by Cathryn Fox
“Something just isn’t right.”
Tate shook the band she left in the bathroom. “Something is definitely off.”
Kaden pulled his car into her driveway, and they both jumped out. They hurried to the front door and knocked loudly.
“I’m coming. I’m coming,” a tired voice said as the lock clicked.
Janie’s roommate, Maria, opened the door, and surprise turned to worry when she saw him and Tate standing there on the stoop.
“Is she here?” Kaden asked.
Maria shook her head. “No she didn’t come home last night. I thought she was with you guys.”
“She was, but she left sometime this morning,” Kaden said. “Then she sent this.” He held the phone up for her to read the message as old, painful memories of Sondra came rushing back. But Janie wasn’t Sondra, and he didn’t believe for a minute she’d do this to him. Sure, she might be running scared, but underneath that façade she presented to the world, she was kind and giving, vulnerable yet strong, and damned if he wasn’t determined to be there for her, to show her that she could count on him.
“Do you have any idea where she could be?” Tate asked.
Panic moved over Maria’s face. “What’s going on? Is she okay?” Her glance bobbed back and forth between the two of them. “You better not have hurt her.” She glared at them. “Underneath that tough disguise, Janie is a sweet, loving person who’s been through hell and back, and so help me, if you hurt her—”
“I’d never hurt her,” Kaden said, his jaw tightening. “And I know exactly who she is.”
“Then what happened?” Her eyes suddenly grew round. “Oh God, tell me Simon doesn’t have anything to do with this.”
Kaden leveled her a look. “Why would you think Simon had something to do with this?”
She pointed to the phone. “Janie might have left your place this morning for her own personal reasons, but sending a text like that isn’t her style.” She nibbled her bottom lip, then added, “And I know Simon. Don’t think for a minute that that rescue scene at the café will keep him from Janie. She’s changed her phone number numerous times, and he always finds the new one. He totally ignores the restraining order against him and continues to stalk her, so your strong-arm tactics would mean basically nothing to him.” She shook her head. “If he’s still following her—and I’m betting he is—he’d know she’d been with the two of you, and even his pea brain would be able to put two and two together.”
“Jesus Christ,” Tate said. “Where the hell could she be?”
As the two puzzled it out, Kaden’s mind raced. He’d pushed Janie hard last night, exposed her—and this morning, she’d run off like a skittish cat. And what does a cat do when it’s afraid?
Hide.
“I know where she is,” Kaden said, he turned and rushed toward the car, Tate tight on his heels.
“I’m coming,” Maria said.
“No,” Kaden said. “You stay here and call the police. Tell them to meet us at the set.”
“The set?” Maria called out.
“Yes, just do it.”
Kaden and Tate jumped into the vehicle, and he rushed through the city streets. After showing his identification at the gate, he asked, “Has Janie Monroe come through here this morning.”
The security guard looked over his clipboard. “Yeah, about an hour ago.”
“Was she alone?” Tate asked.
“She came by cab and was dropped off.”
“Did anyone else check in this morning?”
He looked over his paper again. “Just maintenance.”
Shit. Simon had worked in maintenance before getting fired. Maybe he still had his security pass. Kaden exchanged an uneasy look with Tate, then sped toward the back lot to the studio where Devious Women was filmed.
They parked, and Kaden fished the keys to the set out of his pocket. When they stepped inside the studio, he could hear voices coming from the dressing rooms. As worry raced through him, he ran down the hall. Through the crack in Janie’s dressing room door, he glimpsed Janie throwing her set’s costume clothes into a suitcase. Simon stood behind her, looking stressed and volatile, raking one agitated hand through his hair and calling her Samantha as he waved a gun around with another. Fire raged through him as every protective instinct he possessed came out full force. He pushed through the door and made a dive for Simon.
Simon turned, and the gun went off, just missing Kaden’s shoulder as Kaden dove for his legs, taking him to the ground. In the blur of activity, the gun clattered to the floor, and he caught a glimpse of Tate running to cover Janie. He drove his fist into Simon’s face, and while he wanted to stay there and pummel him into the ground for hurting the woman he loved, he rolled off him to retrieve the gun.
Sirens reached their ears, and Simon turned his head toward the sound, blood gushing from his nose. Gun in hand, Kaden climbed to his feet.
“She doesn’t want you,” Simon said. “She wants me.” He looked at Janie. “Tell him, Samantha. Tell him it’s me you’re in love with.”
“Get up,” Kaden said, gun aimed.
Simon hesitated for a moment and looked at Janie. He opened his mouth to speak, but Kaden stepped between the two and cut him off.
“You are never, ever to go near her again,” he said, the deadly calm of his voice belying his anger. “If you try, you’ll have to go through me first, and I will kill you.” He picked Simon up by the collar and shoved him out of Janie’s dressing room. He kept a firm grip, leading him outside to the approaching officers.
After an exchange of information, the officers put Simon in the back of a cruiser, and Kaden led them inside to take Janie’s statement. Once they were gone, Kaden walked out with them to see them drive off with Simon. The cruiser left the lot, and he went back to the changing room to find Janie in Tate’s arms.
