Houston could not believe his good fortune as he pulled the Viper away from the curb in front of the Yuanfen Building. His day had been going exceedingly badly until the gorgeous Amy Delaney agreed to accompany him to lunch. To start, he had received no less than four letters attempting to blackmail him. Apparently, there had been paparazzi near his pool house the previous week, and had captured the entire business between he and rising Japanese starlet, Willow Saito. The young woman had been in a very public dating relationship with a popular minor league baseball pitcher for the local Giants affiliate. There had been a lot of talk about the boy going across the country to play AA ball for the Richmond Flying Squirrels in Virginia.
Being an opportunist, Houston had swooped in on the opportunity to get some Asian tail after seeing Willow at a San Jose Giants game. The asshole photographer managed to get some very compromising pictures of Willow as she entered the pool house alone and clothed, and came out with Houston—naked. He seemed to think that he would want their new affair kept quiet.
Houston had spent two hours on his phone that morning with the paparazzi photog, explaining that he didn’t care who saw the pictures, and that he shouldn’t expect a goddamned dime from Houston’s personal coffers…it wasn’t as if his titties had been bouncing for the camera! Why would he care if the photographer sold the pictures to some tabloid?
Houston had always been a playboy…and being filthy, stinking rich had not changed this fact. Sure, he had gone from being a bar bouncer to pay for junior college to being the San Francisco Bay area’s second richest man, valued at just over $19.8 billion. He had even used his bad boy reputation to score new bedroom trophies.
The niche dating business was certainly lucrative.
The simple fact was, however, that he was still the same kid who had grown up as the only white kid on his block in Modesto, California, surrounded by Hispanic gang members. Growing up in this rough environment taught Houston skills that, while not useful in his failed attempt to graduate college, had certainly served to keep him alive. It wasn’t as if he was scared of some prima donna baseball player who was going across the country in a week’s time.
So it was that when Houston left the Larger Than Life Love, Inc. offices, he was in a distinctly bad mood…until he reached the fourth floor, that is.
As a Web Design major at his junior college, he had started largerthanlifelove.com to find the perfect bigger girl, and instead ended up in a string of bad relationships that were punctuated by intense sexual experiences. He loved the exhilaration of having a new lover every other week…almost always with the skinny-as-hell-model types that were only interested in his fortune. The thrill of the chase was the only thing that distracted him from the demons that still haunted his dreams, but these pencil thin types were not what he truly desired.
He wanted a woman just like Amy Delaney. There was a time a “Botticellian” woman was the ideal. Of course that had been five hundred years ago, but he thought it was time for a comeback.
When the gorgeous woman to his right had hollered for him to hold the elevator, he felt something he realized he hadn’t felt in a while…genuine attraction. This goddess of a woman kindled a fire deep inside him, and forced all thoughts of Willow Saito far from his mind.
Chapter 3
When they arrived at Giglio’s, Houston had the red carpet rolled out for his lunch guest. As they sat talking over their antipasto and waiting for their entrees, Houston surveyed his prey. Amy is average height, with wavy dark hair that falls carelessly passed her shoulders. Her eyes are beautiful almond, and she had a way about her that seemed to light her entire face up.
She was dark and alluring, just as he like his woman. She had an almost exotic look about her. Her eyebrows were highly arched, creating a uniform curvature over each of her eyes. She liked the way she clearly put attention on taking care of her appearance. Her chin came to a distinct point, which gave her face a thin appearance, despite her curves.
Although she cared for her looks obviously, it was not overdone, and the result was that she was the exact type of girl-next-door that Houston had always craved to be with.
She wore a simple white dress that was decorated with large, lavish hibiscus flowers that were colored brilliant shades of red, along with a red fabric belt that gathered at her waist, visibly slimming her, and extenuating her curves all the more. Her breasts were noticeably large, and while they certainly drew the eye towards them, she was careful to keep them concealed in a valiant attempt at modesty. Her ample hips swayed sexily when she walked, and Houston spent much of the ride to Giglio’s wondering what it would be like to hold them in the heat of passion.
Finally, after they arrived and were seated for a while, their splendid meal of linguine with clam sauce arrives, and the conversation turned to their respective pasts.
“Where are you from, Houston?” Amy asked, dabbing the side of her mouth with a napkin.
“Originally? Modesto. About two and a half hours drive from here…depending on the route you take.”
“Modesto? Isn’t that the city where—?”
“Where Scott Peterson killed his wife and unborn baby? Yeah, it is,” Houston answered the common question.
“Wow…where were you at the time?” she asked.
“I was actually in town from school when Laci was killed, and my mom went to the New Year’s Eve candlelight vigil.”
“Wow.”
“What about you?” he asked.
“Me? I was a sophomore in high school at the time, so I was still in Black Rock.”
“Black Rock?” Houston asked.
“Black Rock, Arkansas. It’s a little town in Lawrence County and is about two hour’s drive northeast of Little Rock.”
“Oh, awesome,” Houston said, sincerely.
“Yeah, if you like small towns it’s awesome I guess,” Amy said, laughing.
