Steal Me

by Riley Rollins

  Terry had been a true friend to us both over the last year. There were moments when I wondered… if perhaps she’d guessed at the truth somehow. But to her credit, she’d never spoken a word. She wanted Ana to be happy almost as much as I did, and I loved her for that. When we told her about our engagement, she’d hugged me ferociously and kissed both my cheeks. She reminded me very much of my own mother… a woman who was loyal and loving to the end.

  I looked around the living room, swathed in flowers, a fire burning gently in the fireplace. Ally was upstairs with Ana, helping her dress. Sergei was waiting for me, as Terry fussed with his boutonniere. He looked over her head and sighed with helpless exasperation.

  “Can you see to the minister, Terry?” I asked, nodding my head in the man’s direction. “He seems to have misplaced his glasses.”

  She fluttered away, waving her hands, and I smiled at my Uncle Serge. He clapped his hands around me and we embraced. His pounded his thick, heavy hands against my back.

  “You’ve never looked better than you do at this moment, Maxim,” he said, smiling. “I can’t say I’m happy to be losing you, but I’m proud of you, son. I’ve never been more proud.”

  He straightened my tie, buying us both a minute to recover ourselves. I knew it was hard for him, knowing I would be staying here… that I was leaving my life in Russia behind me. I swallowed hard, grateful for the man he was, and for the love he’d always given me.

  He’d personally seen to the transfer of my mother’s entire jewel collection. Not an easy task to accomplish, but he’d done it. I had everything she’d left me, all of it gained by legitimate means. She’d loved jewels, but had never wanted any part of the trafficked ones from the family business. I was starting a legit jewelry business of my own now, and I knew she’d be proud of me as well. Jewels were, after all, what I knew best.

  I watched as Terry flew past, waving the few guests into their seats. “It’s time, oh it’s time,” she panted. “Please, take your places everyone,” she said, as the music started.

  I went to stand in front of the minister, the fireplace a glowing backdrop behind him. Sergei stood beside me, handsome in his black tuxedo. Terry had already given him more than one admiring glance…

  I turned my eyes to the staircase, feeling the flutters of nervousness in my belly for the first time. It was when I finally saw her that the feeling disappeared, replaced by a warmth that only she brought to me. I watched as she moved, tiny and delicate in her creamy white gown. It followed the curves of her body, curves that had grown deliciously rounder in the last few months. I smiled, as I remembered the joy I’d felt when she told me. It was her wedding gift to me, she’d said. And only our secret for a few more weeks, at best.

  I remember only the look in her eyes, and the feeling in my heart, of what followed then. The minister spoke, the guests smiled, but she was all I knew. She was all that mattered.

  “I take you, Ana Catherine Petrova, to be my lawfully wedded wife,” I heard myself say, consumed by the love in her eyes.

  “And I take you, Maxim Anton Kozlov, to be my lawfully wedded husband,” I heard her answer back.

  I held her tiny hands in mine, knowing one lifetime with her could never last long enough. I slipped the gold band on her finger, and smiled into her eyes with secret pleasure. Later, she would discover that I’d inscribed the inside of her ring with the first part of Catherine’s inscription, which we’d seen together the very first time. Secretly hidden inside the setting of the Blue for more than two centuries…

  There is nothing between us Time can end.

  I kissed Ana’s hand and and she gazed up at me, her brown eyes soft and moist, the outward ends tilting gently upwards. I watched as she slid the matching band onto my finger, and my heart swelling in my chest as I took my wife in my arms, and I kissed her for the very first time.

  It was only many, many years later I would discover by accident, the inscription Ana had engraved inside my own ring… the last remaining piece of Catherine’s message…

  For Love will always offer, an Eternity of new beginnings.

  Thank You

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  My Beautiful Killer

  A Bad Boy Mafia Romance

  I’m built to f*ck and kill, and I’m the best there is at both.