“Thank you,” he said to his friend. Tate nodded and handed her over to Kaden, leaving the room to give them their privacy.
With adrenaline still pumping through his veins, he pulled her to him and took a long, slow breath to pull himself together. “It’s okay sweetheart. No one is going to hurt you now.”
She lifted her face to his. “He thinks I’m…he called me…he doesn’t know who I really am.”
“I know. It’s your character he’s stalking, not you.”
“He’s been watching us…following us.” She drew in a quick breath. “The text. He forced me to do it. I didn’t want to. Especially after Sondra…” She sniffed, tears pooling in her eyes as she continued to ramble. “After running out on you this morning, and then sending that text, I can’t believe you still came looking for me. I never expected you to…but if you hadn’t.” She visibly trembled, and he held her tighter against his chest.
“Janie,” Kaden began softly as he cupped her chin. “I thought you believed in me.”
“Maybe I just didn’t believe in myself.” She dashed a hand across her tear-stained cheek and met his eyes. “I left the bracelet behind. How did you know where to find me?”
“I just did,” Kaden said.
“But…”
“Don’t you see?” Kaden said. “I know who you are. And I know you came running here because you were scared, and being here, surrounded by props and costumes that you can hide behind, gave you that safety I talked about. What you have to understand is I’ll always be here for you.”
“I… I can’t believe you knew where to find me. I was so scared.”
“You never have to be scared again. You have my word on that,” Kaden added.
“This morning,” she began as Kaden brushed a tear from her face. “What happened between us… I wasn’t sure…wasn’t sure if it was part of aftercare or because…” she let her words fall off, like she was too afraid to say them out loud.
“Remember when Tate told you I was breaking all the rules with you?”
“Yes.”
“It’s because I want you in my life full-time, sweetheart. Not just in th
e dungeon. I want permanent with you,” he explained. “Just me and you, no one else.”
“Not Tate?”
His heart squeezed almost painfully. “Tate is my friend, and he will be there for us always. But the only hands I ever want on your body again are mine. Please tell me you want that, too.”
She went up onto her toes and gave him a soft kiss. “Your hands are the only ones I ever want on me again, too.”
He exhaled slowly, relief moving through him. “But it’s not just your body I want you to put in my hands, it’s your heart, too. I need you to trust that I will respect and treasure it always.”
Her eyes went wide and she shook her head.
“Janie?” he asked, his heart missing a beat. Was she having second thoughts? God, he couldn’t lose her. Not now. Not ever. “Whatever it is, we can work through it.”
She looked around the set. “But we work together. The director frowns on on-set romances.”
He laughed. “It’s not an on-set romance, sweetheart. It’s an off-set love affair, and if Cameron Phillips has a problem with it, he can deal with me about it.”
Kaden felt her body relax, the tension easing from her face as she smiled up at him. “When you put it like that, something tells me he’s not going to have a problem with it.”
He frowned at her.
“What?” she asked her eyes going wide.
“There’s still the matter of you running out on me this morning,” he said.
She shook her head. “I was confused… I didn’t…”
He grinned. “I believe your actions were very undisciplined. And you know what that means.” As Kaden looked down at her, his heart swelled with the things he felt for her.
She bit down on her bottom lip as a quiver moved through her, but this time, Kaden knew it was from excitement, not fear. “You…you’re going to spank me?” she asked.
“Yes, I’m going to spank you,” he said. He watched her cheeks flush with heat and knew this sweet, yet strong woman who had given herself to him was going to flourish under his care, and he, in turn, had found the woman who’d taught him how to love again.
Thank You!
Thank you so much for reading, Pin Me Up Proper. I hope you enjoyed Janie and Kaden’s journey as much as I loved writing it. Please read on, I’ve included an excerpt from Yours To Take (Book one in the Captured and Claimed serial) I hope you enjoy!
Interested in leaving a review? Please do! Reviews help readers connect with books that work for them. I appreciate all reviews, whether positive or negative.
Happy Reading,
Cathryn
Yours To Take
Cathryn Fox
Chapter One
“Please tell me you’re not serious?”
Jaw slack, and hands planted on the small round table, Rebecca Andrews stared at her three best friends, hardly able to believe what they were suggesting.
Lilliana James closed her palm over Rebecca’s hand and gave a reassuring squeeze. Even though the lights had been dimmed in their favorite New York piano bar, a place where they all convened after a challenging day in the courtroom, Rebecca didn’t miss the sympathy in her friend’s big brown eyes when she said, “Come on, Becs, you know as well as I do that you need a vacation.”
“It’s not a vacation she needs,” Melanie Collins piped in, running her fingers up and down the crystal stemware in a highly suggestive manner that had Rebecca’s thoughts careening in an erotic direction. She smirked and added, “What she needs is to get laid. Plain and simple.”
“Good, God,” Rebecca murmured under her breath, hoping like hell no one in the near vicinity could hear her tell-it-like-it-is friend.
“Don’t even try to deny it,” Melanie challenged playfully, her eyes gleaming with mischief.
