Chapter 10

Beatrice

We walk through the two-story tall front door and into Cole's vast ranch house. There are windows everywhere with a three-hundred-sixty-degree view of the ranch and the mountains and meadows beyond it. Actually, he might own the mountains and meadows, too.

We pass the dining room, which isn't gold at all. In fact, the entire house is western antiques and distressed wood. Homey. I love it, immediately. It's John Wayne meets Bill Gates.

"Where are the robots?" I ask.

"Excuse me?"

"Nothing. I thought... Nothing." I'm not disappointed by the lack of gold furniture, but if truth were told, I was hoping for robots.

"Are you thirsty? Hungry?"

I would kill for a handful of TUMS. I ate a lot of pulled pork, and it's battling its way up my esophagus. But I'm in some kind of romantic scene with a hot billionaire in his mansion ranch house, and there's a reasonable chance I'm going to see him naked, so I probably shouldn't mention my wicked case of heartburn.

"How about champagne?" he asks.

Champagne. The drink of billionaires. I bet he has caviar and foie gras in his refrigerator, too. Blech. Fish eggs and the liver of bloated geese. That sounds gross. But I guess gross food is the price of being crazy rich.

That and money hungry women stalkers who try to marry you.

"Do you have Diet Coke?"

I don't really want Diet Coke, but it's a test to see if Cole is a real human or if he's completely gone over to a parallel universe where hyper rich people populate the earth and have never heard of soda.

"Regular or caffeine free?" he asks. Still holding my hand, he walks us to his kitchen, which is slightly bigger than Rhode Island. "This is the soda refrigerator," he says, opening a double-sized fridge with a glass door. Inside is every kind of soda known to man.

"What's the rest of America going to drink?" I ask.

He hands me a can of Diet Coke. "This is the moment when I'm supposed to utter some kind of let them eat cake comment because I've got more money than Wells Fargo, right?"

"Well..."

"I'm not that kind of rich guy, Beatrice. I'm the normal kind of rich guy," he says, putting me in my place. "Now, drink up so I can whip my slaves and count my gold coins in my luxury panic room next to my Olympic-sized jacuzzi."

He arches an eyebrow and smiles to let me know that he's joking. Then, his eyes grow dark, and he steps toward me. "You're not really thirsty, are you?"

I croak something unintelligible, but it's enough to get my point across. I'm not really thirsty. Our cooling off period between our hubba hubba make out session in the stables and the tour of his house hasn't cooled me off enough. I'm still hot and heavy and ready to sit on Cole's face.

Or whatever hot billionaires do in bed. I don't know. I've only ever had lower middle class sex.

Now I'm worried about hot billionaire sex. Do I know how to do it? Will there be advanced tongue techniques I need to learn? What if I can't? I've never been very coordinated, so I bet that goes double for my tongue.

"Tongue," I breathe.

Then, Cole's arms are around me, and his tongue is in my mouth, and he's kissing me like I'm going out of style. I kiss him back, and my tongue doesn't let me down. I'm the gold medal Olympian of tongues. I'm the Beverly Sills at the Met of tongues.

More or less, this is the best kiss with tongues in the history of French kissing. In fact, nobody has ever mastered French kissing like Cole and me. We're more French than the French. Suddenly, I want to eat snails and watch depressing movies.

Without breaking the kiss, Cole picks me up and carries me out of the kitchen, and I let the Diet Coke can drop out of my hand and fall to the floor. I put my arms around his neck, and after a few seconds, Cole stops walking and stops kissing me.

"This is my bedroom," he croaks. I open my eyes. We're in a manly man-bedroom with more windows overlooking the ranch.

"Nice. Take off my clothes."

I don't have to tell him twice. He's very adept at removing women's clothing. In a blur, I'm naked and lying in the center of his giant bed. He's staring at me, unblinking, unsmiling. Then, he slowly unbuttons his shirt and removes it, dropping it to the floor.

His stomach looks like it's been painted on. It's more than a six-pack. Six, seven, eight. I've lost count of the packs. Maybe because I'm distracted. Cole's unbuckling his belt and unzipping his pants, and now all I'm looking at is his treasure path of love until...

Oh, yes.

There it is.

And the whole time, he's looking at me with smoldering eyes like he plucked them out of a romance novel, and that's why I'm on fire and bursting with desire and need.

He's bursting with desire and need, too. Visibly.

"You're...you're..." I say, pointing.

He kneels on the bed. "Well endowed? Yes, I know. It's my trusty sidekick. It's never let me down. So to speak."

"Oh," I breathe, as he lies on top of me, nestling his body between my legs and supporting his weight on his forearms. "I don't think I need much foreplay," I say, honestly.

I'm raring to go. I'm ready for action without him touching me.

But he's touching me.

"This isn't foreplay," he says, as he trails kisses down my breast. "This is what I've been wanting since the moment I first saw you."

Cole sucks my nipple gently while his hand caresses between my legs. A finger finds my most sensitive spot and drives me mad. My head falls backward, and I close my eyes while I concentrate on the pleasure from his touch. My core is heavy, on fire, and overwhelmed with sensations that are bringing me toward the edge.

Here's the thing about orgasms. I haven't had many of them. Okay, I've had three. One was on the bus to summer camp when I sat at the back where it was very bumpy. The second was when I was involved with my third boyfriend George, but he wasn't in the room with me at the time. The third, well, to be perfectly honest, there's wasn't a third time, but there was an almost third time.

I've always thought that I'm just not biologically made for orgasms. That happens. Not every woman is an orgasm machine.

Stupid me.

Boy, was I wrong.

Because now... "Ohhhhhhh!" I shout, like I'm trying to find a note but I can't. And then I'm gone, like Dorothy over the rainbow, like a heroin addict getting a fix. My body convulses and my head lifts up from the pillow and then drops back down.

