Billionaires, Bad Boys, and Alpha Males (28 page)

She knew in her heart that Jaxon was all wrong
for her.
 
After all, she was Anna
Webb, good girl, smart, straight-A student.
 
Jaxon Hale was rough and tumble, the
kind of guy who was fun to kiss, but not the kind you ended up spending your
life with.
 
He exuded sexuality, and
every time Anna had been with him, it was all she could do not to let him take
off all her clothes and finish what he would so expertly start.

But Anna was a good girl, and she’d followed
the path her parents had laid out for her. Harvard, then an MBA from Yale, then
a post in London at a top financial firm where she worked hard and made an
obscene amount of money.
 

There had been men of course.
 
Anna had lost her virginity her
sophomore year of college, a little behind by anyone’s standards, but it was
with a boy she’d been dating for four months.
 
Anna thought that was a respectable
amount of time to be dating someone before you gave him your virginity.
 
The sex had been fine.
 
Nothing spectacular, but not one of those
horror stories women liked to tell about their first time, either.

There had been a couple of long term
relationships, a few relationships that had lasted for a few months, and dozens
of first dates.
 
And, always, no
matter what, there had been thoughts of Jaxon.

Thanks to the internet, it had been relatively
easy to keep tabs on him.
 
Anna know
that he’d graduated from UCLA, that he’d opened his own real estate development
company, that he’d started buying properties, rehabbing them himself and
selling them.
 

He had become something of a legend in Los
Angeles, from what she could tell.
 
This rough-looking man whose estimated net worth was a few million
dollars, who never shied away from a fight with an inspector or a city
councilmen, or even another real estate developer.
 

Jaxon refused to give interviews, and therefore
the Los Angeles press had seemed to become somewhat obsessed with him.
 
They wrote about him with a kind of
semi-reverent slant, while somehow being able to convey their annoyance with
the fact that he refused to be interviewed.

He had no facebook page.
 
No twitter.
 
His company had a website, but even then
there had been no picture of him.

From what Anna could tell, Jaxon liked to be behind
the scenes, doing the work, but not wanting or taking credit.

It was a sharp contrast to Anna’s own
career.
 
From the time she’d been
born, her parents had encouraged her to take credit for her
accomplishments.
 
Winning the second
grade spelling bee.
 
Getting a
perfect score on the eighth grade math aptitude test.
 
Becoming valedictorian.
 
Getting a 4.0 in college.
 
Landing the job at Burns and
Wildman.
 

Each milestone was celebrated and bragged about
to her parents’ friends, neighbors, and relatives.
 
Successes were something to put out in
the open and be proud of, at least until the next goal was set.

Anna pulled her car into the driveway and cut
the engine.
 
Her parents weren’t
home.
 
They’d been here last night
when Anna had arrived, had picked her up at the airport and whisked her off for
a nice dinner at her favorite restaurant.
 
This morning the three of them had eaten breakfast together.
 
Her mother had prepared a feast of
boysenberry pancakes with real maple syrup, cut organic honeydew, and cup after
cup of expensive, fresh ground French roast.
 

But tonight her parents had plans with friends
of theirs, the Morgansterns.

Anna had been invited, but the Morgansterns had
never been her favorite, and so she had begged off, claiming she was going to
be hanging out with Katie.

She walked up the cobblestone walk and into the
house, deciding to curl up in bed with a book and a glass of wine.

A few hours later, the sun had slipped down
below the horizon, coating her bedroom in a cozy darkness, broken only by the
soft glow of the light on the nightstand by her bed.
 
Anna snuggled further down in the
sheets, feeling relaxed and happy.
 
She turned the pages of her book, enjoying the silence and the time to
herself.
 

At around ten o’clock, she turned off the light
and drifted off to sleep.

She awoke a couple of hours later to the sound
of something hitting her window.
 
At
first she thought perhaps it was raining, and she rolled over and tried to fall
back asleep.
 
But the sounds against
her window got stronger, coming in harder, more frequent bursts.

And then she realized it wasn’t rain.
 

It was stones.

She ran to the window and looked out.

There, on her parents’ front lawn, was Jaxon.

He was wearing a black V-neck sweater layered
over a crisp white T-shirt.
 
The
sweater was soft-looking and tight, showing off his broad chest and chiseled
pecs.
 
His narrow hips were encased
in a pair of baggy jeans, and his feet were in brown work boots.
 
Dark hair flopped over his forehead and
ruffled in the summer night breeze.
 
His hands were shoved in his pockets, and there was a bored look on his
face.

Anna’s heart sped up, her pulse racing as she
took in the man standing before her.
 
She pulled open the window.

“What are you doing here?” she demanded.
 

Jaxon’s lips slid up into a sexy, mischievous
grin, the same grin that had caused countless women to think about doing wicked
things with him. “What do you think I’m doing here?”
 
His voice was husky, his intent
unmistakable.
 
“I would have used
the door, but I didn’t want to wake your parents.”

Anna’s cheeks felt hot, her skin flushed.
 
Her eyes darted to the driveway, where
her parents’ navy blue Nissan Sentra was parked.
 
They were home from dinner with the Morgansterns,
and she must have been sleeping so soundly that she hadn’t heard them come in.

Suddenly, Anna flashed back to the summer she’d
spent with Jaxon.
 
