Stolen Hearts (The Stolen Series Book 3)

by Renee Harless

  Now I just need to figure out a way to have her want to stay.

  ***

  It’s been two weeks since Taylor and Tabitha have come into my life and melded themselves effortlessly into my day-to-day schedule. And, despite the 2 a.m. wake up calls from Tabitha crying in her bedroom, she has transitioned without much of a problem. Mr. Sedgwick even commented after one of his random drop-ins that she seems to be adjusting well. And that is all thanks to Taylor. The strong and beautiful woman has been bending over backward to make sure that Tabitha has everything that she could need, even if it means she is doing without.

  As I walk into the house after working another fourteen-hour day, I find the two of them sprawled out on the floor watching a movie on the large flat screen television.

  “Hey,” Taylor says when she notices my arrival, Tabitha jumps from the ground, rushes forward and wraps her little arms around my leg. This girl definitely has me wrapped around her finger. “How was your day?”

  “Good, finally hired three more workers that I think will take some of the brunt away from me. Sara’s brother, Aiden, and his two friends seem like they’ll do a good job, I have just been waiting for their drug tests and background checks to come back.”

  “Well, that’s good. You look so tired,” she points out, innocently biting her bottom lip.

  “Hm. . .have you been paying attention to me?” I ask knowing that her cheeks will redden as if she’s spent the day out in the sun.

  “No, I . . .I just notice that you leave before the sun rises and you’re home after dark. Tabitha has already had her bath and is ready for bed. She asked to wait for you.”

  That stings. I hate that I’m missing this time with the little girl, even if she isn’t mine. And not just her, but Taylor too. I’m not sure why I ever thought it was a good idea to pursue things with her when my life is already chaotic as it is.

  Taylor must sense my change in mood because she lifts her hand and rests it on my shoulder in an apology, or comfort – I’m not quite sure.

  “I’m sorry-”

  “I have some more work to finish up. Your landlord finally dropped off your mail,” I state as I move past her and head toward my home office to work on the finances.

  “Hunter,” she calls out, but I don’t turn around to acknowledge her. Instead, I reply sharply, “Did you find a job yet?” just as I slam the door to the room.

  My body cringes reflexively after I utter the statement. It was a low blow, especially since I told her to take her time finding a job and to focus on helping Tabitha transition into our space.

  Plopping down on my chair, I boot up the computer. My hands weave through my hair as I rest my elbows on the solid wooden surface of my desk. I need to apologize to Taylor, but right now I’m too worked up for it to be sincere. My anger and frustrations with being overworked and the fact that I haven’t had sex since Taylor and I went back to her apartment over five weeks ago is eating away at me.

  “Shit,” I murmur to myself and decide to cool off by staring at spreadsheets for a while and try to make sense of the numbers in front of me.

  A soft knock echoes in the room and I wipe the haze from my eyes. The clock reads 9 p.m. and I realize that I’ve been sitting here for about an hour trying to make sense of the ledger.

  Cracking the door open, Taylor wearily peeks her head through the gap. “Hey, Tabitha is whimpering in her sleep. I know you’re good at getting her to calm down.”

  “Um, yeah. . . sure. I’ll be there in a minute. I just need to finish entering this transaction.”

  “What are you working on?” she asks, stepping further into the room.

  “Just the bookkeeping for the company. If I don’t keep ahead of it then it becomes a mess. Just like it is now. I have about three more months to add and make sense of.”

  A sob filters into the room and my heart lurches.

  “Oh, man. Okay, let me go take care of her.”

  I rush from the room and quietly enter Tabitha’s. She’s lying on her side in the crib, now converted into a toddler bed, and her body shakes with tears.

  It doesn’t happen every night, but when it does, very little can calm her down without waking her up. Two nights ago, when it happened I simply laid my head beside hers, our foreheads touching, and she immediately calmed. So tonight, in just the same manner, I settle my body on the floor beside her bed and place my forehead next to hers. The cries soften until they’re nonexistent and Tabitha is lost back in her own world of dreams and fantasy.

