Thief: A Bad Boy Romance

by Aubrey Irons

  “You’d be surprised, princess.”

  I grin in spite of myself, feeling my face go a little pink as his eyes flash at me, as if latching on to that one little grin.

  He eyes the pile of books and magazines strewn around my chair. “Nice hiding place, by the way.”

  I make a face. “Cute. I told you, I’m not hiding.”

  “Fine, sulking, or whatever.”

  I sigh, shaking my head. “You’re impossible, you know.”

  “I try. Let’s go back to you sulking around though.”

  “I’m not sulking, I’m just-” I rub the bridge of my nose with my fingers. “Look, I’m going kind of insane being cooped up in here, okay?”

  “Yeah you’re looking a little hermit-ish,” he says, nodding a chin at my pajama pants. “You going to cut back on bathing to really pull off the look?”

  “I can bathe just fine, thank you.”

  He leans forward in his chair. “You sure? I’m happy to help if you need, it’s all part of the Service.”

  I can feel myself blush as I roll my eyes and shake my head. “I bet. Look, I just need to get the fuck out of here at some point.”

  “The library? I agree.”

  I roll my eyes. “Out of here like this ‘this house’. I’m in this place day after day and I’m starting to go fucking crazy.”

  Hunter cracks his knuckles. “Well, we’ve got another press thing tomorrow, and then you’re going to meet with some foundations your mom set up for you to get involved with on Wednes-”

  I groan loudly and drop the book on the ground at my feet. “No, now. And I don’t mean to go pose in front of cameras. Look, I need to do people things. I need to see culture or whatever. Can I just go exploring or something?”

  He grins, raising an eyebrow at me. “Exploring?”

  “Yes, exploring, or fucking something. I don’t want to spent the next however long I’m here lounging around like a damn hermit. I feel cooped up here.”

  “The word is ‘safe’, Mad-”

  “You know what I mean.” I stand and slump my shoulders as I look at him pleading. “Please.”

  He makes a face. “What exactly did you have in mind?”

  “A museum?”

  He snorts. “Are you kidding me? No way, they’re huge public spaces. It’s a security nightmare.”

  “Dude, there are priceless world-renowned museums in this city, and I live like a block away from all of them and I can’t go see them?”

  “It’s a risk.”

  “It’s your job to mitigate that.”

  He glares at me, but there’s a little bit of a smirk in the corners of his lips. “I’ll bring it up with the director.”

  “Pushover,” I say with a grin.

  10.

  Pushover.

  It’s like her own little barb right back; her own little dig right back at me after I teased her.

  And I like that. I like that she throws it right back; that she takes my shit and dishes it right back.

  Still, there’s abso-fucking-lutely nothing “pushover” about me.

  Of course that said, a few days later, we’re in a damn motorcade, on our way to the damn Smithsonian, after I damn well called ahead and arranged for the exhibit wing that hasn’t opened yet to be sealed off.

  Goddamnit, I am a pushover. For her at least. I frown and decide not to think too hard about what that means.

  “Thanks,” she mumbles from her side of the backseat of the Escalade, as if reading my thoughts. “You didn’t have to do this.”

  I snort. “Right, like you wouldn’t have made a big stink about it until I did.”

  She grins. “You have no idea, but still, thank you.”

  “You know, after the announcement, I won’t be able to pull shit like this off. Then you’ll just be fucked.” She rolls her eyes. “Well, only if you ask nicely, that is,” I say with a wink. “Like last time.”

  Her face goes bright red and she quickly darts a glance towards the divider separating us from the driver.

  “Relax, he can’t hear us.”

  Her face sours into a sharp glare. “First,” she hisses out. “That’s never happening again, ever. And secondly, I’d never ask you nicely for it, you dick.”

  “Sorry, you’re right.”

  She rolls her eyes and makes a face at me as she starts to turn back towards the window.

  “You’d ask dirty.”

