Page 144 of Tempting Little Thief

“Don’t come closer. I will fucking shoot you.”

He lifts his hands. “I want to help.”

“Help what?”

“Protect her … from him.”

I press forward, jamming the muzzle into his chest. “Fromwho?”

He eyes me a long moment, and then he says, “From my father.”

My eyes narrow, mind spinning when suddenly, it all makes sense.

Well, I’ll be fucking damned.

I put the gun away.

Chapter 25

Rocklin

My dad’s a fucking liar and my sister’s optimism can suck a dick.

It’s been two weeks since the gala and things have gone to shit.

My dad pretended he was unfazed for the remainder of the party, but the minute we got back into his car, he laid into me, demanding to know every little thing about theboy in black, as he called him. I didn’t give him much outside of his chosen name, keeping his real, full one to myself as he intended it.

Yeah, you’re really loyal, Rocco.

Stupid.

For four hours, I sat across from him while he treated me like a ten-year-old who talked to a stranger, and after that, he ran down every possible scenario of who he could really be and where he might really come from and what his true intentions are. Then, one of his minions walked in and delivered the bad news … there was an “issue” with the security the day of the school tour, and the surveillance from the tour was “accidentally” destroyed—Oliver’s snake ass must have given me up, but at least he didn’t mention his appearance at The Enterprise.

My dad’s eyes grew murderous and speculative and poor Damiano would hear about it, but he won’t rat me out. He’ll take the heat in stride. I’m going to owe him one now.

The entire time my dad was in detective badass boss mode, all I could do was sit there and take it because the only otheroption would have been to correct him on all of hisincorrectyet understandable concerns.

I did the same thing when I met Bastian and continued to play the what-if guessing game the weeks following before I realized he wasn’t some hired hand out to get me.

I’m the one who found him, after all.

Found him, stole from him, and then fucked him.

The last thing I expected was for him to show up at The Enterprise that night, but even more shocking was the fact that after I shamelessly let him play with my body, he came back for more.

And I’m not talking about sex.

He wanted that too, of course, we both did, but the boy who’d been burned in his own personal hell for almost fifteen years didn’t need me to keep his cock wet.

He needed me for more.

Something in his broken-down soul recognized the tears in my own and little by little, he peeled them back, revealing things about me that even I didn’t know. Or maybe it’s that I didn’t want to know.

Like how I loathe being forced to do what other people demand of me, yet apparently crave to be commanded when it’s my choice and coming from the man my mind considers mine.

How twisted is that?

I hate to be controlled, but I want to be controlled.

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