Chased by the Billionaire 1 Read online

  Chased by the Billionaire 1

  Title Page

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chased by the Billionaire 1

  Stella Blaze

  Copyright 2014, 2016

  Previously published as Slash & Burn

  Edited by Stephanie T. Lott (aka Bibliophile)

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  Chapter 1

  I stared at the painting—the god-forsaken, horrifying painting.

  It was the first of an installation that I’d hoped would not only reap critical praise, but would also sell like fucking crazy.

  Or so my trusted protégé/roving talent scout, Jill, had told me.

  I stared at the painting again.

  I closed my eyes and shook my head.

  I was in hell…

  Lance, my trusty assistant and gay bestie, ambled up to me and cocked his head to the side.

  “Zombie turkeys,” he said, sotto voce. “Interesting.”

  Correction: I was in Zombie turkey Hell.

  I wondered if there was an open bar in Zombie turkey Hell.

  “Where is Jill?” I asked. I was going to strangle her with my bare hands.

  Lance took a slow side-step away from me. “You know I hate it when you seethe like that.”

  “I do not seethe!” I looked at him and he’d already taken another long side-step away from me.

  “Jill’s in Portland this week,” he said, “and yes, you are seething.”

  I opened my mouth to scream at him, but had to admit that yes, I was seething.

  I wanted to yank the zombie turkey off the wall, drag it outside, and torch it.

  “You’re right,” I said, turning back to the painting, folding my arms under my breasts—only the flat-chested could cross their arms over their chests, and I had been blessed with an ample bosom. “I’m sorry.”

  Lance sighed, cracked his long, elegant neck, and then stepped back toward me.

  “Our Miss Jill says this painter is the next hot thing… says they can’t keep his shit on the walls in Denver.”

  I rolled my eyes and took another, closer look. The detail was good, if not nauseating. The image was strong and commanding.

  Yeah, but the subject matter was ridiculous!

  Even if I could sell this turkey, I’d be the joke of the Chicago art world, not to mention the east coast.

  No, this couldn’t happen. I was going to have to dump this…

  Some workmen toted in another painting, this one of a gaggle of zombie turkeys surrounding one normal, non-zombie turkey.

  This was ridiculous.

  “So,” I said, looking over at a beguilingly off-centered couple standing by a still wrapped eight by six feet painting leaning against the bank of front windows. “Which one is he?”

  The couple consisted of a slightly punky, devil-may-care faced lothario with a goatee, distressed, practically painted on jeans, and some awesomely broad shoulders.

  The other was about as interesting as dry toast: an almost handsome face that seemed just out of focus… hair too neat… clothes right out of a J.C. Penny catalogue and a rather impressive ability to blend right in with the potted plants.

  Lance groaned. “The pathetically plain one? That’s Randy Crawford: the artist. The hot little slice beside him is his boyfriend, Darius.”

  Of course, it had to be the boring one.

  “God is a mean, hateful bitch if a sad sack like that can land himself such a gorgeous piece of ass!” Lance shook his head bitterly.

  The aforementioned Darius tore the paper covering from the front of the third painting.

  I gasped as the motley tableau before me assaulted my eyes: a grisly depiction of a flock of the zombie turkeys ripping apart a human corpse. The man, or should I say what was left of the man’s shredded and blood-splattered body, was holding a cornucopia in one hand, and a meat cleaver in the other.

  The irony was not lost on me, and yet I could not imagine what kind of mental imbalance or chemical reaction could have caused any sane person to paint this travesty.

  Was the boring painter a closet meth freak?

  At least that would be something interesting I could tell people at the showing.

  Oh god, there was going to be a show, wasn’t there?

  I asked, “Do you think we could just tell people that the hot one is the artist?”

  “Not a chance.” Lance stage whispered. “He’s already posted his mug all over Facebook and Pinterest. There’s even going to be a banner by the front door.”

  “Fuck.” I put my hand to my forehead and tried to relax.

  But…

  But I was starving!

  How could I deal with a zombie turkey apocalypse on an empty stomach?

  But nothing sounded good.

  “Lance, I think we should order…”

  He waved me off with his perfectly manicured hand.

  “Way ahead of you, boss-lady. I ordered you pasta fagioli from Roma’s, with those little crustinis you like so much.”

  I sighed as I gazed lovingly at him. “Did you, maybe…”

  He smiled devilishly, his perfectly symmetrical face a portrait of beauty, his warm green eyes sparkling.

  “I ordered myself an Italian hoagie… you know I can never eat the whole thing!”

  He sucked in his fabulously ripped six-pack and acted as if he needed to diet.

  But if he ordered the hoagie, and I ate half of it, it didn’t count.

  Girl logic: perfect and insane.

  “Which reminds me, I’ve got to get the contracts for the Caron show out by noon!” He made a show of looking at his shell pink Rolex—a gift from a thankful and filthy rich art buyer that Lance wined and dined… and then did things to that I’m too young and pure of heart to know about.

