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damneddamsy · 4 days ago

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GOOD GIRL GONE BAD | HARRY CASTILLO PART 2 of 𝐃𝐄𝐀𝐑 𝐃𝐄𝐒𝐏𝐄𝐑𝐀𝐃𝐎

A DECENT THIEF, A SMITTEN BILLIONAIRE, ONE EMERALD RING, A SIMPLE CON JOB, ONE VERY INCONVENIENT ATTRACTION. SEX, LIES, LARCENY—ALL BEFORE THE SUN COMES UP. EASY PEASY... RIGHT?

-> READ PART 1 HERE. A.N. -> I think I'm going to make this a series because I'm loving my fuckass thief a little too much ;) W.C -> 15k+ C.W -> 18+ MDNI, sexual themes, humour, third person POV, fem reader, thief reader and she's a bad bitch, harry is fucking rich with a big dick that's what, harry gets amazing head, expensive dinner and under the table action, fast cars and late night drives, age gap, luxury brand and pop culture references, witty repartee, cat-and-mouse dynamics, romcom everything.

TWO DAYS LATER...

Harry Castillo never did find her after that night, and the world, predictably, kept spinning.

That was a given—of course, the man never stood a chance. He hadn't even known her real name, let alone the life she lived between swiping his magnificent emerald ring and finagling for his sky-high penthouse suite.

The thing about rich men—a huge difference between the Hamptons-on-the-weekend rich and the take-the-G5-for-lunch-in-Marrakech rich—is that they get bored very fast. The money dulls their instincts, softens their hunger. So they go looking for novelty, for danger, bootlickers with sharp heels, lips that serviced them.

And that’s when these duds start collecting people, the same way other men collect watches. It’s not malice, necessarily. It’s just the casual entropy of having everything. Eventually, they start poking holes in the world to see what bleeds.

Harry, who had once been deliciously under her (and, yes, she had performed—thank you very much), was now officially behind her. Metaphorically. Spiritually... logistically?

Still, every so often in the last forty-eight hours, when sleeplessness licked at the fringes of her sanity, she’d think about that fantastic night. Him. His cologne. His million-dollar smile, his silky curls, that flex of muscles in his forearms. How he moved like a man who didn’t just fuck—he endured. Sex was a marathon he never lost. She might’ve bitten into a pillow just recalling it.

Now, as she scrubbed her coffee cup in her little walk-up, she mildly wondered why he hadn’t kicked down her door yet. No agents in Kevlar, no tactical ballet of flashlights sweeping her withering IKEA furniture.

Guess his precious emerald ring wasn’t priceless after all. Maybe he’d decided ‘Eve’ was.

Still, spectacular sex didn’t pay the Con Ed bill, and orgasms weren’t legal fees, not even ones that left her boneless. The hustle was a jealous god. Worship it daily or risk getting chewed up and spit back out. There were strictly no vacation days in this line of work.

She wiped her hands on the wet dishtowel and glanced out the window, onto her street. The city, even late afternoon, pulsed with potential scams, possibilities clothed as bad ideas. Nearly time to earn her penance.

Her taxes, of course, were a masterclass in creative fiction. Nowhere on the forms could she write ‘part-time righteous thief,’ even if the city owed her a medal for how cleanly she worked. By day (or whatever counted as ‘respectable daylight’ in her world), she was an actress—aspiring, which is really just code for ‘not yet a celebrity but unfathomably tenacious.’

And she was good, actually better than good. Unlike the legions of gullible hopefuls waiting tables and praying for callbacks, she didn’t just play the role; she became it.

That’s what theft had taught her: how to vanish into a character. A wealthy widow in a silk scarf. A ditzy sweetheart with a purse full of distractions. A lonely wife who despised her rich husband.

See, acting was easy. Being real was the trick.

Now... you might be wondering how she’s never been caught.

Simple answer. There were no larcenies, but borrowed realities. She slipped into them like new dresses, modelled them until they itched, then left them behind without creasing the seams. She understood people better than they understood themselves, and in a city built on a fancy facade, that made her the most honest liar in the room.

Between matinee shows and understudy rehearsals, buried someplace in the margins of a yawning Off-Broadway script where she played ‘The Mistress’ and occasionally ‘Dancer #2,’ she had begun her favourite kind of research: target acquisition.

This one was named Max.

Older, incredibly hot in the way girls liked their unruly men now. Ran a supposedly “disruptive” tech startup that had never once had to crawl through the dirt to breathe. Financed—predictably—by Mommy and Daddy’s hedge fund, equipped with pre-IPO arrogance, and a fake chip on his shoulder. He styled himself as a rebel: leather jacket, scruff at a precisely calculated millimetres, and a beast of a motorcycle. Everything about him screamed curated danger. Which, of course, made him exactly her type—for now.

