The Trillionaire's Kiss: Book One in Trillionaire Wishes (Fountain of Love) (7 page)

"How many women are you friends with that did the auctions?"

April thought about it.  "Just three.  There's
Jayn in Montana.  She's probably the one I'm closest to, but see the least.  Then there's Amber in Cleburne, and Erin in McKinney."

"Erin in McKinney?  That's where we live!"
  Was there really someone that close that she could get to know?

April smiled.  "After the babies are born, we'll have a small party, and you can meet all of my friends.  I'll give you their email addresses before you leave today, and that way you can at least have someone to talk to."

Alicia smiled.  "I really like that idea.  Thank you!"  It wouldn't be the same as her regular Wednesday night dates with Alexa and Megan, but it would be better than no female companionship at all.  She loved having a friend who lived in her city.  Maybe they could meet for lunch if they both brought their bodyguards.  She frowned, hating the idea of needing a bodyguard for a lunch with a friend.

They had a simple lunch with both men right there.  The two men talked about the housing market, and Bill was obviously trying to steer Calor toward a certain realtor.  "
Austin'll be able to find you something good.  Let him know what you're looking for, and it'll be found in hours.  He's one of Erin's husbands."

"I'll give him a call this evening.  My lady wants to have the freedom to walk around outside and not be caged in the apartment all the time, so that's what she'll get."

Bill smiled.  "We're the same way with April.  I swear, if she asked us to find a way to take over the world, we'd all put our heads together and do our best to make it happen."

After the lunch was over, the men walked off again, leaving April and Alicia.  They went back to the living area and sat together on the couch, April carefully propping her feet up.  "My feet and ankles are so swollen.  My doctor has only treated one pregnant woman before, and that was me, so he's guessing when he comes up with solutions for my problems.  Well, that and reading old medical books, but he likes to have something that has worked for him before with another patient."

Alicia grinned.  "It must be fun being a guinea pig."

April shrugged.  "I'm getting used to it."  She rubbed the back of her neck.  "So tell me about your friends.  What are they like?  The two that saw you disappear, I mean."

Alicia thought about that.  How could she describe them?  "Megan is an elementary school teacher.  She's doing just what she always dreamed she'd do.  She and Alexa share a house.  Neither of them wanted to live in an apartment, and it's easier for them to share the bills.  Alexa is a librarian.  They mesh really well together.  We all three do."  She frowned.  "We met in college.  We were all pledging the same sorority and became fast friends.  They both moved to Oakville, Minnesota right after graduation, but I went onto law school at the University of Minnesota.  When I graduated, I found a job in Oakville, and moved in with them for a year.  I got an apartment about a year ago...or over three hundred years ago, depending on how you want to look at it."  The number of years was getting confusing to her.  It felt like a year ago, but it was really over three hundred?  How was she going to be able to reconcile that?

"Why didn't you stay with them?"

"I like having my own space.  It was nothing against them.  We all liked living together, but their little quirks were starting to bug me.  I knew we'd be much better friends if I moved out and we didn't live together any longer."  Alicia was very much a woman who preferred her own space.  She wanted to be able to live with the other two, but it was better for all three of them to be friends and not roommates.

April nodded.  "I can understand that.  I can't imagine having to live with another woman.  They say men are territorial, but I think it's really the women.  When my father got married, his new wife decided she couldn't share a house with me, and she needed the kind of house selling me would provide."

Alicia sighed.  "Did you like her?"  She had a step-mother whom she'd always been very close to, so it seemed odd to her.  Of course, her step-mother had married her father after she'd gone to college, so maybe the fact that they'd never lived together had made them close.

"That's the crazy part.  I did.  I always liked her, and we always got along, but when it came down to it, she didn't want to live with me."  April shrugged.  "It worked out for the best for me, though."

"I have strong feelings for Calor, but I really want to go talk to my friends, and at least let them know I'm okay.  I...I want to go back to the fountain and see if I can do that.  I want to be with him, so I'd come back, but I need to at least talk to them."  She'd made the decision while talking to April, knowing she needed to at least make the effort if she could.

April made a face.  "I can understand that.  I doubt if Calor will, though."

"I do too.  I don't want to hurt him by suggesting it, but I don't want to let them worry forever either."

"I don't have an answer for that.  I wish I did.  I'd be happy to be your friend, though.  It would be nice to have someone close who I could visit with on occasion."

Alicia smiled.  "Thank you.  I really appreciate it."  She knew she could be friends with April.  Perhaps not as close as she was to Megan and Alexa, but any port in a storm.

