The PlayLion Billionaire: A Paranormal Billionaire Romance Read online

  *

  Olivia’s thoughts were interrupted by the sound of her desk phone chirping. She glanced at the screen to see that it was the receptionist for the floor. She hit the speaker button. “Yes?” Olivia said, frowning.

  “Delivery for you, Liv,” the receptionist said. Olivia looked at the phone blankly.

  Her mouth fell open. Robert. It has to be Robert. She shook her head. “I’ll be right there,” Olivia said. She bit her bottom lip, smiling in spite of the mixed feelings welling up inside of her: confusion, embarrassment and curiosity. She stood quickly and walked away from her desk, feeling the blood rush to her face and out of it. It was probably flowers, she told herself. She couldn’t imagine anything else Robert would send her, that anyone else would send her. Olivia took a deep breath to steady her nerves and walked out into the lobby for her floor. Looking around, she didn’t see a flower arrangement. Olivia frowned.

  “Right here,” the receptionist said, standing up. Olivia forced herself to smile politely, pushing aside the confusion she felt. The receptionist produced a small, flat box with a card taped to it.

  “Who delivered this?”

  The receptionist shrugged. “One of those personal concierge services. Didn’t say anything other than that it was for you.”

  Olivia eyed the flat box speculatively. The only person it could be from was Robert but she had no idea what it could possibly be.

  “Thanks,” Olivia said finally, taking the box and retreating back into the office proper. She sat down at her desk, trying to decide how she felt about Robert, about the whole situation. When had he had time to arrange this? She frowned to herself, staring at the box on her desk. He had been out to lunch; she had received his text. Olivia had managed to absently eat something at her desk while pretending to continue to work, although she knew her next real progress report to Robert about the charity outreach program she was putting together would be compromised if she managed to waste any more time than she already was.

  Just open the damn box, she thought, rolling her eyes at her own uncertainty. Olivia carefully tore the paper wrapped around the parcel, extracting the card. If she had had any doubts that it was from Robert, the note on the card sent them completely away. I know you’re still working on processing everything, but I wanted to do my part to show you I’m right for you, it read. Olivia smiled to herself, shaking her head again.

  She cut through the tape holding the small box closed and pulled open the flaps, taking a deep breath. Olivia looked inside and saw another small card, along with an even smaller box, and a pair of what looked like tickets of some kind. Olivia frowned and took the tickets out: they were for a play she had mentioned in passing to Robert that she wanted to see—it had been on tour when she had first started on the project he had picked her to work on. She laughed lowly to herself, closing her eyes and shaking her head.

  The card inside the box was a confirmation of a dinner reservation for that evening, at one of the most expensive restaurants that Olivia knew about in the entire city. She laughed again to herself. Well, if he is trying to sweeten me up, she thought wryly, he certainly has a good idea of how to do it. Geez. She lingered over the box inside the box for a long moment before opening it. It had to be something small; the box was about the size of her hand. Her heart began to beat faster in her chest as she realized that it had to be a piece of jewelry of some kind. Olivia bit her bottom lip. Was she ready to accept jewelry from Robert? They had only started really seeing each other days before—in spite of what he had said about her being his mate.

  Olivia took another deep breath and opened the box. Nestled in a bed of crushed velvet, she took in the sight of a gorgeous pendant on a silver chain; the stone was a greenish yellow, with a flaw through the middle. What is that? She wondered, as something tugged at her memory. It wasn’t something that she had told Robert—she had never told him her favorite gemstones; it had never been relevant. And the gem on the necklace wasn’t any of the ones that she would have mentioned if it had come up but there was something familiar about it, something that tugged at her brain. Cat’s eye. Olivia’s mouth fell open and she fought back the urge to laugh out loud. He had gotten her a cat’s eye pendant on a necklace. She scrubbed at her face, shaking her head even as she grinned.

