Take Me: The Complete Series (Power Play #1-4) (25 page)

The entire room stills around me when I see the figure of the person he’s sitting across from. She has shoulder-length auburn hair that’s twisted into tight curls, and she must be one of the most beautiful women I’ve ever seen.

She’s giggling like a schoolgirl about something he said, and the flirty smile she’s wearing on her face makes me want to throw up.
 

My breath hitches in my chest as I watch her touch him. It probably only lasts a second before she pulls her hand away, but that second feels like it lasts an eternity.

Without thinking I march straight up to the booth. I have every intention of giving Isaac a piece of my mind, but when I get there, none of the things I want to say seem to be able to come out.

“Hannah, what are you doing here?”

Isaac’s face brightens with surprise when he sees me. He rises quickly out of his seat and takes a step closer. He leans in to give me a kiss, but I shuffle away to avoid it.

“What’s wrong?” he asks, frowning.

The girl sitting with him gives me a confused look as she glances between us. Maybe she’s just as surprised to see me as I am to see her? I try not to glare, but I can feel my face tightening into a scowl.

“Who’s your friend?”

He considers me for a second, then gives me a playful smile as he glances back at the girl in the booth.

“Hannah, this is Annabelle, an old… business colleague… of mine.”

My eyes narrow when he stutters through the introduction. It’s obvious he’s hiding something. I’m such an idiot.

“Ah, so
this
is Hannah…”

Annabelle gives me a big smile as she rises slowly out of the booth. She’s wearing a short red dress that hugs her slender frame. Her breasts are bulging out of the top like her mother never bothered to teach her any shame at all.

Not wanting to be a
complete
bitch, I give her a tight smile before turning back to Isaac.

“I need to speak with you.”

He frowns, then flits a nervous look back at Annabelle before responding. It’s a tiny little glance but it sends me up the wall. In an instant I’m seeing red and want to rip his hair out.

I let out an exasperated sigh. What did that look even mean? Is he really checking with her for approval or something?

“Never mind. This was a mistake.”

I turn and start to walk away. What did I think would happen? Why did I think that this time would be any different?

“Hannah, wait!”

Isaac grabs me by the arm before I’m able to make it more than a couple steps, spinning me back to face him. He gives me a look.

“What are you bloody on about? What’s the meaning of all this?”

“Let me go,” I say, twisting away from him. I dart another look back at Annabelle. “I don’t want to interrupt your
date
, or whatever this is…”

Annabelle shifts her weight from one foot to the other, nervously.

“Bloody hell, Hannah, I’m not on a
date
.” Isaac’s face hardens. “What’s gotten into you?”

“I saw the way she was looking at you, and touching you. I’m done with your games, Isaac. I’m not going to let you lie to me and manipulate me any more.”

“Hannah, I haven’t lied about anything…”

“Liar!”

For an instant, I feel childish shouting that in the middle of a crowded pub, but the feeling fades, quickly.

“Hannah, get a hold of yourself. You’re acting like a bloody nutter.”

“Why? Are you afraid she’ll hear and know what kind of guy you are?”

“You’re being ridiculous.”

Isaac’s tone is getting angrier, though it only spurs me on.

“What’s ridiculous is that I believed you when you said you wouldn’t lie to me, again.”

“Hannah, for Christ’s sake, I didn’t lie to you!”

My eyebrows rise as I give him a look. He looks like he’s about to say something when Annabelle appears next to us. She looks calm and collected, considering the situation, and gives us both a thin little smile.

“I’ve got to be on my way,” she says. “Hannah, it was… pleasant… meeting you.” Is she mocking me? “Drake, it was good catching up. Don’t be a stranger.”

If she expects more than a grunt of a response from him, she doesn’t get it. His eyes are heated and remain locked on me as she walks away.
 

“Are you happy now, Hannah? She’s gone…”

“Am I
happy
? Just because she’s not here anymore doesn’t mean a damned thing. It doesn’t change the fact that you lied to me, that you’ve been lying to me this whole time.”

