Forbidden Fruit: Volume 1 (41 page)

“No, you don’t,” I said. “You want the dress. But I need someone who wants me with or without it.”

The heavy door
whooshed
when I opened it. An audible click was all I heard behind me—not Trey’s footsteps or his words attempting to stop me.

Once I hit the lobby, I strode toward the exit. When I spotted my friend Elyse with Todd, I hurried over, touching her arm.

“Hey Al—”

“You know my date?” I asked, pointing toward the ballroom.

She squinted her eyes even though the door was closed. “You mean Chad?”

“Yeah.” I glanced at Todd and back at her. “He told me you’re the most beautiful girl here tonight.”
Her eyes softened. “Really?”

“No. He said you were the most beautiful girl he’d ever seen—but he told me that on Monday when we were hanging outside of the English building, and you walked by and waved.”

“I was hungover that day.” She cringed. “And I wore my pajamas to class. I didn’t even brush my hair.”

“Exactly.”

I walked away, hoping that was enough, because I was a week late already. Out in the cool night, I breathed in the fresh air and hailed a cab.

“Where to?” he asked once I was inside.

I sat back in my seat. On a Friday night—where would Dean be? I gave him an address and smoothed my hair down as we pulled away from the curb.

When we arrived, I absentmindedly paid the cab driver, my thoughts coming fast. I waved my building pass, still dangling from my keychain, at the security guard. In the elevator, my fingers wrung in front of me. My nerves flared with each floor I passed. The doors opened to complete and silent darkness.

I stepped out and went to Dean’s office. It was seconds before I heard the tapping of fingers against a keyboard. An older woman glanced up, her eyes scanning over me.

“Um, we’re closed for business right now,” she said. “Can I help you?”

I stuck out my hand. “You must be Grace. I’m Alexandra, the—”

“Of course,” she said, standing and taking my hand. “The temp. Thank you for your help last week—was there a problem with the check?”

“No. I’m here to see Mr. Brittany.”

The door opened just then and Dean leaned against the frame. He didn’t look surprised to see me. “Grace, go home for the night, please.”

“Oh.” She nodded after a moment, gathering her things as we stared at each other. When she’d left, he turned and walked back into his office, leaving the door open.

“What are you doing here, Alex?”

I stopped in the doorway, mustering all my courage. “What do you think?” I asked.

He stood behind his desk and shook his head. “I think there’s no way the boy turned you down looking like that.”

“You’d be right,” I said.

He placed just his fingertips on the surface of the desk. “Then, again, I ask—why are you here?”

“I don’t know,” I said softly.

“You got what you wanted.”

“Yes. I did. But it’s not what I want anymore.”

“We can’t, Alexandra. It would never work.”

“It would,” I said. “This is what I want.”

“You should go.” He turned his back to me. “You’re too young. Gary—he’d never understand. And college is the time for . . . it doesn’t matter. Just—go.”

I swallowed, at a loss for words. I didn’t know I wanted this but suddenly I couldn’t live without it—without
him
. In his perfect suit, he was commanding and broad, but his shoulders fell slightly. Without thinking, I dropped to the floor on my hands and knees. I tossed my pursed aside, and he turned at the noise it made.

“What are you doing?”

I crawled slowly to his desk, never removing my eyes from him. He watched, motionless, until I was at his feet.

“Go back to him, Alexandra.”

“How can I?” I asked, tears threatening. “How can I possibly go back to Trey now—or anyone else for that matter?”

“You have to. Our lives are too different, and you need someone your own age.”

“I don’t,” I said, shaking my head. “That week changed me.”

He swallowed, looking down and shaking his head. But I could see his eyes giving into me.

“Yours,” I said.

“You never cashed the check.”

“I want to be yours—not just for a week.”

“Mine,” he repeated and sighed. “Get off the floor.”

“No.”

“Excuse me?”

“Not until you tell me yes. Not until you say—”

“You’re mine,” he said.

I stood and stepped under his chin. “I don’t care if it’s wrong. I don’t care what they say. Make me yours, and none of that matters.”

His hands grasped my cheeks and pulled me close to his lips. He kissed me ravenously, and my entire body wilted against him. Sturdy arms caught me, holding me upright, it seemed.

“I hope you’re ready to stay,” he said. “When you walked out of my apartment last weekend, it took all my willpower not to pull you back in. And that’s the last time I’ll ever let that happen.”

I touched his cheek and smiled, my heart expanding in my chest.

“And you were right,” he continued, his hand trailing down my back to rest on my zipper. “You look amazing in this dress. But let’s get you out of it.”

