Secret Obsession Read online

  Secret

  Obsession

  By

  D.M. Mortier

  Description

  Secret Obsession

  Colonel Colton James Ragnarson III should have known better. He wanted nothing more than to enjoy his retirement after his intensely active combat years in the US Army, take care of his family, and find the mystery woman who had made him personalized weapons. Those weapons made the Pentagon desperate to find her as well, as they had saved Colt’s life and the lives of his men on countless occasions. Never had he intended to engage in a secret liaison that required he go against his usual “give no Fs” demeanor. After making early mistakes in his teenage years, he was a model soldier and guardian to his ward. However, maintaining his strict discipline was proving to be impossible after meeting his ward’s roommate and best friend. Nothing had prepared him for Imani St. John. She evoked emotions in him that he’d never experienced or thought he was even capable of. He knew others would think what he felt for her was inappropriate. However, he would stop at nothing to have her, and the objection of his family, or Imani herself, would not sway him. Keeping the obsession he felt for her a secret was becoming harder every day.

  Imani St. John had structured her life around protecting her identity. Remaining hidden from the man intent on hunting her down should have been her priority. Instead, to appease the secret crush she felt for her best friend’s guardian, she may have exposed critical clues about who and what she was. Horrified by the thoughts of the dangers he faced while in combat zones, she ignored the risk of being discovered and made him weapons of innovative technology that would protect him, but they’d also garnered attention she couldn’t afford if she hoped to keep her identity hidden. Now she was being hunted by men who wanted that technology and other secrets she’d long buried. How could she ever hope to have an honest relationship with any man? Could she give up her father’s secret for the love of one man?

  Secret

  Obsession

  Secret Obsession

  Copyright © 2019 by DMMortier.

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. The illegal distribution of this book by any entity (individual or corporation) will be deemed fraudulent.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, actual events and incidents are products of the author’s imagination and used fictitiously. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or places, actual events or locales is purely coincidental.

  Cover Design by Damonza at www.damonza.com

  Edited by Devin Govaere

  Interior Book Design by Bob Houston eBook Formatting

  Table of Contents

  Description

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  Other Titles available on Amazon

  Prologue

  Imani scowled in frustration as, yet again, her sister Mona’s big toe was dangerously close to her lips. The fourteen-year-old, the oldest girl of the six children, slept with her long legs sprawled across the bed with a few toes often finding themselves in Imani’s face. Being the youngest, at only eight years old, really sucked, Imani thought. Because she was the youngest, she was the only one of the children without her own bed, and she had to alternate sleeping with one of her older sisters, who were fourteen, thirteen, and ten. Mona had a standalone twin-sized bed, and her other sisters had a bunk bed. Although there were six bedrooms on the second floor of their home, their parents insisted that all of the girls’ beds be in the same bedroom, as all the boys’ must be in another. They would only get a bedroom for themselves on their eighteenth birthday. It could’ve been worse if her parents had made her sleep with her nasty brothers, who took turns belching, farting, and basically being as gross as possible around their youngest sister. They were fifteen and twelve.

  Tired of the late-night fight with her sisters’ body parts, Imani edged onto the carpeted floor, and because she didn’t want to get trampled on when her sisters woke up, she rolled under the bed, closed her eyes, and sighed contently at the blissful peace.

  Imani woke, what could only have been a few minutes later, on hearing her father’s shouts of “No! Please God, no!”

  Her mother screamed then, high and in piercing agony as a gunshot rang out. Then an eerie silence descended before heart-wrenching sobs followed. Her parents’ distress swiftly triggered her own.

  Imani widened her eyes as tears filled them, her limbs trembled in fear, and then she opened her mouth to scream, but nothing came out. The sound of her parents’ frightened voices sent such a chill of terror through her veins that she was frozen in her position under the bed.

  The sound and vibration of heavy footsteps moving from the hallway to the bedrooms and back again reached Imani, and she curled into a tight ball, trying to get as small as possible. The sound was getting closer, but then she heard her brothers’ screams, and again her father cried out in anguish as rapid gunshots rang through the air a few minutes later.

  “God no!” her father screamed.

  Muffled male voices resounded off the walls, followed by more cries from her father and yet more gunfire. The pattern seemed to be a slight period of silence, a muffled male voice, her father’s pleas, gunshots, and then screams. This happened several times, and then she heard the men outside their bedroom door.

  Her sister Mona chose that time to finally wake up and immediately started to fuss around on the mattress above. “Imani, you there?” Her voice trembled with fear.

  Imani was afraid to answer. Perhaps her sister didn’t know that the men were right outside her door.

  “Laylah, Anya?” Mona called to the other sisters sleeping in the bunk bed next to her.

  “Shh.” Imani tried to silence her sister.

  “I’m scared,” Laylah whimpered.

  Before Imani could offer a word of comfort, three men barreled into the room dragging their father with them.

