by V. Theia
“I’m not judging, love, we all have questionable things we do for a living. What I regret is the way I’ve gone about pursuing you. But if you’d give me a second chance, I’d like to have a go at making this right.”
“You do pick your moments, don’t you?” her cheeks stained red, her eyes unwavering from his. Grinder took both as a good sign, he was desperate enough to hold onto any positive sign she was in a forgiving mood.
“If I’d done it another way, you’d be making my back bleed now, I’d know what your tight, little pussy tasted like, wouldn’t I, Luxe? You would have given it to me and I’d know instead of it driving me mad to get at you, trying to do the right thing and not use my fuck to tell you how sorry I am.“
Her breathing turned erratic and thank god, she was showing some effect or Grinder would feel like a big, dumb oversharing fucker.
“You’re going to like me before the night is over, Luxe.”
She laughed lightly and edged him back, a little black purse caught tightly in one hand, he placed a palm to the dip in her back, leading her down to his bike. “Are you okay on my bike?” he was eyeing the shortness of her dress and regretting not bringing his truck instead.
“It’s not my first bike ride, chico.” And to prove it she didn’t even wait for him to climb on before she straddled the seat.
Fuck. She gave him a glimpse of beautiful bare thighs, the dress rode right up and up almost giving him a peek at her panties.
Keep it together, bastard. He was really being tested here. They were about to walk into the Russian’s residence, sight unseen and into the unknown, now was not the time to let his dick steer the ship.
Climbing on, she shuffled forward and molded her body to his back.
Grinder groaned low and heavy.
“Something wrong, Nathan?” amusement licked through her voice-box. Oh, he just knew she was loving this.
Oh, she knew what she was doing threading her fingers around his waist.
“You’re going to like me, love.”
“Don’t hold your breath.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
“Attraction and danger go together like Luxe and Grinder.” - Luxe
She shouldn’t care her heart sped up listening to his sweet, sincere sounding words. At least she couldn’t pretend indifference to what his intentions were. The kidnapper wanted to do dirty, nasty things to her.
And she was crazily thinking of allowing it. Three and four and five times until she was sore and satisfied.
The thrill running through her body had nothing to do with the impending danger she was currently edging precariously close to as she mingled in the growing crowd of criminals. And all to do with the knowledge Grinder had laid all his cards on the table.
She was turning into a straight up junkie for his fingers touching her, even lightly, it felt like being branded. A hand on her thigh while he’d rode them here. Fingers around the back of her neck right before he’d sent her into the party five minutes ahead of him.
The place between her thighs sought fulfilment, wanted filling so bad it was a temptation not to pull him into a dark corner, despite the severity of the job they were here to do, and to indulge in all the desire promised in his hands.
It was first-class eyefucking.
She could lead him and he’d follow, she knew this as well as she knew she’d forego her own pleasure for now, to get her job done. There was a lot of money riding on this and if she couldn’t get the job done then another thief would ride in and take it out from under her.
A category five hurricane played through her mind, blowing over doubts and second guessing herself. She had to have only positivity here.
She had to do this. She could do this.
There was one important thing to do first before she could use a kidnapper’s body for her own appetites. Refocusing her mind, she engaged herself in a mindless conversation with the guy stood at her right to blend in and to focus on what needed doing. One conversation turned into ten and twenty, one more boring and irritating than the last, these bastards had no boundaries when it came to women and where they could and couldn’t touch them, Luxe felt pawed over.
She’d been to so many of these things, small men trying to act big showing off their wealth. Look at me, look how popular I am. They were her favorite places for swiping things that didn’t belong to her. She once walked out of a party on the top floor of an LA hotel with fifteen grand worth of diamonds in her purse after some lady had dropped it in the bathroom. Finders keepers.
A few minutes went by before she began circulating again, listening to conversations was par for the course when you were a thief, Luxe did it automatically, taking in all the information, storing it away, though she had no intentions of stealing anything other than the sketches tonight if Grinder could locate the safe. Since he’d disappeared she assumed he’d slipped off to investigate the other rooms in the apartment block.
The place was bouncing with hip-hop music, wall to wall people in a forever undulation of bodies.
Say what you will about the current influx of bad men, they knew how to host a party for the criminally minded. Caviar, Cristal champagne, piles of blow on table tops. Scantily clad waitresses carried trays of food on a constant loop, ice fountains poured straight vodka. And then there were the paid women, barely-dressed, draped over the laps of dirty old men who probably had daughter’s younger than the women they were groping.
Keeping the distaste from her features, she socialized like a butterfly, laughing at stupid jokes, stroking very small egos.
She caught many leering looks, as was intended when she’d poured herself into the little dress. She smiled and small talked, she oohed and ahhed when men tried to impress with talk of their money and prestige and what jobs they had.
All of them were criminals. The golden underbelly of crime the Russian mafia underboss had assembled together. She wasn’t impressed. It took more than that to tempt her.
But it was while submerged within the pulsating crowd that suddenly Luxe felt in way over her head.
This was no ordinary theft and so much could go wrong. She was not only worried for herself, but Nathan as well. As angry has he’d made her, she wouldn’t want him hurt.