“Well, I’ve always thought that living in a small town would be great. I’ve always lived in the city, and the idea of small town life seems really attractive to me, actually.”
“It’s really nothing that special,” Amy said between bites. “I miss my family, but I don’t miss having nothing to do on the weekends.”
“Now that sounds like Modesto!” Houston answered, laughing.
“What do you mean? Isn’t Modesto a city?”
“Yeah, it is, but there isn’t much to do for the kids…except for dodging bullets.”
“What?”
“Yeah, the gangs are starting to get big there. It’s always been a rough part of the country, but in the last few years, it’s gotten terrible.”
“Wow…I don’t know if I’d want to be in that kind of place.”
“I grew up in it. It’s made me who I am, and it affects the way I live to this day.”
One particular incident came immediately to Houston’s mind. One night, a group of gang members were hassling several of Houston’s college classmates in the bar he was working in at the time. The college kids were wearing red sweatshirts, the color of his college’s sports teams. The five gang members (who wore blue) demanded the students take the sweatshirts off. The guys in the group had complied quietly, but the young woman refused, saying that she wasn’t wearing anything underneath.
“Well, I guess we’re gonna see your chichotas then, eh, concha?” the gang leader said, calling the young girl a cunt and laughing. Houston, who had grown up surrounded by Hispanics, knew just how much the banger had insulted the young woman, and stepped in to end the disrespect.
“Vete a chingar a tu madre, puta!” the leader said, telling Houston to “go fuck his mother,” as well as calling him a bitch. Houston then punched the gang leader, and three of the other members drew knives, and the fourth pulled a gun. Houston had no weapon, but two of the five gang members died from gunshot wounds, another died of wounds from a knife, and the other two had extensive hospital stays before going to prison for other crimes that they were wanted for.
Houston rece
ived eleven stitches, and none of the college kids were injured.
“Wow…” Amy said, in awe after he finished recounting this story to her. “I don’t know what I would have done in that situation. That was incredibly brave of you, Houston.”
“I try not to think about it, honestly. I still dream about those fucking bangers…the cops put me in cuffs, of course, but charges were never filed. The kids told them that I was just doing my job, and that if I hadn’t been there, the girl would’ve ended up with her titties bouncing around in plain sight. Sorry,” he added, “I don’t mean to talk so vulgar in front of a lady such as you. My dear mother would be ashamed.”
Far from being disgusted by his language, Amy found herself even more attracted to this man…his dark past only served to cause her nether-lips to quiver with longing at the thought of what it would take to tame a man such as him. The fact that he used language like “fuck” and “titty” only made her wonder what it would be like to have him talk to her when in the sack.
“It’s no ‘fucking’ problem,” Amy said to him with a wink, and flashing her perfect smile at him. “I don’t ‘fucking’ mind.” This caused Houston to become even more attracted to her…not only was she physically exactly what he has always desperately wanted in a woman, but she didn’t mind him exactly as he was.
“What about you, Miss Amy Delaney? What’s your story?” he asked, taking a bite of linguine.
“Well, the usual, I guess…”
“Let me guess…cheerleader, dated the captain of the football team, homecoming queen, etc.?” Houston interjected, laughing.
“Ha ha, very funny,” she deadpanned. “Can you imagine this as homecoming queen?” she asks, indicating her body.
“If your classmates were voting for anyone else, then they were blind or stupid,” he answered.
“Well, they didn’t vote for me, or anyone else. We didn’t have homecoming…or a football team for that matter.”
“You didn’t have a football team?” Houston asked, surprised.
“Nope,” Amy answered, “We didn’t. The school was too small. I did play softball and basketball though.”
“Oh, well, there’s that,” Houston said, still trying to understand how a school could not have a football team.
“Yep…go Zebras!” she responded, pantomiming a cheerleader waving a pom-pom.
“Zebras? No wonder you didn’t have a football team!” He said, laughing once again.
“Yep, the Zebras,” she said, pensively. “I sometimes wonder what it would have been like to go to school at Walnut Ridge. They closed Black Rock down a couple of years ago, and all the students moved to Walnut Ridge, but that wasn’t an option for me.”
“Well, I’m sure you were the prettiest Zebra ever,” Houston complementing her.
“Thank you, even though I know you’re just being nice.”
“I mean it. I think you are the sexiest woman I have ever seen,” he goes on.
They sat there talking for the rest of their meal, and when all the food was gone, Amy looked at her watch and said, “Oh my god! It’s after 3:00! I really need to get back to the office!”
“Okay, let’s go,” Houston answered her, getting up to leave. They rode back to the Yuanfen building in his Dodge Viper, making quick work of the thick traffic in downtown San Jose. Houston could not help but wonder if this could be the beginning of something different and special between him and Amy Delaney after she thanked him for lunch, and he handed the Viper’s keys to Steven. Amy had to stand on tip-toe to do so, but she gave him a swift kiss on the cheek before running back inside and toward the elevator.
Chapter 4
“You certainly were gone long enough,” Alice said when Amy walked back into the office that afternoon. “What took you so long?”
“I got caught up,” Amy answered, beaming. “A man from upstairs took me to lunch at Giglio’s.”