I'm completely relaxed, and I might be drooling. I think my face has melted off, and I touch it to make sure. Nope, it's still there.

Slowly, I open my eyes. Cole is rolling a condom on and then he slips inside me.

"Hand meet glove," I whisper.

Cole nods as he lowers himself on top of me. "You feel so good," he says into my ear. I lift my knees up, and he moves deeper inside me.

Cole walks back to the bed naked. He hands me a can of Diet Coke, and he opens a beer for himself. After gulping it down, he lies down on his side facing me with his head propped up with a couple of pillows.

"So," he says, smiling. "That was a good start."

"A good time was had by all," I agree. Four orgasms. Three for me. One for Cole. But this moment is even better. He's smiling at me, focusing on me, and I feel myself falling for him. Oh, who am I kidding? I've fallen.

It's sort of a miracle, us in bed together and him smiling at me. I love it. It's like eating a Hershey bar while getting a pedicure. The man I've had a crush on forever, the absolutely out-of-reach, unattainable, winning lottery ticket manly man is looking at me just like I think I'm looking at him. I'm looking at him like I never want to stop looking at him.

I mean, he's given me more orgasms than I've had in my entire life.

And he smells great.

But my rapturous, post-coital ecstasy is being dulled at the edges as reality butts its ugly mug into my head.

Seven days. Cole is worth seven days of orgasms and that's it. He said so himself. So, not only is Operation Billionaire a pipe dream and the idea of marriage ridiculous, if I go one step more in this thing with him, I'm going to have my heart broken.

That's the way of things. Men leave me. Cole will leave me. I can't handle being left by Mr. Perfect, by the man who saves abused horses and saves me every chance he gets.

Operation Billionaire be damned. Love is not a game. I'm going to have to leave him before he leaves me.

"Well, this was nice," I say, trying to avoid his eyes. He has the best eyes. I'd like to live my whole life looking at Cole's eyes.

I sit up and search for my clothes. Cole puts his hand on my arm.

"What are you doing?"

"Leaving. Aren't we done?"

"Believe it or not, one adventure in bed hasn't exhausted my repertoire."

He pulls me on top of him and puts his hand on my ass, giving it a squeeze.

"You have a repertoire?" I ask. Duh. Of course he has a repertoire. Cole's the Arthur Rubinstein of sex.

"Let's put it this way, you inspire me."

He rolls me under him and kisses me, and just like that, I'm ready to go again. But I find strength inside of me to reject the onslaught of pleasure. I break off the kiss.

"You probably want to get some sleep, now. It's been a long day," I tell him. Our faces are almost touching. It's all I can do not to kiss him.

"You think I want to sleep?" he asks, pressing his erection against my belly.

"Well..."

"Even if I didn't want you-- and I do very much, in case you were wondering-I never sleep."

"What do you mean?" I ask. "You never sleep? Like an amoeba?"

"I do about three hours a night. No more."

"Not even a nap? You don't even nod off while you watch TV after work? How about after you eat Thanksgiving dinner?"

Cole shakes his head. "My mother says it's a control thing and that I can't relax. I think it's just that I don't have time to sleep. There's too much going on in my head."

"I slept eleven hours last night," I say. I've always slept a lot. I love to sleep, almost as much as I love to kiss Cole.

He smiles. "I can't get you out of my head, Beatrice Hammersmith. I'll never sleep again."

"You talk good," I breathe. And he does other things even better. Cole's an all-around perfect package. And his package ain't so bad, either. "But I should be going."

I push gently on him, and he gets off me, immediately. I find my clothes and put them on while he watches me. "You don't want to stay for something to eat?" he asks.

"No, thank you. I should be getting back. Olivia's kids like when I put on a sock puppet show before they go to bed, and last night we ended on a cliffhanger, and they're dying to find out if Darth Vader is Luke's father. I can't let them down."

"Of course you can't," Cole says, but he doesn't look so sure.

He hops up from bed and gets dressed, too. We need to take a shower, but that would start things all over again like an endless loop, and I need to break this up and get back to Diane's stash of Toblerones and a pile of grief.

"I'll take you back," Cole says.

"It's okay. I'll walk myself."

He stands over me and puts a finger under my chin and tilts my head up. "I'll take you back," he says, locking eyes with me. I want to melt into him, again and never leave, but reality knocks, and I find my strength.

I follow Cole to his garage, which is filled with an assortment of cars, motorcycles, and trucks. We walk to a silver Maserati, and he opens the passenger door for me. He gets behind the wheel and the car roars to life.

"Are you trying to impress me?" I ask, as he backs out of the garage.

"Is it working?"

Yep, it sure is.

Cole drives like a stunt driver. The Maserati takes the curves easily, roaring across the ranch. The sun is setting, and the guests are leaving the rodeo. Cole stays clear of the crowds, taking dirt back roads. It's only a couple of minutes to get to the hotel. This time, Cole doesn't leave me at the end of the road. He drives up to the front door, and turns off the motor.

My car door opens, and Rock bends down and sticks his head into the car, surprising me. "Hello there, beautiful," he says to me. His eyes are twinkling, and he's the picture of the scamp, a misbehaving Dennis the Menace, but really good-looking with lots of muscles.

In the corner of my eye, I see Cole's jaw clench. "Thanks for bringing her home, buddy," he tells Cole and gives me his hand to help me out of the car.

I take his hand, but look but at Cole. "It was nice meeting you," I tell him and get out of the car.

"It was what?" he demands. "You're going with him? What's happening here? What the hell?"

I shut the door behind me and walk into the hotel with Rock. I feel like the dumbest woman alive. I'm going in the wrong direction. I'm walking away from Cole Stevens. I'm throwing away Operation Billionaire, but worse than that, I'm throwing away my chance at love.