About the Author

Jessica Hawkins grew up between the purple mountains and under the endless sun of Palm Springs, California. She studied international business at Arizona State University and has also lived in Costa Rica and New York City. Some of her favorite things include traveling, her dog Kimo, Scrabble, driving aimlessly and creating Top Five lists. She is the helpless victim of an overactive imagination that finds inspiration in music and tranquility in writing. Currently she resides wherever her head lands, which lately is the unexpected (but warm) keyboard of her trusty MacBook.

Connect with the Author

www.jessicahawkins.net

www.facebook.com/jessicahawkinsauthor

www.twitter.com/jess_hawk

www.goodreads.com/jessicahawkins

More Titles by Jessica Hawkins

The Cityscape Series

Come Undone (The Cityscape Series, #1)

Come Alive (The Cityscape Series, #2)

Come Together (The Cityscape Series, #3)

Lock & Key

by

R.S. Grey

Chapter One

“Get up, girl! Get up now!” A voice drifted in through the fog mere moments before a boot slammed into my stomach. I groaned in pain and clutched my abdomen, fearing another boot would soon follow. I was disoriented; there was no north, south, up, or down. Everything was black and pain radiated throughout my body. Then a hood was ripped from my head and the darkness lifted to reveal the hell that I had stumbled into.

I had no clue how I got there or who
the men staring at me were. They had guns aimed directly at my head, and in the blink of an eye, I started to stand up for fear that one of their fingers would slip and I would be nothing but a carcass lying on that dungeon floor. That’s what it looked like: a medieval dungeon. The walls were made of rough stone blocks and the only light was generated from a single bulb swaying gently above my head. One of the walls was made of thick iron bars and that’s when it finally sank in. I was locked in. I was a prisoner with nowhere to go.

I held my hands up in surrender, trying to catch up to my surroundings.

There were four men inside the cell with me, but no other prisoners that I could see. The men started rambling to other another in Albanian, and a memory pierced my brain like a sharp knife. I was on my way to interview one of the members of LARK, a guerrilla warfare group inside of Kosovo. I’d communicated with the member for the past few weeks in passing. We’d never met, but all of my connections had led me to him. I was finally going to have my chance to meet him when my taxi had been run off the road. We didn’t get into an accident; the taxi driver had turned out of the way just in time. It’s all hazy, but I remember hearing gun fire and then my passenger-side door was ripped open. A hand reached in to press something against my face, and everything after that was black.

I wracked my brain, desperately trying to connect the pieces, but they must have drugged
me. At least my clothes were still intact: slim jeans and a white t-shirt that now seemed entirely too flimsy.

The men kept yelling at one another in Albanian
, and eventually one of them tossed his weapon onto the dark-stained concrete and stepped toward me. He had a scraggly beard and a harsh scar that cut across his eyelid. His teeth were stained a dark yellow, and when he stepped toward me, he unfurled a wicked grin. I clutched my stomach for fear that he would kick me again. I could still taste the bile that had risen into my throat from their last hit.

He didn’t go for my stomach though. He wretched my hands away from body and pushed me back against the wall so that my head slammed against the stone. I cried out in pain, but the man didn’t
back away. I could feel blood trickling down the back of my head and down my neck, but the pain was nothing compared to the fear of what was about to happen next.

“Please
, let me go. Please! I’m an American journalist. I have money if that’s what you want! I can get you any amount of money that you need!” That wasn’t true, but in that moment I would have sold them the world if it meant that I could leave. I looked up into the man’s eyes and tried to plea with him, human to human, but he wouldn’t look back at me. He lifted my hand up toward a metal handcuff hanging from the ceiling and a new wave of fear flooded me.

They were going to shackle me so that I’d be completely helpless. My cries turned violent and I snapped my hand out of his grasp and shoved his body away from mine. I had mere seconds to react. There were no weapons anywhere except for the one he’d tossed aside so that he could handcuff me. I dove for it, reaching with every inch of my body to grab it before he did, but my efforts were in vain. The other guards predicted my move. The one
closest to the weapon kicked it away just before it was in my grasp. A hard boot slammed down onto my hand and I screamed — a wild, blood-curdling scream. The scarred man picked up me from the ground and tossed me back toward the metal chains. I reached back to catch my body against the stone wall and my hand screamed in protest.

“Please, let me go,” I
cried as hot tears streamed down my face. My fighting was useless. The man made quick work of locking me into the shackles, and as soon as he was finished, he stepped back to admire his work. His filthy hands reached up to grasp my head so that I had to look him straight in the eye.

“This is home now, girl,” he threatened in thickly-accented English.