“A man from upstairs?” Alice asked, bemused. “What man from upstairs?”
“Only the sexiest man alive!” Amy giggled, unable to contain herself from the amazing afternoon lunch that she had shared with Houston. “His name is Houston Storm, and he is a part owner of Giglio’s, and he was able to get us served for lunch there even though they were closed until dinner time! He drives a Dodge Viper, and is a real gentleman!”
“Houston Storm?” Alice asked, frowning slightly.
“Yes!”
“Houston Storm who owns Larger Than Life Love, Inc., Houston Storm?”
“Maybe…I’d say it probably is, because ‘Storm’ isn’t a very common last name, is it?”
“No…it isn’t,” Alice answered, looking positively alarmed now.
“Yeah, it’s got to be the same man,” Amy said, not noticing the look on her supervisor’s face. “Why do you ask, anyway?”
“Well,” Alice said with the air of someone who was picking her words very carefully, “Houston Storm is rich.”
“Well, duh! He owns a third of Giglio’s, and drives a Viper! Of course he’s rich.”
“No…you don’t understand. He’s not ‘oh, I hit the lottery’ rich, or ‘I own twelve cars’ rich…he’s ‘I bankroll the lottery and own twelve hundred car lots’ rich.”
“What are you talking about, Alice? Don’t you think he’d have told me all this?”
“Well, if you don’t believe me, look at this,” Alice said, handing her last month’s edition of The Californian magazine. On the cover was a black and white photo of the man who had just shown Amy a phenomenal time, right there on the cover. By contrast, the headline on the cover was in bright red, and Amy read this aloud: “Houston Storm: Most Eligible Bachelor in San Francisco Bay Area, page 24.”
Amy immediately began flipping frantically through the pages to find the article. When she did, she found a countdown of notable bachelors. She flipped quickly through the pages and was shocked at what she read.
“Houston Storm, thirty-two, has been named the ‘San Francisco Bay Area’s Most Eligible Bachelor’ yet again. The combination of his devilish good looks and fat wallet combine to make this man the single most sought after commodity out there. Valued at well over $19 billion, the San Jose playboy has his hands in every major business in the area, not least his own ‘Larger Than Life Love, Inc.,’ which controls seven of the ten largest online dating sites in the country.
He can often be found pursuing his top three interests: driving fast cars, buying stakes in notable businesses, and sleeping with the most notable women in Hollywood.
Storm has not been in a long term relationship for the entire time that he has appeared on the Forbes Billionaires List, on which he is ranked a healthy forty-fifth, above such notable names as 21st Century FOX CEO Rupert Murdoch (77th) and makeup mogul Leonard Lauder (137th). Of Californian residents, he is behind only former Oracle CEO Larry Ellison (5th), Facebook kingpin Mark Zuckerberg (16th), and Google magnates Larry Page and Sergey Brin (19th and 20th respectively). This has resulted in him also being included in this publication’s list of the ‘Top 10 Richest Californian Men’ for each of the last five years. (See the exclusive interview with Houston Storm on pg. 51)”
“Well,” Amy said when she finished reading the article, “I guess I just went on a date with a billionaire.”
“Wait, dear…there’s more,” Alice said. “He’s a playboy. He is seen every other week with a different actress from down in Hollywood.”
“I was asked out on a date by a billionaire…” Amy said, clearly not listening.
“Look!” Alice said, snapping her young colleague out of her reverie. Taking the younger woman by the shoulders, Alice said, “I just don’t want to see you get hurt. Please, please be careful, okay?”
The next day, when Amy arrived in the office, she was surprised to find twelve dozen long-stemmed red roses, and a very solemn Alice. “Morning,” her boss said to her, holding a cup of coffee in one hand and a card in the other. “They’re for you,” she said, handing Amy the handwritten card.
Amy did not know what to think. The day before, she had thought that she had simply caught the ardor of a notable businessman who wanted company for lunch. Afterwards, she was even more confused by the article in The Californian and the things that Alice had said. That night, she had looked up “Houston Storm playboy” on Google, and found a positive treasure trove of pictures and stories linking him to various women. Models, athletes, actresses, and the slutty daughters of hotel magnates…they were all there! The one glaring absence from the pictures was that of a woman who looked anything like she did.
And then, she came in to work, only to become more confused than ever, because Houston had given her 144 red, long-stemmed roses! Everything she could find on the man hinted that he simply did not show affection to the women he was with. Was she any different? Was he just trying to add her to his list of trophies conquered? Did he actually see a potential future with the twenty-eight year old grief counselor who hadn’t had a steady boyfriend in almost seven years?
And most importantly, would Amy be able to tame him before he burned her?
Chapter 5
Houston was sitting in his office, anxiously awaiting Amy when his direct telephone line rang. Quickly glancing at his watch, he saw that he had at least a half-hour until she was due to arrive, and so he answered.
“Houston Storm,” he said.
“Hello, Huey,” came his mother’s voice on the other end of the line.
“Hey, Mom!” he said, leaning back in his executive chair. “How’s it been?”
GUNNER: MC ROMANCE (Forsaken Riders MC Romance Book 4) Page 44