Stolen Hearts (The Stolen Series Book 3)

by Renee Harless

  BY: RENEE HARLESS

  Taylor Hughes is a rule follower, no detail ever goes overlooked. That attention to detail is imperative in every aspect of her life, especially her job as an event planner.

  Rule One: The client is always right.

  Rule Two: Make it magical.

  Rule Three: Go the extra mile for any guest.

  Rule Four: Never take anything from an event. (Note: that includes any treats.)

  When Hunter Divers, the sexy bartender, handed her a whiskey sour and a ride back to her apartment she forgets all about her rules for one night of recklessness.

  What happens when her lapse in judgment leaves her with a keepsake from that night?

  All rights reserved.

  Copyright ©2019 Renee Harless

  This work is one of fiction. Any resemblance of characters to persons, living or deceased, is purely coincidental. Names, places, and characters are figments of the author’s imagination. All trademarked items included in this novel have been recognized as so by the author. The author holds exclusive rights to this work. Unauthorized duplication is prohibited.

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  Table of Contents

  Prologue – Taylor

  Chapter One - Hunter

  Chapter Two – Taylor

  Chapter Three – Hunter

  Chapter Four – Taylor

  Chapter Five – Hunter

  Chapter Six – Taylor

  Chapter Seven – Hunter

  Chapter Eight – Taylor

  Chapter Nine – Hunter

  Chapter Ten – Taylor

  Chapter Eleven – Hunter

  Chapter Twelve – Taylor

  Chapter Thirteen – Hunter

  Chapter Fourteen – Taylor

  Chapter Fifteen – Hunter

  Epilogue – Taylor

  Acknowledgements

  Sneak Peek of Coming Alive

  Prologue – Taylor

  I WATCH THE CROWD in the center of the room dance around joyfully as they celebrate in the matrimony of their friends and family. Sara and Cooper, relatives of previous clients, have come a long way since I first met them over a year ago. They tried to deny any attraction to each other, but I knew that it was there, simmering right below the surface. Luckily, it didn’t take long for them to recognize it in each other, which is why we’re here celebrating their nuptials.

  My boss Kerry has outdone herself again with this event. She never fails to impress, not only the clients, but myself as well. She truly has a talent and I’ve been so thankful to have the opportunity to work under her. Unfortunately, this moment is bittersweet.

  I gaze up at the twinkling lights dangling from the tree limbs and glimmering in the darkness of the night like tiny fireflies in a summer haze. Kerry has decided to close up shop and head back home. She didn’t disclose much, but her family called and the next day she told me that she was going to have to move back to help. The only other event we have planned is a sweet sixteen party in a few weeks. And those are my least favorite. Some of the clients are gracious, but in the past four years of working with Kerry, I’ve seen my fair share of spoiled brats.

  Looking down at the tablet safely secured in my hand, I scroll through my checklist and make sure that we’re on schedule. The limo for the bride and groom is set to arrive in a few minutes, and then we will slowly begin to usher the party guests from the bed and breakfast hosting the reception.

  “Glass of Champagne?” Kerry asks as she holds out a delicate flute made of crystal filled halfway with the pale yellow liquid.

  “You know that it’s against my rules,” I remind her, but as she nudges the glass closer toward me, I begrudgingly take it from her grasp.

  “Live a little, Taylor. It’s our last big event and you’ve never broken a single one of your job rules. And I’m your boss, at least for another seven days. So, if I say that having a glass of wine is permitted, then you better damn well drink it.”

  With a chuckle, I bring the glass to my lips and tip the crystal upward allowing the liquid to spill down my throat. I won’t tell her how refreshing the Champagne tastes amid the humid night. The air is so thick and wet that I feel as if I’ve been standing in a rainstorm. But I grew up in the Northern part of California and after six years in South Carolina, I still haven’t grown accustomed to the stickiness of the summer here.

  “So, what are your plans?”

  Setting my now empty glass on a nearby table, I glance at Kerry and give her a small smile hoping to reassure her. I know that she feels terrible about leaving so suddenly, but I also know how close she is with her family. Something I’ve never felt except with my younger sister.

  “I’ll be fine. I always land on my feet.”

  “That’s not what I’m asking.”

  “I know.” I ignore her question because truthfully I have no idea what I plan on doing with my life. This job was supposed to be my one chance at a one-eighty, and for a while, it has been. I’ve been able to save some money, so I have an emergency fund until I can find a new job. But as someone without a college degree, let alone a high school dropout and runaway, I don’t have many options. Kerry had been my savior when I overheard her mumbling about wanting to start this business at a coffee shop one day. I sat with her and pretty much offered her my first born if she would hire me.

  She must have approved of my tenacity, or she was afraid I was certifiably crazy, because she hired me on the spot.

  She is my best friend and I am going to miss her.

  “You’re done for the night, Taylor. Go enjoy yourself. I’ll handle the cleaning crew.”

  “But what about the list?” I ask gesturing toward the tablet safely secured under my arm.

