Caught in the Act: A Jewel Heist Romance Anthology

by Ainslie Paton

  He didn’t deserve it.

  Especially since he’d been planning to walk out of here tonight with the thing she wanted most in the world. And then he’d planned to sell it. In the end, was he any better than Leonard?

  He tossed the condom aside and joined his princess on the lounger again. Her legs were splayed wide for him. He lowered his mouth to her pussy for one brief but thorough kiss. He smiled against her skin, savoring the moan that seemed to come from her entire body.

  He licked and kissed his way up her stomach until finally he reached her breasts.

  His every fantasy come to life.

  They were plump, more than a handful, yet still perky with dusky nipples. He squeezed one sharply while delivering a gentle kiss to the other. Ana’s hands grabbed his shoulders. Whether she wanted to pull him closer or push him away, he couldn’t say. But he wasn’t going anywhere.

  He soothed the hurt nipple with his fingers while using his teeth on the other. The dual pain and pleasure sensations had her writhing underneath him. He wanted to adorn her body. As amazing as she’d look with nipple rings, he wouldn’t suggest anything permanent. But she’d look incredible in body jewelry. A clit clamp, nipple clamps, chains that he could use to direct her where he wanted. All silver and adorned with sapphires to match her deep blue eyes.

  He kissed his way from her breasts, up the slim column of her neck, leaving several hickeys which would remind her of him, at least for the next few days. Finally, he was back at her mouth, their bodies perfectly lined up.

  “Please, Jake. Take me. Fuck me. Make me yours. I’ve always been yours.”

  She said the last bit quietly. Like she was surprised. Hell, Jake was just as surprised, but it was the truth. She’d always been his.

  Her legs wrapped around him, pulling him in. He could have resisted her. Probably should have, once her words permeated his lust-filled brain, but why would he want to.

  Her body offered no resistance and he slid deep inside her.

  They let out simultaneous long low cries of pleasure.

  He’d never felt anything as amazing as being in Ana’s pussy, nothing between them. He’d been with women who’d tried to sell him on not using a condom, but he’d never even considered it. And now he knew why. He never wanted to feel this sensation with any other woman. Ana was his. She was warm and soft and tight.

  “Ana,” he sighed against her mouth. “My princess.”

  “Always yours.”

  He couldn’t keep still. He had to fuck her. He moved in and out but it only took a few thrusts to realize that he wasn’t fucking her. He wasn’t having sex with her. They were making love. He was a bastard, but he wanted to make her remember him. Forever. Always.

  His couldn’t get his hands on enough of her. He kissed her, licked her, tasted her, everywhere he could manage.

  Ana’s arms brushed up and down his back and as his tempo increased, so did the pressure of her hands. He knew he’d have scratches on his back, but he didn’t care. Hell, he didn’t care if she wanted to brand him as hers forever. He’d gladly wear her scratches as a badge of honor.

  “Make me come, Jake,” she demanded.

  She was close. Her breathing shallow, her body pulsing as if she’d been struck by a live wire. He had no idea how she was still holding on.

  He increased his thrusting and pushed her knees as wide as they could go, never giving up the maximum amount of contact with her body. She grabbed his ass, pulling him closer. If she drew blood with the sharp sting of her nails in his flesh, he didn’t care.

  Their orgasms crested simultaneously.

  She tightened against him, squeezing his cock almost to the point of pain. It just made him come harder.

  Jake’s orgasm was like nothing he’d ever felt before and he knew he’d never feel it again. Not with anyone who wasn’t Ana.

  Sweat coated their bodies as they lay catching their breath, their arms and legs intertwined and neither ready to move. Jake was afraid that he’d been fundamentally changed after this experience.

  He couldn’t take the necklace now.

  He couldn’t live without Ana.

  Ana couldn’t, or wouldn’t, live without the diamond.

  Jake had already accepted money for the necklace.

  He had quite a conundrum on his hands, but he’d figure it out. He had to. He’d do anything to protect the woman he loved.

  * * *

  Something changed.

  Jake had looked right into Ana’s eyes as he’d exploded inside her, and she’d seen things she wasn’t sure she was comfortable seeing.

  Especially since she was about to ruin his life.

  She’d known since she hatched her plan that Jake would get caught in the fallout. His job was guarding the diamond, after all, so naturally he’d get in trouble when it went missing. But Jake had always seemed so...untouchable. She figured he’d make it through relatively unscathed. There were enough people out there to vouch for his impeccable character, enough people who knew Leonard was a huge jackass, and how poorly he’d treated Jake over the years. She’d managed to convince herself that the stolen diamond would be nothing more than a minor blip in the life of Jake Hoffman.

  But now...

  She didn’t want to hurt him.

  Even for a moment.

  He rolled off her, and she immediately missed his warmth. She looked over at him but couldn’t quite meet his gaze. She looked at his chest, and then down at her own.

  True to his word, he’d taken her with nothing between them but the diamond. But their bodies had been pressed together so tightly that he now had an indentation of the stone right over his heart.