  She whirls back to me, her eyes wide and her mouth open in this shocked look. “That is never going to-” She stops, pursing her lips and sneering at me. “Having fun?”

  I grin. “With?”

  “With trying to get a rise out of me.”

  I laugh. “Well that depends, is it working?”

  “Nope.”

  “Clearly.” She sticks her tongue out at me and I raise a brow, “That an invitation?”

  “Dream on.”

  “Way ahead of you.”

  Her cheeks flush pink as she tries to hide the grin on her face by turning back towards the city flashing by the tinted windows of the Escalade.

  “But honestly, once I’m off the Service, I probably won’t be able to arrange field trips like this, so enjoy it.”

  “Well thanks,” she says, rolling her eyes at me. “And for being so humble and gentlemanly about it.”

  “Any time, doll.”

  We sit in silence for another block before I find myself opening up my damn mouth again. “You know, your mom is going to be good for my dad, as — uh — complicated it might make things.”

  She’s blushing again, but she nods. “Yeah, Dexter was telling me a little bit about your mom.”

  I raise my brow again. “He was?” Dexter never talks about mom, not even when I try to wheedle it out of him.

  “Yeah.” She sighs. “Okay, honestly, your dad is gonna be great for my mom too.” Her lips curl in the hint of a smile. “Complications aside.”

  Part of me — the normal, familiar part of me — wants to hit myself in the side of the head. I mean what the fuck am I doing? Why the hell am I talking about our Goddamn parents with this girl? Let’s be fucking real, ‘Hey, let’s talk about how we’re going to be legally step-siblings soon’ isn’t exactly the smoothest route into her panties again.

  Of course, that said, I know damn well I shouldn’t be trying to get into her fucking panties. The correct thing to do here is to back the hell away from this girl, for all the reasons you could possibly think of. When the whole wedding announcement goes down and I get taken off the force, we can figure out our fucked up brother-sister with a dash of reckless sexual attraction relationship then. For now though, I should just do my fucking job and just concentrate on watching and protecting the person I’m paid to protect.

  And yet here I am calculating what I’m saying to her; like I’m trying to say the right things as if getting into her panties is an option here.

  Which is why I sit there in silence for the rest of the car ride, clenching my jaw and trying to ignore the way her scoop-neck t-shirt drapes across the tops of her breasts, or the way her hair falls in soft waves around her face, or the way her lashes frame the wild green of her eyes.

  Yeah, see what I’m fucking up against?

  Somehow, we manage to get the last four blocks to the Smithsonian and pull around back by the service entrance without my cock bursting out of my suit or me just outright tearing her clothes off. They need to award service medals for shit like this.

  “You know, I’m still having a hard time believing you were in the Army.”

  We’re alone as we walk through the empty hallways of the closed wing. Okay, we’re not alone-alone, what with the security detail at the end of the hallway, the other teams guarding every exit and entrance and the back-up team waiting out back for the slightest hint of a threat. But for the moment, in the softly-lit hallway full of stone tables from who knows what ancient culture, it’s just her and me.

  “Marines, actually.”

  “Okay
, even more-so then. Why? I didn’t think big-deal politician’s kids went to war.”

  “They don’t, which is why I did.”

  “What, just to act out?”

  I shrug. “Honestly, a little.” She looks at me in surprise and I grin. “I mean, I’d be lying if that wasn’t at least part of it. I was eighteen fucking years old and had a chip on my shoulder after the way things shook out with my mom dying and my dad working so much, and just said fuck it. There was a war on T.V. all the time, and I was tired of going to the same old parties with the same old douchebags talking about ‘what should be done.’ So I went out decided to be part of the solution and not just bitch about it.”

  “You think fighting is the solution?” she says, turning to raise a brow at me.

  “I know sitting around jerking off about it and not doing anything isn’t.”

