by Helen Conrad
She laughed. “You expect me to believe you fell in love with a picture?”
He nodded. “I used to think I was nuts too. I told myself that you didn’t really exist. And then you appeared at Jeeter’s. I recognized you immediately.” He pulled her to him. “And you were even better than I had imagined you to be.”
His mouth was warm and sensuous against hers. “And you just get better all the time,” he added softly, nibbling her lower lip.
“Why didn’t you say something?” she asked, luxuriating against his long, strong body.
He shook his head. “What could I say? Besides, one of the first things you told me was that you were marrying Karl.”
She hid a smile. “That was silly, wasn’t it?”
“Silly?” His grip on her tightened. “It was ridiculous.”
She sighed. She could see that now. But what if she hadn’t come to find Karl? She might never have discovered love.
“You know why I did it, don’t you?” she asked softly. “I was in danger of losing control of my father’s company. The people I trusted had turned against me. Karl seemed to be my only friend.”
He grunted grudgingly. “What happens now?” he asked with curiosity. “When we marry you’ll have the control you want.” He turned to look sharply into her face. “What will you do about it?”
She had to smile at the way he took their marriage plans for granted, but he had raised a pressing point. What would she do about it? Somehow Texas seemed so far away. “Want to help me run an oil company?” she asked.
He laughed. “Oh, no. Unlike your father, I have complete faith in your strength of leadership. It’s all yours.”
She giggled, snuggling close in against him. “All mine. Now I’m not even sure that I want it.” She looked up into his face and watched the sunlight glint in his eyes. “But you run a business or two long distance, don’t you?”
At his nod, she went on. “Will you give me a few pointers? Maybe Skip and I can work something out.” With one finger, she traced the line of his jaw. “And to think I once thought of cutting Karl in on my company,” she murmured, bemused by her narrow escape.
Jack shook his head. “Karl makes a great beachcomber, but I think he’s hit the extent of his ambitions as it is.” He threw her a long side glance. “A more ill-matched couple than you and Benson there never was. The whole plan was impossible from the beginning, especially since Karl had made certain promises to Valima.” He looked at her seriously. “You did know that he is the father of her child?”
She nodded. “Lia finally told me.”
“So,” he went on, “I did some rather quick, opportunistic planning to win you from him.”
“Win me from him!” she scoffed. “Steal me is more like it. You rigged that whole dinner to trap me in your house, at your command, and then you proceeded to try to seduce me.”
“Seduce?” he laughed. “Now who’s reaching for euphemisms? Tame is a better word. I was afraid to make love to you that night. Your claws still needed trimming.”
“And you think they’re trimmed, do you?” She kneaded them experimentally against his cotton-covered chest. “How do you know they aren’t just sheathed, still sharp and ready for action?”
“I don’t, do I?” he drawled, cutting the engine now that they had reached a quiet, lonely stretch of ocean. He turned to her, hands sliding from her shoulders down her sides until they touched the fullness of her breasts. “Maybe we’ll just have to try them out and see.”
He kissed her eyes, her nose, the hollows of her cheeks, and at the same time, his hand was freeing the buttons of her blouse. She stretched back, enjoying his caressing lips, but soon she wanted more than feather kisses and she began to search for his mouth with her own.
“Is this what you want?” he teased, nipping at her lips but not staying to complete the kiss.
“No.” She opened her turquoise eyes wide and reached for him with both hands, fingertips biting into his flesh. “This is what I want,” she growled in a tiger’s purr of command, and she showed him.
She was concentrating on the kiss, melting under the smooth, flowing sweep of his mouth against hers, so she was surprised to find that he’d finished the unbuttoning of her blouse and was pulling it away from her shoulders.
His lips left hers as his fingers came in contact with her lacy bra.
“You wore this just to make life more difficult for me, didn’t you?” he rasped against her ear as he pulled one breast free, then the other. He bent to kiss each in turn and she gasped as the tropic breeze caught at the damp tips.
Her hands were tugging his shirttails free and by the time he had removed her blouse and bra, she’d done the same with his shirt. He pulled her to him, pressing against her breasts, and she moaned as her nipples caught in the rough brush of the hair of his chest.
“Summer,” he breathed, holding her fast against him, “don’t ever run away from me again. I can take anything but that.” He kissed the sun-warmed hair that swirled about her head. “Don’t ever leave me.”
“No,” she agreed, tilting her head back to receive his lips. “But you don’t need to worry. Everyone knows that a shark never lets go of his prey once he has her in his jaws.”
She felt his chuckle through the rumble of his chest. “That’s right,” he grated out. “And the shark always gets his way.”
He stood, pulling her up with him, and led her down into the cabin of the ketch. The spread that covered the bed was as turquoise as her eyes, and when he lay her down upon it, her silver-blonde hair flew out across it like an enchanted wave in a magic sea. Leaning down over her, he took up a handful of her hair, then let it sift through his fingers, falling every which way across her face and across the spread.
