Chosen: Part Two (Allure) Read online

  About this Book

  My name is Grace Delaney. I was born into this country’s most admired political family. When I was sixteen, the media dubbed me “America’s Princess”. I hate being called that, all the more so since I discovered the terrifying secret hidden behind my family’s glittering public image.

  A few months ago, I graduated from college determined to make a life of my own. But now, suddenly, Adam Falzon is in it. The head of an old-world family with a reputation for ruthlessness, he looks like a fallen angel. As attracted as I am to him, I’ve come to suspect that Adam is hiding secrets of his own more deadly and dangerous than I ever want to know. I don’t dare give into my feelings for him.

  But I may not have a choice. With every beat of my heart, he is drawing me further into a web of dark desire. My chances of escaping are slipping away. Worse yet, I’m no longer sure that I want to.

  CHOSEN is a story of dark romance. It contains scenes of coercion, both emotional and physical, and should not be read by anyone who could find that distressing.

  Table of Contents

  About this Book

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Sneak Peek

  Also by Josie Litton

  Chapter One

  Spasms wracked my body, so violently that I was afraid I would collapse. Instinctively, I wrapped my arms around myself. The man coming toward me was a figure out of a nightmare. Dressed all in black, even to the hood that completely covered his head and the gloves concealing his hands, he could have been the devil.

  So far as I was concerned, he was.

  Staring at him, too terrified to look away, I was swept by the memory of one of those black leather gloves pressing down on my mouth as he plunged a syringe into my neck. For an instant, the remembered taste of leather made me gag.

  I didn’t but only because I’d already thrown up so much that nothing was left in my stomach. Whatever drug I’d been given must have been powerful. I had no idea how long I’d been unconscious but that was the least of my concerns.

  “Who are you?” I croaked. Between the vomiting and the terrible thirst that assailed me, I could hardly speak.

  Hating how weak I sounded, I tried again. “Why am I here? Why are you doing this?”

  He didn’t respond at once but I had the sense that he was staring at me, taking in every aspect of my appearance. The rough sackcloth dress someone--he?--had put me in actually covered more of my body than the sleep shorts and camisole that I had been wearing. But somehow it made me feel even more exposed, as though a piece of my identity had been stripped away along with the clothing itself.

  At least he hadn’t made any move to enter the cell. I wasn’t sure what I would have done if he did. What I could do.

  I’d almost decided that he wasn’t going to answer when, suddenly, he said, “What is your name?”

  The hood he was wearing must have contained a voice distorter. One more way he was concealing himself while I felt agonizingly exposed.

  “My name?” Why would he ask me that? He had to know who I was already.

  “Your name,” he repeated.

  I took a breath, let it out slowly, and said, “My name is Grace Delaney.”

  “What is happening to you?”

  Another question that made no sense, uttered in the same inhuman voice. I flinched but above all, I didn’t want to provoke him. If he wanted to play this strange game, I would have to go along. At least for the time being.

  “I don’t know… I’ve been kidnapped… I don’t know why or where I am.” Despite my best effort to sound calm, my voice cracked. I pressed my lips together, fighting tears. Above all, I refused to break down in front of him.

  “What do you want?” he asked.

  God, I hated him! Kidnapping and drugging me wasn’t enough? He had to make me voice my anguish?

  “I want to go home! Let me out of here!”

  He stared at me for several moments. I waited, trying to brace myself for the next cruel question but none came. Instead, without another word, the man turned and walked back down the hall to the heavy metal door at the far end.

  It made no sound as he opened it but the heavy thud of it closing behind him reverberated against the concrete walls of my cell and straight through me.

  The release of tension once he was gone proved too much. Still hugging myself, I doubled over and stayed that way long enough to draw in several deep, ragged breaths. When I finally straightened, I was still shaking but not quite as hard.

  I’d survived the encounter with my captor. For that at least, I had to be grateful.

  But that didn’t change the fact that I was still trapped in the cell. Slowly, I forced myself to take in my surroundings. I’d only glanced at them in the first few minutes after I came to. Now I studied them more carefully, hoping against hope to find something that could help me escape or at least defend myself.

  Aside from the narrow ledge with a thin mattress laid on top of it and a chemical toilet that I’d only just made it to before the vomiting started, the cell was empty. There was no window but there was a bank of fluorescent lights hanging from the ceiling. But what struck me most was how new everything looked. The concrete showed no chips or stains, not inside the cell or on the other side of the stainless steel bars. Even the mattress appeared never to have been used before.

  The newness was weirdly reassuring, suggesting as it did that I hadn’t fallen into the hands of habitual criminals with a regular need for such a place. That comfort was short lived, though, when I realized it could mean that the room and the cell within it had been created specifically for me.

  At the thought of that, I started shaking again. Whatever the reason for my kidnapping, the hooded man had gone to a great deal of trouble to make sure that I could be held securely.

  Or whoever was in charge had. It might not be him although his manner strongly suggested that he was accustomed to being in control.

