It was dangerous—this hope that what she and I had could be real.
As I stirred chocolate, I kept glancing out the window—which meant I saw Luna first, floating through the campus. She stopped at Penelope’s kennel for more than fifteen minutes. I could see her lips moving, watched her stick one finger through the bars and gently stroke Penelope’s nose. Saw the way that beach mutt stared at Luna like she understood she was her rescuer. Luna was dressed in a long skirt with blue flowers and a white tank top. White flowers were braided into her hair. And when she burst into the admin trailer, my team admired her like she was royalty.
“My people,” she exclaimed, throwing her hands into the air. Jem giggled and let Luna pull her in for a hug. She kissed Betty, then Veronica, and then gave Wes a kiss on the cheek that had him blushing.
“Wes, what if I told you I booked us a tour of the Bachelor in Miami house?”
“Shut up,” he said. “You didn’t. Jimmy is gonna flip. Can I bring him?”
“Of course,” she said. “Or anyone else here or at Lucky Dog or in your life that you’d like.” Jem was carefully mixing the final pieces of the peanut butter bars, so she missed Luna nodding her head and winking at my mohawked-staff member.
“Oh,” Wes said. “Um… yeah. Lemme think about who I’d bring and I can let you know?”
“Sure thing,” she exclaimed. “And please tell me these pups are going home today.”
“My buddy Jimmy is coming by in a bit to adopt them.”
“Beautiful,” she said, finally allowing her dark-eyed gaze to slide my way. “Hello, Beck.”
“Hello, Luna,” I said.
She ran a hand through her hair, and the heat in her expression sent blood rushing to my cock. “What are you making, boss?”
“Jem helped me cook this dessert for you,” I said.
She glanced down into the pan. “Beck Mason, did you bake me chocolate peanut butter bars?”
“Yes,” I said simply.
Her arms slid around my waist. It startled me, this public affection. But hadn’t she hugged and kissed everyone else in the room?
I wrapped my arms around her and let my lips fall on top of her head.
I didn’t miss the bug-eyed look that passed between Wes and Jem.
“Thank you,” she said. “They’re my favorite.”
I winked at Jem over Luna’s head. “I might have had an inside source.”
Luna pulled back, but not very far. She leaned against the counter and dipped her finger in the chocolate. “Beck Mason. Vegan chef.”
I lifted a shoulder. “I’m a man of many talents.”
She smirked. “I had an idea this morning that I think Jem can help me with. I’m still totally down to keep using my platform to raise money for Lucky Dog. But I think the right thing to do is help Lucky Dog create its own platform. Just to keep things, you know, on the up and up.”
Luna caught my eye. “Things are changing and I want to ensure Lucky Dog is ready for success, regardless of what people might say. The real benefit of me being here is raising awareness and having a digital footprint that captures that.”
“You’re sure about that?” I asked, one eyebrow raised. One last burst of stubborn privacy appeared. But then I thought about stories like Jimmy’s. True stories, stories I could tell.
“It’s 2019, Mr. Mason,” she said. “Time to toss those rotary phones and enter the twenty-first century.”
“Okay,” I said.
Wes and Jem’s heads whipped my way.
“What? It’s so strange I’m saying okay to this?”
“When will the plague of locusts get here?” Jem asked, tapping her chin.
“And I think Jem should run it,” Luna finished.
“Me?” Jem asked.
“Yeah, you,” Luna said, nudging her hip.
“What if we interviewed Jimmy about why he’s adopting Betty and Veronica?” I suggested.
Luna’s eyes widened. “That’s a great idea.”
“And I’ll be in it,” I said, pausing to spread chocolate across the pan of bars.
“It’s locusts before the four horsemen, right?” Jem said behind me.
“Smart-ass,” I said, chuckling. “Whether we wanted it or not, Luna coming here has both exploded Lucky Dog and brought back all of the shit about my parents and the MC. I don’t have any excuses left, do I? I have to be who I am and fuck anyone else.”
Luna crossed her arms across her chest and gave me a lazy, pleasing perusal. “Funny. I was having this same conversation with my best friends this morning.”