Tonight, Max was hers.

She wasn't after his heart. Please, she had far more realistic goals: the chunky platinum bracelet and the possibility of a chain tucked beneath his shirt—a custom Cartier, if her Instagram sleuthing and zoom-enhanced screenshots were correct. Et voila, two months' rent, served on a dish. He liked his jewellery like he liked his women: slender, eye-catching, and stolen from someone else's better judgment.

She’d shown up at his hipster bar—the one with floating Edison bulbs and overpriced tequila, where the walls were made of raw brick and vintage vinyl records. It was much too loud, too try-hard for her taste. But it didn’t matter, she didn’t need to like it—she just needed to be seen in it. You know, gullible and pretty, a beaming sunflower among roses. The total ‘good girl’ package.

Max cornered her before she had to pretend to clumsily nurse her drink, took her hand, pressed too many kisses along her knuckles like some bad Bond villain, and crooned promises of a better night elsewhere.

“Preferably somewhere with horsepower,” he whispered to her.

She smiled—wide-eyed, toothy, assumingly earned. “Sounds fun.”

His bike was parked just on the edge of a downtown lot, under murky lighting that gave it a movie-magic feel. It was truly a prowling monster—chrome and matte black, roared like one, clearly built for showing off rather than comfort. Aerodynamics be damned.

He stopped, looked at her, and grinned. That grin—ugh, it came with a subscription to its own perfume.

“Hop on, baby girl,” he said, tugging her gently by the waist, and then—just like that—he lifted her. Hands under her thighs, strong enough to remind her why he was tolerable in the first place. Baby girl, because that was exactly the temperament she was going for tonight.

“Whoa—omigosh, okay,” she laughed, letting him guide her onto the seat.

She threw a leg over to straddle, at her own leisure, flashing just the right amount of white lace beneath her floral skirt, just enough to not seem cheap but stay rent-free in his imagination.

He stepped closer, thumb brushing along her knee. “You ever ridden one of these before?” he asked, leaning in.

“Only ponies at petting zoos,” she said sweetly. “But I always wanted to go... faster.”

He liked that. She could tell by the little shift in his posture, the spark behind his aviators. Max was predictable like that; he liked a good girl saying wicked things.

She tilted her head, letting her hair fall just so, lips parted. “Do I hold on to you, or just pray?”

“Oh, you’re gonna be holding on and praying,” he said, grin widening.

And then came a—HONK.

The burst of sound shattered the moment. She blinked, startled, nearly falling back on the seat. An old Civic lurched past behind them, the driver yelling about “blocking the fuckin’ exit, genius!”

She laughed again, this time without feigning. “Always this romantic?”

Max rolled his eyes, smoothing a hand down her thigh. “For the VIPs.”

“Lucky me,” she murmured, even as her eyes slid discreetly toward the glint of his chain peeking out beneath his collar. Just a little longer, and she’d be the one riding off into the night—with his jewellery in her bag and her name scrubbed clean from his memory by morning.

From her perch on the back of the bike, she leaned forward with ceremonious ease, reaching for the handlebars. Her hips tilted as she did it, bare thighs reflecting the bar's spotlight, skirting riding up a little, ass popping just enough to make a statement: yes, you’re looking—and I know exactly what you’re thinking.

She bit her bottom lip and looked back over her shoulder, coy. “So,” she murmured, fingers curling around the throttle, “do you race for pink slips on this thing?”

Max gave a breathy, wolfish laugh. He moved in, arms folding around her from behind, his chest pressing close to her spine. One hand came to rest on hers atop the handlebar, the other grazing up the bare skin of her back, fingers trailing higher, then lower. Stroking—feeling—bingo.

His breath brushed against her ear. “Why, d'you wanna race against me? I’ll let you win.”

She tilted her head, gave a breathy laugh, and let herself melt back against him just a little. Never all the way. Her game had rules, even if he didn’t know he was playing.

Max got bolder. His other hand slipped lower, gathering the hem of her skirt. Fingertips dragging along her thigh, seeking heat.

But—HONK. HONK. HONK.

A barrage of honks snapped the moment in half. Three sharp, urgent blasts. She couldn’t help it anymore—she burst out laughing, tipping forward against the tank of the bike, shaking her head.

“Is this your version of foreplay?” she teased, pulling her skirt back down with a small tug, as if nothing had happened. “Public inconvenience. Not a fan.”

Max growled low in his throat. “They’re just jealous.”

She gave him a saccharine smile over her shoulder. “Of you, or of me?”

He winked. “Me, of course.”

The fourth honk was belligerent. HOOOOOOONK!

