I Choose You (The Billionaire Brothers Series) (7 page)

“What about this one?” I asked, holding up a piece of dark-gray fabric with red accents to a distracted Trevillo.

For just a brief second, his eyes left his phone screen to give the material a quick once over, then he shrugged and went back to whatever was occupying him on his iPhone.

Back at Skylark, he’d offered to help me choose the perfect fabric, but since we got to the store, he’d shown no interest as he worked on his phone instead, while constantly asking if I hadn’t made up my mind yet.

“Not sure what’s the point of you coming here with me,” I grumbled, as I tugged on another roll of fabric, feeling its texture. “You’re of absolutely no help. You can go if you want.”

From the periphery of my vision, I saw him put his cellphone in his pocket. “You’re a smart girl, Krissy, so I’m pretty sure you know I don’t give a shit about helping you choose fabric. I’d really like for you to hurry up with this part so we can move on to my ulterior motive.”

A laugh climbed up my throat, and I turned to look up at him. “And what’s your ulterior motive?”

Stuffing his hands in his pockets, he lifted a brow and stared me, knowing I knew what his ulterior motive was and was just playing dense. “To take you out for lunch.”

“That’s all?” I asked, grinning up at him.

He gave me a have-it-your-way shrug. “Sure.”

Unable to contain my excitement, I bit my lip, turned around, and made a choice for the fabrics in about half-a-minute, then placed the orders and gave the address for delivery. The anticipation, you see, had jolted my brain into hyper-drive, so in less than five minutes, I was out of that store. Ready to experience more of the man who resembled danger.

“Can we just grab burgers and go back to the work site?” I asked as Trevillo opened the car door for me.

Whenever I was working on a project, I was a bit of a control freak. I wanted to be in the midst of everything, making sure all was going as planned. And unless it was absolutely necessary, I never left the work-zone until it was quitting hours. As much as Trevillo excited me, my mind was still focused on the work at hand. At the end of the day,
I
was working for
him
.

Trevillo nodded knowingly. “Ah, you’re one of those people, aren’t you? Brain never rests until the conundrum is solved.”

“Guilty.”

We stopped by a fast-food restaurant, ordered two burger combos, and headed back to Skylark.

Trevillo led us over to a sitting area with grass-green, wrought-iron outdoor table sets near the unfilled pool on the complex. We sat down and began eating. Quietly.

The sun was high in the sky, but was warm enough so one could bask in it without ending up sunburned.

As I bit into my burger, I thought about the odds of having this lunch here and now. Even though Trevillo’s name fitted my lips well, it still felt a tad weird eating lunch with the man. This was a powerful, über-wealthy, intimidating man who, incidentally, didn’t dig younger women. How the hell did
this
happen?

“What’re you thinking?”

At his voice, I glanced up and found him staring straight at me. The gleam in his eyes told me he was on a mission. And I had every reason to believe I was that mission.

I still wasn’t sure what was going on here. He wasn’t the easiest person to read. He wasn’t one to say much, and when he did speak, he usually got straight to the point. So at the moment, he had no idea how much I wanted to shoot that question back at him.

“How weird this is,” I answered in truth.

“What’s weird?”

Setting down my half-eaten burger, I sat back in the chair and glared at him. “Trev, I’m sitting here with
you
eating a Double Whopper and calling you Trev. It’s just … weird. You’re
you
. Trevillo Nelson. My boss’s boss’s boss.”

He shrugged at this, and I felt the urge to scream.

“So what? Who am I? Just a normal human being like everyone else. Wealth doesn’t make me different or better than anyone.” He wiped the corners of his mouth with a napkin and continued, “I’m having lunch with
you
, and I’m enjoying the shit out of it, out of watching you. Albeit, I wish you would do more talking and less thinking, so I can get to know you. You’re
you
. Krissan Kingston. An angel’s feather.”

To hide my smile, I lowered my head. That was the second time he referred to me as an angel’s feather. I had absolutely no idea what the hell it even meant, but for some dumb-ass reason, it made me blush.

“Talk to me, Krissy,” I heard him say. “Tell me about you.”

Finding his gaze, I folded my arms. “Why? The last time I checked, I was still twenty-five.”

