What He Shields (What He Wants Book Seventeen) (16 page)

Maybe he wasn’t just a rich
skeezy
guy who ran a strip club and got everything handed to him.

And then, just like that, his eyes hardened
again.
 
The hurt was gone, but now
it was replaced by something else, something intangible.
 
Regret?
 
It was odd, but I had the feeling he
wanted me to stay here, with him.
 
And not just because he thought it was the right thing to do.

“Thanks,” I said as finally he let go of my
bag.

“You’re welcome.”

We both stood there for a second, just looking
at each other.
 
It was weird,
because nothing had happened to make me feel connected to him, except that I’d
seen him get angry.
 
And I couldn’t
explain it, but somehow, I wanted to take his pain away.

That invisible pull I’d felt toward him
earlier, when I was dancing for him, and again back at his apartment, returned,
stronger than ever.
 
But now it
wasn’t the pull of lust – now it was something else, something deeper.

You have
to help him.

“Colt – ” I started, my voice soft.
 
I wanted to tell him it was going to be
okay, that whatever was going on would end up fine in the end.
 
I wasn’t sure I believed that –
the whole it’s going to be okay in the end bullshit that some people liked to
spew.
 
But I needed to say
something.

“Good luck, Princess,” Colt said, cutting me
off.
 
That playful little lilt was
back in his voice, whatever vulnerability I’d seen had replaced with his usual
cockiness.
 
He reached his hand out
for me to shake.

I took it, his hand enveloping mine, big and
strong and warm.
 
My breath hitched
in my chest, and I could hear the blood rushing through my ears.
 
My body was on alert again, that
connection I’d felt with him thrumming in the air, electric.
 

I didn’t want to leave.
 
I didn’t want to walk out of this room
and never see him again.
 
I couldn’t
explain it, but I just… I didn’t.

“So,” I said, trying to sound nonchalant.
 
“What was that business proposition you
were talking about earlier?”

“Business proposition?”
 
He frowned, confusion flooding his face.

“Yeah, back at your apartment.
 
You said you had a business proposition
for me?”

“Oh.”
 
He shook his head.
 
“It was
nothing.
 
It was a stupid idea,
especially now.”

“Especially now?”

“Yeah, this girl –
”
 
He
shook his head.
 
“Never mind. It’s not important.”

Was he talking about the girl I’d seen in that
other room, the one who was crying?
 
I wanted to ask him, but I was afraid if I pushed, he would kick me out.

“Really?” I asked.
 
“Because it kind of sounded important.”

He looked at me, his eyes narrowing.
 
“I can’t… you wouldn’t be good at it.”

My jaw dropped.
 
“I wouldn’t be good at it?”
 
I crossed my arms over my chest.
 
“What the hell is that supposed to
mean?”

 
“Nothing, just that you’d have to listen
to me.
 
I’d be your boss.
 
And you’re not good at following
directions.”

“First of all,” I said.
 
“You don’t know me well enough to know
whether or not I’m good at following directions.”
 
And second of all…
”
 
I trailed off.
 
“Second of all, I’m a very motivated
employee.”

“Oh, really?”
 
He was next to me in a flash, his body
against mine, his breath warm on my cheek.
 
“Motivated, huh?”

“Yes.”
 
I forced myself to keep my eyes on his.

“You’ll do anything I say?”

My breath hitched again, and I closed my eyes
because I couldn’t take looking at him.
 
He was just so damn beautiful, and I was afraid I was going to lose my
mind or do something crazy, that’s how much I didn’t want to leave this room,
how much I wanted to stay here with him.
 
In that moment, I would have
don’t
anything he
wanted.

“Yes,” I whispered.
 
“Anything.”

He ran the back of his knuckle over my jawbone,
then
leaned in even closer to me.
 
“You’d have to live with me.
 
I’d need to keep an eye on you.”

I nodded,
then
forced
myself to open my eyes, not caring if he kissed me, not caring if I broke my
promise to Declan.

“Okay,” I said.
 

He grinned,
then
put
his hand on the back of my neck, pulling my hair up gently.
 
Then he closed his eyes
and
 
leaned
down,
his mouth coming closer to mine, his lips full and perfect.
 
I held my breath and waited for him to
kiss me.
 

But a second later, he froze and opened his
eyes.

“Wow, Princess,” he said, “
you
really meant it.”

