Beauty and the Billionaire

by Claire Adams

  “Thanks, are you an admirer of old homes?”

  Then just as quickly as his genuine talk had appeared, his crude language reappeared.

  “I’m an admirer of your ass,” he said as he walked past me, taking an especially long glance at my backside.

  “Seriously?”

  “Oh, I’m kidding. Yes, I like old houses. I love the idea of tearing apart an old building and putting it back to better even stronger than it originally was.”

  I walked toward the stairs and just as I took my second step up, he grabbed my arm and pulled me back toward him. He was right there, standing on the bottom step as I turned to face him. My body was still not at his height, but much closer than before. There was something in his eyes that I couldn’t have described, but I now know was pure lust.

  He moved his lips swiftly to meet mine and it was a good thing he let his hands hold onto my hips. I likely would have fallen over from the wobbly nature of my knees. I hadn’t expected a kiss. Yes, I had wanted one, but it was such odd timing that I wasn’t prepared.

  My mouth opened to let him in. His tongue searched me for pleasure. The kiss was gentle at first, but the more I moved against him the harder he pressed against me. He wasn’t about to give up on kissing me. Finally, I gave in.

  My arms moved up to his neck and wrapped around him. I had not kissed a man in over a year and this was no ordinary man. His body was that of a sexy god. Yes, a sex god. That was the best way I could describe him. There were chiseled muscles at every corner of his firm body.

  His tongue had skills that the rest of my body longed to enjoy. I could feel the rush of wetness as the physical reaction of kissing him shot throughout me.

  “I had to kiss you. I’m sorry, but it had to be done,” Chris said as he released me.

  I stood there in a daze for a moment, pondering the kiss that had just knocked me out of the park. This man could kiss, that was for damn sure.

  “Yeah, well should we get you some painter’s tape?” I said as the flush red of my face burned to cool down.

  “Yes. Let’s do that. Is it upstairs?”

  He started to take a few steps up the stairs before I grabbed him.

  “Oh no, you don’t. You’re not going up to my bedroom.”

  “Why not? You don’t trust me near your bed?”

  His eyes burned into me and I couldn’t help but lick my lips. They wanted to feel his again, but I resisted.

  “No. You stay here.”

  I held my hand out to stop him from coming up the stairs while I went to find his tape. I had been painting in my bedroom last so I quickly grabbed it.

  “Hey, did you know this chandelier is about to fall?”

  I looked at it as I walked down the stairs. It looked fine to me.

  “It’s been there for almost one hundred years and sturdy as could be. I’m sure it’s fine.”

  “I can fix it for you if you’d like. Maybe take it down so you can clean it before reattaching it?”

  “Alright,” I said as I handed him the tape.

  “How old is this house? 1900?”

  “Close, 1910. It was built by my grandparents. It was one of the first houses in the city.”

  “Any you are restoring it? What else do you do with yourself?”

  “Oh nothing, I just stalk my neighbors and sand wood.”

  I cringed at the words when they came out. Why did my mouth work so poorly? Certainly that sounded really sexy. Yes, I’m your neighbor and I’m going to stalk you now. Ugh!

  “You can play with my wood, no stalking necessary,” he winked.

  Geeze what was it with this guy? He seriously could turn anything into sexual innuendo. I rolled my eyes and laughed at his joke.

  “Well, what do you do for a living?”

  At this question, he instantly clammed up. The sparkle of desire in his eyes disappeared and he turned cold. The change was so abrupt that I was completely thrown for a moment. Nothing about him seemed to even like me anymore, let alone desire me.

  “I’m going to get back to my painting. Have a good night,” he said and then swiftly left my house.

  I watched through the window as he made it back inside his home and I wondered what it was it that I had said. I just asked what he did for a living. How was that so bad?

