I Choose You (The Billionaire Brothers Series) (18 page)

Trevillo shoved his brother away from me and yanked me back to his side. “Keep your fucking hands off her, Love. I’m dead serious.”

Lovello stared in disbelief at his brother. “Are you kidding me?” As if shocked to the core, he looked from side to side, then back to his brother. “Are. You.
Kidding
. Me?!”

“Nope,” Trevillo answered, calmer than a granny on Valium. “Serious.”

His brother stammered, seemingly lost for words. “I … you with Axia … me … and now? … What the
fuck
?”

“Thought you said no swearing today, brother?” Turning his head to look down at me, he grinned wickedly. “See? Told you he’s the world’s biggest hypocrite.”

Trevillo knew how to effectively push each of his siblings’ buttons. He was such an egregious hellion, I had to wonder why they even bothered inviting him anywhere with them. They must like being pissed-off.

Lovello opened his mouth to retort, but stopped when his pregnant fiancée wrapped her arms around him from behind and peeped her head around to wink at Trevillo, commenting, “You’re being unfair, Trev.”

Her fiancé shook his head again and peered down at her. “Can you even believe this asshole, beauts?”

“I don’t give a shit what either of you have to say.” Pointing a threatening finger at Lovello, he spat, “If you think you’re gonna charm her in your corner like you did Sadie, then you have another think coming.”

A smirk formed on Lovello’s lips as he ignored his brother’s words and shifted a pair of mischievous gray eyes to me. “Whenever you can pry free from his imprisoning grasp, come find me. I have a video I would be delighted to show you. I promise, it has nothing to do with the Bible.”

Shaking with discernible irritation, Trevillo turned to Natalio, and I could tell he was glowering. “I
paid
you to get rid of that video.”

Natalio seemed nonplussed. “I did get rid of it, Trev, I swear.” Shifting his confused gaze to Lovello, he started to ask, “How — ”

Lovello cut him off with an arrogant scoff. “I’m the only genius here, remember? When I asked you to send it to me and you refused, I hacked into your files and sent it to myself before you could get rid of it. That video is too ego-shattering and defaming to
not
have as a weapon against
him
.”

Natalio looked back to Trevillo and shrugged. “Sucks having a hacker for a brother.”

“
Genius
,” Lovello corrected.

Tired of their bickering, I wanted to know, “What’s on the video?”

As Lovello started to speak, Trevillo beat him it, disclosing, “Axia kicked my ass in arm wrestling.” To Lovello, he hissed, “No points for you, dickwad.” And I was half-expecting him to stick his tongue out.

“Twice!” his brother quickly shot back, he just
had
to get his points. “My fiancée kicked your ass twice.”

Before I could begin to question the veracity of a woman kicking his ass at arm wrestling, he stalked off from his brothers, his arm around my shoulders as he took me to a circular bar on the opposite end of the lounge area. “Don’t ask me about it,” he warned, then, “Drink?”

“Recommend me something,” I told him, keeping my laugh repressed.
Men and their stupid egos.

Trevillo hoisted me up and settled me on a barstool. “Sit here and behave while I invent a drink just for you.”

“Oh my God,” I groaned, “you
have
to stop doing that. Always lifting me from the ground.”

“Nevah,” he grinned, as he rounded the counter and got to work in the bar. “It’s too much fun.”

Elbows propped on the counter, I dropped my chin in my hands and dreamily watched Trevillo behind the bar, thinking he was, hands down, the hottest bartender I’d ever seen. Right there and then, I began entertaining inappropriate, wayward thoughts of him throwing me across the bar and undressing me and licking alcohol off my body and …

Sensing a presence, I turned my head to the left and found I was looking straight into the intense, pussycat-gray eyes of Axia. Her stare was hard and unwavering as she pinned me with it, as if trying to bring me under submission with just her stare.

What the hell was
her
problem?

“You don’t like being swept off your feet?” she asked. It was just her lips that moved, because her face was as hard as her eyes. Jeez, she was intimidating. Even with a pregnant gut in front of her.

Eyeing her charily, I answered, “If you’re asking if I hate that people are
always
lifting me up because I’m small, then the answer is yes. It’s pretty annoying, actually.”