My legs were
jello
,
my knees so weak I was afraid I was going to fall over.
 
And he’d been bluffing the whole
time.
 
I didn’t know whether to be
pissed or relieved.

“I told you,” I said, trying to match his cocky
tone, like I’d won, like I’d called his bluff, even though I’d had no idea he
was messing with me.

Colt leaned back against the desk, and looked
up at the ceiling, like he was thinking it over.
 
“Fine,” he said.
 
“We’ll give it a trial run.”

“Aren’t you going to tell me what the job is
first?”

“The less you know, the better.”

“What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”

“It means that for right now, you don’t need to
know the specifics of what I’m asking you to do.”

“Because it’s dangerous?” I pressed.
 
I thought of that girl again, her hair
in ragged strands, a jagged scratch across her face.

He sighed.
 
“It’s not dangerous, exactly, it’s just better if you don’t know the
details.”
 
He looked at me.
 
“Do you trust me?”

“I hardly know you.”

“It’s not going to work if you don’t trust me.”

I opened my mouth to tell him it was impossible
to trust someone you’d only known for a few hours, but then I realized something
– whatever this job was, whatever he wanted me to do, he must be pretty
desperate if he was willing to let me, a girl he barely knew, become
involved.
 
It must have been
something he needed a certain kind of person to do, and although I didn’t know the
exact characteristics of that kind of person, I must have had them.

He wanted something from me.
 
And no matter how successful someone
was, no matter how rich, how good-looking, when they wanted something from you,
you had power over them.
 
I could
get something from Colt.
 
Probably
anything I wanted.

And there was only one thing I wanted, one
thing I’d ever wanted.
 
The thing I
was willing to risk anything for, the thing that had led me here in the first
place.

“How did you know where I was staying?” I
asked.

“What?”

“How did you know where I was staying?” I
asked.
 
“You figured out I was
staying at the Walnut Street shelter, you somehow had them agree to send my
things to your apartment.”

He sighed and looked at me like I was a
child.
 
“Olivia,” he said.
 
“When you have money, you can pretty
much do whatever you want.”

He might have thought he was clueing me in to
some universal truth, but I already knew this – money got things
done.
 
It wasn’t the way the world
should work, it was unfair and unjust and you could debate the reasons why for
hours.
 
But I wasn’t interested in
any of that.
 
All I was interested
in was getting him to admit that money could get you things you wanted.

“Fine,” I said, crossing my arms over my
chest.
 
“I’ll help you.
 
I’ll do whatever you want.
 
I won’t ask questions.
 
I’ll trust
you,
I’ll even stay at your apartment.
 
But I want something in return.”

“Of course I’m going to pay you, Princess.
 
What kind of guy do you think I
am?”
 
He raised his eyebrows at me
and gave me that smarmy grin again, letting me know he knew exactly what kind
of guy he was.

“No.”
 
I shook my head.
 
“I mean,
yes, I expect to be paid.
 
But I
want something else, too.”

“Oh, yeah?
 
And what’s that?”

“I want you to find someone for me.”

“Who?”

“Declan Keene.”

Colt frowned.
 
“Who the hell is Declan Keene?”

I raised my chin into the air, daring him to
contradict what I was about to say.
 
“He’s the man I’m going to marry.”

END OF BOOK TWO

Consumed By Him
 
(Obsessed With Him, Book Three)

By Hannah Ford

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

**

Colt looked at me incredulously.
 
“How old you are you?” he demanded.

“Twenty,” I said, hoping I sounded
haughty.
 
“How old are you?”

“Old enough to know that at twenty, you
have no idea who you’re going to marry.”
 
He shook his head.
 
“So you
can forget it.”

“Forget what?”

“Forget about me finding some asshole you
have some crazy crush on.
 
Let me
guess.
 
He dumped you.
 
And now you’re obsessed with him and
think if you can just see him again, he’ll realize what he’s missing.
 
Like your life is some kind of fucking
romantic comedy.”

“What?” I asked.
 
“No!
 
He didn’t dump me.”
 
I was pissed.
 
Pissed that Colt was acting like I was
some kind of silly schoolgirl trying to stalk some guy who had no interest in
her.
 
“Declan was my foster
brother.”

Colt raised his eyebrows.
 
“Jesus,” he said.
 
“You think you’re going to marry your
brother?”

“No!
 
He’s not…we’re not related.
 
