Her Billionaires: Boxed Set (The Complete Collection, Books 1-4)

by Kent, Julia

  “Hello? Hello?” she said, trying desperately to keep her eagerness out of her voice.

  “Hello,” a deep man’s baritone greeted her, with a friendliness that he had no right to offer her right now— yet she was so glad he did. “Uh,” he hesitated, “is this Laura?”

  “Yeah. Yeah, it is,” she answered brightly, her voice a little too high-pitched, her anxiety a little too intense right now, but she trudged on.

  “Oh, yeah, really?” The voice stammered. “Yeah, this is Dylan. I am so sorry,” he said, and she hoped that the sincerity was true. Hoped it was true, needed it to be true with a part of her that knew...that knew that there was no way of knowing.

  “I’m so sorry. I’m running late. I am walking down Twelfth Avenue right now, and, in fact, I can see the entrance to the restaurant and, wait a minute, ooh, I don’t know.” A low wolf whistle. “I don’t know if I’m going to be able to make it.”

  “What? What? What did you say?”

  “Yeah, there is this gorgeous woman just standing out there and, and I don’t know, I mean, I think, let’s see, she’s wearing a fuzzy sweater and a damn fine gray pencil skirt and heels that make her legs go on forever. And, I don’t know, you know, Laura, I may have to date her tonight instead of you.”

  She nearly dropped her phone again. Oh, my God, her brain burned, her internal voice screaming like a rat stuck in a cage with Napalm all over it and lit on fire.

  And then she got it, calming down instantly. Oh, oh, he was complimenting her. He was joking. He liked her. Who was this guy?

  Now she could see him. Deep breaths, Laura, she told herself. He was joking around. Being playful. Not mean. He was a block and a half away, walking toward her with a swagger, with a confidence she didn’t see in many men. One hand in his pocket, just marching down the street like he had all the time in the world. And boy, were his eyes eating her up. She could feel it from a block and a half, a block and a quarter away.

  And she was giving it right back.

  Her heart was beating a million times a minute from the fear about his joke, and the anxiety that the joke had triggered. But now—but now it was like the electrons were playing between them. Molecules were flying millions and millions of miles a second between the two of them. She wasn’t sure what she was going to do when they actually stood two feet from each other, because she was ready to take him right there, right then on the street, public indecency be damned.

  Pretty soon, just seconds later, he was down to a block, half a block, and he took his hand out of his pocket, giving her a wave. Then she realized that he had been talking to her the entire time and she had no idea what he was saying.

  “Laura? Laura? Hello, hello—are you there? I can see you and you’re just standing there. I am waving at you right now... Laura, have I mistaken you for a human being or are you a really hot store mannequin?” He heard her laugh. Aha. Keep going, Dylan told himself. Recover from the terrible joke.

  “Or part of some performance art thing like that guys like me don’t understand? Were you Andy Warhol’s protégé? Or is this some sort of flash mob set-up and nineteen naked members of the Pirate Party are about to appear and don Mickey Mouse masks in some geopolitical protest?” She suddenly folded and bent over laughing. He breathed a sigh of relief. Sweet!

  That was it—she was forcing him to use every remaining brain cell in his body to process basic bodily functions as every red blood cell rushed to his groin. He couldn’t stop raking her body with his eyes. He couldn’t stop eating her with his retinas. She was some kind of Dylan magnet. Her entire appearance was luscious and her eyes—as he got closer he saw the kindness, the sweetness in them and there was a beauty, a full body, full-fledged gorgeousness about her that made him hard instantly.

  “Stupid business casual,” he muttered to himself, mouth tilted away from his phone. He was wearing the kind of pants where his arousal could become very obvious.

  Now that he stood in front of her, no more than a foot and a half separating them, he felt like the biggest idiot on the planet for even joking about not dating her. She was stunning, all curves and woman and he wanted to smell her, bury his face in that sweet neck, feel her in his arms and listen to her breath as he made her happy.

