by Amanda Scott
She watched out of the corner of her eye as he grabbed the red hanky off the desk, and then she forced herself to turn to face him.
Standing shirtless in front of her, Colton tucked the red hanky into the back pocket of his jeans. His hair was perfectly messy with a few thick, adorable stray curls hovering just above his eyebrows. The skin on his warm, sex-ridden face was a mix of pink and tan hues. Her nostrils flared as tantalizing scents of sweat and cologne filled the space between them.
She wasn’t thinking straight. How else could she explain the fact that the only thing she wanted right now was to be held.
“So now what?” she asked.
He was silent as he scratched the back of his neck. Her blood pressure immediately escalated as she detected the subtle trace of distance in his gaze.
Colton slowly rubbed the shadowy scruff on his broad chin.
The only ticket she had to salvage what was left of her so called life was him. He was Colton Marcus, billionaire author who agreed to help her fulfill the biggest dream of her life.
He swallowed hard. “I think I just made a huge mistake,” he said.
Her heart skipped a beat. Hives flooded the skin on her back and stomach.
Taylor’s voice shook as she talked, “What do you mean?”
“I mean I fucked up,” he said coldly as he quickly threw his shirt back over his body.
As her world seemed to be crumbling around her, the first thing she noticed was the room starting to spin. Her arms and hands went numb; then her legs lost all semblance of feeling in them.
She was going down.
And during the moment between when she hit her head and when she went unconscious, one thought burned a hole through her brain.
My life is over.
END OF BOOK THREE
PLEASING HIM, BOOK 4: DIRE
“What the fuck is the matter with you?”
The woman’s black, scolding eyes looked and felt so real even though the better part of Taylor’s unconscious mind knew this was the same recurring nightmare she’s been having every single night for most of her life.
Taylor’s innocent golden ponytail bobbed up and down as she came bounding through the front door, across the cold, ceramic kitchen floor. At first, the woman’s hostile words didn’t deter the child’s innocent smile from forming. Young Taylor was just coming home from her first day of school. Today had to be different, the little girl hoped.
But it wasn’t.
It never was.
In fact, this time it was worse.
“Jesus Christ, Taylor, I just cleaned that goddamn floor!”
The little girl flinched and then looked down at the tiny granules of dirt she had tracked in from her short walk home from the bus stop. “I’m sorry, Mommy,” she said back to the tall, shadowy figure as the child’s smile relented and vanished from her face.
The woman, the same woman who gave birth to her, narrowed her eyes even more. Her raspy voice was like something out of a horror movie, a bleak reality unbeknownst to anyone living outside the walls of the meticulously kept home. “You’re seriously too dumb to be sorry. I’m the one who’s sorry… Sorry for having an idiot daughter like you!”
The dream sequence was always the same from that point on. The woman stepped towards Taylor and the little girl knew exactly what she needed to do.
Run.
Young Taylor’s heart pounded furiously as she turned to run. The boiling pot of water fell from her mother’s hand and clanked on the tile floor as she chased after her daughter. Taylor knew her mother was quickly closing in on her based on the increasing volume of her irate four-letter words. And she knew she’d probably never make it out of the house without getting caught from behind; Taylor’s short, seven-year old legs couldn’t compete with her mother’s long, boney limbs.
She’d run from her mother before this particular incident no less than hundreds of times. Taylor’s life was akin to children living in a war-torn country- surviving one day at a time, dodging bullets and bombs, and always sleeping with one eye open. The only difference was that her two-story colonial life looked nothing short of perfection to the outside world.
This chase was different though.
This chase ended in in a pool of blood.
My blood.
This chase landed Taylor in a hospital bed for an entire week.
This chase caused her brain to swell so badly that the doctors said her survival was nothing short of a miracle.
And this chase was the last time she ever slept under the same roof with her mother…
Like every other time she ever relived this nightmare, she’d always woken up screaming the moment her mother’s hand reached the back of her tiny head, just before it was about to smash through the glass door.
The nightmare ended as Taylor screamed like she always did when she woke from it, sitting up quickly and double checking her surroundings to make sure she wasn’t still in her Linden Lane home in Groton, Massachusetts.
“Lie back down, you need more rest,” he said, gently caressing the side of her cheeks with his fingers.
The light was bright and the back of her head was throbbing. Slowly though, she was coming back to her senses.
Shit.
Her eyes finally came into focus enough to make out that unmistakable face. Even though they had been so close before, the features on his jaw and around his eyes and even his lips all looked different to her; it was as if they were in 3D all of a sudden.
“Colton,” she whispered.
“Shhh… You bumped yourself pretty hard there. You had me worried.”
Then she remembered the fall.
He traced small, soothing circles along her temples with his thumbs. Taylor couldn’t help but moan from the relief his touch was providing her given the excruciating throbbing in the back of her head.
She tried to sit up but the moment she did a stabbing pain ran from the base of her skull down her neck.
