I dialed a taxi service in my rapid descent. I made it to the bottom floor, breathless and more scared than before. Luckily my cab was already waiting on me, and I climbed in. Part of me expected him to come running out after me, telling me it wasn’t true. That he could somehow prove the images I’d seen on his computer weren’t real, but he didn’t…and in spite of everything, that’s what disappointed me the most.
Ten.
I don’t want to do this.
I stood in front of the shoddy old mirror in my motel room, staring at myself in the new t-shirt I’d bought at Wal-Mart that said nerd across the chest and my yoga pants. I had a work meeting today that was mandatory. I’d been staying at a motel for the last day since I left the luxurious penthouse and the crazy man inside it. I didn’t go back home…no, he knew where I lived.
It all made sense now. Cole had come to my apartment that first night without being told where I lived…he knew my name, my real name. He didn’t call me Jewel, like everyone else at the club. He knew me, everything about me. Shit, he probably knew more than I did.
But why?
I stepped away from the mirror, grabbing my purse. I didn’t have an answer for that question. He had called a million times and left as many messages in the last twenty-four hours. I hadn’t answered or listened to them. I couldn’t do it. Call me weak, but I didn’t want to hear his voice. I couldn’t listen to his lies. There was nothing he could say that would change the fact that he had been stalking me for the last year or more. He had been there next to me in so many instances and I hadn’t known.
How did I not know?
I was stupid. Dumber than any person on the planet apparently.
Knowing nothing about him, I let him barrel into my life, into my heart. The damn organ ached in my chest. It pumped me full of the poison I’d let him infect me with. It ran through my veins ravaging me, destroying me from the inside out. It was my fault. I was the careless one. The one who made all the mistakes. He had avoided my questions at every turn. I knew nothing about him and I let my ignorance control me.
Stupid.
I hadn’t called the police. I probably should have, but I didn’t. The only phone call I’d made had been to Mrs. Bugsby about checking on Weasley, my cat. I didn’t know what I wanted to do. If I was honest with myself, I knew that staying in the motel didn’t really keep Cole from me. If he had been following me for the last year then I was certain he could have found me here. There was a slight comfort in knowing that there was a possibility that he couldn’t. That because he was on the phone he didn’t know where I’d gone. He hadn’t shown up yet and I counted that as a win.
Calling the police would be the most intelligent thing to do, but I just couldn’t bring myself to do it. I’d held my cell phone in my hand about hundred times to do just that, but found myself putting it down and cursing. Cole deserved to be in jail, but I couldn’t do it. I just wanted to stay in that crusty motel room. I wanted to curl back up under the low-thread count sheets and cry for the rest of my life.
I stared longingly at the bed. I could miss this meeting. I’m sure it isn’t really that important. But Patricia’s annoying voice came back to me. “There’s no way you are getting out of this. Jimmy said it is the most important meeting we’ve ever had. If you miss it you’re out of a job.”
Fucking fantastic.
Just what I wanted to hear. I had to return to reality at some point, but I didn’t want to actually face it. Not yet. I was going to though, and I shut the squeaky door loudly as I walked out into the cold of midday. I could face the day. I had to, and besides, Cole wouldn’t be there.
An hour later I sat in the large conference room at Rapture with the rest of my coworkers. I’d been nervous, but once I was there sitting amongst everyone familiar, I felt better. Patricia hadn’t been kidding when she said this meeting was important. It wasn’t just the dancers there. Everyone was present, from Jimmy to the daytime janitor, totaling what had to be over a hundred people.
“You sure you’re okay, honey?” Cinna sat next to me, her flaming red hair curling around her face.
“I’m fine.” I smiled at her. This was only the third time she’d asked me that question. “What’s this meeting about?”
She shrugged. “Who knows. Ever since we got the new owner, everything has been turned on its head. I mean, who shuts down a club like this with no notice? That is just crazy. They have to be losing boo-koos of money and…”
I tuned her out. I honestly didn’t give a shit about any of it. The image of Cole after he had licked my cunt ‘til I came hovered in my mind like a distant dream. Had it only been yesterday that I was wrapped in his arms, wanting him to hold me forever?
“All right, everyone, shut the fuck up and listen.” Jimmy’s voice brought the room to silence. He stood at the front wearing the usual fedora on his bald head. His gut hung over his black pants and his Affliction shirt was too tight. “Now, I know you’re all wondering why you’re here. It’s a really fucking good question.” He rapped his rings against the desk he leaned against. “I don’t have the answer, though. Luckily there’s someone here who does.”
The door at the back of the room opened quietly. I turned along with everyone else to gaze at the person walking through it.
It was Cole. I flinched at the sight of him. I wanted to drag my eyes away, to be disgusted with him, but I wasn’t. I drank him in like he was the last glass of water in the middle of the desert. He wore a black pin-stripe suit with a white shirt and black tie. His hair was tied back, revealing his chiseled cheek bones. What is he doing here? Is he planning on staying? I almost laughed at how absurd the question was. He had probably never planned to leave. Is he even from New York? A spike of alarm hit me in the chest. Did he come here just to pester me? I couldn’t talk to him. Not now. Not ever.
