“Popcorn tastes like butter-soaked cardboard when you’re watching a gastronomic adventure through France,” Alesha stated, shoving another handful of said cardboard into her mouth.

“This makes me want to travel,” I sighed, smiling incessantly throughout the movie so far. We were watching Paris Can Wait with Diane Lane, Arnaud Viard, and Alec Baldwin. It was so simple in its storyline, but inspiring at the same time—we all spent far too much time rushing through life without experiencing it. It made me want to sell everything I owned and spend the rest of my years backpacking through Europe.

“Me too. What is it about Frenchmen that makes them so damn sexy?” She tilted her head to the side as she studied the characters on the screen. “I mean, this guy isn’t even that great to look at, but the moment he opens his mouth, and the way he speaks… I’m getting heart palpitations.”

“Imagine his voice in your ear, telling you what to do.” I put on my best French accent. “Oh, Leesha, I want you to remove all of your clothes and kneel on the bed with your derrière in zee air.”

Alesha giggled so much she almost choked on a popcorn kernel. “I reckon I’d swing upside down from a chandelier if he asked me with that voice,” she said once she’d stopped coughing.

“Maybe I should go for an Italian man. They like big women, don’t they?”

“They have beautiful accents too. I also love Spanish accents. Oh, and Irish ones. I could listen to an Irishman read the assembly instructions for a chest of drawers and I’d be hanging on his every word.”

“Oh yes, I’ll have to add Ireland to my list.”

She narrowed her eyes slightly. “Are you serious about this?”

“Travelling? Yeah, I think I am. Besides, that Contiki tour we did in our twenties, I’ve hardly been anywhere, hardly done anything. I’ve spent most of my life living in the same city and experiencing nothing. Plus, this place doesn’t feel as much like home as it used to.” I looked around my apartment, at all the new furniture that was far too modern for my taste but that I’d been forced to purchase mass-produced because my insurance payout didn’t cover the cost of my random DIY finds. My place looked like a Harvey Norman showroom.

Sitting up a little straighter, she turned towards me. “Don’t you think you’d just be running away then? I mean, I know you’re shaken after that Ben-Nate guy came into your life and messed around with it”—I’d told her all about finding my handsome thief and how disappointed I was at my own lack of control around him—“but don’t you think you owe it to yourself to stay and sort this out? You can’t let him return the hairpin and have that be the end of it. No matter how attracted to him you are, you need to remember that he’s a criminal and he needs to be behind bars where he belongs. You have a duty to the other women he might prey on.”

To Alesha, the world was always black and white; people were supposed to follow the rules and bad guys got thrown in prison—end of. And while I knew she was right, I also knew that snitches got stitches. I had no idea how deep Nate’s criminal affiliations really went. If I dobbed him in to the cops, who’s to say some sort of retaliation wouldn’t befall me. After all, they knew where I lived.

“I know, Leesh. Just let me focus on getting the hairpin back, and then I’ll tell the police everything I know. But after that, I think I’m going to travel. I need a change of pace.”

After talking some more when the movie finished, Alesha went home with a promise to go shopping with me on the weekend to buy a new outfit for the next wedding I was booked to sing at. I generally tried to match the colour scheme of the event, and this one was mauve and cream. I hoped to find a mauve dress that would suit.

No sooner had I started cleaning up the popcorn mess and our empty Coke cans than there was a knock at my door.

“What did you forget this time?” I asked as I pulled it open, expecting to see Alesha on the other side. She was always leaving things behind that she had to come back for. Just last week, she’d walked out and gotten to her car only to realise she’d left her keys on my counter.

Nate leaned against the door frame, a lazy grin spreading across his face. “I don’t know about you, but I thought she’d never leave.”

“What are you doing here?” I demanded, nerves taking flight in my belly the moment I set eyes on him. “Do you have the hairpin?”

“Not yet.” He stood up straighter, filling the entire doorway. “But I did come with a peace offering.”

“Oh yeah? What’s that?”

“My cock.”

