What He Shields (What He Wants Book Seventeen) (9 page)

Suddenly, a frantic scratching noise came from
a door off the kitchen.

Noah moved toward it and turned the knob.

A
orange
tabby cat came running out, giving me a meow before rubbing against my legs.

“Fuck,” Noah swore, as he looked into the
bedroom.
 
He rushed through the door
and I followed him.

I stopped in the doorway, bile rising in my
throat as I took in the scene before me.
 

John
lay
on the bed,
naked on a dirty mattress, porn magazines spread out before him.

There was a plastic bag wrapped around his
neck, each end tied with sticks.

His face was red, his eyes bulging grotesquely from
his head.

“Jesus,” Noah said, shredding the plastic bag
quickly with his hands in order to remove it.

He put his fingers on the side of John’s neck,
his other hand already tipping John’s head back, ready to begin CPR.

But a few seconds later, Noah’s shoulders
tensed and he let go of John’s wrist.

He looked at me.

But I knew what he was going to say before he
said it.

“He’s dead.”

END OF BOOK SEVENTEEN –
LOOK FOR BOOK EIGHTEEN, COMING SOON

In the meantime, please turn
the page to enjoy the first three books of Hannah Ford’s OBSESSED WITH HIM
series, included here as bonus books.

***

Some
promises are meant to be broken… 
Twenty-year-old Olivia Reilly has promised herself to one man and one man only
– her best friend and
soulmate
, Declan Keene.
And she’s kept that promise, through countless foster homes and moves across
state. She’s never even kissed a man – all because of a vow she made to
Declan
years ago. There’s only one problem. She doesn’t know
where Declan is. 

Enter
Colt Cannon. When Olivia starts working for the sexy and dangerous bad boy, she
asks him to help her find Declan. Surely someone with Colt’s money and power
will be able to track him down. Colt agrees, but he also demands something of
Olivia in return. Something dark, sexual, and dangerous that will test her will
and
push
her self-control to its limits. 

But
as Olivia’s about to find out, sometimes the pleasure is worth the pain. And
some promises are just begging to be broken…

OBSESSED
WITH HIM

(OBSESSED WITH HIM, BOOK ONE)

By Hannah Ford

Copyright 2015, Hannah Ford, all rights
reserved.
 
This book is a work of
fiction, and any resemblance to any persons, living or dead, is entirely
coincidental.

***

Taking my clothes off in front of strangers
suddenly seemed like a horrible idea.
 
I imagined the men waiting for me in there, their hands roaming my body,
running over my breasts, my hips, my ass.

I hesitated, not sure I should go into Loose
Cannons after all.

It didn’t look like a strip club.

But that was probably how they lured you
in.
 
They made it look like any
other bar or restaurant, innocent and unassuming, so that when you walked in,
you wouldn’t feel like you were doing anything wrong.

I swallowed hard and looked down at the paper
in my hand, the one I’d printed out that morning.
 
I was clutching it so hard it was
wrinkled around the edges, and I smoothed it out against my thigh.
 
My palms were sweaty, and I wiped them
off on the denim skirt I was wearing.

“DANCERS WANTED,” the ad said.
 
“EARN UP TO 1,000 DOLLARS A NIGHT,
GUARANTEED.
 
NO EXPERIENCE
NECESSARY.
 
APPLY IN PERSON, LOOSE
CANNONS, 1800 NORTH MAIN STREET.”

There were no hours given, which I’d thought
was strange.
 
What was I supposed to
do?
 
Just show up whenever?
 
I’d called the club that morning to ask,
and the girl who’d answered the phone hadn’t been all that friendly.
 
She instructed me to come down whenever
I wanted and then she’d hung up on me.

I could have – probably
should
have -- taken it as a sign not to
pursue this crazy idea any further.
 
But I was desperate.
 
And
desperation could make a person do crazy things.

I took a deep breath and caught sight of my
reflection in the mirrored front door.
 
It was bizarre, the way the front door was a mirror -- it was almost
like they wanted you to have to look at yourself, to confront exactly what it
was you were about to do.

