What He Shields (What He Wants Book Seventeen) (13 page)

“Yes,” I whispered.
 
“I want to forget.”

It was true.
 
I wanted to forget everything.
 
I wanted to forget the fact that I was
homeless, that my parents wanted nothing to do with me, that none of my other
relatives were willing to take me in.
 
But most of all
,
 
right
now, I wanted to forget about the promise I had made to
Declan.
 
And I hated myself for it.

“No.”
 
I took a step back and shook my head.
 
“I can’t.”

If he was offended, he didn’t show it.
 
Instead, that
same
amused glint came back into his eyes.
 
But there was something else there, too, burning beneath the
surface.
 
If I didn’t know better,
I’d say it was lust.
 
But that was
impossible.
 
A guy like him –
rich, sexy as all hell, with beautiful women throwing themselves at him every
night – didn’t lust after girls like me.

“You can,” he said, his eyes still on mine.

“No.”
 
I shook my head.
 
“I really can’t.”

“You want to.”
 
It’s a statement, not a question.

I raised my chin.
 
“Oh, really?” I shot at him.
 
“You sure about that?”

“Yes.”
 
He was still staring into my eyes, the connection between us burning
hot.
 
“So then, Princess,” he
said.
 
“Why don’t you tell me why
you can’t?”

The way it said it infuriated me, like he
thought whatever reason I had would be something completely ridiculous.

“You wouldn’t understand,” I said, trying to
step around him.

But he stayed put, blocking my path.
 
“Try me.”

I shook my head.
 
“There’s no reason,” I lied.
 
“You’re just not as irresistible as
you’d like to think.”

“Oh, I’m plenty irresistible.”

It sounded like a dare.

“Not to me.”

“We’ll see.”

He turned and walked out of the bathroom.

I watched him go, then turned back to the sink,
my heart pounding.
 
I gripped the
edge of the counter so hard
I
 
left
marks on my fingers.
 
I wanted to cut again so badly, but the
fact that Colt had caught me had completely ruined any relief I might get from
it.

I splashed cold water on my face and on my
wrists.

When I got back to the bedroom, Colt was
standing by the bed.
 

“If you’re going to try and give me some big
lecture on why I shouldn’t be cutting, you can save your breath,” I said.
 
“My foster mom tried doing that every
month since I was fourteen, and it obviously didn’t work.”
 
I didn’t mention the countless social
workers, the psychotherapists, the inpatient clinic they put me in for two
weeks.
 
None of it worked, or if it
did, it wasn’t for long.

“I don’t lecture people,” Colt said.
 
He reached out and took my wrist, pulled
me close to him so that our chests were touching.
 
“I don’t believe in big speeches.
 
Words are just words.
 
They don’t mean shit.”

I laughed.
 
“
Ain’t
that the truth.
”

He turned my hand over in his slowly,
then
ran his finger over the Band-Aid on my arm.
 
“It stopped bleeding.”

“Yeah.”
 
I pulled my arm away from him, uncomfortable at the closeness between
us.
 
“It’s fine.”

I pushed past him
.,
needing to get away from his closeness.
 
But there was nowhere to go except for the bed, and I didn’t really want
to be in bed with him in the room.

But he saved me from that awkwardness by
turning around and walking toward the door.

At the last moment, he turned and looked at
me.
 
“If you’re going to stay here,
you have to promise to stop cutting yourself.”

“I’m only going to be here for one night,” I
said.

“No, you’re not.”

“Oh, really?” I laughed.
 
“Are you moving me in?”

“Perhaps.”

“I really don’t think my family would
approve.”
 

“Olivia,” he said.
 
“I know you’ve been staying at the
Walnut Street shelter.
 
I’ve called
and arranged for your things to be brought here.”
 
He said it matter-of-factly, devoid of
pity or sympathy.

“What?” I scoffed.
 
“You don’t know what you’re talking
about.”
 
My voice didn’t shake.
 
It didn’t break.
 
I was a good liar.
 
You have to be when your whole existence
depends on it.

“Don’t bullshit a
bullshitter
,”
he said.
 
“I know where you’ve been
staying.”

“How did you –
”

He held his hand up.
 
“We’ll get to that.
 
But first, I have a business proposition
for you.”

END OF BOOK ONE

Addicted
To Him (Obsessed With Him, Book Two)

By Hannah Ford

Copyright 2015, Hannah Ford, all rights
reserved.
 
This book is a work of
fiction, and any resemblance to any persons, living or dead, is entirely
coincidental.

***

“A business proposition?” I repeated.
 
“Why would I want to get into business
with
you?”

Colt grinned.
 
“You seemed like you wanted to get into
business with me earlier.”

“Earlier?”

“When you were dancing for me.”
 

