Taking Beauty (Taking Beauty Trilogy Book 1)

by Wild, Nikki

  I barely knew this man but somehow he’d managed to crawl inside of me and take up residence, in a spot so deep and dark that I never even knew it was there. In the depths of my intoxication last night, I’d imagined Bear doing things to me that I’d never thought of before. I’d gone places I’d never taken myself, holding his hand the entire way.

  What had happened to me?

  Look, I wasn’t one of those naive girls that really believes some magical man is going to show up with some magical, rainbow-shooting cock that is going to transport to me to some everlasting heaven.

  I know those books I read aren’t real. They’re fantasies. An escape from the ho-hum days of boring routines we’re all forced to play out just to survive and put food on the table.

  As much as I wanted them to come true, I didn’t really expect Mr. Toe Curler and all my fantasies to actually materialize.

  I was a reasonable girl. Hell, part of me didn’t really even believe that stuff existed at all, especially after enduring all of Harlan’s bullshit. I’d put up with so much shit from him and gotten nothing in return.

  Not one heart-racing moment.

  Not one breathless kiss.

  Certainly not an orgasm.

  It wouldn’t have taken much to make me happy right now. I would have been satisfied with a short-lived butterfly or two in my stomach from a first kiss.

  That’s why I never, in a million, gazillion years, thought something like this would be real. That a man like Bear Dalton would be real. That a man like Bear Dalton would want a woman like me.

  There were times when Harlan’s possessive nature might have been a turn on, but he did everything wrong. His every move was selfish.

  With Bear, something was different.

  Very different.

  Bear made me quiver with every word he’d uttered. His demanding orders had only made my body shiver with exquisite anticipation. He left me wanting more in the most perfect way possible—because it had been so delectably wrong and so precisely satisfying. It was like someone handed him a map to my body. Once he’d started fucking me, it was obvious he knew exactly how to please me.

  He’d found the spot.

  That spot in my brain that had been begging for someone to turn it on. The spot that was desperate for the kind of attention a man like this could demand.

  I don’t know how he found it.

  I don’t know why it was him, of all people.

  I don’t have any idea what the future holds, but I do know one thing—I wouldn’t turn this opportunity down if my life depended on it.

  And maybe it does.

  Maybe this will turn out to be the worst thing I’ve ever agreed to in my life. Maybe it’ll even be worse than Harlan. Maybe I’ll go running back to Portland with my tail between my legs.

  But maybe I won’t. Maybe it’s exactly what I’ve needed all this time.

  My hands worked faster and faster, my fingers sliding inside of my pussy faster as I imagined it was Bear’s throbbing cock inside of me. I felt the first waves of my orgasm crash as Bear’s face was front and center in my imagination. Those teasing, demanding eyes beckoned me as I submitted to his memory one more beautiful time.

  * * *

  “Hey Mom,” I finally answered one of her many phone calls two hours later. I’d dragged myself out of bed, showered and eaten and was finally feeling strong enough to face a conversation with my her.

  “Chloe, please tell me you aren’t just waking up,” she said.

  I rolled my eyes and ignored her question completely. She didn’t really want to know or care, she only wanted to judge me. I could do that just fine on my own.

  “What’s up, Mom?” I asked.

  “What job did Dalton offer you?” she asked, getting right to the point. She was never one for small talk or beating around the bush.

  “Didn’t you ask him that?” I asked. I had no idea what job I would be doing. So far, the only work I’ve done wasn’t anything she wanted to hear about. If Bear had other ideas, he hadn’t communicated them to me.

  “He was vague,” she said. I could almost see her eyebrows wrinkle disapprovingly through the phone.

  “He was vague with me, too,” I said.

  “How much is he paying you?” she asked.

  “I don’t know, Mom,” I replied, growing frustrated with her inquisition.

  “Then why would you accept?” she demanded.

