A Billionaire Between the Sheets

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D
id I close the garage door before I left the house
?
Slap!
Is that moss dripping from those trees or some type of vine
?
Slap!
Can you die from too many mosquito bites
?
Slap!

Olivia Harrington reached around to the side pocket of her backpack and pulled out the bug repellent. Not that it seemed to help. The bloodsuckers didn't even wait for the mist to settle before they were back to biting.

“Got DEET.”

She glanced at the man behind her. He stood in the back of the pirogue, the sinewy muscles in his saggy-skinned arms flexing as he used a long pole to propel the boat through the murky water. She wondered if that type of pole had a name. Then she wondered if the man was too old for such exercise. He looked to be about as ancient as her neighbors Mr. and Mrs. Huckabee, who had waved at her from their balcony that morning when she left for the airport. She had waved back, but averted her eyes. The Huckabees were nudists who, at well over seventy, completely ignored the city ordinances about flaunting private parts. Thinking about leaving San Francisco brought Olivia full circle to wondering whether she'd closed the garage door.

“DEET,” the old man repeated in his mumbled Cajun accent as he continued to lift the pole and press it against the bottom of the swamp in a slow and steady rhythm that would've been soothing if she were in Venice on vacation. But she wasn't in Venice. She was in Louisiana on a business trip. The most important business trip of her life. Which meant she needed to get a handle on her easily distracted brain and focus.

Smiling politely, she tried to motivate him—not that she had ever been good at motivating people. “Do you think you could…umm…pole a little faster?”

The old man lifted the pole and repositioned it. “Skeeter spray got DEET?”

“Oh!” She squinted at the ingredients on the bottle of insect repellent. She had bought it from REI, along with a backpack, a wide-brimmed hat, a T-shirt, khaki shorts, and an ugly pair of hiking boots that laced around her ankles. As a non-traveler, she'd been thinking more African safari than Louisiana bayou. What she really needed was a pair of night goggles, a fan, and, apparently, DEET.

A splash drew her attention to the left bank. With very little sunlight filtering in through the thick branches of the moss-covered trees, it was hard to tell what had made the sound. Probably one of those long-legged birds. The thought of birds had her thinking of her own bird problem. Jonathan Livingston was an annoying seagull who had taken to landing on her balcony, eating whatever garbage he had collected, and leaving his calling card on her Pottery Barn outdoor rug. It was truly disgusting, and she had bought more carpet cleaner in the last month than she'd bought coffee. And she bought a lot of coffee. It was the only thing that seemed to keep her mind on track—

“Gator.”

The word focused her brain better than a double shot of espresso. She scanned the water between the bank and the boat as she inched back on the seat. “As in alligator? Where?”

“Just yonder.”

Yonder
? How did that translate? Fifteen feet? Ten? Two? Olivia tried to stay composed, but it was hard to be composed when you were traveling in “gator”-infested waters in a banana peel of a boat.

“Can they jump?” she asked.

The man kept lifting and pushing, taking his sweet time in answering. Figuring that his nonchalant demeanor was a good sign, she relaxed her shoulders. Her calm was short-lived when the man spoke.

“Up until last year, would've said no.” Lift. Push. Lift. Push. “Damned gator knocked Cousin Pip right out of the boat and death-rolled him.”

“Death roll? What's a—” A thump had the boat wobbling and her composure completely deserting her. “Ohmygod!” She jumped to her feet and attempted to join the man in the back of the boat. Unfortunately, she was more agile in high heels than in awkward hiking boots. She stumbled and fell headfirst over the side.

The water was colder than she'd thought it would be. Or maybe it was just cold in comparison to the hot, humid air. Air she now struggled to find. Being a northern California girl, she wasn't that good a swimmer to begin with, and the heavy backpack didn't help matters. It weighed her down like a pair of cement shoes, quickly taking her to the mushy bottom. As much as she wanted to hang on to the backpack and her dreams, she realized she would have to make a choice. She had just slipped off one strap when strong jaws clamped her waist and pulled her through the murky water like a rag doll. She kicked and fought against the death roll, but it was no use.