By the time they were ready to leave, Alicia felt like she knew everything about her new friend.  Calor and Bill came to stand in the doorway of the living room.  "It's time to go, Alicia.  Bill says it's time for April's nap."

Alicia looked at April with a grin.  The other woman had been yawning a lot.  "You nap."  She hugged her new friend tightly.  "I'll email you when I get home."

As he walked them to the front door, Bill asked, "What do you throw to a drowning lawyer?"

Alicia glared at Calor.  "You put him up to this, didn't you?"  What was wrong with the man that he felt the need to constantly tell her lawyer jokes?

"His partners."  Bill grinned as he delivered the punch line while Calor laughed uproariously. 

She shook her head.  "Unbelievable.  I travel forward over three hundred years in time to hear the same old tired lawyer jokes I've heard all my life?"

On the way home, she broached the subject of going to the park.  "I want to just go talk to
my friends for a minute.  I can wish on the fountain." 

He looked sad, but he nodded.  "I don't want to lose you.  What if you get stuck in the past?"

"But I can't let them worry forever!"  She gripped his hand tightly. "I don't want to lose you, either, though.  My choice is to be with you."

He walked around and opened the door for her as soon as they'd reached the park.  "Let's go then.  I won't stand in your way no matter how much I hate it."

Alicia looked at him, hugging him close.  "I don't want to get away from you.  I hope you know that."

He nodded.  "On one level I do.  On another?  I feel like you're trying to abandon me."
  He wanted to take her home and tell her she was never allowed to even think about the fountain again.

He had his arm around her as they walked toward the spot where the fountain was, but they were still a good ways away when he realized he couldn't see it.  "It looks like it's gone."

She sighed.  "I was afraid of that.  When the police went back to look for the fountain after I disappeared it was gone from there too."  Now she had no way of letting her friends know she was safe. 

"Now what?" he asked.

She shrugged. "I guess we just keep our eyes and ears open for stories of girls who have traveled forward in time.  I don't know what else to do."  She stopped him, pulling his head down for a kiss.  "Thank you for bringing me here to try.  I know you didn't want to, because you didn't feel it was safe, but I really do appreciate it."

He smiled, holding her close.  "Anything for you."  He looked around to see a few other men watching them.  "I do think we should get home now, though."
  He wished they'd taken the time to go get Robertron before coming to the park, but they hadn't.  Hopefully they'd be safe.

"I agree."  They walked back to the car quickly, and he helped her into her side before driving them straight home.  She smiled at the word.  She was starting to think of this place as home.

Chapter Seven

Their days quickly fell into a pattern.  After breakfast every morning, the first thing Alicia did was check to see if her friends had magically appeared anywhere between 2014 and the present time.  She needed to make sure they were all right.  It was too important for her to do anything else.

After hearing the computer's news, which was always negative, she would throw herself into her studies.   Determined to know the law as well as any modern day lawyer, she spent hours every day trying to learn all of the important case studies.  She found herself a history book for the past three hundred years and studied it, so she would have an understanding of the world around her.

Every day Calor would either go to his office to work, or he would make the drive to Houston. 

At the end of the second week, he came home from his day in Houston with a huge smile on his face.  Taking both of her hands in his he said, "Travis has four houses to show us tomorrow."  He hoped the news would take the sad look off her face.  He didn't know how to please her, but he wanted her to be happy more than anything else in the world.

Alicia's face lit up.  "In the country like we want?"

"Yes, and one is within walking distance of Erin's house." 

"Oh good!"  She hadn't met Erin face to face yet, but they emailed several times per day.  It had been good for her to have a network for friends again.  "I'd really like that!" 

He smiled.  "Travis said that they would be more than willing to make a gate between the two properties for you to go back and forth between them.  Erin has the baby, so it's harder for her to go back and forth."

"Oh, that's fine!  The walking would do me good after being cooped up here all the time."  She didn't add that they hadn't left the apartment in almost two weeks.  "It'll be nice to get out of the house to go look at houses."

"I'm going to insist we take Robertron."  He knew she'd be against the idea and waited for her to protest.

She rolled her eyes but didn't argue.  Robbie had become something of a friend to her, and she really didn't mind having him around.  "That's fine."
  If she had to have a bodyguard at least it was one she liked.

"We're going to meet him at ten tomorrow morning."

