Proposition: A Dark Billionaire Romance

by Angela Blake

  When they reached the turtle nest, there were no turtles hatching. The same ranger was sitting in a chair next to the hole, and he greeted them. They stayed maybe half an hour before deciding to walk back. As they reached the house where Ashlyn was staying, Ashlyn asked Brandon if he wanted to walk to the turtle nest with her the next night.

  “I want to see those turtles hatch,” Brandon replied. “I’m going to walk out to every night to see if there is any action. And I think you would be a good companion.” Ashlyn glowed at Brandon’s words, and they shared a kiss before she went inside. This kiss was not any shorter than the last one, but when they pulled away, Brandon felt no need to apologize.

  Chapter Seven

  Ashlyn went out with Brandon three nights in a row, looking for turtles each day. They never saw the turtles, but Ashlyn enjoyed getting to know Brandon more and more. The beach was surprisingly quiet during the night, only a couple here or there, and Ashlyn loved her private time with Brayden.

  When it came to Ashlyn’s off day, she had hoped to spend the whole day with Brandon, but he didn’t show up until his regular after-dinner time. He only had one more day as an extra, and Ashlyn would miss seeing him on the set.

  “The moon is already starting to wane,” Brandon commented as they took yet another hand-in-hand walk down the beach. “If the turtles don’t come out in the next few days, then I wonder if they are going to come out at all.”

  “Do you mean that the turtles can just die in their little eggs?”

  Brandon nodded. “Any number of things could happen. Maybe the mom buried them too deep, and the little turtles can’t quite dig out. Maybe they simply weren’t fertilized.” Ashlyn nodded, trying to understand the process. But the truth was that she couldn’t think about anything else except Brandon. She had been excited to see the turtles the first night that they had gone out, but then night after night of disappointment caused her to feel like she might never see them. What she did look forward to was the kiss that Brandon always gave her before he left her at the foot of the stairs. Ashlyn’s stomach fluttered. She wanted more than a kiss. She wanted to know Brandon completely.

  “Wouldn’t it be terrible if we spent so much time coming down here every night and we never even saw the turtles?” Ashlyn asked.

  Brandon didn’t answer for a minute. “Not really. I mean, you always have to work for good things. Rarely do they fall right into your lap.” Brandon smiled at Ashlyn. “I guess it’s not true 100% of the time, though, because you came swimming out to me, and I didn’t have to do anything.”

  Ashlyn smiled. She was surprised when Brandon stopped. He pulled her closer to him. “You make me go crazy,” Brandon whispered softly. A shiver that had nothing to do with the weather ran down Ashlyn’s back. She didn’t wait for him to say anything else. She pressed her lips onto his, an urgency pushing her forward. She felt something for him. She didn’t know exactly what, but she knew it was strong.

  Ashlyn felt his tongue reach through and dab the tip of hers, stirring a fire in Ashlyn’s stomach. She felt the space between her legs growing warm, and she didn’t want that feeling to go away. She liked that Brandon could turn her on so easily. They kissed and kissed as Ashlyn kept waiting for Brandon’s hands to begin roving her body. Her nerves were standing on edge, sensitive to the slightest touch. Ashlyn pressed her shorts up against the front of Brandon’s, and she felt that she was hard.

  She briefly broke off the kiss so that she could breath, and a small space opened between them. Brandon took both of her hands in his and squeezed them. He was breathing hard, and his eyes just searched Ashlyn’s. Ashlyn wanted him, and she tried to tell him that with her eyes. Brandon seemed hesitant as Ashlyn waited for him to initiate the next move. Ashlyn slowly guided his hand up under the edge of her shirt onto her stomach. As soon as his somewhat chilled hand touched her warm stomach, Ashlyn shivered.

  “Ashlyn,” Brandon said softly. His hand seemed frozen in place. He looked at the ground. “What- what do you want?”

  “I don’t know how to be any more clear,” Ashlyn replied somewhat coyly. “I want you to touch me.” Brandon bit his lower lip and groaned.

  “Here?” he asked.