  What did her cries of ecstasy sound like? Would she turn her face away? Bite the pillow? Rake lines of ownership into his back with those glossy nails?

  Later. Later, he would find out. The same confidence that had always been there for him told him so. Like a second person living in his head, it just knew. She was his, and she didn’t know it yet. But she would, and he had all the time in the world to teach her that.

  With his tongue.

  He just stood there and stared at her and didn’t know what to say; he couldn’t recite what went through his head as his eyes roamed over the perfect topography of her body. She stood there and stared back and didn’t seem to know what to say, either. This silent dance needed a better beat.

  One he could drive home with his—

  Finally, she said, pointing to the door, “That is a great restaurant you picked,” her voice as breathless as he felt. Except she was actually talking and he was standing there looking like a fish out of water, his mouth opening and closing as he tried desperately to get something like a linear thought going. Where the hell was that confidence now? He wasn’t awkward or worried or any of those namby-pamby feelings Mike always described having. It was more that his brain had gone blank at the sight of her and everything but his arousal went into hibernate mode. She smiled and seemed to expect something intelligible to come out of his mouth, but first he had to dig his way out of the enormous, gaping hole of lust he’d just tripped into.

  How in the hell was she still single? Why hadn’t someone snatched her up?

  “It’s this whole Asian fusion thing. My friend told me it would be a good idea to bring a first date here and it might be a place to impress somebody.” And the food is supposed to be amazing, but that’s secondary. She seemed so nervous, those glittering eyes wary, already on guard from his lame attempt at humor on the phone.

  He felt like an ass, could sense he was losing her, and his charm system went into overdrive, not the shallow Dylan so used to getting a woman to step out of her pants within an hour of their first drink in a bar, but the slower burning Dylan who stumbled across Jill in college years ago and who felt sucker punched and euphoric all at once.

  “So impressing me is more important than the food?” Laura laughed and looked at him with an uncertain caution in her eyes, a caution that he actually did not like but that spoke of something he couldn’t put his finger on.

  “Yeah,” he said, a slow grin stretching over his face, the word more a promise than an answer.

  “I don’t think you have to worry about someone like me,” she replied, looking away with a bashful smile, her blond ponytail sliding down the side of her creamy neck as if guarding her, creating a safe barrier and holding her in place.

  He cocked his head, looked her over again and wondered what on earth was she was talking about. Standing outside the restaurant babbling like an idiot wasn’t exactly his idea of a good date, though, so he just motioned her toward the door and said “Shall we?”

  As she walked past him impulse took over and he put one hand on the small of her back as the maitre d’ held the door open. The feeling was so electrifying, his hand on her body, that he grew harder, which he didn’t think was possible. This was already more promising than he had ever expected.

  Even if this dinner was going to cost him half of an entire paycheck, he did not care. Oh—that’s right. He was not really relying on his paycheck anyhow these days, he reminded himself. Finances had changed radically months ago, a surprise that he and Mike still tried to assimilate. Stop it, Dylan. Stop thinking about Jill, he told himself. None of that should enter into the calculation of the emotional side of this. Tonight is about Laura.

  As they were led to their table in a smoky-grey environment, w
ith a giant twenty-foot golden Buddha lit up in the corner and a small fountain bubbling at its feet, all he could do was stare at her ass, trying to to figure out how not to sound like another one of those guys who is desperate enough to go on an online dating site and find somebody to fuck.

  Neither one of them seemed to know what to say, so he figured, being the guy, he would take the lead. That’s how it would work in bed...and then his mind went blank at the flash of a vision of his face buried between Laura’s soft thighs. He practically threw the folded napkin in his lap to hide what he thought must be the tallest raging hard-on ever.

  He coughed. “Your profile said you’re from Los Angeles, but you moved here to the east coast. Who do you work for?” Just then, the waitress interrupted as if on cue and asked them if they wanted a drink. Laura ordered a sake.

