Billionaire Lumberjack, page 22
His cock stiffens between us, and I run my hands over his freshly shaved cheeks. I once told him he could be on the cover of GQ, and at the time, I had no idea why he reacted so badly. Now I know it’s because he was on it, not even six months before his parents were killed and he was shot. I don’t know that I would have recognized him though, even if I were holding that cover in my hand and staring at the man who lived in that cabin. They are two different people, and with his face soft and smooth like this, it feels so foreign, yet also Beau.
Pulling back, I grin at him and try to think of anything I can possibly ever say to explain how I feel. “Thank you, Beau, for saving me.”
“You're very welcome. Thank you for saving me.”
I chuckle, then bite my lip. “Anytime, but hey, I do have a request.”
He raises a dark eyebrow at me, his lips curling into a half-grin. “What's that?”
“Please grow back the beard.”
Epilogue
BEAU
The hot summer sun beats down on my exposed shoulders, and sweat drips down my back and chest. I heave the beam onto my shoulder and carry it from my workspace in front of the barn to the side of a cabin, then lower it down to the ground with the others.
Wiping the sweat from my brow with my hand, I examine the partially completed addition to the cabin I’ve been working on for the last several weeks.
It’s coming together. Not as fast as I’d like, or as fast as I could have done it six months ago, but having Brooke here with me gives me a distraction I won’t ever complain about.
Instead of working myself to the bone, to the point of exhaustion and pain because I believed I needed to do it, I get to snuggle in with Brooke every night and plan a future I finally want.
“Hey, babe?” Brooke’s voice floats through the quiet summer air.
I turn toward the front of the cabin and swipe at another bead of sweat dripping down my temple. “Back here!”
She appears around the corner of the cabin, alabaster skin glowing in the warm sunshine and blond hair flowing around her like a damn halo, her hand on the swell of her expanding belly. “Oh, there you are. I need your help.”
“With what?”
A familiar scowl turns her lips, her frustration with some of the limitations of being pregnant and getting bigger becoming more and more evidenced each day. “With everything lately…”
I chuckle and make my way over to her, pulling her into my arms and pressing a kiss on her lips even though I'm all sweaty and disgusting from working out here all day.
Brooke pulls away and wrinkles her nose. “You stink.”
“You like it.”
She can’t fight her grin, and she reaches down and smacks my ass, then takes my hand and pulls me toward the front door. “Maybe, but really, I need your help…again.”
“With what?”
I was really hoping to get another section up before the sun goes down tonight, but I haven’t been able to deny this woman anything, so if she needs me, that means setting the project aside until she’s done with me.
“I'll show you.”
“Okay…”
Something's up.
She’s usually a lot more direct than this, and since she started her new life up here with me, she definitely hasn't been afraid to tell me exactly like it is—even when it’s something I don’t want to hear.
What is she up to?
I never know these days.
But after the shock of finding out Brooke was pregnant not long after we returned to the cabin, there isn’t much she can do that will surprise me.
She pulls me in the front door and toward the office I now share with her. I scan the room, looking for what she might need help with.
“Do you need a book?”
The top shelves are high enough that she couldn’t reach them even before her belly started growing, but now that she’s almost seven months along, there are even more she needs my help to grab.
Brooke glances at the shelves but shakes her head and points to a framed photo laid out on my desk, next to the one of me with Mom and Dad.
I freeze, and she squeezes my hand.
“What's this?”
Grinning, she tugs her hand from mine, picks up the frame, and turns it toward me. “It's a picture I want to hang in the baby's room.”
I accept it from her, my throat tightening as I take in every detail and try to find my voice. “When did you take this?”
Brooke chews on her bottom lip—a sure sign that she's nervous about something—and holds up a hand. “Don't be mad.”
“Do I ever get mad?”
She scowls at my joke. “Don't make me answer that, Beau. You won't like it.”
I grin at her and return my focus to the picture. “Seriously, when did you take this?”
“That morning we went up to the lake, but it was before you asked me not to take pictures of you or the cabin. I swear, I had kind of forgotten it was even on there, but when we got up here and got everything settled, I went back through my camera and found these. And that one was just…too good not to frame.”
It's strange looking at yourself in a photograph and finally seeing what you really look like. No matter how long I looked at my reflection in the mirror up here, I never recognized the man staring back at me. When this picture was taken, I didn't even know who he was.
But now, only six months later, I know exactly who this man is.
The shirtless man, swinging an ax, with snow around him and the sun casting a shadow on the side of his face—he was a man living half a life. A man barely living at all.
And all that changed because of this woman. Because she stumbled into my isolated world and opened it up to so many things, opened me up to so many things.
Love. Happiness. A future. A family.
All the things I thought I could never have.
BROOKE
Beau stares at the photo for so long, his hands clenching the frame firmly, that a tiny bit of fear starts to turn my stomach worse than the morning sickness did.
“Beau, are you mad?”