  Why had I been taken?

  Ransom was the most likely explanation. I came from a wealthy family but one that definitely would not be pleased to pay for my release. I might be about to find out exactly how much value I had in their eyes.

  More than I would have had a few days ago, that was certain. Perversely, the interest from Adam Falzon that I had tried to discourage might actually help assure my survival.

  Slowly, I sat down on the ledge and tried to calm my racing thoughts. But as soon as I did, the full extent of my physical discomfort became too powerful to ignore. My thirst was intense and getting worse by the moment. Already, my tongue and lips felt were painfully dry. The burlap dress did little to protect me from the cool air on the cell. I had to wonder how much lower the temperature could drop before I would be at risk of hypothermia.

  I glanced down at the goosebumps already rising on my arms and gasped. In the crook of my right elbow was a small puncture wound surrounded by a bruise that was already turning blue. Until that moment, I’d thought that the only drug I’d been given was in the syringe. But now it looked as though I’d been hooked up to an IV. Why? How long had I been unconscious? I knew that I’d been stripped but what else had been done to me while I was so helpless?

  The possibilities that darted through my mind filled me with horror. I bit back a sob and pulled my knees up, hugging them. I couldn’t lose control, I wouldn’t. But as the moments passed, the steady drip of time eating away at my courage, miser
y overwhelmed me.

  Hot tears burned my eyes and seared my cheeks. My body was racked by sobs that I no longer had the strength to deny. An overwhelming sense of defeat swept over me as I gave into them.

  A short time later, the solid metal door at the end of the hallway swung open again. I jerked my head up. Fear that the hooded man might be returning overtook everything else. Quickly, I wiped my nose on my sleeve and stumbled to my feet, trying to prepare myself for whatever might be coming next.

  Chapter Two

  Instead of the man, the figure who stepped through the door was clearly a woman. She was short, a little plump, wearing a long skirt and a loose blouse with her hair covered by a kerchief. And her face…

  A shocked laugh bubbled up in me. I only just managed to restrain it.

  She looked like Marilyn Monroe. Or at least the latex mask concealing her face did. The blonde bombshell’s lush red lipsticked mouth was opened wide in a broad smile. She looked about to say something sexily adorable in her famously kittenish voice.

  But the woman herself remained silent as she came toward the cell. When she reached the door set in the stainless steel bars, she stopped and held up what she was carrying.

  A water bottle. And a blanket.

  At the sight of them, my thirst redoubled and I shivered. I needed both desperately but the woman showed no sign of coming any closer.

  “Please,” I said. “I’m so thirsty and it’s cold in here.”

  She hesitated long enough for me to wonder if it was possible that she didn’t speak English. But finally, she raised a hand and gestured to me.

  Slowly, afraid of doing anything that might anger or alarm her, I stepped closer to the bars. Watching her intently, I stretched my own hands out. One by one, she passed the water bottle and the blanket through the bars.

  I clutched both of them to my chest, hardly daring to believe that they were real.

  “Thank you,” I said.

  She nodded, the first indication I had that she could understand me.

  Emboldened, I said, “Please, I don’t want to be here! Do you know who took me or why?”

  Instead of whatever answer I might have hoped for, she turned to go.

  “Wait! Don’t leave! At least, tell me your name.”

  She glanced back at me over her shoulder but she didn’t respond and she didn’t tarry. Moments later, the heavy metal door thudded shut again.

  But not before I caught a glimpse of what was on the other side. Another blank concrete wall that looked as new as the others around me. Nothing to give me any hint of where I might be.

  Unless that was the hint. Was I in a new building or at least one that had been renovated recently? Did that mean I was still in New York? I wanted to think so but my body said otherwise. Between the stiffness and the nausea, I felt as though I had been unconscious for a long time. Why would that have been necessary unless I was being taken outside the city?

  A new building might be anywhere. I could have been on the other side of the world and I’d have no way of knowing it.

  I was alone, cut-off, with no idea of what would happen next. The sense of isolation was crushing. Tears threatened again but before they could fall, I wrapped the blanket around myself and returned to the ledge.

  I would get through this. I didn’t know how but I would. I just had to hold myself together long enough to do it.

  I studied the water bottle. So far as I could see, the cap was still sealed and there was no sign of any tampering. That was reassuring, as far as it went. But the inescapable fact was that even if the water was drugged, I had to drink it. Some of the aches and mental confusion I was experiencing was coming from dehydration. That would only get worse.

  Even so, I hesitated before breaking the seal. The moment the top was off, all restraint vanished. I put the bottle to my lips and gulped down the sweetest liquid I had ever tasted. I would have kept going and consumed the entire bottle if I hadn’t been hit by a sudden stomach cramp.

  Gasping, I forced myself to wait until it passed before drinking any more. Even so, I alternated between riding out the cramps and easing my thirst. The effort left me exhausted.