Ouch. Then came the headlights—full beam—washing over them in artificial daylight, crisp, priceless and thoroughly unimpressed. It wasn’t some angry delivery driver anymore. This elegant machine… it was matte black, sleek, elongate, idling behind them like a lioness waiting to pounce.

A Maybach.

She blinked once, twice, letting her eyes adjust to the sudden flood of light. The newest version of the Maybach didn't simply hint at wealth—it was a chauffeur’s dream. Quiet luxury for the chronically privileged.

Max cursed under his breath, shading his eyes like he was confronted by a UFO beam. He glanced over his shoulder, irritated, but still kept one hand possessively on her thigh as if this wasn’t rapidly becoming someone else’s scene.

“Jesus. Just go around, asshole! There's plenty of space!” Max barked at the Maybach, all puffed up with that predictable strain of man-to-man testosterone, chest out like a bantam rooster.

The Maybach, as expected, didn’t budge. It was too refined to engage.

And then, almost politely, the headlights blinked once. A statement. Get the fuck out of the way.

She felt it immediately—that flux in atmosphere, the hair-raising dissonance that told her this wasn’t just a gridlock spat. The stillness of that car held tension. Consideration. This wasn’t some rando being petty, nor was it some impatient Wall Street exec late to a mistress.

This was a message wrapped in two tons of German—maybe—engineering.

And that was when the unease hit. A slow coil in her gut, skin prickling—she didn’t like this at all.

Another night, she’d have flipped the bird and blown a kiss just to stir the pot. But no, she had to remember she was in character. Tonight, she was soft, sugary, a blooming daisy of a girl who wouldn’t know a red flag if it wore a name tag.

“Let’s go for a ride, Max,” she coaxed, curling a finger into his jean pocket. “Forget the guy.”

He shook his head, jaw tight. “I wanna show this fucker who he messed with.”

Oh, boy. She didn’t even need to check the Maybach again to know that was a bad idea. The worst ideas always started with a man trying to measure his dick through tinted glass.

She reached for the softest note in her vocal library, brushing concern into every syllable. “Now you’re scaring me.”

That actually did it. Men like Max lived to feel strong in the presence of fragility. He turned, gentling to her innocence, rubbing her cheek like she was some porcelain doll.

While pressing a protective kiss to her forehead, he murmured, “I got you. Let’s get out of here.”

He handed her a helmet that reeked of weed, sweat, and barely-laundered masculinity, and slid onto the bike. She scooted behind him, skirt shifting up her thighs, heels tucked close, her arms looping around his waist in an affectionate tangle.

He revved the engine and glanced over his shoulder, grin too cocky. “Ready, baby?”

She giggled on cue, tightening her arms around him. “Ready!”

He snapped his visor down, and then they were off—rocketing through Manhattan like two kids who’d stolen a joyride and didn’t know the ending yet. And she had to admit: not bad for her first time on a motorbike.

She really hadn’t expected to enjoy it this much—the wind in her hair, the lights blurring past as if they were fireflies on speed, the rush of every pothole and sharp turn pushing her against Max’s back—an accident she allowed to look intentional. New York, past dark, always had this unpredictable mysticism. Once the neon bleed from storefronts flickered across her skin, setting the mood, tonight, for a moment, she let herself buy into the fantasy: wide-eyed good girl on the back of a powerful motorbike, arms flung up in joy, laughing into the wind like the lead in some Sundance film with a dream pop soundtrack that critics would call “raw and luminous.”

She hooted once, purely for the drama of it. Let the East River eat its heart out. Besides, fairytales like this always ended in red lights.

Eventually, laughing with her, Max pulled them over on the bridge—Williamsburg or somewhere, she didn’t care—and let the engine hum under them like a resting animal. She slid off first, not without pressing a thank-you kiss to his neck, stretching her legs, smoothing down her skirt. The view was... unexceptional. The city sparkled behind layers of industrial haze, scaffolding, and distant sirens. Honestly, this metropolis functioned better as a grey area.

Max wasn’t looking. He was busy trailing his mouth down her throat, hands already staking claims. He wanted her so bad, it was hilarious.

“How about,” he murmured, lips dragging up her ear, “this weekend, you and I go somewhere fun? Catch some sunshine, lie around...”

She let him spin her around, let her back meet the cold, rusted metal of the railing. One arm curled over his shoulder, a hand gently pushing back his hair in that sweet, absent way men misread as affection.

“Mhm?” she prompted, humouring him.

His fingers found the hem of her skirt, slipped under to trace the expanse of her thigh. “Hawaii.”

She raised a brow, stroked her nose along his lazily. “I was thinking... south of France.”

He snorted, bit her earlobe. “Cute.”