The way
everything smelled of fresh cut grass and chlorine, the way the humid night air
would feel against her skin as she opened the window for him.
 
Almost every night he’d be there, coming
to see her after they were sure her parents were asleep.

He’d climb into her room and they’d bury
themselves under her pink plaid comforter, staring into each other’s eyes,
whispering and kissing until the sun started to rise.

“I can’t let you up,” Anna said now.
 
She shook her head fiercely, even though
every cell in her body was screaming at her to let him in.
 

“Come on,” Jaxon said.
 
“It’s cold out here.”

“No, it isn’t.”

He looked at her.
 
“Anna,” he said, his voice gruff.
 
“Please.”

She took a deep breath, then walked to the big
oak dresser against the far wall of her old room.
 
She crossed her fingers and opened the
top drawer.
 
Inside was the knotted
rope ladder she’d used all those years ago.

She looped one end onto the post of her bed,
then threw it out the window.

A moment later, Jaxon appeared.
 
He gripped the bottom of the windowsill,
his muscular forearms flexing as he slid his body into her bedroom.

“Wow,” he said, shaking his head.
 
“This place looks exactly the same.
 
You’d think your parents would have
turned it into a gym or something.”

His close proximity was stirring up all kinds
of different emotions in Anna.
 
Sadness, regret, lust, and anger pulsed through her body, swirling
together into a formidable tornado that couldn’t be controlled.

“Where’s the brunette you picked up at the
party?” she asked, her tone biting.
 
She sat down on the bed. “Turned you down, did she?”

Jaxon shook his head, like he found her sarcasm
amusing.
 
“Jealousy doesn’t look
good on you, Princess.”

“I’m not jealous.
 
And don’t call me Princess.”

He sat down next to her, the springs of the
mattress groaning a little under his weight.
 

“Okay,” she said, moving a few inches away from
him.
 
“You need to –”

“Shhh.”
 
He reached out and put a finger to her lips.
 
“Quiet.
 
You don’t want to wake anyone up.”

His touch was shocking and intense.
 
Electricity zapped through her body,
moving from her lips down into her belly and then zinging all the way to her
toes.
 
Her senses were on high
alert.
 
She could smell the cologne
Jaxon was wearing, the musky scent of his deodorant, the slight hint of sweat
and man that permeated the room.
 

His finger moved down over her mouth, his thumb
stopping for a moment to rub against her bottom lip.
 
His index finger traced a flaming trail
down over her chin, across her neck, and down over her collarbone.

Anna bit her lip, willing herself not to cry
out.
 
This man, this moment, had
been what she’d been thinking and dreaming about for years, and now that it was
finally here, the reality of it was almost too much for her to bear.

“You look sexy when you bite your lip like
that, Princess,” Jaxon growled.
 
He’d inched closer to her, his mouth so close to hers that she could
feel his breath against her cheek.
 
“If you don’t stop, I might do something I’ll regret.”

Anna licked her lip, then bit it again, daring
him to follow through.

“I’m serious, Princess,” he drawled.
 
The side of his mouth tugged up into
that sensuous grin.
 
“Don’t tease me
like that.
 
If you start something,
you best be prepared to finish it.”

“Oh, I’m prepared,” Anna said.
 

“You sure about that?”

Anna wasn’t.
 
But she nodded anyway, unable to take
the idea that he might stop touching her, might take away the feeling of
ecstasy that was rushing through her body.

He moved his face closer to hers, and she felt
his breath brush against her cheek again.
 
A hot shiver slid up her spine.
 

His eyes locked on hers, his gaze penetrating.
The urge to kiss him flooded her body, but she was frozen, unable to move,
unable to feel anything but his eyes on hers.
 
Just looking at him was setting her body
on fire.

His finger was still on her collarbone, drawing
lazy circles.
 
The slow burn of his
touch was so contradictory to how much she wanted him it made her almost dizzy.

He inched closer to her mouth, and Anna closed
her eyes.
 
She couldn’t take the way
he was looking at her, the way it was making her feel.
 
Raw emotion welled up inside of her,
emotion that she’d kept buried for years.

When his mouth finally found hers, it was
everything she’d imagined.
 
His lips
brushed against hers softly, a contrast to the rough stubble on his
cheeks.
 
He kissed her again, this
time more insistent, and he parted her lips with his tongue.
 
She surrendered to him, letting him take
her,
wanting
him to take her.

The kiss deepened, their tongues darting softly
against each other.
 
He tasted like
mint and something else, something that was dark and dangerous and daring.
 
They fell down onto the bed, and then he
was on top of her, their legs intertwined.

He moved his mouth down over her neck, kissing
down her throat, back over her collarbone, ending at the swell of her breast.

“Damn, Princess,” he said, and grinned up at
her wickedly.
 
“You taste just as
good as I remember.”

He slid his hands over the top of the tank top
she was wearing, letting his fingers dip below the thin material.
 
The whole time his eyes were on hers,
the lust and want on his face as much of a turn on as his touch.
 
Heat passed between them as he slid his
fingers over her breasts, stopping right before he got to her nipples.

Then his mouth was back on hers, his tongue
moving in and out, the stubble of his chin rough against her cheeks as they
kissed.
 
He kept one hand on the top
of her breast, and moved his other hand to her face, stroking her cheek softly.