I felt him tense inside me, his cock so thick that part of me wondered if he could even pull out if he wanted too now, and then he came too. His lips parted, his chest fluttering as he panted, and I ran my hands through his dark hair, over his shoulders, loving the feel of his body against mine.
As languid relaxation spread through my muscles, he collapsed next to me, resting his head against my shoulder. He settled against my side with his arm draped over my waist. It felt familiar and comfortable, even though we barely knew each other. I’d walk away in the morning, but it felt like the world would grow a little dimmer knowing I could never have this man, this heat, again.
“You should tell me something else about yourself,” he said idly, running his fingertips over my abs. “Thing five.”
“I could,” I said, a mischievous smile crossing my lips. “Or we could do that again.”
For a second, I could’ve sworn there was something sad about his smile, but then his eyes lit with desire, and I could convince myself it was just my imagination.
“Whatever you want,” he said, before he covered my mouth with his.
Chapter Six
In the morning, I woke up in bed alone. At first, I didn’t remember where I was, and I sat up with a jolt at the unfamiliar room around me. Then I noticed that in the space where Luck had slept last night, there was a note. Most importantly, my cell phone lay on top of the note, still plugged into the charger that dangled off the bed.
Morning, pretty girl
I had to step out for a morning appointment. I didn’t want to wake you up.
Coffee maker should be ready
Help yourself to anything in the kitchen if you’re hungry
There’s money for your Uber on the kitchen island too
It’s up to you if you ever want to hear from me again. I know this was supposed to be your one night stand and I’d hate to fuck up your bucket list.
But if you do—my cell number is XXX-XXXX, and I would appreciate it if you texted me and let me know when you’re home safe.
Luck
P.S. You are, in fact, beautiful in the morning
I stared at the note for a few seconds, my heart suddenly aching.
I couldn’t text him to let him know when I was home safe. I blew out a slow breath. Suddenly the night before seemed like a lovely, ridiculous dream. I’d known the whole time I couldn’t have anything but one night with him, but that didn’t keep me from wishing that I could have more.
“Get real, Mel,” I muttered at myself.
If he knew what I really was, he’d run anyway, so matter how self-possessed and confident he’d seemed the night before.
I raked my hair back from my face, feeling suddenly as grumpy as I’d accused him of being. When I leaned against the pillows, I could swear I still smelled the faintest scent of his aftershave on his pillow or maybe even against my skin. As I picked up my cell phone and began to scroll through a million missed texts from Carrie and even Jaime, I absently pressed my arm against my face as if I were trying to get more of that scent.
I quickly texted Jaime and Carrie: I’m fine, you guys. No thanks to you.
I couldn’t resist immediately adding:
Had a one night stand with that hot bartender from last night.
Within seconds, I had a text back from Carrie:
Oh, thank God. To both!
And I’m sorry! I’m so sorry! It was an honest mistake!
Then a text from Jaime:
I’m not sorry. Especially not if last night was any good...
My lips quirked. Still not confident you didn’t leave me on purpose, J. And last night was amazing. Eat your heart out. He’s even sexier without the suit.
Carrie texted me back: Where are you? J is making us pancakes
I’m still at his place
Carrie texted back, Morning sex?
I wish.I messaged back. He’s gone. I’m still at his penthouse above the club.
The next thing I knew, Carrie called me. “I’m so glad you’re okay! We can come get you. I’m so sorry.”
“It’s okay, seriously,” I said, even though I’d still been a bit peeved. Who forgets their friend?
“We’ll be there soon.”
I hung up with her and searched his room for my clothes, getting dressed again before I headed out through the living room and into the kitchen. The air smelled of fresh-brewed coffee, and I poured myself a cup and looked inside his fridge, then his cabinets. Hey, the man invited me to. And I was curious.
I opened another cabinet and finding a bunch of cereal, picked out a box. I loved sugary cereals. My dad would never let Penn and I have this crap growing up. Then I frowned; my vision was sharper than a human’s, or I never would have noticed the difference in the depths of this cabinet and the others. I sidled over to the right and re-opened the other cabinet. The back of that cabinet was definitely further away.
Curious, I plunked all the boxes of the cereal on the counter, then climbed up to kneel on the counter and reach for the false back. My heart began racing, and I looked over my shoulder, expecting to be caught at any time. What was I going to find? Maybe he wasn’t the good guy I’d thought he was. When I was growing up, my dad was mixed up in all kinds of dangerous activities as our pack’s alpha, and as much as I loved my father, I didn’t ever want that kind of stuff in my life again.
I pried the back of the cabinet away, but there were no guns or drugs like I expected. Instead, gold glinted at me in the faint light. Gold bars were stacked against the back of the cabinet.
“What the hell?” I muttered, and just then a loud buzzer went off by the door. I jumped and fell off the countertop. My ankle went out from underneath me, and I hit the tile floor hard.
The buzzer went off again. As understanding dawned, I groaned. “That’s the doorbell, you soggy bowl of cheerios,” I told myself out loud.
The pain spiking through my ankle hurt too much to stand, so I crawled painfully across the floor and reached up to press the button. “Hello?”
