Saved For Me

  Saved for Me

  Abby Knox

  Copyright © 2018 by Abby Knox

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Publisher’s Note: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are a product of the author’s imagination. Locales and public names are sometimes used for atmospheric purposes. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, or to businesses, companies, events, institutions, or locales is completely coincidental.

  Edited by Aquila Editing

  Cover Designer: Perfect Pear Cover Creations

  This book is dedicated to Alexa Riley, who handed me these characters and said “here, make this book.” I am not over the moon, I’m over Mars that I got to write Wendy and Lars’s story, and I’m constantly overwhelmed by all the love and support that exists throughout the romance writing community.

  Happy Holidays!

  Contents

  Saved for Me

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Epilogue

  Epilogue

  About the Author

  Also by Abby Knox

  Also coming from Abby in 2018…

  Saved for Me

  BY ABBY KNOX

  Lars Anderson is an undercover cop investigating the dirty deeds of a powerful crime lord. Complicating matters is Lars’s innocent new neighbor, who may as well have a target on her back in this seedy neighborhood. Whether she wants it or not, she’s under his protection now.

  Wendy Wilson is a poor college student who’s been on her own for some time. When she takes out an online ad looking for babysitting work, she finds herself in a dangerous predicament. But the one person who shows up to help her might be even more dangerous to her virtue than being held captive by an evil kingpin.

  Warning: This gritty Christmas story has everything and more that readers would expect from characters ripped right out of Alexa Riley: a hot, over-the-top possessive alpha, steamy insta-love, a holiday-themed happily ever after, zero condoms, at least one virgin and tacos. Wait, the tacos … that was me, Abby. ANYWAY … get ready because Lars and Wendy are going to fill your stocking with all the swoons!

  Chapter 1

  LARS

  That kind of girl doesn’t belong here.

  At first, the only thing it takes to catch my attention is nothing more than a streak of blonde and a hip sway. I do a double take.

  She’s broken my train of thought as I’m hyping myself up for my job as an undercover cop. I turn and stare as I’m leaving my apartment; she’s just coming home, apparently.

  The shrimpy blonde strolls mindlessly by and nearly bumps right into me. This tiny, sweet, innocent-looking woman with the beat-up backpack, teal leggings, shredded denim shorts is staring at her phone. She looks like she’s barely in her twenties. Everything about her screams collegiate.

  My mind can’t help but wonder why she isn’t headed home for Christmas.

  She needs to get the hell out of this shitty apartment complex and never come back. She may as well have a target on the back of her fuzzy little cardigan. And on that tiny but temptingly round ass.

  I watch her pass me and unlock a door which I presume to be hers. And it’s right next to mine.

  The near brush with her clothes has left a trail of a floral, citrusy scent that conjures up something from my childhood that I can’t quite place.

  Something happens to me, and I don’t know what. That thing grabs onto my throat and tells me she needs my protection. I’m headed to work and she’s going to be alone in the building all night, and I have to do something about it.

  There’s no way I can let her close that door just yet.

  “Hey, can I ask you a favor? I think my phone has been stolen.”

  She looks back, her door ajar. “Who, me?” Her eyes travel up and her mouth falls open.

  I get that a lot. I’m a big guy. Taller than most. I work out a good bit to keep in shape, in case I need to wrestle a baddie to the ground. I could easily pass for a bouncer or somebody’s hired meathead thug. The scars on my hands and face only help to support people’s assumptions about me.

  She licks her lips. My mouth twitches into a smile. Her fierce eyebrows are raised, and her wicked blue eyes are taking me in. Nobody says anything for a second, but damn the click between us is so obvious I can almost hear it.

  The girl catches herself and locks back up whatever realness showed up on her face a second ago. Finally she shrugs. “Oh, uh…sure, you wanna use my phone to find yours?”

  “You mind?”

  She shakes her head and hands it over, a slight tremble in her hand. Just like that. Shit, girl, I think. You really shouldn't have done that.

  It’s totally unethical what I’m doing. Some might even say creepy. But I’m tall enough that she can’t see me tapping in some tracking codes into her phone. And that’s all the permission I need to be what I am. I was just an undercover cop a few seconds ago.

  Now, I’m also her watcher.

  It takes about five minutes. I see her waiting out of the corner of my eye, her arms are crossed and she’s starting to tap her foot. I steal a few glances while I key in the codes and waiting for things to start working. That’s when I notice her leggings have little stars on them. She has green Chuck Taylors on her feet. She’s got a mop of messy blonde hair that falls into her eyes. She’s got reading glasses hanging on a beaded chain around her neck that she wears with an old cardigan that reminds me of somebody’s great-grandmother. She looks like a mix of studious and smart-ass. I can already tell she’s going to be a handful. She sighs a little.

