Page 190 of Tempting Little Thief

On the other …

“Rocklin.” My name is a demand this time, and Bastian’s lip curls the slightest bit.

I don’t know what’s going on, but I know my dad is okay because I’m hearing it from his lips. He called from his line to mine and the words he’s speaking aren’t words a prisoner would be forced to in order to lure me away, and this is my father we’re talking about. He would take a thousand slashes to the skin and beg for more before he’d ever even consider giving me up for anyone else in our family. Blood over all. Family is everything.

But mine has grown and I’ve known it for a long time now, so when my father, once again, demands an answer, I give him the only one necessary.

“I’m with Bastian.”

“Where?” he snaps, already knowing that much.

“It doesn’t matter where.”

“You have no idea what the boy has done. Don’t be a fool.”

Bastian watches me closely as I step toward him so I don’t have to speak loudly for my father to hear my words clearly. I hold my favorite blue eyes and say, “Iwasa fool when I turned him away and I’ve been trying to get to him ever since, but you know that. You kept me away.”

“Your safety was threatened. I was protecting you from the enemy, who I now know was him all along. Rocklin—”

“He’s not the enemy.”

“He was stalking you for months!”

He was?

A small frown builds along my brow as my father’s words settle in me, tugging gently on the loose threads behind my rib cage. Of course he was.

Of course he didn’t walk away.

He’s said time and time again.

I am his.

A pitiful little fight with spat words and judgment of others doesn’t change that. Those things roll right off his shoulders. Ipissed him off, and his supposed absence was my punishment, but he wasn’t absent, was he?

He didn’t simply “go.”

He would never go …

“No,” I whisper, another wave of tears clouding my eyes, but these are born of a different emotion. “No, he wasn’t stalking me. He was watching over me.” Bastian’s jaw flexes, his muscles twitching. “He was protecting me.”Just in case.

Based on this conversation, thejust in casecame into play, and suddenly, small things begin to make sense. All those images, the videos, they were from him. He was doing what he could to help keep me safe, to force my father’s hand to do what Bastian thought needed to be done to make sure I was safe until he was ready to come back to me for real.

“Rocklin—”

I give the slightest shake of my head and Bastian ends the call, but neither of us moves.

He still holds my phone between us, our eyes are still locked and when my shaky hand reaches out, my palm flattening against his chest, it rises with a deep inhale.

His free hand darts out, tangling into the hair at the base of my neck and tugging.

His teeth clench, his eyes narrowing, but then his lips press together, his hold easing as he closes the distance. His forehead meets mine and he pulls my hair over one shoulder.

My eyes close as I breathe him in, my fingertips digging into his shirt, and slowly, I start to shake. Months. I’ve waited and missed him for months.

One of his hands disappears, then a soft, velvety touch drags along my collarbone and across the bend of my neck, sending a shiver down my spine. The rough skin of his fingers meets my skin next and I swallow, shuddering once more as his lips find my ear.

His breath is warm, goose bumps erupting across my body as he takes my hair in one hand. And just as a soft click sounds, he whispers, rough and final, “Mine.”

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