Stolen: A Dark Billionaire Romance

by Lana Hartley

  "You came to ruin him. You always come out on top, no matter what big boys are playing with their company toys, don't you, Mr. Renaud?" I asked, slinking toward him and reaching out to pour him another healthy glass of the rich amber liquid.

  He grabbed the decanter from my hand, placing it on the table. "Yes, yes, I do. Your father's shitshow of his attempt at having an empire will be ruined, and I'll be buying it at bargain basement prices, just to bury him. End him.”

  He had a face of utter smug satisfaction. I couldn't help but cheers my glass, clanking mine into his and then taking another drink.

  "I have the most valuable thing he ever had," Jacob said, and instead of sounding utterly smug and revolting about owning me, there was some dark power to his words that sent shivers through my body. I turned on my heel to return my seat, but he captured my wrist, taking my drink, and then pulling me down to sit on his lap, all while never spilling his drink.

  "Slow down, princess," Jacob said with a laugh.

  "I can handle myself, and if I can't, that's my business," I said, a lot more pouting in my voice than I would like. I just wanted to say something fucking sassy to ruffle his feathers and push him away, but sitting on his lap was making me feel the alcohol more. Suddenly, all the drinks I'd had were starting to wear on me definitely. I wasn't going to say it, but I was glad he stopped me.

  Jacob took a sensual drink from his glass, and I couldn't tear my eyes away from the sight of him drinking in the liquid with such elegance. He wasn't anywhere near tipsy. Jacob drank this sort of thing on a regular basis and handled it just fine. No, his full, sensual lips were wet with the scotch. Would taste like them too. They were such soft lips, formed the perfect complement to the rest of his chiseled face. I looked at his dark eyes now, traveling up his face the only way I could manage to stop staring at his mouth and wanting to kiss him. They were looking at me not with the same assholish, smug way they seemed to be much of the time. They weren't studying me. He seemed...vulnerable almost. It was a rare glimpse, and when his eyes met my gaze, that look flashed from his eyes. It evaporated, overtaken with a look of pure hunger. Jacob's eyes became that of a predator. I knew here I was the prey. And, coloring outside the lines with this new tipsy feeling in my body, I let the frenzy overtake me, and I captured his glass. Surprisingly, he let me take it.

  I dipped a finger inside and wet the tip. I went to put it on his lips. Those lips, I wanted to touch them. I wanted them to touch me. I didn't connect with his face and instead brought my other hand to the zipper on the back of my dress, tugging it down enough to let me free my breasts. I popped off the bra that was the only thing between them and freedom, and then I ran the scotch over my nipple.

  A fire crackled between us. Jacob took that glass now and, never spilling, he brought my nipple to those lips, flattening his tongue over the aching flesh peaking for him, and then kissed it. Shivers sparked through my body, and I was desperate for him now. I had a taste of what it felt like for him to really fuck me, and right now, I wanted more.

  "Fuck me, please," I panted when his mouth had released my breast. I didn't mean to sound so desperate, but I couldn't bear the idea of him not touching me more. I needed so much more.

  I dared to let myself look in those eyes again. I wanted to fall into them. In fact, I could almost see the melodramatic swaying of my limbs as I fell forever into the bottomless pit of Jacob Renaud's soul. Who would be there to catch me? No one. That was the point. And I couldn't bear another moment of the conversation we were having, and I couldn't fight how he made me feel when he touched me.

  It killed me to want him, but the way he touched me made me feel alive.

  Leah

  Fuck, what had I done? I'd spent so much time trying not to want Renaud, that I didn't realize he'd stopped being that person to me. He was Jacob to me, and now it was all too late. Now, I'd found a way to actually separate myself from him, and that plan was in motion. Irrevocable motion. And I wanted nothing more than to stop it.

  "Jacob," I yelped, saying his name in my mind and not the usual Renaud.

  He regarded me inquisitively. There was doubtless a strange tone in my voice. But I didn't know what to say.

  So I said nothing.