I swallowed, remembering the way it had felt,
unbuttoning my shirt for him, the way his hands guided my hips, how heady the
lust was that I’d felt, how uncontrollable.
 
How
close I came to breaking my promise to Declan.

“That was different,” I said.
 
“That was a job.”
 
We were both still standing up, and I
wanted to sit down, but doing that seemed like some kind
of
 
admission
.
 
An admission that I wanted to be here,
that Colt had some kind of power over me.

“And how is a job different than getting into
business with me?” he countered.
 
His t-shirt stretched against his broad chest and across his huge
shoulders.
 
Even in just a t-shirt
and sweatpants, you could tell how built he was, how strong, how chiseled.
  

The pull I felt toward him was intoxicating,
and also frightening.
 
I didn’t know
anything about this man -- except that he ran a strip club.
 
Strike one.
 
He apparently didn’t have a problem with
beating people up, as evidenced by what he’d done to those two thugs on the
street earlier.
  
Strike
two.
 
He also broke into a
convenience store ice machine, which, let’s face it, wasn’t that big of a deal,
but it spoke to something else – he was comfortable taking other people’s
property, almost like he’d done it before.
 
Maybe a lot.
 
Strike three.

Then he brought me, a total stranger, back to
his house without asking questions, which spoke to a tendency for
impulsivity.
 
He somehow knew I was
staying at the Walnut Street shelter, which made it likely he was some kind of
stalker.
 
And he didn’t seem all
that
concerned by the fact that he’d
caught me in his bathroom cutting myself.

The red flags were blinding.

“A job is totally different,” I said.
 
“It’s a lot different than sleeping with
you for money.”

“Sleeping with me for money?” He sounded offended,
like he couldn’t believe I would even think such a thing.
 
“Who said anything about sleeping with
me for money?”

“You said you wanted to get into business with
me.”

“Are you in the business of sleeping with
people for money?”

“No!” I said.
 
“Why would you even say something like
that?”
 
I wondered what he would do
if he knew I was a virgin, that I hadn’t even kissed a boy.
 

“Well.”
 
Colt shrugged, like it was blindingly obvious why he would jump to the
conclusion that I’d had experience with prostitution.
 
“I said I had a business proposition for
you, and you immediately assumed I wanted to have sex with you.”
 
His eyes blazed when he said this last
part, almost like he was amused by the idea of sleeping with me, even though
he’d pretty much just propositioned me a couple of minutes ago.

“Oh, please,” I said, rolling my eyes.
 
“You would have slept with me earlier
when I was dancing for you and you know it.
 
Not to mention what you just said to me
in the bathroom.”

The side of his mouth twitched up into a grin,
like I was a silly little girl who knew nothing about the world.
 

“Don’t look at me like that,” I said.

“Like what?” he asked, holding his hands up and
feigning innocence.

“Like I’m a silly little girl who knows nothing
about the world.”

The cocky grin immediately disappeared from his
face.
 
“I think you know plenty
about the world.”
 
His gaze dropped to my wrist, and I knew what he was thinking
– that anyone who took a razor blade to their skin, who wanted to feel
that pain in order to ground themselves
in something, anything, must
have been through some shit.
 
But
that was none of his business.
 

“It’s none of your business what I’ve been
through,” I said.

“Fair enough.”

He didn’t say anything for a moment after that,
and the silence stretched on for several moments.
 
It was disarming.
 
I wanted to say something, anything,
just to end it, but that too felt like I was giving into him.
 
And if there was one thing this silly
little girl knew, it was that if you let someone think you were giving in, if
you let
them
think you were weak, they would take
advantage any chance they got.

I shivered, aware of the fact that I was still
wearing just a thin t-shirt.

“You’re cold,” Colt said.
 

“No, I’m not.”

“I’ll be right back.”

He returned with a grey zip up hoodie, then
stopped short just inside the door.
 
He held it out to me, motioning for me to come get it.
 
I took a step toward him, and his eyes
raked over my body, lingering on my nipples, which were hard and visible
through my t-shirt.
  
Just like
at the club, he made no excuses for the fact that he was openly staring at my
body.

“Why don’t you take a picture, it will last
longer,” I mumbled.

“Nothing I haven’t seen before,” he said,
amused.

I turned around and slid my arms through the
sweatshirt, then went to grab the zipper.

“It’s tricky,” he said, reaching around and
grabbing it for me.
 
“Sometimes it
catches.”
 
His chest was so broad,
his
hands
so big, his body so strong, that it made me
feel tiny in comparison.
 
I closed
my eyes as he did the zipper, letting the side of his hand slide over my breast
as he did it.
 
I knew he was
trouble, I knew I barely knew him, but for some reason, in that moment, all I
wanted to do was turn around and bury myself in his arms.
 

