by Josie Litton
~~~~~~~~~~~~
EXCERPT
Lucas
I was in the kitchen, spreading cream cheese on a bagel, when I heard an odd sound. At first, I didn’t pay much attention. There are a lot of strange sounds in any building. You get used to them after a while. I’d only been here since yesterday and I was still adjusting to the place. I’d even admit to being a little jumpy but whatever I heard was just wrong somehow. It sounded almost like…
Metal tearing loose from wood.
I turned and looked through the kitchen into the adjacent pantry just in time to see the latch fly off the double doors of the dumbwaiter in there. That quaint little invention still found in some older buildings amounts to a miniature elevator handy for hauling groceries and other small items up to individual apartments. But it seemed that someone had found another use for it.
The doors banged open and a woman came hurtling through them. My brain registered a quick impression--blonde, endless legs, violet suit or dress, whatever. Mostly, my reaction was straightforward: What the hell?
Her momentum was so great that she ended up sprawled half-on the counter in front of the dumbwaiter with the rest of her angling down toward the floor. As entrances went, hers was ungainly, startling, and quite likely illegal. Unless she had a damn good reason for being in the dumbwaiter--not much chance of that--she’d just broken into the apartment where I was staying.
On occasion, women have done crazy things to get my attention--shown up at my door in nothing but stilettos and a smile, for example. Not unusual for a guy with my wealth and public profile who was also--I would modestly admit--not hard to look at. But none of them had ever gone this far. At once, I dismissed the possibility that the blonde had seduction in mind.
Best case scenario, she was a thief expecting to find the place empty and clever enough to exploit a weakness in the security system that no one had thought to fix. That was bad enough but the fact that her appearance came hours after I’d been warned that someone might be gunning for me limited my options.
I had no idea how seriously to take the threat. Granted, New York real estate is a high stakes game and people with more money than morals can end up disappointed. They still don’t generally put out a contract on the guy who told them ‘no’. All the same, if there was a time to err on the side of caution, this was it.
With that in mind, I didn’t hesitate. Before the woman could get to her feet, I got to her, slamming her up against the wall with my arm at her throat. My intent was to control her long enough to find out what she was doing here while providing just enough physical intimidation to get her to tell me.
But Blondie had other ideas. Her head reared back, then quickly slammed forward in a move intended to jam the cartilage of my nose up into my brain. I barely managed to avoid the blow while also fending off what she was trying to do to my balls and the rest of me.
Any lingering doubt I had about how to deal with her vanished. So far as I was concerned, she was clearly the person in the wrong. All I was doing was defending myself. If she wanted to fight dirty, fine by me.
To that end, I pressed my arm harder against her throat to let her know that I was serious and snarled, “Stop it!”
I was using my chest to keep her trapped up against the wall. One of my thighs was wedged between hers. Bastard that I am, I couldn’t help noticing that she was all long legs, full breasts, and willowy curves.
That was distracting but I still had enough sense to know that my first priority had to be securing whatever weapon she might be carrying. Still, as I moved my hand over her, feeling for a gun or knife, I may have lingered a little longer than was strictly necessary.
Her breath started coming in shallow little pants that I associate with a different kind of physical activity. That definitely didn’t help the situation. Nor did the fact that she was still struggling, so much so that the softness of her flat, smooth abdomen kept rubbing against my groin.
After the shower I’d just taken, I wasn’t wearing anything other than a towel around my hips and it wasn’t much of a barrier between us. It sure as hell didn’t conceal the fact that I was suddenly getting hard.
That was just downright disturbing. I like my women compliant, purring under my hand and begging for more. Trying to crush my balls and rip my eyes out doesn’t do it for me. Still, the truth was that I was becoming aroused for reasons I didn’t care to examine--caveman stuff on the level of controlling the furious wildcat in my arms and bending her to my will, definitely not my usual style.
I was trying to sort that out while coming to terms with the fact that she wasn’t armed when a shudder ran through her, her eyes rolled back and she suddenly went limp.
Shit!
I yanked my arm from her throat and caught her as she started to slide to the ground. Holding her, I stared down at her in shock. I didn’t think that I’d put so much pressure on her throat that she could pass out from it. I sure as hell hadn’t intended to no matter how she was trying to hurt me but the evidence was there all the same.
For a moment, all I could feel was disgust at what I’d done. In an instant, I confirmed that she was breathing, thank god, but out for the count. Scooping her up, I carried her into the living room and laid her down on the couch.
As I did so, I couldn’t help noticing that my earlier impression that she was a damn attractive woman wasn’t mistaken. It just fell far short of the mark. From the top of the silky blond hair tumbling loose from a twist at the back of her head to the bottom of her long legs, she was the stuff of dreams, the wet kind. Her face was oval, a little softer than the angular look a lot of women strive for, with a gently rounded chin and a mouth…
Sweet lord, that mouth. Luscious didn’t begin to describe it. Full, moist, soft, a perfect shade of pink ripening toward rose that looked entirely natural. All too easily, I could imagine it wrapped around my cock while she--
It was official; I was a sick bastard. She was lying there unconscious and all I could think of was--
That I had a good opportunity to figure out who she was before she came to. But first, I didn’t want to take the chance that she’d wake up suddenly and try to leave. Or do me some serious bodily harm, which by now I might just possibly deserve. That she wasn’t armed didn’t matter. There were plenty of items within easy reach that could be turned into a weapon.
At least that’s how I justified in my own mind what I did next. Yanking a fancy tie-back off one of drapes hanging to either side of an arch at the entrance to the living room, I hesitated only a second before using it to lash her wrists together.
Looking down at the dark fabric against her smooth, pale skin, I was shocked--yet again--when my hard-on went to a whole new level. I’d played with bondage with partners who were inclined that way, and I’d enjoyed the sense of dominance but this was different. It didn’t feel like a game. It was real.
And I was responding to it in a way that I’d never suspected I was capable of.
Later, when this was all over, I could figure out what had come over me or better yet just forget it had ever happened. But for now, I checked her breathing again. It was slower and deeper, a lot closer to normal.
Reassured that she’d be fine--at least until she woke up and realized what I’d done--I headed back to the pantry. Sure enough, several items were still in the dumbwaiter, including a pair of slim, flat shoes, a cell phone, and a small purse.
I went for the purse first. The wallet tucked into it yielded a driver’s license from the State of New York. The picture confirmed that it was hers.
So who exactly had taken a ride up a pitch black shaft, crammed into a space just big enough for a few grocery bags, in order to break into the apartment where I was staying?
I held the license up and read the name on it.
Emma Whittaker.
She was twenty-one, at least for another month, didn’t need corrective lenses, had O positive blood, was willing to be an organ donor, living at--
Emma
Whittaker?
As in the Emma Whittaker?
The young woman who just a few years back was at the center of the fire storm that rocked the financial world and for a while at least made her the top target of every bottom feeding paparazzi and internet troll on the planet?
That Emma Whittaker?
Well, shit, this was starting to get interesting.
A hard and, I’m sure, not particularly pleasant smile curved my mouth as I wondered why exactly the woman America loved to hate had suddenly walked--or better yet hurtled--into my life.
CARESS is Complete! No waiting, no cliffhangers!
CARESS Part One
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CARESS Part Two
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CARESS Part Three
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This book is a work of fiction. All names, characters, locations, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or have been used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, locales, or events is entirely coincidental.
Copyright 2016 Josie Litton. All rights reserved.
CHOSEN Part Four
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