It took her breaking the surface of the water and air rushing into her empty lungs for her to realize that she wasn't locked in an alligator's grip as much as a man's. At first she thought that it was the old man she'd paid to bring her into the swamp, and she marveled at his strength and agility. But then a deep voice spoke next to her ear that sounded nothing like the pirogue gondolier's. This voice was silky Southern and used pronouns.

“You need to be still or I'll leave you to the gator.”

Olivia stopped struggling and relaxed in his hold, and with just a few strong kicks, he had her on the bank. Exhausted, she lay in the thick grass, too weak to even push her slime-coated hair from her face. With the backpack still attached, she no doubt looked like a beached turtle as she listened to the conversation between the men.

“What were you thinking bringing a little bit of a helpless girl out here, Coon?” the man who'd saved her asked.

Olivia bristled at the demeaning reference. She might not be able to reach the top items on a grocery shelf, but she was not helpless. But before she could defend herself, Coon spoke.

“Deliver my granny to the devil for a hundred.”

“A hundred? She paid you a hundred dollars?”

Another long pause. “Yep.” There was a creak of wood and the swish of displaced water.

“Coon, you are
not
leaving her here,” the man said with authority. His statement was quickly followed by an exasperated “Shee-it.”

It took a moment for Olivia to realize what was happening. By the time she sat up and swiped the hair from her face, the pirogue was already heading back the way it had come.

“Wait!” She wobbled to her feet, weaving like her mother after one of her social events. “I gave you a hundred dollars to take me to the Beaumonts'.”

Coon lifted the pole and pushed, then did it again before answering. “Done it.”

Surprised, she glanced back at the man who stood on the bank not more than ten feet away. He looked like some kind of hairy swamp creature. Lichen slime streaked his dark, shoulder-length hair and his thick beard.

Even with the beard and the passage of sixteen years, Olivia had no trouble recognizing the oldest Beaumont brother. Although Deacon Valentino had filled out since she'd last seen him. His shoulders were broader and the muscles of his chest more defined. But he still had the same arrogant stance and hard features.

“Who are you?” he demanded.

Suddenly alligators weren't the only threats in the swamp. But having grown up with the owner of the most successful lingerie company in the world, she had learned how to show no fear—even to intimidating men who studied her with an intensity that was as palpable as the humidity. Holding Deacon's direct gaze, she squished her way closer and held out a hand.

“You probably don't remember me, but I'm—” A strange tingling sensation had her slapping at her neck. But instead of a mosquito, she encountered a glob of goo. “What in the world?”

“Leech.”

Her tough-businesswoman act vanished, and she released a high-pitched squeal that had birds taking flight. She clawed at her neck, but the plump, slimy leech held tight, which turned her squeal into more of a hysterical scream. “Get it off me!” She slapped and spun in circles.

“Stand still,” he ordered, and grabbed her arm. Her squeals lowered to breathy whimpers as he tipped up her chin and examined her neck. She felt the scrape of his nail against her skin before he tossed something over his shoulder and it plopped into the swamp. Then he ran his fingers along the collar of her shirt, behind her ears, and through her hair. And she had to admire his competent thoroughness…and the heat of his skin. After the cold dip in the swamp, the contrast took her breath away—as did his eyes.

The Beaumont brothers all had deep indigo eyes that bordered on violet—a color she had tried to duplicate more than once in satins and silks. Now she realized she had failed miserably. Deacon's eyes were more intense—an almost Technicolor vibrant. As she studied them, there was a flicker of something in their depths.

“What?” she said. “Are there more leeches?”

Without a word he released her and turned away. She watched as he picked up a cell phone that was lying on the ground. He glanced at the screen with a long, spidery crack and frowned.

“It should still work,” she said. “I dropped mine once and it cracked, but it worked fine until I could get a new one.”

His frown deepened before he grabbed his fishing pole and tackle box and headed along a path that led into the trees.

“Wait!” She hurried after him to explain why she was there. But it was hard to explain while dodging the tree branches Deacon released in her face. She batted them away and then got distracted by the good three inches of underwear that showed above the waistband of his wet camouflage pants.