The laugh burst from my mouth before I had the chance to stop it. “Your cock? It’s a little arrogant to think I still want your cock, don’t you think?”

He chuckled. “Oh you want it. But I was joking about that being the peace offering. I actually brought you this.” He held out a bottle of tequila, the good kind with the grub at the bottom. The last time I drank tequila, I was nineteen and at university. It was the cheap nasty stuff, and we’d been doing shots with salt and lemon. I’d been so drunk that my hangover lasted a whole week.

“Uh, thanks?”

“You don’t like it?”

“I don’t drink it outside a margarita, and then only when I’m out.”

“So, make us margaritas with it.”

“Right now? Despite the fact that I don’t have the ingredients, it’s a school night. I don’t claim to know the hours a thief keeps, but I have work in the morning.”

“Come on, duchess. Let me inside. Have a drink with me. We’ll drink it straight if we have to.” His voice sounded so soft as it filled my ears and wrapped around me invitingly. He was sin on two legs, and anything I had to do with him was bound to lead to trouble. “Please, I drove all this way to see you. And don’t think I didn’t notice that you didn’t shake on our deal. We’ll drink to confirm it instead.” He flashed me a brilliant smile.

My resolve was slipping. It was something about those eyes and that grin; they held a promise of fun and good times, and I so desperately wanted to be a good-time girl. I was so bored with the ins and outs of my life. I worked, I watched television and occasionally went out with the same people over and over again. I wanted some excitement. And excitement was standing right in front of me.

Reaching out, I took the bottle from his hands. “Why do I feel like inviting you in is going to go bad for me?”

“Because I’m a vampire,” he said, snapping his teeth together. “But since I’ve already been inside, there wouldn’t be much you could do to stop me.”

“That’s true.” I stood to the side, shoving my better judgement out the window. “Try not to steal anything this time.”

He brushed past me with a wink. “I’m not promising anything.”

“Then walk back out the door, Nate.”

With a laugh, he ignored me, walking into my kitchen and opening cupboards in search of glasses instead.

Meanwhile, I was still standing by the open door. “I mean it, Nate. There is no deal unless you promise to leave my things alone this time.”

Stopping what he was doing, he placed one hand on his heart, then held the other in the air, palm facing me. “I promise not to steal all your stuff. Scout’s honour.”

I narrowed my eyes at him. “Were you even a Scout?”

“Sure I was. I can build a fire and everything. Come on, duchess. These glasses aren’t going to fill themselves.”

Pushing the door closed, I took the bottle into the kitchen and broke the seal, pouring a small amount into the two glasses. “Here,” I said, pushing his towards him. “You drink first. I can’t trust that anything coming from you isn’t drugged.”

“That’s fair,” he replied, reaching out and downing the contents of the first glass, licking his lips when he was done. The action sent tingling feelings to my tingly bits.

I pushed the other glass at him. “Drink that too. You’re bigger than me, so you’d need more.”

With dancing eyes, he held the second glass up to his lips. “Trying to get me drunk so you can have your wicked way with me?”

“I’m fairly sure that was your plan.” I tilted the bottle of tequila to prove my point.

He downed the second drink, and I felt a surge of longing in my chest as I watched his Adam’s apple bob during the swallow. He was just so… manly. Everything about him was larger than life. He made me feel small, something I didn’t encounter often. “I’ll admit that thought did cross my mind.” He placed the glass back on the counter and I poured two more fingers.

“Do we toast?” he asked, handing me my glass.

Taking it, I held it halfway between my mouth and the bench. “I thought this was a drink to you finding my hairpin and me not calling the cops.”

“I think we can do better than that.”

“Fine. What would you like to toast to?”

“You pick.”

“I don’t know. I’m struggling to find the hopefulness in this situation.”

“Why? Do I scare you, Holland?”

I shook my head. “No. But you unnerve me. I don’t trust you.”

His tongue touched one of his eye teeth. “That’s probably for the best.” He lifted his glass and held it next to mine. “How about to trusting your instincts? May they serve you well.”