  Chapter 7

  He was so hot and cold. It was hard for me to figure him out. One minute he was seductively kissing me and the next moment he turned cold as ice and walked out of my house. I had never met anyone that could change their personality so quickly. I kept my eye out for Chris each day as I did yardwork or left the house for errands. But I never saw him coming or going. I never saw a car outside, but he certainly could have been parking it in his garage. The old houses in Bain all had detached garages that sat behind our homes, which made it very difficult to see exactly what was going on or if someone was home at all.

  Day after day passed and again I didn’t see Chris. It was baffling. What on earth could he do for a living that he could be in Bain anyways? Most of the people who lived here were retired, worked for the local school or were independent like myself. We were over an hour from St. Louis and there were plenty of nicer small towns within a closer distance.

  I had to stop letting Chris fill my mind. My photography exhibit was getting close and I still needed to go through my pictures and choose the final set of photos. I knew there was one last photo I wanted to get out in the woods, but I had to wait for the moon to be at just the right location.

  I made my way to my garage, where I had made my dark room for developing my pictures. As had become a habit, I glanced over at Chris’s house to see if it looked like he was home. No car outside the garage and no lights on in the house. He certainly did not appear to be home.

  Developing my pictures was one of my favorite parts of photography. There was just something wonderful about doing the developing yourself: setting the paper into the chemicals, moving the photo paper from one tub of fluid to the next; I loved it. I ached to get my hands dirty and develop some of the prints for my upcoming show.

  Of course, it was faster, and even cheaper, to pay someone else to develop my prints. But it was art to me, even the process of developing had become part of my art. I experimented with overexposing and underexposing my photos until they reached the exact look that I wanted. I darkened the room in my garage and started in on the long night of developing. My dark room wasn’t the best, so I was relegated to developing my pictures at night to ensure the least amount of exposure possible.

  Slowly and methodically I worked through my pictures. Soon it was after four o’clock in the morning and I hadn’t even realized where all the time had gone. Suddenly there was a bright light from Chris’s house. I quickly blocked the leak of light with a black towel and hoped my pictures would be alright. I closed the black curtain and snuck out the door to my garage quietly.

  It was Chris. He had pulled up in front of his garage in a black Jeep. He was unloading some very large duffel bags. Each of them looked to be very heavy and he set them down gently, one at a time. My mind raced with thoughts of what could be in those bags. Each bag was about four feet long and was filled with some obscurely shaped objects. The odd shapes poked and pressed the fabric of the duffle bags in weird places. I pushed my body back as close to the building as I could. The last thing I wanted was him to see me really stalking him.

  He left the bags on the ground as he pulled his Jeep into the garage. He quickly came around and grabbed two of the six bags and carried them inside his house. I fought the urge to run over and look inside one of the bags. It was just too risky, so I waited. It took him about a minute to bring the first two bags into his house. So when he grabbed the second two bags, I made my way quickly over to the last two and unzipped one.

  It was dark and I couldn’t see a thing inside the bag, so I pressed my hand into it. The cold metal of what I thought to be a gun greeted my hand. I quickly pulled away and ran back to the cover of my garage.
/>
  Oh no, I forgot to zip the bag back up!

  It was too late now, there was no way I could make it back over to the bag and get it zipped up before he was there to grab them. I watched in anticipation for him to return. Luckily the dark of night camouflaged my mistake. He grabbed the bags with ease and headed back into his house.

  Guns! Why was he hauling bags full of guns into his house? Maybe I had not felt right, maybe they weren’t really guns? I couldn’t be one hundred percent sure, but my stomach was in knots.

  This gorgeous guy comes to my small little town and starts making out with me and sure enough he turns out to be some sort of gun dealer or something. He didn’t seem like the type of guy who would be part of such an illegal line of work. Granted, I didn’t really know what type of guy he was, but he seemed more honest than a gun dealer would be.

  Chapter 8

  My mind swirled with thoughts of Chris. I was confused, but for some reason I wasn’t afraid of him at all. Shouldn’t a person be afraid of a man who had a house full of guns? There was just something about him when he was there next to me; I could feel he was not some evil monster.

