Miss Taken (6 page)

FOURTEEN

He bit her. That son of a bitch bit her and gave her some kind of virus that made her horny as fuck. She needed her phone. She had to look up what he’d done to her. Dammit. Fully dressed again, she glanced around the bedroom with frustration. The guy was so damn neat she could see nothing out of place. Of course that meant he also had no electronics in his bedroom. What kind of man didn’t own a TV?

Had she not been struck stupid by his amazing cock and tongue, she could have asked to use his cell phone instead of worrying about how good he looked naked.

She slipped between the bed sheets and sighed. Tomorrow she’d ask for his phone. She could look up Carly’s number from the company website. It was damn sad she didn’t know any other cell phone numbers, but who memorizes info in their phone—that’s why we have the phone, so we don’t have to remember. She’d relied on her phone like a lifeline. Now she didn’t have it and didn’t know how to live. As it was, her fingers itched to check her emails.

* * *

The following morning, she walked out of the bedroom with purpose. Her ankle wasn’t hurting as much. The purple was changing colors and the swelling had gone down enough she could actually walk. The night before, she found a bottle of painkillers in her bag, so she swallowed a couple. They’d helped her sleep and not think about Luke. Or his body. Or his tongue.

She caught him in the kitchen, dressed for fall instead of the bitter cold outside.

“Good morning,” she said, clearing her throat and eyeing the coffee maker.

He glanced at her from the cup of coffee he had in his hand. “Good morning. Coffee?”

She nodded. “Yes, please. I need something to wake me up or I’ll spend the day yawning.”

He grabbed a second mug from the dish rack. “Want me to prepare it or do you like to do it yourself?”

She licked her lips and offered her hand. “I got it.”

She spooned sugar and cream into her mug, all the while trying to stop her girl bits from flooding her panties with wetness. He looked like the typical woodsman. He wore a checkered shirt, opened at the collar with a pair of well-worn jeans that made his legs and ass look hotter than summer in Florida. Her gaze ran up to his face and air caught in her lungs. His icy blue eyes stared back at her filled with lust. Talk about making a girl feel sexy first thing in the morning.

His beard had grown thicker and his scar was almost fully covered by hair. She wanted to rub her palm on his jaw.

“Do you leave the short beard on purpose to make women’s hormones stupid?”

A slow smile curled over his lips. He took a sip of his coffee before shaking his head. “No.”

She drank her own coffee and internally moaned as he scrubbed a hand over his jaw. “You sure?”

He laughed. “Positive.” Then he took a step closer and inhaled. “You like it.”

Liked it? His beard had been the centerfold of her dreams the previous night. It had been rubbed all over her body and even made her come with long, shudders when he ate her pussy.

Someone knocked at the door. She jumped back a step and brought the coffee mug to her lips.

He opened the door and let his friend Bastien in.

“Let’s do a quick scan around the house,” Luke said.

“Good morning to you too,” Bastien said, pushing his glasses up his nose.

She wished she had a second pair with her. The constant squinting gave her horrible headaches.

“Good morning,” she smiled at the other hunky man. Unlike Luke, Bastien had broader shoulders with the same height, making him appear huge. She didn’t know what kind of shifter he was, but with his friendly smile she guessed a nice animal like a bunny or something.

“Hello. I’m Bastien,” he grinned, “the nice neighbor.”

“I’m Kira,” she pointed down at her foot, “the clumsy stranger.”

Luke turned to face Kira. “We’ll only be a few minutes. Then we need to go up the hill where I found you.”

“I want to go with you,” she said and raised a hand when he appeared ready to argue. “I don’t want to stay here alone.”

He nodded. “I can understand that. I don’t want you alone either.”

She let that sentence slide. Why would he care about her being alone in his house? But her belly did flip-flops and she got way too excited over his concern.

“Before you go out, can I borrow your cell phone?”

He gave her a penetrating look and handed her his phone. “We’ll only be a few steps away from the house. If you need me, poke your head out the door. And call my name.”

Whoa! That sounded bad. Call his name. Like she’d almost done the night when she’d been on top of him, riding him and using his cock to find her own release.

She nodded and watched both men leave the house. Luke’s phone was a top of the line smartphone like hers. She pulled up his web browser and searched up her company contact information.

