Touching Sin (Vegas Sin Book 1)

by J. Saman

  “I’m glad, princess.” He’s never called me princess before. That brings my smile to a whole new level. My insides mirroring the warm glow of the room. “Now, remember yourself tonight. You’re a Foss. You must behave like the lady you’ve been trained to be. I’ve arranged everything to my specifications. Do not disappoint me, Fiona.”

  I don’t miss the threat in his voice and it takes everything in my power not to drop my gaze or cower away. The cold slap of his perpetual disappointment in me twists in my gut, superseding the warmth I had just moments ago. But everyone is watching us, so I maintain my pose and my smile, and say, “Of course, Daddy. I’ll do my best to make you happy.”

  He nods. He knows I will. It’s all I ever do. Try and fail at making him happy.

  I hear my mother’s sardonic scoff from the other side of my father. “She looks like a whore in that dress. There was no need to instruct her team to push up her breasts and do her hair and makeup that way.”

  “She looks like a young woman,” my father growls out between clenched teeth, his jaw ticking as his anger over the topic refuels. “And if you utter one more word about it, I’ll make you regret it.”

  My mother falls silent. She knows he never makes threats he’s not willing to follow through on. I glance down. I don’t think I look like a whore. I think I look beautiful, but my mother’s words weigh on me and I find I have to refrain from tugging self-consciously at my dress. “Eyes up, Fiona. Never look down unless it’s on another person.”

  My father leads me around the room, introducing me to everyone he wants me meet. Other than the ball when I was sixteen, I haven’t met anyone outside of my father’s inner circle. Tonight, is different. Tonight, I meet everyone. Senators, congressmen, CEOs—even the governor of Texas is here.

  Suddenly, I feel a strong hand on my upper arm and when I turn around, I’m staring into a pair of familiar blue eyes. Blue eyes I haven’t seen since Christmas. Blue eyes I’ve dreamt about since I was sixteen. “Niklas,” I say with a smile I can’t contain, a flurry of butterflies filling my belly with nervous excitement. “I didn’t know you were coming tonight.”

  Niklas grins knowingly at me, his eyes gliding down my dress in appreciation before they return to my mine. “I wouldn’t miss your big birthday ball. You look beautiful, sweetheart.” Niklas leans in and kisses my cheek.

  My face heats as a flush creeps up my neck.

  Winking at me, he steps around and addresses my father. “Mr. Foss,” he interrupts with a confidence I envy. My father turns at the sound of his name and they exchange firm handshakes.

  “Niklas, my boy. Good to see you. So glad you could make it to our little party.”

  “Thank you, sir. It’s a special night for the Foss family, and I wouldn’t miss it. I was wondering if I may take Fiona off your hands?”

  My father doesn’t appear surprised by the blunt question. His eyes skirt to me and then back to Niklas. And then he smiles. A real smile. One that says he likes that question. That idea. My heart soars. “Of course, Niklas. I’m sure Fiona would love that. I’ve been hearing good things about your work on the White acquisition.”

  “Yes, sir. It’s going precisely the way you designed it. I’m just grateful for the opportunity to put it all together. Should be a huge success for Foss Industries.”

  This pleases my father tremendously. I wonder what that feels like. I’d give anything to be on the receiving end of that look. “Glad to hear it. And what are your aspirations beyond that?”

  Niklas stares directly at me when he says, “Marriage. Family. Taking over the world.”

  He winks at me on that last one, drawing his gaze back to my father with a playful smirk that doesn’t quite reach his eyes. My father laughs. “And you’re asking if you can take Fiona off my hands?”

  Niklas nods, standing tall and proud as he stares directly into my father’s steely gaze. “Absolutely, sir. She’s an incredible young woman.”

  “I like you, Niklas. The world needs more smart-minded businessmen like yourself. Fiona is a lucky young lady for you to have taken an interest.” My father removes my hand from his arm and extends it to Niklas. “Remember what we spoke about, Fiona.”

  “Yes, Daddy.”

