Beyond Ordinary Love Read online

  Beyond Ordinary Love

  A Journey’s End Billionaire Romance

  Ann Christopher

  Contents

  Back Cover Copy

  Also by Ann Christopher

  Dear Reader Letter

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Epilogue

  Introduction to Excerpt

  Excerpt from Anthony & Melody’s Story

  Also by Ann Christopher

  Acknowledgments

  THE SWEDE

  About the Author

  Meet the Billionaires of Journey’s End…

  One-night stands never lead to happily-ever-afters. Or do they?

  The road to true love never runs smooth. Especially when a sexy French billionaire meets his match in a no-nonsense career woman from small-town Journey’s End.

  But the fiery chemistry between Jean-Baptiste Mercier and Samira Palmer refuses to die, and each new day reveals how much they don’t have in common—and how much they do.

  One-night stands often end in disaster. But not always…

  If you love contemporary interracial romance that’s hot and emotional, pick up the steamy conclusion to this two-part romantic saga today!

  No Ordinary Love (Baptiste & Samira #1)

  Beyond Ordinary Love (Baptiste & Samira #2)

  Untitled (Anthony & Melody #1)

  Untitled (Anthony & Melody #2)

  Untitled (Nick’s Story)

  Also by Ann Christopher

  JOURNEY’S END Small-Town Contemporary Romance Series

  “Book” 1: A JOURNEY’S END Novella

  Book 2: LET’S DO IT

  Book 3: ON FIRE

  “Book” 4: LET’S STAY TOGETHER Novella

  Book 5: UNFORGETTABLE

  Billionaires of Journey’s End Contemporary Romance Series

  Book 1: NO ORDINARY LOVE

  Book 2: BEYOND ORDINARY LOVE

  Click here for more titles in this series!

  DEADLY Romantic Suspense Series

  Book 1: DEADLY PURSUIT

  Book 2: DEADLY DESIRES

  Book 3: DEADLY SECRETS

  IT’S COMPLICATED Contemporary Romance Series

  TROUBLE

  RISK

  JUST ABOUT SEX

  SWEETER THAN REVENGE

  The Davies Family Contemporary Romance Series

  Book 1: SINFUL SEDUCTION

  Book 2: SINFUL TEMPTATION

  Book 3: SINFUL ATTRACTION

  Book 4: SINFUL PARADISE

  The Warner Family Contemporary Romance Series

  Book 1: TENDER SECRETS

  Book 2: ROAD TO SEDUCTION

  Book 3: CAMPAIGN FOR SEDUCTION

  Book 4: REDEMPTION’S KISS

  Book 5: REDEMPTION’S TOUCH

  Boxed Sets

  DEADLY Series

  IT’S COMPLICATED

  SWEET LOVE

  BELLA MONSTRUM Young Adult Horror Series

  Book 1: MONSTRUM

  Single Titles

  CASE FOR SEDUCTION

  THE SURGEON’S SECRET BABY

  SEDUCED ON THE RED CARPET

  Novellas

  TAILS OF LOVE

  GIFT OF LOVE

  Dear Readers:

  Welcome to Beyond Ordinary Love, the second part of the sexy and emotional saga between Baptiste and Samira! Please note that this book picks up in real time where No Ordinary Love ends, so you’ll want to read that one first if you haven’t already.

  Happy Reading!

  Ann

  Billionaires of Journey’s End Series

  1.No Ordinary Love (Baptiste & Samira #1)

  2.Beyond Ordinary Love (Baptiste & Samira #2)

  3.Untitled (Anthony & Melody #1)

  4.Untitled (Melody & Anthony #2)

  5.Untitled (Nick’s Story)

  1

  Jean-Baptiste Mercier worked hard to repress his smile—at least some of it, if not all—but his cheeks refused to cooperate. Spending time with the woman in the passenger seat of his rental car did that to him. Suddenly he was part golden retriever, happy with the world and excited to experience the evening’s adventures.

  “Are you going to keep grinning like that?” Samira Palmer, the beautiful source of all his enthusiasm, raised a brow. She kept her answering smile severely repressed, but her laughing eyes gave her away. For this evening’s Halloween bonfire in her hometown, Journey’s End in the Hudson River Valley, she wore a black maxi sundress beneath her jean jacket. One that allowed a breathtaking view of her shapely mahogany legs down below and her cleavage up top. Controlling his hands proved as challenging as reining in his smile, so he gave in to the impulse to trail his fingers up her thigh. “Everyone in the park is going to know we’ve been—stop that!”

  She smacked his hand away, squirming out of his reach as best she could.

  “What? I’m not allowed to touch you now? I feel like we should consummate our new relationship. Strictly to make it legal.”

  “First of all, consummation is for marriage,” she said, rearranging her dress so that her bare flesh was no longer visible to his avid gaze.

  Without missing a beat, he leaned across the console to nuzzle the silky and fragrant side of her neck, capturing a whiff of sandalwood in the process. He wrapped his arms around her, pulling her as close as he could.