He’d told me that he could make me forget, and
I believed him.
 
Cutting had been my
escape until now, a way to take the edge of and keep me from feeling things I
didn’t want to feel.
 
I’d avoided
alcohol and drugs because I’d seen what they could do to
people,
so cutting had been my way of dealing.

In theory, I wasn’t opposed to losing myself in
another person, through sex, lust, love, obsession, whatever.
 
But if I was going to do it, it was
going to be Declan.
 
It had to
be.
 
He was the man I was going to
give myself to.

And I’ve never been tempted by anyone else.

Until now.

I shrugged away from Colt, pulling the
sweatshirt tighter around me.
 

“You shouldn’t have given me a sweatshirt with
a messed up zipper,” I said.

“Sorry, Princess.
 
I didn’t know you were so picky.”

“Is that a dig at the fact that I’m staying at
a shelter?
 
Because you’re not any
better than me.”
 
His sweatshirt was
huge on me, and I pushed up the sleeves and pulled it tighter around me.

“Who said I was better than you?”

“Oh, please.”
 
I folded my arms over my chest.
 
Even with the extra security and padding
of the sweatshirt, I felt a little too exposed, a little too vulnerable to his
wandering eyes.
 
“You’re rich.”

“Is that what you think?
 
That I think I’m better than you because
I have money?”

“Of course!
 
Isn’t that why you brought me
here?”
 
Thinking about it now,
saying the words out loud, I was starting to get angry.
 
“Because you felt sorry for me?
 
You saw I was wearing cheap clothes and
that I was looking for a job as a stripper, so you just assumed I was
poor.
 
And then you somehow poked
around in my personal, private business, which you were probably able to do
because of your money, and you realized I was staying at a shelter.
 
And that really probably made you feel
bad for me.”
 
I was getting going
now.
 
I wanted to put him in his
place, to make him see that I wasn’t just some girl he could come along and
save with his good looks and his money.
 
I didn’t need saving.
 
I was
fine.

His cell phone rang before he could reply.

He reached into his pocket and pulled it out,
answering it with a brisk, “Colt Cannon.”

Which just proved my point.
 
If he didn’t think he was better than
me, then why the hell did he answer a phone call in the middle of our
conversation?

I needed to get out of here.
 
Even the shelter was better than
this.
 
The shelter made you feel bad
about yourself, but at least everyone there was in the same boat.
 
You didn’t have to worry about some rich
asshole making you feel inferior.

“Have Jessa take care of it,” Colt was saying
into the phone.
 
“She’s good with
that kind of shit.”

I looked around the room for my clothes, the
ones I wore here, the skirt and button-up shirt.
 
I needed to change and get the hell out
of here.

“Where are my clothes?” I demanded.

Colt held his finger up, the universal sign for
“one minute.”
 
But I wasn’t going to
wait one minute.
 
I wasn’t going to
wait one
second.

I crossed the room to the closet in the corner
and flung open the doors.
 
But there
was nothing in there except for a bunch of fluffy robes hanging on
hangers.
 
I flung the drawers
underneath it open, but they were empty.

Where the hell could my clothes have gone?
 
I remembered folding them neatly and
putting them on the chair in the corner, but now the chair was empty.
 

“Where are my clothes?” I yelled again.
 
I was acting like a child, but I didn’t
care.

“One second,” Colt said to whoever he was
talking to.
 
He covered the phone
with his hand.
 
“Relax.
 
Your clothes are being washed.”

I stared at him in disbelief.
 
“You came into my room and took my
clothes while I was sleeping?”
 
How
completely perverted.

“No.
 
My housekeeper, Kendra, did.”

“Your housekeeper’s name is Kendra?”
 
Housekeepers weren’t supposed to be
called Kendra.
 
Housekeepers were
supposed to be called Martha or Stella or, in the interest of not being sexist,
Marcel.
 
Kendras
were blonde with big boobs.
 
She was
probably one of those naked housekeepers, the kind that came over and stripped
for you so you could get your rocks off while you watched them clean your
house.

Colt ignored me, instead turning away so he
could finish his phone call.

I just stood there, fuming.
 
If he wasn’t off the phone in ten
seconds, I was going to do something drastic.
 
Like start tearing this room apart.
 
I looked around for something I could
start with.

The wasn’t
much, but it was doable.
 
When I was seven, I had a foster brother with an attachment disorder who
would throw insane tantrums.
 
My
foster parents started removing everything from his room – his books, his
toys, his clothes.
 
Anything he could
pick up and grab.
 
Eventually he
just started taking his bed frame apart using a butter knife he’d smuggled in
from the kitchen.
 
Then he took the
pieces and hauled them out the window.
 
That’s when then sent him back to social services.
 
I was kind of sad to see him go.