Taken By Him (Obsessed With Him, Book Four) Read online

  I let out the breath I was holding, almost giddy with relief. Declan was here! He was here, in the city. I could go and see him!

  “What’s he doing?” I asked, the anticipation flowing hot through my veins. “I mean, did you find out anything else about him?”

  But before Colt could answer one of the dancers came walking out of the tunnel that led from the main stage. She was wearing a pink glitter G-string, her skin tan and perfect. Stuck on the side of her stomach, right by her hipbone, was a delicate rhinestone heart.

  “Colt,” she squealed. She was topless, her perfectly symmetrical tits bouncing as she wrapped her arms around Colt’s neck. The two of them looked like they’d stepped out of a magazine ad. “What’s new, baby? I feel like we haven’t talked in forever.”

  “Not much. What’s new with you, Ava?”

  “Lots,” she purred, trailing one of her long raspberry-colored nails down the front of Colt’s chest.

  Mine.

  The word flashed through my mind before I could stop it.

  “Well, we’ll have to catch up then,” Colt said. His eyes flicked down her body, ogling her tits, her thighs, his hand wrapping around her waist and spreading out over the small of her back.

  “After party?” she giggled.

  “Always.”

  “See you then.” She took off down the hall, her tight ass bouncing as she went.

  Colt turned back to me. “You need to go back and wait in the office,” he said. “I’ll come and get you at the end of the night.”

  “Declan,” I reminded him. “What’s he doing? What’s he up to?”

  Colt shrugged. “Find out for yourself,” he said, and then he turned and left me standing there in the hall.

  **

  I watched mindless TV on the flat screen in the office until three am, when Colt finally reappeared.

  “It’s about time,” I said, but he ignored me.

  His hair was mussed, there was a smudge of lipstick on his cheek, and he smelled like perfume. I could only imagine the things he’d been up to since I’d last seen him.

  I watched as he grabbed his leather jacket off the back of a chair. “You ready?” he asked me gruffly.

  “I guess,” I said.

  “You guess? You’re either ready or you’re not.”

  “I’m ready, but not if you’re going to act like a dick the whole time.”

  “Who’s acting like a dick?”

  “You’re all broody and short. It’s not that fun to be around.”

  “I’m sorry, Princess,” Colt said, grinning in that maddening way of his as I followed him out of the office and down the hallway toward the back entrance of the club. “I’ll make sure to change my attitude in order to maximize your fun and make sure you have as much enjoyment from my company as is humanly possible.”

  When we got outside, I gulped the fresh air into my lungs, thankful to be out of the club. Something about that place felt cloying, the vibe full of darkness that lurked below the surface, just waiting to boil over and burn everything it touched.

  “What can I do to make this night fun for you?” Colt asked. “Bowling? Mini golf?”

  “Stop being a smart ass,” I said. “It’s unbecoming.”

  “Yes, Princess,” he said as he opened the car door for me. I slid into the passenger side and buckled my seatbelt.

  A second later, he was next to me, the scent of leather and perfume hanging on him like a cloud.

  “How as the after party?” I asked as he started the car.

  “Great,” he said.

  “Did you have fun?”

  “Always.”

  I thought about that girl, Ava, with her perfect body and her perfect breasts and her flat stomach and her tiny glitter tattoo.

  Forget about it, I told myself. Colt’s a womanizer, the kind of man who had no problem kissing you, almost sleeping with you earlier, and then sleeping with someone else just a few hours later.

  Think about Declan.

  Declan, who you’re going to be seeing soon.

  I closed my eyes and leaned my head back against the seat.

  When we got back to Colt’s apartment he went right to the kitchen, opened the fridge and surveyed the contents.

  “Hungry?”

  I shook my head no.

  He looked up at me and raised his eyebrows. He hadn’t bothered to turn the kitchen light on, and the glow from the refrigerator illuminated his strong features, his defined jaw, his straight nose, the fullness of his lips.