“Taylor, please. I need you resting right now.”
She couldn’t sit up, but she somehow managed a faint chuckle. “You said I was a mistake,” she said.
Colton moved in closer and tucked a stray lock of hair in between her ear. “I never said you were a mistake, I…” his voice trailed off as if somehow Colton Marcus, master of the universe, was actually at a loss for what to say in this particular moment.
She looked around the room, finally realizing that she wasn't in the same room where she had fallen and bumped her head the moment his words set off a flurry of panic in her body. “Where am I?” she asked, taking in the panoramic New England views through the oversized glass windows.
“My bedroom,” he said.
She swallowed hard, even though it hurt to do so. “Oh,” she said, wishing she had come up with something a bit more witty.
“I wanted you to be comfortable”
“Thanks, I guess,” she replied.
“Look, I didn't mean that you were a mistake. I shouldn’t have said that.”
She couldn't resist trying to sit up, groaning as she made her way to a seated position.
“Taylor, please, don't make me tie you down,” he teased.
She looked him directly in the eye. “Colton, what am I supposed to do when you say things like that?”
He tilted his head and grinned slightly. “I know, I'm confusing you. And that's not fair. I never meant to make things complicated for you.” Then he looked off to the side; it felt to her as though he was actually having a hard time being honest. “Or for me,” he added.
She sat up even straighter. Even though her body felt weak, she refused to get strapped in again for another one of his emotional roller coaster ride from hell. He could tell her off, call her ugly, tell her the writing offer was dead… anything. It didn't matter what he said anymore; she vowed to be upfront with him from this point on, even if it meant the end of their days together.
Maybe
the fall had done her some good because she was feeling more confident than usual. Maybe she wasn’t psyched about her options, but at least she had a general game plan for how to handle him from this point on.
“What could possibly be confusing or complicating about this for you?” she asked.
He turned to face her head on. Damn was he gorgeous, especially when sunlight poured through the bedroom windows and reflected off his thick, dark hair. She couldn't be sure, but it almost seemed as though there was a slight tremble in his voice. “I didn’t think I was confused. But then when you passed out and almost hit your head on the floor. I just barely caught you and…” he said as his voice slowly trailed off.
She shook her head, “You caught me?”
“I couldn’t have it any other way.”
She smirked. “I’m surprised you didn’t just let m crash onto the floor,” she said as she looked down on the hard, wooden surface beneath her feet.
“That’s a little dramatic, no?” he said.
Taylor drifted back to a dark corner in her mind, a place where crashing hard because nobody cared enough to catch her was the furthest thing from dramatic. It was very, very real. She suddenly felt herself wanting to tell Colton Marcus everything about her life- her hopes, her fears, her past…
Fucking ridiculous. For one thing, you have no business telling him those types of things. And for another, he has no interest in hearing about them.
“Dramatic?” she asked. Then she shrugged her shoulders.
Colton looked at her carefully and studied her reaction to his comment. Then he moved in closer towards her. He lifted her chin with his hand so that her eyes were trapped in his gaze. His voice was practically at a whisper level as he spoke, “Can I say something to you?”
Her brows rose as she let her eyes dart away from his direct sight for a split second. Then she returned to his beautiful, intense gaze. “Are you actually asking for my permission?” she teased.
He smiled, revealing what absolutely had to be the most perfect set of lips and teeth she’d ever set her eyes on. For a girl who was trying to rid herself of any feelings for this man, she wasn’t exactly knocking it out of the park right now.
“Yes, I suppose I am,” he said. “So?”
Her cheeks flushed bright red as she spoke, “Go for it.”
Colton trapped her in his gaze, not letting her go until he was done saying whatever it was he wanted to say. She wanted so badly for one of two things to happen, and neither one of them made even a lick of sense…
Kiss me or leave me forever.
But she got neither.
“Do you have any idea how overwhelmingly attracted I am to you?” he asked.
She almost dropped to her knees right then and there. But instead she simply nodded her head from side to side and said, “No. Not really.”
He chuckled. “Right… Well that explains why you don’t understand my side of things.”
She raised a brow again. “Your side?”
He pressed his lips together in a straight line. “I think we might make a good team… A great team. But-”
She interrupted, “You mean with the writing stuff and all.”
He flashed a tiny, almost untraceable smile. “Yes, with the writing stuff.”
“Okayy. You already made yourself clear about that. So what’s the big problem if you really believe that? Why did you walk away from me?”
He bit down on his lower lip, and she swore she’d never seen anything so goddamn sexy in her life- not in a bar, or an office, or on a magazine cover, or in a movie- not anywhere. “I think I already apologized for that. I just freaked out I guess.”
“I didn’t think billionaires freaked out,” she said. “Or apologized.”
He smirked. “Well this one does.”
“What are you trying to say?” she asked.
He took a long, slow breath. Then he let his eyes wander across the entire length of her body. She was beginning to truly believe that, for whatever reason, maybe he really did want her as much as he said he did.
