His Property (His Property, Book One) (An Alpha Billionaire Romance) Read online

  The bottom of my jeans slid up, and his thumb touched my bare ankle. Warmth slid up my body and settled between my legs, just long enough to distract me, and then he was grabbing my hands and pulling me back upright, clipping the handcuffs around my wrists in one smooth movement, a movement that betrayed a certain familiarity with restraints.

  Then he reached into his pocket and pulled out a handkerchief. It was crisp and white, just like his shirt, and embroidered with his initials.

  LR.

  I made a mental note of them, telling myself I needed to remember every detail so that later I could tell the police.

  LR. LR. LR.

  He placed the handkerchief inside my mouth and gagged me.

  I was shaking, but I didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of seeing me upset. So I dug my hands into the leather seat underneath me and stared at him, refusing to look away.

  His dark eyes raked up my body, lingering on my breasts, my hips, my ass.

  My skin burned under his gaze. This was nothing like the way the guys at school looked at me, like they were wondering what, exactly, it would take to get me to sleep with them, what lies they could tell me, what drinks they should ply me with.

  No, this man was looking at me like he knew he could have me, and all he had to worry about was how and when. The side of his mouth twitched into a sly grin, his full lips revealing a sliver of his perfect white teeth.

  He put his hands on my shoulders and pushed me back until I was lying on the seat on my back. Then he pulled another handkerchief from his pocket and slid it through my handcuffs, tying me to the door handle so that I wouldn’t be able to get upright.

  And then he got out and left me in the back of the SUV, bound and gagged.

  The driver’s side door opened and he slid into the driver’s seat.

  A second later, the engine roared to life, and we began to move.

  Tears welled up in my eyes, but I told myself I needed to stay calm, that I couldn’t panic. If you panic, you’re finished.

  I tried to keep track of the left and right turns the SUV was taking, tried to orient myself and figure out where, exactly he was taking me, in case I had to remember it later.

  But after a few minutes, it became impossible.

  I felt us going up the onramp of a bridge, or at least, what I thought was a bridge.

  It was late at night and I couldn’t tell if the fact that I didn’t hear much traffic was because there just wasn’t any, or because we were on a road that was remote.

  The car was traveling at a high rate of speed, and when it began to slow down, I started to hear the unmistakable sounds of New York City. Taxis honking, the hum of voices, the beeping of trucks as they backed up, music tinkling out of bars and clubs, the beat of someone’s bass booming from their car.

  I bit down on the handkerchief in my mouth to keep from screaming in frustration at the thought of all those people out there, all of them a potential savior for me, none of them having any idea I was here, in the back of a black Lexus, being held against my will.

  A few moments later, the SUV began a descent, like it was being driven underground, and I imagined myself being taken to some basement lair, just like in a horror movie, some hole in the ground where I’d be left for weeks.

  But when the car stopped and the back door opened, all I could see was track lighting overhead and concrete on the ground. Real concrete. Not the kind of concrete that would have lined the bottom of some abandoned underground well.

  The man who’d abducted me stood there, illuminated in the light, and I was able to get my first good look at him.

  Liam Rutherford.

  LR.

  Billionaire CEO of Rutherford Enterprises, one of the biggest tech companies in the world.

  I was shocked I hadn’t recognized him right from the beginning.

  We’d done a whole study on him in my business administration class last year.

  I did a quick rundown in my head of what I knew about him.

  Twenty-eight-years old. Rumored to run his company with an iron fist. Rutherford Enterprises was not Facebook, where you could run around wearing hoodies and sneakers and still be considered a genius. And it wasn’t Google, where you could get free food in the cafeteria at any hour of the day and everyone worked in open work spaces like one big happy family.

  No, at Rutherford Enterprises, overtime was expected and rumor had it Liam Rutherford liked to keep the temperature at a cool 64 degrees, even in the winter, so that the employees would be on their toes at all times.

  Liam leaned into the car and untied me from the door handle, leaving me handcuffed, then pulled me upright on the seat.

  “I am not going to hurt you, Emery,” he said.

  I glared at him.

  If my look of death fazed him at all, he didn’t show it. Instead, he reached over and cupped my face with his hands, his touch sending that same warmth I’d felt before racing through me.

  He gripped the sides of the gag in my mouth.

  “If you try to scream, no one will hear you. And I will have to gag you again. Do you understand?”

  I nodded.

  He searched my face with one long look, his dark eyes on mine, then he reached down and pulled the gag gently out of my mouth.

  “I’ve read a lot about you,” I spit. “But nowhere was it mentioned about how you’re a twisted psycho killer.”

  Liam sighed. “I told you I’m not going to kill you.”

  “Or rape me, torture me, whatever.” I thrust my chin into the air. “I’ve heard about things like this. Rich guys who get off on raping and torturing unsuspecting girls, girls they think no one will miss.”

  “I’m going to take your handcuffs off now,” he said, ignoring my insults. He reached behind me to where my hands were still cuffed together. His chest pressed against mine as his hand moved behind me and gripped the metal. “Don’t try to run, Emery,” he whispered against my ear. “If you do, I will catch you.”

