What He Shields (What He Wants Book Seventeen) (12 page)

“Because if you had a boyfriend, he wouldn’t
have let you audition to be a stripper.
 
And if he did, he’s not the kind of man I’d want taking care of you
tonight.”

“And you are?”
 
I shot back.
 
Yes, I was lying, but if Colt was so
concerned about my imaginary boyfriend letting me go to a stripping audition,
then shouldn’t he have
been
 
concerned
about how he was the
one running the strip club?

“No.”

“No what?”

“No, I wouldn’t be the one I’d want taking care
of you.
 
But unfortunately for you,
Princess, you’re stuck with me.”

He was pulling the car into the parking garage
of a building now, and my pulse quickened as I realized I was alone with him
and I didn’t even know him.
 
It
wasn’t much different than going home with a stranger,
which
is essentially what he was.
 
Just
because I knew his name and where he worked didn’t mean it was safe.
 

He pulled into parking spot with a bright yellow
RESERVED sign on the front.
 
As we
got closer, I saw that the space was marked PENTHOUSE.
 
So he had the penthouse.
 
God, could he have been any more of a
cliché?
 
He ran a strip club and
lived in a penthouse.
 
And drove a
hot car.

He got out of the car and came around to the
side and opened my door for me.
 
I
stepped out into the parking lot.

“Thanks,” I said.

“You’re welcome.”
 
His eyes flicked down to my wrist again,
his gaze lingering on my scars.
 
I
quickly yanked the sleeves of my shirt down, and this time, he didn’t ask
questions.

“Let’s go,” he said.
 
He took my hand and pulled me toward the
elevator.

***

His apartment was just what you’d expect
– guy central.
 
An enormous flat screen TV, black leather couches, a huge black and
white circle rug on the hardwood floor.
 
The only thing that was surprising was
the art on the walls.

There were huge abstract paintings in shades of
red, black, white, and turquoise.
 
They added
a certain
elegance to the place,
making it seem like the apartment of a man who had sophisticated tastes,
instead of a boy who just threw everything together because he had money and
thought it looked cool.

Colt headed to the bar and poured two drinks,
then handed one to me, his eyes never leaving mine.

“I don’t drink,” I said.

He raised his eyebrows.
 
“You don’t drink?”

“No.”
 
Growing up in foster homes made you go either one of two ways –
you either ended up drinking like most of your foster parents, or you became
determined not to end up like them, and so you stayed far away from
alcohol.
 
I was the latter.

“You wanted to be a stripper and you don’t
drink?”
 
He threw his head back and
laughed, like this was the funniest thing in the world.

“Can you show me where I’ll be sleeping?” I
asked.
 
My tone was clear –
that he’d better not think we’d be sleeping in the same bed.
 

“Sure.”
 
He took a long slow sip from his glass, then turned and started walking
up the spiral staircase that was on the other side of the room.
 
I hesitated, not sure I should follow
him. The thought of being alone upstairs with him sent a shiver down my
spine.
 
My stomach twisted into
knots – but it wasn’t out of fear.
 
It was very strange – even though I didn’t know anything about
Colt, I sensed deep down that he wasn’t going to hurt me.
 
In fact, his presence, although
mysterious and dark, was also somehow soothing.

I followed him up the stairs to a room at the
end of the hall.

He opened the door for me.

“There are towels in the closet in the
bathroom,” he said.

I nodded.
 
“Thank you.”
 

He looked me up and down, his gaze lingering on
my lips.
 
I thought again about how
close I came to kissing him, and my face flushed.
 

“You should have a nap,” Colt said.
 
“Let me know if you need anything else.”

And then, just like that, he was gone.

I looked around the room – it was simple
and tasteful.
 
A cream-colored
platform bed rested against the far wall, covered with a cream-and-blue
comforter. A small nightstand was next to it, and on it
was
a silver clock, a plant with wide green leaves that seemed to be real, and a
stack of books.

I ran my hand over the spines.
 
All philosophy books.

I turned to the adjoining bathroom.

It was small, but modern, with a mosaic-tiled
shower and a basin sink.

In the closet I found fluffy robes and fluffy
towels.
 
I ran my hand over the soft
fabric.
 
I couldn’t remember the
last time I had a shower with a fluffy towel, or even a shower where there
weren’t a bunch of people waiting for me to finish.
 

The shower had a dial so you could digitally
set the temperature to be as cold or as warm as you wanted, and I set it as
high as I could stand, then got in and let the water slide over my body.
 
I washed my hair with a coconut shampoo
that was sitting on a rack in the bathroom, then wrapped myself in a towel and
returned to the bedroom.

There was a tray resting on the bed, and
sitting on top of it was a bowl of soup and a sandwich.
 
BLT.
 
My favorite.
 
Next to that
was
a neatly folded gray t-shirt and a pair of track pants.

I hadn’t eaten anything all day – this
morning at the shelter they were serving oatmeal with raisins, and I stayed
away from the oatmeal there since one time last month when one of my raisins
turned out to be a fly.
 

I ate the sandwich hungrily.
 
I wondered if Colt had made it
himself.
 
The sandwich was surprisingly
good – the bacon was salty and warm, the lettuce crisp and fresh.
 

