Page 3 of Hotshot Mogul

Bruce

2040

Damn, it was hot. I made the last pass around the perimeter of the common area of the twenty-five million-dollar community I’d built near Lake Michigan. It was only a three-hour drive from Chicago and in the heart of Michigan’s vast natural places. The landscape company I owned usually took care of this, but they were on a much-earned, morale-building fishing trip about four hours away in the Mitten State’s thumb, on my dime.

So, my crew was cooling off on Lake Huron while I was sweating my balls off on a humid June day. However, mowing the grass was a welcome break from endless business meetings and fourteen-hour days chained to my electronics, trying to get shovels in the ground for my latest development. My black T-shirt, not the best choice for that day, stuck to me.

Truth was, I didn’t have to work. I had a trust fund I refused to touch. About thirty years ago, my crazy-ass dad, Carter, looked after Gordon, a guy his grandma was attached to, in the senior community where she lived. Gordon acted like Dad was his son, “Brucey.” And in between his job as a hot-shot airplane pilot, Dad played along and helped him out. And Gordo left Dad twenty million, which grew—a lot.

So, when Dad got my beautiful mother Kendall pregnant with me, I ended up being called Brucey Clynes. I changed that shit to Bruce in middle school. Mom and Dad lived in Florida, where I grew up. Dad grew up in Michigan and went to the University of Michigan for a while. I applied there and got in. I liked it here, so I stayed. Not so different from my mom’s story. She walked away from her trust fund worth millions and her life in Texas. I checked in with Mom every Tuesday. I wasn’t speaking to Carter after he stopped me from using my trust fund to help the woman I wanted to marry.

Tuesday. That would be the day after I faced the Oakdale City Commission for the rezoning I wanted. Should be a slam dunk. So, I planned to take a few hours off that weekend.

I walked toward my battered Jeep and peeled off my shirt, hoping I had another T-shirt inside. I loved driving this Jeep, although I couldn’t use it to haul around clients I wanted to schmooze. I planned to take it onto the Silver Lake Sand Dunes and blow off some steam, off-roading it, maybe tomorrow. I opened the back of the Jeep. No shirt. I knew there were some golf shirts left over from last year’s golf outing in the administrative offices that my staff used for new leases and sales.

I drove the power mower into the storage shed and headed for the office. It was at the far end of the development, next to the apartments. A woman holding a clipboard was banging on the door to the locked and shuttered office.

She wore a soft sundress that reached down to her ankles, from which I couldn’t pull my gaze away. They were delicate, slender and graceful. My gaze traveled up to the curve of her hips, tapered waist, and swell of her breasts. My cock twitched. Her breasts were smaller, compared to the kind of woman I was usually drawn to, since Diana. I’d bet they’d fit into my hands like she was made for me.

I needed to rein it in. Damn, I still had to text Beth back. She’d texted me twice.

“Can I help you?” I asked, all polite. My gaze skimmed over her bare, toned shoulders. Her honey-blonde hair hung in waves just past them. Then I looked at her face. Sucker punch. I thought violet eyes weren’t real. Did she use contact lenses? Her thick, dark lashes framed her almond-shaped eyes. Her lips were soft, lush and pink. What would they taste like?

I had never had such a visceral reaction to a woman at first sight, even Diana. Violet-eyes stared at my bare chest. Then her gaze dropped lower, hardening my cock to the point of pain. She finally met my gaze. “I thought we must wear clothes,” she said.

Two dudes—I’d bet they were frat boys home for the summer—sidled toward us. Where the hell had they come from? The dude who wore a backward baseball cap moved closer to her. “That depends, babe.”

Not happening. I glared at these jerk wads and stepped in front of her, shielding her from their leering stares. What about my leering stare? “She’s with me,” I said. I tried to sound all bad ass. Not yet, but she will be.

I pulled the keys to the field office out of my back pocket, unlocked the door, and hustled her inside. I turned on the A/C, which blasted cold. My sweat chilled on my bare skin. Her nipples pressed proud against her thin sundress. I’d bet my last year’s earnings that she wasn’t wearing a bra. Her perfect little tits didn’t need one.

Golf shirts, we needed golf shirts. Me, so I was dressed, and her, so I didn’t suck her nipples through her dress. I found the box, grabbed a women’s size extra small, and pulled a polo-style shirt over my sweat-drenched hair. I adjusted myself, then stepped toward her.

“Here,” I said, thrusting the shirt at her. “In case you’re cold.”

She rubbed the shirt against her cheek. “This is soft,” she said.

“I’m Bruce.”

She met my gaze. The crazy connection took hold again. It was like I could see forever in her amethyst eyes. Tone down the crazy, dude. You just laid eyes on her.

“Anneliese.”

As she sat in the chair, I sat behind the desk opposite those perfect breasts. “Can I help you? You were knockers…” Crap. “I mean knocking.” I was no better than those ass-hat frat boys.

She shook her head and squared her shoulders, thrusting her nipples against her dress. I stifled a groan—and failed.

She sprung around the desk, dropping the clipboard. “Are you ill?” She put her hand on my forehead and glanced down at my lap. Damn. My shorts tented over my straining erection.

She dropped her hand. “Oh.” She sat back down.

We needed a distraction.

I pulled out two cans of chilled cola from the mini-fridge and set one down on the desk in front of her. She stared at it, looking confused, as if she’d never seen a can before. Where did she come from? I pulled up the tab slowly, exaggerating my movements, then took a long sip.

She did the same, then flipped through the papers on her clipboard. I couldn’t drag my gaze away. Her perfect lips moved silently. She smiled nervously. “Thanks for the beverage.”

“You’re not from here, are you?” Crap. That was rude and intrusive. A haunted look strained her beautiful face until she smoothed it away. What was troubling her? I wanted to fix it. “I just mean, we say pop or cola instead of beverage here in the Mitten State.” I held out my right hand for emphasis. “Not like where I’m from, where they say soda.”

---