Page 14 of Satisfied
He laughs, but I read pleasure in his eyes. “Surely it’s not that good.”
“Are you kidding me? It’s delicious. This has got to be the best pancake I’ve ever tasted, but I can’t be sure. I need a second bite for that.”
He laughs, leaning back on his elbows to watch me eat. I focus on the food and try to ignore the way he makes me feel when he looks at me the way he is right now. I wish I could just eat these pancakes forever, but instead, I try to gather my courage to ask him the question that’s been on my mind. “I’ve been thinking about last night.”
“I’ve been thinking about it too,” he says, reaching up and brushing my hair behind my ear. “Can’t stop thinking about it.”
I bite my lip. “Why didn’t you let me…you know…take care of you after?”
He grins, grabbing a bacon strip and then lifting it to my mouth when he notices I’ve stopped eating. He smiles when I bite into it. “What happened last night has never happened before with anyone else.”
“You are a virgin too?”
He laughs at that. “No. I’ve had lovers before, but it was always casual, uncomplicated. Last night was new for me—I feel like I discovered a new thing that I’m into.”
“What do you mean? What are you into?”
He forks some eggs and brings them to my mouth, smiling when I bite without question.
“Taking care of you.”
I blink up at him. “That simple?”
“That simple,” he echoes. “I’ve wanted to take care of you from the moment we met, but I didn’t imagine it would translate to the sex so well. Watching you come apart in my arms, your body trembling from your orgasm, gave me almost the same pleasure as finding my own.”
I’m struck speechless for a few minutes. “Is that why, last night, you wouldn’t let me…touch you?”
“Well, that, and you were tired,” he says, picking up the last bacon strip and bringing it to my mouth. “You needed the rest. Maybe after breakfast, we can…”
A loud ringing from the other room interrupts him. We both turn to look at the door, and my face drains of all blood when I make out what the sound is. “Is…is that my phone? Did you turn it on? Oh God, what if he finds us—”
“Hey, shh.” He grabs my shoulders before I can scramble out of bed, holding me in place. My heart is racing and blood is roaring in my head at the thought of Jack finding us. “Calm down, sweetheart, so I can tell you why I had to turn it on. Deep breaths for me.”
I turn to him, letting those gorgeous amber eyes steady me.
“I removed the tracker,” he says, eyes firmly on mine, his hands holding me in place. “I was going to send him on a witchhunt across the country, but I figured he’d eventually come back and never stop bothering you.”
“So what are we going to do?”
“I’ve decided to track him,” he says, a threatening tone in his voice. “He’s been hiding from the Rebels, and every time we send someone to get him, he’s not at his place. So I’ll track him with Hound’s help. He’s the club’s official tracker,” he adds before I can ask. “Hound is also my sister’s fiancé.”
“Jack is good at hiding.”
“And Hound is great at finding people.” He chuckles. “He found me.”
My hand flies to my mouth when his words click. “Oh, you’re talking about…”
“Yes,” he says, pushing back when he’s sure I won’t be running. As if I would go anywhere and miss out on the story of how he stole from the Steel Rebels and got away with it. “I guess you want the story, huh?”
“Yes,” I say eagerly.
He laughs. “Alright then. My parents died when I was twenty-three. I’d just graduated from college, and was about to move to California to work for this big tech company when the accident happened. My sister was only fourteen at the time, and my grandmother had started having complications with her health and needed to be moved to a nursing home.”
I reach for him this time, taking his hands in mine as he continues, “Our lives changed in an instant. I couldn’t move out of state and leave my sister and grandmother, and I couldn’t take them with me either, so I decided to stay, which meant losing my job.”
“Ransom—”
“I didn’t care about that,” he says, squeezing my hand. “But it wasn’t easy. None of the jobs I took could pay for my grandmother’s care and still cover the bills at home, so I brokea personal code and started hacking into accounts and stealing money, making multiple transfers and cleaning up after myself so I’d never be caught. At first, it was small amounts and from small-time criminals in the city who I imagined would never notice.”