  “I’m pretty sure I can manage this event without your list. Go. Revel in your hard work.”

  Without pause, I reach out and wrap my arms around her shoulders, ignoring how she stiffens in my embrace. I turn away without a backward glance and snag a piece of cake before taking a seat at the end of the bar set up for the guests.

  “What can I get ya?” a deep voice asks from behind the counter, and with my fork snugly secured between my lips, I gaze up and promptly choke on the heap of cake.

  I cough a few times to settle down and the man eyes me with a smug grin. “Sorry, didn’t mean to startle you. Of course, I’ve also never had anyone cough up a lung in my presence.”

  “You didn’t. I just usually try to blend into my surroundings at events like this.”

  “Why? You’re too beautiful to blend in,” he adds as he reaches over and grabs a bottle of whiskey and two small glasses.

  “Flattery will get you nowhere.”

  “It’s not the flattery I’m banking on, sweetheart.” He clinks our glasses together and tips his back as the glass reaches his lips, swallowing the contents in one gulp. And, not wanting to spoil the party, I reach for my glass and do the same, coughing again as the liquid burns going down my throat.

  “You’re Cooper’s cousin Hunter, right? I think we’ve been at a few of these events together before,” I
explain once the fiery sensation subsides and as I wait for his reply I indulge in another bite of the cake.

  “Yes, ma’am. And I’m your bartender for the night.”

  “Did you volunteer, or were you suckered into it?” I ask curiously since I remember how Sara and Cooper had been roped into planning her best friend’s and his brother’s wedding not long ago. This is the reason we met in the first place.

  “Volunteered. Meant I didn’t have to bring a date and listen to her ramble on about weddings and marriages and how she wanted to be next while looking at me like I am her next hopeful project.”

  “I can’t say that I don’t understand your logic.”

  “You’re the planner though, right? Aren’t you supposed to be all gaga over weddings and shit?” Hunter adds as he pours us each another glass of whiskey.

  “I’m the assistant and I love the planning of weddings, it’s the actual fear of my own that I despise.”

  “Ah, so a wedding planner that is terrified of commitment.”

  “Not terrified. I just know that it’s not for me. And look who’s talking Mister Forever Bachelor.”

  He laughs, the deep sound washing across my skin, leaving tiny prickles in its wake. “Probably not forever, just until I meet the right one.”

  “Good luck with that,” I reply, holding my glass up in the air as we both call out, “Cheers!”

  I watch Hunter move across the make-shift bar and serve the last few remaining guests. He always confirms that they are getting a ride home before he pours them another glass, but every time he fills up my glass with a new shot of whiskey he never inquires about how I plan on getting back to my small one-room apartment on the other side of the city.

  From my perch at the bar I watch as a couple paws at each other against the wall, neither of them caring about the show that they’re putting on. I can’t help but wish that I had that sort of passion with someone, hell, with anyone. I can’t even remember the last time that I’ve had sex, which instantly has my lower parts aching for some attention.

  Turning my attention back to the bar, I take in the two men chatting with Hunter. Both of them have an all- American appeal with their carefully coiffed hair and baby smooth chins, but they do nothing for me. But when my gaze travels over to Hunter, my muscles clench in desire. His dark hair is a mess as if he’s run his hands through it all night and his chin has a soft layer of stubble that I yearn to feel between my legs.

  Despite my yearning for him at this moment I know that I can’t do this. Not today, not ever. It goes against my rules and I’ve already broken one by drinking at this event.

  Sliding off the bar stool I reach for my purse and sift through the pile of mess to find my phone with the intentions of calling a cab. I stumble as I take a step forward and I almost fall on my face as I whirl around when Hunter shouts at me.

  “Hey, where do you think you’re going?”

  “Home,” I argue. “I’m calling a cab.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous. I’ll take you home.”

  “I’m not going anywhere with you.”

  “Sure, you are. I’m not a stranger and you’ll be safe with me.”

  “You may not be a stranger, but I don’t exactly trust you.”

  For a second, he looks offended, but then his carefree smirk settles back on his face.

  “Come on, sweetheart. I’ll save you a few bucks and maybe you’ll even have a good time.”

  The phone continues to ring on the other line and I surmise that all of the taxi services are gone for the night. The pitfall of living on a small side of town.

  “Fine,” I consent. “I’ll allow you to give me a ride home.”

  Hunter launches himself over the counter and in a second he’s standing before me, snaking his hand around the straps of my bag while his other arm rests around my shoulders, pulling me tighter against his hard body.

  All I know is if my damn vagina doesn’t stop quivering at Hunter’s presence I’m going to go crazy and throw myself at him.

  Once outside, he guides me away from the parking lot with a few lone cars and toward a shiny black and chrome death trap.

  “I’m not getting on that thing.”

  “I promise that I’ll go slowly. You’ll love it. Trust me, okay?” he requests, and if it weren’t for the sincerity in his eyes, I would definitely try my luck again with the taxi service.

