HUNT (The Billionaire's Rules, Book 13)

HUNT (The
Billionaire’s Rules, Book 13)

By Kelly Favor

© 2015 All Rights Reserved

I’m
so wet for you, Brayden.
 

Lanie closed her eyes and tried to calm
down.
 
But the memory of what she’d
said as she’d masturbated in the bathtub, having accidentally dialed the phone
number of the very man she was fantasizing about…

And he’d been there, listening on the
other end of the phone as she’d called his name again and again.

Your
cock is so big.
 
It’s fucking me so
good.

She looked at her call history on her
cell phone and saw that she’d called him and he’d apparently been on the line
for nearly two minutes.
 
In that two
minutes, he’d heard her yell out his name as she masturbated and climaxed.

It was beyond mortifying.
 
He was probably telling everyone he knew
about it, laughing, making crude jokes at her expense.

And now she remembered what Brayden had
been saying at the moment she hung up the phone on him.

Is
this a joke, Lanie?

If it was a joke, the joke was most
certainly on her.
 

Lanie got out of the tub, dried off and
changed into her comfiest jammies.
 
She needed consolation.
 
She
needed to pretend that it had never happened.

As embarrassing as this incident was, she
would never even see Brayden Forman again.
 
She would never have to face the man, and even if he did tell people
about what had happened—she didn’t know any of his friends or coworkers.

What
if he tells Cullen and then Cullen tells Ivy?

That sent a shockwave through her
body.
 

Lanie quickly shook her head.

He
wouldn’t do that.
 
And if he does,
I’ll deny it.
 
The man is a crude,
rude womanizer and nobody will believe him.

Unless
he somehow recorded you screaming his name.

She felt like crying but somehow, no
tears came.
 
It was just a numb sort
of shock where the memories of the embarrassment kept playing over and over.

The memory of Lanie pleasuring herself,
calling out Brayden Forman’s name, and all the while the phone was picking up
her moans and shouts and he was on the other end, listening.

Each time she thought about it, she got
more embarrassed and wanted to crawl under a piece of furniture and never show
her face again.

She determined that she’d never tell
another living soul about it, never be forced to witness someone’s incredulous
reaction—how they would eventually turn from dumfounded disbelief to
laughter.

Who accidentally dials a man they hardly
know and then shouts his name in an orgasmic frenzy?

Lanie shuffled back to her bedroom and
lay down on the bed, staring up at the ceiling.
 
She was hungry but hadn’t had a chance
to get food for the apartment.

Her cable hadn’t been turned on yet and
she didn’t know what to do now.

I’m
lost here.

And
it’s dark outside.
 
I’m alone in the
dark.

She’d kept all the lights on in the
house, as she tended to do, but even still the threat of darkness was
there.
 
At night, the city turned
sinister.

In the darkness, anybody could lurk
outside your home waiting to begin whatever scheme they might have
planned.
 
Waiting until you fell
asleep and the rest of the world was quiet.
 

Lanie was an easy target.
 
Naïve, alone by herself for the first
time, frightened of her own shadow.

I
don’t belong in this place.

She turned to her side and gave a long
sigh, telling herself to stop being silly and paranoid.
 

You
have more realistic problems right now than the fact that it’s nighttime.
 
What are you going to do without a
job?
 
That’s what you should be
afraid of.

She had enough money in the bank to last
a few weeks, plus a credit card if things got really bad.

All in all, Lanie figured she had two
months tops before lack of funds could send her scurrying out of Boston and
back to Middlebury, Massachusetts.
 

Tomorrow, she would have to start calling
temp agencies and coffee shops, bookstores, anywhere that she might be able to
pick up work quickly.

Leaving Middlebury had been a
necessity.
 
She’d felt like a loser,
working a dead-end job at the ShopRite and still living with her mother and her
mother’s new boyfriend.

By the end, it had become more than clear
that they didn’t want her around.

Of course, she’d always sensed that her
mother would’ve liked to
have been
rid of her.
 
But once Eric and her mother moved in
together, that sense of not being wanted had magnified until she’d basically
been hiding in her room in the attic of their home, trying to stay out of their
way all the time.

So when Ivy called and told her about
this apartment she needed to sublet, Lanie had taken it as a sign.

Moving to the Boston area should have
been a good thing.

This new apartment should have been a
wonderful chance at a fresh start.

But now, one stupid mistake had ruined
all of that.
 
She wished that Cullen
Sharpe had never tried to do her a favor and get her that interview with
Brayden Forman in the first place.

What
kind of favor was that?

The
guy is a jerk and Cullen should have known better.
 
I wish I’d never called Brayden and even
tried to set up that interview.
 
I
had no business trying to get a job with him.

Lanie balled up her hand into a fist and
struck her pillow.
 
And then she
made a loud, frustrated groan.

Somehow, in the midst of her groaning,
she heard a faint buzzing sound.
 