No, she was seriously serious. But that was the thing about these people—they loved a girl with charm, but not too much ambition. Not unless it was sexy, and not unless it served them. Bigoted freaks.

And then—HOOOOOOOONK!

That long, low, obnoxiously entitled sound, once more, ripped through the stillness of the bridge, a gunshot made of money.

Max pulled back, agitated. “What the actual fuck!”

She turned away from the yell, wincing, her heart already beginning to drop.

Because there, idling just yards away, was the same Maybach, sinister as hell. The headlights blinked once, just like before. An unhurried black peak of patience and confidence.

“Don’t,” she said quickly, placing a hand on Max’s chest as he began to step forward. “It’s not worth it. Max, please.”

But the transformation had already happened. He’d gone from laid-back bad boy to territorial bulldog. “Is this fucking guy following us? Is he serious?”

“Max,” she tried again, keeping her voice low, cajoling, “don’t engage. Just—come on, let’s go.”

But the car door opened. The rear door. Oh, shit. Not good.

And out stepped—Harry Castillo.

Definitely not good.

Motherfucker. She meant that to herself, really. Her stomach pivoted a full, elegant tilt. Imagine a ballerina swan-diving off a rooftop—all graceful and doomed.

He didn’t walk out of that Maybach. He emerged—materialised, Armani loafers first, like a curse come due. Like she’d whispered his name into too many mirrors or said it once too long in her head.

He looked exactly the same as the last time she’d seen him, sitting in that lobby bar, two nights ago: devastatingly tailored, cruelly composed, eyes still infinite, dark curls coifed to imperfection, a man who never had to chase anything in his life.

Except, still, apparently, her.

She had to laugh internally. Really? You didn’t think he’d find you?

The man probably had satellites in space. Facial recognition. Twenty computers running scans by techie nerd slaves. A team of lawyers who could tell her what colour socks she wore to her nanny job.

And now, there he was, looking at her—not like a man scorned, not like a lover lost. All private equities and precision grooming. Standing center-frame, accomodated under his own damn headlights like the lead in a noir thriller. Broad shoulders barely contained in that Zegna suit. Ultimate Roman nose. Knife-cut jaw. The faintest shadow of disdain.

She had to actively fight the instinct to let her eyes drop between his legs. There, her favourite friend was, that mythic thing that had ruined her body for all other men.

Harry’s massive dick, the economic downturn of her emotional stability. You just have to appreciate a pleasure to behold, literally, at any expense.

But she wasn’t scared of Harry Castillo (or his dick, for that matter. Definitely not.) But she was scared of what followed him—men in suits, invisible networks, hushed conversations that ended with ankle monitors or body bags.

Look, she hadn’t stolen just any ring.

That fucking ring.

Emerald, antique, high-pedigree luxury brand, ancestral to the Castillo empire. Retail price? Such a tacky question. Black-market price? High enough to set off alarms from here to Thailand the moment she tried to fence it.

And now it hung around her neck. Half a million dollars on a second-rate chain. Against her skin. Her not-so-lucky charm. She hadn’t even been able to pawn the damn thing. It sang out trouble every time she bent over and felt it swing.

And Harry… well, he wasn’t looking at anything but her.

Which finally reminded her of Max. Right. Him. Still in attendance.

“Friend of yours?” he asked, tension doctoring his voice, his manhood beginning to sense it was no longer the biggest personality on this bridge.

Harry stopped beside the bike, arms unwound at his sides, the illustration of unbothered dominance. He smiled—politely. The way you smile at a child holding a sharp object.

“Are we friends, sweetheart?” he asked, voice like old bourbon, brows creasing.

Sweetheart. The death knell, and her thighs clenched reflexively. It hadn't just haunted her—it had reigned over her the past few nights. The same voice that had murmured filth into her ear two days ago. The voice that held elevator doors open while promising he’d find her.

And find her, he did.

That morning, in the afterglow of her escape, she took the subway home. A jarring transition—metal bars and flickering fluorescents after marble floors and velvet shadows. The silence was different here from the schmancy hotel. Lonely. Awful.

She had clutched her coat tighter around her, the ring—Harry's ring—tucked deep in the lining, out of sight but burning against her, whipping a second heartbeat.

She told herself not to give in, that she was done playing that role, and she was the one in control. That this wasn’t going to get under her skin.

Ten minutes after changing into homewear, choking down old cereal, she had crumbled into her bed, slid her impatient hand under her shorts, and her fingers were inside her.

Her calves were quivering, her breath hitching in little gasps as she ground against the little circles of her knowledgeable hand, trying to chase the shape of his body from memory. Harry wasn’t there, but he was—in every detail. The heat of his mouth, his hand wrapped around her breasts, the scrumptious way he filled her with that dignified cock of his—slow at first, then rough, snapping his hips up into hers. The way his voice got like a caress over her skin, low drawl and dark worship, every groaned sweetheart and baby was an affirmation.

