Ms. CEO's Baby Daddy Is the Merchant of Death novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: One Night, One Note
Six years after one night with a stranger who left only a note, Yvette watches a truck driver pull her son clear of a reversing truck, and the news that night puts his face over the words "the Merchant of Death."
The night my father's doctor gave him a year, I walked into a hotel bar and picked a stranger.
I was twenty-five.
I had a briefcase full of my father's scans and a mascara problem.
The bar was on Michigan Avenue, all brass and low light, and almost empty at eleven.
He was at the end of it, alone, with a glass of something he wasn't drinking.
Grey eyes. A dark cowlick at the crown that no barber had ever beaten.
A burn scar on his left forearm, where his sleeve was pushed up.
He looked at me.
I sat down two stools away and ordered a club soda I didn't touch.
"Bad news?" he asked.
"The worst. You?"
"Somebody wants me dead." He said it like weather.
I laughed, because it was the only thing that night that made me laugh.
"Then neither of us should be alone tonight," I said.
We didn't trade names.
I told him I didn't want to be anybody's daughter for one night.
He told me that suited him fine.
When the bartender called last call, I was the one who put my hand on his knee.
"I have a room upstairs," I said.
He looked at my hand for a long second.
"Nobody who starts this with me gets to be sorry after."
"Then I won't be sorry. Stop talking."
He paid both tabs and walked me to the elevator without touching me once, which made it worse.
The elevator doors slid shut behind us.
He didn't touch me on the ride up.
I counted the floors on the display and tried not to look at him.
At eleven he turned to me and I lost it.
I grabbed the front of his shirt and kissed him hard.
He let me for a moment.
Then his hand went into the loose mess of my hair and he kissed me back like a man who had been waiting all night for permission.
The elevator opened on fourteen.
He broke the kiss and walked me down the hall with his hand low on my back.
His palm was warm through the navy wool of my dress.
I fumbled the key card twice.
He took it from my fingers and opened the door.
The room was dark except for the city lights bleeding through the window.
He closed the door with one foot and turned the deadbolt.
Then he stood behind me and he didn't move.
"Tell me something," he said.
His voice was quiet and steady and it went straight down my spine.
"What do you want?"
I could feel the heat of him an inch from my back.
"I want you to stop being careful."
He made a low sound, almost a laugh.
"I haven't started yet."
"Then start."
His hands found the tab of my zipper at the nape of my neck.
He pulled it down slowly, half an inch at a time.
The sound of it filled the whole room.
Cool air hit my bare back and I shivered.
He pushed the dress off my shoulders and let it fall to the floor.
I stood there in my tights and a black bra and nothing else.
His hands came around to my hips and he turned me to face him.
His eyes moved over me without any hurry at all.
"You have no idea what you asked for."
"Show me."
He pulled my bra straps down with two fingers on each shoulder.
His knuckles brushed my skin on the way and I stopped breathing.
He unhooked the clasp with one hand and let it drop.
His mouth went to my neck first, then lower.
When his tongue found my nipple I made a sound I didn't recognize.
He backed me toward the bed with his mouth still on me.
The backs of my knees hit the mattress and I sat down hard.
He went to one knee and peeled my tights off with both hands.
His thumb dragged down the wet front of my underwear and he swore under his breath.
"Already soaked," he said.
It wasn't a question.
"I told you to stop being careful."
He pulled my underwear off and tossed it aside.
Then he stood over me and unbuttoned his shirt, never once looking away.
I watched his chest come bare and I wanted to get my mouth on every inch of it.
His belt came off with one pull and I heard it hit the floor.
He shoved his trousers down and kicked them away.
He was already hard, thick and heavy, and I reached for his cock without thinking.
He caught my wrist before I closed my fingers.
"No," he said.
I looked up at him.
"On the bed."
"Make me."
His expression changed.
He put a hand in the center of my chest and pushed me back onto the mattress.
I landed with a gasp and he came down over me before I could move.
He pinned both my wrists above my head with one hand.
His other hand went between my legs.
Two fingers pushed inside me and I arched off the bed.