We shared a smile.
“Listen,” I said. “You should know that Jimmy used to be a member of the Devils but not anymore. It’s a strange coincidence. That okay?”
“Absolutely. You feel nervous about being on camera?”
“Absolutely,” I repeated. My gut was already churning. “I want Jem to set all of this up but I want this video to be on your page too. All of those followers should see this, right? If we want to have the best impact?”
Luna’s face looked kind. She touched my arm lightly. “Spoken like a true executive director. And you’re exactly right. It will have the best impact.”
I ducked my head—but not before catching her secret smile at me.
“When will Jimmy be here?” she asked.
“Fifteen minutes. Hey, can I see you in my office for a minute? There’s a financial report I thought you could help me with.”
“Always,” she said. “After you, boss.”
I placed my hand low on Luna’s back and led her from the wandering eyes of my employees, who, I was sure, already knew that we were… dating? Was that what we were now? She waved to Elián, who was working with Beatrix. Blew a kiss at Penelope. Swung her hips as she walked into my office.
I had her up against the door as soon as I’d shut it. A second later I was lifting her up. I pinned her to the wall with my hips as my hands landed on either side of her face. The layers of her skirt fell away. Her bare legs wrapped around my body.
“Beck,” she purred, “did you really bake me dessert?”
“To say thank you,” I said. “For our date.”
“You should kiss me now,” she demanded.
Her full lips opened for me immediately. Our kiss last night had shown me that Luna and I were made for this.
We fit.
There was no hesitation, only a deep connection. This kiss was everything I’d dreamed of since I’d left her last night. Our mouths ravaged each other. My hips rocked, cock grinding against her pussy. Our breathing became ragged. Pants. Moans. Whimpers. It was zero to sixty with this woman and if I wasn’t careful I was going to be fucking her through this door with the eleven minutes we had left before my interview.
“Luna, I can’t stop thinking about you,” I growled, mouth in her hair, her throat, teeth on her ear, hands, fingers, everywhere roaming, stroking. My hips thrust urgently between her legs and she was already trembling. “That’s probably not professional or makes things complicated or fucks up your reputation or—” I was babbling, and I’d never actually done that in my entire forty years on this planet.
Luna gripped my face, lips swollen. “Today at work, I was thinking about you so much that I dropped our industrial-sized blender and it spilled frozen bananas all over the floor. Then I spilled tea down my shirt and sent the same email four times to the same person.”
I let a slow, easy smile slide up my face. “I guess we’re on the same page.”
She returned it. “I guess we are, sir.”
I bit her lip and gave her a particularly vicious roll of my hips. “Luna, what did you mean in there about things changing?”
She threaded her fingers through my beard, tugged it hard. Just like I liked. “I’ve been learning a lot from you. I want to do what you said—doing good things but not for good media, or likes or subtle manipulation that gets fans to buy my products. I can still be… I think…” I kissed her forehead, “I want
to be who I am today without losing the woman I was when I started Wild Heart.”
“Everything you’ve done is the reason Lucky Dog can stay open,” I told her.
“But I’m focused on being authentic,” Luna said. “And if we’re dating, I don’t want all of that tangled up for people online, affecting your nonprofit. Besides, the glory really should go to Lucky Dog. I’m an innocent bystander.”
“I saw your post,” I said, kissing her temple. Her ear. “You stood up for me.”
“Of course, Beck. You would do the same.”
“Are we really dating?”
How many dates was dating? We were entering territory I hadn’t walked through in years.
“Fucking me against the door in your office constitutes a second date,” she whispered.
I slipped my palm beneath her skirt, out of my mind for this woman. What time was it? When did I need to do an interview in front of twelve million people? The only thing I could register was her slick flesh, the hungry cries that fell from her lips as I stroked her gorgeous cunt.
“I can be fast,” Luna was saying, fingers flying to my belt. “Fast and quiet, which would surprise a lot of people—”
“Yo, boss?”
