Because He Steals Me (Because He Owns Me #6) (3 page)

“But it’s not all the way cl –”

“I don’t care.”

I sighed and did as he said, pressing the gauze against his skin and fastening it with the tape, hoping that I’d at least done enough to keep his wounds from getting infected.

He leaned back against the counter, holding onto it with his hands, his brow furrowed in concentration.

“We should call the police,” I said again.

“That’s not how I do things.”

“Not how you
do things?”
I crossed my arms over my chest. “That’s insane talk, you realize that, right?”

“The police aren’t going to do anything, Adriana. They’ll come take a statement and that’s it.”

“But if we tell them about Jason, if we –”

“I told you, it wasn’t Jason who did that.”

“It had to be Jason. I mean, come on, Callum, he was following me last night, and now a brick gets thrown through your window? That doesn’t sound like a coincidence.”

“I know guys like Jason, Adriana. They’re all talk.” He was so sure of himself, so assertive, and I marveled again at how calm he was. He was pensive, yes, but he wasn’t rattled in the slightest. People only achieved that level of calmness after a crisis from two things – from being so cut off from their emotions that they didn’t access them, or from seeing and experiencing such horrible things that nothing shook them anymore. I was almost sure that in Callum’s case, it was a combination of the two.

“So then who was it?” I pressed.

He shrugged. “I have lots of enemies.” He pushed past me and out of the bathroom, leaving me staring after him incredulously.

“You have lots of enemies?” I repeated. “What the hell does that mean?”

“It means that when you’re successful, a lot of people want to hurt you.”

He was in the kitchen now, assembling things for breakfast. “Get ready for work,” he commanded. “I’m making you blueberry pancakes.”

“What if I don’t like blueberry pancakes?” It was a test and a lie. Everybody loved blueberry pancakes, especially me.

“You like what I say you like.”

His back was to me as he continued pulling things from the refrigerator – milk, eggs, blueberries. I wondered where the food had come from, imagined faceless workers showing up and stocking his refrigerator with food.

I sighed, knowing the conversation was over, and began heading for the bathroom.

“Adriana,” Callum called after me.

“Yeah?” I turned around.

“I’ll take care of it.”

“You’ll take care of what?”

“Jason.” His eyes darkened as he said the man’s name, letting me know that even though Callum might not have thought Jason was the one who’d thrown the brick, he was still furious with Jason for scaring me. “He won’t bother you again.”

My stomach turned in on itself. “You mean like kill him?” I whispered.

Callum grinned, that sexy cocky little grin of his that made me melt. “Jesus, Lemon, what the hell must you think of me? No, not kill him. Just make him go away.”

My mouth dropped. “So kill him!”

“Adriana!” he said again, grinning and shaking his head as he began making up the pancake better. “I’m not going to kill him, Jesus. But there are ways of dealing with these things.”

“He won’t be hurt?”

“Just his pride.”

“Okay.” I bit my lip. “Thank you.”

“Don’t thank me,” he said, he looked up at me, his eyes locked on mine. “I will do whatever it takes to protect you.”

I
showered again, even though I’d just showered last night, because I wanted to make sure my hair was perfect for work. After the disheveled state I’d shown up in yesterday, I needed to make sure it didn’t happen again. I brushed my teeth and did my makeup with the makeup I had in my purse.

Then I dressed carefully in the outfit Callum had provided for me, surveying myself in the mirror when I was done.

I looked very much put together, a professional woman on her way to work. The blouse was gorgeous and silky, the lines of the pencil skirt hitting perfectly just below my knees. The cardigan was pure cashmere.

The underwear Callum had chosen was sexy and felt delicious against my skin. A black lace push up bra and a matching thong. He must have liked knowing that I was wearing sexy things under my conservative outfit.

When I got back to the kitchen, Callum was sitting at the table, clad in nothing but pajama pants, his naked, toned torso on full display. There was a plate of pancakes in front of him, and he was looking at something on his IPad.

“Don’t tell me you’re actually reading something on your iPad,” I said, sinking into the seat next to him. “What about your paper Wall Street Journal?”

“The Wall Street Journal doesn’t have the latest real estate listings.”