He’s my foster brother.
 
Well, was my foster brother.
”
 
I expected Colt to give me a sad look,
or say something sympathetic, the way people always did when they found out I’d
been in foster care.
 
But Colt just
held his hands up and took a few steps away from me, like maybe my crazy was
contagious.

“Hey,” he said.
 
“What you do on your own time…”

“You know what?” I said.
 
“You can go fuck yourself.”
 
I turned around and headed for the
door.
 
I didn’t need this.
 
He needed help from me, too.
 
He should have been kissing my ass, but
instead, he was mocking me.
 
And if
I wanted to be ridiculed, I could get that any day of the week, just by interacting
with society.

“Okay, okay,” Colt said, reaching out and
grabbing my arm.
 
“Wait.
 
I’ll help you find Deacon.”

“Declan.”

“Whatever.”

“Fine.”
 
I crossed my arms over my chest.
 
“And what do I have to do for you?”

“Whatever I want,” he said, his voice a
mix of husky and cocky.
 
He took a
step toward me.
 
“Are you okay with
that?”

“Bring it,” I said, forcing myself to
meet his gaze.
 

“Good.”
 
He looked at me.
 
“The first thing we have to do is get
you an outfit.”

“An outfit?”

“Yeah.
 
You’re going to be working here.”

“Oh.”
 
I twisted my hands nervously, hoping he
couldn’t tell how anxious I was.
 
“I’m going to be stripping?”

This seemed to amuse him. “Are you
serious?” he asked.
 
“You really
think I would hire you as a stripper after that audition?”

“What was wrong with my audition?”
 
I countered, even though of course I
knew what was wrong with my audition.
 

“You ran out in the middle of it.”

 
“Just because I didn’t want to get naked
for you, doesn’t mean –”

“Doesn’t mean you don’t want to get naked
in front of the guys out there?”
 
He
shook his head.
 
“Trust me.
 
If you can’t get naked for me, you can’t
get naked for them.
 
And besides,
you
did
want to get naked for me.”

“Oh, yeah?” I asked.
 
“Then why didn’t I?”

“Because you were afraid.”

“Afraid?” I repeated
 
“Afraid of what?”

“I don’t know.”
 
He shrugged. “You tell me.”

“I wasn’t afraid.”
 
I swallowed and crossed my arms over my
chest. “I’m in love with someone else, is all.
”

“
Mmm
.
 
Deacon.”

“Declan!”

“Right.
 
The guy you need me to help you to find,
because you have no idea where he is.”

“Yes,” I said.
 
“But that’s not my fault.”

“What isn’t?”

“That I don’t know where he is.
 
Once we aged out of foster care, it was
impossible to keep track of him.”

He raised his eyebrows at me.
 
“In this day and age of
facebook
and
skype
and cell
phones, it was impossible to keep track of him?”

“I don’t have a cell phone,” I said.
 
“Or a computer.”

“You don’t have a cell phone or a
computer?”

I shook my head.
 
“Sorry if that offends your privileged
white boy sensibilities.”

“Nothing offends me,” Colt said.
 
He reached over and pushed a button on
the phone that was sitting on the desk in the corner.
 
After a second, a girls’ voice
answered.
 
“Jessa,” he said.
 
“Can you bring me a waitress uniform?”

“Sure,” she said.
 
“What size?”

Colt’s eyes racked up my body, taking in
my legs, my hips, my breasts.
 
“What’s your dress size?” he asked.

“Six.”

“And your bra size?”

I swallowed.
 
“36C.”

He grinned, and relayed the information
to the girl on the phone.
 

“So I’m going to be a waitress?” I
asked.
 
I could definitely handle
that.
 
Being a waitress sounded like
it wouldn’t be that hard.
 
I
imagined myself bustling through the tables, serving food and drinks, making
conversation with the customers.

“Cocktail waitress,” Colt said.
 
“Have you ever waitressed before?”

I shook my head.
 
“But one of my foster families had ten
kids, and I was the oldest, so I served a lot of meals.
 
It was kind of like being a waitress.”

“Trust me,” Colt said.
 
“Our customers are not kids.
 
They’re men looking for a certain kind
of service.
 
Do you know what that
means?”

“It means they want me to have sex with
them?”

“No.”
 
He shook his head.
 
“Well, yes, maybe.
 
But most of all they want you to make
them feel special.”

