Awakened Desires (Bound by love)
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Authors: Claire Harris
Awakened Desires
Bound by love series
By
Claire Harris
TABLE OF CONTENTS
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Claire Harris.
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Published By Claire Harris
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The chartered plane bumped through the clouds dangerously and the pilot’s voice crackled over the sound of the engines. “Please make sure that you have your seatbelts well buckled.”
Helen Smart dug her fingers into the smooth fabric of the seat that she was seated in and cursed quietly under her breath. She made a point in her mind that she was never going to take a flight that had no cockpit, because the sight before her looked scary as the pilot struggled with the plane. Lightening blinded her eyes, and as she shut them, a clap of thunder boomed like a volcano, and then just then she felt the tires of the plane hitting the rough runway of the airstrip.
“I think that we are actually here,” the young pilot announced to them, wiping his sweaty forehead as the plane came to a stop.
That was the best news that Helen had heard since the beginning of the flight, which had felt like a nightmare that would never end. She had felt suffocated in the plane, and she graciously breathed in deeply and then she unbuckled her seatbelt and then threw her handbag over her shoulder to make her way out of the plane, still trembling as it was. She had to really focus when she came to the narrow stairs that led out of the plane, and she breathed in the fresh air of the mountainous jungle before her gratefully. She felt good to actually be on the ground, even though it was muddy since it looked like there had been a storm. It had been an excruciating hour in the plane flying up to the mountains, and Helen was so grateful that she decided to kiss the ground. It was finally time to realize her dream and to make it start coming to life.
All this had begun a couple of hours ago when she was at Fort Worth Airport where she had been waiting
to board her flight with Trans American Airways, with her dad, her mother and her sister. They always seemed overly protective of her as if she was still a young woman, and her father had her hand in his and was busy rattling on about the dangers of going abroad and the safety precautions that she should take while out there. Her mother shifted nervously, patting her hair, while her sister went through her bag just to make sure that all of her things were in order, right from her travel documents to camera, notebooks and even wallet. There were a million things that she had added into Helena’s bag insisting that she was going to need them at some point during her month long trip. They all made Helen feel like a young child who should go away chaperoned by somebody, and it was driving her crazy.
“Guys, please! Dad, mum, Louise, please just stop all this ranting and acting like I am a five year old, will you,” she said.
“Stop what, honey?” her dad said, turning to look at her mother Anne quizzically. “What the hell is upsetting her now?”
“I think it is the butterflies that are making her nervous,” Anne dismissed Helen with a wave of her hand and continued, “You really have to take care while out there, and make sure that you call us the moment that you touch the ground. We are staying at the Four Seasons all weekend, and Louise, I hope you gave her the number to the hotel.”
Louise smiled broadly as she nodded,
“Mum, I am twenty seven and can take great care of myself, okay,” Helen said calmly.
“Listen to yourself, you know nothing about the world outside these borders, and so I suggest that you listen to what we are telling you,” her father turned back to her looking at her with mock sternness in his eyes. “Is your money safely stashed away?”
Helen nodded. The money that he had given her to start off her business was stashed away in a satchel inside her bag.
“Well then, follow the wind and chase your dream, and when you come back home, we will be right here waiting for you,” he finally said.
Two flight connections later, Helen finally arrived in one of the Guatemalan rainforests where she was to begin the second step of setting up her business.
She got down on her knees and leaned forward, smelling in the rich taste of the ground, and her head almost resting on a pair of dusty cowboy boots that came to a stop right in
front of her. A little surprised, since she had not expected to see someone so close to her, she inched her eyes upwards as she began to get up, and realized that the boots belonged to a person with very well-tanned legs that were covered in a thin mat of dark hair. Further up there were a pair of khaki cargo shorts followed by a shirt. Her gray eyes finally rested on a pair of green, that were looking at her with a smile of amusement carved on his lips as he looked at her bent on her knees on the ground. Helen got up quickly until their eyes were almost even as she continued to study him. He had on a cowboy hat whose brim brought a five o’clock shadow over his well-chiseled face, and for some reason, she was sort of fearful of his looks.
“Are you Helen Smart?” he asked, never taking his eyes off hers.
Helen was about to answer when she noticed a plane attendant throwing suitcases out of the luggage side of the plane, and forgetting the man for a moment, she dashed over to the attendant and wrestled one of her suitcases out of his hands before he could toss it onto the mud.
“These are mine, goddamit,” she grabbed her two suitcases and dragged them on their wheels away from the plane only to find the handsome stranger still staring at her.
For some reason, Helen felt sort of uncomfortable with the way that he was looking at her. It was as if he could see right through her, and even tell that she thought that he was probably one of the most handsome men that she had ever seen. But heck, she was in this jungle just for business before heading back home where there were many handsome men that she could choose from. All the same, this stranger had the most manly looking body that she had ever seen, one of those types of bodies that she felt as if she could ran her fingers over all day and never get tired. He had a slight build, a clear indication that he hit the gym pretty often, and she could make out a six pack in the faded blue T shirt that he had worn.
“Are you Helen Smart?” he asked again, impatiently with a strong Australian accent, startling her out of her thoughts.
