Page 35 of The Love Bandits

I don’t budge. I wait until another figure creeps out of the stairwell. My heart is pounding so hard, I hear it in my ears. The tips of my fingers are buzzing. Because I’ve become the predator, the hunter.

Jake pads slowly down the hall, moving quickly but paying attention to his surroundings. When there’s a sound of quick, awkward footsteps moving toward us, he easily sidesteps into a doorway and goes still, and a suited man who’s muttering unflattering things about Mrs. Rosings passes him without a glance. Passes me too.

Seconds after the ungraceful man turns toward the front room, Jake starts moving again. Right past me. He misses me, too, because I’m as frozen as that statue, although from the way he’s glancing around hefeelsme. So I wait until he’s well past me to make my move. I know where he’s going, anyway.

Sure enough, I watch him sneak around the corner of the hall that leads to the drawing room.

Toeing off my high heels, I pad after him as quietly as Professor X. I don’t know why—maybe it’s the perverse part of me that likes winning, but I want to catch him in the act. To prove to myself that I may have gotten plenty of things wrong over the last week, but I was right about him.

I know he’s unarmed—the guard at the gate may be mostly useless, but he checked everyone for weapons. Everyone other than me, that is. I had pepper spray already stowed in the house, and I pocketed it after coming in. I’ll use it liberally if I need to.

My heart pounds a little harder as I turn the corner into the final hallway leading to the drawing room.

Behind me, I can hear someone thumping on a door, two people talking, but my ears are still buzzing, my senses all fixed on Jake. On the room ahead.

The door was left a whisper open, probably because closing it would have made sound.

I peer through it, and there he is, standing in front of a display case, dark now, the backlighting cut off along with everything else. But I know which case the necklace was kept in—I assigned it to memory, the same way he clearly did.

Not on my watch.

Without pausing to think, I run toward him and leap onto his strong, muscular back, wrapping my forearms around his neck. I expected him to cry out when I landed on him, or to try to try to fling me off. But the only sound he makes is a slight grunt, while my rapid breathing is almost deafening to my own ears. His hands don’t rise to fight me at all.

I hike my legs around his waist for leverage, trying not to notice what it feels like to have the hard heat of his body pressed against me, my face up against his soft, slightly curly hair. His ear.

The adrenaline filling my body becomes slightly syrupy a second before I get a better look at the darkened display case in front of him. My eyes have adjusted enough to the near dark, brightened only by scant light filtering in from the gaps in the curtains, for me to see that the case is empty.

So he already took the necklace. He works faster than I could have imagined, but I tell myself that’s okay. I caught him in the act. The necklace will be on his person somewhere, and everyone will know he was the one who took it. In fact…

My bare foot is pressed near his pants pocket—and I can feel that there’s something hard inside.

For a half a second, I wonder if he’s just happy to see me, but it feels cold through the fabric, not hot. The necklace.

It’s time for me to shout for help, to bring this whole shitty engagement party into the room running, but for some reason I don’t. I’m not…ready. Maybe it’s because he’s not trying to shake me off or hurt me.

He attempts to say something, but my arms are too tightly wrapped around his throat for the words to be audible. He reaches up and wrenches one of them away—his grip firm but not punishing.

“Surprised to have been caught in the act,doctor?” I ask into his ear. It’s an intimate thing to do, and we’re in an intimate position, as closely pressed together as we were the other day, when I was cradled in his lap. My body pulses. It aches. It wants him without bothering to consider if it’s a sensible ask.

My body is a horny idiot, but at least my mind is functional.

“You’re too late,” he says, his voice resigned. Almost…broken. “The necklace is already gone.”

“Because you took it,” I accuse. “I can feel it in your pocket.”

He glances up at me with a half-smile, shaking his head slightly. In the dark, his eyes look black, his hair dark grey. “You’re some hellcat, you know.”

“What I know is that I’ve got you. I caught you in the act. Now, remove the necklace from your pocket,” I say, my voice shaking slightly, but not because I’m afraid. Because…

Well, it doesn’t matter.

“Sure,” he says, “why not.”

There’s an undercurrent beneath his words, assuring me there are some surprises in store, and I’m probably not going to like them. But he doesn’t buck me off or try to hit me. He reaches into his pocket and tugs out the necklace, lifting it up to me in the dark.

For a second, I think it’ll be just that easy—he’ll hand me the necklace, I’ll turn him in, and life can go back to being…

Boring.

---