Price Of Pleasure: Bound By The Billionaire's Contract

Chapter 5

(Elena’s POV)

The cab rounded the corner of Fifth Avenue, the engine humming beneath my thighs. I was still warm from Julian’s penthouse, still tasting the salt of his skin on my tongue. The city passed in a blur of steel and glass, and I pressed my forehead against the cool window, trying to ground myself. My body still hummed. Every shift of the seat made the wet lace of my panties drag against my oversensitive cl*t. I could still feel the ghost of his fingers inside me, the stretch of his c*ck in my throat, the way he had looked at me when he came.

My phone buzzed.

I almost ignored it. Then I looked.

A photo loaded on the screen. Grainy, shot from a distance, but unmistakable. Me. Standing outside Julian’s building. The pale yellow sundress. The bare legs. The way I clutched my handbag like a shield, as if it could protect me from what I had just done on my knees.

The message beneath it read:

You tasted him. He tasted you. But I saw everything, Elena. Every morning. Every exit. Every trembling step.

My blood turned cold.

The text from three days ago flashed in my memory: I saw how wet you were for him. I had almost convinced myself it was a wrong number, a random creep, meaningless. But this photo was specific. Targeted. The angle showed the awning of Julian’s building, the exact moment I had paused to adjust my sandal. Someone had been close enough to capture the look on my face, flushed, dazed, freshly used.

I scrolled down. Another message appeared.

Julian doesn’t know I still exist. Keep it that way. Or your father’s debt becomes public knowledge. Along with your s*x footage with him.

My lungs seized.

The cabbie glanced at me in the rearview mirror. “You okay back there, miss?”

“Fine.” My voice came out thin. “Can you… keep driving. Please.”

I needed time. Needed to think. But my thoughts were a tangled knot of fear and fury and something else—something darker, a thread of arousal I couldn’t explain. Someone had watched Julian touch me. Someone had seen me on my knees, lips stretched around his c*ck, thighs wet and shaking. The idea made my thighs press together hard.

I hated that it did.

The phone buzzed again.

Don’t respond to this number. I’ll contact you when I need something. If you tell Julian, I destroy you. The choice is yours.

The messages disappeared from the screen. Not deleted, vanished, as if they had never existed. A clean hack. Whoever this was had resources. Technical skill. Access to Julian’s surveillance blind spots.

I stared at the empty screen until the cab pulled up to my apartment building. My hands were shaking so badly I almost dropped the phone twice while paying the driver.

Inside, I locked the door. Leaned against it. My sundress clung to my skin, damp with sweat despite the morning chill. I could still feel Julian’s mouth on my cl*t, his fingers curling inside me, his c*m sliding down my throat. But the memory curdled now, poisoned by the knowledge that someone else had watched. Someone had been close enough to film it. Close enough to blackmail me with it.

I didn’t sleep that night.

I lay in bed, the sheets twisted around my legs, jumping at every creak of the old building. Every time I closed my eyes I saw the grainy photo again, my own body frozen in that moment of vulnerability. My phone sat dark on the nightstand, a silent threat. I checked the locks three times. Checked the windows twice. At one point I stood in the bathroom and stared at myself in the mirror, searching for some visible mark that said watched, owned by more than one man. There was nothing. Only the faint bruises Julian had left on my hips and the swollen look of my mouth.

At 5:38 a.m. I gave up on rest entirely.

I dressed in a simple gray dress. Nothing underneath. Julian’s rules still held, the contract didn’t care about mysterious stalkers. The absence of underwear felt different this morning. Not like obedience. Like exposure. I walked to the penthouse with my skin prickling, expecting a camera in every shadow, a lens behind every reflective surface. The city felt full of eyes.

Julian opened the door before I knocked.

His eyes swept over me, sharp and assessing. Behind him, the black velvet cushion sat waiting in its usual place. The sight of it made my stomach twist.

“You’re pale,” he observed. “Did you sleep?”

“No, sir.”

He stepped closer, tilting my chin upward with two fingers. His thumb traced the dark circles under my eyes. The touch was familiar, almost gentle, and for a second I wanted to lean into it and pretend the rest of the world didn’t exist.

“Tell me.”

The words lodged in my throat. The text had said to keep it secret. If you tell Julian, I destroy you. But Julian’s gaze was relentless, peeling back the layers I’d tried to armor myself with. I had already learned what happened when I tried to hide things from him. The truth always came out. And the consequences of lying were worse than the consequences of speaking.

“Someone sent me a photo,” I whispered. “Of me leaving your building yesterday. They’ve been watching.”

Julian’s expression didn’t change. But a hardness settled in his jaw, a cold that turned his eyes to ice. “Show me.”

“It disappeared. The messages, they vanished from my phone. Whoever it is, they have access. Technical access. They knew exactly when I left. They knew what I was wearing. They knew—” My voice cracked. “They knew what we did.”

He released my chin. For a long moment he said nothing. Then he turned and walked toward the living room, his footsteps measured on the hardwood.

“Come here.”

I followed. He stopped by the window, his back to me, the city sprawled below like a glittering wound. The morning light carved his silhouette into something sharp and dangerous.

“What else did they say?”

My throat tightened. “They said if I tell you, they’ll destroy me. That they know about the contract. About—” I swallowed. “About my father’s debt. And that they have footage. Of us. Of me.”

Julian turned. The morning light carved shadows across his face, making him look ancient. Frightening. The man who had ordered me to strip in his office, who had taught me how to take him down my throat, who had come inside me and told me I was his, stood looking at me like he was already calculating how many people needed to disappear.

“They threatened you in my territory,” he said, his voice low, almost conversational. “Do you know what that means?”

I shook my head.

“It means they’ve made a mistake.” He stepped closer. One hand came up to rest against the side of my neck, not squeezing, just present. Possessive. “Because you’re mine now, Elena. And I don’t share.”

His thumb stroked once over my pulse. I could feel it racing under his touch.

“You’re shaking,” he murmured.

“I’m scared.”

“Good. Fear will keep you careful. But you will not carry this alone.” His eyes held mine. “From this moment, you tell me everything. Every message. Every feeling. Every time the hair on the back of your neck stands up. Clear?”

“Yes, sir.”

“And if they contact you again, you do not respond. You bring it straight to me. Even if they threaten to release everything. Even if they tell you I’ll discard you for it. You come to me. Do you understand?”

“I understand.”

He studied me for another long second. Then he leaned in and pressed his mouth to my forehead, brief, almost soft, and somehow more intimate than any of the filthy things he had done to my body.

He said quietly. “I need to remind us both who you belong to before we deal with the rest of this.”

I sank to my knees on the black velvet cushion. The ritual settled over me like a cloak. Whatever was coming, whoever was watching, Julian was still the one who owned the right to touch me. And right now, that knowledge was the only solid ground I had left.