  I had a piano wire wrapped around my target’s neck when I first saw her. Stolen off the street, she was a sweet little schoolgirl who never saw me coming.

  I’ve had a thousand women, but I've never had a girl like Abby. Luscious and innocent, her curves are soft and sweet against my ripped, chiseled body.

  One look, and I'm hard. One touch, and I'm f*cking addicted.

  I want her, and I get everything I want. But she's a witness, and in my world, witnesses don’t live to talk.

  I kill for a living and I have no regrets. It’s who I am, who I’ve always been. But when my boss wants Abby dead, I have to be the man she needs me to be.

  A hundred men, a thousand men, I'll kill them all to protect her.

  They won't see me coming--not until I slit their f*cking throats.

  1

  Dane

  I slip inside the bedroom and it’s dark as fuck but I don’t give a shit. I always could see everything I needed to in the darkness and this moment is no exception. Every sense is humming. Every nerve is on fire. I’m a man who knows what he wants, who gets what he wants and I want this. I am my truest self and have never felt more powerful. This is what I was made for.

  I focus on the form in bed, sleeping without thought or care. Dark hair fringes a curve of throat. It’s that smooth, vulnerable skin that locks my gaze as I move to the bed. I’ve done this so many times before the movement is practiced, easy. What’s coming will be furious and violent. Two bodies locked in an intensity unexplainable to those who’ve never felt it for themselves. The anticipation is incredible. I feel my own heartbeat and suck in a cool lungful of air. For a fast second I close my eyes and savor. The next second the garrote is around his fucking throat and I’m smiling into bulging, dying eyes.

  Fucking Arseny was meant to die like this and it’s my pleasure to do the honors. It’s just not going to be over as quickly as he thinks. Or as he would hope. I loosen the wire around his throat barely enough to allow him a breath. He’s always enjoyed shooting off his mouth at the wrong moment. Who am I to deny him the privilege now?

  “Goddamn fuckin’ prick…shit fuck…kill…y…” he rasps out, his hands tearing uselessly at the wire. That’s more than I thought I’d given him air for. Impressive.

  “Yes, yes Arseny,” I patronize softly. “But tonight it’s your turn. Lazar knows you’ve been fucking skimming and he knows how much. He’s wants you dead nearly as much as I do, you twisted fuck.” I can’t help pulling the wire a little tighter. Arseny arches and bucks, his face turning a different shade of purple. I move closer, speaking into his ear.

  “I’m giving you a chance you don’t deserve, you useless prick. You get to confess your sins before you die and I’m going to absolve them. Take one more breath and tell me why I’m ending you now.”

  Arseny sucks air through his swelling tissues and strains hard, the thick vessels in his forehead going blue, and makes a final try at throwing me off. It’s hopeless. I have a foot of height on him and am solid muscle. But he fights anyway like a man does at the end.

  He really doesn’t need to tell me shit. I already know. So does Lazar. That’s why I’m here to kill him. Getting to fucking watch him squirm just makes it better for me. I rock back very slightly and notice th
e dark skin of my forearms in curious contrast to the sickly color of his pasty chest. I’m enjoying this.

  “No...nothing to say after all?” I grind out the words as I bear down again on the wire encircling his neck. “No apologies to those women, to the family you fucked over? Nothing…before I turn you into less than nothing?”

  He rolls sideways hard with a last burst of energy. I roll with him. We’re in this together now and I won’t let go until the last fucking twitch leaves him. I like an up close and personal kill when it’s an asshole like this guy.

  “Time to be a man now, you sick fuck. Time to die for all those girls you ruined.”

  I lean in taking an extra wrap of wire around my gloved hands. Arseny makes a gurgling sound in his chest, his legs thrashing hard in jerking rapid bursts. All I need to do is ride him out. He makes one more squirming roll, taking the tangle of sheets with him.

  Uncovered in bed next to us is the most beautiful woman I have ever seen. I drag my eyes from his bloodshot ones and look into hers. Wide, blue and completely terrified. She is utterly naked and looking at me like I am the beginning and the end of the world.

