Her First Billionaire (BBW Erotic Romance) (9 page)

He popped on the computer and opened a chat window at the dating site. She wasn’t in his “Favorites” any more. Huh? He ran a search – now Laura Michaels. It was as if she had vanished.

Blocked?

And, in fact, she had.

Beep-beep-beep!
She whammed her hand on the alarm button, but it was elusive; a little too far out of her grasp, but instead she whacked the heel of her hand on the corner of her end table and listened to her own yelp of protests.

“Damn it.” She opened her eyes, giving the machine a glare meant to melt circuits. 6:00 a.m. – time for work. Really – had she
really
only gotten two and a half hours of sleep?
Shit.

She stood up, forced herself to stretch and then wondered why she felt so sore, so sticky, so –

Oh.
Dylan’s tongue on her clit, lapping in circles as his finger slid in and out, her legs on his shoulders and
– That’s why. She closed her eyes and sighed heavily, letting emotion wash over her and just feeling it, knowing that blocking it out, denying it, or pushing it aside would do her no good.

Let it be and it would fade. Force it away and she’d carry the pain forever.

What she had thought might have been just wasn’t meant to be, and she had to accept that. Too good to be true, really – the night was some sort of magical, very authentic encounter with a hot guy way out of her league.

But that was OK. It was OK. It was a new day and she reached for her smart phone, confirming the time and then seeing that she had about twenty-seven texts from Josie, and she’d have to answer those later. Josie would make her spill everything, tell all, and would congratulate her for refusing to accept second best.

Right now, though, Laura needed to wallow. And that, like so much else, was OK.

Her coffeemaker gurgled, the tell-take signs that the pot was just about finished. She had forgotten that before the date she’d set it all up just like she always did, had come home from work and set up the coffee for the next day. She was grateful as she sloshed the coffee into her mug and sat down, booting up her computer to check email, today like any other morning, although, she knew deep inside it really wasn’t.

Dylan, Dylan, Dylan, Dylan, Dylan.

Laura popped into her email, ignored a bunch of ads, found nothing of real value in there until suddenly she noticed that the online dating site had sent her a message. “You have a new request to chat.” Yep –
boom, boom, boom, boom
. A hugely full inbox.

She had seventeen new requests to chat. Yeah, right – they wouldn’t be chat requests, but rather fuck requests.
Thanks, guys, I’m all chatted out and my fuck request meter is broken.

She knew it was fine, deep down – last night was all that she needed.
That’s
what she wanted – she wanted more of last night. The magic. The thrill. Being charmed and charming someone back. Falling into that special knowing and feeling warm and safe and excited all at once, the heady passion of the new.

And then the image of the pictures all over Dylan’s room filled her brain, that woman, his girlfriend, his wife, his
whatever
. He didn’t wear a ring, but that didn’t mean anything. She had learned that within her second or third date after college. The married men always lied and they tended to be the slickest – and this guy was pretty slick. Laura took a deep breath and – and it almost tasted like he was in her, as if his scent had permeated her lungs, as if it coated her trachea, as if –

Inhale. Exhale
. She breathed in, she breathed out – breathed in sadness, breathed out happiness, breathed in sorrow, breathed out joy. No matter how hard she tried, though, it wasn’t cutting it. Caffeine would have to do what meditation could not, no matter what her yoga teacher said about the evils of coffee.
You can pry my caffeine from my cold, dead, outstretched hand.

She sucked down the cup of coffee, poured herself another and thought
what the hell
and clicked on one of those chat messages in email.
Hmmm. Hey there, Mike
, she thought to herself. Some guy named Mike wanted to meet or wanted to chat with her. Mike – let’s see, he’s 32, 6‘5”, 180. Sounded like a runner. Online dating was devolving into ordering from a menu.
Would you like fries with that?

There it was: “likes to run marathons and works at a ski resort.” Oh, dear – her idea of running was waving madly at the bus driver and sprinting when she was late for the morning bus, and skiing? Lodge. Hot toddy. Not snow.

Deleting his message would have been the easiest thing in the world, and her finger even hovered over the button, but something stopped her. If Josie had been there and asked, Laura couldn’t have explained it. She just…stopped. Clicking to his profile, she read up on him. He looked kind of like the mirror opposite of Dylan. This guy had sandy blonde hair and Nordic features while Dylan was Italian and dark and swarthy. Mike looked long and lean in pictures of him riding a bike, shots of him crossing finish lines, and pictures of him camping.