  Ashlyn suddenly remembered they were on a public beach and the romantic bubble that she had formed around them melted into reality as she looked around. It was low tide; the beach stretched wide. A lone jogger was jogging along at the water’s edge. They were alone. Ashlyn didn’t want common sense to take over her brain. She wanted to have Brandon right then. But she knew it wouldn’t be wise. This wasn’t the place.

  Her breath was coming quickly, and she couldn’t think clearly. “Just touch me,” Ashlyn said. “It doesn’t have to be anything more.”

  Brandon slowly moved his hand upward, his eyes focused on Ashlyn’s lips. “I don’t know if I can stop at just touching you,” Brandon said. He gently unhooked Ashlyn’s bra, and she felt it come loose. It felt strange to watch Brandon’s face instead of kissing him as he gently explored her breasts, but it turned her on.

  His hand cupped her breast, gently taking it with his fingers. His mouth opened, and he breathed loudly. As his thumb began to circle Ashlyn’s nipple, they let out twin groans. Ashlyn pushed her body up against his, not able to support the desire he was giving her without taking something for herself. She gently reached down and touched the front of Brandon’s pants with her hand.

  Brandon groaned, and Ashlyn caught his eyes as he looked up at her. Ashlyn moved forward, and they began to kiss again. This time, it was not a slow, gentle kiss. Their kiss was frenzied and passionate. Ashlyn continued moving her hand up and down his erection, then she slowly bit his lower lip. Brandon groaned and pushed himself into Ashlyn’s hand even harder.

  He pulled back and let the cool summer night air push its way in between them. “I think we should wait,” Brandon said.

  Ashlyn couldn’t hear him very well. She stepped forward. He had said something about waiting. Could he be serious? “What do you mean?” she asked.

  “I want you,” Brandon said, gritting his teeth. Ashlyn could see he was struggling. Why was he struggling? Why couldn’t he just let go and give her the satisfaction that she wanted?

  “You can have me,” Ashlyn said. She stepped closer and pressed herself into Brandon. He groaned again, and Ashlyn felt a fear fluttering on the edge of her mind as she feared being rejected. She couldn’t do this. She couldn’t be rejected. Not by Brandon. Brandon had begun to embody everything she wanted in a man. If he turned her down, then Ashlyn feared she might not ever find another man like him who was interested in her.

  Brandon was shaking his head. “I don’t know. Maybe. . .” Ashlyn hated the tears that built up and slid down her cheeks at the same time.

  “Fine!” she shouted, louder than necessary. “I see it means nothing to you that I want to. . .” Ashlyn shook her head. It felt dirty saying it out loud, now that Brandon clearly didn’t care what she felt for him.

  “Ashlyn,” Brandon said. He reached for her, but Ashlyn took a step back, wiping her own tears. “It is important to me. It means everything to me. That’s why I don’t know if I can just take you, even though everything inside me is telling me to do it. There’s still something inside me that says I shouldn’t.”

  “Just do it!” Ashlyn said, trying to be defiant, even though she felt rejected.

  Brandon tried to reach for her again, but Ashlyn crossed her arms and refused to melt into him. She stood like a statue as Brandon wrapped his arms around her. Ashlyn didn’t feel turned on anymore. She just wanted to go home and sleep. She wanted to go home to her mom, not her temporary home with these temporary crew mates.

  Brandon kissed the side of Ashlyn’s head. He kissed it again, her hair pressing up against his lips. Ashlyn started crying. All of the rejection from previous men assaulted her. She remembered Javon’s interest, purely physical. Now here was Brandon, interested in her for some other reason, and she wasn’t allowing him to treat
her like a lady. Ashlyn was broken.

  Brandon gently stroked Ashlyn’s hair. Her tears eventually stopped, and she stopped shuddering. Brandon still held her. Then Ashlyn realized. Maybe Brandon didn’t really want her. Maybe he just saw her as a friend. But now, that couldn’t be. He had kissed her. He had held her hand. He was interested in her, even after most of his time working as an extra had ended.

  “I don’t know what’s wrong with me,” Ashlyn murmured, still buried in Brandon’s shoulder. By this time, her arms were wrapped around him, and her eyes were closed. She felt at peace.

