Ditch the Ex. Date the Billionaire .Chapter 129:.It isn’t that Archibald gets louder so much as his perpetual composure cracks into something a little wild and insistent, a taste of feeling that gets kept under lock and key. The emphasis is accompanied by a slow, purposeful thrust into Isabella’s body that threatens to undo her completely.“I want to fill you up so full of pleasure that you can’t remember ever being hurt,” Archibald says like a caress, a promise, a confession. “I would keep you safe and make you happy, if only you would let me. All you would ever have to do is ask it.”Isabella is being tortured.Lovingly, kindly, mercilessly tortured under the soft, steely warmth that simmers in her guts and underneath her skin at Archibald’s words and the way he’s able to take her apart by barely touching her. By barely doing anything. One finger combined with the way that man is talking to her has Isabella rolling her hips to meet each movement, uncaring of the way her back arc
Ditch the Ex. Date the Billionaire .Chapter 130: .It’s the kind of orgasm that takes away her breath and all her strength to hold herself up; the position she’s in doesn’t require much to start with but Isabella’s still fawn-shaky, face pressed into the upholstery and trembling head to toe. Isabella’s allowed two or three heartbeats to gulp helplessly like a fish out of water, suddenly empty and hating every second of it, before she’s being bodily scooped into Archibald’s arms and pulled into his chest like she’s tiny and easy to protect. God, it feels so good; Archibald knows exactly how Isabella likes to be held—not gently but with a fair bit of squeeze and pressure. *I’m here* is what that hold says, not a suggestion or a question, but a fact. *I’m here.* Isabella’s eyes are wet and burning, and somewhere in the back of her mind she knows that she’ll be mortified about this later, will think about being rendered a teary mess from one really, really good orgasm with a fair
Ditch the Ex. Date the Billionaire .Chapter 131: .It doesn’t go remotely unnoticed; Archibald’s fond smile goes just a little sharper when he uses both hands to grip Isabella around the waist and yank her closer.“You seem awfully desperate for someone who claimed she was near death mere minutes ago,” he teases, tauntingly out of reach. He pops the lid on the lube to slick up his cock. “Perhaps you need a few moments to calm down?”“Absolutely the fuck not,” Isabella growls, even when it tapers off into something low and quiet when Archibald lines himself up with her entrance, smears precome over her asshole like the worst and most wonderful tease on earth. “Unless you want me to go fuck myself instead.”“Tempting,” Archibald says mildly. “That will have to be a show for another time. For now, I’d like very much to give you what you were so brave to ask for. May I?”Isabella’s toes curl in anticipation, and she slaps both hands to her face in a failure to cover up the color rising
Ditch the Ex. Date the Billionaire .Chapter 132:.Isabella clings tightly to Archibald’s shoulders and drowns in sensation. All she knows how to do in this moment is hold on and take it, to let Archibald fill her with pleasure like a vessel designed to hold it.“Say it, dearest,” Archibald orders sweetly, the words accompanied by a delicious and brutal roll of his hips that makes Isabella’s toes curl and her cunt drip. He runs one gentle, gentle hand through Isabella’s damp, sweaty dark hair, brushing it out of her face with care. “Who do you belong to?”Isabella sobs, “You,” and then, louder and insistent, “You, you, you.”“Mine,” Archibald agrees without missing a beat, “That’s right, sweetheart. You’re mine, and I’m going to take such good care of you.”Isabella nods wordlessly, glassy-eyed and desperately clingy, warm and fizzy and sex-drunk. Putting herself in Archibald’s hands has never felt so easy and letting him be in control of what’s happening has never felt so safe.Isa
Ditch the Ex. Date the Billionaire .Chapter 133:.“You’re made of jello.” Isabella slaps the mattress with her hand. “Bed. Now.” Belatedly she amends, “Please.”Archibald snorts and nevertheless tugs down the bedspread to slide in next to Isabella, who immediately cuddles up against him like a limpet, arm flung over her thighs and face pillowed against her belly as she settles against the headboard.“Such a good girl for me, taking me so well and letting me make such a mess,” Archibald praises, rubbing his free hand all the way down Isabella’s ribs like he’s stroking a cat. “I wasn’t too rough with you, was I?”“No…” Isabella replies, voice muffled through fabric, “no, it was nice. Not for all the time, but I liked it.”Archibald makes a pleased little noise and leans in close to nuzzle his nose into Isabella’s hair and press a kiss into the side of her head. Isabella’s body feels warm and heavy and so, so tired. Like this, it’s easy to snag one of those big, warm hands and drag it