Are you
sure you want to do this?
 
a
voice in my
whispered.
 
Do you know what they might make you do in there?
 
Take off your clothes.
 
For strange men.
 
You’ve never even kissed a boy, how are
you going to do that?

I adjusted the denim skirt I was wearing.
 
It was fringed on the bottom and hit
just above the knee.
 
It wasn’t
exactly sexy – you could find the same exact skirt in every Old Navy or
Gap in the world, and it was completely appropriate for everyday wear.

But it was the only thing I had that showed a
little skin. It was one of the only things I had,
period.
 
After aging out
of foster care and then being kicked out of my group home last week (which,
trust me, I wasn’t sad to leave), all my possessions fit into one garbage bag.

The sheer white top I was wearing was a
button-up, and I wore a black push-up bra under it, so that the outline of the
bra was visible under the shirt. Was that sexy?
 
I wasn’t really sure.
 
But I figured anything that allowed your
underwear to show was a step in the right direction.

I flipped my head over and shook out my long
blonde hair.
 
It was the one thing I
wasn’t self-conscious about.
 
Everything else – my body, my smile, my skin – I could find
flaws with.
 
But I liked my
hair.
 
As I flipped back over, my
eyes locked on my reflection again.

What the
hell are you doing, Olivia?
 

I pushed my hair off my face and took a deep
breath.
 

Just relax, I told myself.
 
You’re twenty years old, stop acting
like a baby.
 
This is just a way to
make a little money.
 
A temporary way.
 

But I could hear the voice of Karl, my foster
father, whispering in my head.
 
This is where white trash girls like you end
up.

I squared my shoulders, and as I did, the
sleeve of my shirt slid up and I caught sight of the scars on my wrist.
 
Twisted and red,
tangled with a fresh red cut from last night.
 
Last night, when I was missing Declan so
bad I couldn’t take it anymore.
 
I’d
ended up in the bathroom of the shelter, quietly unwrapping one of the
disposable razors they gave you as part of the welcome kit.

I quickly pulled my sleeve down.
 
I needed to hide the scars.
 
At least for now– I knew I
couldn’t hide them forever.
 
I
couldn’t hide anything forever if I was going to be naked.

Anxiety welled up in my chest and the urge to
cut, to take the edge off, welled up with it.
 
My feet took a step away from the door,
almost like they wanted to run away.
 
But I forced myself to turn back.

And then I opened the door and walked into the
club.

***

There was no one inside.
 

Actually, that wasn’t true.

There was a girl behind the bar, drying beer
glasses with a cloth.

The girl glanced at me as I walked in, and then
immediately ignored me.

I looked around, taking the place in.
 
Long red velvet couches lined the huge,
oval shaped room.
 
There was a stage
in the center, with an aisle that led out from behind a black and white leopard
print curtain.
 
A spotlight moved in
a lazy pattern over the shiny black stage.
 

Even in here, it didn’t look like a strip
club.
 
It looked like a really fancy
bar, or one of those big tents where they did fashion shows on America’s Next
Top Model.
 

Part of me had actually been hoping it was
going to be completely
skeezy
.
 
If Loose Cannons had been gross and
dirty and disgusting, I would have had an excuse to run out of there as fast as
my legs would carry me.
 
It was
almost worse that it wasn’t as bad as I’d imagined.

“We don’t open until seven,” the girl behind
the bar yelled across the room.
 
“The girls will be going on then.
 
We don’t do a day service.”
 
From her clipped tone and snotty pout, I could only assume she’d been
the one I’d talked to on the phone.

“Oh.”
 
I cleared my throat.
 
“I was
told that I could come in anytime to try out.
 
That it didn’t have to be during normal
hours.”
 
I didn’t want to try out
during normal hours.
 
Who knows what
they’d make me do during normal hours?
 
Maybe put me on stage in front of a bunch of people.

This got the bartender’s attention.
 
She looked up sharply from the glass she
was drying, and her eyes slid up and down my body.
 
I could practically feel her judgment
permeating the room, and I wondered for a moment if she had some kind of pull
over who got a job here.