“That works,” I said, tapping my glass against his and downing the contents. It didn’t burn anywhere near as much as I expected it to. “That’s not half bad.”

He moved closer and I moved back, my arse hitting the counter, halting my retreat. “Only the best for my duchess.” He took the glass from my hand and poured some more tequila, handing it back to me and clinking our glasses together again.

I looked at the pale amber liquid. “Duchess. Why do you keep calling me that?”

“I don’t know. It’s just what I think when I look at you. The way you act, I guess.”

“The way I act? You think I have a stick up my arse?”

With a chuckle, he shook his head and rested his finger under my chin. “No. It’s more that you seem ruthless, like you always get what you want.”

“I do not always get what I want.”

“You found me when no one else has been able to, right?”

I shrugged. “I suppose.”

“Plus, you’re kind of unobtainable.”

“Unobtainable?” I scoffed. “That is so not the case.”

“It is where I’m concerned.”

“You’re standing in my kitchen, not so inconspicuously brushing a hard-on against my hip.”

Placing his hands on the bench either side of me, he lowered his head, and his voice along with it. “Doesn’t mean I get to keep you.”

Did that mean he wanted to keep me?

I turned to meet his eyes, the question on the tip of my tongue, but he kissed me before I could speak. It started out as a simple joining of mouths, then turned into a hungry passion that caused me to forget I was holding a glass, the crash on the floor the sudden reminder it was there. Not that we cared to stop and clean it up. The moment it hit the floor, Nate wrapped his hands around my thighs and lifted me onto the bench, tilting my head back so he could kiss me deeper, pushing my legs open so he could fit between them.

“This is crazy,” I gasped when we broke the kiss for a mere second as he pulled my shirt over my head.

“Then let’s be crazy,” he responded, discarding his own shirt before his mouth returned to mine with a fervour that caused our teeth to clash. His hands were everywhere at once, igniting a raging fire inside me. Before I knew it, I was completely naked and his fingers had slipped between my legs, gliding through my juices. I was ridiculously wet for him.

“Mmm,” he murmured next to my ear. “Feels like you’ve been ready since I walked through the door.” With his fingers moving in and out of my pulsing need, his mouth travelled down until he found my nipple, sucking back hard and teasing it with his teeth through the lace of my bra. All I could do was quiver and moan in response.

My God, why am I letting him do this to me? There was barely a moment of objection on my part; I’d just let him into my house and into my body. But why? Because he was hot? Because he had a big dick? Or because I was uncontrollably attracted to him? So attracted that all semblance of logic went flying out the window, along with my self-respect?

As my head dropped back and I clutched at his arms, I knew it was mostly the latter. There was just something about him. “I want you inside me,” I gasped. “Please.” I’d been dreaming about it, thinking about it, envisioning that feeling of fullness for months.

“I want in that tight pussy of yours. I want to fuck you so hard that even when you open your mouth, you won’t be able to scream. You’ll be too far gone.” He said all of this while opening his jeans and sheathing his cock, readying himself to push inside me. “I can’t promise this won’t hurt.”

“Do it,” I gasped, shifting my hips to press my opening against his tip. I wanted it to hurt. I wanted to feel the shock of his intrusion and ache from it the next day.

With a groan, he slid inside inch by inch, stretching me to the point of pain but no further. “There it is,” he gasped when he was fully inside. He slid his fingers into the sides of my hair and looked down at me. “That’s what I’ve been wanting.” His hips moved back and forth as his fingers tightened against the roots of my hair, pulling my head back as his mouth devoured mine.

I could barely breathe. I could barely think. All I cared about was the coil tightening in my belly, begging for release as his cock stroked my insides. I released a long, low moan against his mouth.

“That’s it, duchess. Come hard. I want your cunt gripping the fuck out of my cock while you do.”

I was so close, so perfectly ready to the explode that when he pulled my bra down and clamped his mouth over my nipple, I did just that—mouth open, head thrown back, the cry of a wounded animal reverberating out of my chest as he moaned and then stilled as he came equally hard, a hiss between his teeth.