“There is so much beauty in the world,” he mused, running his hard hands down her body, across her breasts and down into the parallel valleys of her rib cage. “The shells we collected, the flowers of the lei, the parrot, the waterfall, the fern hide-a-way.” The tip of his tongue flickered over her nipple and it came erect in his mouth. “But nothing is more beautiful than you are, Summer, my love,” he breathed against the warm skin of her breast.
Slowly, he unzipped her slacks and pulled them from her rounded hips while she lay back, her eyes glazed with dreams, her pulse fluttering like a captured butterfly in the pulse point of her throat. “Nothing ...” he groaned, running his fingertips under the band of her lacy nylon briefs before slipping them from her. “Nothing ...”
She arched beneath his hand, sighing her pleasure at his touch. “More,” she whispered when he teased her.
He obliged, touching her with fingers that knew how to evoke the spirit that had slumbered so long within her, knew how to draw from her silky flesh the fire that drove her to need him as she had never needed anyone or anything before.
“You, too,” she murmured when she realized that he still wore his own slacks. She helped him remove them, then explored him with the wonder of love, tracing the lines of his masculine body with her soft fingertips.
“Now!” she cried when the time came that she could bear it no longer, when the compulsion to join him in the union that would seal their bond forever was stronger than the need to breathe.
The cry that escaped her throat at the apex of their wild flight together through the storm split the calm that held their boat in thrall, and suddenly, the waves were lapping again, and the tradewinds were prodding. All the elements converged to remind the two humans that their moment was over, that nature was not to be ignored.
But the humans were not quite ready to heed the warning.
“Say that you love me,” Jack commanded.
“Hmmmm?” Summer didn’t want to open her eyes. She stretched, revelling in the feel of his hard flesh against her tingling skin.
“Say that you love me,” he ordered again, and she finally looked up to see him leaning over her, his black hair falling over his dark eyes in an unruly sweep.
“I love
you,” she mouthed soundlessly, her eyes sparkling with laughter.
“No, witch!” he ordered, shifting his weight over her so that she couldn’t move away. “Say it aloud. I want to know that you’re proud of it. I want it to echo in my head so that I never lose the sound of it.”
“I love you!” she cried aloud. “I love you, I love you. . . .”
His mouth closed over hers, stilling her words but encouraging the emotion. “Never mind saying it,” he growled against her, changing his mind with lightning speed. “Show me again.” He moved sensuously above her and cupped her breast in his hand. “Show me,” he urged huskily. And still laughing, she began to do just that.
#
Epilogue
Jack’s cell phone rang and he looked at it in surprise. Cell coverage was hit or miss around here and yet now and then, calls actually did come in. Miracles still happened. He picked up.
“Danny,” he said, recognizing the voice of his friend. “What’s up?”
“Hey big guy,” Danny Craig said cheerfully. “Olivia asked me to give you a call. She’s been sniffing out rumors about you.”
“No kidding?”
“It’s being bandied about that you’ve gone and taken a wife. Could that be true?”
Jack hesitated. “Yeah, it’s true. But listen, don’t tell Olivia. I don’t want this to be a part of the wedding bet thing. This is purely personal.”
“Don’t tell me you’re actually in love?”
Jack grinned. “The word love doesn’t even begin to describe what I’m feeling these days.”
“Ah hah,” Danny laughed. “Does obsession cover it? Dark magic? Strange compulsion?”
“You’re getting close.”
“So you’re completely under her thumb. Is that it?”
Jack shrugged, still smiling. “Pretty much.”
Danny sighed. “Okay. I’ll figure out something to tell Olivia. But you could just tell her yourself.”
“Tell her what? That I married for love, not in order to win a bet?”
“I take it you don’t want to live in incredible luxury in the Xanadu Castle?”
“Not any time soon.”
Danny laughed. “Well hell, that leaves the way open for me.”
“You got someone in mind?”
“Not yet. But the night is young.”
Jack groaned. “Where are you?” he asked.
“A crazy little place called Lake Havasu in Arizona. I’m here incognito, just cruising around on my catamaran, looking for trouble.”
“Hope you find it.”
“You and me both.” He laughed shortly. “Okay. Good luck Jack.”
“You too, man.”
“See you at the next dinner.”
“No doubt about that.”
He hung up and smiled, thinking about Danny. The guy was always in love, but never for long enough to make it stick. Somehow, happy endings just didn’t work for him. There was no way he was going to win that bet. No way in the world.
Stretching back on his lounge chair, he listened to the musical sound of Summer’s voice as she talked to someone in the kitchen. He was indeed a lucky man—all because of the woman he loved. She’d changed him—saved him, really--and he had the rest of his life to prove it to her.
The End
Brie
FLIRTING WITH THE BILLIONAIRE
Book 2
by
Tracy Court
Brie's guilt has locked her into her commitment to marry Stan and live in a conventional world. She’s tried to follow her own dream and fallen flat on her face. She owes it to her recently widowed mother to fulfill a few of her parents’ hopes and dreams instead. And then Danny sweeps through her life like a summer wind, awakening her body and soul and changing everything. But can she betray her family for a summer flirtation?