  Olivia took her phone out and unlocked the screen, finding the text message thread with Robert. You are not a cat, she wrote to him. Feline, yes, but not a cat. She chuckled again, sending the message and shaking her head at the strangely appropriate gift. Her phone vibrated in her hand.

  They make cat’s eye and tiger’s eye. No lion’s eye, sadly. Do you like it? Olivia grinned and set her phone down, lifting the necklace out of its box. She unhooked the clasp and carefully draped the chain around her neck, reaching around behind her head to re-hook the clasp. Twitching the chain so that the pendant laid flat against her skin, she picked up her phone and took a picture of herself with the necklace on, sending it to Robert. She had to admit, in spite of her conflicted feelings, that the gift—dinner, her favorite play, and the necklace—were charming. Her phone vibrated again, notifying her of a new text message. After dinner and the play, I want to see you in nothing other than that necklace. Olivia laughed, closing her eyes even as the blood rushed into her cheeks.

  She had no idea if she wanted to be Robert Lowe’s mate but she knew for sure that she would not be able to keep herself away from him. Olivia turned back to her work with more focus than she’d been able to maintain that day, smiling to herself at the prospect of a night out with a man who, even if she wasn’t sure she wanted to be with for the rest of her life, at least had managed to make a very charming gesture, one that she intended to reward.

  ***

  When she arrived at Robert’s house, Olivia had a further surprise waiting for her: he had insisted she should stay with him until she had fully recovered, and even though she was back at work, Olivia was still sore from her injuries. And now, knowing that there was the possibility of more danger from someone within his Pride, she would have to continue to stay with him, at least until the situation was resolved. Robert wasn’t home as yet. Before she had left the office, she had sent him a message to let him know that she was going to his house to get ready for dinner and the play, and he had sent a message back saying that he would meet her at the house so they could leave together.

  Waiting for her, hung right next to the front door, was a cloth garment bag, emblazoned with the Nordstrom logo, with a sheet of paper bearing her name taped to the front. Olivia flipped the paper over and saw a brief note written on the backside: I thought you’d prefer to get this gift privately. She chuckled and unzipped the bag, revealing a beautiful, deep green designer dress that somehow managed to look revealing and demure all at the same time. Clipped to the hanger, she saw a pair of earrings that would match the necklace that Robert had already given her and shook her head.

  Olivia showered quickly, pulling her hair into a simple, elegant bun and slipping into the dress. Their dinner reservation was for seven o’clock. She wanted to greet Robert at the door, looking her best. As she started to put on her makeup, it occurred to Olivia to wonder just how Robert had known so precisely the best way to enchant her. “You’re precious to me,” he had told her during their discussion earlier in the day. She had been so alarmed by the facts he had laid out for her—so alarmed by his cold attitude towards the necessity of killing on her behalf and his own—that she had barely even thought about what it might mean for him to consider her precious. How much more does he know about me than I know about him? she wondered, thinking back over their conversations. Somehow, without her even realizing it, Robert had gotten her to open up to him about so many things: about what she liked, about what she wanted, about what she didn’t like.

  Olivia chuckled as she put the earrings on, tilting her head from side to side to admire the stones. If nothing else, she thought, Robert was definitely making en effort to show her that he knew her. But you don’t know hi
m. You’ve never known him. You’re only just starting to really get to know him. Olivia frowned at her reflection in the mirror. How could she commit to stay with someone for the rest of her life, when she barely knew him?

  That was a consideration for another day, Olivia told herself firmly. For now, she was going to enjoy her night out, and try and get to know the billionaire who had marked her as his own a little better. He had told her that she could take her time in deciding—and she had a lot to consider. She would take all the time she could. Robert had—Olivia had to admit to herself—been more than patient with her the entire time she had known him. While she might resent the fact that he had manipulated her into revealing her personality through working with him on a project, she couldn’t deny that she had been less than perfectly fair to dismiss any idea of being with him romantically right after they had first had sex together, just because she had not wanted to gain a reputation for sleeping her way into a top position.