  My own fantasy is sitting perched in my chair when I return to my office. She’s typing furiously on the keyboard, and when a strand of dark hair falls into her face, Taylor effortlessly tucks it behind her ear without missing a beat. I watch her in fascination for a minute and it’s not until she pauses and bites her lip that I announce my presence.

  “If you needed to borrow the computer, you could have just asked,” I proclaim as I walk across the light blue rug.

  “Oh!” she startles. “I’m sorry, but numbers intrigue me and I thought. . .well. . .I just couldn’t help myself. But here, look.” Pointing to the computer screen, she stands and offers me back my chair, but I opt to continue standing. She shrugs at my insistence. “I was able to copy most of these transactions that occur monthly and just update the invoice or receipt number. Doing this should save a significant amount of time when inputting. And I noticed that you don’t have an accounting program, which I highly recommend looking into, but I created a few formulas and macros in your spreadsheet to calculate your expenses, revenue, profit, and your owed taxes. If you’d like I can show you how to set up a better invoicing system too,” she says in one breath, gasping for air when she’s finished, but the smile never wavering from her lips.

  “Holy shit, you did all of this in like. . .,” I prompt before looking at the clock on the computer monitor, “seven minutes. You did all of this in seven minutes,” I repeat.

  “Are you angry?” she asks for the first time considering I may not have wanted her to touch my things.

  Placing my hands on her cheeks, I pull her mouth toward mine without a second thought. This beautiful creature just saved me hours upon hours of work and even though I’ve been dying to kiss her for days, I knew that she wasn’t ready so I’ve been holding back. But I couldn’t at this moment even if I tried.

  Her lips are stiff and hesitant, matching the rigidness of her body, but as my tongue swipes along the crease of her mouth, she relaxes into my touch. Her lips part in an invitation and I gladly accept. Her taste overwhelms me and I want so badly to push her lithe body against the wall and claim her as mine for once and for all. But she’s not ready for that yet, even as her hands reach out and grip my hips there is a tentativeness in her touch, a caution that she continually carries with her.

  Against my cock’s judgment, I push myself away just as she moans my name, causing that particular muscle to jump behind the zipper of my pants.

  “Thank you, Taylor. You just. . .pretty much saved me,” I tell her as she looks up at me behind hooded lids and hazy eyes.

  “Yeah. . .um, you’re welcome.” Coming out of her fog, she shakes her head, knocking a few strands of hair loose from behind her ear. “So, you mentioned some mail?”

  “It’s on the corner of the desk. Your landlord was probably hoping to hijack any checks that came your way.”

  “You’re probably right.” She giggles and it’s as if my bad temper from earlier has been completely forgotten.

  Looking back at the computer monitor an idea pops in my head as I think of all the time and work that Taylor has just rescued me from within the span of a few minutes.

  “Hey, Taylor?”

  “Hmm?” she replies as she tears through another envelope. The words SECOND NOTICE shine through the paper in bright red.

  “Are you still looking for a job?”

  “You know that I am.” With a grunt, she tosses another late notice onto a pile on my desk and runs a shaky hand
through her hair.

  “I know that you don’t want my help with, well, anything.”

  “Nope, not at all,” she vehemently claims, her nostrils flaring at the suggestion.

  “But how about you helping me?”

  I can see that I’ve piqued her interest as she drags her eyes away from her mail and over to me.

  “Go on.”

  “What do you think of being the bookkeeper for my company? It would be full time with insurance and retirement, and you can even bring Tabitha to work if you’re in the office.”

  “And why would you do that?”

  “Because I hate doing this stuff, I started Dive in Landscaping so that I could create outdoor masterpieces, not stare at a computer all day crunching numbers.”

  “You could just hire an accountant, someone with actual experience doing this sort of thing.”

  “I could, you’re right. But the last accountant I hired tried stealing money by messing with the books. So, I’m not too keen on hiring outside people I don’t already know.”

