Envy (Criminal Sins 1)

Her thick winter dress is torn around the thigh from her struggle in the ballroom. When she sits up, the slit splits open, revealing the juicy plumpness that made my mouth water down in the dungeon.

I bite my lip and shift in my seat, trying to angle the blood away from between my legs. Sure, Catalina turns me on. She’s sexy, there’s no denying it, but there’s something else about her that seems to tug dangerously at my guarded heart.

My preying eyes stalk up her tender neck and over her elegant jawline. Maybe it’s that mouth of hers that makes the difference... and not just those succulent lips, either, but what comes out of them, too.

“What’s in the city?” Catalina asks, choosing to look out onto the highway, rather than at me.

“Everything,” I say, leaning back in my seat.

That doesn’t seem to satisfy her curiosity. “I mean for us... for you.”

“Privacy.”

Catalina huffs. “As if I want to be alone with you.” Now it’s my turn to look away. I don’t want her to see the amused smirk working its way over my features.

Her fire’s back, if it was ever actually gone. Sure, right now it might not be as raging as it was before, but she just woke up after a crazy day; I’ll give her some time to recover. At least I know that Dante didn’t snuff out her flame. Thank god. I might have actually snapped if he had.

“As if you have a choice,” I taunt, before adding. “You just call on me when you need to be rescued, huh? I don’t like to be used, Catalina Alzate...”

Using her last name seems to trigger something in my hostage that causes her eyes to snap off the road and right back onto me. “I wouldn’t have needed to be rescued if you didn’t drag me to your dungeon in the first place!”

“You didn’t seem to mind,” I note, referring to the hard nubs that pierced through her bra when I had her tied up in my dungeon. Yeah, even through her bra, I noticed them. She likes me more than she lets on...

“Fuck you,” Catalina hisses, before crossing her legs to hide the exposed slit of skin that slithers down her thigh. She snaps her gaze back to the window, but I catch her reflection peeking on mine and I let her see my smirk.

“You’ll get your chance,” I taunt.

10

Catalina

It’s no palace in the country, but it’s still a hundred times nicer than any place I’ve ever lived in as an adult.

Angel kicks off his dress shoes by the front as I take in the splendor of the top-floor penthouse suite. Three of the four walls that encase the living room are entirely made of glass window, and the downtown skyline sparkles brilliantly in the midnight darkness outside.

I gaze

longingly out into the free world, before being snapped out of my tired daze by Angel brushing past me. If I had the energy, I’d sneer. Sure, he may have saved me from his crazy brother, but I’d never have needed his ‘heroics’ if he hadn’t been such a villain in the first place.

My captor makes a beeline for the liquor cabinet by the grand piano at the far end of the plush living room. He grabs a crystal decanter filled with auburn liquid and pours himself a glass, chugging it down in no time flat.

“Want any?” he grumbles, gesturing at me with the swirling bottle.

I just shake my head. Despite having worked as a bartender, I’ve never been much of a drinker. In fact, there are a lot of wicked things I’ve never done before...

“Suit yourself,” Angel shrugs, before pouring and downing another glass. The muscular brute is dressed in a dark blue blazer and suit pants, a far cry from the biker look he wore to the gala.

Is he all dressed up for the dinner we were supposed to have together?

My stomach rumbles at the thought. Dinner. When’s the last time I even ate?

If I wasn’t so stubborn, I’d ask Angel if he had anything to eat around here, but I don’t feel like asking anything more of the man who stole me from an underground garage a little over 24-hours ago. It’s becoming clear that I was right about him; he’s the type of man who takes a mile when you give him an inch, and since he already ‘rescued’ me earlier, I can’t bear the thought of what he’ll ask in return for a little bit of food.

“So, what’s the plan?” I ask, instead. “You’re going to lock me up in your castle in the sky, instead of in your countryside dungeon?”

Angel swallows his booze and studies me intently. His bulging Adam’s apple flexes and I cross my arms, trying to somehow push back the heat that this evil hunk sparks in me.

The top few buttons of his dress shirt are undone, and I’m privy to a behind-the-scenes view of his chiselled chest. A different kind of hunger slithers its way around my thighs, but I kick it away and instead focus on my lust for food.