I'd carried my laptop out to the pool area to do some work while I enjoyed my new houseguest. I decided to create a proposal letter, my first for my new company, DNA Investments. Of course, at the moment, the company was only twelve hours old and a mere seed of an idea. I'd decided to take some of my capital and pursue products more geared toward people my age, products for the outdoor adventurer or the talented beer artisan. I was sure there were plenty of great millennial minds developing goods and services that people of our generation just couldn't live without, and I wanted to be the first investor at the door when they were ready to stretch into the business world.

It was strange but even though Shay had just moved in to the house, I was already feeling more productive. Or at least I was until she walked out onto the patio in the tiny pink bikini I'd bought for her.

She had brushed aside her long bangs, giving me a clear view of her incredible face. And as incredible as the face was, adorned only with a smear of light pink lip gloss, the body beneath, was breathtaking. The delicious curves of her breasts were only slightly concealed behind the small triangles of pink fabric on the bikini top. And, for all the lack of coverage from the top half of the bikini, it looked like a sweater compared to the teensy triangle of fabric covering her pussy.

She plucked a towel off the patio chair and headed out to the pool deck. She swung her hips back and forth as she sashayed past my lounge to the one lined up next to it. With an exaggerated movement, she turned her ass to me and bent very low to smooth out her towel on the lounge.

"You don't have to try so hard," I noted as she spread her feet a bit and reached across to kick back the farthest corner of the towel with her finger. "My cock has already taken on a pulse of its own just seeing you in that bathing suit."

Shay smiled victoriously at the bulge in my swimsuit. She turned around and placed her little finger against the corner of her lip. "Oh wow, did I do that. And, I'm not trying extra hard just because I want a million dollars. I just like my towel to be really smooth." She added a visual by running her palm over her smooth, tanned stomach.

I laughed dryly. "Here I thought I was hiring a pretty pussy to entice me for the next few weeks. I had no idea that the pussy would belong to a ruthless business woman. I think this is going to become a contest of who can master the situation."

"I don't know what you mean, boss." She wore a sly smile as she straddled the lounge and sat back on it. She made a show of lifting each leg onto the lounge and then stretched her arms back to curl them around the top of the lounge. Her breasts followed, lifting like two perfect pillows and nearly sliding free of the pink triangles.

"Boss. I rather like that. You can call me that whenever you like." I shut my laptop, stood up and stared down at her, stretched seductively on the lounge. Her thighs were parted only slightly. In my mind, I grasped both of her ankles and pushed them father apart. I swallowed hard, in a pathetic attempt to ease the ache of wanting her. I hadn't thought through the million dollar bonus. It seemed my erotic piece of cake was going to tease me mercilessly, hoping I'd break. I liked that. There was nothing I loved more than a fucking challenge.

"I admire your initiative, darlin'." I leaned over and lowered my face down so close to hers I could smell the scent of the gloss on her lips as she stared up at me. I'd startled her and knocked her off her game some. Her breasts rose and fell with a quick succession of breaths. "But I think you're outmatched. As gorgeously fuckable as you are, I'm not going to break."

She released an audible breath as I straightened. I turned toward the pool and dove in.

I swam ten fast laps, hardly coming up for air, hoping to cool the heat in my blood. I was seriously wondering about my sanity and questioned why the hell I had gone straight to two weeks. One week with Shay and I'd be ready for a damn rubber room. I was going to have to throw my mind even deeper into the new business to keep control, and that was a good thing. Maybe this wasn't such a crazy idea after all.

I swam through the water and saw a flash of pink at the shallow end. Shay sat down on the top step. Her long legs floated out in front of her. The strip of fabric on the crotch of the bathing suit was not more than a half-inch wide. As her legs opened and closed, I caught a nice view of her pussy.

I swam toward the steps. Shay dipped her hands in the water and splashed her face. My focus landed on a bead of water that made its way down her neck and into the hollow of her throat. She leaned her elbows back on the step, pushing her puckered nipples against the skimpy, wet fabric.

"Did you grow up in California?" I rested my arm on the edge of the pool.

"Yes, all twenty four years. Some of those good and some bad."

"How come you never learned to swim in the land of swimming pools and beaches?"

