“Do you still pickpocket?” I asked one night when I was lying on Nate’s chest. We’d made love and were having that post-coital talk that women loved and men wished would end so they could just go to sleep. He’d been playing with my ring and I wondered if he could remove it without me feeling it, the way he’d removed my earring the night he proposed.

“Rarely. We did it a lot as teenagers, but we only do it out of necessity these days.”

“When is it a necessity?”

“It’s easier to get in when you have keys.”

“I see. So you’ve quit robbing lonely women and are pickpocketing keys to let yourselves into someone’s house?”

“You know we quit that scam. You are the last woman I ever went home with. On or off the job.” I grinned and blushed in response. I couldn’t even try to explain how happy that made me. “Our marks of late have been of both sexes and at work when we hit them.”

Half of me wished he wasn’t telling me. The other half was eager to know more. “And how do you choose your marks?”

“People on the inside.”

“Like, in prison?”

“No. We have people in a couple of insurance and security companies. They give us information, and we pay them for their time and their silence.”

“Aren’t you worried these people will talk?”

He shook his head. “It’s not in their best interest to talk.”

“I see.” I imagined they’d been threatened the same way Alesha and I had in the beginning. Do or die. “So you get your information and then what? You just steal their keys and go inside their house?”

“If we were junkies, sure.” He smirked and tucked an arm behind his head.

“Obviously I’m wrong.” I ran my fingers through the light smattering of hair on his chest. “OK then, expert thief, explain it to me.”

“The more you know, the more you’re stuck with me.”

“I’m already stuck with you, remember?” I flashed my ring at him and he chuckled.

“Recon. We get the name of a mark, and then we watch them for a while, work out their movements, their habits. Then we formulate a plan based on that information and the items we’re planning to take. We don’t act until we have every detail down pat.”

“Is that what you did with me?”

“No.” He laughed while he said it. “It’s what we were doing with Alesha. Then Goliath messed up that plan and I followed him home with you, so we had to wing it. You see where that gets us.” He tapped his wedding ring against mine.

“Happily married?” I batted my lashes at him.

He kissed me. “Best bad decision I ever made.” His comment gave me butterflies.

“So, is that why you took everything? Because you didn’t have a plan of what to take?”

He nodded. “There’s normally more finesse to a job. Although, the second time, I was just messing with you. I was a little pissed that you kicked me out after our moment in your kitchen.”

I thought back to said moment, remembering how he’d clenched his jaw when I’d told him we could never be.

“That’s when you slipped something in my drink.”

“Not my proudest moment.” That was right before he’d made the toast, “To the man who steals your heart.” In that moment, I never guessed it would be him.

“Show me how you do it.”

His brow knitted. “Slip people drugs?”

“Pickpocket. I want to learn.”

A smile curved his mouth. “All right. Get dressed and I’ll show you.”

When we were both wearing clothes, Nate placed items in both our pockets: phone, wallet, envelopes, jewellery. Then he explained what I had to do.

“It’s basically the art of misdirection,” he said, standing across from me in the living room. “Working in a pair is most effective, but with practice, you can do it on your own and your mark will have no clue until it’s too late. First, I’ll teach you a quick smash and grab. This is best done in a crowd because then it’s less obvious.”

“I’m guessing by the title that you’re going to bump into me and take something.”

He smiled. “Exactly. But there’s a technique. One, you have to know where the item is, and two, you need to lift it so they can’t feel it. Ready?”

“Go for it.”

We walked into each other and he bumped me like a rude pedestrian. When we were at opposite ends of the room, we faced each other again.

“Without checking, what do you think I took?”

I thought back to the way he’d knocked me and the things he’d slid into my front and back pockets. I decided he’d stolen from my back pocket, that had contained a mobile phone. “You took my phone,” I replied with confidence.

He lifted his brow. “Your phone. You sure that’s the right answer?”

I thought again. “Well I was, but not anymore.”

He held up his left hand, my necklace dangling from his middle finger. Immediately my hand flew up to my neck.

“How in the world?”

“A ridiculous amount of practice.” He smiled. “Pockets are easier. Why don’t you try me?”

We performed the pass again, except that time I knocked into him and attempted to take his wallet from his back pocket. It got caught and I got busted.

“Again,” he said, moving back to our starting positions. “But this time, make sure you lift at the same time as the crash.” I tried several times, attempting each of his four pockets, but each time I either fumbled or he felt it.

“This is really hard.”

“It’s not meant to be easy. There’s an art to everything.”

“So I’m beginning to see.”

After many attempts and pointers on positioning and handwork, I got hold of something and grinned triumphantly as I stood across from him.

“My wallet?” he asked.

My grin broadened and I shook my head, holding up his phone. Pride overwhelmed his features moments before he crossed the room and lifted me in his arms, crashing his lips against mine. “I knew you had it in you, duchess.”

“Now you’ll have to check your pockets every time I’m around you.”

Thinking that was funny, he kissed my nose, then carried me back to bed and made sure I felt every touch.

Over the coming weeks, he became my practise dummy. I’d decided that I wanted to master the art of emptying his pockets, and almost every hug was an opportunity to hone my skills. You’d think it would piss a man off to have his wallet, keys and phone lifted at random times throughout the day, but every time I called Nate back and showed him what I had, he was nothing less than impressed, even offering to teach me more.

As I grew more competent, each successful grab brought me closer to understanding why Nate did what he did. It felt good, plain and simple. And it was a fun game. Well, until I came home one day, sick to my stomach over something I’d done.

“Don’t teach me anymore,” I whispered once we were enclosed in the privacy of our own apartment and he’d asked what was wrong.

Nate narrowed one eye. “What happened?”

Reaching into my bag, I closed my eyes and retrieved what I took, holding out my shaky hand. It was a Mont Blanc pen. I’d stolen it. “I didn’t even think. I just saw this woman use it and slip it in her purse. Then I walked past and took it. What have I become?” Harried, I let the pen drop to the floor.

Immediately, Nate wrapped me in his arms. “Duchess,” he whispered, pressing kisses against my head. “It’s OK.”

“No,” I cried. “It’s not. Just don’t teach me anymore. Don’t tell me anymore either. I don’t want to know. I’m not equipped to carry the guilt.”

“OK,” he whispered, his lips in my hair. “OK.”