  “Don’t apologize for being you,” Brandon gently reprimanded. “Remember, that’s one of the things I like about you. You are always so honest.”

  “I don’t think you would like it about me if you were with me for a long time,” Ashlyn replied. “My mother always said that I was too emotional.”

  Brandon laughed. He gave a real, from the belly laugh. “Yeah, people have said that about me too.”

  Ashlyn pulled back and had to look Brandon full in the face. “What? No way.”

  “Yes way! People say that I’m a guy. I’m not supposed to feel anything, but I do.” Brandon shrugged. “You just haven’t seen me get to that point yet.”

  Ashlyn sighed. She no longer felt overwhelmed by the need to be needed. She felt overwhelmed with gratitude that some guys didn’t just jump at the chance to have her body. Some guys wanted to know her for who she was first.

  Ashlyn looked at the ground as she reached around and re-fastened her bra. Maybe she wouldn’t do it tonight, but someday, if Brandon kept showing her this side of him, Ashlyn felt determined that she wouldn’t have sex with him, a simply physical thing. She would make love to him, something that involved the heart too.

  The moment suddenly seemed too tender to do something so bonding. Ashlyn realized that she shouldn’t be so eager to give herself away. “I guess we should go back to the house now,” Ashlyn said as she took his hand. Brandon started pulling her in the other direction.

  “Why? We’re already halfway there. We might as well take another trip to look at the hole in the sand.”

  Ashlyn smiled. “Okay, I like the sound of that.” She wasn’t quite ready to leave Brandon yet anyway. She wanted to hold on to a little of the magic of the night. Ashlyn held Brandon’s hand tightly, and as they came up to the turtle nest, they saw that the crowd of people was more than double.

  Brandon broke into a jog. “Come on! They’ve got to be hatching!”

  Ashlyn and Brandon found their way along the edge of the passage so that they could see the little creatures moving.

  “I’ve never seen turtles move so fast,” Ashlyn commented, in wonder of the baby turtles that were no bigger than the palm of her hand. There were hundreds of baby sea turtles, all following the passage down to the edge of the ocean. The turtles didn’t take notice of the large humans watching them. They had one goal only.

  “How do they know to go toward the water?”

  “The moon reflects off the water. They actually want to reach the moon, but the reflection throws them off.” Ashlyn smiled, not taking her eyes off the baby sea turtles. She couldn’t believe that she had finally gotten to see the turtles. The ranger was advising people not to take photos, so Ashlyn just watched. When the last baby turtle had found its way into the ocean, Ashlyn turned and smiled at Brandon.

  “I guess we finally found what we are looking for,” Ashlyn replied. “We saw the turtles at last.”

  “I wasn’t looking for the turtles,” Brandon said. “I was just looking for a way to spend more time with you.”

  Ashlyn giggled, and the two kissed, once again igniting the fire in Ashlyn’s stomach. She knew that she felt something strong for Brandon that wasn’t just based on physical features. She had a friendship with him, just like the friendship she had had with Mark, before he had broken her trust.

  The feelings of fear and distrust tumbled back into her thoughts. Could Brandon have a hidden side? How would she know if she knew him completely? Ashlyn sighed. She knew that she would just have to give him more time, more time before she would be able to completely get rid of the distrust she had for men.

  THE END

  A Secret Baby Sports Romance

  Chapter 1

  Lucas Ramirez groaned as he realized that the coach was going to make them run another mile, probably just for kicks. At twenty-three, Lucas knew that the odds were stacked against him as the youngest player on the team. Most people don’t get picked up fresh out of college, but he lucked out. But that wasn’t the only reason the odds were stacked against him. Lucas was also half Spanish, and he knew that it set him at a bit of a disadvantage because although most people would be horrified if you mentioned race within the NBA, he knew it was very much a thing. It wasn’t obvious, but he noticed the way some of his teammates snickered at the way he pronounced certain letters, and how they elbowed each other when they caught a glimpse of his Spanish flag tattoo. Maybe it was a bit cheesy, but he liked that tattoo. He hadn’t been to his country in five years, and he missed it terribly, but he knew that he was where he needed to be to make his dreams come true.