If she was caught the ramifications would more than likely end her in a pine box and not a slapped wrist.
She thought of Mimi and why she was putting her own neck on the line like this, the only reason she’d accepted the job in the first place was to give her and Mimi a better future without worry of money. They were by no means on the breadline, but who didn’t want more money for a rainy day?
Reinforcing her lungs, nerves kept her alert of everything going on around her.
Needing those sketches like yesterday for the dealer in Chicago who had put the word out to the underground thieves. I.e; Luxe and a few others who were adept at taking things in extraordinary circumstances. As far as Luxe knew she was the only one who caught wind of the mafia staying in Armado Springs, who else would be stupid enough to accept such a job by stealing from the fucking mob. Greed was a marvellous motivator. Want of a better future was practically euphoric in her desire to grab these sketches and get the hell out of there. Now she was circling the party, trying hard not to stare at Grinder who had reappeared and was standing talking to a beautiful, top-heavy woman fawning all over him, stroking his jacket like it was a damn cat. As packed as the open planned room was, suits and gangsters everywhere, he stood out from everyone.
It took her own unlawful background to recognize he was subtly casing every corner of the place, with fine-tuned sly lifts of his head, shifts of his eyes, all the while he engaged the perfectly put together blonde woman rubbing her tits on his arm and giggling in the flirty way that would leave no man in any doubt the woman was offering her pussy up for business.
Grinder looked like any man would; enthralled in a pair of perky boobs and not of a man checking for cameras.
Oh, the man was good.
Luxe agreed to ignore
the niggling bite of jealousy as he smiled down at the woman like he was so fucking in love with her. No reason to want to pull out the woman’s blonde extensions or punch Nathan for being so damn attentive.
Breathing. Breathing. Controlling her temper, now wasn’t the time.
There was once an Italian billionaire internet mogul who hosted a twenty-four-hour party in New York’s upper east side in his state of the art penthouse apartment, it was all very exciting her first time in the big apple to do a little light robbing, she’d happened to hear of the party from a guy in a hotel bar before she’d slipped his hotel room key and stripped his room bare of any valuables.
Luxe had slipped unseen into that penthouse party behind a pair of giggling woman, Gian was absolutely gorgeous, with midnight black hair and a physique to make nuns forget their vow, mid-thirties and she’d sought him out and flirted outrageously all night, Luxe had wanted to fuck and steal from him.
Only now she could barely bring his face to mind, his attraction paling against the man across the room assumingly trying to blend into the furniture while he glowered at her talking to a man with a Russian accent, his arm boldly around her back stroking her bare skin. She gritted her teeth and endured a few moments of the pawing.
Out of self-preservation, Luxe pretended not to see his brows slam down, and the absolute possessive glint in Grinder’s eyes while other men paid attention to her.
This was the plan.
She wasn’t above using her feminine attributes to distract stupid men. If all it took was a pair of plumped up boobs to take their eye off their property then really, they deserved to have it stolen out from under their noses.
Circling the room, she took a flute of champagne, with no intent on drinking it, she would keep a clear head, she watched three of Grinder’s boys enter the building like they owned the place.
This was also the plan.
As soon as the Renegade Souls men began to occupy Grigori over by the corner with a black woman perched on his lap, it was time.
She felt her phone vibrate.
Nathan: 4th floor. Last door right. 3 mins.
Short and to the point. Three minutes, not four, or two. Bikers were so dramatic, she thought, watching him slip through the crowd and disappear into a hallway.
Show time.
He was crouched on the floor when she found the room, two floorboards were pulled up.
“A safe under the floor? Smart.”
“Not smart enough, love, if I found it. We only have a few minutes, my boys will keep Grigori busy, but he has a lot of his goons floating around.”
And this was why she’d worn her boots, heels were inconvenient for fast getaways. She watched as he uncovered a third board and a lockbox was under the floor. Breaking safes were not her forte, she liked easy things in plain sight she could grab and run. Having seen how effortlessly Nathan had broken into her motel room without her realizing anyone had been inside until it was too late, it was a no brainer to use him for this, even if it meant using his own culpability against him to force his hand in helping her, as was the case.
She held his little black pouch of tools, he tried one and then another, muttering to himself.
“Can you do it?”
He turned a scowl on her. “Give me a second, thief.”
“We don’t have long.” She whispered back.
He wasn’t even breaking a sweat.
“Stop fucking crowding me then,” he grumbled and got back to it, she moved back an inch so her hip wasn’t brushing his shoulder. “Any lock in the world can be picked with the right time. All they are is just big puzzles. I happen to like picking apart puzzles. Aren’t you my lovely… ah, there you go, letting me inside you.” Fingers steady and sure she watched him aptly with long thin tools and a palm sized electronic device, Luxe wouldn’t recognize any of them in a line up, but she was fascinated observing, his shoulders hunched, she admitted begrudgingly to be a little in awe of his skill as he murmured to the silver steel box in front of him.
“Fucking got you, you little bastard, she was a shy thing but I got her open,” he declared thirty seconds later as the box gave a distinct click and the lock sprang open.
