I Choose You (The Billionaire Brothers Series)

by Cole, S. Ann

  He wanted to give her an equal greeting and even inquire about the status of his baking niece, but he had more important, urgent, somewhat scary and insane matters on hand.

  “Remember what I told you in your poolroom during your short break-up with Love?”

  Axia laughed. “The ‘confession’ of which you threatened to burn my gym down if I dare told anyone?”

  “Yeah. Well, I think I found the person … ” He hesitated. “The one I want to experience it with.”

  “Does she know?”

  “Not yet.”

  On a sigh, Axia offered, “Trev, you can’t just ‘choose’ someone. It doesn’t work that way. It just has to happen, take you by surprise. In such a way you won’t even know it until you’re balls-deep in.”

  Trevillo scoffed. “That’s what the universe says. But I’m me, remember? I spin in the opposite direction of the world, while everyone else spins with it.” He ran a hand through his hair. “Axia, I have been ‘taken by surprise’. And I’m telling you, even if she doesn’t choose me, I’m choosing her.”

  Chapter 5

  K. Kingston

  Nothing Complicated

  At an open corner in one of the penthouse shells at Skylark, I sat cross-legged on some old newspapers laid out over the coarse floor, sifting through boxes of fabric and rug samples as I tried to find the perfect match to my design drawings.

  Being a half-finished building, the atmosphere at Skylark was noisy and dusty, with the ever-present smell of dry cement, dust particles perpetually floating on the air, the headache-inducing sounds of drills and pounding hammers, and rowdy workers jeering and joking around. The typical.

  Seeing that none of the samples in the boxes suited my needs, I sighed and began tossing them back inside, deciding I’d just have to make a stop by Leenie’s Fabric World. I closed the boxes, stacked them atop each other, and snatched up my handbag. Standing up, I turned and collided straight into a impenetrable wall of male.

  I should’ve looked up, or muttered an ‘excuse me’ and carried on about my business, but I did neither of those things, because without looking up or second-guessing, I could tell whose body it was.

  How? Well, the scent this body exuded was trapped in my nostrils, in my senses, for the past three weeks. An unforgettable scent of raw masculinity, new leather, masculinity, an undertone of olive-scented bar soap, and more masculinity. Ever since I’d sucked it all in with one sharp breath the last time this body was mere inches away from mine, the scent has never left my mind.

  So, I just stood there, frozen, inhaling a replenishment of the scent that’d haunted me for weeks, enough to last me for the next couple of weeks, maybe even months — it was that overpowering, that strong, that unforgettable.

  The hard chest that my nose was pressed up against reverberated as the owner asked, “You okay, Miss Kingston?”

  Was he serious? Did I look like someone who was okay? Of course, I wasn’t! I’d never be ‘okay’ whenever he was in close proximity. Around him, I tended to get inexplicably aroused to the nth degree, speechless, paralyzed. He had this strange and novel effect on me. He was big and imposing, with eyes that seared, and he smelled too damn good. He was a lot to take in. A lot. So much so that he made me feel as if I’d never before realized what a man was.

  “Uh, yeah. Just heading down to Leenie’s Fabric World to view a few fabric samples,” I told his chest. “I’ve been having a hard time finding what I want.”

  He stepped back two feet, giving me sufficient space to breathe. “What do you want, Miss Kingston?”

  Given enough breathing space to get my blood oxygenated and my brain functioning, I tilted my head back and met his ever-heated blues. His face was eerily serious, and I couldn’t tell if this was one of those times where he hated me or was lusting after me. I never could tell, because he would flip from lust to abrasiveness in a nanosecond. “Nothing complicated. Just a sample … .er, simple piece … .” As his brow started to arch, I swiftly added, “Of fabric, that is.”

  His eyes smiled. “Nothing complicated. I like that.”

  What the hell were we talking about? And what was he doing here, anyway? There was no need for him to be on site unless there was a major problem, and so far, there weren’t any. As per usual, I had everything under control.

  But I wasn’t about to question his purpose for being here. It was his work site. He could pop up whenever he felt like it to see who was slacking off and who wasn’t. Even though I was pretty sure he had bigger steaks to flip on the grill. Like the current construction of his hotel downtown, for instance.

