She approached him and reached out to touch his scar, running her index finger along the pale line.
She was painstakingly gentle, and it made him want to kiss her. They were standing so close he couldâve leaned forward and captured her mouth with his. But he didnât take the liberty. They stared at each other instead, steeped in a strange kind of intimacy.
âIâm glad you survived the accident,â Carol said, smoothing his hair across his brow.
âSo am I.â But before things got unbearably awkward, Jake stepped back, trying to restrain the tenderness between them. âAfter the crash, I used to pray to Uncta, a deity from Choctaw mythology who steals fire from the sun. I was the only one who was rescued from the car before it went up in flames.â
âDid you think Uncta had saved you?â
âNo, but I wanted to steal fire, too. To have his powers.â
But that wasnât going to help Jake now. Heâd already jumped straight from the frying pan and into the flame, feeling things for Carol that he wished he didnât feel. He still wanted to kiss her, as hot and passionately as he could.
* * *
Waking up with the Boss is part of the Billionaire Brothers Club trilogyâ Three foster brothers grow up, get rich ⦠and find the perfect woman.
One
Carol Lawrence stood in her bossâs luxurious high-rise office, with a zillion things running through her mind. Being Jake Watersâs personal assistant was a demanding job, with most of her duties centered on organizing his social life. No doubt about it, the jet-setting real estate mogul kept her on her toes. Not only did he travel for work, purchasing properties all over the globe, he was the consummate party boy, dashing off to exotic locations with models and actresses and whoever else struck his rich-guy fancy.
Jake sat on the corner of his desk and flung his jacket over his unused chair. As always, his shirtsleeves were rolled up, exposing the colorful tattoos on his arms, and his dark brown hair was in sexy disarray. With his disheveled good looks and need for speed, he reminded her of James Dean, except that Jake was half-Choctaw, his mixed-blood heritage lending his features an uncommon beauty.
He certainly wasnât the type of man she should be attracted to. He was too wild for a practical girl like her. Carol spent her free time on a nice, quiet quilting hobby, whereas Jake raced sports cars as his outlet. To her that seemed like an especially reckless thing for him to do, given that his entire family had been killed in a car crash, sending him into foster care as a child. Carol had also lost her family and become a foster kid, as well. But they didnât know each other back then, and the tragedies theyâd both suffered didnât make for good bedfellows.
Still, she often wondered what taming a man like Jake would involve. Yeah, right. If the glamorous beauties he dated couldnât pin him down, then a simple gal with tidy blond hair and a sensible nature would never fit the bill. Jake was a thirty-one-year-old billionaire whoâd even made some crazy internet âBeefcake Bachelorâ list as one of the sexiest single men in Southern California. Women chased him with a vengeance. Of course, some of them kept trying to fix him, with the assumption that he was damaged from the loss of his family, using his free-spirited lifestyle to hide the pain. Carol didnât doubt that was true. She knew the anguish that being orphaned could cause. But her coping mechanism was much gentler than his. Someday she longed to get married and have children of her own, recapturing the home and hearth sheâd lost.
Jake glanced up and caught her gaze, and a fluttery sensation erupted in her stomach, something that happened far too often when she was in his presence.
Determined to maintain her composure, Carol focused on her job. âSo,â she said, âare you going to attend Lenaâs birthday celebration?â Lena was a pop star with a penchant for partying who ran in the same live-for-the-moment circle as Jake.
âDamn straight Iâm going to go. Sheâs my bud. I wouldnât miss her thirtieth bash.â He laughed a little. âSheâll probably be half-naked and dancing on tabletops.â
âNo doubt.â Lena was known for her antics. Carol was the same age as Lena, but she couldnât imagine behaving that way. âWho will be attending the party with you?â
âNow thatâs where Iâm having a bit of a problem. I donât have a date.â