Anticipation clung to Luxe’s skin. Please be in there.
Slipping the tools away in his inside pocket, Grinder moved back a tad, and gestured with a jut of his chin. “Go ahead, thief, get your spoils.” He smirked.
Luxe dived inside with greedy fingers.
This was always the fun part, discovering what was hidden. Sometimes it was trinkets and not worth a dime. Other times she went home with rich pockets bulging.
Two shelves, not overly full. Her eyes bled greed. She couldn’t help it, she was a thief after all. Bundles of dirty money neatly piled in one corner that must run into the thousands, bags of powder, a few pieces of jewelry she knew some criminals preferred to use in moving easy currency from one place to the next without it being detected, she pushed them aside, though her fingers really wanted to take them all.
And then.
Her fingers caught around a tube no bigger than her palm behind the money on the bottom shelf. Grinder had moved over to the door, peering out. “Hurry it up, love.”
“I am,” she said absently unscrewing the tube and----- yes! It was them! Six little scraps of faded paper rolled up inside.
It was the sketches by the German painter whatshisname!
To anyone not knowing what they were looking for, they’d mean nothing, silly little sketches. Just like the jewels, art was a savvy cloak to move illegal money through the channels.
Adrenalin struck her chest until she was filled with euphoria as she stuffed the empty tube back into the safe and the sketches went into her purse, she closed the lock box and listened to it reengage its locks, she wiped the safe with a handkerchief she’d tucked into her boobs, quickly replacing the floorboards.
“Okay, we can go.” She told him.
Grinder stopped her in the doorway, towering bigger than he’d ever been. “Hold up.”
“What? We have to go!” she hissed and found she couldn’t say another word once his mouth crashed down on top of hers, forcing her lips wider he went at her mouth like he never intended to leave ever again.
Dios. Dios! Desire slid and rolled lazily in her belly.
The filthy taste of him was better than anything Luxe had ever had in her mouth before, within seconds she was lost in his lips moving sensually over hers, tongues tangling, it was as if they had all the time in the world.
Thank god for him being the more logical one as he drew away or she would have stripped there and then and fucked him on the floor in the same room she’d just robbed.
They were panting. His eyes on hers so acutely she felt caressed everywhere.
“Meet me outside where we left the bike.” He husked.
“What about you?”
“Don’t worry about me, you slip out, Luxe.” She hesitated. “Go.” And he gave her a gentle shove.
The job of a thief wasn’t only just to take something that didn’t belong to them, the bigger more important task was to never get caught. Hyped up on jumpy energy, she quickly, quietly made her way back down the stairs, bumping into a couple who were making out furiously, they didn’t even notice, just went right on sucking face, her fake nonchalant I’m having a great time smile was back in place reaching the lower level.
Keep it calm, she told herself.
Trying to push her way through the crowd, it seemed to have swelled heavier in the minutes she was gone.
Hands grabbed her from behind suddenly.
Oh, fuck. She was caught.
Spun around, a heavy body pressed right into her close enough she felt the bite of a zip on her hip. “Don’t fret, babe. I’m one of the good guys … well, bad, but you know,” he chuckled darkly, his mouth brushing her ear. “I’m with RS, G said to get you out quietly. You had a Russian’s suspicious eyes on you the moment you came down, keep close, and I’ll get you out of
here.”
Cursing a prayer in Spanish, her heart all out of sync, the sketches burning a hole in her purse, she clutched it tightly and allowed Grinder’s boy, whoever he was, to do the bump and grind on her as if they were dancing “Smile at me, babe, gotta make it look convincing.”
“What convincing?”
“That we’re getting out of here to do the dirty nasty,” he told her boldly, the thickness of his voice sounded like sex. “Stick with me, beauty, and don’t look now, we got eyes on us.”
Hands on her hips, his face buried in her hair, Luxe was tempted to knee this guy in his crown jewels and see how much nasty he was capable of after that, if not for him mentioning Grinder she would have. Instead, she allowed him to maneuver her towards the entrance hall.
Once she knew she was free of the crowd she shoved him back, found him grinning like a Cheshire cat who had caught a grope. “Was that really necessary! I was fine, I didn’t need rescuing.”
The guy had slicked back hair, short around the edges, tattoos on his hands, ear gauges in both lobes and he wore a wicked smile like a second skin. He shrugged. “Grinder told me to watch out for you, babe.”
“Well,” a scowl marred her vision. “Gracias.”
“De nada.” He winked and turned on his heels walking away.
Grinder’s bike was parked in an alleyway three blocks from the party, Luxe didn’t turn around once to look behind her to check she wasn’t followed.
Five minutes went by.
Ten.
Fifteen.
Where was he? Agitated eyes looked down both sides of the street, she was far enough away she could no longer hear the noise of the block party. Nathan should have followed her, no more than a few minutes.
Any other job she would have been long gone, leaving no chance of someone discovering something was missing and catching up to her.
A tickle of worry had her waiting by his bike, second guessing herself. Should she call? That wasn’t the plan, they’d gone over it back and forth. You take the stuff and get out first, Luxe. He’d told her. I’ll be behind you, meet at my bike.