She sat up and ran her hands along the surface of the water. I'd already noticed that when we landed on a topic she didn't like, she pulled her expressive brown eyes away from mine. She concentrated on the pattern her long fingers made in the water. "I never lived in a place where there was a swimming pool. Not even a public one. Actually, not true." She took a deep breath and finally lifted her gaze. She had one of those faces that left an impression every time you saw it.

The bright sun above highlighted the spray of freckles on her nose. "When I was eight, my mom and I moved into a little apartment complex that was named the Golden Palm, but the palms were far from golden. In fact, most of them were dead, and as you probably know, it takes a lot of effort to kill a palm tree."

"True."

"The big yellow sign on the rental office bragged about the lovely patio area and sparkling blue pool. For a brief moment in time, as my mom signed our new lease agreement, I thought I was going to finally live in a place with a pool. I had visions of me diving into the deep end and doing somersaults underwater like I'd heard kids brag about at school. Then the building manager, a roly poly man with more hair on his lip than on his head, showed us to our new apartment. It was overlooking the pool area. And just like the palms weren't golden, the pool area was not lovely and the pool was far from sparkling or blue. In fact, the only thing swimming in it was a family of frogs." She tilted her head side to side. "Which was kind of a cool trade off since I wasn't going to be able to swim. I pretended we were living next to a pond instead."

I grew up without a lot of the cool things my schoolmates had, but we did have a pool. Of course my dad let me use it only for exercise. The words pool party were never uttered in our house. But at least I knew I always had a home. I never had to suffer the stress of wondering if there would be a roof over my head. "So it was just your mom and you?"

"For some of my childhood." I'd stepped onto another topic that made her pull her gaze away. She splashed water at my chest and changed the subject to my least favorite topic, me. "I confess, I Googled your name."

"A little background check, eh? Smart girl. And what did Google tell you?"

"Well, you're not a descendant of Jack the Ripper, which was a plus. I actually put both your names into the search bar in the little quotes but no matches."

"Not sure if Jack the Ripper comes up on any family trees because they never found out his identity. That said, I'm pretty sure there's no connection."

"Good to hear." Shay coasted off the step and moved her arms through the water but kept her feet on the pool floor. "But I did read that you are the son of a billionaire, David Archer senior, and you work for a private equity firm. And as one newspaper article boasted, you are close to passing your dad up on the Forbes list."

"I was working for an equity firm, but I don't think I was that close to brushing past the old man on Forbes."

"Did all this come from family wealth?"

"Nope. I earned every penny."

Her brow lifted. "You don't expect me to believe that."

"Believe what you will, but if you met my dad you'd know I was telling the truth."

I climbed up the steps and walked over to my towel. I could feel Shay's gaze on my back. The thought of her looking at me sent a surge of heat to my cock. I was in trouble if the mere thought of her could make me hard.

I sat on the lounge and watched as she climbed out of the pool. Drops of water splattered on the cement around her as she stopped to twist out her hair. The movement displayed a good sized bruise on the inside of her arm.

I sat up. "Did that asshole from Fantasm give you that bruise?"

She glanced down at the bruise as if she'd forgotten she had it. She quickly pushed her arm down to hide the ugly mark. "No. That bruise came from one of many stupid decisions I've made in the past few years. But that decision is gone now."

I rested back, but my jaw was clenched at the idea that some asshole would hurt her.

Shay sat on the lounge. She stretched back but not in a teasing way. Not that it mattered, because she was a sight to see even just sitting on a lounge.

"I noticed you had some textbooks on the front seat of your car," I said. "I know so little about you. Are you going to school?"

"Those were from summer quarter. I didn't register for fall. I was having a hard enough time keeping my head above water. But I plan to go back. I still haven't decided on a course of study anyhow."

"Are you hungry?" I asked.

"Starved."

"I'll order some food. Do you like Italian?"

"I like anything that doesn't bite back. I probably should have warned you that I have the appetite of a lumberjack."

I sat sideways on the lounge and dragged my gaze along her curvy but lean body. "I find that hard to believe."

"Well, maybe a small lumberjack. But it's all right if you don't believe me. Just know you've been warned."