Luna and I went as still as statues, my palm landing over her mouth. Her eyes were laughing as I kept her pinned to the door Wes was banging on.
“Uh, yeah, Wes?”
Luna’s shoulders were shaking. I smirked at her, removed my palm but placed a finger over her lips. She bit it.
“Jimmy is here and everyone wants to know when you’re gonna be famous or whatever?”
“Right this second,” Luna called, giggling. “He’s coming.”
“Cool beans, boss. See you in a sec.”
“Cool beans,” Luna repeated to me. But I silenced her silly expression with a tender kiss, sliding my fingers into her hair to hold her in place. When we parted, she was out of breath.
“Are you around later? I need to fuck you with my mouth.”
“Jesus, Beck,” she said, voice shaking. “Yeah… uh, yes. I’m around.”
“Come here. After everyone leaves, okay?” I set her down gently, kissing her cheek. Arranged the layers of her skirt and straightened the straps of her shirt.
“Do I look suitably ravaged?” she asked.
“Not anymore,” I said. I reached forward, took her hand. “Will you help me? With the video?”
“Of course. Anything you need.”
She brushed lint from my shirt. “Let’s go make it possible for you to rescue even more dogs, boss.”
40
Luna
In twenty minutes, I’d worked my magic in the Lucky Dog administrative offices. I arranged two black chairs in the corner that looked the least drab and dreary. Then I set up Jem as the videographer and Wes as the treats-procurer, for whenever Betty and Veronica got antsy.
Jimmy ambled into the office and I was immediately struck by his size and his all-black outfit, not to mention the tattoos that scrolled across his neck.
“Are you Betty and Veronica’s dog dad?” I asked.
His answering smile told me all I needed to know.
“Luna, your phone keeps ringing,” Jem called to me. Her green mohawk looked practically neon—although maybe that was the light flush to her cheeks. That seemed to happen whenever Wes was around now.
“It’s Jasmine. Ignore it,” I said.
Because I certainly had been. In the past two weeks, I’d lost Wild Heart its most lucrative contract, had a trashy paparazzi picture taken of me that confirmed my burgeoning relationship with a man whose family ran Miami’s most notorious crime family, and then I’d posted an inflammatory picture of myself talking about how I’d almost eaten a cheeseburger.
Jasmine was furious with me.
And I hadn’t missed the many, tiny ways in which she was trying to manipulate my image.
She’d called me seven times in the last hour, even though I’d informed my staff that I would be here all night. I was even contemplating playing hooky tomorrow. Which I’d never done. Ever. Not even from the varied waitressing jobs I’d held throughout high school and college.
Except Beck Mason was standing right next to me, holding a Yorkie so tiny it fit in the palm of his giant hand. Stroking its fur with a gentleness that never ceased to astonish me. And the thought of whisking that man away for a day of unbridled freedom was too tempting to ignore.
“What?” he asked, when he caught me staring.
“Nothing,” I said, smiling. “You look handsome for the camera.”
He looked down at his usual uniform of white undershirt and jeans. “I guess.”
“Go sit over there.” I pointed toward the chairs and Jimmy and Beck deposited themselves into them—even though their combined bulk made the chairs look comically small. “We’ll be filming this live. If you mess up, just go with it. No one will know. We want people to see what an adoption day looks like at Lucky Dog, so be yourselves. Casual.”
They both nodded—stoic.
“The chemistry between you two is electric,” I said with a smile. “What’s that on your lap by the way?”
“My questions,” Beck said. “I don’t want to forget them.”
I gave him the thumbs-up and Jem the go-ahead. “Ready in thirty seconds?”
“Wait.” The edge in Beck’s voice caught my attention. He crooked his finger at me. I walked over, crouched next to him. Jimmy seemed distracted by his two adorable dogs. “You’re not going to be in this with me?” Beck whispered.
I bit my lip. “I want this to be for you, Beck. Not for me. This is bigger than rebuilding my reputation. This is making sure that moments like this”—I looked over at Jimmy—“continue to happen. It has to come from you.”