"Already?" he said.
"Say it."
I bit my lip and shook my head.
He curled his fingers and I whimpered.
"Say it or I stop."
"I want your cock."
His eyes went dark.
"Good."
He pulled his fingers out and spread my thighs with his knee.
The broad head of his cock pressed against my clit and I shuddered.
He dragged it through the wet once, twice, teasing me.
"Don't make me beg," I said.
"I like you begging."
I would have hated him for that if I hadn't been so far gone.
He pushed inside me in one long stroke.
I cried out and my fingers dug into the sheets.
He was thick enough that I felt every inch of him stretching me.
He didn't move for a full three seconds.
I could feel his pulse through his cock, buried deep.
"Look at me," he said.
I looked up into his grey eyes, lit from the side by the city lights.
He started to move.
Slow, deep thrusts that bottomed out every time.
I wrapped my legs around his waist and pulled him closer.
"You were going to be careful," I said, breathless.
He laughed, low and rough.
"You said stop."
"Fuck me like you mean it."
"Then hold on."
I meant to say something clever in return.
He picked up the pace and the thought left my head.
His hips slammed into mine, hard enough that the headboard thumped against the wall.
The sound of it was loud and obscene and perfect.
He released my wrists and I dragged my nails down his back.
He grunted and drove deeper.
"Yeah," he said into my ear.
"Give me that."
"You have it."
"That's not what I asked for."
He pulled out almost all the way and thrust back in, hard.
I screamed into his shoulder.
He did it again.
"Whose pussy is this?"
"Yours."
"Say my name."
"You don't have one."
He laughed, and it broke the rhythm for half a second.
"Then say yes."
"Yes."
"Yes to what?"
"Yes to all of it," I said.
"Your cock, your hands, this, please."
"That's better."
He fucked me in earnest then, fast and deep.
I lost track of everything that wasn't him.
The weight of his body, the burn in my thighs, the smell of his skin.
I could feel the orgasm building low in my belly, hot and insistent.
"Don't stop," I said.
"I'm not."
"Please don't stop."
"I'm going to make you come first," he said.
He shifted his weight and put his thumb on my clit.
"Right here. Scream for me."
The pressure of his thumb, circling exactly where I needed it, broke me.
I came with a cry that started in my chest and ripped out of my throat.
My whole body clenched around his cock and the world went white.
He fucked me through it, slower, letting me ride the waves.
My legs were shaking when I came back to myself.
"Good," he said.
He was still hard inside me.
I could feel it.
"Now you're going to do that again."
"I can't."
"Wrong answer."
He pulled out and flipped me onto my stomach.
His hand landed between my shoulder blades and pressed me into the mattress.
He pushed my knees apart with his own and slid back inside me from behind.
I groaned into the pillow.
This angle was deeper, somehow, and I felt him everywhere.
His hand fisted in my hair and pulled, just enough to bend my neck back.
"Tell me what you are right now."
"Yours."
"Anything else?"
"Nobody's daughter," I said, and the words came out broken.
He went still for one second.
I felt the change in him, something shifting.
"Good," he said, and he fucked me harder.
The bed slammed against the wall in a steady rhythm.
He reached around and found my clit again with two fingers.
I was already close from the first time and his touch was too much.
"Again," he said.
It wasn't a suggestion.
The second orgasm hit me harder than the first.
I sobbed into the sheets, and he kept going, chasing his own release now.
His thrusts turned ragged and deep and I heard him groan.
"Fuck," he said.
"Say it again."
"Yours."
"I want to feel you come inside me."
"You'll get it."
"Now."
He drove into me once, twice, three more times.
Then he buried himself deep and came with a raw, low sound against my shoulder, filling my pussy with hot cum.
I felt the hot pulse of it and I pressed back into him without thinking.
He stayed inside me while we both caught our breath.
He pulled out slowly and I made a small sound at the loss.
Then he rolled me onto my side and pulled my back against his chest.
His arm came around me and his hand spread flat across my stomach.
"Don't fall asleep yet," he said.
I laughed, and it was the first real laugh I'd had all day.