As their conversation headed south—literally—Rebecca fished her olive out of the martini glass and gestured the bartender for another, having decided then and there that this was the perfect occasion to overturn her two two-drink rule. Hell, who could blame her for wanting to consume copious amounts of alcohol after discovering her well-meaning friends wanted to send her to some sort of sex club on a private island off the coast of Nova Scotia?
She chewed on her olive as her glance went to the tickets on the table—one for a resort called Freedom, the other for the private charter that was scheduled to fly her there first thing tomorrow. Groaning, she took in the other patrons seated around them, many of whom were colleagues, their identities masked by the lounge’s dark lighting and intimate seating. She leaned forward, desperate to keep this embarrassing conversation private, and arched an accusing brow. “How long have you three been scheming this up, anyway?”
“Just a few weeks now,” Melanie answered.
Rebecca did the mental math, her thoughts rewinding to three weeks ago, then shook her head, suddenly understanding what this was really all about. “Look, Jon didn’t break up with me. I broke up with him.” When her rebuttal was met with silence, she desperately searched for an alliance in the group. Her glance met Sophie’s and she cast her a pleading look.
But Sophie simply shrugged and said, “Just like you broke up with Justin, Matthew, Phillip…”
“And we know, we know,” Melanie said, rolling her eyes. “You just weren’t compatible.”
Rebecca held her hands up, palms out. “Okay, fine. I get it. You’re saying I’m too picky.” She frowned, and added, “It’s just that…well, we weren’t…they weren’t,” she paused, unable to put in to words what she truly felt. How could she explain what was missing from those relationships, when she couldn’t identify it herself?
She took a moment to consider the men from her past. Not only were they successful, kind and generous, they were also deeply considerate lovers. A woman in her right mind would jump at the chance to date any one of those men. She sighed inwardly. Okay, perhaps the problem really did lie with her, and she was the one who wasn’t in her right mind. But she just couldn’t seem to find a man that suited her.
If only she could figure out what it was that was lacking…
Oddly enough her thoughts drifted back to last year’s trial against Montgomery Charters, specifically to Quinn Montgomery, owner of the airline, and one of the world’s youngest, self-made millionaires. Rebecca always prided herself on being calm, cool and collected, inside the courtroom and out, but there was just something about that man’s steely command that threw her off her game. Whenever she met those intense black eyes from across the table, eyes that looked like they could see into the depth of her soul, something always compelled her to shy away. She wasn’t sure what it was about the powerful tycoon that had her reacting in such a peculiar way, she only knew that he had the ability to rattle her hard-earned control, and because of it, she needed to keep her distance.
The bartender stepped up to the table with fresh drinks, and as his presence pulled her thoughts back to the conversation at hand, Rebecca shook her head, wondering why she was thinking of the powerful and enigmatic Quinn Montgomery after all this time.
Perhaps it was the fact that her friends had booked her flight through his airline…or perhaps it was something else entirely. Either way, he was a man she never wanted to come up against again, because the next time she wasn’t so sure she could keep her composure.
“It’s just a weekend away to relax, let you hair down.” Melanie waved a dismissive hand like what they were suggesting was nothing more than an innocent day at the spa. Except what they wanted her to do had sex, sin and seduction written all over it. “Maybe at Freedom you’ll learn to relax and stop trying to be in control of everything all the time.”
Rebecca squared her shoulders and tucked a long, loose strand of hair back into the bun piled at the top of her head. “Hey, I don’t always have to be in control of everything.”
Her rebuttal was met with laughter. Okay, so maybe it was true, but it wasn’t her fault. She’d come from nothing and had to work hard to get where she was, and it was
n’t easy to loosen up and let go. Controlling every aspect of her life was how she got to where she was today.
And where is that, some inner voice asked, only to answer with, alone every night, with nothing but a battery-operated friend to keep you warm.
Sophie squeezed her hand and Rebecca looked up to meet a pair of big blue eyes full of genuine concern. “You’ve been so uptight that we just thought you could use a bit of time to yourself.”
Melanie bobbed her head. “And you never know, while you’re away maybe you’ll figure out what it is you’re looking for in a man.”
“At a sex resort?”
“It’s not a sex resort,” Lilliana reassured her. “It’s just a place where single people go to meet others.”
Slipping into lawyer mode, Rebecca challenged, “But when you say others, you mean the opposite sex right? So in my book that’s a sex resort.” Rebecca picked up the ticket and turned it over in her hand, but as she thought about it, really, really thought about what her friend’s were offering her, her body began warming in the most intimate places. She wet her suddenly dry lips, her nipples tightening as she envisioned the salacious activities that undoubtedly took place on the exclusive island.
A strange garbled noise caught in her throat and she shook her head to clear it. God, she must be crazy—and the jury was still out on that—because for a moment there she actually found herself considering their ludicrous offer.
Rebecca squinted to read the fine print. “Is this place even legal?”
“Of course it is, and you leave first thing in the morning.” Melanie snatched the ticket and shoved it into Rebecca’s purse; her way of saying the topic was no longer up for debate.
Rebecca stiffened. “I don’t think—”