Taken By Him (Obsessed With Him, Book Four) (3 page)

“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.