Taken (Dark Desires 1)

I expected Rick Wright to be a cold, foulmouthed, heartless brute; capable o

f all manner of crimes and atrocities. I expected him to be callous, uncaring, unemotional, selfish. But in the short time I’d known him, he had been nothing but a perfect gentleman, in and out of bed.

His brother, Eddie, was exactly what I expected him to be. He was mean, angry, threatening, dangerous; and capable of horrible acts. My blood ran cold when he looked at me. I knew that given the chance, he would have dragged me into a room or a back alley and raped me, beat me, and left me for dead. My intentions against Rick Wright might have softened, but my determination to see Eddie Wright dead had not.

I glanced up to find Rick smiling at me. He put a finger to my cheek, then tucked a lock of hair behind my ear.

Softly, he said, “Good morning.”

* * *

I set the cup of coffee on the table in front of Rick and sat down across from him. I poured a little milk into my coffee and scooped in two heaping spoons of sugar.

“Would you like a little coffee with your milk and sugar?” Rick asked with a smile that was no less mesmerizing than the night before. He picked up his cup of black coffee and blew a cooling breath into it.

“I like milk and sugar,” I said, stirring the coffee slowly. “Are you sure I can’t fix you some eggs?”

“I think you have done enough,” he said. He took a careful sip and pursed out his lips. “Thanks for letting me spend the night.”

I gave him a sincere smile. “It was my pleasure.” I tapped the spoon to the rim of my cup and set it aside. I watched him for a minute. He had pulled on his jeans to come for coffee, but his muscled torso and feet were bare. The muscles in his forearms flexed as he held the cup between his hands.

“Can I ask you something?” He didn’t wait for permission. “Why did you come into my bar last night?”

“I just came in for a drink,” I said with a shrug. “It is a bar, isn’t it?”

He gave me the smile again. I swear, he used it like a weapon. I felt every nerve in my body tingle.

He took a sip of coffee and bobbed his head. “It is a bar, but it’s not a bar that people like you come to.”

I blinked at him. “People like me? What does that mean?”

He narrowed his eyes and dipped his chin. “You look the part of the bad biker bitch, with your black hair and tats and heavy boots, but as I look around this place,” he nodded around the room with his eyebrows arched, “I see a girl trying to make a drastic change. And I can’t help but wonder why.”

I glanced around the open space that included the apartment’s living room, small breakfast nook, and kitchen. The apartment was spotless, but that wasn’t what he was talking about. He was talking about the photos of my family that hung on the wall and sat about the room. The old me, the happy one, loved family photos. The new me would probably never take another one.

The one thing I had done was to remove photos of Brent because I couldn’t stand to look at them. They were in a box in the bottom of my bedroom closet.

“This one, for example,” he said, getting out of the chair and carefully taking a framed photo off the living room wall. He came back with the photo of me, my sister April, and our parents. The photo was one of those hokey studio shots like you get taken at the Wal-Mart Portrait Center. It had been taken the year I graduated high school, six years ago. I had long blond hair pulled back and clipped on the sides, and was wearing just a hint of makeup. I was wearing a baggy sweater to hide my boobs. He set the photo on the table between us and pointed at it.

“You were very cute in your natural state,” he said, smiling with his eyes. “So, who is the girl sitting across from me now?”

“Are you saying that I’m not cute now?” I asked. I was just wearing a t-shirt and a pair of panties. I pulled up the front of the shirt and flashed my tits in an attempt to distract him. “Are you saying that these aren’t cute?”

“Oh, those are beyond cute,” he said, eyebrows twitching. “I’m just curious, is all. What made the cute blond in this photo transform into the woman sitting across from me now?”

I thought about the question and how best to answer it so he wouldn’t suspect that I was doing anything other than slumming when I came into his bar. I decided to give him a bit of truth and a bit of bullshit.

“I lost someone very close to me,” I said quietly. I held the coffee cup between my hands and stared into it to avoid his eyes. “He was killed. We were going to be married. I decided I needed a change.”

His features softened. “I’m sorry to hear that. When did he die?”

“A while ago.”

“How did he die?”

I hesitated for just a second. “Cancer.”

“I thought you said he was killed.”