  “Make it two,” he added. If she was going to go for the harder stuff, so would he. Boy, this could end up being a much more interesting date than he ever expected.

  She felt like she had lost her entire vocabulary all in the past three minutes. This guy was incredible. He had taken her to the hottest place in town. Granted, his friend had recommended it, but who cared if that was the main reason why?

  Dylan seemed to care, to take the time to make a good first impression, and she loved his sense of humor even if it did nearly lead to her early demise from a heart attack via misunderstanding. She had never been taken anywhere so nice. Of course she could never tell him that. Most of the guys who dated her took her to a restaurant that had 50-inch plasma televisions blasting five different sporting events all at once, and the most gourmet item on the menu was fried mozzarella sticks.

  She blanked when the waitress asked her what she wanted to drink, so she blurted out sake, because it was the one drink she had ever had in an Asian restaurant years ago, when her mother had taken her to a Hibachi place for her twenty-first birthday. Well, hey, sake it was. She figured one shot would loosen her up and then she could show more of herself. With Dylan joining her, she knew she’d ordered appropriately for this type of restaurant and began to let herself unclench a little.

  She glanced at the table and saw that she was revealing more of herself already. Her sweater had dipped down a little too much to show the black lace of her bra and when she looked up, she found that she did not meet Dylan’s eyes with her own, but that he, in fact, was staring at the same spot she had just been looking at.

  Apparently he was not enough of a gentleman to pretend that he wasn’t staring—until he cut his eyes away abruptly. He threw his napkin in his lap, looked down at the menu, and said “I have no idea what any of this stuff is.” Then he turned and craned his head to watch one of the servers take a tray over to a nearby table. “Whatever it is, though, it smells incredible.”

  That loosened her up more, her nervous laughter shifting into something more genuine. These startlingly special few minutes felt like they had already altered reality for her and she couldn’t quite put her finger on it, but was trying very, very hard not to make more meaning out of these few perfect moments with Dylan.

  A giddiness, unfamiliar and not fleeting (to her utter shock), filled her skin and her thoughts as she shyly caught his eye and let it settle, not looking away. Their stare deepened into something more primal, more knowing, and her insecurity faded as they communicated without words.

  Interrupted by the waitress, she pulled her eyes away with regret as the woman brought their drinks. Dylan held his up in a toast and said, “To...business analyzing!”

  She nodded acknowledgment, and answered, “To firefighting,” clinking glasses before they drank and put down the empty shot glasses. She fingered the rim of her glass and then they both leaned forward on the table with great expectation.

  Finally, she realized he expected her to answer the question he had asked what felt like hours ago, and she said, “Oh, oh, I work for Stohlman Industries.”

  “Stohlman?” His expression showed he was impressed. That pleased Laura—it was impressive. Stohlman was known for being very, very competitive for jobs, and it had been hard to break in to the world’s third largest media company.

  “Yeah, yeah, I’ve been there well, since I graduated college.”

  “Really? What is your degree, then?”

  “IT—Information Technology.”

  “But you’re a business analyst?”

  “Yeah, I work with the tech side of things.”

  He leaned back in his chair, folded his arms, clearly making himself comfortable, and gave her a mirthful look. “So what do you do?”

  And she laughed, her face relaxing, her cheeks spreading and matching his mirth. “Do you really want to know? ‘Cause it’s awfully technical.”

  He leaned forward on his elbows, propped his chin in one hand and said, “Yeah, I do want to know.”

  She studied his eyes. He meant it—he really meant it. Oh, man, was this really the whole package? Did she really get a gorgeous, ripped firefighter who gave a shit about what she did for a living as a business analyst for some nameless, faceless, mega corporation? If so, she didn’t want to pinch herself cause this might be a dream. Then again, there were parts of her that she certainly wanted him to pinch. Whoa there, Laura.

  “Well, I work in healthcare IT, and what I do right now is work on a large project for one of the state governments, making sure that their old medical records program for children who get health insurance is compliant with new federal guidelines.”