  How did I manage this? I'd fought so hard to find a home of my own, and now I'd be leaving the only home I'd known. Him.

  "What were your parents like?" I would ask him a question. It would throw us both off guard. I knew when he inhaled that I'd sufficiently shifted the situation from my little outbreak to the focus being on another one of my prying questions. Why couldn't I accept that there were things that Jacob didn't want to talk about?

  I knew why now...

  Because I wanted all of him. And now I was practically mocking that with this question.

  He ran his thumb up my arm, stroking a line while he took measured breaths.

  "My mother was my father's muse. My father was an artist, and a rarity at that, he was rather wealthy," Jacob said as if he remembered something very specific though saying very vague things.

  Of course, I would pry. My curiosity wouldn't have it any other way.

  "Is that where you started noticing things you'd steal for fun?" I asked, genuinely curious.

  "It was when I started to think I wanted to be an artist. There was a passion between my parents, her the subject and him the artist. I realized, after much toiling, that she was as much the art as the artist's canvasses were." I noted that distant look in his eyes and his words twisted in my stomach. "I gave up creating art, but I didn't get a taste for stealing it until much later. I didn't even make use of any of my father's contacts when I started doing art thief gigs. I run in much higher circles than he ever did."

  I couldn't quite place the emotions playing over Jacob's face. I ran my hand over his face, his eyes closing and accepting my touch. How did I have this titan of a man so gentle under my touch?

  How had I not realized that I didn't want to let this all go? I wanted to scream at how much I wanted to stop everything I'd set in motion. What could I do now?

  I sucked in a breath of my own, planting a kiss on each of his closed eyelids. I rested my head on his chest.

  Jacob started to stroke my hair. It was a gentle, comforting move that seemed like the most natural thing in the world to him. The man who had done so many things to my body was undoing my heart with a simple weaving of his fingers into my hair. "Did you know your mother?" Jacob asked me.

  "Not really. My father gave her money to keep me, and she had no interest in me. She just moved on after the payday,” I said, my voice small. I had always been something to be bought and sold, and I'd fought against this, now to my own peril. Suddenly, the warmth of Jacob's embrace wasn't enough to keep me from the chills I felt. I knew that once he discovered my betrayal, he was going to hate me forever rightfully. I deserved that. I didn't deserve to be in his arms. I couldn't bear the hate that I felt inside. I had let down the one man that I'd actually wanted to own me. I did now. I don't know who I am without him, and I thought that I was going to find out. Now, I can't even bring myself to pull myself out of his embrace. Jacob holds me tighter and thinks I'm just cold, probably, but I can't stop them, and the tears are falling now. I want to hide them, but they're already streaking down my cheeks and wetting his shirt.

  "Leah?" Jacob asks me, his voice thick with passion. I feel his cock hard beneath me, and I know he wants me. He always wants me. I let out a small laugh. I thought that could never change, yet here I am, ruining us. I want our goodbye kiss to be a good one, though. I tell myself that I should let myself have this moment with him, and then I'll be gone. He will never forgive me. Never want me again. So I have to savor this moment with him.

  His thumb is capturing my tears but can't keep up with the sobs that wrack my body. I want him. I don't want him to ask me what's wrong. I don't want him to care. I want him to hate me and cast me aside. I want him to tell me that I'm not worth owning. I've betrayed him, like a bad dog th
at though he's fed and cared for still bites him. I rebelled against everything he gave me. I treated him like he was everyone else in my life, but he was different. He wasn't just claiming me, owning me, he was giving himself to me. And I'd thrown that all away without noticing that I was doing exactly the wrong thing.

  "Are you okay?" Jacob kissed my forehead. My throat was scratchy from crying, and I couldn't speak. "Baby girl," he breathed into my hair.

  I grabbed his face with both of my hands, pulling him to me and kissing him deeply. I poured my soul from my lips to his, emptying myself in him. I wanted to take everything in me that loved him and hide away in him. Keep me safe from myself.