I've learned to read him well over the last six months, become good at gauging his moods and knowing what he needs—whether that be time alone out in the barn or in the forest hacking away at a tree to rid himself of whatever memory or guilt or annoyance is bothering him, some quality time snuggling on the couch with a good book, or a little TLC in the bedroom.
But with his head angled down, his face not visible, it's impossible for me to tell what he's thinking. Right now, I feel like that girl who woke up in Beau’s bed not knowing where she was or what was going on.
Something wet falls to the glass on the frame, and Beau wipes it away with his thumb and lifts his head to finally look at me again. Another tear trickles from his eye. “Hell no, I'm not mad. I'm the happiest I've ever been.”
A giant weight lifts off my shoulders, and I release a heavy sigh of relief.
When I found those pictures buried behind the hundreds of others I took up at the lake that day, I had completely forgotten about them. My first reaction was to delete them, to delete the evidence that I had not done what Beau asked, that I had not obeyed his wishes. But then I looked at them and saw how beautiful they were. How beautiful he is. How perfectly the pictures capture the man I fell in love with then, and who I love even more now.
“Really?”
One corner of his lips quirks up. “You certainly know how to capture a good photo.”
I grin at him and blink away the tears starting to fall from my own eyes. “I had a very handsome subject who made my job easy.”
He chuckles and sets down the photo on the desk to pull me against him, my belly separating us.
“Thank you.” He presses a kiss to my lips. “I think it would be the perfect addition to the baby's room.”
“You do?”
For some reason, I thought he would put up more of a fight about this.
Beau nods and brushes hair back from my face. “I do.”
“So…we're going to do a lumberjack theme?”
He barks out a laugh and shakes his head. “I guess it would be appropriate. My parents would love it.”
“I'm sure they would. Following in the family tradition, huh?”
“What do you bet Nate sends him an ax for his first birthday?”
I raise an eyebrow. “First? No, that's definitely a birth gift.”
Our combined laughter fills the small room where we once had a confrontation that sent me running from him, and Beau drops his hand to my belly to rub it gently.
“That might be a little young to get him started, but I'll have him swinging one in no time.”
“I'm sure you will.”
His smile falters slightly. “Are you still nervous about having a baby up here? Because I told you, we can always go back to Seattle. I would understand if you'd rather raise a child there than here, with all the inherent dangers and—”
“Stop.” I press a finger over his lips. “Yes, I am nervous about it. The weather, and the bears, and the cougars…”
He sighs, no doubt remembering our close encounter just as vividly as I do.
“But this is home, Beau. This is where you and I belong. And where he”—I place my hand on top of Beau’s on my stomach— “belongs, too.”
“You're sure? Because it would save me a lot of work if I didn't have to finish the addition.”
Laughing, I playfully shove at his shoulder. He captures my face between his palms and kisses me deeply, just like he always does, pouring all of his emotions into it.
“I love you, Brooke Beaumont.”
“I love you, Luke Beaumont.”
I raise my hand and hold it against his beard. “And thank you so much for growing this back. That whole baby face thing just wasn't working for me.”
He grins. “Anything for your lumberjack fantasies, darling. Anything.”
I hope you enjoyed Billionaire Lumberjack. Keep reading for a sneak peek at Savage Collision.
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SNEAK PEEK AT SAVAGE COLLISION
SAVAGE
Naked women gyrate on stages—asses, tits, flesh on display—their images covering three-quarters of my computer screen, but they are merely blurs in my peripheral vision.
My focus is on the top right corner, where one of my vendors is unloading his truck on the loading dock, and taking his sweet-ass time doing it. He’s no doubt using it as an excuse to gawk at the girls. Byron is in heated discussion with him about something. Hopefully, my club manager is reaming him out for taking up so much of our damn time with an unload that should take only minutes.
Why are people so fucking lazy these days? What happened to work ethic?
Mom and Dad made damn well sure all their children understood the importance of a hard-day’s work and always giving it one hundred percent. I guess that kind of thing just isn’t instilled in people anymore. It shouldn’t surprise me really, the degradation of society, not when I see the degenerates who always manage to find their way in here, despite my best efforts to keep the club clientele upscale.
Byron and the vendor move to the back of the truck and start unloading several handcarts-full of cases of beer at a time. At least I can always rely on Byron to get the job done.
I return to the paperwork on my desk but barely have time to regain my train of thought before my office door flies open, slamming against the wall.
Instinctively, I reach under my desk, wrapping my hand around the grip of the Sig Sauer 1911 Scorpion I keep mounted there. I look up, expecting to find one of Domenico Abello’s thugs, because, surely, that would be the only person capable of making it past both Gabe and Byron to end up in my office unannounced.
My breath catches in my throat when, instead of a burly threat, my eyes land on what I can only describe as a Victoria’s Secret model. An enraged one.
She is furious—the fire in her stormy blue eyes and her scowling red lips are a dead giveaway. With a toss of her long, wavy blonde hair behind her shoulder, she thunders into my office as if she owns the place.
I track her progress across the room, taking in her polished appearance—from her French-manicured nails, thousand-dollar bag, and Burberry trench down to the four-inch Louboutin stilettos that make her long, elegant legs extend beyond comprehension as she clicks across the wood floor with purpose.