“Are you looking to buy real estate?”

He stood up, ignoring the question, and slid the plate of pancakes over to me. “Eat your breakfast.”

“What about
your
breakfast?”

“I already ate.”

“Oh.” My hands twisted together in my lap. “I thought… I mean, I thought we would eat together.”

He shook his head. “I have to get ready for work.”

“Okay.” I tried to hide my disappointment. I wondered how much of him not eating with me had to do with him actually needing to get ready for work, and how much of it was that he didn’t want to give me unrealistic expectations about what was going on between us. Sitting here eating breakfast together before work was something a couple did, the kind of thing that could give me the wrong idea about how our relationship really worked. But I did my best to push these thoughts out of my mind while I ate the pancakes he’d made me.

When I was finished, I brought my plate to the sink and rinsed it off, then placed it in the dishwasher.

“You don’t have to do that,” Callum said, appearing in the doorway of the bedroom. He was freshly showered, his hair damp, his strong jawline smooth, the dusting of stubble that had been there earlier now completely gone. “The housekeeper will take care of it.”

“I don’t mind.”

He shrugged as he fixed the cufflinks of his shirt, the gesture so strong, so masculine that it made me shiver. Then he put his suit coat on, and I marveled at how quickly he could transform, like a chameleon, from a badass hero falling onto me and protecting me from falling glass, into a businessman who was going to spend all day behind a desk, yelling orders at people.

He was so freakin’ sexy.

“I’ll take you to work.”

“You’ll drive me?”

“My car will drop you off.”

“Oh. But you’ll come too?”

“Yes.”

I bit the inside of my cheek to keep from smiling. More time with Callum! He was bringing me to work!

“The windows are tinted,” he said. “I will let you off around the corner so we can make sure to stay discreet.”

“Thank you.”

He picked up the leather briefcase that was sitting on the floor and set it on the counter, then turned the lock to the right combination and opened the case with a click.

He took something out of the briefcase, curving his fist around the object so that I couldn’t see what it was. He crossed the kitchen to me, then reached down and took the sides of my cardigan and pulled them tighter around my body. I’d left the top four buttons undone, and he began to button them.

“Callum,” I said, reaching for his hand. “What are you – ”

“Your body is mine.”

“Callum, I’ll look like –”

“You will look like a woman who has a man who doesn’t want anyone looking at her but him.”

He finished buttoning me up and then kissed me softly on the lips, his hand pressed against the small of my back as the kiss deepened. When he pulled back, he kept his hand against my back, holding me close to him, making it impossible for me to move.

His other hand slid over my hip and down to the bottom of my skirt. He tugged the fabric up gently.

I started to look away from him, the way I knew he liked, but he stopped me.

“Eyes on me, baby,” he said, his tone sharp. “I want to see your pretty face while I do this.”

I returned my gaze to his, my heart thrumming against my ribs.
Wanted to see my pretty face when he did what?
I wondered, slightly panicked. But I forced myself to relax, to give myself to him the way he wanted. I knew he would never hurt me, would never push me past the point of what I was comfortable with.

He pushed my thong to the side slowly and rubbed the knuckles of his closed hand against my clit as my breath hitched. Then Callum unfurled his fingers, and I felt something small and U-shaped against my pussy and then he was pushing it inside of me.

My hands were on his biceps and my grip tightened. “Callum –”

“Shhh,” Callum said. “Just relax. It will be easier if you relax.”

I did my best to do as he said, relaxing my body against him as he finished pushing whatever it was inside of me. When he was done, my pussy was full and there was a gentle pressure against my clit.

“What is it?” I asked.

“A hook vibrator,” he said, fixing my skirt. “It’s on a blue tooth remote control that’s connected to my phone.”

A remote control! What in the crap?

“Can you feel it?’

I nodded. It was inside of me, stretching my pussy and hooking up against my clit. It wasn’t uncomfortable, exactly, but I was definitely aware of it.

He kissed me again, his mouth minty fresh. “It’s small,” he said. And then he grinned wickedly. “That’s how we’ll start.”