  “How’s it going up there? Finding it yet?”

  “Huh?” I forget for half a second what I’ve told her I’m doing on her phone and then I remember. “Oh, yeah. It’s coming up. Sorry it’s taking a while, I kept forgetting my login.” As I talk to her, I edge in closer.

  Oddly, she doesn't back away like most people do when I tower over them. I’ve got motorcycle boots, faded leather jacket, filthy jeans and about three days’ worth of funk on me—it’s more or less my work uniform these days. I’ve been trying to bust up a major drug ring in this neighborhood. My getup is a harsh and brutish contrast to this—creature of light. That’s the only word I can use to describe her. She’s a gorgeous little thing from another dimension in this dank hallway, with its stained carpets and peeling paint.

  I brazenly take a full step closer when I hand her phone back to her. I’m practically on top of her when I say, “Thanks.”

  I’m standing on her doormat, same as her. I lean down and inhale a noseful of her hair. There it is again. What is that? I close my eyes. The scent makes me think of trees from…somewhere. I know, it’s weird. I can’t help it. Whatever it is, it’s making me want to stick close to her.

  She takes her phone and steps back into her apartment. I realize she’s looking at me nervously. “Dude, did you just sniff my head?”

  “Yes.”

  She cocks her head. “Weird.”

  But I can see in her eyes she doesn’t actually think it’s weird at all. She feels it too. I’m not saying she wants to take a whiff of me or anything—did I mention three days’ worth of funk?—but there’s an inkl
ing that she likes me.

  Maybe the inkling is coming from the fact that I’ve just borrowed her phone and sniffed her scalp and she’s not already deadbolting her door.

  “What are you doing here, anyway?” I ask.

  She furrows those arched eyebrows at me. “I live here?”

  What I say next comes out in a growl, although I don’t mean it to scare her. “You should go. Find somewhere else to live. You’re not safe here.”

  Her eyes widen at me for a second, and then the mask of sarcasm returns. “Well, thanks for the tip…”

  “Lars,” I say, giving her my real name before I can stop myself.

  I see a trace of a smile tease the corner of her lips and she narrows her eyes at me. “Lars. I’m Wendy.”

  This time, it’s me who smiles. “No way you’re a Wendy,” I say, looking her tiny body up and down. She’s gotta be barely five foot two and the fierceness in her eyes tells me she’s got the snap of a pissed off chihuahua. “You’re more of a Tinkerbell.”

  She rolls her eyes. “Short people jokes. Fabulous. OK. Good night, ‘Lars.’” She says my name with air quotes—like she doesn't believe that’s my real name—before shutting her door and deadbolting it behind her.

  I walk away and try to put my game face on.

  What am I supposed to be doing right now? Oh yeah. There’s a guy on Lenox Avenue waiting for me drop a couple hundy on a bag of dope in exchange for some information.

  Morty. He thinks I’m a hired thug scouting the area trying to encroach on Slate’s turf on behalf of some other criminal mastermind, and I pay him a lot of money to keep me in the know.

  Lately though, his fount of information is starting to dry up. I need to get my way up the chain of command, because I sense something bigger is going on around here.

  The girls who work the corners haven’t been around lately. And I don’t think it’s because they were released from their contracts and decided to settle down in the suburbs.

  The thought of the sex workers disappearing puts me on edge, and the thought of tiny Wendy running into the wrong character at the wrong time of day really spikes my Spidey senses.

  I’ve already put a tracker on her phone, but I feel like it’s not enough. Outside in the parking lot, I take a guess as to which car is hers. I know all the other cars; hers is the only one I don’t recognize. And when I touch the hood of her old beat-up Toyota, the engine is still warm. So, I do what I do. I reach under the wheel well and put a tracker there.

  Then I text my man, Fletcher. He gets me whatever I need. And right now, I need hidden cameras for the hallway and outside Wendy’s window. Nobody and nothing goes in or out of her place without me knowing about it.

  If the sex workers are starting to disappear, there’s no telling what Slate might do with a sassy, hot little college girl tromping around his territory like it’s no big deal. I’m going to do everything in my power to keep an eye on Wendy.

  Correction. An eye on my Tinkerbell.

  If I’m honest, there are way worse things to keep an eye on.

  Chapter 2

  WENDY

  I’ve made a huge mistake.

  I never should have posted that Craigslist ad in search of nighttime work as a babysitter between semesters.

  I definitely never should have agreed to meet the responder at night at a nearly-empty public library.

  Looking at the big picture, maybe I should never have moved into that shitty apartment in the first place in order to save money over the holidays. But where was I going to go? My school charges way too much money for me to stay in the dorms while campus is basically shut down.

  Hindsight is 20/20, and it’s also a bitch.