Carly would think she was insane for going when the weather was bad, but Kira was too busy with work to remember to check for storms.

She dialed the office and took her mug to the living room.

“Rakida Construction,” the receptionist answered. “How may I direct your call?”

“Hi, Liz, it’s Kira. Connect me with Carly Toblan please.”

“Sure thing, Ms. Ardan. Have a great day,” the receptionist said and clicked a button, effectively sending Kira’s call to another ringing line.

“Kira Ardan’s office, this is Carly. How may I help you?”

“Carly, it’s Kira.” She took a sip of her coffee and flexed her foot.

“Kira? Where the hell are you?”

FIFTEEN

“Hang on, let me go into your office,” Carly whispered. She waited for a moment, listening to Carly as she shuffled, opened, and shut Kira’s office door. “Where are you?”

“In some cabin in the middle of no-fucking-where Raging Falls,” she replied, dropping her head back and glancing at the ceiling. “My car died during the beginning of the storm. I fell down a hill and twisted my ankle and my phone is dead.” She sighed after her long explanation. “I was unconscious for a day, but feel like it’s been weeks and not a day since I drove up here.”

“Well, you’re right about that. And I think you must have been unconscious a lot longer than one day. It’s been three days since you left.”

“What?”

“Yes,” Carly said. “Your asshole of a brother has been nagging the shit out of me asking me where you are,” she hissed, anger loud in her voice.

“He doesn’t know where I am.”

Carly sighed. “Of course, he does. He has access to your executive calendar just like you have access to his. You made a note that you’d go out to the Falls.”

Crap. “Sorry, I forgot all about that.”

“I swear to god, if you don’t get married soon, I might quit if I have to deal with him any longer.”

She thought about her father’s stupid set up. Marriage. Who the hell forced their kids to get married nowadays to inherit a company? It was preposterous.

“Kira, there is something you should know. Peter had some visitors the last couple days. Guys-in-shiny-suits type people.”

“It’s not unheard of him to meet clients, Carly. I don’t understand.”

Kira sighed. “They don’t look like those types of business people. They look shady, and well, to be honest, scary. Your brother freaked out after you left demanding to know where you were, what was taking so long for the information about the falls, and things like that. I have never seen him like that before.”

“With him you never know what he’s gotten himself into. As long as he doesn’t screw up my company, it's his business. Let's forget about Peter and get to why I am up here. Then maybe we can figure out what's going on with him and keep my company safe. Have you found anything about who owns Raging Falls?”

Carly shuffled through papers. “I put some stuff on your desk yesterday. It looks like the falls are owned by multiple owners,” she said. “I don’t have names yet, but I have this guy who works for the same lawyer’s office they use trying to find out for me.”

Kira raised her brows. “You know someone there?”

“Eh. This guy who’s been asking me out for the longest is a new partner at that firm. I had to promise him a single date, but if it gets us what we need, then I’m okay with that.”

Bless her heart. Kira couldn’t have asked for a better friend. She felt bad for Carly sometimes. Growing up without a mother made her cling to her asshole of a father. It’s what helped the two of them become such good friends as kids.

“Listen, don’t let Peter know I called. He’s going to start harassing you for info I don’t have. Can you do me a favor and keep an eye out. I can’t afford to trust him, be careful, but let me know if you see anything else suspicious going on please. I’m going to ask the guy who’s letting me stay with him some questions today.”

“Wait,” Carly gasped. “Guy? Why did I think you were staying with a family or something?” Her voice lowered. “Is he hot?”

“Carly!”

Carly giggled. “What? Come on you can’t just drop a line about staying in a cabin with a guy and not tell me if he’s hot.”

“Oh, all right. Hot is not the word,” she mused. The man was so sexy she could spend the day staring at him like a school girl with her first crush. “He’s fucking smokin’. Scorching. Burn the house down and throw water at it hot. So hot I don’t have glasses and can see how panty-wetting gorgeous he is.” She remembered his face between her legs, licking her. Her body immediately responded, slickening at her aching folds.

“Wow. All that without glasses?” Carly mumbled. “Did you get him naked already?”

“Carly!”

“What? I mean that’s so not your style, but shit, I’d have if he was as good looking as you’re making him sound. I want to see this fine specimen,” Carly said, excited.

