Brazilian Cattle Baron (Siren Publishing Ménage and More ManLove) Read online

  Brazilian Cattle Baron

  An unexpected inheritance. A family secret. Bizarre religious rituals. Lust and love in an exotic land. Sebastien Leon experiences all this, and more, when he inherits his uncle’s huge cattle ranch in Brazil. Surrounded by beautiful, virile Brazilian cowboys who treat the new “master of the ranch” with an almost feudal deference, Sebastien must overcome his natural shyness and take charge. There are challenges and surprises at every step in the way, until Sebastien, after toying with indiscriminate desire, finds true love where he least expects it.

  Genre: Alternative (M/M or F/F), Ménage a Trois/Quatre, Western/Cowboys

  Length: 159,028 words

  BRAZILIAN CATTLE BARON

  Roland Graeme

  MENAGE AND MORE

  MANLOVE

  Siren Publishing, Inc.

  www.SirenPublishing.com

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  A SIREN PUBLISHING BOOK

  IMPRINT: Ménage and More ManLove

  BRAZILIAN CATTLE BARON

  Copyright © 2011 by Roland Graeme

  E-book ISBN: 1-61034-398-0

  First E-book Publication: June 2011

  Cover design by Jinger Heaston

  All cover art and logo copyright © 2011 by Siren Publishing, Inc.

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED: This literary work may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, including electronic or photographic reproduction, in whole or in part, without express written permission.

  All characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead is strictly coincidental.

  PUBLISHER

  Siren Publishing, Inc.

  www.SirenPublishing.com

  Letter to Readers

  Dear Readers,

  If you have purchased this copy of Brazilian Cattle Baron by Roland Graeme from BookStrand.com or its official distributors, thank you. Also, thank you for not sharing your copy of this book.

  Regarding E-book Piracy

  This book is copyrighted intellectual property. No other individual or group has resale rights, auction rights, membership rights, sharing rights, or any kind of rights to sell or to give away a copy of this book.

  The author and the publisher work very hard to bring our paying readers high-quality reading entertainment.

  This is Roland Graeme’s livelihood. It’s fair and simple. Please respect Mr. Graeme’s right to earn a living from his work.

  Amanda Hilton, Publisher

  www.SirenPublishing.com

  www.BookStrand.com

  DEDICATION

  For all my Brazilian friends.

  BRAZILIAN CATTLE BARON

  ROLAND GRAEME

  Copyright © 2011

  Chapter One:

  Sebastien with an I-E-N

  Tim Baynes cursed luridly under his breath as he sorted through the stack of just-delivered mail. It was bad enough that it had been snowing like a bitch all morning, which always seemed to make New Yorkers act even crazier than usual, if that was possible. His boss, Laura, was on an—admittedly well-deserved—vacation down in the Bahamas, no less. That would have been okay, had Janet, her indefatigable combination of receptionist, secretary, filing clerk, and general crisis solver, not called in sick today. Janet claimed she had the flu bug that was going around. But she was always talking about how she and her cute little stud of a husband wanted to have a baby. What if he’d finally gotten her pregnant, and she was really suffering from morning sickness? She’d be out on maternity leave before you knew it, and they’d have to hire and break in a temp.

  So, for the moment, at least, the little travel agency was a one-man operation, with Tim in charge, even though he’d only been working there for six months. He was still feeling his way, learning the business, under Laura’s tutelage. When he screwed up, which he still tended to do with some regularity, Janet was usually there to help him fix it and stave off Laura’s wrath. But not today, though. He was on his own.

  On top of it all, he suspected that his boyfriend was whoring around behind his back—again. Peter had been in just too good a mood lately. Not that Tim was beyond reproach, himself. They had an open relationship. It was just that, every time one of them strayed, they seemed to go through the same predictable cycle of suspicion, coldness, resentment, and thinly veiled hostility—culminating in the inevitable fight, which always led—Tim had to admit—to some pretty hot make-up sex. It was too bad, Tim thought, that they couldn’t jump directly from the suspicion to the sex! That would make life a lot less complicated!

  His mood brightened a bit when a man suddenly appeared on the sidewalk outside. The pedestrian paused, ignoring the thick white snowflakes pelting down on him, and looked at the travel agency’s window display. A potential customer! And, better yet, he seemed to be looking at one of the posters in particular—the one with a photo of a flamboyantly but scantily costumed male Carnival performer, advertising package tours to Rio de Janiero.

  The man caught Tim looking at him. He returned the young travel agent’s smile through the windowpane, then quickly entered through the door—removing his hat, opening his overcoat and shaking it free of the snow that whitened its shoulders and sleeves, and stamping his feet on the mat inside the doorway, all in a single, well-coordinated burst of energetic motion.