  "Leah-" Jacob broke the kiss and held my face up to his, forcing me to look into his eyes. "Talk to me," he said. He could have thought this was just about our conversation, but I felt my face heat. My cheeks were red enough to reveal my traitorous ways, I was certain of it. "Tell me what's wrong."

  Well, not enough to reveal everything. I should have manned up and told him right then what I'd done. That I'd be gone tomorrow and that Interpol would be after him. I'd given them damning evidence about several of his crimes, and they were high profile. I'd told them that he'd bought me from my father. They said they were going to take Renaud down. And when I'd delivered that final piece of evidence, I'd felt how I didn't want to do it. The officer told me that it was normal that I'd feel conflicted, but that he was going to protect me. Peter Willoughby, the same name, and initials of my father. He should have made me feel safe. The way that he looked at me, how he wanted to save me, that should have felt right. But I knew. The conflicted feelings that I felt weren't about my need for making sense of my captivity. Jacob had told me, I was not trading one cage for another. He gave me every opportunity to have a life, and I fought against it. I saw now that Jacob's world, it may not have been that different from my father's world on the surface, but Jacob was a good man. He was my good man, and I'd thrown him to the wolves, condemning him as if he was a monster like my father.

  I remembered Jacob telling me he was a bastard. That it was why he'd never be like another lover would be. I'd never had another lover. But I thought I was the bastard now. Not him. Jacob had given me everything in him. I closed my eyes and said nothing, the silence between us sealing my sentence as much as his.

  He would probably be sent to some horrible prison, made to be an example to other powerful men. I would be forced to live with what I did forever.

  Because if I called Inspector Willoughby right now, what would he say? Oh, you love him and none of what you told us matters?

  As if. Jacob Renaud was a criminal, and a powerful one. Yet, I'd help them build exactly the kind of case that could get him in serious trouble.

  Leah

  It worked last time. I asked someone if I could use their phone, and then I could call Inspector Willoughby and give him the information I'd memorized. Every waking moment, I'd made myself memorize the notes on the other paintings I'd found in Jacob's collection. I'd made myself remember the inspector's phone number. I spent so much of the day repeating those numbers in my head; I thought I was going to dream about them.

  But every night, I dreamt about Jacob. Strange things, odd things, and things that made me wake up in a cold sweat and, if he was there, made me curl up to him. I even felt guilty that I'd given him a blowjob and swirled the number into his cock. I'd pressed my head deeper on his cock and swallowed afterward, sucking his cock with every last drop of energy, and I was like I have to get the evil I've done off of him. How screwed up is that? He owns me. I am trying to get away from him. And now I'm making myself feel guilty for that. I want to scream. I fuck him during the day and try to remember those numbers, but it what was happening every night that makes me so relentlessly unsatisfied and fills me with such a deep yearning. I need some relief. I thought so much stress would be off me when I was able to make this phone call, but I haven't been able to make this phone call because everyone in the bathroom today was in a hurry or said their phones were dead as well.

  I only had another minute or two before Tatiana suspected something.

  And then she walks into the bathroom, slipping into a stall.

  Shit.

  "Here you go," a smiling woman with the brightest blue eyes I've ever seen says to me. I know I should say something about how I don't need it now and tell her never mind or something, but I'm too afraid now that if I don't take the chance, I'll be screwed. "Just one second then, thank you so much," I say, sliding into the stall and hoping that the inspector answers right away, I say what I need to, and that is that.

  But the phone keeps ringing.

  I start to get afraid that I got the number wrong. I'm watching the ground, I need Tatiana's shoes to still be in her stall before while I give this woman her phone back, or I'm totally fucked. I start to see her leave and I hang up, shoving the phone back into the nice girl's hand sort of rudely. I smile at her, knowing I must seem crazy. "Thanks so much!" I mutter, and I step out of the bathroom. Tatiana will know that I’m right outside. I just needed to get out of there that second before I exploded with nerves.