"Sounds perfect."  She walked into his arms holding him tight.  As much as she missed her friends and being around people, she loved Calor.  She enjoyed every minute of the time she had with him, and she knew that if she were able to go back and make a wish, knowing what would happen, she would do it again.  The only thing she would do differently would be to warn her friends.

They had a quiet dinner that she'd made. The appliances were still strange to her, but she was figuring them out slowly.  The oven was halfway between a microwave and the kind of oven she'd always used.  It cooked everything much faster, but it never dried anything out. 

After dinner they went into the living room and he popped in a movie for them both.  She sat up and smiled when she saw it was
Notting Hill
.  "This is one of my favorite movies!  Where did you find it?"  She was amazed that all of her favorite movies could still be found, even though some of them were very difficult.

He grinned stroking her hair.  "I know you've been missing being home, so I looked for a movie that would at least be from your century."

"Well,
Notting Hill
is set in London, but the actress was American and one of my favorites, so it works."  She frowned, thinking just then for the first time that Julia Roberts had been dead for hundreds of years.  It was so odd to think of people that were alive and vibrant the last she'd heard about them as dead.  She felt like she'd mourned half the population of the earth by that point.

She settled back and watched the movie with him, laughing as always at the jokes that came with it.  He paused it several times to ask about different things that didn't make sense to him, and she explained them.

After the movie, she took his hand and led him to the bedroom, feeling like she should be the one to initiate that evening.  He had done more than any man she'd ever known would have done just by hunting down the movie, which was a major chick flick.

Alicia kissed him, stepping close to unbutton his shirt and pull the tails from his pants.  "I missed you all day," she whispered as she pulled his head down for a kiss, her tongue immediately joining his.

She hurriedly undressed him, pushing him down onto his back on the bed, before slowly stripping for him, her body gyrating to music she heard only in her head. 

Calor swallowed hard as he watched his wife perform a strip tease for him.  With all the movies he'd watched over the years, he'd never seen anything sexier.  His cock swelled and was standing at full attention by the time she finished, the head covered with pre-ejaculate. 

Alicia dropped her panties, the last thing she was wearing, to the floor and slowly approached the bed.  "I want you, Calor.   I want to take you inside me and ride you."

Calor's eyes grew darker as he thought about her words.  She climbed onto the bed, straddling him, staring down into his eyes with her hands braced on either side of his head.  He grasped her hips and tried to pull her to him, but she shook her head.  "I get to be in charge this time," she whispered.
  She'd never even suggested she be in charge before, so she knew he had to be surprised by her aggression.  It was time, though.  He needed to know that she desired him as much as he did her.

Calor groaned, digging his hands into the sheets, so he wouldn't try to force her to go faster.  "Just make it soon."

She laughed softly, leaning down to capture his lips with hers, lifting her hips and rubbing against him, but not lowering herself onto him yet.  Feeling him nudging against her entrance felt good, and she decided she'd torment them both that way for a while. 

They kissed, and his hands grasped her hips again, but she pushed them away.  "My turn, remember?"
  She wasn't willing to give up the power she had over him.  It was too heady.

He groaned.  "But you're not taking your turn!"

She laughed throatily.  "Oh, I will."  She slowly lowered herself so she was taking just his head inside her, and rode just that one inch, feeling him slip in and out, enjoying the sensations while watching his face.  He obviously needed more, but she wasn't ready to give it to him yet.

He arched and moved deeper inside her, and she shook her head.  "No more of that."

He groaned, arching his neck as he wanted to be deeper inside her.  "Just take a little more," he pleaded.

She shook her head.  "It's too much fun my way."  She kept her movements slow and careful as she concentrated on riding just the tiny bit of him that was inside her. 

Finally, as she drew close to her climax, she dropped down and took all of him, still rocking back and forth.  When she clenched around him, he groaned, grabbing her hips and rolling over as he reversed their positions.  "My turn now," he growled, thrusting madly in and out of her as he drove himself to climax.  It didn't take long, because she had teased him just enough to have him wild. He rolled to her side, clenching her tightly against him.

They were both panting as he stroked up and down her back, gently kissing her forehead.  "That was amazing," he told her in a whisper.

She sighed, burying her face in his neck. "Everything we do is amazing."  Why had she stayed a virgin so long when sex was so amazing?  She couldn't help but wonder if it would have been amazing with anyone else.  She'd never find out, though.  Calor was more than enough for her.

He fell asleep that night with a smile on his lips, hoping that she was finally starting to care for him and accepting that he was part of her life for good.

