by Ames, Ilsa
And oh, was she going to pay.
I just needed to make sure I wasn’t caught. This was the most dangerous time, the moment of the kidnap itself. If all went well, we’d be off to my secluded and well-hidden cabin, way out in the heavily wooded mountains before anyone even noticed anything. If not? Well, I’d have to get the hell out of town, and months of planning and determination would be for nothing.
But that was not going to happen.
I’d made a lot of mistakes in my youth. More than I could remember, even if I wanted to. Ditching school early when the lure of crime and drugs beckoned. Getting deeper and deeper into that world—drinking and getting high and then stealing and dealing to keep the party going. My best friend in the world, Dan, had gotten mixed up in all that shit with me, and it’d been us against the whole damn world until it all came crashing down.
The day Dan ODed, I left that life behind. I just walked away from all of it—the dealers, the fights, the constantly watching over my shoulder for the cops. All of that shit.
I’d carried a weight of guilt on my shoulders ever since, thinking there must have been something I could have done. That maybe I could have stopped our downward spiral into drugs and crime. But deep down I knew we had both been to blame equally. We’d been looking for something different, something exciting, and we’d found it. Only one of us didn’t make it to the other side.
I got back on the straight and narrow after all that shit. I got a job, got back in touch with family. I’d started working for my uncle, who owned a logging business out in the mountains near town. I’d worked with him for a good few years, and we became close as time passed. It was only a few years later that he’d died suddenly of a heart attack.
One more person I got close to leaving too soon.
I didn’t know at the time, but it turned out he’d left me as the main benefactor in his will. I was shocked when I found out, wanting to thank him for his generosity. He’d left me a sizeable chunk of money, and the logging business. That I’d sold, reluctantly, since it was nothing that was ever going to be my passion.
I used some of that money to buy a plot of land out in the mountains, and set to building myself a log cabin, enjoying the solitude and peace from the forest surrounding the house I had so painstakingly built. If I was honest, I’d always been a bit of a loner, and I was content in my own company, fixing up the place, hunting, and taking the odd trip into town for supplies every now and then.
After a while I began to notice subtle changes to my surroundings. Plants and trees that would bloom late, or not at all. Leaves turning a sickly grey-green color on trees near the stream just down from my cabin. The occasional dead fish, or small bird.
Eventually, even the deer I hunted on occasion looked sickly, hair falling out in clumps, bleeding gums, and lesions. I knew then that something was definitely wrong with what was going on here.
All signs pointed to something being wrong with the water supply. And that’s never good. I’d tracked the source back to a huge natural reservoir further up in the mountains, hidden away in the middle of nowhere. The thing was, that reservoir flowed naturally down to a few man-made reservoirs, which minimally treated the water before sending it down to the town where my cabin was near, Parkersburg.
And then it was the people that started getting sick too—the elderly and kids being hit the hardest. I’d hunted around, and pried for answers, but not a single person could tell me.
Until one day, that is. One day, when an old timer—sick looking with frail eyes and patchy hair—pulled me aside when I was in town and asked if he could buy me a beer. He’d told me about the work he’d done for a chemical production company based out of town. He said they had a legal license to dump treated chemical effluent into the local water system, but only at a specific rate. The owner of the company had got greedy and had started sending batches of effluent to be dumped, anywhere that was far enough away from the plant to avoid suspicion.
Places like the big reservoir I’d found hidden up in the mountains.
Rage and anger swept me up as I’d left that man that day, driving back to my cabin past sickly tress, dying wildlife, and a crumbling town. Here was some piece of shit knowingly poisoning a whole town and all the land around it just to make some more cash.
Parkersburg was my town. And he was killing it. It was then that I had started planning on how to get this guy to atone for his crimes.
No one can hide in the age of Google, and I’d finally found out who Preston fucking Canonelli was—wealthy beyond belief, and I wondered how much of that wealth had come from overproducing at the cost of killing the countryside.