  She is not wrong.

  2

  Abby

  “You will be still and you will be silent.”

  His command made its way through the rushing sound in my head and somehow I understood. Disobeying him was impossible. My arms were bound too tightly behind me for movement to be possible. Silent? If I could still scream, I’d have never stopped. And now his black eyes were on me. Me, his witness.

  I’d seen his face and he’d seen mine. I knew it meant I would die next but I still couldn’t tear my eyes away. He was huge and darkly tanned. Powerful muscles showed beneath his form fitting black pullover. Sleek black hair was pulled back from his face in a short tail at the back of his corded neck. His arms were thick and solid with muscle. His black gloved hands strong and ready to kill the bastard who’d spent the last two days starving me and telling me all the twisted shit he planned to do to me. Is this my savior...or my killer? Can someone be both?

  I squeezed my eyes shut and turned my head away hard. I felt a fast, sickening jolt of mattress beneath me and then nothing. In shock, I wondered if all that stillness wasn’t worse than the struggle had been. Now I was in bed with a killer and a corpse. Naked, tied up, exhausted and totally vulnerable, I felt large rough hands gather me up and lift me off the bed.

  I had a strange floaty feeling then and the terror of the last few days seemed to roll away like a wave. What was wrong with me that I felt comforted by his hands? Or maybe everybody feels this way when they’re about to be killed…

  The world began to slip away and the only real thing I could still feel was those warm, strong hands on me. They gave a steadiness to my thin, trembling body. I wasn’t thinking anymore about being naked, or even about being dead soon. I only felt a wash of gratefulness that the hands that would kill me felt strangely safe. As he carried me, off to wherever I would die, I curled closer and pressed my cold cheek against his hard, warm chest. I let out the breath I’d been holding forever and everything went black.

  I awoke coughing, my body registering nothing but pain.

  “Drink.” The voice seemed to be coming from inside my own thick, aching head.

  Strong familiar arms lifted my shoulders, cradling my head. I obeyed and swallowed, gasping air between gulps. Cold water broke hard through the dryness of my throat. I opened my eyes without focus and closed them again to the painful light. I tried sitting up only to fall back from the throbbing in my arm and head. I was on hard ground but I was wrapped in something soft and warm. And the rope that tied my arms was gone. I was still naked but I was still alive too and sensible enough to wonder why. Blinking and squinting, I opened my eyes to the most beautiful man I’d ever seen, kneeling on the ground beside me in old jeans and a black sweatshirt. The man who’d saved me from Arseny. The black eyed killer.

  “Where am I…where is this…what…,” it came out quiet, raspy.

  “It’s a forest I know well,” he said, running one large hand slowly around the back of his neck. “There’s a stream, some small game. I keep a kit in the Jeep with things I need out here. You’ve been sleeping for hours.” He looked at me. “We’re a long way from anywhere.”

  My too-fast heartbeat shifted from my chest to my painful shoulder and I swallowed hard.

  He lifted me again, letting me drink. “That’s enough for now,” he said. “You have to go slow at first. I’ll give you more in a little while.” He paused and rocked back on his heels. “How long have you gone without water?”

  “A day or so I think, longer with no food. I think he…that…that he had me for days. He just kept talking about what he was going to do. He got off on telling me…,” I broke off, my head and stomach churning. He was sitting close, listening, black eyes growing blacker, his thick hair loose and skimming his jawline.

  I wanted to ask why I was still alive, why he’d brought me here and what he was going to do with me, but I knew better. The more I knew, the more danger I was in and I was in deep already. I flashed to that awful scene, the killing in the bed, and panic rose thickly in the back of my throat. I shifted too fast and was hit by a rolling wave of heat and nausea. Shock, I thought in some lucid untouched part of my mind. Then the world tilted. Colors flashed alongside floating bits of memory...mixing together and coming apart until nothing seemed real… There was a smell of home and wood smoke and something cooking. Fear and black eyes and a warm hand that brushed the hair back from my forehead. I reached weakly for the hand and for the safety it seemed to promise. Thoughts began and wandered off without ever fully forming...

