by Tara Wyatt
Chapter 10
Taylor flopped down on her couch, pajamas on, hair up, a glass of wine in one hand and her phone in the other. She was out of gas for the day, even though it was only nine. After the sound check with Walker, she’d had lunch with Jeremy and several label executives. She’d assured them that she was hard at work on the new album.
While at lunch, someone at the restaurant had tipped off the paparazzi, and the sidewalk had been crowded with photographers as she exited. Her stomach fluttered as she remembered how Colt had handled the situation. He’d sheltered her from the lenses as they’d shouted at her, asking her rude questions about the plane incident, trying to get a reaction, and thus get better pictures that would fetch more money from the photo agencies. She was used to dealing with the paparazzi, and they usually didn’t bother her much. But today, they’d gotten closer than usual, screaming at her, asking her how many times she’d joined the mile-high club, if she thought her slutty behavior was a bad example to her young fans, if she minded America having a laugh at her expense. She must’ve looked angry, or scared, or panicked (and she had been), because Colt had leaned in close and spoken directly into her ear, saying “Hey, you’re okay. I’m not gonna let anything happen to you.” His words—spoken in his deep, rumbly voice—had washed over her, calming and settling her. Then he’d turned around and barked at the photographers to “back the fuck up,” his green eyes flashing in a way that had her entire body pulsing with heat.
After the sound check with Walker, lunch, and dealing with paparazzi, she’d headed back to the Sanctuary to work some more. It was as though something—or someone—had fixed whatever had broken inside of her, and the music was flowing out of her at an almost alarming rate. She’d come home wiped and had barely had the energy to eat a salad and take a quick shower.
She stretched, took a sip of wine and settled in to the couch, knowing she had several unanswered texts and e-mails to deal with. But instead of opening them, she found herself glancing at the stairs, her body practically vibrating with the knowledge that she and Colt were alone in her house together.
Rolling her eyes at herself, she texted Sierra.
Taylor: Colt is a sexy beast, you busy?
Her eyes widened in shock as she saw what she’d sent. She’d typed “hey,” not “Colt is a sexy beast.” God. She must really be exhausted. Giving her head a shake to clear the cobwebs, she tried again.
Taylor: Sorry, I don’t know wtf that was. Didn’t mean to type that, obvi. Was only trying to type Colt is a sexy beast.
In that moment, she remembered that she’d left her purse—and in it, her phone—with Colt at the sound check. Clearly, he’d done something to it as payback for the strippers.
Sierra: Um…are you ok?
Taylor: I’m Harry Potter.
She grunted in frustration. She’d simply tried to type “yes.”
Taylor: For fuck’s sake.
Taylor: I’m Harry Potter.
She snarled at her phone. Apparently “yes” was out as well.
Sierra: Ok…? I’m not busy. What’s up, boy wizard?
Reading Sierra’s text, Taylor almost choked on her wine, sputtering with laughter.
Taylor: I have an extra ticket to the thing tomorrow night, if you want to come.
Sierra: I can’t, I have a photoshoot thing in Malibu all day.
Taylor: Have you seen my vibrator?
Taylor: Jesus! I can’t even type Have you seen my vibrator?
“Goddammit, Colt!” She swore through gritted teeth. She’d tried to type “ok.” And he’d programmed her phone to change “ok” to “Have you seen my vibrator?”
Sierra: I’m laughing so hard right now.
Taylor: I’m going to kill Colt, King of all that is awesome, who has a large and aesthetically pleasing penis.
Taylor closed her eyes and exhaled slowly through her nose as it became crystal clear what Colt had done. He’d changed the shortcuts for various words, so that if she typed something, the texting app automatically inserted the shortcut he’d created. If she weren’t so tired, she probably would’ve figured it out faster.
Sierra: Tears. I have tears.
Taylor: I give up. He who shall not be named fucked around with my phone.
Sierra: Who’s Colt?
Taylor: My stupid bodyguard.
Sierra: Since when do you have a bodyguard?