Ditch the Ex. Date the Billionaire . Chapter 134: . When Isabella wakes up, it’s dark. It’s early even for her, and she spends several minutes marinating in the quiet sounds of a sleeping world. And a sleeping Archibald, too, who’s curled up around her like Isabella’s a particularly beloved teddy bear. There’s something hard poking her in the side, and Isabella realizes that it’s the tablet Archibald was working on the night before. He must have been up late, especially if he didn’t put it somewhere out of the way before falling asleep. He didn’t, at any rate, so Isabella does it for him now, reaching all the way over to plop the device on the wireless charger before wriggling carefully out of his grip. Isabella’s never been good at staying in bed once she’s awake, and a quick glance at her phone, which has been plugged in by someone more motivated than she was at the time, tells her that she’s got some time before sunrise. Coffee at the very least, Isabella decides, and br
Ditch the Ex. Date the Billionaire .Chapter 135: .There’s the temptation after breakfast to go back to bed and find another way to entertain themselves, but Archibald shuffles her to go shower instead.“It’s about ten miles to get into town,” he says when Isabella protests in an appropriately dignified manner, definitely not pouting at having to put pants on. “You’ll like it.” Isabella does pout, then, and is rewarded for her bad behavior by being hoisted up onto the bathroom counter and thoroughly kissed until she’ll say yes to just about anything. And she does say yes, eventually, and delays the inevitable by about ten minutes by sticking her hands down the back of Archibald’s pajamas.Isabella’s never had this kind of domesticity in a relationship before, and it should feel strange but it doesn’t, just scaffolds its way up the norms built in by months of getting to know each other. It doesn’t feel weird at all for Isabella to snag Archibald by the wrist and tug him into the sho
Ditch the Ex. Date the Billionaire .Chapter 136: .“Oh, please. Because your boytoy just woke up and bought half our board and their corresponding shares out from under us for some weekend summer fun? I didn’t think you had it in you, but I guess you had to grow a spine sometime.”Isabella’s brain goes blank. Chantelle’s words land with all the delicacy and grace of anvils, pinning her down under their weight like a butterfly in a box.“I didn’t—you’re wrong,” she protests.“Sure, okay. Keep telling yourself that. Anyway, don’t bother saving this number; I’m ditching the phone once my plane boards. Congratulations on your win, Izzy. We always knew you’d ruin the family, but I didn’t think it’d be like this. Have a good rest of your life, I guess.”There’s a click and then a dial tone. Isabella tries to call back, but it goes straight to a generic voicemail that she knows won’t ever be checked. At best it’s a burner phone; at worst it’s Chantelle’s regular phone that she’s willing t
Ditch the Ex. Date the Billionaire .Chapter 143: .It happens by accident.Archibald’s out of town again for work but tries to call in the evenings when he can and Isabella, consequently, does her best to be available despite the three-hour time difference. Dara can roll her eyes all she wants — and does — but keeps her smart remarks, if not to a minimum, then to an average.(“It’s part of our arrangement!” Isabella protests noisily as if the forty-five minutes she spends holed up in her bedroom have anything at all to do with those initial terms of their relationship and aren’t simply because she misses the man like a limb when he’s gone.Dara makes an unflattering snort and digs her elbow into Isabella’s side, stealing a pretzel out of her bag while she’s distracted.“Uh-huh,” she says, “Is that what we’re calling it now, Ms. Codependent?”“I don’t think I like you anymore.”Isabella, among other things, is a liar. A bad one.)It happens by accident because Isabella’s bundled up
Ditch the Ex. Date the Billionaire .Chapter 142: .See, if Isabella’s life was a movie, this is where it would end.A great romantic conclusion tied up with a neat little bow, roll credits, and scene.But this isn’t a movie, and this isn’t where it ends.“I’m thinking about going back to school,” Isabella says one afternoon during a lunch date. She doesn’t stop stirring anxiously at her gelato until Archibald reaches out to physically stop her before it turns to soup, and she won’t like it as much.“I think that’s a good idea,” he replies.Isabella is still basically unhireable, further blacklisted professionally by the drama that came out of her father’s quick but messy trial that put him in jail for years and ruined any good reputation any of them might have had.(The man left a single furious, frothing voicemail on Isabella’s phone that could be summed up as three straight minutes of death threats that included everyone from Isabella herself to the cat to the goldfish that had o
Ditch the Ex. Date the Billionaire .Chapter 142: .“You know, I almost broke up with you last night.”Archibald’s steady calm, the largest holdover from last night, holds up even as he nods in agreement. “I know.”Isabella scowls at him.“How’d you know? I barely knew until I’d decided not to.”“Because I know you. You’ve been given precious few people in life who haven’t broken your trust, and I did that by going behind your back. It would have been an understandable reaction, and I wouldn’t have begrudged you—“Isabella slams that ocean blue tumbler down on the table with a clatter. Her eyes are bright with emotion, and her lips are turned down in an irritated scowl.“Maybe you wouldn’t,” she snaps, “but I’d sure as shit begrudge you if you just, what, let me break up with you without so much as asking me not to? What the fuck, man.”“You are an adult who can make your own decisions—““Yeah, but that doesn’t mean I want you to just let me go when I’m about to do something stupid!
