possible. "Hold on, wait here."

"Hm?" He watched me curiously as I scrambled to my hands and knees and crawled over to my discarded shirt. For good measure, he slapped my ass hard before I moved too far away.

I squeaked and looked over my shoulder, favoring him with a devilish smirk. "I said hold on!"

"I’m holding! I’m just having fun while I do it!"

Rolling my eyes at him, I then turned away and fetched the USB flash drive from my shirt pocket.

"Here," I said, crawling back to his side and handing the flash drive stick to him. "I think this will explain everything, but I don’t know what exactly."

"Alright. Let’s have a look."

He got to his feet and then picked me up. I laughed and wrapped my legs around him, making him carry me over to his desk. He grunted and feigned annoyance, but every so often he looked at me with this sublime, loving expression. Captivated, in love, I couldn’t look away from his face.

He sat in the chair behind his desk, nude except for his socks, and I sat on his lap, nak*d save for my high heels. Opening the wider middle drawer behind his desk, he retrieved a tiny netbook and set it onto his desk. Flipping open the lid, pressing the power button, the laptop began to switch on.

"I…" How should I explain this better? I was empowered by our sexual sessions from a moment ago, but I still didn’t know what to say. "I don’t know how to say this, and I don’t like it, but Beatrice is cheating on you, Asher. She’s been having an affair with Solomon."

Asher frowned, grave. "Jeremy said as much. I don’t want to believe it, but if there’s evidence here…"

Quick thinking reminded me of earlier. "She’s making reservations for them at a place in California. The, um…" What was it? "The Solage Calistoga."

He chuckled. "With my money, no doubt. That’ll be easy enough to look into. I can call them and figure that out."

The computer was on now and finished setting up. Asher plugged the USB drive into the side and waited for it to load. A window popped up asking him what he wanted to do. He clicked on the button to open the folder and view the files.

This was it. Whatever Beatrice and Solomon were planning, we’d soon figure it out. I stared at the screen, ready for anything.

Ready, that was, except for what happened. Another window popped up, prompting Asher to input a password. He looked to me for the answer.

"I don’t know?" I shrugged. "I didn’t think there’d be a password."

Asher sighed. "I’m not sure what Solomon’s passwords are for corporate accounts. He’s high enough up on the ladder to have his own private set up instead of needing to use the public ones like most employees. I can have someone from the tech department take a look at it. Maybe they can crack it, but…"

"No," I said. "There’s not enough time. We need to figure…" I tapered off. Wait. Maybe…? "Let me try."

He moved his arms back and gave me free reign of the keyboard. "Feel free."

I typed it in. "P-A-S-S-W-O-R-D."

I hovered the mouse over the "OK" button, then clicked. The flash drive accepted my password and allowed us access to Solomon’s private files.

Asher laughed, impressed. "How did you know that?"

"It’s one of the most common passwords people use," I said. "It was just a guess."

"I like it," he said. "Now let’s see what we have here…"

We browsed through the files. A lot of it was scattered, but all of it told a story. Small bits and pieces, worked together. Contacts Solomon had made, people who were interested in making money and weren’t against destroying Landseer Enterprises to do it. Multiple press releases, pre-formatted for what Solomon intended, all explaining in lurid details the fall of Asher’s billion dollar company. Notes on Beatrice Landseer’s stock profile, and how she’d privately been selling off her stock for the past year, and the last batch to go which would coincide with the beginning of her and Solomon’s master plan.

"Bed bugs," Asher said, confused. "It’s so simple."

"It’d be devastating, though. If he manages to infest all of your vacation resorts and hotels with bed bugs, it’d cost a lot to fix."

"We have insurance for those situations, but it seems Solomon has plans for that, too. Apparently we haven’t paid for the policy on most of the hotels for months now and they’re due to let it lapse into nothingness for non-payment if the problem isn’t rectified soon. Also, apparently there’s more than a few people lined up to sue me for emotional and physical damages when they contract the bugs after their upcoming stays at my resorts."

"It’s because you don’t look at the reports he gives you," I said, shaking my head.

"Well, apparently so. I thought…" Asher quieted down, staring at the screen.

"I know," I said. "It’s not your fault. You had no reason to think this would happen."