Taylor stared at her phone, running an index finger over her bottom lip as she thought. She didn’t normally keep things from Sierra, but she didn’t want to get into the whole story right now.
Taylor: It’s kind of a long story, but it’s not because I’m in any danger or anything like that. It’s just the label being overcautious dicks. Talk to you later P.S. I have a huge crush on Justin Bieber.
Taylor closed her eyes and pressed her hand to her forehead. Oh, she would get him for this. When her brain was fully alert, she’d think of something.
Sierra: I’m never deleting this conversation. Ever. We still on for Karaoke on Wednesday? Chloe’s back!
She’d been about to type “yes,” but remembered that it was out of commission.
Taylor: For sure. I’m going to spend the night at the STD clinic and plot my revenge.
Taylor: FUCK
And he’d changed “home” to “the STD clinic.” Classy. But try as she might, she couldn’t suppress the laughter spilling out of her.
Sierra: Good thing it’s only me you’re texting. God, I can’t breathe. My stomach hurts.
Taylor: I’m Harry Potter. It’s hilarious.
Crap. She navigated to her shortcuts and reset everything, clearing all of the ridiculous (but admittedly hilarious) shortcuts Colt had put in. After a second, Taylor’s phone buzzed again with another text.
Sierra: Wait. Is Colt’s last name Priestley?
Taylor: Uh, yeah. Why?
Sierra: He used to work for Virtus, before I started dating Sean. He’s the reason Sean has that scar on his cheek. Sean fired him, and doesn’t think much of him. Be careful, Taylor.
Taylor frowned as she absorbed that piece of information. Colt had never mentioned working for Virtus, but then again, why would he? She felt guilty for keeping Sierra out of the loop, but now that she knew Colt was a former Virtus bodyguard, she was glad she hadn’t told Sierra about the one-night stand. Taylor was still trying to sort through how she felt about him, and she didn’t need any extra complications right now, like tension between her and Sierra because of any involvement Taylor might have with Colt.
Taylor: I will. Do me a favor?
Sierra: Anything.
Taylor: Maybe don’t mention this to Sean? He’ll swoop in and be all overprotective, and I don’t want Virtus involved.
There was a long pause between messages, and Taylor hated that she was asking Sierra to deliberately keep information from her boyfriend.
Sierra: Because of Zack?
Taylor: Yeah. Exactly.
Sierra: I understand. I won’t say anything to him. For now. Night, T.
After responding to a couple of e-mails and proofreading everything twice to make sure there were no surprises, she glanced in the direction of the stairs again. Chewing her lip, she pushed up off the couch and took the stairs two at a time, unsure what she was even doing. Unsure if talking to him was a good idea.
Although when it came to Colt, her sense of good idea / bad idea was skewed, because he made her forget all of the shit, all of the pain, of the past few months. He made her laugh, made her feel good. She could be herself around him, and there was something so freeing about that. She could swear and drink and play stupid pranks, and he liked it. Being around him made her forget that her heart wasn’t only damaged but unwanted.
Which was an incredibly dangerous thing for her to forget. And yet here she was, knocking on his bedroom door. She heard movement on the other side, and she nearly swallowed her tongue when he pulled it open. He stood there in nothing but a white towel, knotted dangerously low arou
nd his hips, and looking like the sex god she knew he was. Water dripped from his mussed hair and onto his gorgeously sculpted chest, his skin fresh and damp. She watched as a drop fell onto the Ranger tattoo covering his left pec, and she curled her fingers into her palms, stifling the urge to trace the drop’s path, to trail her fingers along the edges of the tattoo. He took a breath, his abs contracting with the motion, and she clenched her thighs. For a second, they just stared at each other, and she could feel the weight of his green eyes as they dragged over her body. He smiled that cocky half smile and moved his big hands from the door frame to his hips, drawing attention to the muscular V that disappeared under the towel. It was slung so low that she could see where the faint happy trail of light brown hair started to become thicker.
“You’re an ass,” she said before her brain stopped working entirely and she forgot why she’d knocked on his door in the first place. “Don’t fuck with my phone.”