  “Gotta run,” I muttered, stepping around him.

  “I’d love to take you,” he offered.

  “I have a car.”

  “I know that.” He sounded irritated.

  “It’s just fabric sampling,” I shrugged, aiming for nonchalance. “I’m sure you have more important things to do.”

  Eyebrow raised, he shot back, “And helping you choose fabric that will be going into my building isn’t important?”

  “Yes, Mr. Nelson, but — ”

  A big, warm hand wrapped around my wrist and propelled me forward, cutting me off, and I struggled to keep up with his long strides as he started towards the elevator. “Miss Kingston, never in the history of my work life have I offered an employee my assistance with a job I’m paying them to do. You’re insulting my benevolence by rejecting my offer.”

  Well, that’s for rejecting me the other day in your office. “Mr. Nelson, I — ”

  “Please,” he cut in smoothly, as he ushered me into the elevator, “Call me Trev.”

  At that, my eyebrows reached my hairline, and I stared incredulously at him as he punched the floor button. Being so familiar as to call my boss’s boss’s boss ‘Trev’ wasn’t something I’d be comfortable with. It would be out of place. I barely knew the man.

  “I don’t think so,” I definitively told him. “I won’t feel comfortable doing that.”

  He turned to face me, and I almost stopped breathing. In the confinements of the elevator, his imposingness seemed magnified. And I wanted to be swept up in those arms and crushed against that firm body of his.

  Today he wore a navy-blue suit, sans necktie as usual. His raven-dark hair still hadn’t made up its mind which direction it wanted to go.

  “Try it on. See how it fits,” he encouraged in a low voice.

  “Huh?”

  “My name. Try it on. I’m hoping it’ll fit you comfortably, because I’d like to try on Krissy.”

  “Well, you can call me Krissy. But I — ”

  “Try it on,” he urged.

  This was so not going to fit. “Trevillo,” I said, and yes, it felt freakin’ awkward.

  His lips tipped up in a half-smile and, slowly, he shook his head from side to side and dragged out a “No.”

  Wanting to grin at how sexy he looked when he smiled and acted so … normal, I bit down on my lip.

  He reached out a hand toward my face as if to touch me, but then he pulled back. “Stop holding back and try on my name, Krissy.”

  Freeing my lower lip from the clamp of my teeth, I breathed, “Trev.” And by gad, did it fit! So goddamn perfectly, I had to say it again. “Trev … ”

  This time I got a full-fledged, Colgate-advertisement, I’m-a-big-kid-now smile. Jesus, why did he have to look so damn good?

  Whereas, he made me speechless and paralyzed with his serious, intimidating side, when he smiled like this, I had an entirely different feeling: a heart-racing, veins-pulsing rush that made me want to climb up his body and suck his tongue from his mouth.

  “How does it feel?”

  Batting down the urge to roll my eyes, I replied, “I’m sure you can already tell. You’re not a novice, and I’m not that hard to read.”

  The elevator doors slid open and, still smiling, he wrapped his hand around my wrist once more and pulled me out of the building.

  Hiding a smile of my own, I wondered i
f I just made it to being ‘eligible’. If so, I hoped he knew I meant it when I said, nothing complicated. A sample was all I needed.

  “What about this one?” I asked, holding up a piece of dark-gray fabric with red accents to a distracted Trevillo.

  For just a brief second, his eyes left his phone screen to give the material a quick once over, then he shrugged and went back to whatever was occupying him on his iPhone.

  Back at Skylark, he’d offered to help me choose the perfect fabric, but since we got to the store, he’d shown no interest as he worked on his phone instead, while constantly asking if I hadn’t made up my mind yet.

  “Not sure what’s the point of you coming here with me,” I grumbled, as I tugged on another roll of fabric, feeling its texture. “You’re of absolutely no help. You can go if you want.”

  From the periphery of my vision, I saw him put his cellphone in his pocket. “You’re a smart girl, Krissy, so I’m pretty sure you know I don’t give a shit about helping you choose fabric. I’d really like for you to hurry up with this part so we can move on to my ulterior motive.”