  I nod and he lifts me into the air and plops me onto the seat before settling his helmet onto my head. I’m thankful that my hair is twisted into the chignon so it won’t go flying all around me. Hunter settles himself on the bike, grabs my knees, and tugs me so that I shift against him. I gasp as my chest collides with his back. Silently he grips my hands from where they rest on the sides of the seats and he wraps them around his waist.

  “Hold on tight,” he calls out as he starts the bike, and before I know it, we’re off sailing through the night.

  As the wind whips around me, I settle in the seat and relax my body against Hunter’s. His stomach muscles tighten as I loosen my grasp around his waist, trailing my hands across his rigid abdomen. The vibrations of the bike are giving me feelings of new sensations and cravings that I haven’t felt in years.

  And maybe it’s the whiskey that has me feeling bold, or the ride on the motorcycle giving me a sense of badass confidence, but when Hunter pulls up to my apartment, tugs the helmet from my head and lifts me from the bike, I find myself tossing my rules into the wind and living freely for just one night.

  “Do you want to come inside?”

  Chapter One - Hunter

  Three Weeks Later

  THE LINES AND NUMBERS on the screen begin to blur together, forcing me to lean back in my home office chair and rub my eyes. It’s well past midnight, but I know that the bookkeeping isn’t going to do itself. I had an accountant managing our revenue and expenses for a while, but when I noticed a few thousand dollars missing here and there, I put two and two together and realized that he was pocketing some of our funds. Well, a lot of our funds - twenty thousand to be exact.

  The landscaping company is one I started with my cousins Jackson and Cooper, but I handle the brunt of the work since my background is in landscape design. I have clients all across the country requesting my assistance and contracting with outside companies to complete the work. But it’s the office work that has been suffering in the meantime. Both Jackson and Cooper have steady jobs of their own that they focus on and I’m left with this monstrosity that we started from scratch.

  “Shit,” I curse as I slam the screen down on my laptop and huff back into my chair. Luckily, we’ve been steadily in the black for the past few years, the company and me. We’re not hurting for money, but if I have to enter one more transaction of mulch, I might just go blind.

  Not to mention that we have a waitlist of clients begging to get on our rotating schedule, but the last two guys I hired were let go within a week. Either they opted not to show up for work or they slacked on the job. If a client wants a freaking chevron pattern in her lawn and paid the extra custom fee, then you better well provide it. I don’t strive for anything less than perfection.

  This is why I now find myself taking care of six jobs this weekend instead of the typical three per employee. Of course in an ideal world I would get to focus more on the design aspect, the entire reason I went to school for agriculture engineering, but the job has to be done until I can find some decent employees.

  I make a mental note to call my cousins in the morning and discuss everything with them. I need help and I know that they’ll come to the rescue because it’s something that rarely occurs. Even when I was in an accident a couple years ago and was badly injured while on the job I had no intentions of calling my family, but the older woman I had been working for at the time was freaking out and insisted she calls a relative after she contacted an emergency dispatcher.

  Living in my cousins’ shadows as a child, I tried to very rarely ask for help, and I suppose that notion
has followed me into adulthood.

  Standing from the chair, I rip my T-shirt away from my chest and then up and over my head, balling it into my fist as I walk out of the small office at the back of the house.

  After leasing Cooper’s new wife’s apartment for a few months, I saw this house come on the market and snatched it up as quickly as I could. The colonial style home has a large wraparound porch and five acres of land just begging for me to turn it into a masterpiece.

  Boxes line the hallway at the back of the house that leads to the office and I step around them as I navigate my way to my bedroom at the end of the second hallway. I moved into the house three weeks ago, the day after Cooper and Sara tied the knot.

  That weekend was one for the record books. Not only did I move into this house, but I spent the night in the arms of a beautiful woman. The little sprite reminded me of a dark haired Tinkerbelle, but the things she could do with her body and tongue definitely left me rethinking my stance on fairies.

  Glancing down I find my cock standing at full attention at the very thought of my night with Taylor, the pouty-mouthed vixen. Tossing the shirt still gripped in my hand toward my hamper, I lie back on my bed and close my eyes while shifting one of my hands to wrap around my cock. I stroke my stiffness as I recall the way she hesitantly asked me to follow her inside her apartment and then dropped to her knees the moment we had stepped foot across the threshold. The woman was voracious with her pent up needs and I found myself a willing participant to help her get everything she wanted.

  I had taken her body against every surface of her cramped space, my hunger for her growing with each taste of her body. My cock hardens further as I recall how she called out my name in the darkness of her apartment when I took her over the precipice the first time, and as my strokes increase, I spill my release from my cock onto my clenched abdomen, groaning as I call out her name into the air.

  This little woman cast me in her spell that night and I can’t seem to break free. No woman even comes close to her, not even the statuesque gorgeous women that have warmed my bed before. They can’t hold a candle to Taylor – who is far from my type. I wonder what possessed me to take her home to begin with.