Maybe Loose Cannons was one of those strip
clubs that was run by a woman. I pushed my shoulders back and marched over to
the bar.

“Hi,” I said, giving her a smile.
 
“My name’s Olivia.”

The bartender had bright blue eyes, and she
looked me up and down again. “You’ve got to be kidding me,” she mumbled under
her breath.
 
She was wearing a tight
black leather vest with nothing under it.
 
It ended just under her breasts and her stomach was tight and
toned.
 
She had a tattoo of angel
wings around her belly button.
  
She reached over and picked up a cordless phone that was sitting on the
bar.
 

“Colt,” she said.
 
“Someone’s here.
 
An audition.”
 
She paused and scrunched up her
nose.
 
“Definitely not.”
 
She hung up the phone.
  
“Colt will be out in a minute.”

Colt must have been the owner.
 
I pictured him as an older man who wore
shiny button-up shirts and lots of gold chains.
 
Hopefully he would be nice.

I heard him before I saw him.

He came up behind me, his voice as smooth as
silk.
 
“You here to see me?”
 
My pulse sped up and my heart started to
race.
 
I turned around and came face
to face with the most gorgeous man I had ever seen in my life.

He was younger than I’d imagined –
probably only twenty-six or twenty-seven.
 
Everything about him was dark – dark eyes, dark hair,
beautiful
tan skin.
 
His eyes looked right
into mine and one side of his
mouth slid up into a grin
.
 
His jaw was chiseled, with just the tiniest bit of
a
stubble
.
 
There was a small
scar on the top of his lip, but it didn’t take away from his looks – if
anything, it added to them.
 
The
rest of him was so gorgeous, that the scar kept him from being too
model-pretty.
 
He was wearing jeans
and a black t-shirt
 
-- it was the
kind of t-shirt that was supposed to look casual, but you could tell it was
expensive from how beautifully it was cut, how it hugged his ripped biceps and
broad chest in all the right places.

He smelled like a mix of beer and cigarette
smoke and cologne and danger.
 
I
felt dizzy just being around him.

“Um I’m not…” I faltered.
 
“I mean, yes, I am here to see you.
 
I mean
,
I’m
here to try out.
 
You know, to
audition.”
 
I could tell I was
blowing it, acting like a simpering idiot.

Get it together, Olivia, I told myself.
 
Who cared if this guy was hot? He was
probably a grade-A douchebag.
 
Especially if he was running a strip club.

“Okay,” he said.
 
He stood there for a beat longer than
necessary.
 
He was still looking
right into my eyes and I forced myself to keep his gaze.
 
If he thought I was going to look away,
he was wrong.
 
“Come with me.”

He turned around and started heading back
behind the stage, moving toward a set of double doors.
 
I hesitated for a moment.
 
It was one thing to be out here, in the
middle of an empty strip club. But now I was about to follow some guy I’d never
met before into the back room.
 
Who
knew what was waiting for me back there?

Maybe I wasn’t ready for this.
 
Maybe there was something else I could
do, some other job I could find.
 
But I knew there wasn’t.
 
I
was at rock bottom.
 
And if I didn’t
do something about it soon, I was going to end up even more lost and desperate
than I already was.

So after a moment, I followed Colt.

***

He led me down a long hallway and into a small
back room.
 
I wasn’t sure if it was
supposed to be an office or not.
 
There was a huge mahogany desk in one corner, but there was also a
stripper pole in the middle of the room.
 
The floor was covered with a crushed purple and black carpet, except for
an octagon in the middle of the room that was hardwood.
 
That’s where the pole was.
 
Around the pole were a bunch of big
leather chairs, the kind of chairs you’d see executives sitting in while they
watched a screening of a movie.

I licked my lips and wiped my palms against my
skirt.
 

“Why don’t you take a seat?” Colt said.
 
He sat down in one of the big executive
chairs and motioned for me to sit in one of the others.

I did as I was
told,
crossing my legs in what I hoped was a sexy manner.
 
Be confident, I told myself.
 
You got this.