Mine to Take (Mine #1)(2)
Author: Cynthia Eden

The door shut behind Skye, sealing her inside the office with him.

Trace rose from his seat. He came toward her, his stride slow and certain. With every step that he took, she tensed, her body helpless to do otherwise.

“H-hello, Trace.” She hated that stupid break in her voice. Trace made her nervous. Always had.

He stopped in front of her. He stood at several inches over six feet, while she barely skimmed five feet three. Skye tilted her head back so that she could meet his stare.

“It’s been a long time,” Trace said, the words a deep, dark rumble. His voice went perfectly with the rock hard body and the sexy face—a voice that a woman could imagine in the darkness.

She swallowed because her throat was suddenly dry. “Yes, it has.” Ten years and three months. Not that she’d counted.

That assessing gaze of his slid down her body once more. There was an awareness in his stare that she hadn’t expected. A heat that made her remember too many things.

He was close enough to touch. Close enough for her to smell the crisp, masculine scent that clung to him.

His nostrils flared, as if he were catching her scent, too.

“You look good, Skye.” Again, that heat was in his stare. A heat that said he knew her intimately.

She wished her heartbeat would slow down.

“But you’re not here for a friendly chat, are you?” And he stepped away from her. He waved to the open chair near his desk and returned to his seat.

“We’ve never really been the friendly chat kind,” she said softly as she eased into the leather chair.

She didn’t take off her coat. She just pulled it closer to her.

A faint furrow appeared between his brows. “No, we weren’t, were we? More the hot sex type.”

Her lips parted. He had not just said that to her.

His faint smile said that he had.

“I’m not here for that, either.” She’d been wrecked after her last go round with Trace.

He leaned back in his chair. The leather groaned beneath him. “We’ll get to that…”

Uh, no, they wouldn’t. She wasn’t ready to feel that burn again.

He tapped his chin. “You’re not here for pleasantries, you’re not here for sex, then why have you come looking for me?”

This was where she’d have to beg. Because there was no way she had enough money in her account to cover his services. Not with the guy sporting this high rise building and looking like he’d just walked off the cover of GQ. How things have changed. “Someone is watching me.”

He stilled. The heat banked in his eyes as his whole expression instantly became guarded. “And what makes you so sure of that?”

“Because I can feel him.” Wait, that sounded crazy, didn’t it? When she’d gone to the cops, they’d sure looked at her as if she were crazy. You couldn’t feel a stalker. So they said.

She disagreed.

Trace wasn’t speaking.

So she did the talking, saying quickly, “I know someone has been watching me, okay? When I go to my studio, when I go out at night…” A tenseness would slip over her. An awareness that was instinctive.

“You think someone is following you.”

He wasn’t believing her any more than the cops had. “I think,” she stressed the word back to him as her hands clenched, “that someone has been in my house. Things are rearranged. They aren’t where I put them. My doors are locked but someone has been getting in.”

Now he leaned forward. “What’s been rearranged?”

“Cl-clothes.”

His piercing stare stayed on her face.

“Underwear,” she whispered. “Some panties are missing. Some…some are left on my bed.”

“Fuck.”

Yes, that was exactly how she felt. “Cops aren’t buying my feelings. They don’t see any signs of a break-in at my apartment. And they think I just lost my laundry.”

But she knew something else was happening.

She licked too dry lips. “This…this isn’t the first time this has happened.”

His hands had flattened on his desk.

“When I was in New York…” That seemed like a life-time away. “The same thing was happening before my accident. Someone would get into my apartment.” At first, the whole thing had started harmlessly enough. Just with flowers. “He started by leaving flowers in my dressing room.” She’d gone into her dressing room after a performance and found them waiting for her. No note. Just the flowers.

Trace waited for her to continue.

Her chest ached as she said, “The next time I found the flowers, they were in my apartment. My locked apartment.”

A muscle flexed along his jaw. “And you’re sure the flowers weren’t just a gift from a lover?”

“I don’t have a lover.” She shook her head. “Not then. Not now.”

What she had was someone who was terrifying her. A shadow that seemed to follow her wherever she went. “I came here because I was hoping that one of your agents might be able to help me. That you could assign someone to follow-up and just see what’s happening.”

His gaze seemed to bore into her. She’d always felt like Trace saw too deeply when he looked at her.

But she couldn’t look away. “The police won’t help me. I was hoping that you could.” Skye kissed her pride good-bye. When this much fear was involved, there was no room for pride. She had secrets that she wasn’t telling him, not yet. “Please, Trace. I need you.”

“You have me.” Said instantly.

Her breath eased out. “Thank you.” Tell him about the money. “Maybe we can—we can work out some kind of payment plan—”

“Screw the money.” He rose from his desk again. Stalked toward her. Her head tilted back and her hair slid over her arm as she looked up at him.

He reached for her hand. Pulled her to her feet. At his touch—just that one touch—awareness poured through her. Heat flushed her cheeks. Memories tightened her body. That was the way it had always been between them. One touch and—

“It’s still there,” Trace gritted out as his hold tightened on her hand. “And we’ll be getting to that, soon enough.”

The dark words were a promise.

“But right now, I want to find out what the hell is going on in your life.”

So did she.

***

Skye Sullivan. Skye Fucking Sullivan. The girl who’d starred in every teenage fantasy that he’d ever had. The woman who’d made him realize just how dark and wild lust could burn.