  A laugh climbed up my throat, and I turned to look up at him. “And what’s your ulterior motive?”

  Stuffing his hands in his pockets, he lifted a brow and stared me, knowing I knew what his ulterior motive was and was just playing dense. “To take you out for lunch.”

  “That’s all?” I asked, grinning up at him.

  He gave me a have-it-your-way shrug. “Sure.”

  Unable to contain my excitement, I bit my lip, turned around, and made a choice for the fabrics in about half-a-minute, then placed the orders and gave the address for delivery. The anticipation, you see, had jolted my brain into hyper-drive, so in less than five minutes, I was out of that store. Ready to experience more of the man who resembled danger.

  “Can we just grab burgers and go back to the work site?” I asked as Trevillo opened the car door for me.

  Whenever I was working on a project, I was a bit of a control freak. I wanted to be in the midst of everything, making sure all was going as planned. And unless it was absolutely necessary, I never left the work-zone until it was quitting hours. As much as Trevillo excited me, my mind was still focused on the work at hand. At the end of the day, I was working for him.

  Trevillo nodded knowingly. “Ah, you’re one of those people, aren’t you? Brain never rests until the conundrum is solved.”

  “Guilty.”

  We stopped by a fast-food restaurant, ordered two burger combos, and headed back to Skylark.

  Trevillo led us over to a sitting area with grass-green, wrought-iron outdoor table sets near the unfilled pool on the complex. We sat down and began eating. Quietly.

  The sun was high in the sky, but was warm enough so one could bask in it without ending up sunburned.

  As I bit into my burger, I thought about the odds of having this lunch here and now. Even though Trevillo’s name fitted my lips well, it still felt a tad weird eating lunch with the man. This was a powerful, über-wealthy, intimidating man who, incidentally, didn’t dig younger women. How the hell did this happen?

  “What’re you thinking?”

  At his voice, I glanced up and found him staring straight at me. The gleam in his eyes told me he was on a mission. And I had every reason to believe I was that mission.

  I still wasn’t sure what was going on here. He wasn’t the easiest person to read. He wasn’t one to say much, and when he did speak, he usually got straight to the point. So at the moment, he had no idea how much I wanted to shoot that question back at him.

  “How weird this is,” I answered in truth.

  “What’s weird?”

  Setting down my half-eaten burger, I sat back in the chair and glared at him. “Trev, I’m sitting here with you eating a Double Whopper and calling you Trev. It’s just … weird. You’re you. Trevillo Nelson. My boss’s boss’s boss.”

  He shrugged at this, and I felt the urge to scream.

  “So what? Who am I? Just a normal human being like everyone else. Wealth doesn’t make me different or better than anyone.” He wiped the corners of his mouth with a napkin and continued, “I’m having lunch with you, and I’m enjoying the shit out of it, out of watching you. Albeit, I wish you would do more talking and less thinking, so I can get to know you. You’re you. Krissan Kingston. An angel’s feather.”

  To hide my smile, I lowered my head. That was the second time he referred to me as an angel’s feather. I had absolutely no idea what the hell it even meant, but for some dumb-ass reason, it made me blush.

  “Talk to me, Krissy,” I heard him say. “Tell me about you.”

  Finding his gaze, I folded my arms. “Why? The last time I checked, I was still twenty-five.”

  “Fair enough,” he said with a nod. “However, I’ve never once desired to know more about any of my previous … pursuits.” Placing his elbows on the table, he leaned forward and held my gaze captive. “But you, something about you makes me want to know more than just your name. I want to know you in so many ways. I want to get lost in those exotic blue eyes of yours. I want to taste those fascinatingly crimson lips. Fuck. There’s a certain enigma to you. And, like you, I’m one of those people: ‘Brain never rests until the conundrum is solved’.”

  The word ‘enigma’ had no business being aligned with my name. I was as readable as they came. The saying ‘never judge a book by its cover’ didn’t apply to me. Because I could be judged by my outer appearance. What you saw was what you got. I held nothing back, stored nothing in my mind. So, if he was searching for something, he was wasting his goddamn time.

