My eyes slowly trudged open, and I frowned when I realized my arms were empty.

“Felicity?” I called as my gaze swept the expanse of my room. The wall across from the bed was made entirely of windows, also containing two glass doors that led out to a large deck, overlooking the forest behind my home. I’d been so focused on Felicity last night that I had forgotten to lower the built-in shades, and my room was flooded with light as the sun crested over the tops of the trees.

When I received no answer, my brow furrowed even lower and my chest tightened painfully. Had she left? I began to worry about how and whether she got home safely as I threw off the covers and stood up from the bed.

A glance at the sheets caused a slow burn to ignite in my belly. There was a pink stain—proof that I’d been the first man to explore Felicity’s sweet body.

And the last.

Whoa. That thought snuck up on me, but the moment I considered it, the more I realized how true it was. I didn’t give a fuck how young she was. It was obvious she wasn’t twenty-one, but even if she was only eighteen, she’d sealed her fate when she let me inside and allowed me to take her cherry.

A shiver coursed through me as memories of our night flashed in my mind. I immediately hardened and when I glanced down at my dick, I noticed the smear of blood on it as well. Fuck. I’d taken her bare. I shook my head in disbelief. I’d never had sex without a condom before her. Felicity had broken through all of my barriers, wiping away any rational thoughts, leaving nothing but an animalistic need to take her. The thought of breeding her…it only fueled those urges.

I did a quick sweep of the master suite and kitchen to confirm her absence before rushing to get ready for the day. I didn’t have much to go on, but I wouldn’t rest until I’d found her and made her mine forever.

* * *

“She’s where?” I roared, my hand clenching my cell phone hard. I paced my office like a caged animal, every protective instinct in me rushing to the surface.

The last several days had been Hell. The morning after we made love, the security cameras at the front of my house showed Felicity getting into an Uber at around one thirty. I was able to get the license number and had a security friend of mine run the plates. Then a shadier security friend hacked into the app and got me Felicity’s last name.

Once I had it, I ran a background check on her, figuring it would be the easiest way to find her. And, it satiated a small part of my desire to know everything about her.

Name: Felicity Scott

Age: …

Fuck. Fucking motherfucker fuck!

She was fucking seventeen. Seventeen!

The rational part of me. The part that had made me billions as a venture capitalist. The part that recognized how wrong it should have felt for me to fuck her. It screamed for me to let her go and walk away. The age of consent in our state was sixteen, but she was still way too damn young for me. I was twenty damn years older than her.

I spent four days trying to “do the right thing.” But, when I laid in my bed and pictured her long and straight, glossy black hair, her wide, violet eyes fringed with thick, sooty lashes, and her pouty, red painted lips. When I remembered what it had felt like to be on her—in her. My reasons for walking away became cloudy and instead, the list of why I should go after her grew.

My intention to move on hadn’t stopped me from learning everything I possibly could about her. From her birth to her current circumstances in a foster home. She would be so much better off with me. I would take care of her, love her, worship her. And, what if she was pregnant? I would never abandon my child or its mother.

Soon, I was picking up the phone to set the wheels in motion. It was amazing what you could accomplish when you threw money at the right people and had a team with a variety of…interesting skills at your disposal.

For the moment, the best solution seemed to be gaining guardianship over Felicity. Then in a few months, when she turned eighteen, we could be together. Until then, I would care for her, protect her, and keep her from any motherfucker who might get it in his head to try and make her his.

Now, four days after starting the process, I was listening to one of my “fix it” guys, Dixon, as he told me that Felicity had been moved to a state facility the day after we’d met.

“What the fuck happened?” I shouted.

“Apparently, she was out past curfew and when her foster parents found out, they turned her back over to the state. She only has a few months left, so they stuck her in a group home.”

If Dixon had been standing in front of me, it’s likely he would have found himself breathing from a tube for the near future. As it was, my wall gained a new hole shaped like my fist.

“Why am I just finding this out now? She’s been there almost a fucking week, Dixon!” My heart was beating a million miles a minute. Some group homes were nothing like what you see in the movies and on television. But, what scared the ever living fuck out of me was that some of them were. I had no idea what my girl’s life had been like while I was being an indecisive jackass.

“Give me the address,” I gritted through clenched teeth. I jotted it down as he rattled it off and then grabbed my keys and headed to the parking garage under my downtown office. “Get everyone on this, Dixon. I’m not waiting any longer to get her, so I want everything completed by tonight.”

I didn’t pay any attention to his sputtering as I clicked my phone off. I’d reached my pale blue Jaguar, the fastest of my seven cars, and after unlocking it, tossed the phone, my jacket, and briefcase on the passenger seat. Once settled inside, I turned over the engine and it purred, the tires barely screeching as I careened out of my space and the parking garage.

My house was built on twenty acres of woods about twenty minutes outside the city. It wasn’t far from the neighborhood where Felicity had last lived. The home she’d been banished to was another twenty minutes beyond that. I kicked the car into high gear, breaking the speed limits to get to her. But, a glance at the clock made me realize the home wasn’t where I would find her. It was two in the afternoon. She’d be getting out of school soon.

Another quick phone call, and I adjusted my course to the local high school. I glided into a spot near the front entrance and shut off the car. Stepping out into the balmy and unusually sunny, spring air, I set my sunglasses on my nose, crossed my arms over my chest, and settled against the car to wait.

At two thirty, a bell chimed and the doors flew open, students spilling out in droves. I kept a close watch on the crowd, my body tense with the anticipation of seeing my girl again, of holding her in my arms, of kissing—no. Not yet. I frowned as I shifted angles, making the erection I was sporting less obvious.

Then I saw her. Long legs encased in jeans that looked as though she’d been poured into them. Her light pink blouse with buttons up the front showed off the swell of her tits. My mouth watered, the taste of her candy nipples still lingering in my memory.

Shit. I lifted my gaze from the perusal of her body before I did something stupid, like come in my damn pants.

Felicity stopped and hefted a backpack up over her covered shoulder. Without sunglasses on her straight nose, her eyes were bare and I could see the turmoil in them as she stared ahead. She was watching the line of buses, then her head swung in another direction. A van approached, and her entire countenance drooped.

Rage clawed at my chest. I was going to fucking kill whatever or whoever had taken the light out of my sweet girl’s eyes. She took a step towards the van just as I took one towards her.

“Felicity,” I called, my voice low.

She froze mid-stride for a moment. Then slowly, so slowly, her head swung in my direction.