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  The way he growled those words into my ear left me sopping. He pulled me away from the door, probably to reduce noise, and backed up across the room, the entire time sucking at my lips, massaging my breasts, grinding his hand against my slit through my underwear. The simple, girly dress Mother had picked out for me was hiked up around my waist, and I couldn’t suppress the hope that he would tear it off me, that he would tear away all my constraints and let me live freely.

  He didn’t though. Instead, he sat down on the bed while I straddled his lap. I could feel his cock throbbing in his pants, waiting to be released. I did it a favor. As Alex ravished my body with his hands, I unzipped his suit pants and pulled his thick, rock-hard dick out. It stood at attention as I caressed it, jerking it up and down before I half-reluctantly, half-excitedly pulled myself from Alex’s hands and knelt before him on the ground.

  I took him into my mouth and felt a thrill of pleasure as I heard him try to suppress a groan. Working as quietly as I could, I swirled my tongue around his head, cupping his balls with one hand while I stroked the shaft with my other. His hands knotted in my hair and pushed me firmly lower onto his dick. I took it deeper and deeper, struggling at points, but pushing on until my lips pressed against his groin. I pulled back, red faced and breathless.

  I started to go down again, but he pulled me up into his arms, thrusting his tongue into my mouth. With one hand, he tore my underwear completely off my body. Still connected at the mouth, I straddled his lap and helped guide his dick, still dripping from the blow job, up inside me. I gasped into his mouth as his head popped into me and let his mouth dominate mine as I relaxed onto it, letting it travel deeper inside me, filling me completely. His passionate kisses silenced me as I slowly traveled south, impaling myself on more and more of his cock. With every inch, I thought I couldn’t take another one, that surely it would bottom out, but somehow he managed to go deeper and deeper. Finally, I felt myself rest on his lap, obscenely full and unable to more as the pleasure overtook my body.

  He gave me a few moments to adjust to the size of the intruder. One of his hands wrapped around my back, pulling me closer to him, the other came to rest on my clit, pushed between our bodies and massaging it slowly, painfully. My hands gripped the muscles of his back so hard I was sure the next day there would be bruises. Then he began to move. Slowly at first, just rocking back and forth, then harder, powerfully, thrusting back and forth, up and down, lifting me up and bouncing me on his cock as I wriggled and squirmed and bit my swollen lips until I was sure they would bleed as I tried not to make a sound.

  I couldn’t tell exactly how long it lasted, but suddenly I felt the rush begin in my groin and his fingers quickened, feeling my reaction as my walls tightened. I came hard against him, riding his fingers as much as his dick as I went over the edge. My passage clamped down on his cock like a vise and I could feel him lose control, spilling inside of me and somehow filling me even fuller.

  I held my breath, desperate not to make a sound until I thought I was going to suffocate. Somehow it made the orgasm even stronger. Spots of black appeared around my vision and when he finally stopped cumming and laid back, exhausted on the bed, I pulled off of him and collapsed on the bed beside him.

  We panted beside each other for a few minutes, both recovering from whatever the hell that had been.

  “We shouldn’t have done that,” I said into the dark.

  “I’m glad we did,” he said.

  I was too, secretly, but with it came an oppressive feeling of melancholy as I realized that this really was the last time. I couldn’t do it again, couldn’t put myself through amazing sex with Alex because I could already feel him fading from my life.

  I sat up, leaned over him, met his smoldering stare, and tried to remember, to capture it perfectly in my mind. The last time. I leaned down and kissed him lightly on the cheek. Then I stood and quickly left the room.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Alex

  I woke up alone, something I should have been used to by now. But the past week had given me a glimpse of what my life could look like and that little taste kept me wanting more. How had I survived all those years of solitude? How had I kept getting out of an empty bed every morning?