  “Don’t lie.”

  “I’m not lying.”

  “You have to eat something.” He started pulling things out of the refrigerator and setting them on the island.

  “Why?”

  “Because I said so. Go take a shower and I’ll bring you something to eat. There are clothes in the bedroom for you.”

  “What do you mean there are clothes in the bedroom for me?”

  “I had Kendra pick up some things for you.”

  Oh, right. Kendra. The housekeeper. “I didn’t know it was a housekeeper’s job to do your shopping.”

  “Kendra’s more of an assistant.”

  “Ahh. And where is this elusive Kendra?”

  “She’s a good assistant.”

  “So?”

  “So she knows that good assistants aren’t seen.”

  I shook my head. Wow. Could he be any more full of himself?

  “Olivia,” Colt said. “Go take a shower.”

  I opened my mouth to protest, but I was too tired to fight him.

  So I walked down the hall to the guest room.

  As promised, the dresser drawers were now filled with t-shirts and jeans and sweaters and underwear and all kinds of other things. How the hell did Kendra know my size? I wondered, as I ran my hand through the slips of fabric. Colt must have told her, after I’d had to tell him my size earlier when I was getting my uniform.

  I showered, then slipped into a t-shirt and a soft pair of pajama shorts.

  A second later, Colt knocked on my bedroom door.

  He was holding a bottle of water and a plate of chicken stir-fry. It smelled delicious.

  I looked at him skeptically. “You made that?”

  “Yes.”

  “Like, you heated it up?”

  “No, like I made it.” He shook his head and stepped into the room. He set the food down on the nightstand and then walked into the bathroom.

  I could hear him in there, rummaging around.

  “What are you doing?” I asked.

  But he didn’t answer.

  When he returned, he began looking around the room, opening drawers, his hands moving through the dresser, checking everything.

  “What the hell are you doing?” I asked again.

  “Making sure there’s nothing in here you can hurt yourself with.”

  He turned around and held his hand out. “Give me your bag.”

  “No.”

  “Give it to me, Olivia.”

  “There’s nothing in there,” I said. “You took my razors at the club.”

  “I want to check again.”

  I picked it up and thrust it at him. “Go ahead,” I said. “Knock yourself out.”

  He rummaged through my things. There wasn’t much there. He handed my bag back to me.

  “Satisfied?” I asked.

  The side of his mouth slid up into a grin and he let his eyes rake over my body. I was suddenly aware of the fact that I wasn’t wearing a bra, and that the shorts I was wearing, while my size, were a little too short, and hardly covered my ass.

  My nipples hardened, and I could feel them poking against the sheer fabric

  I liked the way he was looking at me, liked the fact that he was staring at my body and not even trying to hide it.

  Kiss me.

  I crossed my arms over my chest.

  “Nothing I haven’t seen before, Princess,” Colt drawled.

  “You’re an ass.”

  “Eat,
” he said. “And go to sleep.” He turned to head for the door.

  “Wait,” I said, and he turned around.

  “Yeah?”

  “What about… “ I licked my lips nervously. “Declan. Can you tell me where he is, give me his number or his email, whatever you found?”

  “In the morning, Princess,” Cold said, his voice low. “You’ve had a long day.”

  “Please,” I said.

  Colt sighed. “Olivia,” he said. “You…” I felt like he wanted to say more, maybe about Declan, but then he thought better of it. “In the morning,” he said. “Eat. And go to sleep.”

  And then he was gone, the door shutting behind him, leaving me alone.

  I settled into bed, and picked up the stir-fry he’d made me.

  It tasted just as delicious as it smelled, and I ate the whole plate hungrily.

  I fell asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow.

  This time, there were no bad dreams.

  There were no dreams at all, just the sweet relief of a deep sleep.

  And when I woke up, for the first time in as long as I could remember, my first thought wasn’t Declan.

  It was Colt.