  “Marriage. Got it. My mistake.”

  “Second,” she continued, a distinct and breathless coo in her voice now as she tipped her head to the side to give him better access, “we’re going to put sex on the shelf while we get to know each other.”

  “Indeed,” he murmured against her neck, where he could feel her pulse thud its way to the thousand-beats-per-minute range. She melted into dark chocolate pudding when he scraped his teeth along the sensitive tendons, which gave him the idea to slide his hand up her side, beneath her jacket, and flick her nipples with his thumbs for the pure pleasure of feeling her gasp and arch against him. Ah. There it was. “Well, if you think celibacy is for the best, then who am I to argue with you?”

  “And finally,” she said, her voice dissolving into little more than a whimper as he continued to stroke her breasts, “we’ve just agreed to see each other, right? No need for all this talk about legalities.”

  He didn’t like the word just.

  Raising his head, he pulled back enough to look into her brown eyes, glazed now with lust. But beneath that? Trepidation. Which was only fair, he supposed, when you were a small-town career woman who’d recently been engaged to another man and now found yourself unexpectedly embroiled in a passionate new affair with a French billionaire—Baptiste.

  In fact, what had she called him yesterday?

  Ah, yes. An international player.

  More words he didn’t like.

  “You’re mistaken, ma reine.” My queen. He took great care to maintain his hold on her breasts, which were deliciously soft and full, both to maintain the renewed connection between them and to remind her that he now had full access to her body with no intention of relinquishing it. “You have finally seen it my way, which is that a one-night stand could never be enough between us. We’ve agreed both that we’re forming a relationship and that it will be exclusive. Two things that I, for one, have never done before. So, you see, we’ve passed many relationship milestones already in our short time together, and there is a need for legalities.”
r />   “I see,” she said. “And what do you suggest?”

  What his seething hormones and rock-hard queue urged him to suggest was that they skip the bonfire, go back to his hotel suite and spend tonight as they’d spent their first night together—with him buried to the hilt inside her and their limbs twined together.

  But…this was his opportunity to spend some time getting to know her and her delightful town better, and he wanted to meet her parents, who would also be at the bonfire.

  That being the case, right now all they could do was the next best thing.

  So he flashed her a dark look of intent and reached under the hem of her dress.

  “Baptiste!” She shut her thighs to him, clamping down on his left wrist. “We are in a public—”

  He put his lips to her ear. “Shhh. The windows are darkened. We’re parked far away, under a tree. No one can see us.”

  She made a sound, half shaky laugh and half shuddering sigh. Cast a furtive look around with her too-bright eyes, and saw what he saw—namely that the car faced a park full of people, none of whom were within a hundred meters of them. Looked back at him, her face flushed and her lips dewy.

  He stared at her through his heavy-lidded eyes, trying to smile despite the growing tightness in his chest and throat and the blue balls that would keep aching until he got inside her tight pussy again.

  “I’ve never done anything like this,” she said helplessly.

  There was only one response to that.

  “Because you were waiting for me, chérie,” he said tenderly.

  She hesitated.

  “It’s okay,” he said softly. “Anything we do to give each other pleasure is okay.”

  Shaky laugh from Samira, tinged with despair. “Why can’t I ever tell you no?”

  That wasn’t the question at all.

  “Why do you keep trying?” he asked, curling his fingers against her satiny thigh.

  She mewled. Let her eyes roll closed and her head fall back.

  Opened her legs for him.

  He didn’t waste any time. With a final glance all around to make sure no one was coming, he leaned across the console—the damn thing was too wide—to kiss her.

  She opened her mouth for him, as eager for the thrust of his tongue as she was for the glide of his fingers against her petal-soft hidden folds. She was… mon Dieu, she was hot and exquisitely slick, and the clean scent of her woman’s musk threatened to make something snap inside his brain.

  He was at a disadvantage, using his left hand with the console between them, and there’d be no happy ending in this encounter. At least not for him. Yet he’d never been more fully alive. More determined to hear his name on a woman’s lips or to see her face twist with ecstasy.

  He shook with it as he withdrew his hand.

  “Take off your panties.”

  Panting now, she opened her eyes to give him a baleful look. “I need them, Baptiste. I’m not going to the bonfire with my ass hanging out.”

  He had to grin.

  “Fair enough. I’ll give them back.” He smothered a smirk. “This time.”

  Another glare.

  And then, taking care to maintain eye contact, she reached up under her dress, wiggled her way out of her panties and handed them to him.

  Pink lace this time. Excellent.

  He pressed them to his face. Breathed deeply. Put them in his pocket.

  And reached under her hem again.

  She was already deliciously creamy, and it didn’t take long. Just the easy swirling pressure of his fingers tracing her clit. Over and over again.