"That's a lot to ask."
"I'm not done with you."
"You came."
"I did," he said.
"I plan to again."
I turned in his arms to look at him.
His face was all harsh lines in the low light from the window.
"What do I call you?" I asked.
"Whatever you want."
"That's dangerous."
"I know."
I traced the edge of the burn scar on his forearm with one finger.
"Does it hurt?"
"No."
"I'm not asking about the scar."
He was quiet for a long moment.
"Not tonight," he said.
"That's not one of the questions I get to ask, is it?"
"No."
"Fine."
"Good."
"Then we're both nobodies," I said.
"Nobody and nobody."
He kissed me, slow and deep, and I forgot the joke as soon as I'd made it.
He was hard again against my hip.
"Again?" I said.
"Told you I wasn't done."
He rolled me onto my back and lowered his mouth between my legs.
I buried my hands in his dark hair and held on.
The city was still lit outside the window when I finally fell asleep.
My head was on his chest and his hand was spread across my back.
I didn't know his name and I didn't care.
When I woke up, the sheets on his side were cold.
There was a note on the hotel pad by the phone.
"I'll find you. W."
He never did.
Nine months later I had a son with grey eyes and a cowlick nobody could flatten.
My father held him once before he died.
Six years after the hotel, I was the CEO of Langford Home, and I was late.
"Technically," Finn said from the back seat, "you said we'd be there at nine."
"Technically, you hid my car keys in the fish tank."
"The fish wanted to drive."
He was five and two months, and he negotiated.
I had to sign off on a shipment at our warehouse on Goose Island before the bank called.
Daycare didn't open until ten on Wednesdays.
So Finn came with me, in his dinosaur shirt, with his hand in mine.
The loading dock smelled like diesel and cardboard.
Three trucks were backing in at once, and the beeping was everywhere.
My dock manager came at me with a clipboard and a problem.
"Yvette, the bank called twice, and the Denver load is short."
I let go of Finn's hand to sign.
One signature.
When I looked up, he wasn't beside me.
He was out on the concrete, running after a pigeon, straight into the path of a reversing semi.
I screamed his name.
The truck didn't hear me.
A man came off the side of the next cab.
He hit the concrete in two steps, scooped Finn under one arm and rolled clear.
The semi's back bumper stopped a foot from where my son had been.
I got there on my knees.
Finn was laughing.
"Mom, he flew."
The man set him on his feet and kept a hand on his shoulder until I had him.
Then he straightened up, and I looked at his face.
Grey eyes.
A burn scar on his left forearm, where his sleeve was pushed up.
Six years had put a little grey in his stubble and nothing else.
He was looking at Finn.
He was looking at the cowlick, and at the eyes, the same grey as his own.
Something went still in him.
"How old is he?" he asked.
His voice hadn't changed.
I stood up and pulled Finn behind my legs.
"Four," I said.
The word came out clean, and I was proud of it.
He looked at me then, really looked, and I saw him place me.
The hotel. The bar. The note.
"Ma'am," he said. "You should hold on to him."
"I'm aware."
"Abe Abbott." He nodded at the truck behind him, with BOYLE FREIGHT painted on the door. "I drive for Hank Boyle. If your people need a statement about the dock."
"They won't."
My dock manager was already shouting at the other driver.
Abe Abbott touched the brim of his cap to Finn.
"No more pigeons, buddy."
"Technically, it was a dove."
Something moved at the corner of his mouth.
He climbed back into his cab and didn't look at me again.
I didn't sign anything else that morning.
I put Finn in the car, drove him to daycare and sat in the parking lot shaking.
That night, after his bath and two dinosaur books, I opened a bottle of wine I had been saving.
The news was on low in the kitchen.
A car bomb in Wilmette, four months ago, still unsolved.
The driver killed. The owner of the car never seen again.
The anchor said the man's name like it tasted bad.
"Abram Cruger, the arms dealer known as the Merchant of Death, believed to be hiding in Geneva."
They put his photograph up on the screen.
Grey eyes.
A cowlick at the crown.
My glass hit the counter and didn't break.
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