“Let us in!” It was Carrie’s giddy voice.
“That’s not a good idea,” I said. I sat on my ass, wanting to put my head in my hands as I contemplated crawling throughout his house to get my stuff before I got into the elevator. Then I reached up and buzzed them in, even though I knew better.
A minute later, the elevator doors chimed as they opened to reveal Jaime and Carrie.
“Are you all right?” Carrie rushed to kneel next to me.
Even Jaime looked worried as she crouched beside me, but all she said was, “That halter top is a bold choice for nine o’clock in the morning. Walk that walk-of-shame proudly, girl.”
I pulled a face. “I sprained my ankle pretty badly, I guess.”
“Let’s see his house before we carry you out of here,” Jaime said, straightening.
“Let’s just go,” I said. “Can you get my cell from his room? Check to make sure I didn’t leave anything else in there?”
“Oh, I’ll be very thorough,” Jaime promised.
“Don’t be very thorough!” I called as she walked slowly through his living room. She topped to check the view out the floor-to-ceiling windows that overlooked the ocean, running her fingers over the decorations on his console table. She was apparently endeavoring to touch everything in Kingston’s apartment. “Be medium thorough!”
“I’m so sorry we left you,” Carrie confided. “I guess I got way too drunk. I’m finishing the semester and then in December, I’m going home. I guess it just got real.”
Her sad face broke my heart. I promised, “Oh, Carrie, we’ll figure something out.”
“You’re the sweetest,” she said, hugging my neck. I could tell she was on the verge of tears, but she sniffled, refusing to let them fall. “There’s nothing you can do. But we can enjoy the end of my last semester!”
“Maybe I’m not that sweet,” I said slowly. Luck had said he was rich. He wouldn’t really miss some money that badly, would he?
I was never going to see him again.
I wasn’t sure about the gold-bar-to-tuition conversion rate, but if we took just one bar, out of all that he had, maybe he wouldn’t even notice.
My stomach tightened at the thought of stealing from anyone, but especially him.
But I pushed that part of my conscience down a little further.
“Carrie, I think I’ve got a plan.”
Chapter Seven
Luck
I went about my business all day, but I checked my phone more often than I should have. Some stupid part of me really wanted to hear from that little shifter cutie. But by the time I headed back to my place that evening, I knew she’d made her choice. Part of me wanted to find her, but I’d respect the choice she made.
Then when I stepped into my condo, I could feel there was something wrong.
My nostrils flared, trying to tease out what exactly was bothering me. My senses and my intuition blended together so seamlessly that I knew someone had been in here and someone had taken something from me, but at first I couldn’t sort out any of the sensory threads of evidence. I just knew.
Then as I strode through the rooms, searching for what was off, I felt it in the kitchen.
I stopped in front of my cabinet, knowing even before I swung the false back open that my gold was gone.
I was surprised to see gold bars glinting at me.
All but one.
She’d stolen from me. The knowledge felt like a visceral thing, a sudden ache in my chest as if I’d just been stabbed. Fuck. It was my nature to hoard, to love to have my wealth and my things around me, to be furious if someone tried to take from me. But what I felt now wasn’t just anger.
It hurt.
Christ.
The damned shifter that stole from me? My goddamned foolish body was convinced that she was my mate. Well, I wasn’t going to give into it. I was more than my instincts, more than any stupid myth about what the mating bond meant.
In my bedroom, I found the note I’d left for her. It was crumpled a bit, because it had fallen on the floor and someone had stepped on it. Suddenly I felt like a fool for how optimistically and naively I’d written it this morning.
Help yourself to anything in the kitchen, I’d said, and she’d done just that.
“God damn it.” It wasn’t the money that mattered.
It hurt that she’d stolen from me, even though I shouldn’t expect anything from anyone. I knew better than that.
Humans, shifters, they’re all the same.
Greedy.
I should know—I hoarded wealth, after all.
I was the greediest of all creatures, even though man had forgotten anything like me even existed.
She thought she could run from me.
Cold rage ran through my veins like ice.
If there was any truth to the mating bond stories, I’d find her.
Eh, fuck the stories.
I was going to find that woman no matter what.
Chapter Eight
Mel
I perched on the very edge of my seat in an empty restaurant. I had a job interview for a new waitressing gig in a much nicer restaurant, and I was so nervous I couldn’t stand it. As I waited for the manager, I smoothed my resume’s paper down on the white linen tablecloth, making sure it was creaseless and perfect.
A man sat down across from me. As sharp as my senses were, I’d barely heard him coming, and I jerked my head up in surprise, expecting to see the manager.
Kingston Luck sat across from me. He looked immaculate, in another dark suit, his black hair perfectly styled. His handsome face was a mask as he regarded me steadily.
My stomach fell. I stared at him, my lips parting in shock. How had he found me again?
“I’m supposed to be having an interview,” I leaned across the table and hissed at him as soon as I’d recovered enough to speak. The best defense is a good offense. “You can’t be here!”
“Yeah, you’re not getting this job.” He looked confident and suave as ever, crossing his legs at the knee. “The manager was happy to give us a few minutes of privacy.”
