Sweet Seduction Stripped
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Authors: Nicola Claire
Sweet Seduction Stripped
The Sweet Seduction Series, Book Seven
By Nicola Claire
Copyright © 2014, Nicola Claire
All Rights Reserved
ISBN: 978-0-473-28225-7
nicolaclairebooks.blogspot.com
This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places and incidents are products of the writer's imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locales or organisations is entirely coincidental.
All rights are reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission from the author.
Cover Art by Nicola Claire
Image credit: 123RF Stock Photo
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# 9065483
Chapter 2: You're Not Meant To Be In New Zealand
Chapter 3: Yeah, Sweetheart. Don't We All.
Chapter 4: I'm One Of The Good Guys
Chapter 5: He'll Kill You If He Finds Out
Chapter 6: Knowing I Wanted It To Be Me
Chapter 9: Sweetheart, In Some Things I Am Very, Very Bad Indeed
Chapter 10: It's Gonna Be A Long Night, Be Prepared
Chapter 11: I'm The Knight In Shining Armour
Chapter 12: Fuck, You Are So Good At That, Amber
Chapter 13: Just Take Fucking Care, Yeah
Chapter 14: Do Your Worst, Jaxon
Chapter 16: I Knew All About Possession
Chapter 18: Remember When I Told You In Some Things I Am Very, Very Bad?
Chapter 21: Here We Fuckin' Go Again
Chapter 24: I'm Right Here, Dancer
Chapter 28: Welcome To My Wicked, Wicked World
Chapter 30: Never Let It Be Said That What Can Break Us Can Never Make Us Shine
Chapter 31: In The End, It's Quite Simple
Chapter 32: You Never Need To Ask
Chapter 33: Well, This Is Fucking Whacked
Chapter 35: Nick, It's A Clusterfuck
Chapter 37: Girl, You Got Some Fine Moves On You
A Flare Of Heat (H.E.A.T. #1) Preview
Kindred Series
Mixed Blessing Mystery Series
Dark Shadow (Coming Soon)
Sweet Seduction Series
Sweet Seduction Stripped
Sweet Seduction Secrets (Coming Soon)
Elemental Awakening Series
The Chilling Change Of Air (Coming Soon)
H.E.A.T. Series
A Touch Of Heat (Coming Soon)
For: My Sweet-Seduction-ites!
You asked for more hot-rush-hotties.
You asked for more from the male lead's POV.
You asked for more of the Sweet Seduction sex-kittens.
This one is for you...
Baby, Sleep Well
The cursor blinked incessantly, but not its usual comforting pulse. This was ominous, frightening. The beat a little too fast, matching the sudden spike in the rate of my heart.
It didn't help that as I'd sat here - numbed, chilled, utterly blind-sided - more than half an hour had passed and the sun no longer illuminated the sky outside the window where I was. Just an eerie electronic glow from the computer screen in front of me, interrupted with the taunting flash of the cursor on the screen; waiting for my next command.
But I didn't have one. I couldn't think. All I could see was the now blurred outline of code on my screen. Code that I had stupidly thought would impress Jaxon, but instead changed
everything
.
How had I been so blind?
My hands shook as I reached for the keyboard, fingers trembling as I finally began erasing my footsteps. Knowing I needed to be thorough.
My life depended on it.
Knowing there had to be absolutely no trace that I had ever been here, seen this. That I knew.
Bile surged up my throat as line after line of text decrypted before my eyes. But it was too late. I'd read it. I couldn't undo that fact. I couldn't rewrite my brain as easily as I rewrote this code. For the rest of my life I would know.
But I couldn't let a single soul realise I did.
How the hell had I missed this?
You think you know someone,
really
know them. You think you understand their hopes and desires, their loves and hates. Their aspirations, their beliefs, their core values.
But you don't know them at all.
How had he hidden this side of himself from me?
Abruptly the bile surged further and I barely made the rubbish bin at the side of the desk. Retching into the container, feeling my insides crawl up my throat. My chest ached. My heart fluttered erratically. Tears streamed down my cheeks.
Oh dear God. How do I hide my reaction to this?
I can't. I just can't. I have to leave.
But Jaxon would never let me go, not without reason. That's what attracted me to him in the first place. Slightly arrogant, extremely confident, and totally obsessed. With me. There's nothing better than having a handsome, self-possessed male do the chasing. But whereas I'd always looked at his determined pursuit in a flattering light before now, I wondered if in fact I'd just been his prey.