  Olivia went into the living room, thinking of everything that had happened to her in the past week. She hadn’t admitted it to Robert, but ever since leaving the hospital, she had had occasional flickers of fear. When she walked out to her car to go back to his house from the office, she had looked around, absolutely convinced that it was going to happen again, that she was going to be abducted by lions once more, attacked and carried away unconscious. And one of the nights, wrapped in his arms, deeply asleep after a long session of sex, she had been ripped out of her somnolence by a dream, a flashback of the attack, a flicker through her mind of the look on the lioness’ face when she decided that Olivia would just have to be killed. Olivia looked at the pendant around her neck, taking a deep breath and exhaling slowly. She had a lot to think about but even if she didn’t decide to stay with Robert, was she going to be any safer, now that the people in his Pride all knew that he intended to make her his mate?

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Robert slipped Olivia’s hand into his in the darkness of the theatre, smiling to himself. When he had come into his house earlier in the evening, the sight of her wearing the jewelry he had purchased and the dress he had picked out especially for her, had been enough to nearly tempt him to cancel the rest of their plans for the evening.

  Alexis had been absolutely right about the best way to approach the situation with Olivia. He had mined his memories of every little detail, every little thing that Olivia had ever mentioned about what she liked. Katarina had given him the idea for the cat’s eye stones. As they had parted from the lunch meeting, she had suggested that something like that would be “cute, and probably more than a little endearing.”

  “I can’t wait until this play is over,” Robert murmured in Olivia’s ear. “I know you’ve been looking forward to seeing it but all I can think about is what you look like underneath that dress.” Olivia chuckled lowly, shifting closer to him in her seat.

  “If you’re more interested in what’s underneath the dress, why did you buy the dress?” Olivia asked him lowly.

  Robert grinned. “Like wrapping a present. The fun part is unwrapping.”

  “You should have bought me lingerie, then.” Robert bit back the laugh that bubbled up inside of him.

  “I will buy that next,” he told her, as the lights came up on the stage. He tried to focus his attention on the play but every breath brought the scent of Olivia’s pheromones to his nose, stirring his deep-seated lust. Olivia would never be able to fully comprehend just what her scent did to him. Robert played his fingertips along her palm as he watched the play, fantasies flashing through his mind.

  In the back of his mind, the part of him not focused on either the ongoing drama unfolding on the stage or the woman next to him, Robert considered the problem of the betrayal within his Pride. He knew Katarina and Alexis would be working the problem from different angles: Katarina as a tracker, a specialist who knew how to delve for information, and Alexis as Robert’s lieutenant, his second-in-command in the Pride, the person he trusted most other than his mother. He had to be confident that the two of them would get to the bottom of who was to blame but he wanted it done quickly. If he knew, he could give Olivia more time to decide, even if it meant forestalling the execution of people who would harm his mate, if he knew, he could protect her.

  ***

  “That was possibly the best night out that anyone has taken me on in…I’d say years, but I can’t remember an equally good night out from any of the guys I’ve dated ever.”

  Robert smiled, watching as Olivia slipped her shoes off, setting her purse aside. “Remember,” he said, licking his lips and sniffing the air to test her pheromones. “Leave the necklace on.” Olivia chuckled, removing the earrings and quickly unwrapping her hair from the bun she had pulled it into. Robert’s breath quickened as he watched her hair cascade down to her shoulders, as he breathed in the muted arousal pheromones that radiated from Olivia’s body. She turned to face him, and he could see the trouble in her eyes but he had held himself back all day, knowing that he needed to give her space. Robert closed the distance between them, wrapping his arms around her waist and pulling Olivia close.

  He kissed her hungrily; letting his hands wander all over her body, exploring her curves. “I know you’re worried,” Robert murmured against her lips, finding the zipper on the dress and tugging it down. “But for now—for now just think about how good it feels.” He dragged his lips along the column of her throat, nipping and nibbling at her sensitive skin. He could smell her arousal pheromones intensifying, sending a jolt of heat through his body. Robert let out a low, purring growl, peeling Olivia’s dress off slowly.