“Fair enough,” he said with a nod. “However, I’ve never once desired to know
more
about any of my previous … pursuits.” Placing his elbows on the table, he leaned forward and held my gaze captive. “But you, something about you makes me want to know more than just your name. I want to know you in so many ways. I want to get lost in those exotic blue eyes of yours. I want to taste those fascinatingly crimson lips. Fuck. There’s a certain enigma to you. And, like you, I’m one of
those
people: ‘Brain never rests until the conundrum is solved’.”

The word ‘enigma’ had no business being aligned with my name. I was as readable as they came. The saying ‘never judge a book by its cover’ didn’t apply to me. Because I
could
be judged by my outer appearance. What you saw was what you got. I held nothing back, stored nothing in my mind. So, if he was searching for something, he was wasting his goddamn time.

All I wanted was to screw him then get him and his scent out of my system. Never to think of him in a sexual way again. Only this would be a bit more complicated than the rest. For one, I worked for him, so I couldn’t escape him like the others. Two, he knew my real name and held important information about me. The others were given fake names, and that was it. No phone number, address, nothing. Just a night of steamy sex with a short, blond girl who stole out in the morning.

“You’re knocking on hollow walls,” I informed him. “There’s nothing inside but thin air.”

He made a slight shake of his head. “Your eyes tell a different story.”

“I don’t think you understand how straight of a person I am. I hold no secrets, no mystery.”

On a resigned sigh, he sat back in his seat and just stared at me for what felt like years. “I will get inside you, Krissy.”

“The ulterior motive.”

He chuckled aloud. “I wasn’t — God, you have a dirty mind. I mean, get inside your
head
. To know what goes on in there.”

“There, you’re not invited. Elsewhere … .” I trailed off suggestively.

“I like that you’re straight about what you want,” he commented.

I shrugged. “Would’ve let you take me on your office desk the other day if you’d been up to it. We could’ve gotten this over with already.”

“This what?” he asked, curiosity marring his features.

“This usual everyday lust.”

Tilting his head to the side, he watched me with intrigue. “Usual everyday lust?”

Shifting in my seat, I watched him dead on. “Okay, this is me in short: If I see a guy who turns me on and I want to fuck him, I fuck him. I don’t
want
anything beyond that. I don’t
have
anything to offer beyond that. I don’t have the energy or the time to invest in
anything
beyond that. That’s what I meant earlier when I said
nothing complicated
.”

His face clouded thoughtfully as he noted, “So you just wanna fuck me.”

“On point,” I nodded, glad he finally got it.

For a long while, he said nothing. Then, “You’re like an angel holding the devil’s pitch fork.” His eyes roamed over my face. “You say that with you, what I see is what I get, but that’s far from the truth.”

Leaning in closer, he locked his gaze to mine. “When I look at you, I see purity, etherealness, beauty unseen and unheard of. Nevertheless, when you open your mouth, what comes out is raw, unquenched, unadulterated fire. Blazing … ”

As if he were trying to reach deep into my soul, his eyes bored into mine. This man wanted something more than sex from me. And I had a feeling he wasn’t going to stop until he got it.

Brain never rests until the conundrum is solved.

At a muffled vibrating sound, he dipped his hand inside his jacket pocket and withdrew his cellphone, never taking his eyes off me. “Milo,” he answered. “Now? … Okay, let them know I’ll be there in a few.”

After hanging up, he stared at me a beat longer, then stood to his feet and slipped his cellphone back in his pocket. “I have to go.”

My eyes rose to his height and met his shrewd blue ones. “So … ?”

“So, what?”

Why was he so damn confusing? Couldn’t he just put a girl out of her lust-filled misery? Already, I was directing more of my thoughts on what it would feel like to have him inside me and less on the work I had at hand. That wasn’t me; when it came on to my work, I was consumed, focused. Therefore, I needed to get this man
out of my system
. “So are we gonna … ?”

Shoving his hands in his pockets, he took a step forward and studied me closely, hovering over me. Then after a lifetime, he responded, “Three weeks ago in my office, my reservations for not taking you right there and then weren’t solely because you’re younger than I prefer. But was mostly because I deemed you delicate, virginal, too dainty for my destructible hands. I thought to myself if I touched you, I’d ruin you … ” He took a long pause, then a breath. “But now I’m thinking … if
you
touch me,
I’ll
be ruined.”