  **

  I blinked in the sunlight that was streaming through the slats in the blinds, casting stripes of light across the comforter.

  The apartment was silent—Colt must have still been sleeping. It made sense. He probably stayed up all night partying and then slept all day.

  I brushed my teeth and hair, then pulled on a pair of jeans and a grey sweater made of a lightweight material that felt soft against my skin. I felt bad for Kendra, being Colt’s assistant, but I had to admit the girl had good taste, whoever she was.

  I set out to the kitchen in search of coffee.

  I was standing in front of Colt’s fancy-looking coffeemaker, trying to figure out how to use it, when the front door opened and Colt came walking in.

  He was wearing a black t-shirt and gym shorts, his hair slightly damp with sweat, the bottom curling and sticking to his neck.

  “Good morning, Princess,” he said, reaching past me into the refrigerator and pulling out a bottle of water. He took a long sip and then held it out to me. “Thirsty?”

  I shook my head. “No, thanks.” I was thirsty, but there was no way I was going to share a water bottle with him. Something about it seemed way too intimate.

  Colt shrugged, then downed another long sip.

  “I thought you were sleeping,” I said, in case he thought I was prowling around his house all on my own.

  “I was at the gym.” He reached down and grabbed the bottom of his sweaty shirt and pulled it off his body in one fluid movement.

  Holy shit. Heat flooded my body as I tried not stare. His body was just so perfect that every time I saw it, it left me breathless . His torso was defined and ripped, his six-pack seemingly chiseled out of granite. A thin sheen of sweat clung to his skin, making him glisten. I remembered the feel of his body on top of mine, the way it had felt to run my fingers over every ridge of his abs. I looked away, but I was almost positive he caught me blushing.

  “So are we going to work or what?” I asked, annoyed.

  He smiled and took another long pull off the water bottle. “You seem a little feisty this morning, Princess,” he said.

  “I’m not feisty.”

  “Edgy.”

  “I’m not edgy.”

  “Cranky.”

  “I’m not – “ I started, and then I realized he was just giving me a constant stream of adjectives in order to annoy me.

  “Can you please let me know what time we’re leaving?” I said.

  “I’m going to shower and then we’ll go.” A mental picture of him in the shower, water sliding down over his ripped body flooded my mind. But he made no effort to move, instead just leaning against the fridge, his bicep flexing. I was leaning back against the counter, and I wanted to take a step away from him, but I couldn’t. I didn’t want him to know he was having that kind of effect on me.

  He was so close I swore I could feel the heat coming off his body.

  He placed his water bottle back inside the fridge, then he reached for my hand, and for a second, I thought he was going to pull me toward him and kiss me.

  But he slid the sleeve of my sweater up and looked at my wrists.

  He ran his hand over the tape, making sure it was still held tight.

  “It hurt?” he asked, his voice softening.

  “No,” I said. “Well, yes. A little.”

  He looked up at me, his eyes filled with concern. He shook his head. “Olivia,” he said, and the way he said my name, with worry and what I thought (hoped?) was longing, sent butterflies fluttering around my stomach. “Promise me you’ll stop.”

  I shook my head. “I can’t… I can’t promise that.”

  “You will.”

  “I just told you, I can’t.” I went to pull my hand away from his, but he held onto it tight. He effectively had me trapped, my back up against the counter, him standing in front of me, holding my hands. His hair fell over his forehead messily, and the stubble that was on his face last night was just a little darker this morning. He licked his bottom lip, like he was contemplating what to do next.

  I wanted his tongue in my mouth.

  Wetness flooded my center.

  “Promise me,” he said, taking another step forward and whispering it in my ear. His breath tickled the sensitive spot on the side of my neck.

  “I can’t,” I repeated, but he was starting to make my knees feel weak. For a brief moment, I thought maybe he would be able to make me promise. I felt like if he would just kiss me, if he would just do something to me, I would do whatever he said.

  “If you promise,” he said, and his hands intertwined with mine, his thumbs moving over my knuckles. “I’ll give you something you want.”