  The sky had darkened and was changing color when my eyes opened again. Light came only from a campfire with something cooking over it on a spit. The smell of food made my mouth water and my stomach rumble.

  My head felt clearer and my body not so painful, but sitting up was still more than I could manage. He stepped over to me from the fire, bringing water and a small piece of roasted meat. He was even taller than I remembered.

  “Can you manage to eat something?” he asked, his voice deep and strangely melodic. “I’ve roasted a rabbit. You should get some protein in you if you can. And more water.”

  “Yes, oh yes please…water.” I struggled to sit again.

  He reached out one arm to me, lifting me easily and holding me while I drank, letting me eat slowly in tiny bites. It was rich and smoky and utterly delicious. My first food in…how long?

  “That’s enough for tonight,” he said after a few minutes, lowering me back down. “Your body has to readjust to food again and it’s no good rushing it. There’s fish for in the morning and you’ll find you can eat quite a bit more. You’re too thin,” he said, running his eyes down me, “and I need to see how badly you’re hurt.” He reached for my blanket and slowly pulled it off me.

  “No…stop, you can’t…!” With my strength returning, the adrenaline hit me fast and I struggled trying to cover myself.

  “Easy, easy now,” he said, low and soft. “You’re safe enough. You’re injured and your body needs some tending is all.” He spoke to me like he was gentling a frightened animal. I took an uneven breath and stared into his dark velvety eyes, my pulse slowing. I didn’t have the strength to stop him from doing anything he wanted to me but when I looked into his eyes and listened to his voice, somehow my next breath was steadier.

  “You’re bruised. Here…and here.” His long strong fingers lingered from one spot to the other, my shoulder to my hip, leaving a trail of too warm skin after his touch had moved on. “And your wrists are raw from the ropes.” My pulse thumped hard as his fingers explored.

  He shifted toward the fire behind him and brought back a metal basin of fragrant, steaming water and some small towels. He wet a cloth and began to gently wash my face. My eyes never left his. The killer had fed me and now he was going to bathe me? Hysteria whispered in my ear.

  T
he cloth moved down my neck and to my wrenched shoulder and I winced.

  “Easy girl. I’ll be as gentle as I can,” he said. “This arm is worse than the rest.”

  “I…I…it’s alright. It’ll be alright. He twisted it is all.”

  His face darkened, “What else did he do to you?” His hands kept steady, working on me.

  “I was walking home…I didn’t see him. Then I was in a car with something over my head. He tied me...he liked to tie me…and he kept talking about what he was going to do.” The words gained speed coming out. “He touched me but he never…he didn’t…”

  “Good fucking thing he didn’t or I’d have to kill the asshole all over again,” he said so softly I wasn’t sure I’d heard right.

  His hands moved steadily, my legs and feet and back. Washing me, drying me, kneading when his long fingers came to a sore spot. He was relaxing me in spite of myself. I couldn’t believe how good it felt. My mind flapped back and forth between crazy and cold sober as he touched me, but my body responded anyway beneath his hands. I flushed warmly and felt a strange and pleasant unsettling somewhere deep inside.

  “You’re beautiful here,” he said exhaling hard, and I could feel his eyes on my breasts before he touched me. I held my breath as he worked in silence, moving my breasts with his bare hand, squeezing the cloth in his other so the water trickled down… “And you like my touch.” His look along with the feeling of his hands struck kindling in me and something nameless flamed.

  I opened my mouth without response and time seemed to shift. I wouldn’t have stopped him then even if I’d had the strength, his hands both soothing and exciting me all at once. My eyes sank into the deep blackness of his and he watched my face like there was no other sight in the world. He looked at me like he wanted to devour me.