  The buyer, Churchill Walker, had been old and crusty, though truly charming. I’m sure Lance earned every spinning gear and crystal facing of that twenty thousand dollar plus wristwatch.

  He eyed me. “So you’ll have to stay up front to tip Franco when he delivers the food.”

  “Why didn’t you add the tip to the company card?” I whined. I hated handling cash. And though Roma’s delivery man, Franco, was super nice… he liked to talk far too much about the stupidest of things. He also looked a hell of a lot like every Italian uncle in every movie ever made: potbelly, a mustache, and a hooked nose.

  “That’s why god created Visa and Master Card… not to mention American Express!”

  He shot me a stern look. “If we tip using the credit card, he has to claim the whole thing on his taxes, whereas—”

  “Whereas,” I cut him off, “cash leaves no paper trail. I get it.” I reached up and tucked a lock of his flaxen hair back behind his ear.

  Lance twirled his Ralph Lauren jacket over his long, well muscled arms and kissed me on the head.

  “I’ll be back before you can say cunnilingus.”

  I smacked him on the ass as he sashayed toward the front door. “You’r
e really straight, I know it!”

  He blew me a kiss, and then acted as if he were about to faint when he strode past the geek artist and his hottie boyfriend.

  I saw two more very large paintings being hauled into the gallery.

  Jesus… this was turning into a nightmare.

  Chapter 2

  I settled in behind the reception desk, sifting through the invitations that had stacked up over the week. If I actually went to all the parties to which I was invited I would do nothing else.

  I usually picked one, maybe two parties to mingle at per weekend. If I was lucky, I could fit both parties in on one night, preferably Friday night. That way I’d have Saturday and Sunday all to myself to depressurize.

  All to myself…

  I felt a shuddering sense of dread—a familiar feeling that had sadly become the norm.

  I dreaded weekends.

  No, not the weekends, what they now meant.

  For the last three months I’d… well, it was embarrassing as hell to say out loud.

  I hadn’t had sex for three months.

  Okay, I said it…

  Sort of.

  Some might think three months was just a little dry spell, but not for me. It was the equivalent of a hundred and fifty years in my years, and a decade accrued at the end of every night I spent by myself in my lonely little California king—

  Watching the Cartoon Network.

  I blame my best friend, Susan Jacobs—formerly Susan Rhodes—sexy, though love-life-deprived, architect extraordinaire.

  She finally opened her eyes and saw her hot, though ultimately boring, male best friend for what he really was: husband material.

  I don’t recommend it personally, but wedded bliss totally suited Susan… so much so that she and the hubby decided to procreate.

  So Sara Marie Jacobs was born.

  What does all that have to do with my sexual drought?

  Well, I’m her best friend in the world—and since baby Sara decided to come into the world a full two weeks early, when Kevin was out of town on business, I was pulled into the whole birthing drama. I’m talking about driving Susan to the hospital, threatening the geeky ER clerk with rather imaginative bodily harm if he didn’t get her in to see a doctor immediately, fending off calls from Susan and Kevin’s parents, and then holding Susan’s hand while she went through the screaming, crying, sweating, nausea, grunting, and creative cursing.

  I didn’t mind when I lost feeling in the hand she was gripping. What are friends for? I didn’t mind running out of the room and grabbing her socks for her—she was sweating like a whore in a church, but her feet were cold!

  What I did find disturbing was when I re-entered Susan’s hospital room.

  “She’s coming!” Susan cried out in the throes of the mother of all contractions, her hand outstretched for me to take. I started toward her and slipped on the tiled floor. It was a quick trip, I landed on my ass, clipping my shoulder on the floor but thankfully missing my head.

  It was the scramble to my feet that set the sexual purgatory I’m currently in into motion.

  The doctor and nurses were busy, so no one noticed my slip slide to the floor. I grabbed hold of the end of the bed to pull myself up from the floor, right beside the OBGYN stationed between my friend’s legs, and I got an eye full of what the good doctor was looking at.

  Christ on a fucking crutch!

  These kinds of sights are best left NEVER seen.

  Baby Sara’s head was just crowning.

  It was right out of that movie Aliens.

  Susan screamed at me again and I tore my gaze from the gynecological front line and staggered to her side again, welcoming the pain her desperate, bone crushing grip caused when she took my hand again.

  But that image was burned onto my mind like a cattle brand.

  Since that day I have not felt even the least bit turned on.

  No matter how many precautions I take—condoms, spermicidal lubes, vaginal foam, the pill—I just can’t stop thinking about the sight of my best friend’s girly parts bloodied and distended in excruciating pain.

  Like the blaze of a strobe light flashing over and over and over again in my head.

  No matter how hot the guy is, no matter how much I want to—and good god, how I want to—as soon as the kissing and the groping starts, I just go cold. My body switches off and my mind starts running a horrifying baby-birthing loop.