  I bow my head to my father ever so slightly to acknowledge my understanding and will do as instructed. Niklas takes my hand with purpose, placing it in the crook of his arm. He guides us away from my father, toward the center of the dance floor. I can feel the eyes of every person in this room on us. Niklas is older than me by ten years, but he doesn’t treat me like a baby. He makes me feel like a woman. Like something beautiful and special. Like I matter. “Do you want to dance with me, Fiona?”

  I peer up at him through my lashes, my face heating under his steady gaze. He always makes me blush. He doesn’t even have to speak. “Yes, thank you.”

  “You know, you don’t have to be so formal with me. We’ve been so very close for two years now. To the day, in fact.”

  I nod because I’m positive my father is watching us, and no one has a clue just how close Niklas and I have been in these two years. Niklas takes me in his arms, one hand on my lower back, his other holding mine as he leads me around the dance floor like we own the room.

  “You know what this means, don’t you?”

  I shake my head, smiling, unable to reign in my elation as I dance with him. Niklas is a fantastic dancer. His movements fluid and flawless, no doubt he’s had the same level of instruction I’ve had. “It means you’re mine, Fiona Foss. It means I’ve staked my claim and now no other man in the room can have you. No one else can ever have you.”

  I blink at him. “How do you figure that?”

  “Because your father gave me your hand, knowing my intention with you. And I have the honor of the first dance.”

  “Oh.” I look away, embarrassed. The thought of belonging to Niklas fills me with a warmth I have no name for.

  “Does that please you?”

  “Please me?” I laugh, trying to hide just how much. “You make me sound like a piece of meat. Besides, you’re twenty-eight and work for my father. I don’t see how one dance matters all that much.”

  He shakes me roughly, forcing my full attention back to him. His eyes harden, dismayed, I think, though his fake smile never falters. I frown. Maybe I should have kept my mouth shut. What if he tells my father about my insolence? I don’t want to upset Niklas. He’s nice to me. One of the only people I’m allowed near. I love him. He doesn’t criticize me. He doesn’t slap me. He doesn’t make me feel like I’m nothing. He tells me he loves me, and I honestly can’t remember the last time anyone else said those words to me.

  “I work for your father,” he sneers the words, and for a moment, I’m surprised, “so I can be near you. So I can learn his company. I have no choice if I want what’s due to me. It should be mine already, but he’s making me work for it. But you, Fiona, you won’t make me work for it.”

  I don’t know what to say to him. I don’t quite grasp his meaning, so I stay silent, doing my best to enjoy this dance that feels like it turned on me.

  “Do you remember the summer after you turned sixteen?”

  “Yes,” I say softly.

  “Do you remember when I kissed you that first time?”

  I nod, my face growing warmer by the minute.

  “You were so sweet and young and innocent. I’ve spent this whole time kissing you, touching you, knowing I couldn’t do more with you. Knowing I was going to have to wait and be patient before you would become mine completely.”

  “You’re embarrassing me, Niklas. Is that what you’re after?”

  “No, Fiona Foss,” he hums my name like it evokes something within him. Something deep and dark and forbidden. “I’m after you. You’re mine now. You’ve been mine since that first kiss when you were sixteen and I was twenty-six. It’s why I claimed you. You’re a woman tonight, Fiona. No longer a child. I’m tired of waiting for what’s been mine in secret for years
. I’m going to put a ring on your finger and we’ll be everything. Foss and Vaughn.”

  “And you think I’m just going to agree to that? To marrying you? What if I don’t like you?” I smile so he knows I’m not serious. I like Niklas more than I’ve ever liked anyone. And if I marry him, he’ll take me away from my parents’ house. Away from my father’s hand and my mother’s words. Away from this prison of isolation, and out into the world. I’ll make friends. Hell, I could even go to college. I could have a life. One I’ve been sorely missing for eighteen years.

  He chuckles, pulling me into his chest a little tighter, the dancing and his promises making me dizzy. “I know you like me. You like me every time I see you. And you let me kiss you every time I see you, including last Christmas.” He leans into my ear, his hot breath tickling the sensitive skin, eliciting chills. “Do you want to do more than kiss me, Fiona?”