My hot tears coated his dirty hands, but he didn’t budge. What did they want with me? Was I going to be trafficked as a sex slave? Was this only the tip of how cruel they would be to me? Had my planned interview been leaked? Had the man I’d been communicating with been a mole for the LARK this entire time?

That had to be it. They knew I was trying to get information about their group and they weren’t going to let me slide.

I tried to blink away my tears but nothing helped. They filled my eyes and clouded my vision. I told myself to calm down, that crying wouldn’t get me out of the situation. I took deep breaths, in through my nose and out through my mouth, scanning from one man to the next. I stared them straight in the eye, trying to memorize their features and commit them to memory. They would be the men I crucified in my articles when I broke free of this place.

“Could someone fucking explain to me what all this noise has been about?” A voice asked as a shadow fell outside of the iron bars. The clap of dress shoes echoed in the confined space, but I couldn’t turn my head to see the figure. The scarred man was still clutching my chin tightly enough to leave a bruise.

“We were locking her up, sir,” another man answered. He was the man that had kicked the gun away and stepped on my hand. The iron bars hinged to life as the figure stepped into the cell.

“Let her go,” the voice said
, and as soon as his words had filled the space, his orders were followed. The guards peered up toward him with revered silence. I shifted my jaw, trying to regain feeling in my cheeks. Then I looked up to see the man that was in charge of them all. The person that held my freedom in his hands.

He was nothing like I’d expected. His accent was lighter than
the guards’, mostly English with a hint of Albanian undertones. He was taller than the rest of the men by a few inches, and his entire body took up more room than most of theirs put together. He was dressed head to toe in a tailored, designer suit. The dark navy material hugged his well-formed figure and I was left momentarily confused. The juxtaposition between his attire and the dingy dungeon left me gaping. He eyed me once slowly, running his gaze from my shackled hands, over my tight shirt and jeans, and down to my sandaled feet.

He didn’t look like he was born and raised in Kosovo. His features didn’t match the men standing in a line behind him. His hair and eyes were the exact same shade of dark brown
, almost black, and in the dim lighting of my cell his chiseled cheek bones and jaw were cast into harsh shadows.

“Would you care to explain to me why she’s injured?” he asked harshly, shifting on his designer shoes to stare down the four men. They all fidgeted awkwardly on their feet, trying to decide what the best plan of action would be.

“She was struggling, sir,” the guard answered with a sharp attitude, as if annoyed that he had to defend his actions.

The Leader stepped closer to him
, and the man visibly cowered. What kind of power did this man have over them, and why didn’t he want them to hurt me? Would he help get me out of here?

“And you couldn’t detain
her
? What the fuck kind of guard are you?”

“Sir, she attempted to reach for my gun,” he
said, fumbling for an excuse. The longer the conversation lasted, the more I feared the wrath of the sharply dressed man.

The Leader stepped closer to the man and gripped
the guard’s shirt inside of his fist. “No one touches prisoners without my instruction. Do you understand, Erian?”

“Yes. Yes, sir.” The man nodded like a bobble-head, trying to appease the angry leader.

“Get out, all of you.”

“But… sir,” the man who’d kicked away my gun protested.

“Out!” he yelled back at them, and the four men shuffled out quickly, closing the iron bars behind them. I gulped, trying to keep up with the situation as it unrolled before me.

Once I thought the men were out of the earshot, I shifted my gaze to the statuesque man eyeing me in the center of the cell.

“Please, please. You have to let me go. This is a mistake, a terrible mistake,” I begged the man, praying that he would be my savior. This couldn’t be happening.

The man tucked his hands into his suit pockets and shifted on his heels to face me. His body turned slowly so that each millimeter of his face was highlighted for a brief moment by the light hanging over head. He was beautiful. His face was sculpted in proportions that
struck a pang of both lust and fear inside me. He was a fighter, his body was broad and strong, but his lips were soft. I thought that he would see reason. I thought that he would unlock my handcuffs and set me free.

Instead he stepped toward me with slow, thoughtful steps.

“Do you expect me to treat you differently than my men just did?” he asked, his voice calm and eerily cunning. His eyes were sharp. They pierced through my last bit of hope.

I whispered, “Yes.”

“Do you think what the guards have done to you is cruel?” he asked, looking up to where my swollen hand hung in the shackles. “They won’t touch you unless I order them to touch you. They fear me above all else. They’re despicable human beings, and I’m the worst of them all. Do not forget your place, prisoner,” he spat before turning and leaving me in the cell, alone and shaking.

“Please!” I screamed, salty tears seeping into the corners of my mouth.