  By the time the bottle was empty, all I could do was gather the blanket closer around myself and lie down on the thin mattress. At first, I still felt chilled to the bone but gradually my body heat contained by the blanket began to warm me.

  Muscles that must have been clenched for hours began to relax. With my thirst eased, I realized that I was hungry but if food had suddenly appeared in front of me, I wouldn’t have been able to eat. My stomach was still too sore.

  I stared at the ceiling above me with a growing sense of disbelief. Could I really be in a cell, held by a masked kidnapper, awaiting an unknown fate? Of course, I knew that such things happened but I’d never seriously considered that I could be the victim of such a cruel, twisted act.

  Everyone in the family had security during public appearances. But only a few--my parents, Grandmother, and more recently Todd--had it all the time. I’d considered myself fortunate to not be among them. Now I bitterly wished that I’d done more to protect myself. Gun permits were hard to come by in New York but I could have at least tried to qualify for one and learned how to shoot.

  The moment I thought of that, I remembered how fast and strong my attacker had been. A shudder ran through me. If I’d had a gun under my pillow, I wouldn’t have had time to reach for it, much less get a shot off that could have stopped him.

  The realization that I couldn’t have done anything to prevent what had happened to me wasn’t any comfort. Especially not considering that I was even more helpless to stop whatever might lie ahead.

  I desperately wanted to sleep but when I closed my eyes, I could still see the bright glare of the fluorescent lights. Until they suddenly began to dim.

  For a horrible moment, I feared that I was about to be plunged into smothering darkness. But before that could happen, the dimming stopped. The lights were still on, just turned down very low.

  With a relieved sigh, I pulled the blanket higher and turned on my side. My last thought before sleep claimed me was a forlorn hope that when I woke, this would all turn out to have just been a nightmare.

  ~~~~~~~~~~~~

  When I was sure that Grace was asleep, I leaned back in the leather office chair and closed my eyes for a moment. I hadn’t slept in well over twenty-four hours but at least I could be certain that the plan was going smoothly, so far.

  My assessment of her strength was proving to be correct. Even terrified and still feeling the effects of the drug I’d given her, she was managing to hold herself together. I couldn’t begrudge her the tears she had shed; they’d been a necessary release under the circumstances.

  Maria would never overstep herself by openly disapproving of anything I did but I knew that she wasn’t happy about where I’d chosen to put Grace. True, there were vastly more comfortable surroundings where I could have kept her equally secure. But pampering her wouldn’t achieve my goals. It would be far more effective to deny all but her most basic needs.

  Straightening up, I glanced at the bank of video monitors along one wall. Even though I’d dimmed the light in the cell, I could still see Grace clearly enough. Huddled under the blanket, she looked small and fragile.

  I thought of how she had been on the airplane, unconscious and completely at my mercy. Carrying her to the master bedroom at the back, I’d been struck by how light she felt. Awake and sparring with me, she displayed such inner strength that I hadn’t thought of her as particularly delicate. But she was in her own way. I needed to remember that and not get careless. The woman was too damn distracting as it was.

  I’d enjoyed undressing her, curious as I was to see if she really was as lovely as I suspected. As it turned out, she was even more so. Her breasts were high and full with delicate pink nipples. All too easily, I could imagine flicking my thumbs over them and squeezing gently before drawing one into my mouth to suck and bite. J
ust a little nip, of course, nothing too painful. I didn’t mind leaving marks but only the kind that could heal quickly.

  Slipping those silky shorts down her long slender legs exposed what had to be the prettiest pussy I’d ever seen. Proper Miss Delaney was no stranger to waxing. The temptation to ease a finger between those soft pink lips and catch just enough of her moisture to inhale her scent, perhaps even steal a taste of her was harder to resist than I wanted to admit. Not even the ugly sackcloth dress that I had ready to slip her into lessened my desire. If she hadn’t been unconscious--

  But she had been, fortunately. And I’d made certain that she stayed that way for the duration of the flight. The anesthesiologist I had on hand to keep her safely under had worked for me in the past. Inevitably there were aftereffects from the combination of drugs that he used but he was expert at minimizing them.

  I took no pleasure in putting Grace under such duress. Or at least not much. Admittedly, a part of me was frustrated just enough to indulge the thought of hurting her.

  I glanced up at the monitors again. The blanket had slipped a little, revealing the slim curve of her shoulder. For a few, pleasant moments, I imagined going into the cell, waking her, bending her over the ledge, pulling up the ugly rough cloth to expose that gorgeous ass, spreading her lovely thighs, and driving into her over an over until my lust was finally sated.

  My cock jumped at the idea but my conscience intervened. Work always had to come before play.

  I got busy editing the first video. Very quickly, I knew that it was good. Everything about Grace--her body language, facial expressions, voice--communicated the genuineness of her fear. The best actress in the world wouldn’t have been able to do as well.

  Good as the video was, I was determined that the next one would be better. Before I drifted off in the leather chair, I decided to see what I could do to make my captive’s second day of confinement a little more challenging than the first.