*****

Austin met them at his house in McKinney, buzzing them through the gates.  He waited out front beside his car, but the short woman beside him ran forward to meet them.  She threw her arms around Alicia hugging her tight.  "It's so good to finally meet you!  You guys are coming to lunch after you finish the house hunting.  I told Austin, and he agreed."

Alicia smiled, thrilled to finally meet the younger woman.  "I can't wait to sit down and just talk for a while."  Erin was nothing like she'd pictured her, but she didn't care.  As long as she had a female friend to talk to, she would be content.

Erin shook her head.  "Me neither.  April said you're a good friend to have, so I'm going to make you mine." 

Alicia reluctantly got into the car with Calor and Austin, sitting in the back seat where Robbie was already seated.  "I want to see the house that borders your property first," Alicia insisted.

Austin nodded.  "I think that's best.  We can get you a small hovercraft to take between the two houses on days you don't feel like walking.  Erin is convinced that you two will need to sit down and talk at least every other day if not more often."

"That sounds about right to me."  Of the four women she emailed on a daily basis, she'd felt the most drawn to Erin, but she wasn't sure why.  Upon meeting her she realized the other woman was a lot like Megan, soft spoken and sweet as can be.

Austin took the wheel and drove them across the property, using the flying feature.  "I shut off the force field so we could fly this way.  If you're coming over, you need to let Erin know so she can do the same.
  You do not want to hit that force field."

Alicia nodded.  "I will."  She looked around her at the open fields.  She'd have preferred more trees and maybe a lake, but she didn't care at that point.  As long as she was with Calor and had a friend living so close, she would be very happy.  She was willing to overlook a lot of flaws in the house they looked at because it was so close to her friend.

He parked in front of a large house, smaller than the one Erin shared with her four husbands, but she'd only have one husband, so it didn't much matter that it was smaller.  It was made of brick and huge compared to anything else Alicia had ever lived in.

They got out and walked around the perimeter of the house first.  Austin pointed out the well-landscaped lawn and the huge beautiful pool. 
There was a hot tub beside the pool, and Alicia could picture having small parties there.  Well, if she had friends she was allowed to invite over that was.  She frowned.  She hadn't checked for Megan and Alexa yet that morning, because they'd left straight after breakfast.  She felt like she was being disloyal.

Inside the house, she was truly amazed.  The entryway had ceilings that were so high, she knew a regular ladder could never reach them.  "How do you clean ceilings that are that high?" she asked.

Robertron, who was standing beside her answered.  "Like this."  He used his flight feature and flew to the top of the ceiling, dusting it quickly.  "It would take no time at all."

Alicia giggled.  "You're amazing, Robbie."

Robbie landed beside her, and took her hand to bow over it and kiss it with his metal lips.  "Yes, I am."

Calor took her arm and pulled her away from the robot.  "You've gotten awfully friendly with the help."

Alicia laughed.  "The help?  He's a robot!" 

Austin ignored them all as he continued his spiel about the house, leading them into the kitchen.  "The appliances are all state of the art, and have been replaced within the past six months." 

By the time they'd seen the whole house, Alicia was in love. It wasn't just the proximity to her friend it was the house itself.  The last room they saw was the master bedroom, and taking one look into the bathroom, Alicia caught her breath. It was bigger and more plush than Calor's bathroom, which she hadn't thought possible.  "I don't need to see anything else," she told her husband.  "I want this house!"  She made a face, realizing for the first time, she had no idea of the finances involved.  "Can we afford it?"  She would want the house they were looking at even if Erin hadn't lived next door.

He smiled gathering her to him and kissing her forehead. 
"We can afford it."

She smiled her eyes traveling around the room they stood in.  There was even a sun light in the ceiling so she could feel as if she were in the sun as she bathed.  "How soon can we move?"

"Let's go find out," he told her, smiling at her excitement.

"I've never owned a home before.  This is really exciting for me."

"For me too."  They walked through the house, which contained seven bedrooms and twelve bathrooms until they found Austin.  "We want to make an offer.  How long before we could move in?"

Austin grinned.  "If the offer is accepted?  A week or two tops.  The previous owners moved out last week, so it's ready to be moved into."

Alicia wandered through the house while the two men talked price.  She didn't care at all what happened there as long as she got the house.  She wandered onto the back porch and sat in the wooden swing, reminiscent of a time when life was simpler.  Closing her eyes, she could picture her children playing in her yard, and Megan and Alexa there with their men. 

She opened her eyes as a sense of calm washed over her.  She was going to see her friends again.  Suddenly she was no longer worried about them.  They'd be there.