Proposition: A Dark Billionaire Romance

by Angela Blake

  Stunned, Lucas sat there unable to believe that this small man could punch with such vigor. The man was stunned too as he stared at his hand, and the place where it hit as if unable to believe that he was capable of doing that.

  Suddenly the man looked less stunned and more crazy as a look of manic glee crossed his face, and his eyes shone with malice. He made to punch him again, but this time Lucas brought his hand up and intercepted him in one deft stroke. He held the man’s hand in his and gazed at it dispassionately.

  He began to move it backwards, and the man grunted with effort as he tried to release his hand, but he was clearly no match for Lucas’s strength.

  “Walk away,” Lucas said with a deadly calm that sent a shiver running down the man’s spine. The man looked visibly afraid as he swallowed audibly, his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down eagerly.

  Lucas released his arm, and the man began to rub his tender hand before he jumped Lucas from the back. He tried to force his hands around Lucas’s neck in a deadlock, but Lucas although taken by surprise, was quickly able to throw him off.

  The man landed with a thud on the ground, and he groaned as he rolled onto his side. “Bastard,” he muttered as he threw his weight forward. He swayed on his feet and leaned over and spat out blood.

  He gave Lucas a smile that was full of blood, and Lucas felt a momentary sense of guilt for what he had done, but the man had it coming. He kept provoking him, and you can’t poke a bear without expecting to get bit.

  Lucas studied his opponent carefully, wondering what the best course of action was. The man began to charge at him like an angry bull, and Lucas had a split second during which to make a decision. He raised his hand as if to shield himself from the attack, but in reality, he drew his hand back and punched the man squarely in the jaw.

  The man landed with a thud on the floor, as he lay there inert, Lucas rubbed his raw knuckles. He hadn’t hit him hard enough to cause any damage, just enough to knock him out before he hurt anyone or himself.

  The man’s friends stared in awe at their friends’ body, and they stared at Lucas in a mixture of admiration and fear.

  Lucas shrugged. “Just make sure he puts some ice on that. It’s going to turn red in the morning, but the swelling should go down easily.”

  The friends nodded as they moved towards their friend. They carried him to the back of their pickup truck and placed him gently in the back. Lucas watched the men drive off as he tried to ignore the throbbing in his hand.

  He would probably need an ice pack too.

  Chapter 2

  “That was impressive.”

  Lucas wheeled around surprised that he had an audience. He began to study the brunette who was standing in front of him. She was shorter then he was, short enough to fit under his arm with dark brown hair and gray eyes that reminded him of the clouds on a rainy day.

  She looked vaguely familiar, but he couldn’t quite put his finger on it.

  “Enjoy the show, did you?” Lucas gave a flirty smile as he crossed one leg over the other and leaned against the railing.

  The brunette looked at him in mild annoyance. “Not particularly. I just thought it was impressive how you managed to keep your temper in check. That guy was asking for it.”

  “Not every man knows how to hold back,” he shrugged as he gestured towards the door. She swung the door open, and they made their way inside.

  The brunette turned to face him, a quizzical brow raised. “How so?”

  “It’s an art, a science if you will. Knowing when to push and when to hold back.”

  The brunette studied him curiously. “I can’t tell whether that comment is arrogant or insightful.”

  “Definitely the latter.”

  The brunette shot him a look. “Of course you would think so.”

  “I didn’t just develop this observation overnight.”

  The brunette gave him an amused smile as she hopped onto a stool. “Do tell.”

  “Well, I’ve spent years observing people, and how they react when they are given what they want, and how they react when what they want is so close, but they are unable to reach it.”

  She cocked her head at him. “And what, pray tell, did you find?”

  He could tell the brunette was humoring him, that she didn’t really believe a word of the crap he was pedaling, but he had to keep talking, he had to keep her interested, and he couldn’t figure out why.

  “A person always follows their basic instinct, and that instinct is to protect themselves at any cost. Are you familiar with Segmund Frued?”

  “Father of psychology. Of course.”

  Lucas was momentarily surprised. Brains and beauty. He gave her a slow smile. “Freud believed that every action that we carried out had a latent purpose, subconscious if you will, and that in most cases that purpose was to satisfy a basic human instinct. In most cases, it’s sexual.”

  “I know that theory of course, but then if we’re following that line of reasoning, you’d also have to dissect his theory the Oedipus complex.”

  Lucas hopped onto the stool next to her. “Let’s take a closer look at it. In a nutshell, he believed that little girls were secretly attracted to their fathers, and little boys are secretly attracted to their mothers.”

  The brunette nodded. “Yes, and a lot of people believe that this led to our flagrant use of the term ‘Daddy’s girl’, and ‘Momma’s boy’.”

  Lucas reached for a napkin and he began searching his pockets for pen. As if reading his mind, the brunette produced a pen. “I’m a professor. Habit.” She shrugged as he allowed himself to peruse her body for a second.

  She blushed under his intense stare and tried to subtly shift his attention back to the topic at hand. “Right, so -” he turned his attention back to the napkin suddenly forgetting what he was about to say. “Frued,” he trailed off trying to get back on track as he racked his brain trying to remember what he was going to say. He was suddenly distracted by the shape of her legs beneath her skirt.