  Robert pressed Olivia’s body against his, resisting the urge to rub himself all over her, to mark her with his scent the way the lion inside of him wanted to. He had to show her the human side of his personality. Robert cupped Olivia’s full, heavy breasts, bringing them up to his lips. He sucked and licked at her nipples through the thin, lacy fabric of her bra, smiling to himself as he scented the unmistakable perfume of her growing arousal.

  He reached down between Olivia’s legs, bringing his hand up against the wet fabric that covered her pussy. He rubbed the heel of his palm against her, feeling a new thrill of desire as she shivered against him, moaning out. Robert pressed his fingers between her labia, rubbing and stroking up and down, finding Olivia’s clit by touch. “I love how wet you get,” he whispered, nuzzling against her neck. “I love how hot you are.” Olivia squirmed and writhed, pushing her hips down for better contact with his hand, and Robert felt himself becoming more and more turned on, his arousal like a hot lead bar just below his stomach. He had to have her.

  He lifted Olivia up into his arms, kissing her lips hungrily once more, and carried her to the couch, pressing her down. Robert’s hands moved as if with a mind of their own, quickly unhooking Olivia’s bra, tugging her panties down, until she was absolutely naked underneath him. He kissed a path down from her lips, moaning as her pheromones filled his nose, spurring him on; no lion—especially an Alpha—could resist the scent of his mate’s arousal. He nibbled along the curve of her waist, spreading Olivia’s legs as he came to her hips.

  Robert buried his face against Olivia’s wet folds, lapping up the fluids that had already begun to flow. He moaned, sucking her wet flesh into his mouth, thrusting his tongue inside of her. His cock felt like a rock, straining at the confines of his pants, but he wanted—needed—to make Olivia come, to taste her gushing on his tongue and hear her crying out in pleasure. Robert teased her relentlessly, bringing the tip of his tongue up to her clit to flicker and swirl around the bead of nerves before delving back into the well of her pussy, over and over again as she twisted and writhed underneath him, moans leaving her lips freely.

  He brought her to the edge of orgasm over and over again, holding himself back. He wanted to give Olivia so much pleasure that she couldn’t possibly think; so much that she would lie spent in his arms afterwards, ready to trust him. Robert breathed in the scent of her mounting
arousal, tasted the way her body became hotter and hotter, her fluids flowing more and more freely on his tongue as he sucked and licked. “Oh—oh, fuck, Robert…Robert, please…” he shivered at the sound of his name on her lips, barely able to hold himself back any longer.

  He sucked her clit between his lips, flickering his rough tongue against the bead of flesh as Olivia pitched and arched, crying out in pleasure. Her body went tense underneath him, and Robert slid two fingers deep inside of her, pushing past the resistance of her flexing muscles as Olivia came, grabbing at his head and shoulders as if for life itself. He thrust his fingers inside of her hard and fast, sucking and licking her pleasure center as spasm after spasm wracked her body, making her moan his name over and over again.

  Robert slowed as he felt the spasms begin to abate, the moans faltering, cut through with sharp panting gasps. He pulled back, licking his lips for the last traces of Olivia’s fluids, smiling down as she looked at him with desire-fogged eyes. “I could do that all day,” he told her, cradling her shivering, trembling body in his arms.

  “If you did that,” she said, still panting for breath, “you’d stop being a billionaire pretty soon, and I’d probably chafe.”

  Robert laughed, burying his face against her neck to breathe in the thick, sweet pheromones that radiated from her body.

  “Hey,” Olivia said, twisting in his arms to look at him with a mock-stern expression. “You’re still fully dressed, and I can feel your erection in your pants. This isn’t fair to you.”

  Robert chuckled lowly, unwrapping his arms from around Olivia’s body and slipping off of the couch. “It’s not about being fair to me,” he told her, smiling. “It’s about making you so happy you can’t possibly think about ever leaving me.”