At least physically.
“I’m trying to say that I want to work together. I think you could be the key to what I’ve been looking for. I’m just concerned that I won’t be able to keep myself from going insane in the process.”
She shook her head, clearly still feeling confused. “I don’t get it.”
He reached out and wrapped his hand around the soft flesh of her wrist. “I mean this,” he said as he traced circles with his thumb along her skin. “I mean I can’t keep my fucking hands off you and it’s just not a good thing.”
She took in a sharp gasp of air. She knew full well that what she was about to say was just about the worst choice she could possibly make, but some unfamiliar voice inside of her told her it would be worth it. “What if I said that I don’t want you to keep your hands off me? What if I said that I like the way you make me feel?”
It’s official. I’m officially certifiably crazy according the DSM 5.
He ran his fingers up her forearm, sending a flash of heat between her thighs. She truly couldn’t stand that she felt this way, but it wasn’t like she had any say in the matter. And what did she expect given what she had just said to a man like Colton- a man who knew exactly how to take charge when the opportunity presented itself.
His voice was deeper than just a moment before. “I’d say you better watch what you say to me, and that that’s exactly my point. I like the way you make me feel too, Taylor. But I have work to do here- the world is waiting for something big out of me.”
She pulled her arm back towards herself, breaking his grasp. Then she stepped closer towards him, a move she never in a million years thought she’d ever try to make. Taylor Ward, known to less than a hundred people in this world, got directly in front of the billionaire author, known to hundreds of millions of people in this world.
But she was through getting pushed and pulled in whatever direction his mood happened to be in at any given moment.
“You made me an offer. You asked me to help you write your next book. Then you seduced me. Again.” She took one more step towards him, doing her best to remain assertive. The only problem was that she was so close that the features on his face suddenly seemed almost too beautiful to be real - the perfect amount of dark stubble along his jaw, the soft, warm texture of his lips, and those eyes of his- eyes that seemed to hold more blue than all of the world’s oceans combined.
Taylor couldn’t be sure, but she swore he was fighting back a grin, as if he was somehow getting a major kick out of her newfound assertive behavior.
“What’s your point?” he asked as his eyes darkened and the corners of his lips curled slightly.
That was the expression, the one that rendered her powerless every time.
Then something snapped inside of her.
Her mind? Gone. What else could explain what she was about to do next?
She walked in close, too close, to his body. She was so close in fact that the tips of her breasts pressed up against the hard muscles on his chest. “My point is that you need to pick a lane. If you can’t control yourself around me, that’s your problem. I want a shot at your publishing offer. But if you want to take back your offer, then do it now or…” her voice trailed off as she narrowed her eyes and looked directly into gaze.
“Or what?” he said as he flashed a small, borderline patronizing smile.
“Or I’m going to turn around, walk out that door, and somehow try to put my life back together.”
She knew she was partly bluffing, because the chances she’d be able to put her so called life back together rested somewhere between none and less than none. But she also knew she wasn’t going to get jerked around by him anymore, regardless of the fact that he was Colton Marcus.
Before she could say hot, his soft, warm lips came crashing onto her mouth. Her body stiffened for a split second, sending her a warning sign…
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Kick him in the fucking balls and run away forever.
But then he slipped his tongue into her mouth. Her tongue had a mind of its own, no matter how fatal it could prove, as it reached out for more of him. Colton moved his hands up her back, stopping at her shoulder blades and pulling her chest tightly into his. She couldn’t hold back her moan.
“Is this what you mean by turning around and walking out the door?” he rasped in her ear.
“No,” she said, her voice buried beneath her heavy breath.
“Then what do you mean?” he asked as he ran his fingers down her ass, across her hips, and then up to her breasts.
“Oh fuck,” she whimpered. “You can’t do this to me.”
“I warned you, Taylor. I warned you about how fucking red hot you are.”
“What about the book?” she asked.
He chuckled, and then traced her lower lip with his finger. He slowly pried open her mouth, and she knew exactly where he was going with this gesture.
Oh god, she thought to herself as she imagined his hard cock inside of her mouth. She never got overly excited about giving any guy a blowjob, but the very thought of him sliding his erection into her mouth was enough to make her panties drip.
“The book is a go,” he said, prying her mouth open even further. She felt her knees start to wobble, then uncontrollably found herself sticking her tongue slightly out of her mouth and towards the billionaire author.
“It’s a go?” she whispered.
He nodded once. “Yes.”
“Even if…”
He interrupted her immediately, “Even if we fuck.”
Shit. Damn. Hell.
Don’t do this to yourself, Taylor.
She wanted things to be simpler. She wanted a chance at writing a book with Colton. And she most definitely did not want sex to ruin her only chance of making something out of her life.
As if he could sense the slightest reservation in her eyes, he wrapped his long, muscular arms around her waist and pulled her into his hips.