There was a knock on the door, and the
bartender, the one who had answered the phone when I’d called about the audition,
came walking into the room holding a plastic dry cleaner bag.

“Jessa,” Colt said.
 
“Have you met Olivia?”

“Yes,” I said at the same time Jessa
said, “No.”

“We met earlier,” I reminded her.
“Remember?”

She shrugged.
 
“Colt,” she said.
 
“Are you going to have time later to go
over the vendor orders with me?”
 

“Yeah,” he said.
 
“I’ll catch you on the way out.”

She gave him a smile, and I saw a flash
of something in her blue eyes before she turned and walked out the door.
 
He’s
mine.
 
She wanted me to know
that Colt was off-limits.
 
Were Colt
and Jessa together?
 
Was that why
she had been so rude to me earlier?
  

“Here you go, Princess,” Colt held the
bag out to me.
 
“Try it on.”

I took it.
 
“Where should I change?”

“
Here.
”

“In front of you?”

He shrugged, like it was no big deal.

I hesitated, and he rolled his eyes.
 
“You can change over there, behind the
screen.”
 
He pointed to the corner
of the room, where there was a room divider set up.
 
It was cream-colored, with a red and
blue abstract design printed on it.

I took a deep breath and slid behind it,
then pulled the plastic bag off the uniform and studied it.
 
It was a short pleated black skirt with
a black push-up bustier with spaghetti straps.
 
There was a tiny black thong to wear
underneath it.
 
It was revealing,
but not anything worse than you’d see out in a club.

I slid out of the clothes Colt had given
me and into the uniform.
 
Even
without a mirror, I could tell it was way too small.
 
The waist was fine, but the skirt was so
short that bottom of my ass was hanging out.
 
My breasts were pushed together and
practically falling out of the top.
 
There was a cut out in the top of the bustier, and it tied in the
middle, holding your breasts together.

“Colt?” I called.
 
“My uniform is too small.”

“Let me see.”

“No.”

“Let.
 
Me.
 
See.”

“No.”

But he appeared a second later, sticking
his head around the side of the partition, taking me in.
 
I tried to cross my arms over my chest,
but that only served to push my breasts together more.

“Jesus,” he said when he saw me.
 

 
“I told you it was too small.”

 
“No,” he said.
 
“It’s perfect.”

“It’s not.
 
My chest can’t fit in the top and the
skirt is way too short.”

Colt reached out and slowly,
deliberately, grabbed my arms and pulled my hands down from where I was
covering my breasts so that he could see me.
 
My breath hitched as he stood there, so
tall he was almost towering over me, staring down at my tits.

I saw the desire searing in his eyes.

“You’re not wearing it right,” he
said.
 
“You need to tie it tight in
the middle.”
 
He reached up to undo
the strips of material, but I grabbed his hands and stopped him.

“Don’t,” I said.
 
“I can do it.”

But he just gave me that cocky grin
again, then moved my hands from where they were grasping his and pulled them
back down to my sides.
 
“Don’t argue
with your boss, Princess,” he said.
 

He let go of my hands and his fingers
slid up my bare arms, leaving goose bumps all over me and sending a shiver up
my spine.
 
He caressed me all the
way up to my shoulders, then slid his hands down over my chest and untied my
uniform.
 
For a terrifying, amazing,
exhilarating moment I thought he was going to take the top off completely,
untie the whole thing, giving him a full view of my breasts.
 
But he didn’t.

Instead, he just untied the strips of
fabric, then pulled them tight before tying them back together.

“Turn around,” he demanded.

I turned around, and felt his hands on my
hips, adjusting my skirt, pulling it down just a tiny bit on my hip bones.
 
With it pulled down like that, the skirt
covered my ass cheeks a bit more, but I still felt exposed, especially in the
tiny thong.
 
And with the way he’d
tied my shirt, it hitched up a bit, leaving a strip of my stomach bare.

“I can’t wear this,” I said.
 
“I can’t…
I mean, I
wouldn’t…”
I wanted to tell him there was no way I could ever be seen in
public in something like this.
 
I
was stupid to ever think I could be a stripper, stupid to think I could ever be
sexy.
 
I thought it would be easy,
that I could just disconnect from my body and not have to worry about the men
staring at me.
 
What I didn’t stop
to think about was how
I
would feel
about myself, how I would feel about showing my body, about being arrogant
enough to think that anyone would want to see it.