  My breath hitches.

  “You’re still a virgin.”

  I turn away from him. He’s making that warmth inside the pit of my stomach spread everywhere. He growls in my ear. “I love that you waited for me, sweetheart. You’re mine, and tonight, I’m going to make it happen. Tonight is the beginning for us. I’ve wanted you for so long.” His tongue licks the shell of my ear and I whimper. “Do you understand me? Do you understand what I’m saying?”

  “Yes,” I say breathlessly. “I understand you, Niklas. I’m yours.”

  I’ve never wanted to be anything more.

  “Gutes Mädchen,” he purrs in German, his fingers trailing up and down my back, tickling the exposed skin before dropping back to my waist. I can’t describe the delight that consumes me when he praises me. When he calls me ‘good girl’. I’ve pleased him. He doesn’t want to punish me. He wants to make me his. To take care of me.

  Niklas wants to marry me.

  That means he loves me.

  I’ve never been this happy in my whole life.

  When I think back on myself that night, I hate what I see.

  Small.

  Meek.

  Naïve.

  Lost.

  Blind.

  Rarely do I have positive thoughts about Niklas or my parents. Typically, I relive my father’s raised hand or my mother’s vicious words. And Niklas? There are no words for what that man has done to me over the years.

  Rubbing my hands up and down my face, I glance toward the window. The sun is still high in the sky and I’ve been hiding in my hotel room all day. Since Jake and his kisses and the guns. Guns. I can still smell it on my hands. Am I actually capable of shooting another human being? Of shooting Niklas?

  He was my first kiss. My first everything. But I never felt a tenth of what I feel when Jake kisses or touches me for Niklas.

  I never lost myself in Niklas the way I lose myself in Jake whenever he simply glancing in my direction.

  After the night of my eighteenth birthday, Niklas made it clear he considered me his. I construed that to mean his girlfriend. And for the two months prior to my parent’s deaths, that’s how it felt. We spent a lot of time together. He began coming over regularly for dinners with my family. My father promoted him to a senior executive role—his second in command—the day before he died. Three days after the funeral, after the will was read, Niklas took over both Foss Industries and my entire world. I wasn’t given a choice in the matter.

  I wouldn’t call Niklas sweet, and he certainly was never gentle, but his attention and affections felt vital. Especially in the absence of any other. Like breaching the surface when you’ve been underwater too long. I needed him after my parents died. Or so he told me. I was lost with no life skills to speak of and he came in and took over everything. Took all my fears and worries away. And so, I entered into a new reign of intimidation. Of being controlled.

  I overlooked so many warning signs. So many patterns and behaviors that should have tipped me off to his true character. Truth is, I was terrified of losing him. Terrified that if I made a fuss about all those things I foolishly ignored, he’d break his promise of giving me the world. Irony at its best.

  I had nothing for myself. No money. No friends. No love.

  All I had was Niklas’s empty promise.

  The moment my parents died, he put a ring on my finger. It wasn’t flowery. It wasn’t romantic. There were no professions of love or him getting down on one knee. No. It was just a step in his master plan and I fell for it. Desperation made me gullible and stupid. Or maybe single-minded is a better way to look at it. I was out of my depth, and Niklas fed me every single line I needed to hear. He was all I had, all I knew, and I clung to him.

  I told myself he loved me. I told myself I loved him.

  Looking back now, I don’t know if I did or didn’t. I have no frame of reference when it comes to the definition of love. I’ve never seen it. Felt it. But I’ve sure as hell envisioned it. Longed for it. Deluded myself over it.

  Am I doing that again with Jake?

  It doesn’t feel like that. It feels real with him. Maybe that’s what scares me most.

  My tears. I can’t stop them. They bleed me dry and leave me empty. I run into the bathroom, throw open the glass enclosure of the shower and start the water to full blast hot. Steam quickly billows out and I focus on that sound. On the sound of water slapping against the marble. On slowing my breathing.