  I sighed, knowing there was no way in hell I could tell her the truth. Part of me hadn’t figured out the answer to that just yet. All I knew was that I’d never felt more alive than those few moments alone with Bear and I couldn’t help but chase that feeling.

  “I love you, Mom,” I said. “I just want you to be happy.”

  “Bullshit,” she said. “He really didn’t mention a salary? Benefits?”

  “I’m sure it’ll be plenty of money. Besides, isn’t this what you’ve always wanted?”

  “But what about your career?” she asked. My breath caught in my throat for a second. Was she really thinking about what was good for me? “You just graduated with an art degree. That’s hardly going to transfer to working for a development company. I don’t know what Bear was thinking…”

  I wondered the same thing. What was he thinking? Was he thinking about me? Was he at home somewhere thinking about me right now? Was he laughing about the naive woman he manipulated?

  “Mom, I’ll figure it out. It doesn’t matter about the job. If I don’t like it, I’ll find something else once we get settled. I’m doing this for you. Besides, you’ve been trying to get me to take an entry position with the company for years.”

  “Yes, but Bear Dalton can be a demanding boss,” she said in a tone of warning.

  “Maybe that’s exactly what I need right now.”

  “Hmmm,” she murmured. “I guess that’s always a possibility. Chloe, I really think you’ll find that New York has a lot of opportunities for a woman like you.”

  “I know, Mom,” I replied. “I learned from the best.”

  “That’s sweet,” she said. “Okay, I’ll get everything arranged. The movers will be coming to your place to pack up and ship all your things on Monday…”

  She launched into business mode, her rare show of warmth replaced by her short, clipped barrage of instructions.

  No wonder Bear wants her to be his CFO, I thought to myself.

  Chapter 4

  “I can’t believe you’re leaving me,” Marie said, as she folded up my favorite sweater, her fuzzy curly red hair sprouting wildly from her head. She’d shown up a few minutes ago to help me pack. We’d ordered pizza and opened a bottle of wine and gotten to work. “And so quickly! I don’t even have time to throw you a party!”

  “I know,” I replied. “I’m sorry that it’s all so sudden.”

  “I just don’t understand how she convinced you,” she said. “I would have thought you’d have used this opportunity to put some distance between you and Matilda, once and for all.”

  Marie and I had been friends since middle school. We’d met in a painting class at daVinci Arts Middle School—the school that parents sent their weird artsy kids to that they didn’t know what else to do with.

  We were the most timid of our whole class when we’d first arrived, in awe of the bigger, cooler, artsy kids on the verge of high school, most of them already sporting dyed hair and Doc Martens. Marie blossomed, quickly adapting to the quirky unstructured atmosphere. She surrounding herself with all the cool kids.

  I was like a fish out of water.

  My classmates were performers—loud, wild, constantly moving and expressing themselves. I’d spent my childhood cutting out paper dolls and then making my own clothes for them, eventually moving to sewing real ones, but I’d spent most of my time tucked away in a corner all by myself.

  Marie quickly recognized that I was struggling. She took me under her wing, made sure to include me in everything and dared anyone to say a cross word about me, even though my
shyness was painful at times.

  After a while, she managed to make me feel comfortable and in my own way, I guess I blossomed too. We’ve been inseparable ever since. We endured high school and college together and we always thought we’d still be standing next to each other after graduation.

  I couldn’t blame her for being upset about this. I’d upended our entire plan.

  “I don’t know why I agreed,” I said, feeling awful for lying to her. “I just wanted to make her happy, I guess.”

  “Making your mother happy is not usually a priority for you,” she said, eyeing me suspiciously. “Are you sure there isn’t something you aren’t telling me?”

  “Well,” I hesitated. Marie knew me better than anyone. Of course she would sniff this out. “I sort of…connected…with my Mom’s boss.”

  “What do you mean, connected?” she asked, squinting her eyes.

  “Honestly,” I replied, relieved to let the words spill out of me. “Marie, if you tell anyone about this I’ll die… It was unexpected! He just came in and took charge…I didn’t really know what to do. And then it was so fucking incredible…” I was breathless just thinking about Bear’s hands on me.