Her lips flattened, and she nodded once. “What woman complains about getting swept off her feet by, well … ” she jerked her head towards Trevillo in the bar, whose back was turned to us, “
Him
?” I thought her stare couldn’t have gotten any harder, but it did as she asked, “What’re you in for?”

What? Turning to face her square on, I wanted to know, “Do you have a problem with me or something?”

Eyes icing over, she took a breath to answer just as Trevillo turned around with the drink he’d been concocting. Seeing Axia sitting at the bar trying to freeze me over with her glare, he shook his head. “Leave her alone, Axia.”

To me, he said, “Don’t mind her, babe,” as he set down the drink in front of me. “She’s a bully.”

Axia didn’t attempt to refute that claim, she just laced her fingers on the bar counter and watched us. Taking his advice, I turned to face Trevillo and ignored her.

The martini glass he served the drink in was covered in sugar, except for the stem. The color of the drink was a sparkly Sapphire blue and in it, was a cocktail stick of four fresh raspberries jutting out to the side.

“Taste it,” he urged.

Carefully, I picked up the glass by its stem and took a sip of his concoction. It tasted cool and minty, the alcohol in it being subtle. Feeling grains of sugar on my lips after I sipped the drink, my tongue automatically darted around them to clear the sugar, and I caught Trevillo grinning at me.

“What?” I asked, as I dusted the remaining grains of sugar off my lips with my forefinger then sucked it off. The aftertaste on my tongue was exotic — minty, sweet, tangy, chilly with a tinge of alcoholic sting.

With a roguish twinkle in his eyes, he confessed, “I purposely sugared the entire glass ‘cause I wanted to see you do
that
. You’re a natural fucking turn on.”

I tried not to focus on the darkening of his eyes, because now wasn’t the time or place to get all heated and excited. “What’s it called?”

“Angel’s feather.”

When I raised a curious brow at him, he expounded, “The color of the drink almost matches the color of your alluring eyes.” He slid one of the raspberries off the cocktail stick and dipped it in the drink, then rubbed it across my lower lip. “These raspberries are the exact red color of your lips.” He nudged for me to bite the raspberry, so I did, and his eyelids instantly hooded. “Deep, sexy, cock-hardening
red
.”

With a ferocious hunger in his eyes, he watched me as I chewed the raspberry and swallowed. Sliding his index finger up one side of the martini glass to collect sugar, he aimed it at my mouth. Without hesitation, I parted my lips and caught his finger, sucking off all the sugar. “And the sugar represents your taste: sweet.” I bit his finger hard, and that elicited a moan from him. “So. Fucking. Sweet.”

“Didn’t know you could mix drinks, Trev,” intruded the cold voice of Axia.

Sucked into a lust-filled haze, I completely forgot the woman was still there beside me.
And
that we were on a yacht with his family. I was too caught up in Trevillo’s seduction, too lost in him, too high on lust and need. So much so, the world around me had faded into stillness, and all I saw was him. All I felt was him. Enticing me. All I needed was him.

Slowly, Trevillo withdrew his finger from my mouth, allowing it to tug at my lower lip as he did. With his gaze never leaving my mouth, he answered his sister-in-law in a quiet, mellifluous voice. “Yeah. There are a lot of things I didn’t know about myself either … until now.”

A
n hour later, we were at sea, and by then the noisy jeering, bickering, and beer drinking had died down as, two by two, everyone snuck off with their significant other.

The yacht had three levels, and Trevillo and I were sitting on the top deck where we could oversee the two lower levels.

I moved to the edge of the deck and pushed my feet through the V-shaped railing, leaving my legs dangling in the air. Trevillo pressed up against my back settling his hands around my waist with his legs dangling on either side of mine through the railing. His chin rested on my shoulder as he gently swayed me to Rihanna’s
Cheers
playing at a moderate volume.

On the second level deck, I could see Princessa and her husband in the bubbling jacuzzi, relaxing with their heads back, sunglasses over their eyes.

Down on the first level, I could see Lovello and Axia sunbathing on a large, white leather lounge chair. Lying on her side, her legs were tossed across his thighs while he was lying supine, his hands working at massaging her feet. I observed his lips moving as he talked with his face turned up to the sky. While he was talking, Axia looked positively transfixed. She wore a grin that split from ear to ear, and her eyes, glowing with love, were glued to his face. In essence, she looked at him like he was her whole world and no one else existed.

“How far along is she?” I asked Trevillo.

