Heart Thief - The Sinister Fairy Tales

“Make yourself at home.” Cash gestures to the living space, a massive couch centered in the almost perfect square.

“Why did we come here and not go back to your place?” I ask Colt, who smiles at me, making my core squeeze. “Because my father tends to stop by Colt’s place whenever he feels like it,” Cash answers for him.

“It was his place at one time.” Colt shrugs, slipping off his suit jacket and rolling up his sleeves. The apex of my thighs throbs at the sight. Ink covers both arms. The veins in his forearms bulge as his long, thick fingers fiddle with cufflinks.

It’s hot again.

I’m overheating.

“Mona, are you feeling okay? You look flustered,” Colt asks, real concern in his tone.

Oh God.

“I think I may be hungry,” I lie. I’m always lying. If everything Father preaches is true, I’m on a one-way ticket to the pits of hell.

“Hungry?” Colt snorts, amused. “It can’t possibly be for food. You ate enough to keep you going for a week at breakfast.”

“Are you food shaming me?” I ask, pushing past him toward a fruit bowl. Bananas, perfect. “Food shaming?”

“Yes, shaming me for liking food? I appreciate girls shouldn’t have a hearty appetite like men, but I like the different textures on my tongue, the flavors bursting in my mouth and warming my insides.”

Colt looks at me like he’s now hungry too.

“By all means, enjoy your banana if you want to give us both blue balls.” He huffs, throwing his weight back against the couch.

“What are blue balls?” I ask, confused by his words, “Oh, do you mean blueberries?” I ask, pleased I worked it out for myself.

“I’m not going to survive this woman,” he groans.

“I don’t wish to harm you, Colt. Let’s hope we both survive each other,” I tell him. He stares at me like I’m the one speaking words he doesn’t understand.

This world is nothing like Father warned. It’s full of comfort and luxuries and people who look like Colt Ward. No wonder Clara never wanted to come back.

Thirteen

Colt

Is she serious with the description of the food, the flushed fucking look, and now eating a fruit shaped like a cock? Both Cash and I can’t take our eyes off the damn girl. I wish she were more like those freaks from the island. It would make this easier, make hating her easier. You don’t hate her.

How can anyone fucking hate her? She’s adorable one minute and feisty the next. I’ve always loved playing with fire, and I can tell her blood runs hot. When she said, “I don’t wish harm to you, Colt, let’s hope we both survive each other,” I felt like she dropped a match in my gas tank.

“Tell me what Eli is to you?” Cash asks, the burning fucking question racing around my mind. I shouldn’t care. I hardly fucking know this girl. But when she froze up and lost her mind about him being something to her, I nearly lost mine too.

She squirms at the question, a bloom coloring her neck.

“Eli is my best friend—was Clara’s too.” She peels the skin on her banana back further and takes a bite, chewing and swallowing. I watch her neck move as she does.

“Best friend,” Cash repeats, taking a swig from a water bottle.

Well, that’s not too bad. I thought she was going to say her husband the way she tensed up. A wave of relief I’m not going to dissect washes over me.

“She never spoke of him.” Cash frowns.

“Is that it?” I ask, moving toward her, crowding her in. “He’s your best friend, that’s nice.” I take her banana and throw it in the trash. My balls are painfully tight in my slacks.

Exhaling a long breath, she shakes her head. “No, we’re more than friends.”

Fuck.

“What do you mean more?” Cash asks.

“He asked for my hand in marriage.”

She talks like a lady from the eighteen hundreds.

It shouldn’t make me feel like putting my fist through the wall. This is ludicrous, yet here we fucking are. “Is that why you ran away?” I ask, my tone biting.

“Partly,” she dips her eyes to her lap. “Eli has always had plans for us since I was thirteen years old and he gave me my first kiss.”

I knew she was familiar with intimacy. She didn’t flinch away from contact like I remember Clara doing with my brother. “I thought you weren’t allowed to be intimate with each other before marriage? Clara said that included kissing.” Cash frowns.

“Eli doesn’t mind breaking that rule, and I…” she sighs, “I’m not like my father. I don’t believe as he does. I think life should be experienced. Sensations explored. I want passion, adventure. I want to live.”

I knew there was something different about her. You can feel her need to explore and discover what she’s been missing out on. There’s an aura all around her.