"It’s just so sudden," Asher said. "It’s not even that I trusted him, though that’s a large part of it. I trusted Beatrice, too. I… I should have seen this coming, though. I remember small signs now that I think about it. I never really knew which friends Beatrice was going to visit, and I had Solomon’s business expenses paid without a second glance at them. They were never too excessive, so I didn’t think I had anything to worry about. I should have paid closer attention, though. I should have…"

"Shhh," I said. "No, it’s alright. It’s not your fault, Asher."

He remained silent. I was worried about him. I could never understand what he was going through, or what he must feel right now, but I didn’t want him to be upset. I wanted him to be happy, even if that was hard. He still had a lot of things left in life, right? Maybe this wasn’t a good spot to be in, and his marriage was all but ruined, along with the loss of one of his higher ups at Landseer Enterprises that he thought he could trust, but…

Well, he had his house still. Two of them. And technically he still had money. For now, anyways, as long as Beatrice and Solomon’s plan didn’t come to fruition. He had Jeremy as a friend, which I thought was a pretty big thing to have.

And… if he wanted—though I didn’t know if this would work—he still had me, if…

No. He said he loved me, but it was out of some other reason. He was worried, and Solomon, and… I shouldn’t expect anything, regardless of all of this. I fully expected him to be upset with me, since I’d basically singlehandedly destroyed his understanding of almost everything around him by revealing Solomon and Beatrice’s scheme.

"We’re nak*d," Asher said, interrupting the silence. "We’re nak*d and my marriage is ruined and my company might be in shambles."

"I’m sorry," I said. "It’s all my faul—"

"What’s your favorite movie?" he asked. "We can watch it. Let’s go get a pizza. We can pick it up, with Jeremy. We’ll need to put clothes on, of course. I’m starving."

I blinked. "What?"

He swept me in for a kiss, leaning me across his lap and dominating my lips. I wrapped my hands around his neck, returning his kiss with fervor.

"Will you help me?" he asked. "You’ve done so much for me so far and I can’t thank you enough."

"If… if you want me to, I can. If you want me to stay and help you, I’ll try."

"I don’t want you to go anywhere," he said. "Not just for this. I meant it when I said I love you, Jessika."

I couldn’t help it; I cried. Tears streamed down my cheeks and Asher kissed them away, smiling at me.

"Shh," he said. "Stop that. No crying."

"I love you, too," I said, lips quivering. "I’m so sorry about what’s happened to you. I don’t want you to be upset at me for it. I know that—"

"No," he said firmly, shaking his head. "It’s not your fault. This would have happened regardless. Maybe we made some mistakes, too, but this would have still happened. I won’t let you blame yourself."

I nodded. I wanted to believe him, but I was too scared to say it.

"I need you," he said. "Please say you’ll help me?"

"I’ll help," I whispered. "I… I’m hungry, too," I added, averting my eyes.

"Good. Let’s get dressed, get some food, watch a movie back at home—the guest home—and relax. In order to solve any problem you need to be in a peaceful state of mind, no matter the situation. That’s going to be a rough one here, so I might need your help."

I laughed. "Alright."

Home, he said. Not "my home," but just "home." Our home. With me.

His Absolute Devotion

When we left Landseer Tower, Asher held my hand. No one was around since he’d let everyone leave early for the day in celebration of a particularly beneficial arrangement between Landseer Enterprises and a previously reluctant company, but it didn’t matter. The way his fingers held onto mine, his warm palm pressing slightly against my own, it was amazing. I felt brazen and bold and if the world saw us right now, no matter what happened, I knew that we could persevere.

It was a good feeling but I didn’t know if it was the proper feeling. With his wife, Beatrice, and his director of public relations, Solomon, plotting to ruin Asher’s marriage and company, I thought we shouldn’t be so complacent. This wasn’t a game, it wasn’t a minor obstacle. Asher Landseer was the billionaire CEO of Landseer Enterprises and he possessed a lot of worth that was capable of becoming destroyed.

And yet, when he held my hand and walked with me through his office building, I felt comfortable and confident. A little less worried and unsure, and much more optimistic. Everything would work out fine, right?

As if reading my mind, when we reached the elevator, Asher leaned down and kissed my forehead. Just a peck, but it eased me into more relaxing thoughts. And then he swooped in for more than a peck, pressing his lips against mine, hard and demanding. I nearly fell over, so caught up in the emotion of his touch. He wrapped his arms around me and held me up and when the elevator dinged its arrival and we should have stepped through the doors, he ignored it.