  “What the hell are you talking about? Slow down. Start from the beginning,” she said, sitting on my bed.

  “Okay,” I said, sinking into the comfort of the quilt my Grandma had sewn for me. “I wasn’t going to go. I told my mother I wasn’t interested in moving to New York. God, do you remember how big those fucking rats were? But then Bear sort of…changed my mind.”

  “Bear?” she asked, cocking her head to the side.

  “Yeah. His name is Bear Dalton.”

  “Your Mom’s boss’s name is Bear? For fuck’s sake! Who names their kid Bear? Why didn’t you ever tell me this?”

  “I don’t know. But he’s certainly not a kid,” I said, a slow smile spreading across my face. I could still feel him inside me, my skin was still burning from his touch, even days later. “And I guess he’s my boss now, too.”

  “He gave you a job? Why didn’t you say so?”

  “I’m telling you now!”

  “Well, what is it? How much does it pay?”

  “You sound like Matilda! I - I - don’t really know…” I murmured, my voice trailing off as I realized how ridiculous this all sounded now that I was putting it into words.

  “What do you mean you don’t know?” she laughed.

  “Alright, look. He fucked me.”

  “What!” Her mouth practically fell on the floor.

  “I mean, we had sex…” A blush crept up my face. Marie and I talked about sex all the time but for some reason I felt like this was different. Should I have been ashamed about what happened? Should I have kept it to myself? There’s no way in hell I could have kept this from Marie much longer.

  “You had sex with your Mom’s boss? That’s kind of…hot,” she smiled.

  “My boss, too, technically,” I shrugged.

  “So let me get this straight,” she laughed. “You fucked your new boss but you don’t know how much he’s going to pay you or what the job is but you’ve agreed to move clear across the country to do this mystery job?”

  “Basically, yes,” I said.

  “Damn. That’s insane. He must have been one incredible lay,” she shook her head.

  “There wasn’t any lying down involved, he bent me over the table in a private room at Departure,” I said.

  Her laughter roared through my apartment.

  “Sounds romantic,” she managed to spit out through her hysterical laughter.

  I shook my head, second guessing my decision to confide in her.

  “Look, it’s crazy, believe me I know that. He just…damn, he just had this pull. He’s so fucking handsome. And sophisticated. And rich. And sexy as hell…”

  “Oh, my god! I have to see this guy,” she said, grabbing my computer and punching in Bear’s name on a google search page. Hundreds of pictures popped up, just as I knew they would, because I’d already spent hours and hours searching for info on Bear myself last night.

  “Holy fuck,” Marie whispered. “He doesn’t even look real…”

  “Yeah, none of this feels real either.”

  “You already fucked him, Chloe? I just don’t understand,” she shook her head again, before looking back at me. “Does Matilda know?”

  “No!” I yelled. “God, no!”

  “Well, damn woman. Sounds like you’ve got an adventure ahead of you.”

  “Yeah, I guess so,” I said.

  “Big dick?”

  “God, Marie! Is that all that matters to you?” I laughed.

  “Most of the time, yes, yes it is,” she nodded. “So?”

  “Yeah,” I replied, a slow, secret smile spreading across my face as Bear’s beautiful cock flashed in my head. “It’s huge.”

  Her squeals rang in my ears and I reached for my wine glass, pouring it down my throat.

  What the hell had I gotten myself into?

  Chapter 5

  “Mom, maybe you shouldn’t mix whiskey and xanax,” I warned.

  “You know flying makes me anxious,” she dismissed me with a wave, her blonde hair shining under the overhead light of the front cabin of Bear’s airplane.

  He’d sent a private jet for us.

  Mom was just as shocked as I was when she saw it and I could have sworn I saw goosebumps pop up on her arms when the pilot welcomed us aboard. My stomach was doing flips as I walked up the stairs and I exhaled with relief when I saw that Bear wasn’t there.