The first orgasm hit shamefully fast, and she hated the way her body answered to his even when he wasn’t around to make demands.

The second one was slower, needier, drawn out like a confession. She brought herself there—teeth sunk into the corner of her pillow, a low whimper pressed into cotton—imagining the exact way he groaned when she swallowed, tightened around him, how he held her face when he kissed her one last time.

When she finally came, it rolled through her like a storm. Her toes curled and pointed. Her eyes snapped open. Her spine arched and her chest heaved, and she swore she could still feel the ghost of his hands squeezing on her tits.

Afterwards, she lay in the dark, one arm flung over her face, body singing, satisfied and ruined, but her mind didn’t quiet. Her eyes were wet, though she wouldn’t admit it to herself. Maybe it was the heat of frustration.

And still, her fingers had lingered at the curve of her thigh, debating going back for a third. Because he was the only thing that made her feel like this in a really long time. This desperate, this tempted, this berserk for a man.

And now he was here. In the flesh.

Max, tragically oblivious to nuance—bless him and the cocktail of ketamine confidence and startup scramble sloshing through his veins—tried again.

“You know her, man?”

Harry didn’t answer right away. Of course not. The man moved like punctuation: purposely, only when it mattered, and never to explain himself to idiots in leather jackets and bootcut jeans. His gaze flicked toward Max, cold and brief, confirming the source of an unpleasant smell.

He drawled that voice again, “She’s—”

She panicked. Nope. Not happening. That word—whatever it was—was going to ruin everything for her.

She cut in fast. “He’s my dad!”

Silence.

A cosmic silence that might precede a solar eclipse, or a smiting. Her pulse fluttered, but she didn’t let it show.

Harry’s blink was criminally slow. His right eye twitched—he really was gorgeous when he was restraining homicidal rage.

And for a second, she thought maybe she could sell it. Maybe Max would be dumb enough to swallow it whole. Until Harry’s jaw flexed with such epic, generational disappointment that she had to follow up.

She offered, as sweetly as arsenic, “Stepdad. Technically.”

Still nothing from either of the dumbasses. Except the murderous, taught twitch in Harry's jaw that persisted.

She could’ve stopped there and let it simmer. But no, she was on a roll, so she might as well juggle the knives while blindfolded.

She slipped from Max's side, wedge heels clicking lightly on the concrete, and made her way to Harry's—hips swaying like this was her runway, not the walk of shame. (Which, frankly, it was.) She nudged her arm into his, gently, teasing.

“Yeah,” she said brightly, pitching her voice just loud enough for Max to hear. “Been that way for sometime now. I even call him… Papi.”

Harry’s lips parted. “Jesus.”

She beamed up at him, casually chucking his chin. “Look at my Papi. He just loves it.”

Then, just for him, smile endearing, her eyes slicing into his, a plea laced with a threat, conveying a message, ‘Play along or I swear to god, I'll sell the ring to someone who makes NFTs.’

Harry broke, and she felt that little exhale of surrender, her heart quieting. She always knew how to find the seam and pry it open.

“Ye—”

“I think,” she said, cutting him off again, “he just got really worried that I was with a guy who drives a motorcycle. Probably why he followed us. Right?”

Harry’s sigh was biblical. “Right.”

She flashed Max an outlandish smile. “He’s just so protective of me.”

Harry muttered something under his breath—it sounded suspiciously like ‘not from motorcycles, from syphilis.’ But he kept it under control.

Max nodded, clearly recalibrating, trying to navigate whatever Freudian mess he’d just been handed. “Huh. Tight family.”

You have no idea, she thought. Tight like a noose.

Then Harry—with all the calm of a man choosing which blade to use—turned to her, one hand casually resting on the open car door. “Get in the car.”

She raised a brow. “What if I like it here?”

Harry’s gaze dropped to her mouth. “Then I’ll put you inside myself, sweetheart. And you will like that.”

Max blinked.

She blinked.

Everyone blinked.

It wasn’t a suggestion. But the way he said it—lazy, low, the vaguest husk in his voice—made it sound like he was inviting her into a hotel bed, not his luxury sedan.

She hesitated, just long enough to feel her own nerves flicker. Every atom of her body screamed don’t. Her spine tensed, her breath caught. Her instincts did what they always did when danger showed up in a bespoke LV suit: calculate.

Because she wasn’t just nervous about Harry. She was nervous about what she was still willing to do for the ring. The stupid, gaudy, exquisite thing, nestled like a vice between her breasts. Dollars and dollars of regret strung around her neck like a dare. It was untouchable, unsellable. But unfinished.