  “I assume your theory is based on the idea of the ID, the ego, and the superego.”

  “Exactly,” Lucas inwardly sighed in relief, happy to have remembered even if it required a little memory jog from the brunette. “So, because Freud believed that the ID was our unfiltered, unhindered desires, this is what I base my theory on, if you give people just enough, they’ll continue to remain in their safe ego zone, but if you withhold just a little bit, bits of their innermost desires start to seep through to the ego.”

  The brunette studied the diagram he had drawn. She hummed in the back of her throat. “So what you’re trying to say is that you want the ID part that most people keep locked up, to come through.”

  “More or less,” Keith conceded. “Just enough to keep things interesting, but not enough to get one in trouble.”

  The brunette began to thoughtfully chew on her bottom lip. “Curious.”

  “I can show you a demonstration,” Lucas announced, his eyes never leaving her lips.

  The brunette nodded her assent. Lucas leaned forward and smirked as he saw her quick intake of breath. “Your quick intake of breath now is because you expect me to kiss you. Your ego is screaming out that you should take it slow, don’t let me go too far. Your superego is saying that you should push me away instantly, that’s the side that’s hyper aware of societal expectations, and your ID ego is saying what the hell, you deserve it.”

  “Is that so?” the brunette murmured, her tone laced with curiosity and just a hint of desire.

  Lucas nodded as he placed his hand casually on her knee. “Yes, so for example, when I put my hand on your knee, your brain is scrambling to send signals to your brain to react. On the one hand, propriety says slap his hand away. On the other hand, your ID is noting how good it feels, how the warmth of my hand seems to seep through the fabric of your skirt as if I was touching your skin directly.”

  The brunette studied him before she put her hand on his knee. Lucas was surprised to find a
jolt of desire race through his body at the simple touch. “So you feel the same way when I do it.”

  “Pretty much yeah,” Lucas tried to appear nonchalant, but he was already picturing what he could say to get her to go home with him for the night, how she’d look with that skirt pooled around her knees, and how she’d look lying flat on her back as he ploughed into her.

  He felt himself beginning to grow aroused, so he shifted, so she wouldn’t notice. He knew that if he wanted to get her home, his usual moves wouldn’t work. She was a classy one, the type who wanted to be wooed and then bed.

  He wasn’t sure he wanted to go through the effort, but the way her gray eyes darkened when they flickered to his lips had him wondering if maybe he should just try to see what would happen.

  “It’s just a theory anyway.”

  She looked disappointed when he pulled back, and she tried to cover it up by going. “Just a theory? It sounds like it might actually work.”

  “Well, you’d have to have a more thorough demonstration.”

  “Really?” the brunette gave him a slow smile.

  “You’re a professor, right?”

  The brunette looked confused at the question. “Yeah, I am.”

  “What do you teach?”

  The brunette toyed with a loose strand of fabric in her sweater, a sign of nervousness. “I don’t teach one specific thing, mostly literature, but sometimes drama, humanities, and history.”

  “Do you use a lot of visual aids in class?”

  Confusion continued to flick in and out of her features. “As often as I can actually, it really helps get the point across.”

  “So you demonstrate things sometimes.”

  The brunette nodded. “It’s necessary. Sometimes it’s not enough to show them a visual aid, sometimes you have to act it out for them.”

  “It’s the same for my theory. I could tell you all about it, or I could take you back to my place and give you a very detailed first hand demonstration.”

  The brunette opened her mouth to respond, but they were interrupted when Lucas’s teammates interrupted. They were all drunk and loud and crowding him asking why he hadn’t come over to the table to play pool.

  “Hey guys,” he said tightly cursing his luck because they had just interrupted when he made his move.

  “Come on, Spanish. You said you had game. Show us,” they yanked him out of his seat and began to push him towards the table.

  “We’ll bring him back,” Keith called out as he made his way to the other side of the table.

  “You’re Spanish?” she called out, a strange look in her eye.

  He nodded sheepishly as he pointed towards the tattoo she hadn’t noticed earlier. She frowned as she watched him intently as if she was looking for something.

  He shook his head and grabbed one of the beers the guys offered and took a swing.

  “Venga,” he said in Spanish. He gestured that they should come forward. For the first time instead of mocking him, the guys hooted and hollered as they slapped him on the back.

  He leaned down and aimed his stick. He managed to sink quite a few balls on his first try, and he felt a flush go through him at the look of awe in Keith’s eyes.

  He looked up to see if he could show off to the brunette, but she was gone. His eyes quickly scanned the place, but she was nowhere in sight. He stood on the tips of his toes to see if maybe she had moved, but he couldn’t find her face anywhere.

  A flash of disappointment flooded through him as he dragged his attention back to the game.

  ***

  Lucas squinted as he tried to focus on the table in front of him. All those beers he had were making it extremely difficult to concentrate, but he was determined not to quit.

  He was, against all odds, beating Keith.

  He had no idea what stroke of good luck had befallen him, but he wasn’t able to throw it away just because he felt like stopping.