  The pilot welcomed us, told us to make ourselves at home and that Mr. Dalton would be waiting for us at JFK. I was grateful for the extra time before having to face him again. I’d been a nervous wreck since I’d left my house that morning.

  Having an entire luxury jet at our disposal wasn’t half bad, though.

  “This is amazing,” I said, letting Mom off the hook for mixing booze and drugs. It was her life to ruin and I had to assume she knew what she was doing.

  Normally, I might have harped a little longer, but I was distracted by the sheer luxury of Bear’s plane. The buttery soft, heated leather seats seemed to wrap around my hips and I melted into their warmth. Everything was shiny, new and probably cost more money that I could even imagine.

  “Can I get you anything else?” The male flight attendant, Brody, and the pilot, Dawson, were the only staff we’d seen so far and they’d both been perfectly hospitable. The fact that they were magazine gorgeous was an added bonus. Tall, dark and handsome, they were easily the prettiest things on the plane.

  “No, thank you, Brody,” Mom said, flashing him a professional smile. She was impressed, I could tell, but she was doing her best to appear aloof and comfortable. If I had a nickel for every time she’d told me appearances were everything than I’d be rich myself.

  Brody walked away with a curt nod and I couldn’t help but let my gaze fall to his tight black slacks. They fit him like a glove, his tight ass perky and taut. I bit my lip as I watched him disappear behind a curtain at the front of the plane and sighed.

  A week had passed since I’d seen Bear—correction—fucked Bear, and I still couldn’t shake the feelings he’d stirred up in me. Tense and anxious, I’d been on edge the entire week. Despite the strong temptation to pick up the phone, I’d managed to make it through the week without calling him and asking him exactly what he expected of me. After talking to Marie about it, I was looking at things a little differently.

  I was determined to use it as an opportunity.

  An adventure, like she’d said.

  Maybe I wouldn’t make any professional gains, but I was sure I’d be gaining something a little more valuable. Like life experience. Knowledge. Toe-curling sex.

  I’d always felt like I’d missed out on so much. I mean, what did I have to lose, right? If New York sucked, if Bear turned out to be too much for me to handle—all I had to do was come back home to Portland.

  An old friend of
mine told me that she spent a year saying ‘yes’ to everything. She’d done things she never would have normally done. One of her little ‘yes’ adventures took her to Italy, where she ended up meeting a charming guy that swept her off her feet. As soon as she started saying yes, her life blossomed.

  That’s what I wanted.

  I wanted to blossom.

  I would do that. I would say yes to everything that crossed my path in New York and see where it took me.

  The whir of the engine vibrated through my seat as the plane took off, my stomach flying up into my throat. I was a bundle of nerves, but it felt so fucking good. My chest was heavy and full with anticipation, leaving me breathless as I thought of all the things that might happen. The things I wanted to happen.

  Sure, I’d hated New York when I visited. But maybe I just didn’t have the right experience. Maybe I didn’t say yes enough.

  Loud banging noises sounded under our feet as the pilot pulled the landing gear up. I inhaled deeply, doing my best to relax my shoulders. I desperately needed to get a grip on myself. It was going to be a long few hours and Mom could usually see right through me. If she put her own anxiety aside for a few moments, she could easily figure out how tense I was.

  “Bear assured me the corporate apartment would have everything we need,” she said, looking down at her perfectly manicured nails. I shuddered at the sound of his name. “Our things should be delivered in a few days.”

  “I know, Mom,” I said, rolling my eyes. “You already told me that three times.”

  “I like to be thorough, you know that,” she said.

  “Yes, I do,” I sighed.

  “I still don’t understand,” she murmured.

  “Understand what?” I asked, stalling. I knew exactly what she was about to say.

  “Why you changed your mind?”

  “Mom,” I replied, rolling my eyes again. She hated it when I did that and I knew it, but usually it was enough to make her stop questioning me. “We talked about this. He offered me a job.”