Bluegrass Seduction (The Bluegrass Billionaire Trilogy Book 1) by Alice Ward, Jessica Blake Page A

that way.”
    “Of course you didn’t, Auggie. You’re a sweet-hearted idealist and I like that. You don’t want to become sour and cynical like me.” He seemed resigned to some sort of inherent evil within himself.
    “How did you get that way?” I asked carefully, not sure if he knew what I meant. He did.
    “I suppose you could say it was bred into me. Father dabbles in finance and business, I dabble in the psyche that supports his finance and business. Men are only as important as they believe themselves to be. I prefer to look at what I do as evening the odds. Making all men equal.”
    “What a fascinating, although perverted, way to look at the world,” I said before I thought about it.
    He looked at me, the strangest expression on his face. “You’re smart, you’ll see it eventually and that makes me sad.” His voice held real regret.
    “Why sad?” I was drawn to this man’s opinion and words like a moth to a flame. I sensed there was a danger of rejection more powerful than anything I could imagine, but it was like stepping into the cage with the lion in the meantime. I liked the danger… the thrill of his mocking bluntness.
    He looked over the table at me and stared at my eyes. “My dear Auggie, I happen to want to be like you again, and if I can’t do that, I want you with me. I want to be in the glow of your innocence and goodness, to smell the world as you must sniff it, to give people the benefit of the doubt that they are innately good before you look for the cracks that always eventually appear.” His words ended in a wistful whisper.
    I felt sort of pleased and sort of offended at the same time. “I’m not a child, you know. I’ve seen some things.” I stuck up for myself.
    “I don’t doubt you have. I would prefer you forget them. It would please me very much if you would begin life anew, right now, right here, with me.”
    “What are you saying?” I felt a heat deep within me.
    “Don’t be coy, Auggie. You know very well what I’m saying.”
    “I’ve known you less than a month,” I protested.
    “Is there a designated period of time that must pass before I decide I want you?”
    His logic was so damned simple, so essential and so direct. I wanted to bask in his space, as well. It felt adult and audacious, a combination of environments I had been denied my entire life.
    I didn’t answer him. I never said a word as he threw a hundred-dollar bill on the table and stood, taking my hand and pulling me out of the restaurant behind him. I didn’t flinch when he pulled me into the shadow of the building and kissed me. It wasn’t a first date sort of kiss. It was a melding of two bodies, even souls, in a fervent need to be one. His tongue searched my mouth and I opened wider, turning my head in an effort to get closer to him.
    I tasted the wine on his tongue and it was an aphrodisiac, but nothing compared to the male energy emanating from his body. It surrounded me like a force field and while I stood close to him, I belonged to him. He kept me safe, valued and unique. I wanted to belong to him.
    I didn’t protest as he put me in the car and drove to the Hilton, pressing a bill into the doorman’s hand in return for a key. We stepped calmly into the glass elevator and I wrapped my arms around his neck, closing my eyes against the height. I felt like I was in the canister at the drive-through bank, momentarily lost to the outside world but filled with treasure upon arrival.
    Worth opened the door and my dress was suddenly on the floor and my hair was being unbraided with his inexperienced fingers. I brushed them away and loosened my hair myself while his hands and eyes brushed my nipples softly and with longing. I don’t remember when he became naked, but it felt like he’d always been that way. He wore clothes well, but he wore his skin far better.
    My hair, unbound, lay over my shoulders and brushed my waist as I sat with my back to him, cradled between his thighs. His long