  “Oh, Hunter. I mean I would love to, but you don’t have to do it just because of my ‘situation’.”

  “I’m not. You seriously saved me so much time just now I’d be an idiot not to hire you for this. And believe me, I’ve been holding interviews for weeks. You’re the first person to come in and know what actual bookkeeping is.”

  “Seriously?”

  I release a low laugh remembering one of my last interviews. “Oh yeah. I had a recent college graduate come in and when I asked about her accounting background, she launched into an entire spiel of all of her social media accounts. Apparently, she assumed that accounting referred to her online presence.”

  Taylor giggles as she shakes her head, her silky hair brushes against her shoulders. “Well, I guess I can understand her mix up. Maybe you weren’t very specific in the help wanted ad.”

  Nonplussed I cross my arms against my chest and lift one eyebrow in question. “The header read: Bookkeeper and Office Manager with an accounting background. I’m not sure how much clearer I could have been.”

  “Well, you have me there.”

  “So, what do you say? Want to come work for me?”

  “I don’t know, Hunter. Things are already complicated with me living here part-time.”

  “Please, Taylor?” I beg her, unleashing what my mother calls my puppy dog eyes in hopes for her submission.

  “What are you doing? Is there something in your eyes?”

  “What?” I recoil.

  “Yeah, your face is kind of, droopy. Like you were forcing your eyes to water.”

  “No, that’s my patented puppy dog eyes, Mom says it works every time.”

  “Yeah, well she’s lying to you. That was the saddest excuse for begging eyes I’ve ever seen. I’m pretty sure Tabitha does it better.”

  “Damn, so you won’t take the job?”

  “Oh, I will. I just wanted you to work for it a little. Mission accomplished.”

  “You little brat.”

  She shrugs her shoulders and turns to leave the room, her pile of mail still clumped on the corner of my desk.

  “I’m going to start paying you rent now.”

  “No, you’re not.”

  “Yes, I am. When do I start work?”

  “Monday at eight.”

  “Great. Can’t wait to get started, bossman.”

  She leaves my office and I stand there staring at the space she vacated in wonderment. That woman is definitely going to keep me on my toes.

  “That’s Mr. Bossman, Taylor!” I shout, not even considering that Tabitha is asleep in the other room.

  “Yes, sir.”

  Relaxing back into my office chair I close my eyes and envision her saying those same words as she bends over my desk and I’m sliding my hand across the soaked folds between her legs, asking if she wants more.

  Because I sure as fuck do.

  Chapter Eight – Taylor

  TOO LONG.

  It’s been over two months since I’ve felt his hands on me, felt his cock sliding between my legs, and I swear I’m going fucking crazy.

  Not only do I have to spend almost every waking hour around him, but every little thing he does seems to turn me on, or piss me off. There is a very fine line it seems. I didn’t know that withholding sex from someone could turn them into a maniac.

  I’ve tried to be good, to listen to my brain instead of my libido, but I’m afraid that I’m fighting a losing battle. My vagina wants one person and one person only. Damn him.

  A month ago after I finally agreed to work for his company and opened my letter from Kerry (who left me far too much money as a severance package), I told myself that I could do this. That I could put this money aside and focus on finding the perfect place to raise my sweet little Tabitha. As much as I love Hunter’s house and the neighborhood, I don’t want to burden him any longer.

  But all the nights and mornings of watching him walk around his house shirtless and in gray sweatpants that leave very little to the imagination, and I should know, I remember his fine specimen quite vividly, my armor was rusting and falling apart.

  “Hunter?” I call out from the office at the back of his house as I hear the front screen door slam shut. He had gone out with his cousins for dinner, and with nothing else to do, I decided to work on building a new inventory system for his company. A system where his workers would have to check out items like mulch, or weed eater string, to help keep better monitoring of the items.