“Oh, trust me. The minute your ass comes over here to pick me up, you’ll see him.”

“Damn, Kira. You know the storm is bad out at Raging Falls. It stopped snowing, but you all got like two feet of snow and more is on the way. The roads leading up there are closed.”

She should have known. She should have listened to her instincts or at least the weather. Now she would be stuck there for god knew how long. The image of Luke fucking her by the fire ran through her mind. Okay, so it wouldn’t be a hardship to stay with him, but still. She had work to do. She needed to find the owners of the land and see what she could say to make sure they didn’t tear her brother apart when he threw money at them.

“It’s fine. I don’t know the number I’m calling you from, so if you have caller ID, write it down. I’ll give you another call when I hear more about the weather or if I find out anything about the land owners.”

“I’ll go on my date in the next day or two. Whatever he shares, I’ll let you know next time we talk,” Carly said. “I have to go. Someone is knocking on your office door and I think it might be your dick face brother.”

“Good luck,” she winced. “Don’t let him push you around.”

Carly laughed. “I might be short, but I’m fierce.”

Kira shut off the call and glanced at her cold coffee. She listened for movement around the house, but heard nothing. This was how it had been when she and her mom used to go camping. Her mom took her everywhere with her. It had taken Kira a long time to realize her mother didn’t want Kira to grow up with her father’s personality. So much anger and frustration.

She remembered asking her mom when they were on one of their camping trips, why her father was always mad. Kira had only been around six or so at the time, but she could still hear her mother’s words in her head.

“Deep down he is a good man, baby. He has given us everything we could ever need or want. Look what he has done with my company. He made it a huge business. One day it will be all yours.”

If her mom had only known what type of stipulations her father would put down. To be forced to his will. To be controlled and bossed around. She needed to stop thinking about this, it was only getting her riled up and she had things to do.

Kira walked back to the room and put on her boots. They slipped on her feet without any problems. Now she could walk outdoors with the men and not worry about her feet getting wet.

“Kira?” Luke called out.

She rushed to put on her hoodie and coat. With her gloves and hat in hand, she darted to the kitchen. “I’m here.”

“Are you sure you’re up to walking?” he asked, glancing at her booted feet. “How’s your ankle?”

“Yes. I want to walk around. I might not run, but I do walk a lot.” She stepped harder on her ankle. There was a twinge of discomfort, but nothing she couldn’t handle. “I think I’ll be fine as long as I don’t put all my body weight on one foot.”

SIXTEEN

“Come on,” he offered a hand and it was natural for her to take it. She didn’t think about it until they were outside, walking in the deep snow.

“This is crazy,” she murmured. The snow reached her knees. She was short at only five-foot-one, but the guys didn’t appear fazed over the amount of snow.

“What’s crazy?” Bastien asked. “I’m sure you see snow where you live.”

She did. She lived an hour from Raging Falls, but her apartment building was state-of-the art with heated driveways and someone was always on call to shovel the snow. In the city, it was harder to measure the amount of snow than out there.

Wind whipped around them, slapping her cheeks with a biting sting. “Shit, it’s cold.” She took giant steps to move. It was awkward and damn difficult, but she’d keep up with them. “Don’t you get cold?”

Luke glanced down at her with a frown. He took the scarf from his neck and wrapped it over her flimsy one. His was warm and toasty and smelled of him. She didn’t bother rejecting it. She wanted it on her. That was another thing. She needed to evaluate why she was feeling so attached to him.

She couldn’t forget he’d bitten her. The ramifications of that could be major. What if she grew a tail? The whole needing him more than her next breath was strangely erotic. She’d never been very sexual in the past. Her mind was always too consumed with work and mergers. Now all she wanted was to get Luke to fuck her by the nearest tree and cold be damned.

The trees were almost bare of leaves. She should have known the storm was going to be bad. All she’d had to do was listen to the news. She hated the news, though. It was torture. Her father had been obsessed with the news when she’d been a kid. Their household never watched anything but news. It had been so traumatic that once she grew up, she realized the sound of the news made her stomach twist in knots.

“What do you do, Bastien?” she asked, trying to make conversation. The two men were good at walking quietly. It was starting to get to her.

“I’m a builder,” he replied with an easy grin.