How to escape? I was too entrenched, too intricately woven into the fabric of his life. For fuck's sake, he'd paid for my tuition. He'd posed for photos at my graduation. He'd moved me into his luxury apartment. He paid my wages, he directed my career.
He owned me.
If I'd had more in my stomach to vomit, I would have. As it is, I was sure I was doing damage to my oesophagus, the acrid bile burning a path up my gullet.
I sat back in the chair, sweat beading my upper lip and across my brow, and stared at the now blank screen before me. Relief was brief in its visit. If what I'd seen was true, then Jaxon could possibly already know secured files on the system had been opened.
I was good at what I did, but was I good enough?
My fingers flexed, the urge to recheck my retreat all consuming. But the best way to hide your tracks is to overlay them with something else. Hidden in amongst a plethora of inconsequential details. Random clusters of irrelevant data, making the real reason you were there seem lost in the chaos.
I started meticulously opening and closing unsecured files. Making notations,
doing what I was now paid to do
. Ensuring the system was foolproof. That's what my new job title included. Security IT consultant to C&C Enterprises. I much preferred my old employee responsibilities. Waitressing and once-upon-a-time dancing at an exclusive gentleman's club suddenly held appeal it had all but lost in recent months.
Swinging around a stripper's pole never felt so carefree before tonight.
Not that Jaxon let me dance anymore once we started dating. I moved from on top of the stage, to in front of it. Champagne flutes and silver trays my props, rather than glitter covered, itty-bitty bikinis.
An hour later and I was sure I'd done a decent job of hiding my trail. My hands still shook. I was coated in sticky perspiration. My stomach a churning ball of fire. I'd masked what I'd discovered, but I hadn't nearly gotten a handle on how I felt.
Nor did I have an answer on how I would escape this nightmare I'd woken up in.
I glanced around the office, thankful this had transpired while at home.
Home. I shook my head. This wasn't my home now. It felt more like a prison. Every inch of this space reminded me of where exactly Jaxon had got the money for his lifestyle. Of how exactly he'd obtained the necessary cash to live like this.
The desk was antique. Mahogany, I think. The chair was one of those ultra lumbar supporting ones, an orthopaedic design to aid in correct posture. Couldn't have his perfect princess stooping, now could we?
Why hadn't I seen his control for what it undoubtedly was?
The artwork was a mix of modern and impressionist. I stared harder at a painting of an English countryside scene and wondered if it wasn't a print, like I had previously suspected. Was the art stolen? Was it his way of laundering cash?
My hand rubbed my belly as panted breaths escaped my pursed lips.
Pack a bag and run
, my heart told me.
He'd chase you down and put a bullet in your head,
my mind replied, a little too chillingly.
I knew too much. I was part of this world, even if only blindly, ignorantly until today. I was employed by one of the top men in a former drug lord's immediate circle of trusted confidants. And not just to entertain his clients. I was now part of the security team designed to hide his devious acts.
Did he know I'd find that file? Was it a trap to see how I would react? Behave? Was he, even now, loading a bullet in a gun to silence me forever?
I couldn't believe he'd be so naive to think I couldn't have cracked that code. Did he just think I wouldn't go there? Not the curious type. I'd given him reason to suspect that, I supposed. Never questioned his late night calls. Never asked how the manager of a gentleman's club could afford luxury accommodation such as this. Never demanded to know where he went in the middle of the night so unexpectedly.
But I'm a live-and-let-live kind of girl. Jaxon treated me right, looked after me, supported me; emotionally, physically and professionally. I had no reason to believe his motives weren't pure.
So why did I open that file when I saw it was encrypted?
Because code is the only place I have ever wanted to delve into. Strip back. Lay bare. Not the man I was sleeping with. Not the place that paid my wages and put me through university. Not the hand that fed me. But code. Glorious, spell-binding, line after line of intricate command... programme code.
I have lived for computer data since I first found my way onto my father's desktop iMac at the age of thirteen. Late for some hackers. But I was a quick study. Started writing my own code six months after stripping back Dad's computer. Turned the operating system into a gaming console, locked my father out, and made him think the machine had just malfunctioned.
I moved it from the rubbish pile into my room. The first of many.
It's not that I'm devious. I just lose all perspective when faced with code.
Had Jaxon seen that in me? Is that why he singled me out and nurtured my career?
I was already eight months into a computer science degree at Auckland University when he took an interest in me. I'd been dancing at the Champagne & Chandeliers Gentleman's club for three months by then. Paying my course fees, rent and the petrol in my small ancient Mazda car.
Five months later he'd worn me down. Shifted me from up on the stage to waiting on the tables, moved me into his apartment, and replaced the Mazda with a brand new Peugeot 208.