  All I wanted was to screw him then get him and his scent out of my system. Never to think of him in a sexual way again. Only this would be a bit more complicated than the rest. For one, I worked for him, so I couldn’t escape him like the others. Two, he knew my real name and held important information about me. The others were given fake names, and that was it. No phone number, address, nothing. Just a night of steamy sex with a short, blond girl who stole out in the morning.

  “You’re knocking on hollow walls,” I informed him. “There’s nothing inside but thin air.”

  He made a slight shake of his head. “Your eyes tell a different story.”

  “I don’t think you understand how straight of a person I am. I hold no secrets, no mystery.”

  On a resigned sigh, he sat back in his seat and just stared at me for what felt like years. “I will get inside you, Krissy.”

  “The ulterior motive.”

  He chuckled aloud. “I wasn’t — God, you have a dirty mind. I mean, get inside your head. To know what goes on in there.”

  “There, you’re not invited. Elsewhere … .” I trailed off suggestively.

  “I like that you’re straight about what you want,” he commented.

  I shrugged. “Would’ve let you take me on your office desk the other day if you’d been up to it. We could’ve gotten this over with already.”

  “This what?” he asked, curiosity marring his features.

  “This usual everyday lust.”

  Tilting his head to the side, he watched me with intrigue. “Usual everyday lust?”

  Shifting in my seat, I watched him dead on. “Okay, this is me in short: If I see a guy who turns me on and I want to fuck him, I fuck him. I don’t want anything beyond that. I don’t have anything to offer beyond that. I don’t have the energy or the time to invest in anything beyond that. That’s what I meant earlier when I said nothing complicated.”

  His face clouded thoughtfully as he noted, “So you just wanna fuck me.”

  “On point,” I nodded, glad he finally got it.

  For a long while, he said nothing. Then, “You’re like an angel holding the devil’s pitch fork.” His eyes roamed over my face. “You say that with you, what I see is what I get, but that’s far from the truth.”

  Leaning in closer, he locked his gaze to mine. “When I look at you, I see purity, etherealness, b
eauty unseen and unheard of. Nevertheless, when you open your mouth, what comes out is raw, unquenched, unadulterated fire. Blazing … ”

  As if he were trying to reach deep into my soul, his eyes bored into mine. This man wanted something more than sex from me. And I had a feeling he wasn’t going to stop until he got it.

  Brain never rests until the conundrum is solved.

  At a muffled vibrating sound, he dipped his hand inside his jacket pocket and withdrew his cellphone, never taking his eyes off me. “Milo,” he answered. “Now? … Okay, let them know I’ll be there in a few.”

  After hanging up, he stared at me a beat longer, then stood to his feet and slipped his cellphone back in his pocket. “I have to go.”

  My eyes rose to his height and met his shrewd blue ones. “So … ?”

  “So, what?”

  Why was he so damn confusing? Couldn’t he just put a girl out of her lust-filled misery? Already, I was directing more of my thoughts on what it would feel like to have him inside me and less on the work I had at hand. That wasn’t me; when it came on to my work, I was consumed, focused. Therefore, I needed to get this man out of my system. “So are we gonna … ?”

  Shoving his hands in his pockets, he took a step forward and studied me closely, hovering over me. Then after a lifetime, he responded, “Three weeks ago in my office, my reservations for not taking you right there and then weren’t solely because you’re younger than I prefer. But was mostly because I deemed you delicate, virginal, too dainty for my destructible hands. I thought to myself if I touched you, I’d ruin you … ” He took a long pause, then a breath. “But now I’m thinking … if you touch me, I’ll be ruined.”

  The hell’s that supposed to mean? “So does that mean you’re not going to sleep with me?”

  He withdrew a hand from his pocket and reached out to touch my face and, as expected, he pulled back. “Goodbye, Miss Kingston.”

  Then he was gone. Leaving me to wonder if there was more to myself than I knew. He made it seem as if I were some weird experiment he was trying to figure out, and if he touched me, the whole thing would go to ruination.