W
hen we got outside, Callum’s car was parked against the sidewalk, and his driver handed us each a Starbucks coffee in one of their trademark white-and-green paper cups.

“Oh,” I said, startled. “Thank you very much.”

Once we were settled into the back of the car and on our way, Callum pulled out his iPad.

“What kind of real estate are you thinking of buying?” I asked as I sipped my coffee, grateful for the warm liquid. I could feel the vibrator inside of me, and I shifted on the seat, trying to get comfortable. But all that did was cause me to start feeling hot between my legs. I willed myself to stay still.

“You cannot stay in that apartment anymore,” Callum said. “Not after what happened this morning.” He pushed the screen toward me. On it was a Zillow listing for a gorgeous apartment right near the Archway offices. The ceilings were high, the outside light shining through floor-to-ceiling windows and spilling over the wide-planked hardwood floors. The kitchen was filled with sleek granite countertops and a shiny subway tile backsplash. I swiped through the pictures, each one more beautiful than the last.

It was two bedrooms, two bathrooms, with outdoor space and a tiny room for an office. The walls were painted in shades of soft blue and deep chocolate. It was elegant and gorgeous, but it was a girl’s apartment for sure.

Even the furniture – cream-colored sofas and dark oak accent tables piled with sleek fashion magazines – skewed feminine. Callum would never have been interested in living in an apartment like this.

Which meant he was buying it just for me. Well, for me to stay in.

The price tag? 2.6 million dollars.

“It’s beautiful,” I said.

Callum nodded in satisfaction. “We’ll go look at it tomorrow night. I’ll let my agent know.”

“Okay.” I bit my lip. “And I’ll… I mean, I’ll be staying there?”

“You will live there.”

“By myself?”

“When I’m not able to be there, yes.”

“What does that mean, when you’re not able to be there?”

“When I’m away on business. Or when I need to stay at my own apartment.”

He didn’t elaborate on what “when I need to stay at my own apartment” meant, but I had a pretty good idea. It was when he started feeling too close, or when he thought I was getting too attached.

“Adriana,” he said, as I turned to stare out the window. “Look at me.”

I did as he asked.

“You seem upset.”

“I just don’t understand why I can’t just stay with you. You know, at your real apartment. I don’t have to move in with you or anything. I’ll still have my own apartment.”

Callum set the iPad down, then moved closer to me on the seat and took my hand. “I told you. I don’t have women at my apartment.”

“But if you say you want to keep me safe…” I trailed off. “It just doesn’t make sense. Why do you have to spend millions of dollars on another apartment when you have a perfectly good one?”

“It’s just how it is.”

“And what have other women done when you’ve brought up this arrangement? Have they been okay with it?”

“I’ve never bought an apartment for another woman.”

I swallowed, not sure if I was flattered or offended. “They’ve all stayed in that other apartment? The one we were at this morning?”

“Yes.”

My chest squeezed at the thought of the dozens, maybe hundreds, of women who’d been in that apartment, tied to the bed. All of them beautiful, all of them feeling lucky to have Callum.

“Even your girlfriends?”

“I’ve never had a girlfriend.”

I gaped at him. “You’ve never had a girlfriend?”

“I don’t do that,” he said simply, like it was totally normal for a man of his age to have never had a long-term relationship.

We were pulling up around the corner from my office now, and the car rolled to a stop.

“I told you, you shouldn’t get too caught up on things like where we’re living,” Callum said. “It’s just an address, Adriana.”

Not to me,
I wanted to say. But it wouldn’t have made a difference. He was determined to see things his way, and besides, I had agreed to his terms. He’d been upfront with me about how things would be, and I’d known exactly what I was getting myself into.

“You’re going to be late,” he said. “We’ll have dinner after work. I’ll pick you up here at seven.”

I nodded before I realized it wasn’t a question but a command.

He leaned over and kissed me goodbye, his freshly shaved skin brushing against my cheeks, the faint scent of his spicy cologne sending shivers down my spine.

“I’ll miss you, baby,” he murmured.

“I’ll miss you, too.”

I got out of the car and began walking down the street and around the corner toward Archway, dodging in between the other morning commuters, all of us in a hurry to get to work.