“I didn’t. I improved it.”
She bit her lip, chomping down the smile that so desperately wanted to break free. “I’m surprised you didn’t take a picture of your dick and set it as my wallpaper.”
Humor and something darker and hotter flashed in his eyes. “Damn. Didn’t think of that.” He moved his hands slightly lower, his fingertips on the edge of the towel. “Guess that means you want to see it again, huh?”
She wasn’t sure if that was a challenge, a threat, or an invitation, and she bit down on her lip harder, this time suppressing the whimper rising up in her throat. God. She never fucking learned.
“You wish,” she said, the slight tremble in her voice giving away just how turned on she was.
He studied her intently, his eyes doing a slow sweep down and then back up her body. The towel twitched as his growing erection tented the cotton. “You’re right. I do.”
Her stomach did a somersault, and she took a deep breath, unsure what to say next. Before she could formulate a response, he’d backed her up against the wall, one hand on either side of her, caging her in. The towel slipped a fraction of an inch, and she couldn’t help but glance down.
“Taylor.” Colt’s voice was low and rough, and she tore her eyes away from his now fully erect cock beneath the towel and back to his face, her breath catching in her throat at the heat there. “You can run, and you can push me away, and you can put up wall after wall. But I’m not going anywhere, gorgeous.”
“Of course you’re not. It’s your job to—”
He cut her off by inching closer, his cock pressing against her hip. “This has nothing to do with my job, and everything to do with us.”
“That has everything to do with you getting me in bed again, and nothing to do with us because there is no us.”
“There could be, if you’d let me in. We would be so fucking great together, Taylor. In and out of bed.”
With his strong, masculine body surrounding her, his scent filling her, his eyes practically devouring her, she found herself wanting to give in, to take what he was offering. He wasn’t wrong. They were like fire between the sheets, but there was more to it than that. She liked how she felt when she was with him. Liked that she could laugh with him and be herself. But to have all of that meant opening herself up in a way she wasn’t sure she could handle. With Sierra’s warning echoing through her mind, she ducked under his arm and stepped away from him.
“Don’t touch my phone again.” It was the only thing she could think to say before she practically ran down the hall, locking her bedroom door behind her.
Chapter 11
Taylor opened her eyes slowly and rolled over in bed, pulling the covers tighter around her shoulders and burrowing her head into the pillow. After an hour of restless tossing and turning, her mind spinning with anything and everything to do with Colt, she’d finally drifted off into a light, uneasy sleep. She let her eyelids fall again and had just started to sink back into sleep when a steady, sharp knocking pulled her back to the surface. Tension snapping through her, she pushed herself up to sitting and rubbed a hand over her face, listening to the knocking echo through her silent house. She grabbed her phone to check the time: 1:04 A.M.
The knocking stopped for a second, and she curled her fingers around her phone, holding it against her chest. She forced herself to take a shaky breath and then threw back the covers. Her bedroom was at the back of the house, and before she reached the guest room at the front of the house, the knocking started again, louder and more insistent this time. She jumped and her phone fell out of her hand, clattering on the hardwood floor. Scooping it up, she hurried to the guest room just as Colt flung open the door, his gun clutched in one hand, wearing nothing but a pair of snug, black boxer briefs. His hair was mussed and a faint crease line adorned one cheek.
Pushing past him and into the room, Taylor peeked cautiously through the curtains. A Harley sat in her driveway, and her chest constricted almost painfully. Even now, all these years later, the sight of that black-and-orange logo churned her stomach, making her want to heave.
“Do you know who that is?” Colt’s voice rumbled from behind her, low and rough with sleep. He peered over her shoulder, his breath fanning against her shoulder.
“My…my dad.” She held completely still, barely even breathing, her skin both too hot and too cold at the same time. She watched as her father paced from her front door into her driveway, peering up at the house, and with a gasp, she ducked down under the window. Colt turned to head down the stairs, but she reached out, her hand brushing his bare calf. “Don’t. Please. Just wait for him to go.”