“Really?” She lifted interested brows and continued trekking through the snow. “What do you build?”

“Furniture.”

Wow. He was probably the kind of person she needed on her payroll. Imagine having someone who could build one-of-a-kind pieces for her new constructions and use those as incentives for buyers?

Luke stopped dead in his tracks. She glanced around, trying to figure out what made him stop. She squinted at the ground and gasped. “Is that blood?”

They hurried forward to the trail of red.

“That’s blood all right,” Luke grunted. “I can’t get a good scent. It’s frozen over.”

Bastien moved closer to squat down by the trail. “I can’t get one either. We’ll have to call around and find out if anyone’s missing.”

“Oh, my god. That’s a lot of blood,” she said. “Maybe if we follow the trail we’ll find a body or something.”

She hated the idea, but she couldn’t imagine someone surviving the harsh conditions they’d had the previous night while bleeding.

They moved forward, following the winding trail between trees until they reached the edge of the hill.

“It just ends right here,” she frowned and looked up the rocky side of the hill. “I don’t see any blood going up that way. Where did the body go?”

“Shifters heal very quickly, so it’s likely whoever it was stopped bleeding and went on home. Not much you can do at that point, but let nature mend the body. Usually nothing to worry over too much. But if the shot was to the head or heart, the body could be buried under the snow anywhere.”

She glanced around, remembering the area more or less. “I fell around here, didn’t I?”

Luke nodded. “Farther south, but it all looks the same under a blanket of snow.” He turned to Bastien. “Call around. Ask the others if they’ve seen anyone injured. See who’s missing a person. Someone may not have made it home last night.”

“I’ll go up the hill and see what I find,” Bastien said. “Make some calls and get back to you.”

Luke turned to face her. “You’re freezing.”

Was she? She’d shoved her hands deep into her coat pockets and her face had gone numb a while back. She should have invested in the coat that heated. That’s what Carly suggested one year. With Kira getting cold at the drop of a dime, it was good advice.

“Maybe a little,” she agreed.

The snow had gotten into the top of her boots and chilled wetness seeped through her clothes, sending shivers up her spine.

“We walked a lot. Let’s get back to the cabin. I need to call my mother.”

She pulled her lip balm out of her pocket and rubbed it over her frozen lips. She wasn’t doing that because he might kiss her. No. Not even a little because of that. She did it because chapped lips sucked. If he happened to kiss her, then she would have kissable lips. Frozen, but kissable.

They headed back to his cabin without Bastien. “You lived here long?”

“All my life.”

She nodded. “It’s really beautiful. I can’t imagine how wonderful it would have been growing up on this mountain. All this room to run and play and have fun. I guess with you being a shifter it was the best place you could be. Do you know who owns this place?”

“Back into the work mode of trying to buy off the land?” he said, his voice rough with a hint of anger.

“Sorry. I guess I’m just curious at this point. Peter has been so obsessed with Raging Falls that it makes me want to find out what they think of his offers.”

Luke shrugged. “They refused them.”

He had to know the owners, but she understood his need to keep it to himself. Knowing she was part of Rakida didn’t give the man warm fuzzies.

“When I was a kid, my mom used to say my father’s biggest flaw was his determination.” She huffed out a cold breath. “When he wanted something, you better watch it, there was no ignoring him. Peter is just like that.”

“What happened to your mother?” he asked, grabbing her arm to help her over a particular large mound of snow covering a broken trunk.

“She died of cancer,” she said softly. It still hurt to say. She’d been the light of Kira’s life. Always offering her the best advice and only asking for love in return.

“I’m sorry,” he said softly. “I can tell it’s still painful.”

“Yes,” she agreed. Hurt like a bitch. “When I was little, she loved going camping and saying ‘listen to the outdoors,
mi hija
.’ She loved how quiet and peaceful everything was.” She couldn’t seem to stop talking. It was the atmosphere. And Luke. His silence made it easier for her to keep going. “I was never into camping.” She laughed.

“Why not?” He stopped and cupped her face, tugging her head to make her look at him.

“I’ve never been outdoorsy,” she admitted. “Don’t get me wrong. I walk and hike and love to swim. I mean I keep my curvy ass in the best shape I can, but the whole bug business wasn’t something I was interested in.”