  “Good morning!” Tim said, feigning a cheerfulness he was in fact far from feeling. “Terrible weather we’re having, isn’t it?”

  “Oh, I don’t mind the snow.”

  “Then you’re unusual. My name is Timothy Baynes, by the way.”

  “My name is Sebastien Leon.”

  “I’m delighted to meet you, Mr. Leon,” Tim said as they shook hands. Sebastien Leon had the kind of firm, masculine handshake that Tim always found a turn-on. “Won’t you sit down? Would you like some coffee?”

  “No, thanks. I just had some, at the coffee shop down the street, while I was reading my newspaper.”

  During this brief, banal exchange, Tim had an opportunity to study his customer. Leon was probably still on the underside of thirty, only a few years older than Tim. Leon was tall—six feet two inches, maybe—and squarely built, with broad shoulders, a heavy chest, a trim waist, and thick thighs. His clothes, although obviously chosen for comfort and winter practicality rather than for style, didn’t conceal the fact that he had an impressive physique. He was rather shabbily dressed, which wasn’t too promising, from
Tim’s point of view. His overcoat actually looked like cheap military surplus and had holes left by the threads where sewn-on patches had been torn off. The hat he’d pulled off and stuffed into his coat pocket immediately upon his entry into the office was an ordinary black wool knitted watch cap. He wore khaki trousers—with faint stains here and there that had resisted laundering—tucked into the tops of ruinously worn, scuffed, and dirty laced-up work boots—practical enough for walking in the snow, Tim supposed, but still ugly. Under the overcoat, his upper torso was swathed in a plain gray sweatshirt, also suffering from a couple of mysterious, stubborn stains, and with its bottom hem badly frayed.

  The name Sebastien Leon sounded Hispanic, but he didn’t necessarily look it. He was black-haired and brown-eyed, but his complexion was clear and pale, a little ruddy from the cold, without any hint of swarthiness or olive tone. At least he had a decent and apparently quite expensive haircut, Tim observed. Only a skilled stylist could have made this man’s longish, straight hair fall into place about his head with just that right look of casual inevitability. The immaculate grooming seemed to contradict the almost slovenly attire.

  Hot, Tim couldn’t stop thinking. This guy is kind of hot, in a rough, trashy, blue-collar way. I could go for him, in a pinch. I sure wouldn’t throw him out of my bed on a cold winter night! Man, if I brought a stud like him home with me some night and let him fuck the hell out of me—that would really rub Peter’s nose in it, wouldn’t it? Maybe we could even get a threesome going. It’s been a while since we’ve had one!

  His increasingly libidinous thoughts were interrupted by his sudden, guilty realization that he’d allowed an awkward silence to develop. Rule Number One of the travel agency business—always chat up the customer, keep the small talk flowing.

  “What can I do for you, Mr. Leon?”

  “I want to go to Brazil.”

  “Ah, you want to go to Rio de Janiero, for the Carnival? I’m afraid it’s rather short notice. The hotels there are always booked for the event months ahead of time. I may be able to—”

  “I don’t want to go to Rio. I need to get to a city called Belém, which is much farther north, at the mouth of the Amazon River. I imagine they celebrate Carnival there, too, but I’m not interested in that. I’m not traveling for pleasure. This is a business trip.”

  “I see. Have you been to Brazil before?”

  “No, but I do happen to know a few things about the country. I have a relative who has lived there for many years.”

  “And you will be visiting him?”

  “Not exactly. I should have said, I had a relative. He died, recently.”

  “I am sorry.”

  “Thank you, but there’s no need for you to be sorry. My relative had a full life. He accomplished a great deal, and he seems to have done exactly what he pleased. He was ill toward the end, unfortunately, but he didn’t linger. His death was a bit of a shock to us, in fact. As such things so often are.”

  The normally glib Tim was momentarily at a loss for words, which was unusual for him. This guy, Sebastien Leon, had an oddly direct, even blunt, way of expressing himself.

  “I’m sure we’ll be able to get you to where you want to go. There’s only one possible complication,” Tim finally said. “We’ve just received word that the commercial air controllers down there in Brazil have threatened to go on strike. They do this periodically—go on strike, I mean—but the strikes never last more than a week or so. Still, I’d hate for you to book your flight and make all of your other plans, only to have to change it all to a later date.”

  The traveler seemed unperturbed.

  “Is there any possibility that such a strike might last much longer than a week or so?” he asked.

  “Based on my past experience—frankly, no. If anything were to happen to stop the influx of tourists into Rio de Janiero, and all the money they bring to the local economy, even now—to say nothing of once we get closer to Carnival time—there would be rioting in the streets.”

