The Obsessed With Him Series: Complete Box Set (A Bad Boy Romance) (4 page)

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.”

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.

I’d start with the robes in the closet, I decided. I’d pull them off the hangers and throw them onto the floor. Then I’d strip the bed. Everything in the room was done in light colors– white robes, cream sheets, cream bedding. Who had a room where everything was white or cream? People who were rich enough so that they don’t have to worry about laundry, I guessed.

I started a countdown in my head.

Ten… nine… eight…

“Whatever,” Colt said into the phone, sighing. “I’ll be right there.”

He hung up the phone before I could even get to seven, which was disappointing.

“I want to leave,” I said.

“Your clothes aren’t done being washed.”

“You can send them to me,” I said, challenging. “You can wrap them up in a box and have Kendra bring them down to the post office.”

“No one uses the post office anymore,” he said. “You have someone come and pick things up. From UPS.”

I narrowed my eyes at him. “God, I hate you.”

He smiled. “No, you don’t.”

“Yes, I do.”

“No.” He shook his head. “You hate yourself because you
don’t
hate me.”

“Stop telling me how I feel!”

“I know how you feel,” he said, walking back over to me. “You feel good. Soft. Sexy.” He breathed the last word right into my ear, and I swallowed, frozen in place. No one had ever called me sexy before.

He ran his hands up my arms, then reached over and grabbed the zipper on my sweatshirt. “If you want your clothes back,” he said, sliding the zipper down slowly. “I can go and find them. But I’m going to need my sweatshirt back.” His knuckles grazed my breast again, and his touch sent electricity through me.

His eyes were on mine, and I couldn’t explain it, but in that moment, I felt this intense connection to him. I felt like he was supposed to be here, in my life. Or I was supposed to be in his. It was crazy, especially since he had just been pissing me off so bad.

Was this lust? I wasn’t sure I’d ever felt lust before. Yes, I’d noticed hot guys, in real life, and on TV and such, but this was different. It wasn’t just physical, which I’d always thought lust was. This was emotions and physical feelings all rolled up into one, pulling me up and down, high and low. One moment I hated this guy, the next minute I was resisting the urge to lie down on his bed and let him do whatever he wanted to me.

It was confusing and thrilling and made me feel like I was losing my damn mind. Even with Declan it hadn’t been like this.

Declan.

“It’s okay,” I said, shrugging the sweatshirt back onto my shoulders. “I can just wear this back to the shelter. Um, if it’s okay with you.”

Colt shrugged and backed away, and in a flash, I hated him again. How could his presence be having such an affect on me while he seemed so obviously
un
affected?

Guys like him didn’t go for girls like me. I wasn’t hot enough, or rich enough, or interesting enough, and even though he’d called me sexy, I had a hard time believing it. He liked messing with me. Anything else didn’t make any sense.

W
hen we got
to his car, Colt opened the passenger side door for me.

“Thanks,” I said, sliding into the seat.

He walked around and got in next to me, then reached over and grabbed my seatbelt, pulling it across and buckling me in.

“I can put on my own seat belt,” I said. “I’m not a child.”

“Then why didn’t you?”

“Because I don’t usually wear my seat belt.” It was true. I wasn’t afraid of getting in a car accident. I wasn’t afraid of pain, or of death. I wasn’t afraid of anything except for being at the mercy of another person, or of never finding Declan again.

“That’s foolish.” He kicked the car into reverse and peeled out of his parking spot, then gunned the engine up the ramp and out onto the street.