“Hmm?” He sounded sleepy, relaxed. And it dawned on me we’d been completely silent since we came up here. Just being on the water and soundlessly enjoying a peaceful sail was the ultimate form of relaxation. One I hadn’t realized I needed.

“Axia,” I said, nodding to the couple on the bottom deck.

“Oh. Seven months.”

“Wow. Her stomach’s very small for being seven months.”

Trevillo didn’t seem interested in the topic, as he merely murmured, “Hmnh.”

“I think she hates me.”

At that, he chuckled. “Nah. That’s just Axia. She can’t be any better than she is. Even when she tries.” His lips pressed a kiss on my neck. “Knowing her, she was probably testing you. Seeing if you can stand and take a bitch-slap without wincing, or if you’re a softy who’ll cry and run.”

“You two are close?” I inquired, remembering Lovello’s flabbergasted reaction to Trevillo’s warning.

“Can say that.” I felt his shoulders shrug behind me. “She’s the only one who knew about you. Before I even came after you, I told her I intended to make you mine.”

Turning my head to the side, I tried looking at him over my shoulder. “Did you now? You were that sure of me?”

“Not in the least,” his tone implying he didn’t want to tread down that subject line.

So, again, I changed the topic. “Why does your fam call you Devil Boy?”

“Because I like to fuck with them.”

“But why do you taunt them the way you do?” I pushed, wanting to get deeper inside his head.

I witnessed a different side to him today. He was boorish and taunted the shit out of his siblings without apology. And even with all that, they still tried to include him in the midst of everything, depending on both him and Lovello for their laughs. None of their irritations against each other lasted more than a minute, and it was obvious even to the blind they had deep, genuine love for each other.

Trevillo’s answer proved that observation right. “Because I love them. More than they could ever imagine. I just express my love differently.”

Satisfied he answered that question truthfully and didn’t try to dismiss it as he did the previous ones, I moved on, thinking maybe he was now loosened up. “Why did you name your boat ‘Hopeless
’
?”

Hands around my middle, he began fingering my navel-ring. “You’ve got an awful lot of questions today.”

Okay, so he hadn’t
really
loosened up. “I’m just trying to get to know you. More.”

His finger dipped inside my navel, and I sighed at how a simple touch of his finger could awaken my libido. “Self-explanatory. ‘Cause I’m hopeless.”

“Why do you think that?” I prodded.

In a case-closed tone, he said, “You’ve met me, Krissy.”

Silence stretched as I struggled not to fire anymore questions at him.

“Trev?”

“Hmm?”

“You don’t think this is crazy?”

“No. Do you?”

“Well, yeah,” I answered without a thought. “I mean, we’ve just started hooking up, and the next I know, I’m meeting your family, and you’re introducing me as your
girlfriend
.”

“So … ?”

I shrugged. “I dunno. I just … I just think we might be moving too fast?”

“Get used to it, babe. With me, things are usually insane, fast, and dangerous.”

“But it’s just — ”

I stopped when Trevillo leaned back, pulled his feet out from the railing, and drew his hands from around my waist as he ordered, “Turn around.”

Pulling my legs back, I spun around and sat with my back leaned against the railing. Trevillo slid forward, back into position, pushing his feet back through the railing as he grasped my legs and wrapped them around his waist.

He removed his sunglasses and hooked them onto the neck of his T-shirt and removed mine from my face to set them aside. Leaning back, he pressed his palms flat on the deck and watched me. “You aren’t getting it.”

“Getting what?”

“I’m not short on women, Krissy. Women are out there who would do
anything
to be on my arm.”

At his arrogance, anger began creeping up my veins. “Why the hell are you telling me th — ”

“The moment I first saw you, I knew I wanted you. That’s unprecedented. In all my years, I’ve never fucked a woman younger than me. Yet, I saw you
once
and I wanted — no, needed more than to just be inside you. Wanna know how many times that has happened before?”

The question sounded rhetorical, but I still asked, “How many?”

“Never.”

“So, what’s your point?’

Trevillo made an exasperated noise. “That I know what I fucking want. I’m with you because I
want
to be with you. Not because of an impulse. You were introduced as my girlfriend because that’s who I want you to be.” He shifted his eyes past me out to the sea, and they squinted as a gust of east wind swept over us, leaving his hair a thorough mess. “Want a bit of honesty?”