  He nodded. Made an expression with his mouth that indicated that it was interesting and then said, “You lost me at children’s health insurance...” and he grinned.

  She said, “Enough about my job. What do you do? You’re a firefighter, right? So you pretty much save damsels in distress from burning buildings and rescue cats out of trees. I don’t have to really know more than that,” she teased.

  He laughed, bright teeth gleaming, straight and perfect, speaking to orthodontia decades ago. His eyes twinkled a bit as he fingered his empty sake glass and said “It’s a little more complicated than that, but you got the gist of it.”

  “Aw, come on. Tell me more. How is it more complicated? Are there, like, different levels of fire fighting?” The words came out of her mouth and she felt a slow, electric feeling creep up her spine as his fingers crossed the table and reached for hers, his fingers clasping hers, the warmth shaking her, going all the way up her neck, through her hips, into her belly.

  Rendering her completely speechless once again.

  “Well,” he said, peering down at her hands and then looking at her with raised eyebrows that asked an obvious question. She grinned back. He softened and clinched her hand just slightly more, and the added pressure was like having her hand turn into one big giant throbbing clitoris.

  “I do plenty of shifts where I rescue cats from burning buildings and help damsels in distress out of trees,” he joked, “but mostly, these days, I am in charge of fire management safety protocols for large corporations like yours.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah, pretty much. After 9/11, we had to really tighten up on how you empty out a thirty or forty floor building, especially in the face of a disaster, or in the face of massive, multi-level, widespread fires.”

  She could feel the blood drain out of her face. He had just, without knowing, dredged up her biggest fear. Something in his face said that he knew it. “Oh, no, I am so sorry, really, I did not mean to upset you. Did you lose someone in 9/11?”

  She shook her head. “No, no, actually I, it’s just that...” She took a deep breath. In through the nose, out through the mouth. “It’s just that it is one of my biggest fears. I’ve always been afraid of a fire in my building, and I work on the thirty-second floor of Stohlman Industries.”

  He took his hand away from hers and whacked his forehead repeatedly, shaking his head now, saying “I pretty much just picked the worst possible thing I could bring up during a first date, didn’t I?”

  Her he
art rate resumed a normal beat. She took a risk now and reached across the table to retrieve his hand and said, “No, it’s ok, really, if nothing else, it’s interesting that you managed to tap into that about me, after having only known me for...” she glanced at her smart phone “...for fifteen minutes.”

  “It’s amazing what Google will help you figure out.”

  If she had had a drink in her mouth, she would have spit it all over him. Oh, my God, did he Google her? It’s only fair —she had Googled him. Did he know that she had Googled him? Was there some way he could have known?

  “Laura?” He reached out and touched her chin, tipping it up to catch her eyes. “That was a joke.”

  By the time the waitress brought his meal, which was something that he could not only not pronounce properly, but, by the looks of it, couldn’t even guess at about half the ingredients in it, he felt like he was losing her. Idiot, idiot, idiot! How could he have brought up the burning building scenario on a first date? Within fifteen minutes, no less? God, the look on her face! It was like something collapsed. There was more to it than she was telling; he could see that and it left him with too many questions, inquiries he couldn’t make right now because he was being too stupid for words.

  Yet here he was, babbling on about it like it was no big deal, and that’s what he did for a living, and ha ha ha, and here she was, you know, in charge of saving little kids’ health insurance.

  She began to eat her food. He dug into his. Even though he didn’t like it, he welcomed the silence, perplexed by the contradiction, but lately his entire life seemed to be one big steaming pile of complexity. He watched her. He took the dinner as an opportunity to just keep an eye on her. To see what she was like. To see what her body language would give away.

  She kept pulling on the shoulder of her sweater, correcting everything so that the edge of her black silk bra wouldn’t show, and every time she did it, a little part of him tugged. Mostly in the crotch area. But also in his heart. Because, man, was he lovin’ that little piece of black lace right now.