by Ilsa Ames
Steal Me Away
A Mountain Man Romance
Ilsa Ames
Contents
Newsletter
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Epilogue
Newsletter
His Control - Sneak Peek
Also by Ilsa Ames
About the Author
Copyright © 2018 by Ilsa Ames
Cover by Coverlüv
Photography by Wander Aguiar Photography
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
The names and locations in this book are made up. Any similarity to places or persons living or dead are purely coincidental.
This book is intended for adults 18+ only.
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Chapter One
Logan
I’d been planning for this moment meticulously for the past few months. Stalking, watching, researching, going through each step over and over in my head, making sure I wasn’t going to make any mistakes. I was ready.
I was about to commit a crime. A serious crime.
I was going to kidnap her.
Her. Natalia Canonelli. Rich, spoiled—a pampered, bratty little daddy’s girl to the fucking letter. It may have been her old man—Preston Canonelli—who was the real guilty party in all this, but Nicole was going to pay for his sins.
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 months.
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.
Chapter Two
Lia
The day started like any other. A delicious breakfast cooked by my personal chef, a quick yoga session with my personal trainer, a relaxing swim in our private Olympic-sized pool, and then a shift at work. I worked for a small non-profit in Pittsburgh. It wasn’t like I needed the money, but I liked the sense that I was giving back to the community in some way. I only worked there three days a week, but the organization did a lot of good in the community, and I liked my job.
Daddy was always telling me that I didn’t need to do it, that my time could be better spent doing whatever I wanted to do. And of course, as I’d always been even since before my mom died when I was young, I was always his little girl. Even now, in my mid-twenties, I was daddy’s little girl. He’d do anything for me, and luckily, he was in a position to be able to do that. He ran a huge company, some sort of multinational corporation. I always got bored when he tried to tell me about it, but suffice to say, money had never been an issue for me.
I’d travelled the world, staying at the finest hotels, traveling on my dad’s private jets. But I was happiest at home, working my job and planning my next night out with friends.
That particular night, we’d arranged to have some cocktails at a little bar downtown. It was new, so everyone who was anyone was going to be there. I had a good night, gossiping with my friends, sampling a few cocktails, and doing my best to avoid getting groped by gross entitled rich boys.
And that’s when I decided to call it a night—and when my life changed forever.
I stepped out of the bar, feeling just a little light-headed and tipsy—but not drunk, because I had work in the morning—and started to make my way home. I was in a good mood after some fun and laughs with friends, and I was looking forward to getting home, snuggling up in my cozy bedroom in my dad’s sprawling mansion, and drifting off to sleep.
But, that’s not anywhere near what actually happened to me. The reality was far more eventful.
I was minding my own business and enjoying the crisp night air, when I suddenly heard the squeal of tires and the sound of a car door opening. I turned my head in curiosity, just in time to see a hooded figure rushing towards me with his arms outstretched.
I didn’t even have time to cry out before his hand was covering my mouth.
He dragged me towards the truck, and even my adrenaline-strengthened struggling wasn’t anywhere near enough to escape from his clutches.
Damn he was strong—rippling, rock-hard muscles slamming against me as he dragged me towards the truck. He wrenched open the back door of the truck’s cab, unceremoniously throwing me onto the seat. I didn’t even have time to get my bearings before he jumped into the driver’s seat, locked the doors, and zoomed away.
For a few seconds I didn’t even panic, as absurd as that might seem. You would probably imagine that I was screaming and kicking and struggling, trying to get the car doors open and escape. But I just lay there in a sort of tipsy daze.
Have I actually just been kidnapped? Like, for real, snatched-off-the-street fucking kidnapped?
Eventually the gears of my mind started grinding again. My dad had money. Everyone knew who he was. It probably wouldn’t be difficult to figure out that I was his daughter and that my father would probably be willing to pay a ransom to get me back.
I swallowed back the adrenaline slamming through me, blinking quickly as I opened my mouth.
“Look, if you want, I can just call my dad right now. I’m sure you know that he’ll be willing to pay whatever it is that you’re asking to get me back. So, if you just let me use your cell, I can-”
“Shut up,” the man growled, cutting me off. It was funny that somehow in that moment, that was even worse than the fact he’d fucking kidnapped me. That someone would speak to me like that—me, who spent my time in 5-star hotels—totally threw me off. Like that was the final hit that drove home what was really happening.
I’m being kidnapped.
“Just keep your mouth shut, stay down in the backseat, and don’t try anything stupid like trying to escape. Trust me, princess, you do not want to be jumping out of a car going eighty fucking miles an hour.
His voice was rough and gravelly, and for the first time I felt tendrils of real fear creeping through my belly.
“Do as I say and nothing bad will happen to you. That much I can promise you.”
He turned briefly to glance at me, making me gasp. He was wearing this ski mask over his face, so if that was meant to reassure me somehow it did not have the desired effect.
I decided to try my luck, one last time.
“And if I don’t? If I kick up a fuss, start banging on the windows?”
In response he held up some zip ties and a filthy-looking rag.
“I’ll gag you, tie your wrists behind your back, and throw you in the back under a tarp. I don’t want to do that, but if you give me no choice I will. Fucking hell, princess. A strange man wearing a goddamn ski mask just took you off the street. Maybe consider just being quiet and doing as you’re told.”
I heard him mutter something
that sounded suspiciously like “fucking spoiled-ass rich girls” under his breath and felt my face flush hot with embarrassment.
If escape wasn’t going to be a possibility, I needed to figure out as much as I could about this guy and where he was taking me, in case I got the opportunity to escape later on. From my position low in the back seat, I looked around the vehicle, seeking even a tiny clue as to who this weirdo was. But there was nothing—just some mud and dead leaves in the footwells, and a few fast food wrappers.
He hadn’t taken off the ski mask, so I couldn’t get a decent sense of what he looked like—just that he was big and broad, with what looked like a muscular, powerful body. His eyes were blue, or gray maybe.
But that was the extent of my sleuthing, and it wasn’t exactly gonna blow the lid off the case. A big guy with a muddy car who wore a ski mask during a crime. Even Inspector Poirot would probably need more than that, and I was just a, what was it he’d said? A fucking spoiled-ass rich girl.
But still, something inside of me screamed that I needed to gather every single scrap of info. Or maybe I’d just watched too much CSI. I wasn’t getting the vibe that this guy really wanted to hurt me, but he’d still threatened me with violence and was taking me god-knows-where. I had no idea of who he was or what he was capable of, and as I came to that realization I felt a shiver of terror run through me.
I tried my best to keep it together, but it wasn’t easy. I felt so ridiculously vulnerable, and what was worse, the warming glow of the booze was wearing off and my predicament was coming sharply into focus. I needed to stay awake, stay alert, and figure out as best I could where we were headed.
I didn’t dare to sit up, for fear that he’d follow through with his threat of gagging me, so instead I just angled my head up and looked out of the tinted windows. I couldn’t see much, but as time went on there were fewer and fewer buildings, and more and more trees. So, it seemed as if we were heading out of the city and into the country. Made sense I supposed, what with the leaves and the mud.