About the author
Tracy Court calls California home, though she spent her childhood moving all over the place. After obtaining a degree in English Literature, she looked around and decided writing was the best thing she could do with all that reading experience. It took a few years, but she finally found romances--her niche. Since then she’s published with many houses, selling over ten million romances. Now she’s self-publishing e-books--and that includes rewriting some of those originals. For once she’s got the chance to go back and redo the past!
FLIRTING WITH THE BILLIONAIRE
Books 1, 2 and 4 are full sized novels.
Book 3 is a 60-70 page novella.
~***~
Book 1~ Summer
Book 2~ Brie
Book 3~ Jackie
One Little Wedding, Shotgun Style
(A Flirting with the Billionaire Novella)
Book 4~ Charla (coming soon)
Jackie
~*~ Jackie ~*~
FLIRTING WITH THE BILLIONAIRE
Book 3~A Novella
By
Tracy Court
This book is a novella of 70-80 pages.
Prologue
Michael Black stared into the darkness that was his office and searched for meaning.
“Give me a sign,” he begged the gods of the Wall Street counting houses. “Show me the way. Let me know what I can do to change the world.”
He was on the twentieth floor and the building was in his name. He made more money in a day than most men made in a lifetime. People trembled when he criticized them. Others rushed to make his life as comfortable at possible. Women offered themselves to him daily. Men did so as well, though in a different context. He was the boss, the leader, the Man.
And he was bored out of his skull.
He stared out into the darkness. The sign he searched for didn’t appear. He was alone. No one understood how awful this was, how lonely, how useless. Yeah, he had money. Yeah he had power. Yeah he had everything material you could want. Most people would have done anything to be where he was today.
And he despised it.
His cell phone buzzed and he grimaced. Someone else needed him for something. They always needed him and he was so tired of being the one they all turned to.
Looking down, he saw who it was and his whole demeanor changed in a flash.
“Hey Danny,” he said joyfully. “Please tell me you’re in town. I need a drink and I need someone like you to drink with.”
“Michael my friend, get a dog. Or better yet, get a woman you can fall in love with. That’s what I did and it changed my life.”
“Oh no. Don’t tell me you’re going after Olivia’s wedding bet?”
“Wedding bet?” Danny’s voice changed. “Oh yeah. The wedding bet.” He laughed. “I’d forgotten all about that. I guess, in a way, you could say I’m in the thick of the competition. Though I think Jack Masters is right there with me.”
“So I heard.”
“Anyway, I’m nowhere near New York, if that’s where you are. I just spent most of the summer in Arizona, so my baby and me—we’re heading for open water. Tahiti at least. Maybe Australia. Wherever the wind takes us.”
“You finally finished that boat you were working on.”
“She’s a beaut. You’ll have to come sailing with us one of these days.”
“Sailing.” Michael tilted his head back and narrowed his eyes, seeing himself on the deck of a yacht. “Wow. You know, I’ve never been sailing.”
“You ought to try it.”
They chatted for another few moments, then Danny rang off.
“Just touching base with you,” he told Michael. “Brie has this idea that we ought to inform a few friends of where we’re going before we slip off the grid. You know women. Always planning for disasters to come.”
But his tone was definitely affectionate, making Michael wonder what his new girl looked like. They said their good-byes and Michael clicked off, then stared into the darkness again. Sailing. That was something he had to try. Maybe he ought to look into one of those cruises that let you work so you could learn the ropes. How cool would that
be?
A lot cooler than hanging around here and being miserable. What the hell. He’d just talked to his cousin Jason a few days before. Jason was hinting that he could use some financial help, and that was a drag. But he’d promised to go out to Nevada for a visit soon, just to see what he could do to help him.
Why not? Why not now? Why not both things? He thought quickly. Most of his family was dead now. The ties that kept him here had melted away.
“I’m out of here,” he told himself, and suddenly he knew. He could do it. He could leave. No one could stop him.
HE WAS OUT OF HERE!
“I’m gone.”
He laughed as he pushed buttons in the elevator. “I’m gone. Erased. A non-person. I’m free!”
Excitement sizzled all up and down his spine.
“Jason Black, prepare for a visitor.”
He had a goal. He had a direction and a purpose. He was gone, baby, gone.
“Yahoo!”
By this time tomorrow, he would be half way to Las Vegas. A whole new world. That was what he wanted.
****************
CHAPTER ONE
Michael Black woke up with a start, eyes wide and staring at the ice cold, blue-steel barrel of a gun being held to his head.
At first, it seemed to fit. After all, he was in Las Vegas, and staying in his sleazy cousin Jason’s seedy apartment. Las Vegas was full of gangsters and guns—wasn’t it? For all he knew, this happened a lot here. But then the person holding the gun spoke, and he had to think again.
“Hey,” she told him calmly. “You’re late.”
That pretty much blew away the gangster theory. He closed his eyes. There probably were female gangsters in this town, but he had a feeling it wasn’t likely he would run into one. And since it wasn’t any more likely that he would wake up to find a gun staring him down, he thought that maybe if he just went back to sleep, the gun would be gone when he woke up again.
