The Reluctant Thief (The Stolen Hearts #4)

by Mallory Crowe

  This wasn’t just a kiss. This wasn’t a sweet meeting of their lips. This was more. This was everything. Her hands went to his shoulders as his tongue brushed hers and his hands found the edge of her shirt.

  He pulled it over her head, and as soon as the material was gone, he was kissing her again, this time his hands roaming over the bared skin of her back and the curve of her waist. She’d long since taken off her bra, so there was nothing preventing those big hands from cupping her breasts, the thumbs brushing over the already taut peaks of her nipples. Her entire body caught fire as he stroked her.

  Turnabout was fair play and she worked on his shirt; seconds later, her hands ran over him—his strong chest, the ridges of his stomach, the elastic band of the sweats Austin had given him.

  Hers.... She’d imagined having him all to herself for so long now. She tried to memorize every inch of him so if she never had this chance again, she’d have this memory.

  “No more waiting,” he said. “I need you naked. Now.”

  Well, who was she to say no to that? She quickly undid her jeans and pushed the denim and her panties over her hips at once. As soon as she stepped out of them, Scott bent forward to hook his hands under the back of her thighs and lifted her up. Her legs instinctively wrapped around his waist and then she was in his arms, looking down at him. The streetlights outside cast a dim light, just enough for her to make out the desire in his eyes. The ridges and planes of his face. The stubborn jaw and perfect cheekbones she’d fallen in love with.

  “Scott,” she breathed. She didn’t have anything to say. She was still just so surprised that she was here now. That they were doing this. It wasn’t some fevered fantasy of hers.

  He didn’t say anything as he lowered her just slightly. Enough for her to feel the evidence of his erection against her core and her lips to find his once more. As though she weighed nothing, he took his time kissing her, devouring every inch of her and utterly surrounding her body and soul. And then they were moving. With her in his arms, he made his way to the bed, where he set her down on her back, following her down and resting his weight on one hand on the side of her head.

  She held her breath as he looked down at her. She’d never really questioned her looks before. She knew her sisters were both prettier than her, but she never considered herself ugly. But now that she was naked and beneath the man of her dreams, doubt started to nag at her and everything seemed more important. Were her breasts too small? Was she stretched far enough so that there were no folds in her stomach?

  But then his free hand stroked along the side of her face, down her neck and between the valley of her breasts. She bit her lip as his hand traveled lower and lower. When he reached the wet folds between her legs, her self-consciousness was gone and instead all she felt was utter anticipation. When his thumb brushed her clit, she jerked in his arms and reached up to hold onto his shoulders.

  “God, Toni,” he breathed as he pushed two fingers inside, pushing against her clit continuously as he started to play her body.

  Her breath quickened and she held on tighter. “Please,” she breathed. She didn’t need to beg any longer because he removed his hand and left her just long enough for him to push his pants down. And then he was back, his hot skin against hers and the heaviness of his erection pressed between her legs.

  She wished she could be cool and collected, but all she could do was thrust her hips up, encouraging him to get inside her any way possible. Damn it, she felt as if she was literally going to burn alive if she didn’t have Scott this very instant.

  Luckily he seemed to be under the same spell she was; the thick head of his cock was right at her entrance, and after a quick push, he slid in.

  They both let out a breath as he eased fully inside her. Her body needed a moment to adjust to the sudden intrusion, and he held himself so tightly above her. Every muscle in his body seemed tensed against the need to move.

  Toni pressed a kiss to his shoulder and leaned her forehead against his muscle.

  “God, you’re hot,” he said against her neck.

  Was that a compliment? Yeah. Had to be a compliment. Thinking clearly was hard under normal circumstances with him and now it was damn impossible. She wanted to tell him to move, to take her any way he wanted, but she couldn’t speak. All she could do was hold him tighter and wiggle her hips against his.

  That body language seemed to be enough for him, because he pulled back and then pushed back inside.

