Free Billion Dollar Bear: BBW Paranormal Billionaire Romance (Bad Boy Alphas) by Catherine Vale

to Chateau
Versailles was the most excruciating ride of her life. Not because of the
traffic, or the heat, or the never-ending radio commercials that bored the
ever-living hell out of her.
          No, it was
the fact that Jericho seemed to take up every spare inch of space in the
compact confines of her vehicle with not only his body, but his presence. His
spicy, masculine scent filled the air along with the raw, masculine energy that
always seemed to pour off of him in hot waves, making it difficult to draw a
single breath that wasn’t filled with want. He was wearing some kind of sweet,
sandalwood-scented cologne today, which only made his scent that much more
addictive – as he no doubt already knew.
          Damn him.
          She
breathed a sigh of relief when she finally parked the car in the lot designated
for tours, then hefted her purse over her shoulder as she waited for Jericho to
squeeze himself out from the passenger’s side.
          “Wow.” Jericho’s
eyes glowed as he surveyed the Castle, seated at the heart of a sprawling
garden that boasted fountains and statues and a dazzling array of trees and
flowers and plants that stretched as far as the eye could see. “King Louis must
have had a grand old time here.”
          “Which
one?” Becca said lightly, leading the way. They traversed a large fountain with
a series of bronze sculptures rising up from the center of the water, and began
walking down one of the paths on either side of the stretch of lawn that ran
all the way to the castle entrance.
          Jericho
screwed up his nose as he thought about this, and she fought back a giggle.
“The tenth?”
          Becca
wagged a finger. “Someone needs to brush up on her history,” she told him. “It
was Louis the Fourteenth who built this castle. It started out as his father’s
simple hunting lodge before he turned it into what it is today.”
          She
continued relating the history of the castle to Jericho, confidence in her role
as a tour guide settling her nerves and distracting her from his raw sex
appeal. They breezed past the line and into the Hall of Mirrors, and for a time
even Jericho seemed too caught up by the opulence of their surroundings to
remember that he was supposed to be seducing her.
          Or so she
thought.
          Jericho
allowed her the comfort she took from her role as tour guide, pretending to be
wholly absorbed by the castle – which in truth wasn’t too hard as he met
fascinating pieces of history, art and architecture everywhere he looked. Gold
and gems and crystal dripped from everything from the furnishings to the art to
the décor itself, the sheer amount of wealth and opulence staggering even to a
man of means as he was.
          But not so
staggering that he didn’t have one eye on his feisty little tour guide at all
times.
          She
probably thought he didn’t notice that she’d dressed up for him, he thought.
Rather than the company t-shirt and jeans she wore yesterday, she dressed in a
lacy white top that bared the skin at her collarbone and her arms and clung to
her curves like a second skin. Her jeans were tucked into knee-high boots of
brown suede with silver buckles that caught the light with every step she took.
It was entirely possible the choice was subconscious, and that if pressed she
would simply tell him this was what she typically wore when she ran out of
uniform shirts… but if she truly didn’t want him making advances, she was going
about it entirely the wrong way as far as her wardrobe was concerned, because
he couldn’t stop tracing the curve of her breasts with his eyes, or staring at
the way her jeans molded to her ass every time she turned around to point out
another fascinating detail about the palace.
          He began
closing the distance between them little by little, touching her elbow as he
helped her down a set of stairs, placing his palm against the curve where her
back met