Having spent the last year studying men's underwear, Olivia knew they weren't designer. Probably discount store. Boxer briefs. Cotton with a touch of polyester. Still, she liked the way the wide band hugged his trim waist and the white—almost transparent—cotton conformed to the top muscles of his butt. If she hadn't been on a mission, she would've asked him the brand. But she was on a mission. A mission that involved getting his signature. Not the brand name of his undies.

He led her farther into the trees to a ramshackle house on stilts that looked like it had come straight out of Critter Country in Disneyland. It was made of rustic, bleached-out boards with a sagging roof and porch. A rocking chair sat on the porch, along with a rusty antique washing machine. Not the kind that you plugged in, but the kind with two tubs and crank rollers that wrung out water.

“You live here?” she asked.

Instead of answering he set the fishing pole and tackle box down by the stairs and reached for a coiled garden hose. A part of her felt a little guilty that this was his home. The other part—the business part—jumped for joy. If he and his brothers lived in the run-down shack in an alligator- and leech-infested swamp, her proposition would be all the more appealing. Which would make the harrowing past few moments well worth it. Now all she had to do was convince the Beaumont brothers.

But right when she started to speak, he turned on the hose. Green slime was quickly washed away to reveal tanned skin and hard muscle. One would think that, after spending the last week looking at male underwear models, she would be difficult to impress. But Olivia was more than impressed. The boyish models with their overdeveloped stomach muscles and hairless chests didn't hold a candle to the image of virile masculinity before her. Deacon had a man's body. Broad shoulders and sculpted muscles that didn't look like they had been formed by protein shakes and hours spent at the gym, but rather by a carnivorous diet and hard work. A line of dark hair ran from the waistband of his boxers up a flat stomach with just the right amount of abdominal definition before it fanned out between his pectoral muscles. Two perfectly formed pectoral muscles that made Olivia's palms tingle.

She had always had fine-tuned tactile perception. And this heightened sense of touch had made her extremely good at picking out the perfect fabrics for lingerie designs. She wanted to touch now. To cup each pec in her hands and test the hardness of the muscle and the rigidness of each puckered nipple. But before she could do something really stupid, he shook his hair, sending water flying. The feel of the ice-cold droplets snapped her back to reality.

He scraped his hair off his high forehead and directed those indigo eyes at her. “What do you want?”

Since touching was out of the question, she swallowed and got straight to the point. “I'm here to offer you a proposition.”

“Really?” He took a step closer. Then another. His bare, narrow feet stopped a mere inch from the toes of her hiking boots. “You came clear out here to proposition me?”

She ignored the innuendo. “Not just you, but also your brothers.” The water droplets in his thick beard caught her attention. “Does it itch?”

His brow knotted in puzzlement before he turned and walked away. “Sorry. Not interested in any proposition.” He climbed the long row of rickety steps to the porch.

“You haven't even heard what it is.”

“Don't need to.” He shimmied out of his jeans and underwear, jerked opened the screen door, and disappeared inside the house with a flash of virile manhood—followed by a longer look of pale, well-defined butt. A well-defined butt that would look great in an underwear ad. But as great as his ass was, his penis was the thing that held her attention long after the screen door slammed. She'd thought that cold water caused shrinkage, but he hadn't looked shrunk. And if his penis was that big after a dousing in cold water, what would it look like fully aroused?

Usually it took plenty of foreplay to get her aroused, and even then an orgasm wasn't a given. Yet with just a flash of flesh, this Beaumont brother had her primed and ready. Obviously the stress of the last six months was causing weird bodily reactions.

Taking two deep breaths, she climbed the stairs, stopping to remove her muddy boots and socks before she stepped inside. She expected a typical bachelor's pad—clutter, dirty dishes in the sink, empty bottles of beer and pizza boxes. But although the furniture was old, the inside was neat and clean. The main room had a fireplace, a dilapidated couch with a rolled-up sleeping bag and pillow stacked on one end, a card table with a laptop and four nylon-strapped aluminum lawn chairs around it, and a small kitchenette with a refrigerator and stove as ancient as the washing machine on the porch.