“Yes, and how do you know me?” she replied, angry with herself for getting her thoughts lost in him.
“I am charterflight101, my name is Earl Winslow, and I will be your guide,” he replied, not bothering to offer her a hand with her luggage since he still seemed to be checking her out.
She had met him online when looking for information on getting a charter plane, and also information on the best coffee farms in the area. They had chatted a lot, and he had helped her to gather all of the information that she needed on the farms in the area, until she had finally identified the one that she wanted to have business relations with. She intended to open up a coffee house back in Seattle, and she had been looking for suppliers of fresh coffee. That is one of the reasons that she was in Guatemala, and this handsome stranger was the last thing that she had intended to bump into. No, she could not afford to think of him that
way, she was here on business and then back to the states.
“A pleasure meeting you, please take me to my hotel,” she said, following him to a muddy Landrover parked outside the airport that barely looked like an airport, since it just had one huge hanger and a shack for a terminal.
“I don’t think that will be possible,” he said, hesitatingly, “you see, the hotel that you were to stay in caved in due to a huge storm that was raging here three days ago, and it will be weeks before it is repaired.
They rode in the jeep in silence for a while, before Earl said, “I was expecting someone different, you know.”
“What do you mean different?” she looked at him, before returning to admire the landscape.
“Someone a little older, you know what I mean!” he said, swerving the jeep past a pot hole.
Earl had indeed been expecting someone much older, and also not as beautiful as the woman who was seated right next to him in the car. It was his rule never to get taken away by women, but Helen, she was different. There was just something about her that awoke something inside him that he could not quite relate to. He had fallen for her beauty the minute that he had set his eyes on her at the airport, and the fact that he was going to be with her for a full month unsettled him. A fine city woman like her would never give in to a man like him, and besides, they were from two different worlds apart. All the same, he could not help but fall for the American. He was never a man to keep a woman, and maybe it was because he had never quite met one that he was in love with. With Helen, he had fallen in love with her at first sight, and he really didn’t know what else to do.
Earlier that day as he drove to the airport, he thought that he really knew the person that he had been chatting with for the past two months and he only needed to put a face to her, but when he had seen her, so young, so pretty with her tomboyish looks, he had decided that he probably knew very little about her, but he intended to find out more. She had dozed off on the seat and he stole his eyes at her. The skin on her face looked so soft and smooth, he felt like reaching out his hand to her and stroking it, and as he looked at the way that her breasts were bobbing up and down on her chest, looking so huge and firm he even felt his dick stifling in his pants. God, this woman was the sexiest thing that he had ever seen, and he knew that he wanted her really badly! He tried his best to keep his mind off her, instead focusing on other things, although with little success. By the time that they pulled up at the gate to his house, she was already awake.
Helen did not realize how tired she had been as she dozed off, and as she opened her eyes, they were in some sort of town. Earl pulled up at the gate to his house and punched in a code and the huge gates swung open.
Inside was a Spanish hacienda that was more than impressive with all its grandeur, and a million times even better than the hotel that she had booked herself into. She marveled at the beauty of the compound, complete with a swimming pool and all the little luxuries that many normal people could not afford. How could Earl, a guide be living this well? Anyway, it was not her business to question what he did for a living, she was only supposed to focus on the business that brought her here and then get back home. All the same, she could not help but wonder.
“Wow!” she exclaimed, “What a place, is this where you live?”
He gave her a huge smile as he brought the car to a stop just as an unpleasant looking guy came running towards the car. “Yes, this is my house, and that there is my man, Julio, who does for me anything that I need to get done.”
To Helen, the way that Earl was talking, it was as if he did more than just the regular legitimate sort of businesses. He had a sort of aggressiveness that sent a chill up her spine, although she had nothing to fear. She actually felt that she could trust him to take care of her while she was in the
Coban. Inside the mansion was filled with even more beauty and grandeur as she stood by the falls in the hallway looking around at the expensive paintings on the wall. One thing was for sure, this man, whoever he really was, had a real sense of style, and she found that she really liked it. Okay, this was not right, how could it be that she not only found him drop dead sexy, but she also liked his taste in furnishing the house.
“I hope you like it,” his low voice interrupted her thoughts. “You will be sleeping in the master bedroom, and I will take one of the guest bedrooms.”
“This place looks way better than the hotel that I had booked in to,” she said, unable to hide her surprise. “I think I'll just go and take a shower and relax, can you ask Julio to please bring my suitcases up to the room.”
“Consider it done,” he replied, leading the way to the master bedroom through some corridors.
“Tomorrow at eigh
t in the morning would you be able to take me over to the Del Monte Farm so that I can start my negotiations with them regarding their coffe?” Helen asked as he showed her into the suite that was to be her temporary bedroom.
“Are you sure you don’t need the rest after all those hours on the plane?” Earl asked, looking a little concerned.
“I am that type of person who seems to always have boundless energy,” she said, shutting the door in his face and heading off to the bathroom to bathe.
“If you need anything, I am just down the doorway,” he shouted as he went off.
Helen went into the bathroom, thanking God that there was actually a Jacuzzi in there, because she really needed to relax herself, and try and get this “Earl” out of her mind.