“Fuck me,” he gasped, taking a deep breath.

“I’m pretty sure that’s what you just did to me.”

“Mmm,” he hummed, capturing my mouth in a quick kiss, breathing me in. “I really like fucking you.” He pulled out of me and threw his condom in the kitchen bin before tucking himself away and zipping his pants. “If only I’d met you on a different night, different time, different place.”

“That wouldn’t change who you are, or what you do. We could never be together.” Even as the words left my mouth, my heart squeezed. Because what did he really mean by that? Did he regret that he was at that nightclub, that he chose me to go home with, that he chose me to rob even though we’d had such an incredible night together? Or was he saying that he wished we’d been given the chance for more, that had his crimes not connected us, perhaps it could have just been our chemistry?

I wished things were different too. Don’t go there, Holland.

Sliding his hand back in my hair, he kissed me in a way that was deep and tormenting, his tongue taking its time exploring my mouth, stealing my breath. When he released me, he looked into my eyes for a long moment before he lifted his glass of tequila to his mouth. “To the man who steals your heart.” Then he drained it, refilled it and held it out to me. “Since yours is kind of smashed on the floor.” Wrapping my hand around the glass, our fingers brushed and held for a beat. I couldn’t help but feel sad at his toast. To the man who steals your heart.

I held the glass to my lips. “That man won’t be you.” Closing my eyes, I downed the shot of alcohol then released my breath. I didn’t know who that man would be, but I knew without a doubt that it couldn’t be the one who stood in front of me, no matter how strong our attraction to each other was.

“You should probably go,” I whispered as I set the glass back down and pulled my shirt back over my head, righting myself. I couldn’t meet his eyes.

“Trying to push me away, duchess?” he responded, leaning down and picking up my panties. He held them out on one finger and waited until I met his gaze. My chest jolted from our unspoken connection. Then annoyance flared when he snatched my panties away as I reached for them.

“Yes,” I responded honestly. “This wasn’t why I went to so much trouble to find you.”

“I know that. You want your mum’s hairpin back. I get it. Family is important.” He leaned down and slid my panties over my feet, then pulled them up my legs. “How did she die?”

“Car accident. I was eight. My parents were out celebrating their wedding anniversary and they got T-boned by some jerk who ran a red. None of them survived.” I didn’t even know why I was telling him, it served no purpose other than to make me look more pitiful than I already was.

“I’m sorry.” He touched my chin so I met his eyes.

“Don’t be sorry, just give me back what you stole.”

He searched my eyes for an uncomfortable moment, then took a sharp inhale and picked up his shirt, pulling it over his head while he spoke. “I know where the pin is. I’ll get it to you, and then you’ll never see me again.”

I turned away from his gaze. “I think that’s for the best.”

When he didn’t answer or move, I chanced a glance at him and met two very cold and possibly angry eyes. Why would he be angry at me? He’s the fuck-up in this relationship.

Relationship? I squashed that thought before it had any more of a chance to grow.

“Goodnight, Holland,” he said, his voice curt as he turned and walked straight over the broken glass and out the front door. I jumped when it slammed shut, then closed my eyes and tried to ignore the emotion that was welling in them. I didn’t know what it was about Nate that had me wanting him when he was so obviously bad for me.

Pressing my knees together and pulling my shirt down, I looked at the mess on the floor. I was still on the bench and had no shoes on. He’d left me high and dry in the middle of a glass-shard minefield.

What a jerk. I was glad he was gone.

I picked up the tequila and took a swig straight from the bottle. At least I’d done something right tonight. I felt weak for having sex him, but I was proud of myself for telling him to leave.

Sliding down from the bench, I was careful not to get glass caught in my feet while I picked my way across the floor to the cupboard where I kept my mop and broom. As I cleaned up the mess, my head started to ache, a combination of stress, shame and tequila. After a quick shower, I felt even worse. It was like a migraine was coming on, but I’d never had one before.

Feeling the full weight of gravity pulling at my limbs, I climbed into bed, falling asleep the moment my head hit the pillow.