  She shifted restlessly, her hips pumping against him. “Baptiste…”

  “You’re so beautiful.” His voice sounded husky now. Almost broken. Only this one woman had ever been able to undo him like this. “Come for me, Samira.”

  He leaned in again. Gave the sweet tendon on the side of her neck a sharp little nip just as he increased the pressure between her legs.

  And she came with a shocked cry of his name.

  As for him? An incoherent shout of triumph.

  “Oh, my God.” She leaned back against her seat, pressed a hand to her forehead and laughed softly as she tried to catch her breath. “Oh, my God.”

  Watching her…seeing the astonished delight on her face…feeling the responsive swelling in his chest…

  He thought back to the life he’d had up until now. His late and unlamented jet-set parents and their mutual indifference to their only son. The parade of nannies who’d raised him. All the partying and womanizing he’d done.

  The pervasive loneliness he’d felt during every stage of his life and the stark contrast to the joyous excitement he felt when Samira walked in the room and brought her bright smile with her.

  Looking back on all of it, he felt incredulous.

  How was it possible that he’d survived thirty-five years without this woman in his life? What the hell had he been doing this whole time?

  “Well,” she said finally, “I hope that’s legal enough for you.”

  He burst into laughter. Kissed her again. Felt the lingering shadows leave his heart as he fell a bit more under her spell.

  “That wasn’t very good for you, though, was it?” she asked, looking worried. “Very selfish of me.”

  “Sadly true. What kind of monster goes around giving me my heart’s desire like that?”

  She sobered, her expression turning very thoughtful. Cupped his face between her soft hands, running her thumbs over his lips. Leaned in to kiss him this time.

  And he would have happily died inside that quiet moment.

  But…

  He still wanted to meet her parents.

  “Let’s go,” he said, producing her panties again. “Kindly dress yourself. Honestly, you Americans are so brazen.”

  Laughing, she snatched the panties and whacked him across the arm with them.

  They freshened up. He used her hand sanitizer to wash his hands and wiped her lipstick off his mouth. She touched up the remaining little bit on hers. He smoothed his hair and replaced his baseball cap and sunglasses. She inspected his crotch.

  “Thank God you’re decent again,” she said. “You need to control that thing.”

  He laughed, his ears burning the way they had back when he was a child and his favorite nanny, Mrs. Smith, had caught him ogling some marble statue of a naked woman in the garden of their Bordeaux estate.

  “You control this thing now. You quite like when it’s out of control. Or did I misread the signs?”

  Samira’s turn to blush, which she did quite prettily. “No comment. Let’s go.”

  “Wait,” he called, reaching for his door, but she was already up and out, reaching into the backseat for her desserts.

  “What?” she asked over the top of the car when he’d also climbed out.

  “I was going to get the door for you.”

  Her brow crinkled with bewilderment. “Why?”

  “Basic politeness.”

  She made a dismissive noise. “I don’t have time to wait for you to open my door. I’ve got places to go.”

  As he’d done nonstop since he met Samira, he recalled several of the women he’d been with over the years, none of whom would have dreamed of either opening her own door or climbing out of any of his sports cars without her dress and long legs artfully arranged in case any paparazzi cared to snap her picture. Another little bit of his mind exploded with surprise, as it inevitably did with Samira. At this rate, he’d be working with only a primitive brain stem by bedtime, and God knew that most of that was now devoted to keeping him hard in her presence.

  He chuckled.

  “What?”

  “Nothing at all. I was just enjoying your, ah, uniqueness.”

  She squinted at him. “Are you making fun of me over there?”

  “Not at all. You barely tolerate my presence. Why would I endanger that by teasing you?”

  “True.”

  “I quite like how low
-maintenance you are. You don’t demand my money. You don’t require me to hang on your every word or to wait on you hand and foot. What is there for me to do for you?”

  “You usually think of something,” she said with an appreciative once-over.

  “I have managed to think of something else,” he said silkily. “Would you like to return to the car so I can give it to you?”

  “I would not. Try to focus.” She held up her Rice Krispie treats for him to see. “I’ve got my potluck item. Where’s yours? No food for you unless you bring one. You were warned.”

  “I have it,” he said, popping the trunk. “I have several. I wasn’t sure how much I’d need.”

  She met him at the trunk, looked in and gasped.

  “Baptiste. What the hell is this?”

  “Caramel apples. Children love them, I’m told.”

  “Yes, but there’s like…” She did a quick count. “There’s like four dozen in here.”

  His heart sank. “Not enough?”

  “Baptiste! Each of these apples will feed at least two kids.”

  “Okay…?”

  “And aren’t these the ones from Saks? How did they even get here from the city this quickly? I just invited you to the bonfire yesterday.”

  “Delivery. Why all the consternation? How else does one get things?”

  “Aren’t those apples, like, twenty-five dollars a pop?”

  As if he knew. He shrugged. “Something like that. Why?”

  “Baptiste! You have over a thousand dollars’ worth of potluck items here! Why not just go to the bakery and get some cookies?”