I licked my lips. He was just a human; if he threatened me, I could put him through that window and be on my way.
“It took you all of three days to track me down.”
“Three days?” His brows arched as if he were offended. “I waited until I cooled down.”
“So you are...cooled down?”
He stared at me without answering for a few long seconds, then said, “I don’t like being stolen from, Melanie.”
Melanie. We were definitely not friends now.
My lips parted, and before I could say anything, he added, “And I don’t much care for being lied to, either.”
For a few long seconds, the two of us stared at each other. He had the most mesmerizingly beautiful eyes, even when his face was stern.
“You told me to help myself to anything in the kitchen,” I said finally, not sure if my glib answer would result in making him smile or making him flip a table.
He did neither, just drummed his fingertips on the tabletop. “Where is my gold?”
My cheeks flushed. “Already spent.”
He nodded slowly. His lips tightened, which drew my gaze to that mouth was so beautifully shaped, with a narrow upper lip and a rounded lower lip. His mouth looked as if it could do anything: he could could rip someone apart—at least with words—or kiss them into the bliss.
“Here’s what we’re going to do, darling,” he said, and this time, the pet name didn’t sound so affectionate and easy on his lips as it had the first time. “You choose. You can explain that cute you told me to help myself story to the police and see how adorable they find it.”
My stomach knotted. My brother would always try to rescue me, but if Penn had to save me from trouble with the law, I’d have to go home. Most of all, I’d disappoint the little brother I adored so much. He had his own problems.
Kingston was watching me, and I was sure those careful eyes were reading my every expression, that he could see right through me.
“You said I could choose,” I said finally, because he was apparently content to let me simmer indefinitely in visions of being arrested. “What’s my other option?”
“You work for me,” he said, quickly, confidently, as if he’d already thought this through. “You can waitress at Bliss.”
“Oh,” I said. “How long will it take me to work off what I owe you?”
He leaned back in his chair. He had the posture of a man who held all the cards, but then, Kingston Luck always carried himself that way.
“Friday and Saturday nights for the school year,” he said. “Then your debt will be paid by summer.”
I nodded. My hands clasped together under the table, but there was a strange spark of heat between my thighs at the thought of being in close proximity to Kingston Luck for the next several months.
Except he hated me now. And he had every reason to hate me. The thought made something inside me ache, but I pressed my knees together tightly, forcing myself to sit up straight.
There was no running from what I’d done. The deal he’d offered me was fair enough.
I nodded. “All right.”
“Don’t agree just yet,” he said. “There’s one more thing.”
Dread settled over my shoulders like a heavy winter’s coat. “What’s that?”
“I want to know you’re staying out of trouble,” he said mildly. “You’ll live with me. Just until summer. Then you and I can go our separate ways.”
I almost laughed. “You’re kidding me, right? This is a joke? Why would you want me to live with you when I stole from you, when you know...”
I trailed off, but he raised an eyebrows.
“When I know I can’t trust you?” he filled in. “I know. It’s foolish of me.”
But he didn’t take back the terms of his deal. He leaned back in his chair again and watched me steadily.
“So why...” I began again, at a loss.
“Because it’s my wealth,” he said, “and I’ll be foolish with it if I wish.”
He stood abruptly, pushing back the chair, and gazed down at me, slipping one hand into his pocket. “It’s your choice, Melanie. You can be at my place by eight o’clock on Friday night with your bag packed, ready to put a smile on your face and serve drinks. Or you can wait for the police to knock on Saturday morning.”
He bowed his head faintly, his eyes cold, when he told me, “Whatever you want.”
He’d said the same thing to me before, in bed, but now those words left me with chills.
He turned and strode between tables to the door, pushed it open and went out into the bright California sun.
Then I was alone in the overwhelming silence of the large, empty restaurant.
Chapter Nine
On Friday afternoon, as I packed my t-shirts and jeans into my duffel bag, Jaime raised her eyebrows at me and suggested, “You know, we could just kill him.”
“I know.” I ran my fingers through my hair, pushing it back from my face. “You can’t tell Carrie.”
“That we killed him or that you’re an indentured servant right now?” She pulled a face. “Don’t worry, I’m not going to tell her. You’d get ultimate best friend status for doing whatever it takes to keep her at school. She was my bestie first, bitch.”
I’d had to tell someone, and Jaime had felt like my only option. Honestly, Jaime was starting to grow on me, despite her faults.
Besides, she might have a mean edge, but I had no doubt that if I needed her, she’d help me roll Kingston Luck in a blanket and dump him in the ocean. The thought made my chest tight. My pack could help me get out of this, but I hated the thought of how.
“I made this mess and I’ll deal with it on my own,” I said. “It’s just until summer.”
“If you can trust his word.”
“I do,” I promised. “Besides, what cop would believe I stole from him and then he had me move in with him? He’s practically creating my alibi....”
I hadn’t realized the natural aftermath of his ultimatum before. Once I’d lived with Kingston for a while, he wouldn’t have any case with the cops. He seemed like he thought through everything—he must have realized that too.
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