And if there was one thing she did not ever do, it was leave a job incomplete. That was the difference between girls who handled cons and girls who got caught.

So she turned.

Max, dear, dumb Max, was still standing there blinking as if Harry had shaken his snow globe. A golden retriever of a man—tail wagging, unaware of the incoming truck. Poor baby.

She stepped into his space, ran her fingers through his hair, thick and slick with too much product. He grinned, warm, doped up on whatever startup serotonin and weed vape was still sloshing in his bloodstream. She tugged lightly, just enough for the illusion to hold—and to keep him still while she worked.

“Your Papi is crazy,” he whispered.

She pouted. “My Papi gets possessive.”

Then she kissed him. A just-there kiss that was more sleight of hand than affection, a big smokescreen. As her lips grazed his, her eyes slid sideways—past his shoulder, past the fog of cologne and naivete—to find Harry.

His arms crossed, face unreadable, but she could see it—the coiled silence that came before a tsunami. A cool exterior stretched tight over a woodland gone ablaze.

She smiled against Max’s mouth.

And then she opened hers wider, let her tongue slide deeper, brought Max's arm around her waist, pushed out a soft, breathy moan that was pure theatre—every inch of it aimed at Harry, like an arrow dipped in gasoline.

She could feel the heat of his glare sear the air between them, almost hear the crack of his patience splitting clean down the middle. That sexy, murderous calm he wore like his perfect suit. The quiet, intoxicating fury of a man used to control. She wanted to shatter that. Hence.

Poor sweet idiot Max thought that this was his win. When in truth, she was just using his mouth as her mirror, reflecting what she would like Harry to know. No one owned her unless she let them.

So she pushed her lips to Max like a queen bestowing favour. Slid one arm around his neck, the other deftly trailing down, fingers slipping against the back of the chain—click—and the clasp gave. The necklace dropped soundlessly into her palm, and just like that, mission: salvaged.

“I had so much fun with you tonight, Max. Will you call me?” she asked, brushing her lips with his, eyes wide with fake vulnerability, lashes at full-performance flutter.

“Don’t have your number,” he murmured, but—like a party trick—produced a business card from his jeans. Two fingers, smug grin.

He tucked it between her bra and blouse with a wink. The card brushed right over where the ring rested. Perfect. Layered lies, that always got her off.

“Go, baby girl,” he said, “before your dad pulls out a Glock on us.”

She almost lost it all to a snorting laugh. He was just so damn sincere. He honestly thought this was edgy roleplay and not a real-life power struggle with a man who could and maybe would pull a Glock.

He was sweet. And, like most sweet things in her life—disposable.

She turned, chain coiled in her fist like a snake, the heat of Max's lips fading, and walked back toward the Maybach, hips swinging just a little extra, enough to prove she wasn’t scared, and just to dare Harry to make a scene.

Harry, ever the gentleman—or sociopath—opened the door for her.

And as she passed him, his hand landed squarely on her ass.

Not what you’d expect from a stepfather. Unless, of course, you subscribed to very specific corners of the internet smut where shame and power blurred together with a click.

Because this wasn’t a grope. It was a claim.

Calculated, possessive, and arrogant as hell. His fingers squeezed in with the confidence that came from knowing every inch of her—past tense be damned. Smug fucking bastard.

Her spine straightened instinctively. Her breath caught—in that white-hot fuse of adrenaline and indignation. The gall of him. The sheer, effortless nerve. Sliding back into her orbit like he’d always been allowed there, her body was a place he still paid taxes on.

She said nothing, but her lips curved faintly.

Touché, Papi.

She slid into the leather seat, the door thunking shut behind her like the closing of a vault.

Harry moved with that predatory grace—shoulders fluid, jaw sharp with purpose. The chauffeur didn’t need a cue; whether machine or man, the car cruised forward like it knew his mind.

As they rolled past the curb, she glanced back.

Max was still standing there, his hands in his pockets, reeling. His mouth hung open slightly, one combat boot half-scuffed on the pavement like he’d tried to follow, like a man trying to figure out whether he'd just been mugged, ghosted, or seduced. (Newsflash: all three.)

His eyes met hers through the tinted window. She smiled sweetly.

He raised a hand to wave—slowly, hesitantly, like a puppy who didn’t know if he was still welcome. Such a cute little puppy.

She blew him a kiss.

Then turned her head just as he caught it, head forward, game face on, as the Maybach slid into traffic.

Because the ring was around her neck, her spoils of the night in her palm, and Harry—Harry fucking Castillo—was beside her.

If she thought this was over, she was sorely mistaken.