  When he doesn’t reply, I save the project and leave the office in search of him. I find him leaning into the fridge with his jeans pulled tight around his ass and thighs. It’s a spectacular sight and I find myself staring at it aimlessly.

  “See something you like?” he asks, his voice deep and husky, as he twists the top off of a bottle of water. Even watching his arms flex as he twists the lid leaves me hot and bothered. Sweat starts to bead at the base of my neck and I’m glad that my hair is gathered up in a knot at the top of my head instead of sticking to the wet mess.

  “Um. . .” I stammer as I try to divert his attention away from me. My eyes dart around the room before landing on something red and out of place. “Is that. . .lipstick?” I ask in horror. My heart clenches and stomach drops as I look closer at the smudge of red lips placed right where his chiseled jaw meets his neck. That’s not a kiss from someone in his family, that’s a kiss from someone very familiar with Hunter in ways I don’t want to comprehend.

  Guilt and regret swarm in his eyes as I look over the marking. “It wasn’t like that, Taylor,” he tries to explain, but I’m too lost in my own hurt and distress over something that I shouldn’t care about. He’s not mine.

  “You don’t have to explain, Hunter. I’m not your girlfriend. I think that I’m going to head to bed. I’m pretty exhausted. I’m. . .um. . .I’m going to sleep in Tabitha’s room tonight. So, yeah-” I turn and walk away before he has a chance to stop me and see the tears pooling along my lids. Stupid tears. I’m not even sure what I’m crying over. Is it that he was with another woman tonight? That he lied about it? Or that she got to have something that I’ve been craving for weeks but have been so foolishly stubborn to ask for.

  Opening the hall closet, I reach in and grab an extra blanket and pillow for my makeshift bed in Tabitha’s room. For good measure, I grab another blanket and then turn around only to bump into a massive wall of muscle.

  “What’s going on, Taylor?” Hunter’s body leaving no room for me to get around him.

  “Nothing,” I lie.

  A deep growl sounds around us and if I dared to look around, I would bet that the pictures on the wall are shaking, but I can’t turn away. Hunter’s pinned me with his glaring eyes and I’m too lost under his spell to consider looking anywhere else.

  Before I have a chance to consider what’s going on, he flings my body through the air, and I land with my face only mere inches from Hunter’s incredible ass, while his hand sm
acks down on my bottom while it rests on his shoulder.

  “What are you doing?” I argue as I try to wiggle myself free, but his grip is firm on my hips and legs.

  Just as quickly as I landed on his shoulder, I’m dropped onto the unmade bed. His body covers mine to keep me from squirming away, not that I want to as his thick thigh settles between mine.

  Looking at his jaw, I notice that the lipstick stain is now long gone. “Had to remove the evidence?”

  “Jealous, sweetheart?”

  I scoff at him and turn away, not wanting him to see the truth in my eyes. “Don’t be ridiculous, Hunter.”

  “Taylor,” he says, his now soft voice sending shivers over my skin. Dammit. “Look at me, sweetheart.”

  In a move from The Exorcist, I turn my head so quickly I probably have given myself whiplash. “I am not your sweetheart,” I spew.

  Without a sound, he brushes one of his hands through my hair, letting his fingers travel from root to tip without stopping, fanning out the strands as he goes.

  “Talk to me.”

  “About what?”

  “About what happened in the kitchen.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “You do. Don’t play stupid, you’re too smart for that. You saw the lipstick and got jealous.”

  I mumble underneath my breath.

  “What was that?” he asks, leaning closer until my lips practically touch his ear.

  “Maybe.”

  “Why should that bother you? You’ve made it pretty clear over the weeks how you feel. I mean, you sleep with a row of pillows between us in the bed.”

  “I know. I just. . .it irritated me, that’s all. You can do whatever you want, Hunter.”

  “No, I really can’t,” he argues as his hand leaves my hair and travels down my arm he has pinned beneath his body.

  “Yes, you really can.”

  “Nope,” Hunter disagrees as his eyes move away from mine, their focus now shifting toward my mouth.