  Oh God. She gripped him impossibly tighter as he continued to thrust. She let all logical thoughts fall away. All that existed in this new world was her and Scott. There was no strange house or bed. Just her body and his. Their breaths and sweat and the electricity that shot through her body with every little motion he made. And just when she thought it couldn’t get any hotter, he reached between her to press against her clit with his palm so every thrust he made pushed the flames impossibly higher.

  And when she fell over the edge, it was just like she’d gone over a waterfall. She seemed to be falling while not moving at all. The shocks made their way through her entire system as all the tension of the past few days left her body in one big massive burst.

  She wasn’t even finished when Scott’s own orgasm hit him hard. He reached down to hold her; his fingers bit into her skin as he held her down for him. She held him the entire time, savoring the tension followed by relaxation.

  She didn’t want it to be over. Resting her forehead against his hot skin, she cuddled closer to him. Waiting for him to remind her about the reasons this was stupid. Waiting for him to remind her that they had more important things to focus on. Things like focusing on Sterling.

  Her eyes popped open. Sterling. She needed to check her computer.

  “What happened?” asked Scott into her ear.

  “Nothing,” she said quickly.

  “Liar.” He pushed himself up. “Is this too much? I knew it happened fast. Fuck. I should’ve—”

  “No, it’s not you. I was trying to get access to Sterling’s email and left a program running on my computer.”

  He looked down at her in silence for a moment. “You weren’t thinking of that when we were....”

  She let out a snort of laughter. “No. Just after. Promise.”

  “Good.” He gave her a quick kiss and then pulled out. The empty and cold rushed in faster than she would’ve liked, and she sat up, trying to keep from making a mess.

  Scott stared down at her and she could tell something else was wrong. Before she could ask, he said, “We didn’t use protection.”

  Oh... that. “I have an IUD, so I’m good.”

  “Pregnancy isn’t the only reason to use protection.”

  “Well, I’m clean,” she said. “And according to your last medical records, you’re clean too.”

  She wondered whether he was going to be upset that she’d looked into his old personnel files. But he just shook his head and walked off toward the bathroom. Good. At this point, her lack of respect for privacy shouldn’t really be a surprise to him.

  “Go check on your program.” He continued to walk away. “I’ll be there in a second.”

  She wanted to stay in bed with him forever, but her curiosity got the best of her, and she jumped up and, after pulling on her clothes quickly, rushed back to her laptop. After she looked through the output of the program, she smiled in victory. “I got you, you son of a bitch.” The password. She held her breath as she entered in the email address and password into the server and then, there it was.

  She scrolled through, but it only took one page before she found a hotel confirmation. The name he’d booked his room under and where he was staying. She knew where Sterling was at this very moment.

  There was movement in her peripheral vision and she looked up to see Scott in the doorway.

  “I’d love to think that smile was because of me but I’m thinking it’s not.” He stepped inside.

  “We got him, Scott. I know exactly where he is.” />
  Instead of sharing her enthusiasm, he looked skeptical. “We don’t know anything yet and nothing about this is going to be easy.”

  “Easy? Nothing about this has been easy. I have worked my ass off to get this and who knows when he’s going to check out? We need to act on this now.”

  “We need to sleep now.” He bent forward and pushed her laptop shut. If he were anyone else, she might’ve shot him then and there for that. “Come to bed with me, Toni.”

  Damn, he really knew how to push her buttons.

  “We’ll talk tomorrow morning about the next move.” He gently picked up the computer and set it down. “Will you come to bed with me?”

  She narrowed her eyes. “You’re manipulating me.”

  “Yes. I’m manipulating you into sleeping.”

  She pursed her lips but couldn’t really fight with his logic. She did need sleep, and this was Scott asking her to come to bed. With him. As in the same bed as him. When he held out a hand, she took it and they climbed under the covers together. He held out an arm for her and she rested her head in the crook of his arm and pressed her body into his.