  Never again, I tell myself. I’m safe here, I promise myself.

  Glancing around the large bathroom, I wonder if this feeling will ever go away.

  Stripping down quickly, I step inside the shower and turn my face up to the stream. I’m okay. I got away. It took me four weeks after that last beating before I was healed enough, but I did it. I stole the gardener’s car and I fled. And in the four weeks I’ve been here, he hasn’t found me. Three more years. That’s all I need. I can run and hide for three more years. I can do this.

  Chapter Eighteen

  After one of the longest showers of my life, I step out, wrap a towel around my body and blow out my hair. It’s too long, but I’m not about to spend any of my hard-earned money on a haircut. That’s something I might have to do myself. My phone is sitting on the nightstand next to my bed. I never use it except for internet research and when I pick it up, almost reflexively, to search my name, I find a text from Jake, asking me to go for dinner and then a ride to watch the sunset.

  Sunrise and now sunset.

  I really should leave town. I should pack up my meager belongings and go. My plan was to go to San Francisco, somehow find a way to procure a fake passport and then go to Australia. That’s about as far from Germany, or Texas, as you can get.

  So why am I still staring at that text?

  For the same reason I’m putting on jeans instead of shorts. Because weeks of running, hiding, and lying are wearing me down. So much so, that a few hours with Jake this morning has my mind going in places it absolutely should not be. Like I said, it’s amazing how quickly the mind and body forget.

  I don’t flinch when Jake touches me anymore, and that took alarmingly little time. I want him to touch me. I want his kisses and his coffee. I want him running with me every morning. I want his sunrises and now I want his sunsets.

  “Don’t do it, Fiona,” I say to myself. I haven’t dared to call myself Fiona in a very long time. Not since I left. Niklas always called me Fiona. So did my parents. The only person who ever called me Fi was my maid, and only ever when my parents couldn’t hear. I lift the picture of me with Niklas once again and stare at it. Stare at him first and then me.

  Jake won’t hit me. How is it I know that with absolute certainty?

  Maybe because he’s so very different than Niklas ever was. Niklas was never gentle. Niklas never held me when I cried or made me breakfast or did anything for me. Our world was entirely wrapped around him. I went from one prison to the next so seamlessly that I didn’t even see the ruse until I was in over my head.

  Jake Harris Turner, you should stay away from me.

  Yet, here I
go. Leaving my backpack inside the hotel room. Walking away from everything I own and willingly going out into the balmy evening with Jake. A man who might have as many secrets as I do. He wants me to know him. He wants me to trust him. I sigh at that thought.

  That doesn’t stop me from pressing the button for the elevator. It doesn’t stop me from smiling politely at the other people who join me as we descend to the first floor, and it definitely doesn’t stop me as I meander my way through the casino, past the burger joint and alcoholic slushy place over to the west entrance. Or in this case, exit.

  My heart rate finds another octave as I spot Jake, dressed in a black t-shirt that hugs those muscles and tattoos like they can’t get close enough, and dark low-slung jeans. He’s got two helmets by his feet and a leather jacket swept over his shoulder. “I want you to wear the leather,” he says as I approach him. “You’re far too pretty to have your skin marred with road rash.”

  “That happens frequently with you?”

  He grins at me, his eyes playful as they feast on me. “Never. And tonight will not be a first.”

  “Motorcycles are dangerous.” I guess I’m just full of irony tonight.

  “Only if you don’t know how to ride them. I do.”

  “You’re very tall,” I say, tilting my head and staring up at him. His brown eyes are so warm and deep, I feel I could easily get lost in them and never be found again. “That’s really saying something because I’m five-nine and you tower over me. And you’re strong. You’re all muscles and bad-boy tattoos and dark hair, and you’ve got scruff lining your jaw.”

  His lips twitch, as he tries to suppress his amused smile. He steps forward, towering over me even more than he was moments ago, further proving my point. “Do you typically enjoy stating the obvious or are you going somewhere specific with your blunt observations?”

  “This is going to sound ridiculous, but I have to ask anyway, and I need you not to question my question.”