I’d dug deeper, and that’s when I’d found her.
Natalia.
I’d found her Instagram page, and it sure as fuck looked like she led the life of a pampered daddy’s girl. Exactly as I might have imagined. Endless, luxury holidays in expensive hotels, constant parties at classy looking bars, designer clothes. The fucking works.
Right, all that, and fucking gorgeous. I didn’t want her to be. I didn’t want to see the pictures of her and think of anything but my revenge. I didn’t want to lose myself in those eyes, and have that sexy, tempting smile of her haunt my goddamn dreams after a long night of planning how to take her.
But it did. She did.
Tempting, sinfully sexy. The bratty little daddy’s girl you wanted to bend over your knee and teach a lesson to.
And that’s when the idea had hit me. A girl like that? Beautiful, cultured, rich—with the pedigree schooling and society connections? With the polish and charm that only the ultra-rich seem to exude?
I knew right then that Preston would do anything to keep his little spoiled princess safe.
…Maybe even clean up the town he had been polluting for the past few years.
So, I’d planned, and plotted. I’d stalked. I’d hounded her every fucking step, shoving my desire down deep, trying to ignore the animal inside of me that roared to break free and claim her for myself. I wondered how much she knew about her father’s business, and if she’d be surprised when I told her why she was being kidnapped.
Well, I guess I’m about to find out.
I took a deep breath, steeling myself as I stared through the window of the bar she was drinking at with some friends. She came here often, as I’d found out quite easily, thanks to the wonders of social media and the determination of a stalker.
The bar was in the nicer part of Pittsburgh, and I’d decided it was here, after a night of drinking, that it would be best to make my move. She usually left alone, wandering to the nearest corner where she’d call an Uber to take her home.
The streets were quiet, deserted even. Most people were at home, or in one of the many bars or restaurants in the area.
I’d almost made a move a few times before, only to be thwarted at the last moment. Sometimes by chance, but sometimes because the thought of taking her and laying my hands on her soft, tempting skin was too much to handle – because I knew that doing so would snap something inside of me. This time, though, I could feel it was the one. It was now or never.
I felt a pang of regret as I watched her, laughing and smiling as she sipped her cocktail. Fuck she was beautiful. Gorgeous and sexy, with this sassy spark that came out in her pictures online and in the flesh when I’d stalked close to her at bars. She was a princess, but, she wasn’t going to be a fainter or a pushover, I knew that.
I wondered if she’d fight me. I wondered if something was fucking wrong with me that the thought of her lithe frame squirming against me made my cock thicken in my jeans.
She rose from her booth, waving at her friends as she headed for the exit. I started the ignition of my pick up, and quietly drove to the street outside of the bar, waiting for her to appear.
She left the bar, ambling slowly away from the light shining out from the windows, onto the dark sidewalk, right towards my waiting truck.
Right towards the plan that I’d plotted for m
onths.
Right towards me.
She gasped when I stepped from the truck right in front of her, my six-foot three-inch frame of pure muscle suddenly blocking her path. Her pretty eyes went wide as I grabbed her, the sound of a scream catching her throat the only sound as my big, strong hands yanked her into me.
And then, just like that, just like I’d planed, she was mine.
* * *
Thanks for reading! You can find the full book of Steal Me Away on Amazon. Read it for free with Kindle Unlimited!
Steal Me Away: A Mountain Man Romance
Also by Ilsa Ames
His Control: A Billionaire Romance
Her Prince’s Secret Baby: A Royal Romance
Steal Me Away: A Mountain Man Romance
His Claim: A Mountain Man Romance (free with newsletter sign up!)
About the Author
Ilsa Ames is two die-hard romance readers-turned-authors. Best friends, moms, secret (and sometimes not so secret…) smut lovers, and crappy reality television junkies.
Smokin' hot, dominant alphas, smart, sassy heroines, & contemporary romance stories to make you say "yes please!".
We hope you enjoy!
www.ilsaames.com
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