  The answer came readily: there was always the hope that the next job was going to do it for me, get me back in the game, light that fire that used to burn constant and deep. I hadn’t realized then what I knew now. That what I was missing wasn’t some gem-encrusted jewelry or centuries-old oil painting. And it certainly wasn’t creeping about at night in a black mask, risking capture. I was missing the feel of a woman pressed against me in bed, the smell of her hair under my nose, a soft hand resting lightly on my chest. The comfort and stability of companionship that no fence could ever put a price on.

  Once I thought I had it. Once I thought I knew the woman I wanted to spend the rest of my life with. I’d suppressed those memories of calm, tranquil days in each other’s arms because with those thoughts came other memories - the results of love and affection and trust. The reason why, even as Cora stared up at me and wanted to forgive, I couldn’t tell her, couldn’t put her through that crushing agony of being deceived by someone she trusted.

  I got out of bed because once I trailed down the path of Katrina and Thailand, I knew I wouldn’t have the energy to leave the covers. I needed something to distract me and a visit to Saul seemed like what could steer me right. Of anyone, he could remind me of how terrible it was to put my heart on the line.

  Thankfully, the big costume ball was today and the manor was even more frantic than usual. I would be needed even less, not that I was really needed at all. The Harmont family was staying in to prepare and prep themselves for the celebrations. It was extra motivation to flee the manor; I had no intention of running into Cora.

  I listened at the door for footsteps and then snuck down the staircase. Thankfully, Jackie was in the great hall directing traffic and looking like she hadn’t slept in two days. I let her know that I was going out for the moment and she looked at me like she didn’t quite recognize me. Once I did register, she gave me a look that said ‘who cares’ and continued to shuttle along a mass of men carrying an entire greenhouse worth of plants toward the ballroom while staff swept dirt from the floor the moment it fell.

  The walk to Saul’s was focused in an effort not to think. But I could already feel the memories pounding at my skull, demanding to be let in. I would not dwell on it. I walked faster in an effort to get to Saul’s quicker. I hoped to God he was there.

  He was, alone as usual. It was actually kind of fascinating how, in a city of eight million people, Saul managed to keep the place completely dead at all times. Not a single depressed businessman, not one drunk NYU student, not even a tourist from the Midwest who didn’t know any better. Nobody. It was almost magical, like the bar appeared only for me and then disappeared once I turned out of the side street it lurked down.

  I slid into a seat and he plopped a drink on the bar in front of me. I drank it in one go and he filled it without saying a word.

  “Is tonight the night?” Saul asked.

  I shook my head. “I’m done,” I said.

  “What?” he asked, setting his rag aside. “This isn’t about that girl still, is it?”

  “She isn’t just a girl,” I said. “She could be my soulmate and now it’s never going to happen.” The despair was eating at me like worms. I wondered why I thought Saul could do anything for me. Maybe I’d just come for the booze.

  “It’s for the best, Alex,” Saul said gently. “Don’t take this wrong, but you tend to go for the wrong girls. You made the right decision breaking it off now before she has the chance to destroy whatever remaining pieces of your heart Katrina couldn’t get at.”

  He was right, of course. Because, for a while there, I thought she’d made off with all of it. Katrina had been an addiction, like heroine. Something I injected right into my veins until the rest of the world didn’t matter and all
I could think about was how she made me feel. Had it been healthy? No, but I didn’t care. And by the time I realized what the withdrawals would feel like, it was too late to ease off the supply.

  I could picture clearly the first time I saw her, sitting in a blue dress at a blackjack table, sipping a drink clutched in perfectly manicured fingers and casting a flirty eye at an old man beside her. She looked glamorous, seductive, the perfect side piece. I could see through it instantly. I wasn’t fooled for a moment. Here was someone not to be taken by the persona they showed the world. There was something deeper, lurking behind hooded eyes. She was just like me and, as someone who’d always considered myself one of a kind, that had been enough to make me introduce myself.

  I wasn’t self-aware enough then to realize exactly what a bad idea that was.