  We turn into one of the side rooms, full of more stone carving and totems and parts of ancient walls that are important enough to be in the Smithsonian, even if I don’t get it. I’m out of my damn element here, but Maddie’s not, and watching her is making me grin as she takes this stuff in with this awed expression on her face. Element or not, and even though she’s moving so slowly from piece to piece, and reading every single on one of those damned cards next to each one, I’m not in the slightest bit bored watching her.

  Of course, “watching her” also entails sneaking peeks at that perfect ass of hers in those tight, formal black pants. Let’s be real, the stuff on the wall isn’t the only work of art in here.

  Maddie moves on into the next room, and I follow, still trying to keep a handle on the roaring of my own damn libido. This room is much darker and much more sparse on the pieces of stone since this is the wing still under construction.

  We’re both peering in the dim, almost darkness of the room as we move through on to the next better lit room on the other side, when Maddie suddenly gasps as her foot catches on something. She goes tumbling forward, and I jump on pure instinct, jerking towards her in the darkness and catching her in my arms.

  And it’s like time just fucking freezes in that moment.

  Everything else in the world drops away, and I’m just frozen like that, holding her in my arms. I can feel her hands tightly gripping the lapels of my jacket, her face inches from mine, and the sound of her gasp filling my ears.

  Fuck, that does it.

  It’s the sound, really. Beyond the feel of her body against mine, or her hands clutching me, it’s that fucking gasp that does it. And I don’t even realize until I hear it that it’s a sound I’ve been dying to hear again. It’s not even anything sexual this time, but it’s like getting a fix I’ve been fiending for. That little gasp of hot air teasing again my ear as I catch her brings back everything from that night. That slightly innocent but anything but look in her eyes through the mask, the catch of her breath through those pouty lips.

  And just like that, I’m rock hard, with her body pressed right against me.

  She gasps again, but this time it's a low, halting sound. I can see her eyes flash up into mine in the dim light filtering in from the next room; can see her soft bottom lip suck between her teeth in that way she does that makes me want to bury my cock in her right here and now.

  “What are we doing?” she whispers.

  “I thought we were looking at art,” I growl, my voice tight.

  “There’s no art in here.”

  “No other agents either,” I say softly, unable to tear my eyes away from that lip.

  My hands slide down to her hip, and her eyes dart across mine. “Hunter, what are you-”

  “I told you, just showing you what you wanted to see.” My eyes adjust enough in the darkness to see the large stone sculpture half draped in a drop sheet behind her; the one in the middle of the floor that she managed to catch the edge of when she tripped. And then suddenly I’m pushing her back, making her gasp again as her back comes up against the ancient stone behind her.

  Walk away; walk the fuck away right now.

  Except I already know I’m not going to. I already know I’m not walking away from this girl until I get the fix that I crave. I want to hear her fucking moan for me again, just like she did before.

  I want to watch her face when she comes.

  “Hunter, we shouldn’t wander off like this,” she says softly, her chest rising and falling with her hands still on my chest.

  “Oh, suddenly worried about the rules?” I move against her, hearing the whimper in her throat as I move my lips against her ear. “Still worried about what we should and shouldn’t do?” I can hear her breath catch, and her hands are clutching the front of my suit as she pulls me against her.

  “Besides, I think we both know we’re already well onto the list of things we shouldn’t be doing, doll,” I growl into her ear. “Sex clubs for instance?”

  She pushes me back from her neck, her eyes locking with mine. “I already fucking told you, that was a one time thing.”

  “Oh, sure it was.”

  “What, like you?” Her eyes dart over mine. “I bet you’re there every weekend.”

  I grin at her. “Maybe it was my first time there too, ever think of that?”

  “I doubt that.”

  “Oh, and why’s that?”

  “Because you clearly knew what you were doing.” Her face blushes furiously the second she says it.

  She stammers. “That’s not— look, forget it.”

  But I’m already sliding my hands over her hip and letting them move down over her ass, pulling her to me. “So,” I growl, my eyes burning right into hers. “You’re saying I knew what I was doing when I made you come all those times that night.”