  For now she’d relax. But tomorrow, no matter what he thought, she was going to find Sterling and put a bullet between his eyes.

  Scott rolled over and blinked a few times. He didn’t think it would ever happen, but he’d slept. As soon as he’d crawled into Toni’s bed, exhaustion had taken over and he’d fallen into the deepest sleep he’d had in months.

  And now that he was slowly coming back to consciousness, he realized his mistake. While he’d been sleeping, Toni had slipped out of bed. He sat up and looked around. The sunlight illuminated the room, but there was no Toni. That in itself wasn’t too worrisome, but the fact that her laptop and charger were also gone made him suspicious.

  He bolted out of the bed and pulled on the sweatpants before he headed downstairs. Jennifer and Austin were in the kitchen, and judging from how quickly they stepped away from each other when he was downstairs, he figured he interrupted something. That would have to wait for the moment. “Where is she?” he asked.

  Austin looked at Scott as if he were drunk. “If anyone would know, that’s you. At least from what I heard last night.”

  But Jennifer didn’t seem quite as surprised. Scott pounced on that. “Tell me you didn’t let her go alone.”

  Jennifer averted her gaze to the ground. “I didn’t want to.”

  “Didn’t want to?” Scott didn’t even know where to start. Doing something crazy and dangerous was practically second nature to Jennifer Murray. Why the hell would she sit back now? Scott frowned and looked between her and Austin. “What did you two do?”

  “Told you he’d figure it out.” Austin leaned against the counter and took a sip of coffee.

  Jennifer rolled his eyes. “Yeah, because I’m being so subtle.”

  “You’re pregnant?” said Scott, wanting them to confirm his suspicions.

  “Only a little.”

  “This isn’t a decimal situation, hon.”

  “What I mean is that I’m still here. I can still help. I just need to be more careful. For a little bit.”

  “Forever,” Austin chimed in.

  She turned to glare at Austin. Scott couldn’t see her expression, but apparently it didn’t work because Austin just grinned wider.

  “If you didn’t feel safe, why the hell did you let her go?”

  “Oh, I’m sorry.” Jennifer turned her annoyed glance to him. “I should’ve just asked her to stay and everything would’ve been better.”

  Okay, even he could admit that stopping Toni from doing something she had her mind set on was easier said than done. Scott bit out a curse and started for the door.

  “What are you going to do?” Jennifer followed him to the driveway.

  “What do you think?” he snapped. “I’m going to stop Toni before she ends up dead.” Before Sterling killed another woman he loved.

  Toni poked her head out of the door to see whether anyone was coming. Once she verified that the coast was clear, she stepped out from the employee locker room and smoothed her hands over the skirt of the maid’s uniform. It was an ugly beige color, and she knew her sneakers probably weren’t to code, but she didn’t need to fool anyone for long. She just needed to get to the top floor without raising any eyebrows.

  In addition to getting the uniform, she had also lifted a universal key. Scott’s words rang in her mind. Was this really too easy? She found his room number easy enough. Now she had access. All she had to do was get inside and he would be all hers.

  She took a deep breath as she made her way to the elevator. She probably should feel scared right now. This was the biggest enemy she’d ever faced. This was the man who had killed her mother.

  But all she felt was a steely resolve. The gun was heavy against the thigh holster and a reminder of her mission. This wasn’t a theft; this wasn’t a hack; this wasn’t self-defense. This was murder, and she wasn’t afraid or hesitant. She was going to walk in there and finish this once and for all. Even if she had to wait all day for him to come back, she would do it.

  The elevator opened and she stepped out. She calmly and methodically continued down the hall. Because these were the biggest rooms in the hotel, the doors were farther apart. She looked up where the little camera was in the hallway. This wasn’t about getting away with murder. This was just about getting it done.

  She stared the camera down as she walked by, almost daring someone to realize she was there. She wanted this fearless, numb place she’d found to be on record. Her revenge was so close, she could taste it. She stopped in front of the door she was looking for and pulled out the key card. The gun. She should have the gun in her hand when she walked in.

