Stolen Lust (Beauty in the Stolen 1)

To prevent myself from having to answer, I stuff potatoes into my mouth. If I ignore the tightness of my stomach and the nauseating rawness of my nerves, the food will probably be good. I swallow down the bite I’d taken with a gulp of wine and, under his unwavering attention, try the curry. The spices and sweetness of the coconut register on my tastebuds, but it’s mechanical. I don’t appreciate the taste of the food. I’m too focused on the question that runs on repeat through my mind.

“Why did you bring me here, Ian?”

Lowering his eating utensils, he looks me straight in the eye. “Because I want to fuck you again.”

Chapter 10

Ian

Because I want to fuck you again.

There. I’ve said it.

I’ve given her the truth she’s been grappling with since I confessed to having noticed her at Sun City. Notice is too light a term. Stalking is more like it.

We’d been hanging around the poker area close to the cashiers where people cash in their chips when I saw her. Long, platinum-blond hair, baby-blue eyes, a face like an angel, and a body combined to make a man commit unimaginable sins. Dressed in leather and jeans, she was all sex and sass. She was everything I’ve ever considered beautiful, too good to be true.

I wanted her, all of her, to touch and smell and taste every inch of her skin. A goddamn goddess. The prick with her was talking about himself, waving his money in her face as if someone like her could be bought.

When they’d gotten up, I’d followed. The twat had made her pay for her own meal, and worse, made her contribute to fuel money. I was ready to pop him right there. If not for our plan, I probably would’ve dragged him outside by his ear and slapped him around first. Things had already started going south for Leon’s plan when she walked out in her fuck-me heels, but when she put the asshole who insulted her in his place, our carefully crafted plan was screwed.

I was a goner.

I wasn’t going to let her get away.

Not even a bullet could keep me away from her. I moved too early and everything went haywire. Leon and Ruben left with the money, and I went after the woman I wanted more than the money. The rest was better than any wet dream. She’d been everything and more. I’ll never get enough. The fact that I’m back here says as much.

I couldn’t make myself leave after I dropped her off at her apartment. Instead, I drove into town and bought a new phone. After that, I did the only thing I could. I drove to a hardware store and bought a key for her door. I’d checked her key number, C31, when I went through her bag. I own that number. I could’ve simply picked the lock, but having a key feels more intimate. Picking a lock is for thieves. The objective is valuables or money. Exchanging a key is for lovers. It’s a free pass to sex.

It’s fucked-up. That I got hard when I fisted my fingers around that key says a lot about the man I am. That I risked it back inside Cas’s building says a lot about how badly I want her.

At the store exit, I grabbed a stack of promotional brochures and waited behind the trees across the road from her building. Soon after, an old lady entered the building. I sneaked up behind her under the pretense of doing a brochure mailbox drop and got a look at the code she entered to open the door.

When the old lady was gone, I let myself in. A termination of lease contract notice due to failure of payment was stuck on Cas’s door. I almost ripped it off, but she was going to find out one way or another, so I ignored the paper and invaded her privacy.

I’m not going to lie. I went through her clothes and underwear. I know the color and smell of every piece of lace she owns. I know she eats a lot of vegetables and fruit, and that she has yoghurt and fruit for breakfast. I know the only perfume she wears is the Jo Malone orange blossoms I smelled on her and that she keeps a pink vibrator in her nightstand drawer.

She knows things too, and I guess that makes us even. She knows why I pulled them over—her and that fucker who treated her like shit—instead of some other random person. She knows why I got shot. I see it in her pretty, baby doll eyes as her gaze flickers for the briefest moment to my injured shoulder. I took that bullet for her, for the white-hot pleasure of sinking my cock inside her tight, perfect body.