  I’d met her in a casino in Monte Carlo. I was counting cards, she ripping off businessmen fooled into trusting complacency by her large blue eyes and plunging necklines. And we were on each other in an instant. Sex, champagne, and caviar - we both relished in luxury, both hoping that it would fill some void inside of us. Once we’d torn through Monte Carlo and there wasn’t a penny more we could squeeze or scam, we hopped to the next town and then the next. A holiday from New York to gamble ended up lasting for close to two years. And with Katrina by my side, I went from being a second rate scam artist with potential to world class, a true professional.

  We had some good times. Flying across the world first class, forging passports and stealing cash just to get to the next big heist. We’d scammed our way into luxury hotels, danced at parties populated by billionaires and royalty, once spent an entire month as ambassadors to the King of Bhutan. We risked it all, held each others lives in our hands. We’d robbed museums, castles, penthouses, and art galleries across four continents and never once slowed down. And even though we’d stolen a king’s fortune and were wealthy beyond our wildest dreams, I’d have thrown it all away to start over again with her. I was in love, but more accurately, I was infatuated. She was an escape from bad memories and mistakes too old to make right. She kept me guessing.

  But how could I have guessed her last, most devious scam?

  We’d been in Thailand, escaping the country with bags full of stolen goods and the police hot on our tails. It’d been close before, but we were really starting to feel the heat. No matter though. We’d gotten out of bad jams before; I’d assumed we’d manage. The plan was to escape overland to Laos, hide in the jungle and then take a ferry down the muddy river to hop the border again to Vietnam where we’d be able to get new identities in Hanoi. Maybe it would have worked. Maybe not. But Katrina must have decided her odds were better without me.

  I don’t know when she decided that this was our last stop. Had it been lurking in her mind for months, something she’d spent sleepless nights debating? Or had it been on the spur of the moment when she realized only one of us was going to be able to get away? She’d always been the more conniving of the two of us, perhaps the smarter. She’d known before I’d come to accept it that either one of us escaped or neither of us did. But she should have come to me. She could have at least given me the chance to volunteer to stay behind.

  But if I trusted her too much then maybe she didn’t trust me enough. Had experience taught her that it was better to be the double crosser than the double crossed? Or had it just been her instinctual decision - stay alive, no matter the cost. Did she ever lie awake at night, wherever she was, regretting what she did?

  I’d had a long time to ponder these questions, but was no closer to the answer than I’d been when the Thai police had burst down my door and dragged me out of bed. Katrina was long gone by then, leaving the stolen goods behind and leaving me to be interrogated for days about her whereabouts. Still, I hadn’t betrayed our plan. Even though my heart had been pulled out of my chest, I still hadn’t the strength to do to her what she’d done to me. As it turned out, we had been different after all.

  Later, after a few months surviving in a hellhole in Bangkok, where men were stabbed just for something to do and the guards and malaria took an equal number of lives, I regretted that decision. She’d left me to rot and I owed her nothing. I let the anger consume me, thoughts of revenge powering me through the fear and keeping me alive to fight another day. I swore if I ever made it out of there, I’d track her down.

  After nine months, I finally escaped during a prison riot. Then I’d spent another three months hiding in the underbelly of Bangkok, fighting just as hard to stay alive and evade capture. By the time I finally got back to New York, three years after I’d originally left on vacation, I didn’t have the strength left to find Katrina. I doubted that I even could. She was always slippery and in all the time that’d passed, she was long gone, probably on to a new trusting man that she would blindside once she was finished with him.

  I took some time off, healed more or less with the help of Saul, and, after a while, found myself back to my old tricks. I still had money, but I was getting bored and I didn’t really know how to do anything else. And I missed that feeling, the one I had before Katrina and the indescribable heights it reached when we were at our peak.

  “Katrina was bad for you and so is this girl.” Saul broke through my memories with a blunt statement of facts.