  I froze, every single nerve ending in my body on high alert. Everything flooded into sharp focus, every sense suddenly heightened. I could smell Colt’s scent, Axe deodorant with just the faintest trace of sweat, could feel his body heat through my thin sweater, could see the tiny scar on the top of his lip that didn’t diminish even one ounce of his attractiveness and instead just served to accentuate his smoldering bad boy look.

  Time seemed to stop as I waited for him to speak, to move, to decide what was going to happen.

  “Don’t you want to know what it is, Princess?” He was still whispering huskily into my ear, his breath brushing deliciously against my skin.

  I nodded.

  I didn’t trust myself to speak. My heart was throbbing so fast and hard in my chest and he was standing so close to me that I was sure he was going to be able to hear it, to feel it, betraying the effect he was having on my body.

  “Say ‘yes’,” he instructed.

  “Yes.”

  “Yes what?”

  “Yes, I want to know what you have that I want.”

  Colt grinned wickedly. “What I have… that you want… is Declan’s address.” He reached into the pocket of his shorts and pulled out his phone, holding the screen out to me.

  My cheeks burned with disappointment.

  “What did you think I was talking about, Princess?” Colt asked innocently, like he knew exactly what it was I’d thought he’d been talking about.

  “Let me see that,” I said, grabbing his phone out of his hand.

  Declan Keene

  102 Huckleberry Street, Apt 3D

  Just seeing Declan’s name there, in black and white, filled me with a calmness I hadn’t experienced in a long time.

  I closed my eyes.

  Declan.

  Finally.

  Finally, I knew where he was.

  “I’m going to see him tonight,” I declared. “Can you… can we write this down?”

  Colt took the phone out my hands and shoved it back into his pocket. “I’ll print you out a copy when we get to the office.”

  I nodded. I wanted to say ‘thank you�
�, but then I thought, screw that. He’d been teasing me, messing with my mind, getting off on playing with my mind.

  I hated that my body responded to his touch, his presence, his body. I couldn’t wait to get away from him. I would never tell Colt this, but I was hoping Declan would offer to let me to stay with him. And if not, all I had to do was buy my time until I got my first paycheck from Colt.

  And then I could stay far away from him.

  I had to.

  He was making me feel things.

  Uncomfortable things.

  Things I couldn’t afford to feel.

  Things that would only lead to pain.

  **

  When we got into the office, Colt immediately went into business mode, all traces of teasing and cockiness wiped from his voice.

  “Here,” he said, placing a cell phone down and a ten dollar bill down on the desk in front of me.

  I picked it up. “What’s this?”

  “Your phone.”

  “My phone?”

  “Yes. You need a phone if you’re going to be working here. So that I can reach you.”

  “Why can’t you just reach me on the office phone?” I picked up the cell and felt its lightness in my hand. It was a shiny new iPhone, gun-metal grey and beautiful. I’d never had a phone so nice. I’d had cell phones before -- tracphones and flip phones, the kind of phones that didn’t take pictures and charged for each text message, the kind of phones you had to buy prepaid cards in order to use, the kind of phones that would get broken if you so much as jostled them.

  “I might need to get in touch with you after hours,” Colt said.

  “Oh.” I ran my fingers over the smooth surface of the phone. “Okay. Well, thank you.”

  “Don’t thank me,” he said, making it clear that he wasn’t doing me any favors. “It’s a company phone.”

  I nodded. “And the ten dollars?”

  “In case you want lunch.”

  He sat me down at the computer and showed me how to start entering figures from vendor receipts into spreadsheets. I’d had computer classes in my group home that had taught me how to use all kinds of different programs -- Microsoft Office, Word, Powerpoint, even Quickbooks and Photoshop.

  I caught on quickly, and after a few minutes, Colt left me to my own devices. I found the work soothing, the monotony of tapping away on the computer providing my normally racing mind with something to focus on.