  Mona, Laylah, and Anya screamed. Imani stuffed her fist into her mouth.

  Imani heard her father’s sobs as the men asked him again and again, “Where is it?” When the only response from her father was more sobs, three gunshots followed. The girls screamed again, but this time in blood-curdling pain. Each had been shot, but not to kill them, only to hurt them. One of the men had walked around the room and had shot three single bullets.

  “Are you ready to talk now?” one of the men asked their father again.

  Her father continued crying with his head bent. He didn’t look at his daughters.

  Her sisters screamed in pain.

  “Tell us!”

  Still her father only kept his head down and continued sobbing.

  Anya was shot in the head.

  The other sisters screamed.

  Her father cried harder.

  Over and over again the men asked, and the same thing happened until the room was silent except for her father’s cries.

  The men left and dragged her father behind them.

  “There’s six of ‘em,” one man’s voice boomed from the hall. “Where’s that other kid?”

&nb
sp; Imani heard a few confused mutterings.

  The man hissed in frustration. “Find that kid! We’ll take our time with that one. He’ll talk.”

  Imani didn’t need to hear anymore. She crept from under the bed and went to the only window in the girls’ bedroom. She turned and looked around to make sure there was no one to see her. Instead, her gaze landed on the lifeless body of her sister lying in the middle of the bed, a bullet lodged in her forehead. Imani stifled a scream that bubbled in her throat instantly.

  She turned and frantically fought with the latch of the window to try to open it. There were footsteps in the hall. She picked up her sister’s shoes that were on the floor nearby and threw them out the window. They made the intended noise on the side of the two-story house. She then scrambled to the closet, closed the door behind her, and then crawled to the tiny trapdoor buried behind her sisters’ clothes. Every bedroom in their house had this escape hatch.

  The hatch was really a slide that ran through the house and ended in her father’s office. The hatch hadn’t been built by her parents but had become a very important feature that propelled them to buy the house. Imani sat on her haunches with her hand holding the trapdoor open, ready to escape.

  The muffled sound of men running around outside could be heard as they followed the sound of the shoe drop to find her. They were out there for what seemed like long minutes but were mere seconds. They came back into the bedroom, and as the footsteps approached the closet, Imani dived into the dark hole, praying that her descent would be quiet enough that the gunmen wouldn’t hear her.

  Imani had just arrived in her father’s office from the trapdoor, landing safely on her bottom to the carpeted floor. However, there were men in there too. They were so engrossed in interrogating her father that none of them saw her. Her father saw her though. He kept blinking rapidly, trying to tell her to run.

  Imani quickly scrambled behind a drape in the room when a tall elegantly dressed man walked into the room.

  “I want the formula, John,” the man said coldly. “I don’t care if I have to break every bone in your body to get that information. And I don’t give a damn if it takes all night.”

  The distant sound of police sirens soon had the man cursing in frustration. “Tell me!”

  Her father screamed in agony as the man shot him in his right kneecap.

  Imani stuffed her fists into her mouth to stop her own screams and clutched the locket around her neck in desperation. It was a gift from her father, and she understood the significance of it even more now.

  The sirens grew louder.

  The man kept screaming at her father to tell him where the formula was. Finally, when it sounded as though the police would be imminently at the door, the man shot her father one last time before telling his men to grab all computers, notes, and whatever vials of formula were already mixed in the small refrigerator in a corner of the room.

  Imani watched as, within seconds, the men cleared her father’s office of every document, piece of computer equipment, and chemical solution that her father had been working on.

  The police arrived seconds after her family’s killers escaped.

  Chapter One

  Ithaca, New York

  “Colt, did you enjoy the ceremony? Did you see me?” Sarah squealed as she ran toward him.

  Colton James Ragnarson III only slightly relented his usual stoic demeanor to embrace his ward. He felt ancient, despite being only forty-two years old. It was as though he’d lived several lifetimes after becoming a guardian to his girlfriend’s baby. His high school girlfriend of two years had committed suicide after giving birth to a baby girl, who he’d initially thought was his daughter. However, his girlfriend’s suicide note had told a different story. She’d cheated on him with different members of his football team and had no idea who the father of her baby was. A DNA test had proven her statement correct; the little girl wasn’t his.

  Colt hadn’t abandoned the child, however. With his girlfriend’s family refusing to even acknowledge the child, he’d taken responsibility and become the baby’s guardian when he turned eighteen years old. In addition to becoming a guardian of a two-year-old at eighteen, he’d also enlisted into the Army after four years at West Point Military Academy, as was the tradition for every Ragnarson man before him. His career in the military saw him in combat through six wars, although he’d taken a three-year sabbatical to finish law school before re-entering active combat; he’d been present at every major conflict in the intervening years. As a colonel in the United States Army, Colt wasn’t known for a sunny personality. His parents often told people that it was because he’d witnessed too many horrors over his twenty-three years in the military.