  “No doubt. But as I’ve said—I am not going to Rio.” Sebastien thought for a moment, then said, “I suppose if the air controllers are threatening to strike, they must have a good reason for doing so. Maybe I ought to show my support for them, in some small way. I can travel down to Brazil by boat, can’t I?”

  Tim assumed Sebastien was joking. “Theoretically, yes. But of course that would take much longer.”

  “I am in no hurry. And now that I think about it, an ocean voyage might be just the thing.”

  “But, in all probability, we would no sooner book you such a passage, than this whole foolish air controller strike business will be settled, and the commercial flights will resume.”

  “It doesn’t matter. I’m now definitely thinking in favor of traveling by boat. What do you have available?”

  “I could book you on a cruise ship that would go to Brazil by way of the Caribbean, with some nice stops in ports along the way.”

  “I suppose that would do, but I would prefer something much smaller and less crowded. Less touristy, if you’ll pardon the expression. Maybe a freighter, that has a few cabins for passengers?”

  “Ah … but no one travels that way anymore, Mr. Leon.”

  “No? I have to disagree with you. I traveled all around the Mediterranean on a little freighter three years ago. I was on board it for months, and it was delightful. Very informal and relaxing.”

  “If you really enjoy that sort of thing—”

  “I do.”

  “Then I do know of a shipping company that runs big container freighters from a couple of the Gulf ports, usually from Mobile, Alabama, down to Central and South America. Some of these freighters do take passengers. But—” Tim hesitated. “You have to realize that these are working ships, with very few amenities for the passengers. The passengers take their meals along with the crew, for example, and there are no organized entertainments.”

  His customer brushed these considerations away with a shrug and a slight wave of his hand. “I’m quite used to entertaining myself.”

  “And, frankly, Mr. Leon, it’s an extremely expensive way to travel. In addition to the per diem cost, there are port taxes and emergency medical and evacuation insurance, which is mandatory. And trip cancellation or interruption insurance, which is optional but strongly recommended.”

  “It can’t be more expensive than an extended stay in Rio during the height of the Carnival season,” Sebastien suggested, dryly.

  Tim consulted his PC. It took a few minutes, but he was then able to supply his potential client with some tentative minimum and maximum figures, which he wrote down on a notepad and presented to him.

  Sebastien glanced at the notepad. “Oh, is that all?” he remarked, with a casualness that Tim found both shocking and encouraging. “It seems very reasonable to me.”

  “Well,” Tim said, stalling for time. “Let me get some basic information about you and enter it into our computer system, if you don’t mind.”

  “Oh, I don’t mind at all. I think you may already have a file on me. The last time I was here, Laura called it up and updated it.”

  Tim silently cursed himself. He’d committed a major gaffe by assuming that this guy had simply wandered in off the street. Tim should have established from the beginning whether or not he was a repeat customer. It was a beginner’s mistake, the kind of thing you’d expect from a would-be travel agent on his first day of the job.

  He opened a window on the PC. “Oh, of course. What did you say your full name is, Mr. Leon?”

  “Sebastien Leon. Sebastien with an i-e-n at the end, not an i-a-n.” The way Sebastien said this suggested that he was only too used to clarifying and correcting the spelling of his first name.

  Tim typed the name into an inquiry box and hit Enter. A new window came up. He saw at once that the agency had made travel arrangements for Sebastien Leon on no fewer than six occasions within the past two years. The last time had been just after Tim had been hired. It was an unf
ortunate coincidence, he realized, that the man must not have come in on that occasion when Tim had been there to see him. Or perhaps he’d come in and talked to Laura, and Tim hadn’t taken any notice of him. More likely, after the first time they’d done business with him, Sebastien had simply phoned Laura or Janet, to set up something.

  But Tim was barely skimming the file on Sebastien Leon, because he had been struck at once, and was still mesmerized by, the very first line of the entry—where the client’s name was filled in.

  Laura used a highly subjective ratings system. Customers who, in her opinion, should be given special consideration had an asterisk typed in after their name in their file on the PC. A few customers, whom she considered VIPs, were accorded two asterisks.

  Sebastien Leon had no fewer than five asterisks entered on the line after his name.

  That had to be a mistake, Tim thought. Either Laura or Janet, entering the information for the first time, must’ve held down the key too long, causing the asterisks to repeat themselves.

  Still—? The guy had just decided, apparently on the spur of the moment—on a whim—to sail down to Brazil on a slow boat, as opposed to flying there. And he had not balked at the projected cost of such a trip, which Tim had estimated at between eight and ten thousand dollars.

  Tim minimized the display on the screen so it couldn’t be read.

  “If you’ll excuse me for just a minute, Mr. Leon,” he said. “I have some folders with more information about Brazil in the back room. While I’m getting them, perhaps you’d like to look at these brochures?”