That blinding vision I’d experienced this morning hadn’t abated. And the first step was making sure I was truly propping up Lucky Dog—and not only my ego or reputation.
Beck looked away, cleared his throat. “Okay.”
I placed a hand on his knee, squeezing until he looked back at me. “I’ll be right here, beaming at you.”
A flicker of a smile. “I’ll need it.”
“You’re a leader, Beck Mason. No one can take that away from you.” I swished back over to Jem and said, “Let’s start.”
For a second, Beck and Jimmy were frozen in place, probably entranced with that red, blinking light I knew could cause a rush of stage fright. I did as promised—giving Beck as much of a brilliant smile as I could, until I felt him exhale in response.
I winked—and he barely concealed a grin.
“Thank you, everyone, for watching,” Beck said. “My name is Beck Mason and I’m the executive director of Lucky Dog.”
Behind me, Elián was standing, leaning against the wall of the trailer. Jem sat next to me, Wes off to the side. We were all staring at Beck.
“For the past three weeks, Luna da Rosa has been working and volunteering here. She has done a lot for us here and we can’t thank her enough.” Beck looked toward me and I could feel a deep flush in my cheeks. I was trying to push the spotlight off myself, but there was no way I could deny what those words meant to me. “We have been struggling to raise money and when Luna met us, we were at risk of closing our doors in thirty days if the funds didn’t come. Luna has made that happen. And that is why we’re here today. To show what donations make happen at Lucky Dog.” Beck looked at Jimmy, who waved into the camera. In his lap, the Yorkies sat patiently, looking like dogs in a dog food commercial.
I caught Jem’s eye. Perfect, I mouthed.
“Jimmy is adopting two dogs today, a bonded pair named Betty and Veronica. We rescued them from a hoarding situation, where they were being kept with forty-seven other dogs on a large property outside of Miami. They were starving when we found them.”
Jimmy’s jaw clenched.
Beck looked at his piece of paper. “What does this mean to you, Jimmy?”
The other man blew out a breath.
“I mean, I’ll be honest, if that’s okay?”
Beck nodded.
Jimmy touched a tattoo on his arm. “Things are changing for me. I need to live a life that’s more…” he thought for a second “… legal.”
“That’s good,” Beck said, with a shadow of a smile. “We’re very supportive of legal.”
“Where I was before, the people I was with before—” Jimmy looked pointedly at Beck. “It wasn’t really a situation where you were accepted for being who you are. The pressure to do things you didn’t want to do was huge and I… well, I hated it. It felt like a vise was around my chest all the time. Like I couldn’t breathe.”
I watched Beck, who seemed to be struggling a little bit to keep a neutral expression. Jimmy was talking about his time with the Miami Devils. I was sure of it.
“When I finally left that situation, I wanted to experience love. Caring for something that wasn’t only me and my needs. Working towards kindness, giving and receiving.” Jimmy peered at the dogs in his lap with pure adoration. I blinked—and tears were already rolling down my cheeks.
Jem’s hand landed between my shoulder blades.
“Dogs will do that,” Beck said simply.
“Fuck yeah, they will,” Jimmy said. Then he looked right at me and said, “Sorry for cursing.”
“Cursing is allowed,” I said in a stage whisper.
Beck looked back at his paper. “Why rescue though? Why Lucky Dog?”
“I don’t know, man,” Jimmy said, smiling. “People make a lot of assumptions about me. Probably do to you, huh?”
“About what?” Beck asked.
“Your value.”
Now it was my turn to look at Jem and Wes. Wes was swallowing hard, over and over. Jem’s eyes were shining. I reached down to take her hand.
“My lack of value, you mean,” Beck said.
Jimmy laughed sardonically. “Exactly. I ain’t rich. I’m not smart. I’ve got nothing to show for my life except a busted-up bike and, uh… well, my dogs.” The reality of that—that he was beholden to these animals—draped over him like a blanket. But it wasn’t negative—it was pride, and not the bad kind.
The beautiful kind.
WILD OPEN HEARTS: A Bluewater Billionaires Romantic Comedy Page 20