Camping
. She shuddered. Her idea of camping was no mint on the pillow. She wasn’t sure this was going to work. And then she read his little intro about himself:

“Hi, my name is Mike Pine, I am 32 years old. I am really new to this online dating thing. I am very active and athletic, work at a ski resort, I teach skiing and also work on the first aid team. In my spare time, I like to run and camp and bike, and I’m looking for friendship or more, whatever and would like to chat with other people who are interested in the same thing – ”

Beep-blip!
A little chat window popped up and Laura splashed coffee on her hand in surprise at the unexpected sound. “Ow!” she shouted, grabbing a kitchen towel and shaking it out. “What the hell!?” She peered at the now lit-up screen, a familiar chat window open in the right lower-hand corner.

“Oh, geez,” she sputtered, her words echoing through her empty apartment. Somehow he had figured out she was online, ‘cause this was a chat from Marathon Mike himself.

“Hi, there. Are you on right now?”
he wrote. Oh, God, she still had the smell of Dylan on her and now she had some new guy coming after her? What a slut she was. She thought about that for a second. The word slut didn’t really apply to her, ever. It was more that she was trying on new behaviors.

Let’s try this one on for size
, she thought.

She typed back,
“I’m just drinking my coffee and getting ready for work and I logged in and saw your message, so hi!”

“Oh, good morning! Yeah, I’m not really functional without two or three cups of coffee myself,”
he wrote back with a little grin icon.

Hmph…yeah who isn’t,
she thought.

Laura chugged the rest of her mug’s contents and typed, one-handed,
“So I see you’re like, Mr. Triathlon and ski dude, and my idea of exercise is walking across the room to get the remote.”

He wrote back,
“lolol, yeah don’t be afraid, we could just go for a hike if you want. Oh, I think I just asked you out. Yeah I did,”
and then he ended it with a question mark.

“Oh, man,” she muttered. She stared at the glowing screen, dumbfounded, her empty coffee mug dangling precariously off her right index finger as she absorbed this. What
was
this? Did she hit the good-looking guy lottery? Out of the blue, she just – oh, she had just totally ditched Dylan in his bed last night, and now she had some guy who looked an awful lot like the lankier version of the actor who played Thor hitting on her, but deep inside she decided she was trying on this new act, and she would just go for it.

Just go for it, Laura. What can it hurt?
A swell of physical memory from last night made her warm between her legs, made her skin flush with the recall of Dylan’s hands. She wanted more. And if she couldn’t have more of
him
, she might as well have some of
Mike
.

“A hike yeah, I’d like that. That sounds really cool.”
And she breathed in opportunity, and breathed out rejection, breathed in despondence, and exhaled chance.

Chance favors the prepared. Laura was more than ready.

At least, that’s what she told herself.

Continued in part 2,
Her Second Billionaire
..

A sample:

SHE DREW A LINE WITH A ONE NIGHT STAND

When Laura Michaels got one hot firefighter pinging her for a date after joining a popular online dating service, she thought she had won the lottery. A night with Dylan Stanwyck, professional (firefighting) hunk and former model, had been too much. Fearful her curves would turn him off like so many other guys, her pleasant surprise turned to white-hot passion as she broke her own rule and slept with him on the first date.

That turned to regret when she awoke in the wee hours of the morning and found pictures of a hot, buff surfer-type woman with Dylan plastered all over his bedroom. Taking the hint, she made the walk of shame home, deleted him from her contacts and chalked it up to experience.

To her shock, within hours a new guy – Mike Pine, a ski instructor and marathon runner with a body and face like an actor in a superhero movie – messaged her and asked her out. Lightning struck twice in 24 hours! Laura was incredulous but, emboldened by encouragement from her best friend, Josie, she took the plunge and accepted the date.

HE WANTS TO BE LOVED ON HIS OWN

Mike likes simple things. Skiing. Running. Being outside. Uncomplicated love. Good food. For nearly ten years he, Dylan and Jill had a simple love that was achingly easy on the inside, and oh, so complicated from the outside. It worked, though, and made him whole – until Jill’s lymphoma diagnosis and her early death.

Reeling, he and Dylan just took their lives day by day, and sometimes hour by hour, mourning their great love. Broken, Mike descended into a world of punishing athleticism, clocking 14-hour days on the slopes and 100+ miles of running a week, the pounding of his legs on pavement strong enough – he wished – to pound out his pain. What he and Dylan had never expected was what came more than a year after Jill’s death: an inheritance. From her family’s trust fund. More than $1 billion each, with a perpetual income that made everything go from simple to chaotic.

What Laura doesn’t know is that Dylan and Mike are roommates. More than roommates. And they are looking for a third in their relationship. More than a third…but Mike has something to prove, first, and snagging this first date with her is just the beginning.

Read on to sample
Her Second Billionaire
:

Had she really just made a date less than three hours after sneaking out of another guy’s bed? She opened up one of the 17 texts from Josie which, as she scrolled through them, appeared to all be variations of, “Please tell me about the hot guy.”