  The sight of his ward always melted his heart. However, he’d never show that kind of weakness to anyone. If his men or his enemies knew that he had such a soft spot, Sarah’s life wouldn’t be worth living, nor his for the ribbing he’d take because of it. Over the years, he’d acquired many enemies and hoped they remained in his combat past.

  Having been partially raised by his mother and retired father, Sarah was well adjusted, levelheaded, and had a heart of gold. He was very proud of her. Raising her after his teenage girlfriend’s suicide hadn’t been easy, but with a close-knit family such as his—his parents and two brothers—the family support had been tremendous.

  Colt held his ward and closed his eyes briefly in thanks that he hadn’t fucked this up. He dropped his arm from around her, but typical Sarah refused to let go. She kept her arms around his waist while yelling greetings to the other graduates from her class passing by. He’d already agreed to let her take a sabbatical for one year before continuing to law school. The only reason he wasn’t panicking was because she would come home to Austin and work in the family law firm for that year.

  Looking up with perfect stillness, which his men would recognize as preparing to face an enemy, his gaze fell on a young female graduate who had just pulled off her cap. A cascade of curly lush hair spilled about her shoulders. However, the female graduate was not an enemy. She’d been his obsession since he’d met her four years ago. And he’d been hating himself for the inappropriate interest since.

  From this distance, it seemed that Mother Nature had been very generous with Sarah’s roommate. Having seen her or pictures of her numerous times, he knew that she was indeed a beautiful young woman. He’d seen her only once before in person and other times from pictures his ward had sent him. Sarah had had no idea that she was providing him with countless opportunities to worship his wettest dream and feed his lust.

  Just then, the young woman who held him captivated unzipped her gown to reveal one of the best pair of legs he’d ever seen on a woman. Encased in strappy nude-colored stilettos, her legs went on for miles. He was transfixed and couldn’t stem his erotic thoughts about a girl he knew to be the same age as his ward.

  She looked at Sarah and waved.

  Sarah enthusiastically returned the wave and beckoned the beauty forward. And then the girl who’d been his secret desire for the past four years started toward them.

  Colt swallowed hard. She walked with a seductive graceful glide that gave the impression she was on her own private runway. He remembered that about her most of all. Her hair moved about her shoulders in a sexy tussle with the wind. On closer inspection, she was even more vivid, more stunning than he’d remembered. She wore a green form-fitting dress that made her golden-brown skin appear vibrant and soft. He couldn’t stop his gaze from roaming longingly over her amazing body. The provocative sway of her hips as she moved made him throb in places he had no business throbbing. Daymmnnn!

  It seemed that other men found her just as fascinating since it was as though every male head swerved in her direction as she strode through the crowd of graduates and families. Even his younger brothers had stopped their conversation to watch her approach.

  Colt almost smiled when her gaze suddenly swung in his direction and she s
tumbled before coming to a complete stop a few feet away from them. Yeah, he knew that she was afraid of him, but then there were grown-ass men afraid of him. Why would she be any different? He knew what she saw when she looked at him. He was a fighter, born and bred, and he had the physique that was a testament to it.

  He held her gaze and couldn’t really explain why he refused to release her. It was obvious that she was having some difficulty breathing, as her chest rose and fell rapidly in terror. He should have felt bad about what he was doing, but he wanted her to feel something and didn’t care if it was fear. A few seconds later, her eyes narrowed with determination, and she looked away from him and looked at his brothers behind him. Okay, so she has some sass.

  Damn if I don’t like that even more. What the hell am I thinking? I need to stop this interest in her right now. Yeah, like I’ve had any success in that. She’s my ward’s best friend, and any ass would tell me that I’m too damn old for her. But try telling my heart or my dick that. For four damn years I’ve been having a recurring wet dream about this brown beauty. And she barely looks in my direction.

  Sarah must have sensed something, because she abruptly released him to go meet her friend, grabbed her hand, and pulled her toward their group.

  “Everyone, this is my best friend, Imani St. John!” Sarah beamed with pride, as she knew damn well that her friend’s unusual beauty had caused a stir.

  “Hi, everyone.”

  Her carefree smile and soft voice washed over him and stoked his lust even further.

  Sarah pulled Imani closer to Colt. “You remember my guardian, Colonel Colton James Ragnarson III?”

  She gave him a slight nod. She seemed breathless and a bit shy.

  Colt had no idea what made him do it, but the next thing he knew, he’d grabbed her hand and pulled her into his embrace. She was so damn sweet he couldn’t resist touching her. That move didn’t just shock the hell out of his family; it shocked him too. Colt wasn’t the impulsive or touchy-feely type. He wasn’t regretting it in the least though. He placed his palm at the small of her back and clutched her closer to him without thinking. Holding her against his much harder frame made him want to close his eyes and savor every delectable inch of her. Bending his head until his nose settled in her soft hair, he scented her. Her perfume was delicate and feminine like her.