The hell’s that supposed to mean?
“So does that mean you’re not going to sleep with me?”

He withdrew a hand from his pocket and reached out to touch my face and, as expected, he pulled back. “Goodbye, Miss Kingston.”

Then he was gone. Leaving me to wonder if there was more to myself than I knew. He made it seem as if I were some weird experiment he was trying to figure out, and if he touched me, the whole thing would go to ruination.

But he
did
touch me. Back in his office, he’d caressed me. And nothing explosive happened. Except, I’d almost had a mini-orgasm.

Why did he want to know more about me, anyway? What could we possibly have in common, except I worked in the design department of his company? What would a filthy-rich, dangerously handsome, world-in-his-hands man like Trevillo Nelson want to do with a vacant, hueless, don’t-give-a-shit girl like me?

He was full to the brim, overflowing, and I was empty. Maybe he’d be the one to make me whole? I would never give him the chance. So I guess I’d never know.

“O
kay, okay, JK!” I squealed through fits of laughter. “I surrender. Take the damn remote!”

Ceasing his torturous tickles, Jahleel extracted the TV remote from the tight grasp of my fingers and shifted his heavy weight off me. He then switched the channel from
Keeping Up With the Kardashians
to some loud and obnoxious guns-blazing action movie on Showtime.

As he started snuggling back next to me, I shoved him away to get up. “I’ll just go up to my own floor and watch television. I can’t watch these marrow-blowing movies with you.”

Jahleel tackled me back to the couch and twisted his body around mine so I couldn’t move. “No,” he said, his eyes still glued to the television. “Stay. We can find somethin’ we both want. Just not that reality TV junk. Don’t know what the fuck you get out of watchin’ vain, talentless idiots.”

Twirling a silky lock of his hair around my index finger, I replied, “Maybe because I, too, am a vain idiot?”

Jahleel stilled, then shifted on the couch so that he was lying on his back and I was draped half-way over him. Taking hold of my chin, he forced me to look at him. “Don’t. You can’t keep living with your heart closed off from the world. There’s a
you
inside there you’ve caged up and refuse to set free. Been tryin’ to break that cage open ever since Mom and Dad brought you home. But you’ve locked yourself up so fuckin’ tight, there’s no getting through. You need to set
you
free, bad girl.”

“That’s a lie, JK, and you know it.” I jerked my chin from his hold and pressed my cheek flat to his T-shirt covered chest. “The only person who gets me, all of me, is you. There’s nothing hidden where you’re concerned. So what you’re saying is straight-up bullshit.”

We lay silent for a while, until Jahleel heaved a sigh and whispered, “No, Krissy.
That’s
a lie. I don’t have all of you … not the way I want.”

Realizing what he meant by that, I raised my head and found his eyes closed. As I made to change the subject, the doorbell rang.

“Bet that’s one of your fucktards,” I mumbled as I rolled off him and went to answer the door.

Only Jahleel’s stalkers came and rang our doorbell, so I wasn’t worried about being in just a Hello Kitty pajama shorts set. My short hair was most likely sticking out every which way, on account of all that childish gamboling Jahleel and I had engaged in earlier.

I swung open the door and that speechless, paralyzed thing happened to me again. The heart-stopping thing that only happens when I was in
this
man’s presence.

What. Was. He. Doing.
Here
?

“Hello, Miss Kingston,” he husked.

All six feet three inches of Trevillo Nelson was standing right there on my doorstep, dressed in a black thermal tee, faded jeans and black boots with the laces undone, he oozed that all-masculine scent of his with a crooked smile on his face.

Fuck me
.

Trevillo in a suit did strange things to my insides, yes. But Trevillo with a rocker vibe sent juices flowing on instant, begging for release. The man in a suit resembled danger. But the man in heavy black boots, jeans and close-fitted tee represented something worse than danger. Far worse. Without shame, I let my eyes drift down his body, then back up again, ogling.
Why
was he so … much?

“Miss Kingston?” I heard him say, amusement coloring his voice.