  No, first he would win this round then he would find a woman and take her home for the night.

  He began to chew on his lip as he debated which side of the table to approach from, and which balls he should try to knock into the hole. He moved back and forth before he finally settled and stuck his tongue out of his mouth.

  He bit his bottom lip in concentration and got his pool stick ready. He leaned over the table, tried his best to make out the balls through his blurry vision then he shrugged and figured he’d give it his best shot.

  He was able to knock down most of the balls on the table, and he grinned as he tried to pretend that he did it on purpose.

  Luckily for him, Keith was even more drunk then he was.

  He stumbled to the table. “Wait till you get a load of me,” he squinted as he tried not to slur and he jutted his stick out nearly hitting one of the guys on the head.

  “Watch it, or you’ll gut someone with that,” one of their teammates yelled out crossly.

  Keith chuckled. “You worry too much, you pansies. Let the master show you how it’s done.”

  Keith puffed up his chest and tried to swagger over the table. He leaned over, took a deep breath and ended up overshooting, so his pool stick went up in the air instead of hitting the ball.

  Everyone snickered as Keith’s ears reddened in anger. “Bloody ball keeps moving.”

  “Oh, look when he’s drunk and angry, he turns bloody English,” one of the guys mocked as the rest of the team roared in laughter.

  Lucas shook his head in amusement as he sighed in exasperation. “Right, are you pansies ready to see a real man play?”

  “Ooooooh!” they all went.

  Keith stiffened as he stared at Lucas with an unreadable expression. Lucas wondered if maybe he had taken the joke too far and was prepared to apologize because he didn’t want to jeopardize this newly found truce when Keith’s mouth erupted into a grin.

  “Think you got game, eh, Spanish?” Keith gestured to the pool table and held out his hand in a sweeping gesture. “If Barcelona here would do us all the honor.”

  “I’d be bloody glad to governor,” he pretended to tip his hat at Keith who began to shake, Next thing he knew, Keith was roaring with laughter, the tears streaming down his face.

  He wiped away the tears. “I like you, Ramirez.”

  He held out his hand, so that Lucas could shake it. He placed his hand in his, and the two men held on firmly for a few minutes before letting go.

  “Doesn’t mean I won’t kick your ass though.”

  “It’s on, English,” Lucas went up to the table and sighed in concentration.

  He managed to get all of the balls into holes, and he pumped his fist in the air as the whole team started to hoot and holler.

  Suddenly, out of the corner of his eye, he spotted a bottle head blonde leaning over the counter watching him. Her skirt was so short it could practically be considered panties, and her breasts were barely held in place by her tight see through shirt.

  She gave him a slow seductive smile as she noticed him observing her body. She had long smooth legs, and she turned to the side and slowly shook her ass to give him a full view.

  Lucas licked his lips as he began to imagine what she would look like without clothes.

  He muttered distractedly to his teammates as he made a beeline for the blonde. He finally reached her, and he stopped just a few feet away. She gazed at him in confusion wondering why he hadn’t covered the space between them in two strides.

  He raised an eyebrow at her and lifted one finger and beckoned her closer. One corner of her mouth upturned into a smile as she sashayed towards him.

  “Like what you see?” he asked casually as he leaned against the wall and crossed one leg over the other.

  “That depends,” she tossed her hair behind her shoulders and batted her lips in what was supposed to be a flirty gesture. Lucas inwardly grimaced at her attempt before he smiled again. “Depends on what?”

  “Do you like what you see?” she inquired as she traced one finger over his che
st.

  “I could like it better,” Lucas shrugged as if it was no big deal.

  The woman pouted as she pressed herself against him so there was practically no space between them. He could practically smell her arousal, and it made him horny just to think about it.

  The growing bulge in his pants became more noticeable until the blonde finally gazed down at it and smirked. She rocked her hips once causing Lucas to grunt as he tried to maintain control.

  He leaned forward and pretended to nuzzle her neck as he whispered into her ear. “I’d like it better if you were lying on your back naked and ready for me as I thrust into you.”

  He smiled against her neck as he saw her Adam’s apple bop up then down, no doubt affected by his words.

  She took a deep steadying breath trying not to let his words affect her. “I’d like that too,” she said breezily, and if it wasn’t for her pulse hammering in her neck, he’d have thought she wasn’t affected by him at all.

  He pressed his lips on top of her pressure point and kissed softly causing the woman’s hands to grip his shoulders tightly before grabbing a fistful of his shirt.

  “I’m Jasmine,” she said as she hooked one leg around his.

  Lucas pulled back as he smiled at her. “Well, then consider me your Aladdin for tonight.”

  He inwardly cringed at the pickup line he used, and he cursed himself for being drunk enough that he couldn’t come up with something less tacky.

  Jasmine didn’t seem to mind though, and said as she humped his leg. “Does this mean I get to see your magic lamp?”

  Lucas raised an eyebrow. “I’ll even let you have more than three wishes.”

  She giggled, a fake high pitched sound that Lucas tried to ignore as he untangled her leg from around his. They made their way out into the cold night air, and Lucas wasted no time in kissing every inch of skin available on the taxi ride to his place.

  Chapter 3