Proving that Harry Castillo was still a man—and, more damningly, still hers in some subterranean, unspoken crevice of himself—he couldn’t stop looking.

Not that he tried. Subtlety had never been his vice of choice.

His gaze, unapologetically male, raked down her legs, bared now without the safety net of stockings. She’d swapped the Louboutins for a pair of espadrille wedges that gave her just enough height to twist the knife. Her dress was floral—floral, for fuck’s sake. A dizzy little number with a cinched waist, soft cotton and a neckline that walked the line between innocent and criminal negligence. Her hair was different, too—soft waves framed her face and shoulders, and a thin, delicate braid spun across the back of her head like she was auditioning to be in a fairytale.

Last time he'd seen her, she'd looked like sex in a red wine glass. Now she was practically Thumbelina in a sundress. He wasn’t fooled, and neither was she.

She knew what she looked like—played it quite successfully, even—and yet somehow, Harry was still the one twitching in his own car.

She could feel the air crackle in the car every time his gaze dipped. The anticipation coiled tenser every time she adjusted the elastic bust or crossed one leg over the other. Not even for his benefit—but Jesus, it was working anyway. That was the thing—she wasn’t trying to seduce him. That ship had sailed, sunk, and was now rotting on the ocean floor with all the other men who’d thought they could handle her.

On a less desperate note, it was her first time in a Maybach. Hopefully, also her last.

It was more of a rolling reliquary for titans chasing immortality through market share and unresolved daddy issues. The leather was too plush, the silence too padded. Everything about it exclaimed power, permanence, and ownership. She wouldn’t lounge in these private-jet-on-wheels seats like some arm candy with Stockholm Syndrome, so she perched instead—like she might bolt at any second or bite you for trying.

At her feet, two chrome-plated champagne flutes sparkled like tiny totems of excess. The mini-fridge hummed softly under the console. And of course, there was a mounted touchscreen display for ‘mood lighting.’ She wondered what ‘mood’ it glowed when someone was being interrogated by an ex-one-night-stand-slash-target.

She stared at all the luxuries for a moment, counting up the invisible zeroes. How many zeroes did it take to turn a car into his bastion?

Harry finally spoke to break the five-minute silence, his voice low, amused, a touch accusatory, but still he couldn’t quite believe she was real.

“What’s your winnings on this one?”

He was reclining a little ways from her, and his dark eyes were still somewhere south, too—pretending not to enjoy he way the dress hugged her chest too much, and failing with flair.

She turned just enough to see that. She toyed with a fingernail, let it hover innocently near her lips.

“Nothing major, Papi.”

His brows lifted, just a tick. A man politely pretending to be surprised. He looked away, scoffing under his breath. “You’re allergic to 'nothing.'”

God, he was so painfully predictable. She offered a sugar-slick smile and sang out, “A tiiiny necklace. And... a ring.”

His posture stiffened a fraction. Alert, now. His eyes, the very shade of dark rum and worse decisions, cut to hers. “Collecting trophies now, are we?”

“Maybe.” She tilted her head. “Or planning a garage sale. Depends on the market.”

Harry leaned toward her, eyes hardening like he was ready to shift into another register. “Don’t fuck with me, Eve.”

His gruelling scowl was almost convincing—if her name had actually been Eve. That meant he still didn’t know who she really was. Not her name, not her history—so what was this, then? Some twisted coincidence? A brush with fate? Had he really followed her across town, all smooth in his black Maybach, chasing nothing more than a memory? No plan, no confirmation—just a vague pull and a hunch?

If so, it was almost laughable. Almost romantic, too. But mostly dangerous.

So, she leaned in, too, because it was fun to play. Her voice dropped half a note. “I already did fuck with you.”

Harry exhaled, long and frayed at the edges, and ran a hand down his face like she was a stain he could wipe away.

“Sweetheart,” he muttered, and it landed somewhere between a threat and a bribe, “if you give me that ring, I’ll take you to Fifth Avenue right now. You want two more? A whole fucking hand? A bracelet to go with it? Done. My card and Cartier Building are yours.”

She leaned back, arms crossed, biting her lip to contain amusement. It was almost too easy. Men... just dangle a little sex, a little danger, and they’d throw diamonds at you like Mardi Gras beads.

She allowed herself a small laugh—cruel, delighted. “Are you trying to buy me off with guilt jewellery? A shiny booby prize?”

“I’m trying to stop you from being stupid.”

Her lips thinned into a surgical smile. “If you wanted me rational, Harry, you should’ve fucked an accountant.”

Harry gave a pleased, filthy little hum. “Do you still have it?”

“Who says I do?”

“You do,” he insisted, like it was gravity. “You wore it out of that suite like a goddamn medal.”