  I head back to the house that day, and I'm grateful for just a second to see that Jacob is on his way out, but then I'm blaming my nerves on the slight disappointment I felt. I'm supposed to be getting out and building a life for myself. Not sitting around wishing that I was going to be having some all-night orgasm fest with the man I'm trying to escape. Still, when he presses a soulful kiss to my lips, his whole body capturing mine, I wrap my arms around his neck and pull back until he pins me against the wall. I tell myself that I'm pressing my body into his so urgently because I'm playing a role. But aching for him and wishing the kiss would never end, I can't blame that on nerves. Maybe I can blame it on the recurring dreams where I want to fuck Jacob, but I don't. We're two people in separate lives, and he wants nothing to do with me.

  Is this my shitty fear? That I can't have my own life? Is it because I think that I'll never feel the way I do for someone who doesn't buy me? Because I think Jacob wouldn't give a shit about me if he hadn't bought me? I don't want to dwell on any of these thoughts. I just need to steel myself for the gathering of more evidence while he was gone. I don't think I'll be watched in his home, and today I could dig up something more. Too bad that I can't make a call.

  I'm holding him tight against me. He drops his briefcase so that both his hands can prowl against me, and I can't kid myself that I'm playing some role when I let him spread my legs with his knee. I try to breathe when he unzips his slacks, and I turn around and pull up my dress, and I'm about to yank down my panties, but I feel him behind me doing just that. Holding me up against the wall, he slides into me.

  "You're so wet for me, baby girl. I don't want to leave you either." Jacob whispers into my ear. His words are like my weakness at this moment that destroys me. I tell myself this means that I have to fight harder than ever to get away from him. Jacob Renaud has consumed every inch of me and made me his. I can't have that. "I crave you," he growls against my skin, licking my neck and then biting into me just a little too hard. I yelp, my pussy squeezing his thick cock spearing me so well. I'm moaning loudly, saying his name over and over again. It sounds so fucking good, tastes good on my lips. I want to say his name forever because I can feel how hard he thrusts into me each time that I do. I'm fucking desperate to satisfy him in this way. He feeds off every moment I want him, and I feed off of that. It is twisted as hell, but it makes me feel needed. Wanted. Desired. Loved, almost. But he can't love me.

  Or maybe he does. But I can't love him. I just can't.

  Not after everything I've worked for. If I love him, how can I do these things?

  I'm in enemy territory. I have been this whole time. I can't give into what he does to my body and let it overtake my mind.

  I have to hold onto my soul because I want to believe that I can have a life where I don't belong to anyone.

  And maybe I can.

  B
ut when his fingers wrap around my throat, my heart thunders in my chest, and I don't know if I want to have a life where I don't belong to him. He's poisoned me, infected me, seeped into my very being. I crave him, too. I want to tell him now, just to feel his response. If I told Jacob Renaud that I loved him, what would that mean? I get the feeling that I have no damn idea exactly what that would mean and I'm fucking dying to know.

  How can I be plotting to trap him in prison forever so he can never touch me again, and literally panting in ecstasy, coming and praying that he never stops touching me?

  He's leaving tonight. I have a job to do. I come down from the incredible high of our orgasm. He drops to his knees, kissing my ass cheek before giving it a slap that makes me bounce, and then pulls my panties up. He turns me around, kissing me again, and it feels like we could start this whole thing over again. The way he kisses me melts me, overtakes my soul, drowns me in emotions that seem to be able to shatter everything inside me. He tastes safe. He tastes like home. I don't want him to mean any of those things to me. He just can't. I must just not know what real safety feels like. I have to get that for myself. I'm the one who holds me prisoner if I let these feelings take hold within me.

  Jacob straightens his clothes, picks up his briefcase, and heads for the door. I tell myself not to watch, but when I turn around, I see that he's looked back as well. For some reason, I look down demurely, as if he didn't just fuck the living goddamn daylights out of me. He walks back to me, his hand cupping my face roughly, but kisses me so tenderly it is almost sad. It is sad. He's clearly sad that he’s leaving.