Oh
my God.

It was her phone ringing again.

Immediately, Lanie’s pulse began racing
as she picked up her phone from the nightstand next to her bed and saw the
all-too-familiar number.

Brayden
Forman.
 

Why?
 
Why would he be calling her back?

She quickly declined the call.

But a few seconds later, the buzzing
started and his number reappeared insistently on her phone’s screen.

She declined yet again.

Her heart was practically beating through
her ribcage now.

What could he possibly want—to humiliate
her some more?
  

“Oh God, just leave me alone, please,”
she whined.

And then his number popped up again, so she
rejected his call once more.

Eventually,
he’ll have to get the hint and leave me alone.
 
He’s got better things to do with his
time than harass me.

There was a long pause, which steadily
grew longer until Lanie realized he must have given up.
 
Strangely, her heart sank a little.
 
It was as if, on some level, she
actually wanted him to keep trying to call her.

Are
you insane?
 
You want this?
 
You want that jerk in your life?

She felt confused, anxious, sweaty and
out of sorts as she sat up in her bed and stared at the now mute cell phone in
her hands.

And then, a loud buzzing rang out loudly
from the hallway.

“Oh, shit!” she cried.

It was the intercom system.

It buzzed incessantly, as if someone was outside
the building, standing at the entrance and holding down the buzzer.

It couldn’t be him, though.
 
There was no way he’d come to her
apartment just to stand out there and buzz her intercom.
 
It made no sense.
 
Had to be a coincidence.

How on earth could Brayden Forman even
know where she lived?
 
She hadn’t
left a copy of her resume or anything.

He didn’t know.
  
 

Getting slowly off the bed, she tried to
calm her breathing.

It’s
not him.
 
Just knock it off,
Lanie.
 
Relax.

And yet, if it wasn’t Brayden out there,
then who was it?
 
Who was outside in
the darkness buzzing her apartment?

Whoever it was, they definitely wanted to
get inside.

Lanie walked slowly to the door to her
apartment and pressed the intercom button down to speak.
 
“Hello?” she said, her voice quiet,
subdued.
 
“Who’s there?”

And then she heard the sounds of the door
to the building being opened and someone walking up the staircase.

They’d been let inside.

They’d gotten into the building and now
she could hear the footfalls on the stairs as that person came up to her floor.

I’m
not answering.

My
door’s locked and if I stay quiet, they won’t know if I’m in the apartment or
not.

Except
you already answered the intercom, silly.
 
So they do know you’re here.

Lanie made another frustrated whine and
paced quietly near her door, not knowing what to do.

Finally, the footsteps approached her
apartment and she could hear the floor creaking right outside her doorway.

There was a brief silence and then a
loud, startling knock.

She jumped a little, but kept quiet.
 
Now there was another,
even louder, more insistent knock.

Don’t
respond.
 
Keep quiet.
 
Stay still.

She didn’t move a muscle.
 
She prayed for whomever it was to just
leave, just go away already and stop scaring her.

“Lanie, I know you’re in there.”
 

The voice was unmistakable.
 
Brayden Forman was standing in her
hallway right now.

Lanie hesitated.
 
What was she supposed to do now?
 
Why was he out there?
 
What could he possibly want from
her?
 

Finally, she got up her nerve and yelled
out.
 
“Please go away,” she said.

“No,” came the instant reply from just
outside the door.

She blinked, stunned.
 

Did
he really just say no to me?
 
Did he
actually refuse to leave?

“It’s my apartment,” she called out.
 
“This is private property.
 
Please leave or…or…”

“Or what?” Brayden said calmly.
 
He almost sounded amused.

“I’ll call the police,” she announced.

“No you won’t, Lanie.”

She felt simultaneously angry,
frightened, embarrassed…but also a little bit excited.
 

He was here for some reason.

And she couldn’t deny that she liked the
sound of his voice, as strange as that was given everything that had already
transpired between them.

But there was something oddly comforting
in him being out there, standing just outside the door—and now the
darkness didn’t seem so threatening.

As long as Brayden was here, nothing else
bad could really be happening.
 
Brayden, in some bizarre way that Lanie could hardly fathom, was
safe
.

“What do you want?” she finally asked.

“Open the door.”

She let out a deep sigh and trudged
forward, unlocking the deadbolt and then turning the handle, throwing open the
door to her apartment.

“I’m not in any condition to have
visitors,” she said, immediately turning and shuffling away from him.
 
“I’m in my pajamas.
 
I was just about to go to sleep,
actually.”

“And your hair’s still damp from the
bath,” he said, closing the door behind him.

She froze, unable to even look at
him.
 
She’d gotten a few feet away,
into the living room and all her empty and half empty boxes.

“That’s not funny,” she said.

“Who said I was trying to be funny?”

She turned and finally looked at him.
 
Really took in everything that was
Brayden Forman in the flesh.