  But were they really facts? Sitting here, slightly buzzed and finally letting thoughts and memories of Katrina break through, I couldn’t help comparing not just her with Cora, but my past self to my present. Katrina was who I thought matched me then, when I was lost and full of anger and self-loathing. But Cora? I knew that we were nothing alike. And that was what I loved about her. She showed me a life where material gains were inconsequential. She made me want to be better. And that was why I couldn’t just be honest with her. I was ashamed. Ashamed to have lied, ashamed to be a criminal, ashamed that I was still similar enough to Katrina to see shadows of her when I looked in the mirror.

  Saul sighed as I still didn’t respond to him. “Alex, listen to me. Really think about what you think you’re missing out on here. You’ll be tied down to this girl forever. No traveling at a moment’s notice. No freedom to go wherever you want, whenever you want. And no more jobs. That career you’ve risked your life for over the past decade? Done. You have no other skills. How would you even take care of her?”

  “I have money saved,” I muttered. “I don’t even need to work.”

  Saul waved me off. “Look at that house she lives in. You think she’ll ever be happy just living in a normal apartment? Look Alex, I’d say this was a mistake even if it was just some girl, but this is a fucking princess! The two of you will never be able to exist in the same world.

  “Girls come and go. You thought you’d never find another one after Katrina and look, here she is. Now you know you can do it again. But you know what will never come back around? This job.” Saul’s tone was almost pleading. “Come on, Alex. Just think about it. Think about that feeling you’ve been talking my ear off for the past two years. That rush, when you put it all on the line. Not knowing if it’s going to work out or not, but not caring because this is what it’s like to be alive. Think about that. And steal the Crown.”

  He was right. I had been looking for that feeling for way too long. I thought I’d find it in the Crown. But what if there was another way? And then I knew. I saw the risk that my soul was pushing me to take. Was it worth it, the threat of capture and the sting of betraying someone I loved?

  Saul was waiting for me to respond, to acknowledge that I’d heard something he’d said. I had, but I wasn’t taking it the way he’d hoped.

  “Thanks Saul,” I said, standing. “I’ve got to go do something.” I turned and all but ran out of the bar, leaving my drink behind me.

  Saul called after me, “I hope you’re making a smart decision.”

  I couldn’t answer that question, but that was the beauty of it.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Cora

  The costume ball was a favorite
charity event of my mother’s, one she frequently held when Dad was alive and the family still visited New York. The balls were nothing more than an excuse to wine and dine rich friends and potential political allies while simultaneously showing off the most extravagant house in the city. The fact that more money was spent on the party itself than was actually donated didn’t seem to matter, as was the irony in celebrating an era in which the fabulously wealthy profited off the backs of the poor (although I supposed that fact was conveniently ignored more than anything).

  Even when I was a child and didn’t understand the faulty logic of the event, I hated to go. Part of it was because the dances had always been Mother’s thing, populated by her shallow, irritating friends who liked to pinch my cheeks and exclaim over just how adorable I was in my floor length, tight-waisted mini-gown. The other part had to do with the mandatory dance Hendrik and I were forced to do, the two of us stuffed into our uncomfortable uniforms as we stumble-waltzed across an empty dance floor, the crowd of adults fawning audibly over us.

  Fortunately, this year Hendrik and I were spared the embarrassment of going together. Unfortunately, that was because I would be going on the arm of Prince Malik of Maldineya. The good prince had still not made any attempt to get to know me and I had to prepare myself for an utterly boring evening pretending to enjoy myself when really I wanted to be hiding in my room and thinking about Alex.

  I hadn’t seen Alex since I fled from his room the night before. I kept an eye out for him throughout the day, but he must have been avoiding me because I didn’t see a trace of him. I tried to tell myself that, whatever Alex’s deal was, if it was so bad he couldn’t even tell me, he was better off out of my life. That didn’t mean I wasn’t being eaten away with curiosity though. I’d spent half the night and most of today trying to figure out what it could be he was hiding from me, but everything I thought of was either horrific (murderer, kidnapper, arsonist), ridiculous (undercover IRS agent, gossip columnist, wannabe sugar baby), or a combination of the two (secret half-brother looking to get closer to Mother).