  I could be wrong though. There was that man in the bar when I was out with my friends. I thought he seemed like a totally nice guy. Then before the night was over, I watched as he punched and choked another man until the police were called and took him away to jail. So maybe I wasn’t that good at telling a good guy from a bad one. My body said he was a good guy for sure…my mind was trying to talk me out of it.

  I watched out my bedroom window as the lights in Chris’s house turned on and then off again. He seemed to have moved the bags into the second bedroom and had the light on in there for a good twenty minutes before he turned it off. I then watched as the light in his kitchen came on and his face appeared at the kitchen sink. He was doing dishes. It struck me as odd that a man who just unloaded probably six bags of guns into his house was now domestically washing his dishes.

  Laughing to myself, I finally laid down. My sleep schedule had been off for weeks. Really, it had been off since that night out drinking with Rebecca and my other friends. Now I was up until three or four in the morning almost every night and sleeping until noon during the day. I didn’t mind the schedule very much, but it just made me feel a bit lazy.

  Tomorrow I would again have to stay up late because I needed to hike into the woods to get my final photograph for my show. I had scoped out the perfect spot at the top of a steep hill. If I lay just right on the hill, I will be able to see the Milky Way, a huge fir tree, and a half moon. I was hoping the moon would have a ring of red around it like the forecast I followed had suggested. But there was no way to confirm that for sure. I would just have to see if the weather worked in my favor.

  I slept in the next day and waited until after ten at night to hike into the woods. Throughout the day, I had looked for Chris, but he was nowhere to be found. I decided against stopping by his house. The thought of all those guns inside was freaking me out a bit. As I walked to the wooded area I couldn’t help but look up at the stars; they were beautiful and there was not a cloud in the sky. The moon was perfect also. It had the red ring around it and I couldn’t have asked for a more perfect picture to end my show with.

  I moved slowly and deliberately up the wooded hill. It was much steeper at night than it had been during the day. Without being able to see each step I was taking, it made me extremely uncomfortable. I let my foot settle into each step, ensuring that my boots had a firm grip on the land before moving. It was hard to see if something was loose or if I was about to run into a branch or anything like that. I kept my arms out to ensure I didn’t run right into something.

  The higher I got up the hill, the more light from the moon shown down on me. I could see my way much easier when I got near the top. Finally, I stood and enjoyed my perfect view. I took a couple pictures standing and then lay in the spot I had thought was going to be perfect. I took more and more pictures trying to find that feeling. I wanted the feeling that I had my perfect picture, but it eluded me.

  I repositioned myself to the side of the hill that I had climbed up, hoping that my perfect picture would be there. I took more and more pictures. Nothing! None of them looked like I wanted. I tried to reposition myself again, but as I moved my foot I slipped on a rock and went tumbling down the side of the hill. Head over feet, I tumbled at least three times before my leg struck a tree and stopped my momentum. The shock of the moment had me screaming out in pain.

  As I calmed myself, I started to realize I wasn’t actually in a lot of pain. I inventoried my body from my head to my toes. I had a gash on my forehead that seemed to be bleeding pretty profusely but most everything seemed to be working alright. My ankle was probably broken, as it hurt horribly when I tried to wiggle it. All in all, I wasn’t in that bad of shape. I felt around for my camera and it was still strapped around my neck. Then I looked up at the moon.

  This was the perfect picture, I held the camera up and snapped a couple frames.

  “Are you alright?” I heard a voice yell from the bottom of the hill.

  “Yes!” I yelled back. “I’m just taking pictures and I slipped. I think I broke my ankle.”

  “Katelyn?”

  “Yes,” I said tentatively.

  Within a minute, Chris was standing there. It amazed me at how fast he was able to climb up that hill. I had taken at least twenty minutes and he just moved swiftly and with precision, just fast quick steps up the hillside and straight to me.