When I was done eating, I brushed my teeth with
a fresh toothbrush I found under the sink,
then
dried
my hair with the hair drying hanging on the wall.

I changed into the clothes he’d left for me and
then slid under the sheets.

They were silky and smooth and felt foreign
against my skin.

 
I
was sure I wouldn’t be able to fall asleep.
 
The bed was foreign, the place strange,
not to mention that Colt was downstairs.

But a second after I closed my eyes
,
 
I
was in a
dream.

I was back in my foster home, the one at the
Dalys
, the one where I met Liam.
 
Mr. Daly, or Frank as he liked us to
call him, was making me put birthday candles into this huge cake that was made
out of dirt and grass. I started putting them in one by one, but every time I’d
put in a new candle, one of the other candles would fall.
 
Mr. Daly stood in the corner with a
belt, his eyes looking sad as he shook his head back and forth.
 
“You’re not doing it right, Olivia,” he
said sadly.
 
“You’re not doing it
right.”

Then Declan was there, reaching out, holding my
hand,
guiding
me to put the candles in right.
 
I was happy.
 
But then, out of nowhere, the belt came
down over Declan’s hand, smashing into the cake.

“No!” I screamed.

My eyes flew open.

My heart was pounding, my face flushed.
 
I sat up in bed, panicked, not sure
where I was.
 
Then I
remembered.
 
The
strip club.
 
Colt.
 
His apartment.

I
laid
back down and
tried to calm myself.
 
But it
wasn’t
 
going
to
work.
 
I knew it wasn’t going to
work.

There was only one thing to do.

I got up and headed for the bathroom, grabbing
my purse as I went.
 
Once I was
there, I pulled out my compact, then reached under the mirror and pulled out my
razor blade.

It glinted in the light, and I put the edge up
to my skin.
 
I liked to cut my arms.
I knew it was a risk, that I should try for something on my thigh, or even
further up my arm.
 
But nothing
calmed me more than cutting my arms.
 

The first cut didn’t go deep.
 
It
was
 
superficial
, just a tiny little
nick, one that hardly even drew any blood.
 
It was a tease of the release that was to come, like ordering an
appetizer before your main meal so you could take the edge off.

I was just about to make a second, bigger cut
when the door to the bathroom went flying open.

Colt was standing there, wearing a white
t-shirt and a pair of dark blue sweatpants.
 
His hair was wet and a little messy,
like he’d just gotten out of the shower.
 
He looked at me, his face dark.

“I heard you yell,” he said.
 
“I needed to make sure you were okay.”

“I was having a dream.”

He looked down at the razor in my hand, then at
the cut on my arm.
 
His gaze slid
back up and met mine, and something passed between us.
 
I could tell he knew exactly what I was
doing.
 
He knew I was cutting, he
knew I was doing it for a release.
 
It made me wonder how he knew– if he was a cutter, too.
 
But one glance at the smooth skin of his
forearms and I knew he wasn’t.
 
I
wondered if he was going to ask me to stop.

I froze, the razor still pressed against my
arm.
 
It was an exquisite torture,
thinking you were about to get a release and then being caught.

Colt crossed the room in two long strides,
reached out and gently took the razor out of my hand.
 
He set it on the sink and then turned my
arm over in his hand.

He studied my cut.
 
A thin line of dark red blood had
appeared on my skin.
 
But instead of
chastising me or asking me why I was doing this to myself, he pulled a band-aid
and Neosporin out of the medicine cabinet.

“It’s okay,” I said.
 
“I can do it.”
 

He raised his eyebrows at me, like he couldn’t
trust me to do even the simplest thing.
 
Then he squeezed a bit of Neosporin onto the band-aid and
put
 
the
bandage
over my cut.

“Thank you,” I said, taking my hand back.
 
It burned from where he touched me.

He didn’t say you’re welcome.
 
Instead, he just stared.
 
His eyes were deep and calm, and they
surveyed me like he was in charge, like he could do whatever he wanted with
me.
 
The silence stretched between
us for a moment, and I raised my chin at him, daring him to tell me to get
out.
 
If he did, I wouldn’t
care.
 
I wasn’t afraid to go back to
the shelter.

But he didn’t kick me out.

Instead, he licked his top lip and moved toward
me.

He was so tall that he leaned down over me so
he could whisper in my ear.

“You want to forget everything?” he
breathed.
 
“You want to let yourself
feel a release?”
 
He was so close I
could feel the heat radiating between us.
 
His skin was smooth, gorgeous, and he reached down and took my chin
between his
forefinger
and thumb, tilted it up so that
I was forced to look at him.

There was an amused glint in his eyes.
 
“I can make you forget everything,
Princess,” he said.
 
The pad of his
thumb slid gently over my bottom lip, sending waves of heat through my body.

He moved closer, so close his lips were almost
touching mine, but not quite.
 
“Do
you want to forget?” he asked me again.

His arm wrapped around my back, and his hand
trailed down over my spine.
 
I
shivered.
 
My nipples hardened under
the thin t-shirt I was wearing, and that same out-of-control feeling rushed
over me, the one I had back at the club when I was dancing for him.