  My heart thrummed hard in my chest, and that now-familiar ache settled between my legs, which was humiliating. Was I that hard up that I was going to get all turned on by some guy who’d kidnapped me?

  Liam held his hand out to me, offering to help me out of the car.

  I rolled my eyes even though my legs felt weak, and slid forward on the seat.

  When I stood up, I almost lost my balance.

  We were in a parking garage, underneath a building, but the garage was small. There were only four or five spaces, all of them filled with shiny, expensive-looking foreign cars.

  Liam led me to an elevator in the corner and pushed a button for the third floor.

  As the elevator started its ascent, I thought about screaming. But I didn’t want to get gagged again, and I couldn’t hear anything -- no voices or footsteps from other people in the building.

  I realized if there was any chance there were other people around, Liam wouldn’t have taken the gag out of my mouth. No, I decided. It was probably best to save my energy for when I had a real opportunity to get free of him.

  A few seconds later, we stepped off the elevator into one huge room. It was a living room encircled in glass, with a domed glass ceiling and floor-to-ceiling windows that allowed for sweeping views of the city. I recognized it immediately from a Time article we’d read about him in class – it was his apartment. The article said he owned the entire building, all three floors.

  The whole first floor was his office, and the top floor was where he lived. I couldn’t recall if the article said what was on the second floor.

  Probably where he kept and tortured women.

  The elevator doors shut behind us.

  Liam entered a code on a keypad on the wall, and a computerized voice echoed through the expansive room. “Alarm Disengaged. Welcome home, Mr. Rutherford,” it said smoothly.

  Liam undid the buttons on the sleeves of his crisp white dress shirt and rolled them up, revealing tanned, muscular forearms. “Would you like a drink
?” he asked as he crossed the room to a mahogany bar in the corner.

  “No.” Did he think I was stupid?

  He’d left me standing there by the elevator, and I turned around and glanced at the closed doors behind me. He was bigger, faster, stronger, but if I got a head start, then maybe…

  “It’s locked.”

  “What?”

  “The elevator. It’s locked. You need a code to open it.” He crossed the room back to me and held out a bottle of water.

  “I’m not drinking that.”

  He rolled his eyes. “If I wanted to drug you, I could have done it in the van.”

  I stared at him, then crossed my arms over my chest in defiance.

  He sighed and uncapped the bottle of water, the seal cracking as he opened it. “See? Sealed.”

  “It’s probably a fake seal, some kind of new technology that rich serial killers and psychopaths came up with.”

  “You have a very smart mouth,” Liam said darkly. He took a sip to prove to me that the water wasn’t tainted.

  He held the drink out to me again, and I hesitated. He was right. If he’d wanted to drug me, he could have done it in the van. I took the bottle of water from him and took a sip. The cool liquid soothed my throat, which was raw from the screaming I’d done.

  “Good?”

  I didn’t answer him, not wanting to admit how amazing it tasted.

  Instead, I glanced behind me again at the elevator, wondering if there was some other way out I hadn’t thought about.

  “This isn’t what I wanted to be doing today, either, Emery.”

  “You mean you didn’t wake up and think it would be fun to kidnap some unsuspecting college girl?”

  “No. I didn’t.”

  “Then why did you?”

  He studied me carefully, his dark eyes softening, and my breath caught in my chest. Electricity crackled between us, and I was almost positive I saw lust burning in his eyes, was almost positive he was going to move toward me. His gaze drifted down to my wrists, where I’d been handcuffed, and I wasn’t sure if I was imagining it or not, but I thought I saw the lust in his eyes blaze brighter.

  My body burned from the inside out.

  “Come,” he said and wrapped his hand around mine. He led me to one of the big leather couches in the middle of the room and sat down next to me. “I need you to know that I’m not going to hurt you.”

  “You already hurt me.” I showed him my wrists, where the metal of the handcuffs had dug into my skin. He reached out and ran his fingers gently over the faint red marks. I was lying. It didn’t hurt that bad. In fact, the handcuffs hadn’t even broken my skin.

  “This is nothing,” he murmured. “I haven’t even gotten started yet.”

  I yanked my hand back from his as if I’d been burned. “I thought you said you weren’t going to hurt me.”

  “Oh, it won’t hurt.” His voice was steady and secure, but the ends of his mouth twitched into a sly, sexy smile. He waited a beat, then got up and walked to the bar, poured himself a drink, and returned to the couch. “Do you know why you’ve been brought here, Emery?” he asked.

  “No.” I scanned the room, looking for a weapon, something I could pick up and use to smash his face in. There was a metal statue in the corner, some tiny abstract thing made of pewter that looked heavy and probably cost a bajillion dollars. Liam caught me looking at it, and that same little cocky grin tugged at the corners of his mouth, like the thought of me overpowering him was ridiculous.

  “Well, are you going to tell me?” I pressed. “Why I’m here?”

  “You’re being held as collateral.”

  “What kind of collateral?

  “Against your father’s debt.” He said it simply, like being held against your father’s debt was a totally normal thing to have done to you in the twenty-first century, and not something that should have only taken place in the 1600s.

  “That’s ridiculous.”