  She reached out and ran her fingers over the reddened skin. “Does it hurt?”

  He looked down to where she touched him. “I hadn’t even noticed.”

  This was how she’d remember him. In her mind, Jake and the diamond were now forever linked.

  And she couldn’t have either of them. Jake worked for her cousin and she was leaving in the morning.

  As much as she didn’t want to be parted from Jake, the chaise was very uncomfortable. It probably hadn’t seen this much action in a long time, and the springs were starting to poke into some very uncomfortable places.

  “You want to get up, don’t you,” he said when she shifted for the third time. “Stay there.”

  Jake jumped up and slid into his boxers and pants.

  Her dress lay in a heap on the floor. She had no idea where her ripped panties had ended up. She started to stand and then felt an uncomfortable sensation in her nether regions.

  “Fuck, Ana, I said don’t move. Can’t you listen to a simple instruction?”

  The words were hard, but his tone gentle. He walked around the lounge chair, dug his handkerchief out of his pocket and used it to wipe between her legs.

  “Jake! What...”

  “Do you want to leave come stains on the chair? It’s an antique.”

  Her mouth fell open at his crude words, but then she noticed his smile.

  “Wouldn’t have this problem if you weren’t such a hussy.”

  “Yeah, well, we wouldn’t have had this problem if...” She could usually joke, give as good as she got, but unfortunately at the moment she came up blank. “Shut up.”

  He threw his head back and laughed.

  Jake’s eyes had always been dark brown, almost black, but now they’d settled into a dark amber, almost whiskey color. She liked it. He looked relaxed. The set of his shoulders was different, even.

  Jake had always been the sexiest thing she’d ever laid eyes on, but this new relaxed Jake was even better.

  He finished cleaning her and stuck the dirty handkerchief in his pants pocket. He pulled his now wrinkled shirt out from under her and pu
t it on, leaving it unbuttoned.

  “You want your dress or my suit jacket? Your choice, I’m very happy for you to stay naked, but I figure you’d want to be somewhat covered while we explore the rest of the museum.”

  “We’re going to explore the rest of the museum?”

  After the best sex of her life, they were just going to get on with their evening?

  “I’m not nearly done with you, but all I had for dinner tonight were those stupid little tiny canapés that pass for food at a shindig for you rich people. I’m starving. There’s a snack bar downstairs we can raid.”

  “Dress,” she said, pointing to the floor.

  He picked it up and held it up for her to slip into. He zipped it up and closed the clasp. Once the dress was on, he rested his suit jacket over her shoulders anyway. She put her arms through, but she was swallowed up by the garment. The gun and holster were still hanging on the ladder where he’d left them earlier. He didn’t seem to be in a hurry to retrieve them.

  “If you hadn’t ripped my panties, I could put those back on now, you know.”

  “I know,” he said. She looked down at her feet and sighed. “Now what?”

  “Not looking forward to walking around in these shoes any more. They not only look killer, they feel killer, too.”

  But no way was she walking around with bare feet.

  Jake handed her his argyle socks and slipped his bare feet into his dress shoes.

  His feet were sexy. Who knew feet could even be sexy?

  “Well, are you going to use the socks or what?”

  People were so rarely nice to her it took her a moment to realize what he’d done. He was letting her borrow his socks. She couldn’t hide her smile as she slipped his socks on. They were much too big, but they were warm and soft.

  “You’re a very nice guy, Jake Hoffman.”

  “Yeah. Don’t let word get around,” he said dryly.

  He took her by the hand and they headed off to find the snack bar.

  Forty-five minutes later, she couldn’t believe she’d forgotten how much fun she could have with Jake. And not the naked kind of fun. Real fun.

  He hadn’t been joking about raiding the café. They sat at a small table under the one light that illuminated the seating area of the café. A feast of junk food surrounded them. They’d found chips and pretzels, a couple of day-old croissants and four different kinds of cookies that were bigger than her head.

  “Come on,” he said. “You can fit another bite of chocolate croissant, I know you can. They’re your favorite.”

  They were her favorite. Her grandmother used to make them from scratch for special occasions. Or at least she’d claimed to. Ana had never told Grandmother that she’d found the box from the local bakery in the trash one morning.

  “I really can’t,” she said, shaking her head.

  If she was going to live in a bathing suit on a beach for the rest of her life, she was going to have to start being more careful about what she ate.

  Jake munched on an oatmeal raisin cookie, his favorite. Grandmother actually had baked those. Ana had helped her on many occasions.

  She’d taken Jake for granted for years. She’d cut ties with Staffordshire International but she always knew, in the back of her mind, that he’d be there if she ever needed him.

  And she was about to screw him over.

  For what?

  A rock?

  Granted, it was the most beautiful rock she’d ever seen, and it was the one material thing in the world that was important to her, but did Jake deserve to have his reputation ruined just so she could have a rock? She never for a moment worried about how losing the diamond would affect Leonard. Aside from the fact that he would’ve known he’d lost, she knew he wouldn’t care. It was nothing more than a shiny bauble to him. But maybe she should have put more thought into the other people who would be affected by her decision.