  Chapter 9

  “What are you doing up here in the middle of the night?” Chris scolded me.

  “I had to get a photo.”

  “I hope it was worth it, you look like you almost died.”

  He took off his shirt and pressed it up against my head. Again with the shirtless body, it was an immediate distraction. Even in my state of pain, I could still appreciate the defined muscles of his body.

  “It was,” I smiled.

  I then pulled my camera up and clicked a photo of him standing over me. It was an innocent photo, just for fun. The look that filled his eyes was nothing at all fun though.

  “Delete it,” he demanded.

  “Oh why, you look so chivalrous coming to my rescue,” I joked.

  The joke did not sit well with him at all. A scowl came across his face and his eyes hardened. I really had no choice but to delete it. I was no match for him.

  “Thank you.”

  His face softened right back up the second I deleted the photo.

  “I don’t think I can walk, my ankle is hurt.”

  “Well, I’m sure we can figure something out.”

  Without another word, his arms swept under me and lifted me up. I held on for dear life and he made fast work of descending the large hill. His power was more than I could have imagined by looking at him, or even when I touched him. Each muscle moved precisely with the others and he seemed to not even need to look out for the trees. He moved with large steps around all the obstacles until we reached the bottom of the hill.

  “I can try walking from here so you can rest,” I said as I saw sweat forming on his brow.

  “That’s ridiculous. Just hang on, we’ll be home soon.”

  He didn’t even consider my idea. His arms continued to hold me firmly against his body as he made his way down the sidewalk back toward our homes. I watched him as he walked and there was a determination in his face that I had not seen on another person ever. I know that I must have been heavy by now. Even my tiny frame would wear on a normal person. Chris seemed a little superhuman. His muscles bulged as he walked with big strides. It took about ten minutes and we were finally at my door.

  “Set me down, I can walk from here.”

  “Where’s your key?”

  “It’s unlocked.”

  “Really Katelyn, you leave your door unlocked in the middle of the night?”

  He scowled me again, but I just smiled as he brought me in and set me down on the couc
h. I waited for him to sit down next to me. He had to have been exhausted, but he never stopped to rest. Instead, he went to the bathroom and looked through the cabinets, coming back with my small first aid kit.

  “How bad is it?” I asked as he looked at my head.

  “You’ll live,” he smiled.

  I sat there with my lips only inches away from his stomach as he stood and cleaned up my head cut. Every part of me yearned to let my lips touch his body. I imagined the salty taste of his sweat on my lips.

  I licked my lips.

  “Don’t move, I’m cleaning this.”

  “I’m sorry,” I smiled as I looked up at him.

  “Stop smiling. You could have been really hurt.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  He finished up with my head and moved to my ankle. As he pushed on it, and maneuvered it, I didn’t feel like it was as bad as I first thought.

  “Severely bruised and possibly sprained, but I don’t think it’s broken.”

  “Thank you,” I said as I licked my lips again.

  It was unconscious at first, but as I finished licking them, I realized how intently he was watching my lips. He wanted them. Our eyes locked onto each. His eyes had hunger in them that I couldn’t describe. The best way I think would be the feeling of lust. My breath quickened as he moved closer to me. He sat down on the footstool and let his hands gently touch my knees.

  “You’re welcome,” Chris said as his eyes panned down to my thighs.

  I had been wearing some tan hiking shorts and a white tank top. They both now had splatters of blood on them. Without warning, Chris thrust my legs apart and moved down onto his knees in between them. He left his hands on my thighs as he leaned in and kissed me.

  This time the kiss didn’t start sweet at all. It was filled with passion and desire. He acted like he couldn’t hold it in another second and had to taste me. Chris wrapped his hands around my ass and pulled me in tight against him. His mouth wrapped around mine and his tongue searching throughout my mouth. His hands reached around to my tank top and grabbed the bottom of it, slowly pulling it up and over my head. My white lace bra was exposed, but he made quick work of releasing me from it.