He gives me a long hard stare. Then, without warning, he reaches back and grabs his helmet from the table, then grabs me by the arm and starts leading me to the front of the pub.

“What are you doing?” I yelp, surprised by the strength of his grip on me.

“I’m not having this conversation with you in a crowded pub, Hannah.”

I’m about to give him another piece of my mind when I decide against it at the last moment. Frankly, it doesn’t matter to me if we have this conversation on national television, I don’t care who finds out what kind of lying scumbag he is. When we’re outside, he leads me to the curb where his bike is parked. He rounds on me, thrusting his helmet in my direction.

“Put it on.”

“I’m not going anywhere with you.”

“We’re not doing this here, Hannah. Put it on.”

He pushes it into me again, forcing me to take it from him. He doesn’t wait to see if I’ll do what he said before he throws a leg over the bike and ignites the throttle.

“Get on.”

“Where do you think you’re taking me?”

“Hannah… Get. On.”

There’s a serious edge to his voice, leaving no room for me to do anything but exactly what he says. I consider putting up more of a fight, but I’ve already come this far. I might as well get some answers out of him before I completely blow him off.

I scowl at him one more time before pulling the helmet down over my head. I climb onto the back of the bike and barely have my arms wrapped around his waist when Isaac pulls away from the curb and veers into the street. The roar of the bike’s engine drowns out everything else as Isaac swerves us between cars that all seem to be stuck in place.

As I hold onto him for dear life, deafened by the roaring engine, I can’t help but think about how nice it feels to have my arms wrapped around him. And a little piece of me hates myself for it.

I pull off the helmet and give a quick look around.

“What are we doing up here?”

Isaac climbs off the bike and gives me a look.

“Don’t worry, it’s private. No one comes up here after five on a Friday.”

“I wasn’t worried,” I say, too quickly. Then add, “I’m not the one that has anything to be ashamed of.”

We’re standing on the top level of a parking garage. The city skyline is rising above us, but we’re still completely alone. It’s that beautiful time when the light of the sun begins giving way to the glow of the city. The sounds of the streets below echo upwards, but still, we’re all alone.

At least it’s better than going back to Isaac’s hotel room. After clinging to him for the entire bike ride, I don’t think I’d be able to focus at all in a place where we’ve been intimate so many times.

Isaac studies me for a few moments, his jawline still tense with anger from earlier.

“Do you want to tell me what this is all about?”

“Who is she?”

His brow creases.

“Who is who?”

I take a harsh step forward and shove his helmet into him the way he did it to me earlier. He grabs it away from me in one quick movement.

“Don’t play dumb with me... Who is Annabelle?”

“I told you, she’s just an old friend.”

“You said she was a business colleague...”

“She is.”

“Well, which is it? Is she an old friend or a business colleague?”

“She’s both!”

He straightens himself a little more when he says it. His glare is so resolute that it’s hard to tell if he’s telling the truth or trying to slip something past me.

“She seemed like a whole lot more than just a friend. I saw the way she was flirting with you before she knew I was standing there….”

“Hannah, we weren’t flirting. We’re just close friends. We go way back, Annabelle and I.”

I give him a wide-eyed look.

“Oh, so now she’s a
close
friend?”

A frustrated growl rolls up from inside of him as he slams the helmet onto the back of the bike. When he rounds on me again, the look on his face is so intense that I almost let out a little yelp of surprise.
 

“If there’s something on your mind why don’t you just come out with it?”

“Fine! Are you fucking her?”

“No.”

“Liar!”

“Bloody hell, Hannah, we’ve been over this. I promised you that I wouldn’t lie to you.”

“Yeah, and you almost had me fooled. But now I know better.”

He frowns, giving me a confused look.

“What are you talking about?”

“I had a little run in with Declan, earlier today. He told me everything.”

“So what? What does that have to do with anything?”

My pulse races even faster. Is he really going to stand there and play dumb? Doesn’t he realize that he’s just digging himself a deeper hole?

“Don’t play stupid, Isaac, you know exactly what I’m talking about. He told me all about how you’re helping him with selling the company. I know all about it.”