  Before she could even reach for it, something painful clamped down on her arm and suddenly she was being tugged away.

  She twisted around, ready to grab the gun and defend her life when she saw that it wasn’t one of Sterling’s goons who had found her. It was Scott.

  She was shocked into submission as he pulled her to the nearest door and, taking the universal key out of her hand, he swiped it over the lock until the green light signaled it was open. It was only once they were inside the room that she broke out of her shock and the full force of her rage came through.

  Instead of pulling away from him, she put all of her muscle into shoving him away from her and deeper into the hotel suite. “I’m going to get him,” she spat out before going back for the door.

  Before she even took two steps, Scott grabbed her by the waist and pulled her deeper into the stupid room. She struggled to get free and thought she was making progress when she realized the only reason his grip had loosened was because he was reaching under her skirt to pull the gun from her thigh holster.

  By the time she’d twisted around to face him, he’d already ejected the clip and took apart the slider and some other part of the gun she didn’t even know the name for. She gasped as she saw the now useless pieces fall to the carpeting. That was all she had. She couldn’t use a computer to kill Sterling. She couldn’t use her wits to bash his head in.

  It had been so simple. Walk in the room and pull the trigger. If he wasn’t there, she was going to sit on the damn bed and catch him by surprise when he came back to the room. Sometimes simple plans were the best. No muss. No fuss. Lots of mess.

  And now she had nothing. No revenge. No dead Sterling. Scott had taken that all away from her.

  “Ahhh!” She let out a guttural scream as she charged Scott, slamming her fists into his chest. He ducked away, but that didn’t stop her from curling her fist and aiming right for his face.

  She got in a glancing blow before he grabbed her wrists to stop her. But she still had her legs free.

  She went for the shins and then for the really vulnerable bits, but he was able to angle himself away before she got anything that counted.

  He let out a grunt as he pushed her back until she slammed into something. A w
all. He held her wrists over her head and glared down at her. “What were you going to do?” he demanded.

  “I’m going to make him pay for what he did to Isobel.” She then shot her forehead into his, eliciting a grunt of pain from him and giving her just enough time to slip free. This time she didn’t even make it a step before he grabbed her shoulder and slammed her into the door connecting the two rooms. She just averted her face from the cold wood before Scott’s weight crushed against her. She was about to start screaming what she was going to do to him if he didn’t let her go in the next two seconds, but then she heard it. There was movement in the room next to them. Sterling’s room.

  She went utterly still and held her breath as she listened to the footsteps. The multiple sets of footsteps.

  Scott leaned closer, his front pressing against her back and his breath brushing against her ear. “Hear that?” he whispered.

  There were muffled voices on the other end and it sounded like three possible people. She pressed her forehead to the wood as the defeat started to crush through her once more. One more time that Sterling had bested her. One more time that she wasn’t good enough.

  When her legs felt as though they were going to give out, Scott’s arm came around her waist to hold her up.

  “What were you going to do?” he asked again.

  She took a few deep breaths and replayed what was supposed to happen in her mind. “I was going to go into the room. It’s the middle of the day, so Sterling wouldn’t be there. So I’d sit on the bed, aim my gun at the entrance and then wait. Sooner or later, Sterling would walk through that bottleneck and I’d have him.”

  Scott spat out a muffled curse as he pressed her harder against the door. “For someone so smart, you’re a fucking idiot, Toni. Sterling knows we’re here. He knows we’re coming. He’s not going to go anywhere alone. You were never going to make it out of there alive.”

  That was it. He could punch her or push her around, but she’d be damned if she was going to let Scott call her an idiot. “You think I don’t know that? I don’t care how many people he has with him. As long as I was there, I’d have enough time to get that bullet in his head. That’s all that matters, Scott. Not me. Not you. Sterling getting what is his.”