  “Is it?” Liam was loosening his tie now, working his fingers through the knot before unbuttoning the top two buttons of his shirt. I tried not to stare as a tiny bit of his golden chest came into view.

  “Yes. How would you even know my father? Last I knew, he didn’t run with your crowd.”

  “You know my crowd?”

  “Oh, yes, I know exactly who you are,” I said snottily. If he was surprised that I knew who he was, he didn’t show it. When you were as rich and powerful as Liam Rutherford, it probably wasn’t shocking to have someone recognize you.

  “There’s that smart mouth again,” he growled, the flame of desire returning to his dark eyes.

  I shrugged, even though I knew I probably shouldn’t have been antagonizing him. The words he’d said a few moments ago flashed through my brain: I haven’t even gotten started yet.

  “Your father snuck his way into a poker game tonight, Emery. A very private poker game. He pretended to be an English businessman named Christopher Porter.”

  “And he owes you money.” I took in a deep breath, wondering how much my father was in the hole for now.

  “Not me.”

  “Who?”

  “I can’t say.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “It means that you’re better off not knowing.”

  My mouth went dry and I took another sip of my water. I knew what that meant. It meant that whoever my father was indebted to was rich and powerful, and most likely very, very dangerous. “How much does he owe?” I asked.

  “One hundred thousand dollars.”

  I closed my eyes. This was a whole new level, even for my father. Until now, the worst thing he’d done was take out a line of credit on our house, using it to bet on college basketball games.

  When he couldn’t pay, the guy he’d been using as his bookie – a man he worked with at the local shipping yard -- came to our house and sucker punched my dad in the backyard, while my mom screamed at them to stop. I was too young to know what happened after that, if the guy ever got his money or how they got him to stop harassing us.

  I opened my eyes, the desperation walking over me. One hundred thousand dollars. There was no way my father would be able to come up with that.

  “And if he doesn’t pay you’re going to kill me.”

  “No.” Liam set his drink down on the table next to him.

  “Then what?”

  “If you stay here, with me, for a week, and do a good job, I will pay your father’s debt.”

  My stomach flipped and my heart pounded. “What does that mean, if I do a good job?”

  “It means following my rules. It means doing everything I say.”

  “You mean having sex with you?” The words sounded twisted and filthy, and heat rose on my cheeks.

  But Liam wasn’t embarrassed. He shrugged. “I will not force you to do anything you don’t want to.”

  “And if I refuse?”

  He leaned back and hit me with that cocky, wry smile that was almost becoming familiar. “You won’t refuse, Emery.”

  “How do you know?”

  He shrugged. “I just do.” He was ogling me now, not even trying to hide the fact that he was staring at my body. I felt my nipples tighten, and I cursed myself for wearing a white shirt. At least I had my jacket on. I pulled it closer around me, but Liam reached over and unzipped it slowly, that cocky, sexy grin never leaving his lips.

  I froze, unable to move as he began sliding the jacket off my shoulders, pulling it slowly down my arms, his eyes never leaving mine. I should have been screaming at him to stop, should have been fighting him, struggling, kicking, something. I told myself it was because I needed to save my energy for later, that fighting him now would be a waste. He was bigger than me, stronger than me, and we might not have been in some farmhouse in rural Idaho, but there was no one around – if I screamed, no one would hear me.

  But I couldn’t ignore the sound of the blood rushing through my ears and the feeling of wetness in my panties.

&n
bsp; I shook my head and tried to gather my thoughts. “If you think I care about my father dying, well, then, you don’t know my father very well.”

  “No, but I think I know you.” My jacket was off now and his gaze drifted down to my chest. My breasts were one of the most sensitive parts of my body, always responding whenever I got turned on. Sure enough, my nipples poked out of my shirt now, betraying the fact that even though this situation was completely fucked up, my body was responding to him in the way he wanted it to.

  I could feel the dampness in my panties and the way my heart was galloping in my chest.

  “You’re not the type of girl who would let something happen to her father, no matter what kind of man he is. You’re a good girl, aren’t you, Emery?” His voice was a low sexy growl, and the ache between my legs intensified.

  I slid away from him on the couch, but his presence permeated everything. He was like walking sex, and I could still feel the touch of his hands on my body as he’d removed my jacket.

  He didn’t try to come after me, didn’t try to follow me over to the other side of the couch. Instead, he picked up his drink and took another long, slow sip.

  His indifference was somehow worse than if he’d chased me. It made it seem he though there was no need to come after me, because I would give him what he wanted no matter what.

  I stood up and walked to the windows, staring out across the twinkling lights of the city.

  There was a large telescope set up on a platform next to the window, and for some reason, I bent down and looked through it. A blue circle blazed against the lens.

  “It’s Venus,” Liam said from the couch.

  It was beautiful in its simplicity, just a bright blue dot in the sky, millions of miles away, and yet I could see it so clearly it took my breath away.

  I felt Liam’s presence behind me and when I straightened up and turned around, he was standing there with his hands in his pockets.

  “Named after the goddess of love and beauty.” He crossed the distance between us and put his arms around me, taking the telescope in his hands. My body stiffened, but then he was tipping up the telescope and leaning past me, turning the dial on the side and fiddling with the knobs.