  I looked up when the discreet chime of the front door tolled.

  I blinked.

  This was not Franco.

  No… it was so not Franco.

  This man had the Roma’s delivery heated bag, and a Roma’s t-shirt stretched across his broad, well-formed chest.

  I smiled to myself as he came closer. Dark, penetrating eyes, long, lovely boy lashes, a pouty, kissable mouth, and the longish, lustrous hair that made a woman want to run her hands through it—

  Or have it run over her breasts and down her body as he kissed his way down to her pussy…

  Oh yeah, this man was just what the doctor ordered.

  He strode over to me and winked. “Hey there… I’m Franco.”

  I laughed. “No, you’re not.”

  He blinked, confusion lighting in his eyes. Then he smiled, a wickedly sexy smile, showing off a killer set of pearly whites and sexy dimples.

  “I’m Franco junior,” he explained. “I’m filling in for my dad for the week.”

  “Are you?” I was already planning to have Roma’s delivered for the rest of the week.

  “Yeah, he took my mom on a second honeymoon to Florida.” He blushed as he talked.

  Okay, enough talk.

  “So, Franco. You look… hot.” I left the word and the innuendo floating in the air.

  He licked his full lips and leaned against the counter, showing off biceps and forearms that obviously took hours of pumping iron in a gym somewhere. “It is pretty damn hot out there. They say it’s ninety in the shade.”

  I leaned forward, smooshing my boobs together to show them off to my prospective dry spell ender.

  “I have a bucket of ice in the back.”

  His eyes dropped to take in the sight of my décolletage—he sighed.

  I stood and started walking back to my office.

  The gallery was quiet, the delivery men gone, finished bringing in the horrific poultry paintings, and the offending artist and his boyfriend off to “see the city.”

  I headed into my office and heard a gasp from behind me.

  I turned and found Franco Jr. staring at the zombie turkeys tearing apart the man with the cornucopia. The look on his face was disgust and revulsion.

  Not the mood I was looking for.

  I clapped my hands together.

  “Franco?”

  Franco blinked and shook his head, his eyes slowly returning to me.

  “Just keep your pretty eyes right here.” I made a show of patting my nicely curvaceous ass.

  Franco’s eyes darkened as he honed his gaze in on my perky bottom.

  That’s better.

  I led my Italian stallion back into my office, and watched him sagely close and lock the door behind him. I took off my jacket, leaving on only my camisole, and then leaned back against my desk and felt my flesh start to warm as he walked closer to me.

  He dumped the heated bag on a chair and prowled toward me. With a practiced move, he reached over his head and tugged his red Roma t-shirt off over his head, exposing one hell of a good body: rippling, bulging pecs; tight, six-pack abs; and chiseled, rock hard shoulders.

  His skin was naturally tanned and there was a light dusting of black hair between his pecs, and a happy trail leading down into his tight black jeans.

  Yum…

  He pushed his long, black, achingly touchable hair back from his forehead with one hand, causing all the muscles in his torso to dance.

  If I wasn’t mistaken, I thought my sex drive was making a comeback. My neglected vajayjay pulsed and I could feel all
the heat that was coursing through me start to build down below.

  Good… very good…

  I reached out and touched his chest. His flesh was warm and soft, and as if by chemical reaction my body flared to life. I wanted him inside me, and now.

  I pulled him to me, our lips crashing into each other, my chest pushed hard against his.

  And oh boy… was Franco hard. I could feel the curve of his thick erection against my inner thigh.

  Something flickered in the back of my mind, just a twinkle… but it made my fevered skin cool about ten degrees.

  Don’t you dare! I screamed at the stupid bitch in my head. I NEED THIS!

  I reached down and grabbed a handful of his young, perfectly hard ass and squeezed. Franco groaned into my mouth as his hips shot up against my still throbbing oonie.

  His hips undulated as he pulled my hips tight against him.

  I ran my free hand though his hair.

  He reached down between us and started undoing his belt buckle.

  Where are my condoms?

  That thought flashed to all those hours I had spent clicking and googling contraception methods.

  And that made the image of Susan’s wretched vagina light up like a sign in Times-fucking-Square.

  And just like that, I was cold as an ice cube, all the need and heat and frenzy evaporating in less than ten seconds.

  A tiny, sullen voice cried, They are in the top desk drawer!

  She wept, sobbing and calling out plaintively.

  We were sooooo close!

  I pushed my hand against Franco’s chest. “This isn’t going to happen.”

  He licked my collarbone and went head first into my cleavage.

  I clamped my hand across his forehead and pulled his head up out of my boobies until his eyes defogged and he met my gaze.

  “I said, this isn’t going to happen. I need you to leave now.”

  He groaned. “Are you kidding?”

  I wished. “I just remembered I have to be downtown in twenty minutes.” That was at least a thirty-five minute cab ride this time of day.

  I could see Franco doing the math in his head. Being a deliveryman made you an expert on transportation time.