The confused frown on his face deepens even further. He studies me for a moment, and then his face breaks into a smile and he lets out a light chuckle.

“Oh, that’s a good one,” he says, pointing a finger at me. “You know you almost had me there... as if I’d ever work with that puff wanker.”

I gasp, my mouth hanging open.

“So you think this is all funny? Just some kind of joke?”

“Come on, Hannah, you can’t really think that I’d ever have anything to do with
Declan
, right?”

“At this point, I have no idea what you’re capable of. It’s obvious that I don’t know you like I thought I did… In fact, I don’t really know you at all.”

Suddenly, Isaac takes a step forward and grabs me by the arms. The movement is so quick that my breath hitches in my chest.
 

“Hannah, it’s me! Just me. What is this all about? Why are you saying all of these things?”

The touch of his hands on my skin sends shivers running through me. I can feel myself getting emotional, already. I hate what he’s done to me—I’m so repulsed by it. But that doesn’t change the fact that it still feels good when he touches me.

“I can’t do this!” I shout. I give a little struggle to get away from him, but his hands are a lot stronger than I gave him credit for.

“You can’t do what?”

“You lied to me again! Declan told me everything. He told me how BMG isn’t really going bankrupt. He told me how he’s selling the company off. And he told me how you’re involved with the whole thing!”

My eyes sting a little as tears well up in them. But they’re not there because of everything going on with BMG. They’re there because I can’t stand the fact that Isaac lied to me. I can’t stand the fact that I believed we had something special when he asked me to go away with him.
 

His expression is muted as he looks at me. His bright, gray eyes bounce between the tears in my eyes and the quivering in my lips. He studies me for a long while without saying anything. Finally, when he does speak, his voice is level and soft.
 

“Hannah, you have to believe me. I don’t know what Declan told you, but I have nothing to do with any of it. I would rather throw myself off this building than hurt you. You have to believe me.”

I struggle to hold back a sob. I’m not normally like this, and I don’t know how to handle it. No guy has ever made me feel so great and so miserable all at the same time.

“Why should I believe you this time?
How
can I believe you?”

His eyes widen just barely as they search my face, pleadingly. Desperately. He looks like he’s about to say something, but he pinches his lips together to cut it off. Emotions are warring on his face. It’s obvious there’s something he has to say, but for some reason he’s not letting himself say it.

Finally, he pinches his eyes together as he lets out a resigned breath. When he opens them again, he gives me a humbled look.

“You have to believe me, because… I would never do anything to hurt you. Because… Because I love you.”

His face grows harder as he gains some measure of confidence. Once he’s broken through whatever barrier was holding him back he keeps pressing forward.

“Because I love you, Hannah Barnes. And because I would walk to the ends of the earth if I thought it would even put the tiniest of smiles on your gorgeous face. In such a short time you mean everything to me. When you’re not around I can’t think of anything but you. And when you are around I feel so dizzy that I can’t tell what is up from down. You’ve cast a wickedly magical spell on me. I’m powerless to you.”

The world comes to a standstill when he stops speaking. In that moment, nothing exists but the two of us. Nothing matters but the desperate look on his face. Nothing matters but the torrent of emotions he sends exploding through me.

“Say something, Hannah. This silence is deafening.”

My pulse is racing a million miles a minute. A tiny voice in the back of my head tells me that I better do something, or he’s going to start to get the wrong idea. He’s going to start to think that I don’t feel exactly the same way about him.

“Hannah?”

I don’t trust my mouth to work the way it’s supposed to. I don’t trust it to get the words out right. So I do the next best thing…

Wrapping my arms around the back of his neck, I pull Isaac down to me. When our lips connect it feels like every weight in the world that was holding me down has lifted. I feel like I could fly away.

Isaac’s tongue dips into my mouth. I give way to it, inviting it in even further. Inviting all of him into me. I suck his tongue while emotions vibrate throughout my body. His arms pull me even tighter against his hard frame, squeezing me so much I’m left nearly gasping for air.