  And now I’m stuck in this hideous green cinder block room behind a door that locks from the outside.

  This is not looking for good for me.

  I thought I was doing the right thing by trying to make extra money over the holidays. All my extra expenses may be covered by my scholarship while school is in session, but I still need an income between semesters.

  I work at the city library on my days off from school, and I thought nighttime work for some third-shift single mom would get me out of that craptastic apartment building a few nights a week. It’s a pretty rough place. Lots of fights. Lots of shady characters walking in and out at all hours.

  The added bonus of said second job would be getting away from the gigantic, scary-looking neighbor next door.

  Don’t get me wrong, the neighbor is pretty damn easy on the eyes—freakishly tall, built like a brick shit house (a very sexy brick shit house—is that a thing?), beard, long hair, piercing eyes like an Alaskan husky that could see into my soul if I let him look long enough. And all those scars on his hands and face make him that much more mysterious and intriguing.

  It’s just that I’m scared of my own judgment when it comes to men.

  We passed each other in the hallway the other night for the first time when he was, I suppose, on his way out to cause some mayhem, and I was on my way home. On the surface, he looked like a drug dealer. Or a thug. Or maybe both.

  And now that I’m trapped in this terrifying scenario that is either going to leave me ruined or dead, I’m starting to wonder if that scary neighbor—Lars—is behind the entire thing.

  I’m kicking myself for having a little bit of a crush on him.

  I’m double kicking myself for handing him my phone. I’m pretty sure now he was using it for something other than the “Find my Phone” app.

  I’m such an idiot; I’m far too trusting for this world. And as a result, maybe this is the end of the road for me.

  It very well may be, because I’m not going to let them violate me, or whatever else they might have planned.

  I’m not going to go down without a fight. And if I get killed in the process, well…so be it. I had a good run.

  And it’s not like anyone is left behind to miss me.

  And it’s not like I’m chock full of holiday spirit and optimism.

  But maybe there’s a chance.

  Either way, I’m going to get myself out of here, or die trying.

  Chapter 3

  LARS

  I’ve been working too much. On top of my own investigation, I’ve also been doing some extra digging into this Slate guy’s background for my old buddy Brian. I’m happy to do it; Brian and I go way back to preparatory school.

  Turns out, not only is Slate involved in drugs and prostitution, he’s behind some pretty shady building contracts too. He’s a lot more big-time than I thought.

  In addition, I’m deeply disturbed by what Morty tells me on this particular visit.

  He doesn’t say much, but from what I can put together, his boss, Slate, thinks the working girls are worth more to him at auction rather than keeping them working for him on the street corners.

  Morty can’t tell me where Slate is keeping the girls, though. Fortunately, the auctions haven’t actually begun yet. Slate is scrambling around trying to make connections with that particular market and doesn’t really know what he’s doing.

  It’s a whole other level of clientele. Slate may be big time in this town, but that market is some shit that could turn Slate’s hair white.

  When I act interested, Morty hints around that the first auction will be starting in a few days. Right now, the girls are getting “prepped,” whatever that means. He says he’ll text me in a few days if I’m still interested.

  I don’t even want to know what that means.

  What an unbelievable fucking monster.

  I spend the following 18 hours walking the streets, driving around the city, trying to pick up clues anywhere I can. I’m so disturbed by this revelation, I know I’m not going to be able to sleep anyway.

  This is a much more serious crime. Not just prostitution, but kidnapping. Human trafficking. I want to put my fist through his face.

  If I can nail Slate on this, the DA could put Slate away for a very, very long time.


  Finally, it’s been more than 24 hours since I left for work, and my body has had enough.

  I gotta sleep. I know I shouldn’t work so hard for so long, but I’ve always been like this. I was always one of those kids growing up who rarely slept. All I wanted to do was play. My poor mother, father and nanny would watch me through the night in shifts. That was just who I was.

  And I loved danger. My nanny used to pile pillows and stuffed animals up to the ceiling, just because I could entertain myself for hours by running, jumping and crashing into it. In some way, that craving never left me, which explains how a kid of privilege ended up working undercover.

  I let myself into my apartment. It’s about seven p.m., so I know my neighbor girl, Wendy, must already be home.

  Still, I feel compelled to check my camera footage that Fletcher had installed while I was on the streets. May as well make sure it’s working.

  As I review the footage on my monitor, my hackles go up. I rewind and fast forward again and again, but I don’t see my Tink anywhere. She left her apartment this morning, but she hasn’t come home yet tonight.

  That gives me a very bad feeling.

  It could be she took my advice and got the hell outta Dodge. It could be she went home to be with her family over Christmas.

  But I doubt it.

  I don’t know why, but I feel like I know her deeply already.

  My exhaustion gives way to pure unadulterated adrenaline. Tink is missing.