  “It was nothing special.”

  “Sure it wasn’t.” I press against her, knowing she can feel how hard I am. I’m dying to feel how wet she is, because I know she is because of that flush in her cheeks and that catch in her breath. The way her eyes are so wide as they stare into mine in the dim of the room. We’re a breath apart, her soft mouth so close I could claim it with my own in a millisecond. “I’m willing to bet it was so good that you haven’t been able to stop thinking about it, actually.”

  “I’ve forgotten about it entirely, actually,” she says softly.

  “Uh-huh, I doubt that.”

  “Doubt all you want, I can’t even remember it.”

  “I could jog your memory if you want me to,” I growl, watching her gasp. I press harder against her, my hands gripping her ass and feeling the way her hips undulate towards me; the way she presses hotly into the thick bulge in my pants.

  She might be in this conservative fucking pants suit, but I know I can feel the heat there between her legs on my thigh. I lean forward again into her neck, my lips barely grazing over the skin of her collarbone as one of my hands slides up from her ass and starts to slide around, pulling the scoop-neck shirt out of her pants.

  “What are you-”

  “Making you remember,” I growl into her ear, before I take the lobe between my lips and suck.

  And there’s the moan I’ve been dying to hear.

  She melts against me as I nip her ear, her hands clutching me tightly against her, her hips rocking ever so slightly against me, as if urging me on. I’m in the Secret fucking Service, and I’m sworn to protect those under my watch, not dry-hump them in dark museums. I briefly wonder if doing this constitutes treason, and besides that, there’s the lingering fact that this is my soon-to-be stepsister.

  Yeah, I might be fucking up hard here, but there’s no Goddamn way I’m stopping right now; not with that moan echoing in my brain.

  11.

  I feel my heart pounding inside my breast, the blood roaring hot in my face. It’s like I can’t speak as I find myself staring wide-eyed up into those sharp blue eyes, somehow piercing even in the darkness of the room. Of course, even if I could, I don’t even know what I would say.

  And so I say nothing when I feel his hand slide over my hip and across the
waist of my pants, tugging at my shirt. I bite my lip, if only to hold back the moan in my throat when his fingers find the button at the front and deftly pop it open. And when he slips his hand under the material, and traces over the edge of my panties, all I can do is let myself fall into him.

  His hand slides over the front of my panties, and I moan. His fingers find me soaking wet through the fabric as he teases my lips, and I whimper as he starts to rub me, my hands clutching at his suit and my mouth hanging open as I cling to him.

  “Fuck, Hunter-”

  “How’s that memory working now?” He says darkly into my ear, making me shiver against him as his fingers work in slow circles over my panties.

  “It’s-”

  “How about now?”

  I moan out loud as his fingers push my panties to the side and slide over my pussy. And then I’m yanking him down and into me, and whimpering as I feel his lips crush against my own. His hand comes up from my ass to cup my jaw as he pushes me hard against the statue behind us. Fingers push into my hair, pulling me tightly against his lips as he growls into my mouth and slides his tongue against mine.

  I moan again as his finger slides wetly against my opening and pushes inside, shamelessly rocking my hips against him as it curls deep inside me.

  And I know how bad this is. I know how horribly off-limits this is and how past the line we’re moving. Not to mention what would happen if we got caught like this.

  Scandal on the highest level, a national affair that would ruin our lives. A dirty little secret that would be written about in fucking history books.

  I don’t know what strings he pulled to get us here, but something tells me he’s past the line of what he should be doing by being in here only with me and not a whole group of agents. And that in itself just makes me think the chances of getting caught are even higher.

  The danger is even more present, but for some reason, I’ve never been more wet and more turned on.

  His finger curls against that sweet spot just inside, his thumb brushing over my clit and I moan into his mouth. I can feel his cock throbbing against me through his pants, and knowing he’s so hard and ready has my blood pounding in my chest.