And I let him. Because he understood my love of writing code. Encouraged me, made it possible to do the expensive advanced courses at uni, showered me with state of the art computers and challenged me with the occasional complex code.
With a shock I realised it was all a lie. A ruse to manipulate my training to exactly where he needed it to be. He'd been careful, made sure I only saw innocent programmes that on their own were benign. My mind hurriedly went back over what Jaxon had shown me, let me work on, and with dawning mortification I understood their implications if seen in a different light. Combined in a different fashion.
I stumbled from the office and entered the large lounge. The full floor length windows showcasing an uninterrupted view of Auckland's skyline, including the iconic Sky Tower. Safety beacons glinted off vessels in the Hauraki Gulf. House lights on Waiheke Island blinked back across mirror calm waters. The city was waking up for another mesmerising night, full of promise and seduction, luring the weak, trapping the innocent. Filling the air with a type of passion that bordered on the insane.
I loved this city.
I had never been so afraid of it before now.
I stared at those lights for too long. My body shivering from a chill that did not exist on the air in the temperature controlled opulence of this room. It was all me. Inside me. Slowing my reflexes down, making it impossible to think of what to do next.
He'd hidden it so well. Treated me so good. I'd never suspected this.
I felt betrayed.
I had to leave.
I couldn't stay.
I needed to escape while I still could.
The front door rattled, a key being inserted in the lock.
Panic gripped me. He was home. Earlier than expected.
Because he knows what I've done, what I've seen? Because he suspects I'll run. And he won't let me.
Frantically my eyes scanned the dark space I stood in, glued to the priceless Persian carpet on the parquet floor. Heavy brass lamp base on the table to the left. Marble statuette of Venus on a plinth to the right. Murano glass bowl on the table before me. The kitchen was too far away, but I knew a butcher's block of sharp knives stood next to the six burner stainless steel gas hob at the far end. The ivory coat stand in the entranceway housed two pointed-tipped golf umbrellas.
That was it. The gym was down a floor, the dumbbells in it as good as useless from here. The bedrooms up a floor and although I knew Jaxon kept weapons in the walk-in-wardrobe, they were locked in a gun safe and inaccessible to me. The office was the seat of the crime, and I wasn't going there again any time soon.
I realised too late that I was standing in the darkness. No lights had been turned on. So, when Jaxon flicked the switch in the entranceway and bright white flowed to the room, I was momentarily blinded. Several hard and fast blinks of my eyes later and he was already standing at the door.
Watching me. Face expressionless. The width of his shoulders making it appear he brushed both sides of the doorway frame. He was dressed for a night at the club. Slight sheen to his made-to-measure silk suit jacket, dark colours complemented by a splash of blood-red in his tie.
Red is for passion,
he'd once told me.
I'll always wear red if you're in my life.
Red was also the colour of blood.
The blood on his hands.
"Baby? What are you doing hiding in the dark?"
He sounded like Jaxon. Deep, gravelly. I used to think sexy, now I just knew it for what it was. A smoker's voice. A criminal's voice. Hardened, not sex-roughened. Sinister, not husky.
"I just walked in here," I managed to say and was surprised at the normalcy in my tone.
His eyes darted down the hall, no doubt noting no illumination there either. If I'd just walked in here, why wasn't the hall or office light on?
I'd never noticed how he took so much in before. One simple glance. One assessing gaze. He could derive so much from such a casual move. Whip-like intelligence. Something else that had attracted me to the man.
Now it could be my downfall.
He hadn't pounced. He wasn't holding a drawn gun, although I knew weapons would be concealed on his form. He didn't look angry. Just puzzled. And concerned.
I made a rash decision, an instant assessment of my own. He didn't know.
With my blood thundering through my veins, and a sickness I wasn't sure I could quell inside my stomach, I took a step toward him, attempting to plaster a natural expression on my face.
There'd be a reason why he was home early and if it wasn't because I'd cracked his security code, then it was for something else. And under normal circumstances, I'd have asked.
I needed to behave like everything was normal.
God help me, because it most certainly was not.
"This is a nice surprise," I said, my voice only quivering slightly. "Did you come home for me?" To kill me. To silence me.
"I missed you, baby," he purred, closing the distance between us and somehow falling for my ruse.
His arms wrapped around my body, making me realise just how buffed Jaxon actually was. I'd always liked the muscles. Who wouldn't? Now I just saw them as tools for him to do harm. I felt so fragile in his embrace. I felt trapped as his lips trailed over my sweat soaked skin. I felt sick as he licked a trail up the side of my neck.