Page 17 of Indecent Demands

After I ran by my own apartment to change into something that wasn’t a cheap suit like the one I was wearing, of course.

I ran home to change,Ariana texted me. She then sent me her address.

Perfect. I hurried to my place, put on a nice suit—a light gray one that Bryce had insisted I get since it ‘highlighted my blue eyes’,as if the rest of us cared about our fucking sartorial choices, Bryce—and then went to Ariana’s to grab her.

She was wearing a dress for the first time since I’d met her, something summery with a skirt that swished around her bare thighs, in a bright yellow that looked great against her skin tone. I swallowed. Fuck that dress was short. It was tight around her breasts, too, emphasizing them. Christ.

Focus. I wasn’t here to get my dick wet, I was here to figure out what her motivation would be for stealing so much money.

I opened the door for her. Ariana’s eyebrows rose when she saw my suit, but I saw that slight blush again. Her pupils went wide and dark. All right, maybe Bryce’d had a point about the suit.

“How fancy is this place we’re going to?” she asked, getting into the car.

“Oh, not very. You’re dressed just fine. I just wanted to get out of what I was wearing earlier and put on something besides another t-shirt.”

The place I took her to was on the nicer side, but nothing that you’d see written up in the Michelin guide. It was an Italian place that the boys and I liked to visit when we were having a good day or had something small to celebrate like a successful job concluded.

As we were led in and sat down, I wondered what I would do with her. She was guilty, no doubt about that—but it was a question of exactlyhowguilty. The men in charge of this company were raking in enough money that they hadn’t noticed the thousands of dollars taken from their crypto wallets. They clearly hadn’t missed it. And the money she’d taken from the company itself had gone to help those who desperately needed it—those who might die if they hadn’t gotten those funds.

Could I really turn her into the police for that? Were any of these men, who no doubt took tons of political and corporate handouts, really suffering for what she’d done?

Of course there was the matter of where that cash she’d withdrawn was going. But the apartment building I’d pulled in front of wasn’t fancy. It was decent, but it was probably fully within her actual salary to afford the place.

What was she doing with the cash? Wild spending sprees?

That would really determine what I was going to do with her. I had to know where that other money went. Because it just didn’t sit right with me to stick a Robin Hood in jail, even if it was technically against the law. I wasn’t the legal system or law enforcement, after all, and there was no doubt that I’d done a few morally gray things in my life . . . so I wanted to tread carefully being judge and jury.

After long quiet moments between us, Ariana looked at me over her menu. “You seem to have something on your mind.”

Her leg pressed against mine under the table and my cock practically sat up and begged. Fuck, I wanted to take her home and tie her up. I wanted tears streaming down her face as she pleaded with me to let her come. I wanted to sink my cock inside of her and fuck her until she was—

Focus! For fuck’s sake!

“Just the job,” I replied casually, then decided to approach the issue to see how it all played out. “Ariana, as you’ve guessed, I’m not there just for security.”

“Yeah.” She smiled. “I figured.”

“Iamsecurity, but I’m not really the guy you call to set up your system. I’m the guy you call when something’s gone badly wrong and you need it handled.”

As I spoke, Ariana put her menu down and leaned on her elbows, leaning in slightly—which showed off her cleavage. I was a patient man, but I didn’t appreciate being teased when I couldn’t do anything about it. If she was even teasing me. I wasn’t sure yet.

“What’s gone wrong?” she asked.

“We have someone stealing from the company,” I said. And then, to really test her— “Including from the personal crypto wallets of the executives.”

Ariana’s face paled a little and I felt her leg against mine tremble slightly for a second before stopping. She must have realized I could feel that and clenched her body.

“The question,” I said, leaning back in my chair, “isn’t whether or not I’ll catch the thief. I’m very close. I know I will. They’re good, of course—I respect that. They even tried to frame the COO and it probably would’ve fooled a lot of people. I admire that kind of skill and misdirection. But I’m closing in.”

“Why are you telling me this?” Ariana asked. She tried to keep her tone light and neutral but instead it came out breathy.

“Because you might be able to help me. See, the question isn’tifI’ll find out who it is. The question is what I’ll do with them once I get them. How exactly I’ll punish them.” I looked into her eyes, and felt her trembling again. Fuck, it was making me so hard to see her and feel her like this, a mouse caught in a trap. “Thoughts on what that punishment should be, Ariana?”

She stared at me, her breasts rising and falling with each deep breath, and her tongue flicking out nervously to dampen her bottom lip. Heat churned in my gut and filled my cock. It was going to take everything in me not to drag her into the bathroom and have my way with her right here and now.

But I was right. It was Ariana.

Now, we had to see what she would say, and what I was going to do about her.

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