Page 27 of Obsessed

Maddox

Cathy is practically skippingas she leads me along thehallway.

Every cell in my body, every thought in my head, every muscle in my body said no. Do not touch her. But the wind had been sucked out of me when I saw Angie. She looked pale and thin and nothing like the tough partner who could outrun every person on the force. And when she was led in by Freestone, with that proprietary gleam in his eyes, as if telling the entire room that he owned her, all I could think about was charging at the asshole and choking the life out ofhim.

I'd gone through the scenario of finally finding Ten a hundred different ways in my head but none of them included her looking deathly pale and frail. None of them included seeing her in leather shackles and being led around and watched over by Freestone. None of them includedtears.

"Here we are, sugar." Cathy waves a small key card and the dooropens.

Get out of the room. Get out fast. That's the only plan that popped into my head when I saw Ten. I was expecting to come face to face with tough talking, confident, stalwart Angie. I imagined us exchanging a few of those secret glances that we'd perfected as partners. I would let her know without more than a blink that we were moving in on Freestone and to be ready. She'd return an affirmative with a blink of those long, dark lashes. But none of that happened. I needed to get out of the room before things became even moreobvious.

Cathy whispered in my ear and I grabbed her hand to lead her away. But I couldn't stop myself. I needed to touch Ten, to make sure I wasn't just imagining her standing in that room looking nothing like the woman I knew. It was a hugemistake.

Cathy kisses me on the mouth, and I feign interest. She and a few of the other girls showed up to the party with new red hair color. "I was thinking we could take a bath to start." She drops her panties and the leather cuffs and is stark naked. She pushes her hands between her legs. "That nectar has me so horny right now. Standing here with you, I'm about to come just looking at ya." She laughs. "I'll go start thebath."

I nod. "Yeah sure." I see a wet bar on the side wall. "I'll just fix myself a drink and be rightin."

"Help yourself," she says with awave.

The bath water turns on and a flowery scent fills the air. I walk over to the wet bar and open the bottle of bourbon. I throw back two shots and close my eyes to feel the heat of it going through me. And for that moment, she's back in my arms. When I saw her legs collapse, my natural instinct was to catch her. I was holding her. I had Ten in my arms. Until he snatched her away. But I'll give it to the asshole, if he knows, if he figured out that there was something going on with his beautiful prize and the new club member, he didn't let on. Cool and calm was always way more dangerous than angry and tense. It might very well have been anact.

Clark was right. I was so fucking hard-headed, so determined to get Ten out of the place, I wasn't thinking straight. None of it went the way I expected. Ten wasn't what I expected. Until the fleeting moment when she was in my arms and she looked up at me, I was sure I'd lost her for good. But her gaze caught mine just long enough to let me know she wasn't gone but lost. She needs badly to befound.

Small wet hands slip up my shirt and startle me out of my thoughts. "Come on, the tub's allready."

I do a quick sweep of the room with my eyes. Cameras. The creepy fucker has cameras everywhere. He watches everything. He knows what's going on all over his underground hell hole. I have no choice but to play along and hope that I didn't just blow this whole thing wideopen.

I follow Cathy into the bathroom and do a quick visual search. No cameras. Maybe he has one decent cell in his body that tells him not to spy on them in the bathroom. Although, I doubtthat.

Bubbles are floating in mounds on the surface of a giant bathtub. Cathy climbs in. I undress and climb in across from her. My play partner for the evening is going to be majorly disappointed. I can't think of anything exceptTen.

Cathy's foot reaches across. She rubs her toes along my thigh. "Do you like the new color?" She fluffs her hair with her hand. "Did it just foryou."

"Nice but I liked you blonde too." And then it hits me. Stupid. Fucking stupid. "I noticed a few of the women dyed their hairred."

"Yep, when everyone heard the new hot member had a thing for red heads, we all quickly added hair color to ourlists."

"Lists? So you each get to order things from thestore?"

"Of course. How else would we get all these nice things like bubble bath? Mr. Freestone gives us an unlimited budget. He takes good care ofus."

"Doeshe?"

She looks baffled at first and then smiles. "You're wondering about that girl he came in with? I thought I felt that strong arm of yours tense when you saw her." She laughs. "And I guess it wasn't just cuz of her red hair since there were at least five us in the room with I Love Lucy locks. That's Tawny. She's his. She belongs to Freestone. Poor thing. Some girls react like that to thenectar."

Beneath the soapy surface my entire body hardens with anger thinking about Freestone injecting Ten with his illegal drugs. "What reaction?" I can't keep the hard edge out of my tone. Cathy doesn't seem tonotice.

"The loss of appetite. They just can't eat. They start to lose weight fast. Mr. Freestone usually has to let them go. Otherwise, they get too skinny. I was sure he would have sent Tawny back to the streets long ago. It is obvious the nectar is making her too thin. But everything is different withher."

"Howso?"

She poofs her lips out. "Are we really going to spend this delicious bath time talking abouther?"

I force a charming smile. "Just curious about my new club, that'sall."

"Well, Mr. Freestone occasionally brings in a new girl. He keeps her for himself for a few days. But only a few days. Then he sends her on to join the rest of us. But not this time." She shrugs. "It seems like he's kind of obsessed with her. At least that's what Blake toldus."

"Blake? I haven't met him. Is he one of those big bodyguards standing at thedoor?"

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