Ditch the Ex. Date the Billionaire .Chapter 140:.There is coffee, kept hot in the kind of insulated tumbler that costs too much and coordinates with the beachy colors of the house. Isabella has a suspicion that it was bought specifically for her, because Archibald is a crazy person who thinks about that kind of stuff. It doesn’t stop her from drinking it.“Tell me what you did,” Isabella orders before she can talk herself out of it and in spite of the very large part of her that doesn’t actually want to know. “Something something something about buying out the board?” she elaborates with a pointed stare. Because Chantelle, of all people, wouldn’t be bailing unless the ship is sinking. The ship might already be sunk if she’s that willing to abandon what she sees as her birthright. A birthright that she’s always seen as a competition, even though she’d won right out the gate and Isabella’s so stupid that it took literally being disowned to see that she never stood a chance.“Oh, th
Ditch the Ex. Date the Billionaire .Chapter 139: .Isabella and Alan had settled many a disagreement with an angry tussle in bed that was worth the drop afterward for being able to get a little of her own back, to feel seen and heard. Except that Archibald already makes her feel seen and heard, and right now Isabella just sort of wants one of them to hurt, and she’s not sure who.“Stop, stop, enough,” Archibald orders, kinder than Isabella deserves, and wipes the beginnings of tears out of the corners of Isabella’s eyes before she even realizes that she’s about to cry. “I know, baby. I know.”“You don’t know anything.” It comes out way less cool and way more pathetic when Isabella’s voice cracks on what is definitely an overtired, strung-out sob. “You don’t know anything.”“I know that you’re exhausted and running on fumes and that you’d rather have the kind of sex that’s not good for you and that you don’t even want than get what you need,” Archibald tells her. “I’d say I know pl
Ditch the Ex. Date the Billionaire .Chapter 138: .The only tears Chantelle’s ever shed have been of the crocodilian variety, as purposeful a tactic as any insult. Even after she’d forced herself to learn how to stop, she’d never managed to wield emotion like a weapon. At times like this, Isabella sort of wishes that she had.Isabella trembles and wraps her arms around herself, chilled even underneath the blanket. The edges are getting wet with saltwater and crusted with sand, and she would bite anyone who might try to take it from her.Archibald doesn’t touch her, but Isabella can feel him practically vibrating with the way he wants to. Right now, Isabella would be happy to bite him, too.“I don’t think you’re stupid.”“Well, it sure feels like it.”Archibald literally wrings his hands in open distress, and even now, it doesn’t feel remotely like a win. Isabella’s gotten exactly what she’s asked for—space and someone else being the one to hurt, but it doesn’t lessen her own, not e
Ditch the Ex. Date the Billionaire .Chapter 137:.It's still pitch black outside, but Isabella finds herself at the edge of the water anyway. The ocean doesn’t give a damn about Isabella’s battered foundation and rolls happily up the night-cooled sand, leaving only foam and bits of seashell behind.Isabella sits at the shoreline and tucks her knees up under her chin.She wonders, miserably, where Chantelle plans to go.God, she hopes her sister gets as far away as she can.Isabella's spent her whole life loyal, but Chantelle? She’s fanatical to a degree that Isabella could never quite manage, and she wonders if putting her loyalty into a cage match with her relentless drive to protect herself finally did what nothing else could—crack that fanaticism. She’ll never know; it’s not her place now, and even if it was, Chantelle would never let her.God, she hopes Chantelle got as far away as she possibly can.Mai, with much derision, refers to it as Isabella's "better place theory." Mom
Ditch the Ex. Date the Billionaire .Chapter 136: .“Oh, please. Because your boytoy just woke up and bought half our board and their corresponding shares out from under us for some weekend summer fun? I didn’t think you had it in you, but I guess you had to grow a spine sometime.”Isabella’s brain goes blank. Chantelle’s words land with all the delicacy and grace of anvils, pinning her down under their weight like a butterfly in a box.“I didn’t—you’re wrong,” she protests.“Sure, okay. Keep telling yourself that. Anyway, don’t bother saving this number; I’m ditching the phone once my plane boards. Congratulations on your win, Izzy. We always knew you’d ruin the family, but I didn’t think it’d be like this. Have a good rest of your life, I guess.”There’s a click and then a dial tone. Isabella tries to call back, but it goes straight to a generic voicemail that she knows won’t ever be checked. At best it’s a burner phone; at worst it’s Chantelle’s regular phone that she’s willing t
Ditch the Ex. Date the Billionaire .Chapter 135: .There’s the temptation after breakfast to go back to bed and find another way to entertain themselves, but Archibald shuffles her to go shower instead.“It’s about ten miles to get into town,” he says when Isabella protests in an appropriately dignified manner, definitely not pouting at having to put pants on. “You’ll like it.” Isabella does pout, then, and is rewarded for her bad behavior by being hoisted up onto the bathroom counter and thoroughly kissed until she’ll say yes to just about anything. And she does say yes, eventually, and delays the inevitable by about ten minutes by sticking her hands down the back of Archibald’s pajamas.Isabella’s never had this kind of domesticity in a relationship before, and it should feel strange but it doesn’t, just scaffolds its way up the norms built in by months of getting to know each other. It doesn’t feel weird at all for Isabella to snag Archibald by the wrist and tug him into the sho