I expected him to sit down at the back, or for Jimmy to yell at him for being the asshole who was late. But neither happened.
“Everyone, I would like to introduce the new owner of Rapture: Cole Maddox.”
My coworkers gasped in unison and my mouth gaped open as he switched places with Jimmy at the front of the room.
“Hello, everyone. I know most of you I’ve met at least once, briefly.” His eyes met mine for a second before moving on. “You all knew me as the Ripper from the one time I performed on stage.” He paused and smiled. “I kept my identity hidden from everyone because I wanted to see the inner workings of the club without being known as the dreaded ‘boss’.” He did air quotes. He actually did fucking air quotes. “I think I made a very good investment as everything seems to run pretty efficiently. I wanted to have this meeting to officially meet all of you and explain more about the renovations and plans I have for the club as we move forward…” He continued talking, but I ceased listening. If things had been complicated before he walked through the door to the conference room, then they were on a whole other playing field now.
My cheeks heated as embarrassment flooded my insides.
What the fuck is going on?
He couldn’t be the owner, that just wasn’t possible. Kara had said it was a woman. I sucked in a gulp of air as he continued talking and moving. His perfect lips smiling at everyone.
I can’t do this. I can’t just sit here and listen to this bullshit. I jumped up. I had to get out of there.
“Julia, please have a seat. The meeting isn’t over,” Cole said just as I got to the door.
I didn’t turn around, not at first. I planned to keep on going right out that door, but two large men in black suits stopped me. I looked up ready to give them both a piece of my mind, but I knew them. Randy and Leon, the front desk guy and the elevator man from my apartment complex, stared down at me. Their faces were impassive. I shuffled back in alarm and banged into the closest chair. Do they work for him?
“Fuck,” I muttered under my breath.
“Just sit down please, Miss Collette,” Randy said quietly. I wanted to kick him in the balls, but
when I looked into his eyes again, they looked sad as if begging for forgiveness. I was about to push past him, but he spoke quietly again. “Mr. Maddox wants to speak with you after the meeting. He will leave you alone after he speaks with you. For good,” he added, as if he would personally make sure of it. Someone coughed behind me and I remembered that all of my coworkers were still in the room.
And for some reason, against all my better judgment, I sat down.
Eleven.
I squeezed my fists tightly in my lap as the door to the office opened. I’d been shuffled in immediately after the close of the meeting. Randy and Leon personally escorted me and I figured it was because they were afraid I would try to leave without meeting with…their boss? Strange way to think of Cole. There was no way I was going to try to leave though. I was too mad for that.
I couldn’t wait to face Cole especially after the meeting. I sat there for thirty minutes staring at the man I’d taken to bed. The man who’d wormed his way into my life and heart. With each passing second I became more and more pissed.
“Thank you for meeting with me, Julia.” Cole came around the desk and unbuttoned his suit jacket before sitting opposite of me in the leather chair.
“Excuse me?”
He gave me a tight smile. “You’re angry with me.”
I cocked my head as the fury quadrupled. “Who the fuck are you? Why have you been doing this to me?”
“Hey, now. There’s no need to yell.”
I jumped to my feet. “No need to yell? That’s all you’re going to say? You’ve been fucking stalking me!”
His hardened expression faltered for a moment before he hid it. “You don’t remember me, do you?”
“What?”
“Of course, I knew you didn’t. That was apparent right from the start.”
“Wait, what do you mean…remember you?” My voice trembled.
What is he talking about?
“You don’t remember the first time we met. Almost two years ago.”
“I—we haven’t met. Not until a few weeks ago.” I took a step back from the desk.
“Yes we have. Two years ago, like I said.” He unbuttoned each sleeve of his white shirt and began rolling them up over his tattooed forearms.
“But—”
“It was at the first Rapture X party. When you fucked Victor Marlin for the first time in front of the world. Ring any bells?” He spit the words like poison.
Of course I remembered the first Rapture X show. I had been so nervous that butterflies were eating away at my insides. I’d been dressed as a mermaid with sparkling stones covering every inch of my body.
“I took one look at you, with your blue hair, your jeweled body sparkling, and knew that I had to have you.”
I sucked in a breath at the intensity of his dark blue eyes. Heat pooled between my thighs and I hated myself for it. Cole leaned forward on his desk. “I’d received a special invite to the party. I’d just opened my five-thousandth store worldwide.”
“Store?”
“Obsidian Spirits.”
My mouth dropped open. “The liquor store? The one that makes their own brand of liquor in those volcano glasses?” I covered my mouth with my hand. “You sent me the wine after the Rapture X party.” I should have known.
“Yes, I opened the first one when I was twenty-one.” He waved his hand. “But that’s not the point. I went to Rapture X that night and I saw you. I watched Victor fuck you. I watched him cum all over your pretty breasts.” His hands were clenched in fists on top of the desk. “And I decided I wanted you.”
I opened my mouth to say something, but no words came out.