Somehow, he’d found her, and was now intent on banging down her door in the middle of the night. All the strength slid out of her muscles, and she sank to the floor, pulling her knees to her chest as her heart pushed up into her throat. Fear and anger coiled into tight little knots in her chest, making it hard to breathe. She hated that after all these years, he still had this kind of power over her.
“I know you’re in there! Taylor!” Something crashed against the door, rattling it. “I need to talk to you. Get out here!”
“I’m not just going to stand here while he tries to break your goddamn door down.” Colt checked the clip on his gun and again moved toward the bedroom door.
“No! Colt, he’s dangerous. Please, just wait with me. Please don’t leave me alone.”
His nostrils flared as he looked out the window, toward the door, and back down at where Taylor was crouched on the floor. She looked up at him, and she felt as though flames were licking at her skin. The sight of him above her—muscles tensed, gun clutched in one big hand, practically naked—seared through her, and the tiniest whimper pushed its way past her lips. In the semidark, their eyes met, and something in his expression softened. After a second, he sank onto the floor beside her and slipped his arms around her, pulling her into his chest. She closed her eyes and pressed her face into him, using the steady beat of his heart against her cheek to anchor herself against the fear until after several minutes, the knocking stopped, and the roar of a motorcycle ripped through the night.
* * *
Colt stroked a hand over Taylor’s messy blond hair as tension radiated across his jaw. He clamped his teeth together, fighting the urge to go out there and confront the man who’d made the blood drain from Taylor’s face. Whatever the bastard had done to make Taylor so afraid of him, Colt wanted to make him pay for it. “You okay?”
She eased away from him, twisting her fingers together, and an almost overwhelming sense of protectiveness rocked into him, tilting his world for a second. “I’m sorry.”
“Hey.” He slipped a hand under her chin and tipped her face up. “Nothing to be sorry for. I’m here to protect you, no matter what. Keep your sorries, gorgeous.”
Her breathing hitched and her lip trembled. With a gasping sigh, a tear slid down her cheek, and Colt pulled her back into his arms. She tensed, but as he ran a hand down her back, she relaxed into him, her face pressed against his neck. For several moments,
he just held her, not saying anything, not asking all of the questions he wanted to ask.
All too soon, she pulled away, wiping hastily at her eyes, and he saw the shields go back up as she stood up and moved away from him.
“Thank you,” she said, wrapping her arms around herself.
“I didn’t do anything, but you’re welcome.” He stood, studying her. “So your dad’s bad news, huh?”
“Yeah. He…” She shrugged. “He was pretty rough with me when I was a kid.”
Something in Colt’s chest tightened, and he wanted to pull her back into his arms. Based on how scared she’d been, there was more to it than that. “You want to talk about it?”
She shook her head. “Nope.”
“Does he do this a lot?”
She shook her head again. “I haven’t seen him in years. But he…he texted me a few days ago.” She turned and sat on Colt’s unmade bed, and he didn’t miss the way her eyes lingered on the rumpled sheets before darting back to him. He crossed his arms over his chest, steeling himself against how badly he wanted to join her on that bed and make her forget about everything except how good he could make her feel.
“What did he want? When he texted you, I mean.”
She fisted her hands in the sheets. “Just said he wanted to see me. I told him to fuck off, and I changed my number.” She looked down at the floor, dragging her toes across the hardwood. “I didn’t know he knew where I lived.”
“What did you mean when you warned me he was dangerous?”
She swallowed, and he could’ve sworn he saw her shiver. “When I was a kid, he was a member of the Grim Weavers. I’m pretty sure he still is. Still had the Harley and the vest tonight.”
Shit. The Grim Weavers were one of the most notorious outlaw biker gangs in California. Roman had done a cursory background check on Taylor, standard operating procedure for any new client they took on, but this hadn’t popped up. Probably because her father wasn’t in her life, and she likely hid the connection as much as she could. He knew he would have, in her shoes. His heart ached for Taylor, growing up with a nasty biker for a dad. Again, he wanted to reach for her, but he knew she’d just pull away again, so he stayed right where he was, arms still crossed.