  Would she give up the Staffordshire Diamond for Jake? Let it be sold into private hands? Let it be sold for something most definitely immoral if Leonard was involved, possibly illegal?

  Yes.

  The answer was instantaneous. She’d give up the diamond for Jake, if necessary.

  Hopefully it wouldn’t be necessary.

  “How are you going to do it?”

  “Excuse me?”

  How long had she been lost in her own thoughts? Had she accidentally been in the middle of a conversation without realizing it?

  “The necklace.” He pointed to the stone that still rested between her breasts. She had a feeling she’d miss the weight of it once it was time to take it off.

  “What about it?”

  He rolled his eyes at her. She didn’t know why she liked it so much when he got annoyed with her, but she did. This time she wasn’t faking though. She didn’t know what he was talking about.

  “How are you planning on stealing the necklace?”

  Chapter Five

  It was on the tip of her tongue to deny it. But she owed Jake more than that. She’d never lied to him before and she wasn’t about to start now. But would it really be a lie? She didn’t plan on taking the whole necklace. Just the diamond.

  “How did you know?”

  He shrugged and popped the last of the chocolate croissant she’d refused into his mouth. He chewed slowly, his eyes on her. Did she look guilty?

  Then she noticed the look in his eyes. The look of knowing you were doing the right thing, even though no one else would agree.

  “You’re planning the same thing.”

  He shrugged again and as well as answered her question when he looked away.

  Hell.

  This made things a lot different, didn’t it?

  What now?

  They were both here for the same thing.

  At least now she had the assurance that Jake wouldn’t turn her in if he were planning the same thing. But why? Questions flew through her mind faster than she could contemplate them.

  “I had a replica made,” she said. “Just the stone. I’m not taking the whole necklace.” She didn’t like the necklace. She looked down to the necklace around her neck, the stone sparkling in the overhead light, and then over to the outline on Jake’s chest. Well, at least she hadn’t before tonight.

  He nodded. “I was going to take the whole thing. It’d be a great fuck you to Leonard.”

  “You were?”

  He looked sad for a moment and then a lazy smile spread over his face. “It’s yours, Princess. I’d never take it from you. But I’m not going to let you get in trouble, either.”

  Ana shook her head, unable to believe her ears. Jake would risk everything to take the necklace? She didn’t have anyone who would miss her. Sure, she had acquaintances galore, she usually had more invitations on a Friday night than she knew what to do with. But it was always going out somewhere or being seen. She had no friends who’d want to stay in and watch a movie and order pizza, who wanted to have deep intimate conversations and share secrets. She was getting close to some of the folks she worked with at the shelter, but their lives were transient. It was difficult to make too many connections there. When she disappeared, everyone in her life would just assume she was somewhere else, with someone else. The tabloids wouldn’t be surprised to learn she’d disappeared. They’d been waiting for a scandal from her for years.

  She knew that a big part of the reason she had no real significant ties was because she always kept people at a distance after losing her entire family at such a young age. The therapist she’d seen after her grandmother’s death had explained that. She’d never quite figured out how to get over it though.

  But Jake had so much to lose.

  He had a stellar reputation.

  “What about your parents?” she asked sof
tly.

  Jake began gathering up the remnants of the food they’d eaten, piling all the discarded wrappings in front of him. He folded the potato chip bag neatly and put it in the pretzel bag.

  “What about them?”

  “Won’t they be upset that you’re leaving SI?”

  He signed deeply and sat back in his chair, running his hands through his hair. He looked down at his neat mound of trash and Ana wondered what he actually saw.

  “My parents know what’s important,” he said. “As for SI, I don’t think it’s going to be around much longer. Not in the way we know it, at least. Leonard is running it into the ground, but he’s majority shareholder. A guy I know has been quietly trying to buy shares, trying to get enough to make some kind of difference, but so far it’s slow going.”

  “Why hasn’t he come after my shares?”

  “I asked him not to. At least not yet. I know how you feel about Leonard. Everyone knows how you feel about Leonard. If Brad is seen talking to you, word’s going to get back to Leonard.”

  “If you know the guy and trust him to do what’s best for SI, then I’d vote his way. Or sign over my shares. There’s a small part of me that would hate to see the company my family has worked so hard for go up in flames, but in the end, it’s a very small part. I certainly don’t want anything to do with it.”

  Jake smiled at her. She braced herself, ready for him to reach out and touch her hand, but instead he ran his hand through his hair again.

  She liked his hair this way, all wild. Usually she only saw it this way when she’d frustrated him. She liked it better when it wasn’t her fault.

  “Brad’s not a bad guy. I trust him more than I trust Leonard. But he’s not going to do what’s best for SI, he’s going to do what’s best for himself. At the moment those two things just happen to be one and the same.”

  “Will he be able to save SI if I’m not around with my shares?”

  Jake cocked his head to the side and stared at her, as if he were trying to see through her. “Are you going somewhere, Princess?” She looked down at the necklace she still wore. “You were going to disappear with the diamond?”