“I approached you after.” He gave a short laugh. “I stood outside that dressing room for thirty fucking minutes waiting for you to come out. And I wasn’t the only one. There were men, women, all of them waiting for you. I was disgusted by all of it. All of these people vying for your attention because they’d seen you fuck.” He stood up. “And I hated the fact that I was one of them.
“You finally came out, wearing a soft blue dress. It was so sheer, I could see your pearled nipples through the fabric.”
I bit down on my lip and took another step back.
“Running from me, Julia? You haven’t even heard the best part yet.” A sarcastic smile spread across his face. I thought he would move, but he didn’t. He stayed on the other side of the desk. “Everyone wanted your attention. People were shouting your name, but I got to you first.” He moved finally and came to stand in front of me. “All I could think about was taking you home and showing you how a real man could fuck you. Not some sham of sex like you were getting with Victor. I was going to bend you over my bed and give you a real orgasm that you wouldn’t have to fake.” I gasped as he stepped closer.
How did he know I faked it?
“But you didn’t want me.” His face hardened. “I offered you the world. I told you I would take wherever you wanted to go and we could leave right then. I would fly you to Australia, Hawaii, Paris. Anywhere your heart desired. Remember me now?”
My mind frantically went back over that first night…but it still didn’t ring a bell. Men offered me ridiculous things like that all the time. Most of them were older men. “No, you couldn’t have. I would remember you.”
“You laughed in my face and looped arms with him, left me there in the crowd with the rest of the pathetic hopefuls. But you want to know something, Julia?” He leaned closer, only inches away. I tried to step back, but my leg bumped into the side of the chair. “It made me hard.”
“What?” My voice was breathless.
“You walked away from me. Left me standing there confused, pissed off, and my cock was hard as a fucking rock.”
“I—”
“Women never tell me no.” He took a step back and leaned against the edge of his desk. “I left the club and went back to my hotel. I flew back to New York the next day. I wasn’t going to do anything about it, but I couldn’t get you out of my head. I stayed away for months, but you wouldn’t go away. You stayed here in the back of my mind, plaguing me, until I had to see you again. And I did.”
“When?”
“I came back to another Rapture X party and I watched you fuck him again.” He grated the word. “You left before I could talk to you. But that’s when I decided that I was going to do something about it.”
“Do something about what?”
“About the incessant need that had been growing inside of me since I laid eyes on you for the first time. I hated myself. Do you understand that? I didn’t want to want you. A stripper who fucks for money in front of a crowd of sick rich people.” The words were like a slap across my skin and I recoiled. “But there was no helping it. You had trapped me.”
I licked my suddenly dry lips. His eyes followed the movement.
“I had my men follow you.”
“So, Leon and Randy worked for you all along?”
“Yes. Everyone at your apartment building works for me, because I bought it when I found out you lived there.”
“You did what?”
“Yes.”
“You bought my apartment building so you could keep tabs on me?”
His face faltered for a moment, no doubt hearing the disgust in my voice. “Yes.”
“And you bought Rapture…wait, did you have something to do with Vic and Chris leaving?”
He didn’t say anything.
“Oh, my God, you did!” I moved around putting the chair I’d been sitting in between us. “You did all of this…for what?” And that’s when it hit me. I don’t know how it hadn’t come to me sooner, maybe it was because I was still processing the levity of it all. “You own Rapture…so you put yourself on the schedule my first night back.”
He nodded tightly. “You asked me the other day if I liked breaking exotic creatures.” He paused. “And I told you I didn’t have to break something to make it mine.”
“Okay?”
“To make something mi
ne, I have to own every part of it.” He stood, leaving his relaxed pose. “I owned your home, your work, the only thing left was your body. I strung your body up on that stage and I planned to make you cum without touching you. But your ass…I couldn’t keep my hands off it.” He growled. “I planned to make you cum for me and then reveal myself and show you that I could own you without you even seeing my face…but my plan fell through because you didn’t recognize me. Going to your apartment that night proved it.” He laughed bitterly.
“Who does that? What kind of person treats someone like this? I’m a person, not something you can buy.”
“I didn’t buy your body, Julia. You gave it to me.” He waved his hand again. “Either way, I had planned to leave after that. I wanted to prove to you that I was more than just a random man vying for your attention, but since you didn’t recognize me, things changed. When I packed my bag to leave I couldn’t get you out of my head. The way you responded to me on stage…in your apartment. I knew you would be fantastic, but you exceeded my expectations. You were so responsive under my fingers. Even when I ran that blade down your skin…you shivered with want. I could see it in your eyes, you craved what I could give you.
“So I changed the schedule so I could be the one to fuck you. I hated myself for it. Every minute I hated that I had let myself go so far as to fuck in front of a group of people just because I wanted you. I hated that you made me stoop so low…but I did. It was supposed to be enough, you see.” He ran his hand down his face. “But I found that I couldn’t stay away after that night when I fucked you on that desk.” He reached out to touch me, but I flinched away. He recoiled his hand and made a fist at his side. “I planned to leave, to let Jimmy run the business, but I couldn’t. Not after the way you stared up at me in wonder with my blood and cum smeared across your skin. I had made you mine, Julia.”
Drowning in Rapture: Rapture, Book One Page 10