My cock hardens instantly and, despite my surprise at my body’s reaction to her, I steel my expression and shift uncomfortably in my chair.
Damn. This woman is livid, and hot as fucking hell.
I doubt she’s a threat, though—to anything but my libido—so, I remove my hand from the gun and surreptitiously slide it to my crotch to adjust my erection before reclining and watching her speculatively. Despite this being my office, my domain, I wait patiently for her to say something. A hint of uncertainty and maybe discomfort surface from beneath her diamond-hard demeanor.
“Are you the owner?”
She stops several feet short of my desk, props her hands on her shapely hips, and huffs in defiance. Her voice is level and steady when she asks the question, but her eyes give her away. They roam over me with blatant interest, and the slight flush on her neck and cheeks only confirm my suspicion—she’s checking me out.
I relax in my chair and school my features, trying to hide my amusement. I answer her question with a nod. “I am, and you might be?”
“Danika Eriksson.” She tosses her name at me like a poison dart, and her bravado impresses me despite my uncertainty about her purpose here.
Do I know her? Should I be recognizing her name? No, I would remember a woman like her.
Movement in the open door catches my attention. Gabe eyes Ms. Eriksson with concern. I wave off my best friend, right-hand man, and business partner with a look, and he nods his understanding before disappearing down the hall.
“What can I do for you, Ms. Eriksson?”
She crosses her arms over her chest in a huff, which only succeeds in pushing her abundant breasts higher.
Not helping the raging hard-on situation, lady.
“You can tell me where the hell you get off tricking young, innocent girls into selling themselves like slabs of beef in your disgusting club.” She spits the words at me, completely, unabashedly unafraid to insult me and my business, while standing right in front of me and looking me in the eye.
I struggle to withhold a grin at her audacity as I lean forward, resting my elbows on the edge of the desk.
“I can assure you, Ms. Eriksson, that none of my employees are ‘tricked’ into doing anything.”
She scoffs and shifts her weight, drawing my attention back to her impossibly long, shapely legs. The woman must be at least five foot seven without those heels on. With them, she towers over me in all her elegant glory.
“Bullshit…” She searches my desk for a nameplate, then looks at me again when she doesn’t find one.
The corner of my mouth quirks up before I can stop it. “Savage, Savage Hawke. But please, call me Savage, and just what is it you think you know about my employees?”
“Savage?” Her eyes narrow, and then, she rolls them. “Your parents honestly named you Savage Hawke?”
This isn’t the first time someone has questioned my name, or that my name has left me the butt of some joke. “Yes, they did. It’s a family name.”
My gaze naturally drifts to the framed photo on the corner of my desk. It was my father’s second-to-last fight. He’s standing in the center of the ring in Madison Square Garden, the WBA heavy-weight championship belt around his waist, and I’m hoisted above his head, both of us smiling in his victory. I was ten.
She follows my stare and when she sees the photo, her eyebrows pop up in recognition. “Wait, your father is Sam ‘The Savage’ Hawke?”
Stunned doesn’t even begin to describe how I feel, hearing my dad’s name from her. It takes me a moment to shake off my surprise, but eventually, I manage a smile and nod. “I’m surprised you recognize him.” I lean forward to grab the photo and turn it around so she can see it more clearly.
In my thirty years on this planet, I don’t think I’ve ever met a single woman who knew who my father was. Men, on the other hand, gape in awe when they find out my lineage. I guess it just goes with the territory of being the son of a heavy-weight champ, and one who died the way he did.
She takes a step closer to me, bending down slightly to get a closer look at the photo. “Holy shit! I can’t believe you are ‘The Savage’s’ son! Of course I know who he is. My dad was a huge boxing fan. I grew up watching your dad’s fights from my old man’s lap.”
“That’s great.” And very unexpected. I’m not quite sure what to say. Talking about my father is always bittersweet.
Her smile and astonishment fade, and she glances at me apologetically. “Shit, I’m sorry…” Before she finishes her thought, she seems to realize she’s been sidetracked from her intended purpose. She straightens herself, squares her shoulders, and I can tell she’s ready to get back to business.
“Well, Savage,” she says my name like it’s a four-letter word, “I would very much appreciate it if you kept your sleazy hands off my baby sister.”
Bingo!
She isn’t the first, and she certainly won’t be the last, person to find their way into my office on their high horse, accusing me of taking advantage of some innocent little sister, cousin, or friend.
“And who is your baby sister?”
Her face scrunches in disgust at my inability to immediately make the familial connection.
“Nora Eriksson, she started shaking her ass and tits for you almost three weeks ago.”
The way she throws the words “ass and tits” at me, I have to cover my mouth with my hand to hide my grin. This woman is all attitude, and it is sexy as fuck, although I have no idea why. She definitely isn’t my usual type, although, I’m not sure if I even know what my type is anymore. Certainly, she’s about as far from Becca as one can get, yet my cock is still straining against my pants.
