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Coon lifted the pole and pushed, then did it again before answering. “Done it.”
Surprised, she glanced back at the man who stood on the bank not more than ten feet away. He looked like some kind of hairy swamp creature. Lichen slime streaked his dark, shoulder-length hair and his thick beard.
Even with the beard and the passage of sixteen years, Olivia had no trouble recognizing the oldest Beaumont brother. Although Deacon Valentino had filled out since she’d last seen him. His shoulders were broader and the muscles of his chest more defined. But he still had the same arrogant stance and hard features.
“Who are you?” he demanded.
Suddenly alligators weren’t the only threats in the swamp. But having grown up with the owner of the most successful lingerie company in the world, she had learned how to show no fear—even to intimidating men who studied her with an intensity that was as palpable as the humidity. Holding Deacon’s direct gaze, she squished her way closer and held out a hand.
“You probably don’t remember me, but I’m—” A strange tingling sensation had her slapping at her neck. But instead of a mosquito, she encountered a glob of goo. “What in the world?”
“Leech.”
Her tough-businesswoman act vanished, and she released a high-pitched squeal that had birds taking flight. She clawed at her neck, but the plump, slimy leech held tight, which turned her squeal into more of a hysterical scream. “Get it off me!” She slapped and spun in circles.
“Stand still,” he ordered, and grabbed her arm. Her squeals lowered to breathy whimpers as he tipped up her chin and examined her neck. She felt the scrape of his nail against her skin before he tossed something over his shoulder and it plopped into the swamp. Then he ran his fingers along the collar of her shirt, behind her ears, and through her hair. And she had to admire his competent thoroughness…and the heat of his skin. After the cold dip in the swamp, the contrast took her breath away—as did his eyes.
The Beaumont brothers all had deep indigo eyes that bordered on violet—a color she had tried to duplicate more than once in satins and silks. Now she realized she had failed miserably. Deacon’s eyes were more intense—an almost Technicolor vibrant. As she studied them, there was a flicker of something in their depths.
“What?” she said. “Are there more leeches?”
Without a word he released her and turned away. She watched as he picked up a cell phone that was lying on the ground. He glanced at the screen with a long, spidery crack and frowned.
“It should still work,” she said. “I dropped mine once and it cracked, but it worked fine until I could get a new one.”
His frown deepened before he grabbed his fishing pole and tackle box and headed along a path that led into the trees.
“Wait!” She hurried after him to explain why she was there. But it was hard to explain while dodging the tree branches Deacon released in her face. She batted them away and then got distracted by the good three inches of underwear that showed above the waistband of his wet camouflage pants.
Having spent the last year studying men’s underwear, Olivia knew they weren’t designer. Probably discount store. Boxer briefs. Cotton with a touch of polyester. Still, she liked the way the wide band hugged his trim waist and the white—almost transparent—cotton conformed to the top muscles of his butt. If she hadn’t been on a mission, she would’ve asked him the brand. But she was on a mission. A mission that involved getting his signature. Not the brand name of his undies.
He led her farther into the trees to a ramshackle house on stilts that looked like it had come straight out of Critter Country in Disneyland. It was made of rustic, bleached-out boards with a sagging roof and porch. A rocking chair sat on the porch, along with a rusty antique washing machine. Not the kind that you plugged in, but the kind with two tubs and crank rollers that wrung out water.
“You live here?” she asked.
Instead of answering he set the fishing pole and tackle box down by the stairs and reached for a coiled garden hose. A part of her felt a little guilty that this was his home. The other part—the business part—jumped for joy. If he and his brothers lived in the run-down shack in an alligator- and leech-infested swamp, her proposition would be all the more appealing. Which would make the harrowing past few moments well worth it. Now all she had to do was convince the Beaumont brothers.
But right when she started to speak, he turned on the hose. Green slime was quickly washed away to reveal tanned skin and hard muscle. One would think that, after spending the last week looking at male underwear models, she would be difficult to impress. But Olivia was more than impressed. The boyish models with their overdeveloped stomach muscles and hairless chests didn’t hold a candle to the image of virile masculinity before her. Deacon had a man’s body. Broad shoulders and sculpted muscles that didn’t look like they had been formed by protein shakes and hours spent at the gym, but rather by a carnivorous diet and hard work. A line of dark hair ran from the waistband of his boxers up a flat stomach with just the right amount of abdominal definition before it fanned out between his pectoral muscles. Two perfectly formed pectoral muscles that made Olivia’s palms tingle.
She had always had fine-tuned tactile perception. And this heightened sense of touch had made her extremely good at picking out the perfect fabrics for lingerie designs. She wanted to touch now. To cup each pec in her hands and test the hardness of the muscle and the rigidness of each puckered nipple. But before she could do something really stupid, he shook his hair, sending water flying. The feel of the ice-cold droplets snapped her back to reality.
He scraped his hair off his high forehead and directed those indigo eyes at her. “What do you want?”
Since touching was out of the question, she swallowed and got straight to the point. “I’m here to offer you a proposition.”
“Really?” He took a step closer. Then another. His bare, narrow feet stopped a mere inch from the toes of her hiking boots. “You came clear out here to proposition me?”
She ignored the innuendo. “Not just you, but also your brothers.” The water droplets in his thick beard caught her attention. “Does it itch?”
His brow knotted in puzzlement before he turned and walked away. “Sorry. Not interested in any proposition.” He climbed the long row of rickety steps to the porch.
“You haven’t even heard what it is.”
“Don’t need to.” He shimmied out of his jeans and underwear, jerked opened the screen door, and disappeared inside the house with a flash of virile manhood—followed by a longer look of pale, well-defined butt. A well-defined butt that would look great in an underwear ad. But as great as his ass was, his penis was the thing that held her attention long after the screen door slammed. She’d thought that cold water caused shrinkage, but he hadn’t looked shrunk. And if his penis was that big after a dousing in cold water, what would it look like fully aroused?
Usually it took plenty of foreplay to get her aroused, and even then an orgasm wasn’t a given. Yet with just a flash of flesh, this Beaumont brother had her primed and ready. Obviously the stress of the last six months was causing weird bodily reactions.
Taking two deep breaths, she climbed the stairs, stopping to remove her muddy boots and socks before she stepped inside. She expected a typical bachelor’s pad—clutter, dirty dishes in the sink, empty bottles of beer and pizza boxes. But although the furniture was old, the inside was neat and clean. The main room had a fireplace, a dilapidated couch with a rolled-up sleeping bag and pillow stacked on one end, a card table with a laptop and four nylon-strapped aluminum lawn chairs around it, and a small kitchenette with a refrigerator and stove as ancient as the washing machine on the porch.