  At 5’7’’ he was taller than most of the guys on the team which earned him respect, and with his jet black hair, chocolate brown eyes and fit physique most women would glance his way when he walked past.

  He had a reputation for being the ladies’ man, and he enjoyed it.

  It didn’t hurt too that once he threw in a word or two in Spanish, women would practically drool over him. It definitely didn’t hurt to be a Spaniard in America.

  Lucas panted as his breathing began to turn a little ragged due to the fact that the coach had been over working them lately in preparation for the big game on Friday. He knew that the coach was doing what he thought needed to be done, but running the team ragged before the big game was only going to make them exhausted by the time the actual game would roll around.

  He took in a huge gulp of air as he finally made it past the first mile, and he threw himself onto the wet grass and breathed deeply.

  “Good job, Ramirez,” The Coach practically tossed at him as he jotted something down on his clipboard. With side burns, a patch of receding blonde hair and a physique of someone who used to be in shape, Coach Carter looked like he was tough as nails on the outside, and for the most part he was, but only those on his team knew that he was a big softie on the inside. He was like a surrogate father to most of them, and they loved him even more for it.

  Unable to do much, Ramirez simply grunted and gave his Coach a thumbs up as he waited for his lungs to stop feeling like they were on fire. The blood stopped pounding in his ears, and his lungs finally felt functional a few minutes later, and he raised his head a millimeter as he watched the rest of his teammates slowly cross the first mile and collapse much like he did.

  “That was some fast running, Spanish,” one of his teammates, Keith threw at him as he grabbed a bottle of water. He screwed the cap open before he dumped the water all over his hair and shook it off.

  Some of the other teammates yelled out insults at him as some of the droplets of water landed on their bodies, but most of them were too tired to actually do anything about it.

  Lucas watched him carefully wondering if this was another one of their pranks, or if he generally meant it.

  “Thanks, dude,” he offered cautiously as he threw himself back on the ground to gaze at the sun. He and Keith had been teammates for months now, but this was the first time he had spoken to Keith directly. He knew all about him of course, half English, half American with a legendary reputation with the ladies much like himself until he found out he had a kid.

  That seemed to be the case with two other members as well, Blake and Mark.

  He wondered how the hell they had managed to get themselves into this situation, and he thanked his lucky stars that he was fortunate enough to have avoided that scenario.

  Although he never forgot the fact that he a
lmost ended up in that very same position.

  Her name was Lorena De la Vega.

  She was a fiery brunette who had lived just across the street from him in Madrid, and her liquid grey eyes somehow managed to entice him. At the tender age of seventeen, he was convinced that he was in love. But, what he confused for love was probably nothing but lust and teenage hormones.

  Lucas pulled the brakes on that train of thought as he slowly began to backtrack to whatever he was thinking about before that.

  He tuned in just in time to hear his teammates talk about getting together later for a game of pool at this pub off Lincoln Boulevard.

  “Can you play, Spanish?” Keith asked casually as he watched him.

  Lucas froze as he realized for the first time that Keith was actually having a conversation with him that didn’t involve barking out tactics during a group huddle. The rest of the teammates seemed unaffected by the conversation, but he could tell by the way they tried to seem too nonchalant that they were actually listening.

  Keith was offering him an olive branch, and for the life of him, Lucas couldn’t figure out why. He didn’t want to look a gift horse in the mouth, but he wondered at this sudden change of heart.

  “I’m alright,” he said finally. In reality, he had probably only played pool once or twice in his entire life, but he supposed he could remember enough to get him through a game with the guys. Especially if it meant finally bonding with them.

  “Join us tonight then, seven o’clock?”

  “I’ll be there,” Lucas confirmed as he hoisted himself off the grass and headed towards the ice box with the water bottles.

  Keith smiled at him and titled his water bottle in salute, and Lucas did the same as he wondered if Keith was up to something.

  ***

  Lucas pulled up to the address that Keith had texted him three hours ago after having gone home, showered and had a bite to eat.

  He frowned at the exterior with its bright neon light and the motorcycles parked out front. He usually avoided places like this because he knew that a lot of the people who hung out here were pure blooded Americans, and if they caught even a whiff of foreigner between them, they’d pounce like hellhounds.