She turned back to the window. The city was starting to rise in the distance, blurred under bridge lights. “Maybe I pawned it. Maybe I mailed it to your ex-girlfriend, little miss matchmaker. Maybe it’s at the bottom of a koi pond in Brooklyn.”

He just stared at her, no humour or patience left.

She shifted in her seat, her sundress sliding higher, not for him, but his inhale still snagged. Luxury-wrapped warfare, and she was fully fucking armed.

She was dismantling him, with bare legs and a grin that said, ‘You wanted this. I want it more now.’ And somewhere deep in that beautiful bastard brain of his, Harry knew it.

The Maybach hummed like a well-fed predator through the avenues, insulated from honks and heat. Outside was chaos, inside was gloved luxury, stitched leather, and two people pretending they weren’t seconds from lunging across the seat.

Harry's hand rested like a loose threat on the centre console. Still watching her, cataloguing every inch as if she weren’t already in his bloodstream, whether he liked it or not.

“You know,” he said finally, voice cool, “I’ve handled mergers with less resistance. And, never so deep in stalker territory that they know about my exes.”

She examined her nails, chipped from the subway turnstile. “Well, curiosity never killed anyone. And you know,” she countered, “I’ve handled richer men with worse cars.”

He glanced around the cabin, unimpressed. “That’s not even true.”

“It’s sadly true,” she said, biting back a grin.

He snorted because a real laugh would be too generous. His eyes dragged over her once more.

“That ring,” he said, finally, “wasn’t for sale or for taking.”

She feigned shock, clutching her imaginary pearls. “So possessive. I thought you evolved past that.”

Harry leaned forward, entirely implying a threat. “You don’t even know what it is.”

She met his eyes, head tipped. “I know it’s worth enough to make you beg.”

“Do you think this is funny?”

“I think it’s hilarious. And useful.”

Harry exhaled through his nose, and a smile nearly escaped. “Jesus. You’re not even trying to tempt me, and somehow it’s working.”

That earned him a slow, wicked smile. “Good.”

And that was the problem. She wasn’t trying from the start of this. She was just being—aggravating, hungry, radiant—and it was working. She knew it was, she saw it in the way his jaw kept flexing like he wanted to kiss her stupid and strangle her at the same time. He hadn’t touched her since that little performance at the curb, but she could still feel his hand, ghosted and smug across her ass. An assertion. A pushpin.

He cracked a bit of tension in his neck. “You keep that ring, Eve, and you’re in deep shit. I don’t bluff.”

“No, you just hold women against their will in your little jet-car and call them sweetheart like it’s 1942. Very romantic.”

He turned toward her, elbow on the backrest, his voice silken steel. “You’re not even scared.”

“Nope,” she said, flicking her eyes toward him. “I’m starving.”

He blinked at her, thrown for a second.

Then she added, sweet as syrup: “And I’m guessing you’re not dumb enough to threaten me on an empty stomach.”

Harry leaned back, assessing her like an appraiser with a looted painting. “You’re doing a lot of talking for someone exceptionally screwed.”

“Oh, Harry.” She leaned in across the console, chin in her hand, close enough that her breath brushed his jaw. “I’m only proposing a dinner. In exchange for what you want. Seems generous, considering the resale value of your little emotional support ring.”

His jaw flexed. “It’s not emotional.”

“Of course not,” she said, settling back. “Just as priceless as your ego.”

Harry narrowed his eyes. “And need I remind you, this is extortion?”

“No,” she chirped brightly. “That’s dinner with a woman far out of your tax bracket.”

“Sweetheart, you—”

She shrugged one bare shoulder, calm as a cat sunning itself on a windowsill. “Come on. You missed me. Admit it. You just didn’t know where to find me.”

“I did, too, find you,” he shot back.

She lifted one perfectly arched brow. “After I’d finished with Max. Lucky break.”

“Greased Lightning, sure,” he muttered. “Real prize. Had his hand halfway up your skirt, tongue on your tonsils.”

She pointed an accusatory finger. “Slut-shaming me isn’t the persuasive tactic you think it is, mister.”

He ran his tongue along the inside of his cheek, ravenous eyes wandering up from the hem of her dress to her legs. “Not shaming. Just saying—you have interesting taste in rebound mechanics.”

“You jealous?” she asked sweetly, tilting her head.

His silence was golden; she wanted it in her palms.

“I was,” he said finally. He said it like it hurt to admit.

She flashed all her teeth, brilliant and wicked. “Aw, my Papi. Feeling things for me.”

Without warning, Harry leaned across the console—a fluid, avaricious shift that closed the space between them.

A flinch would give her away. Her chin still rested delicately in her hand, fingers curled beneath it like a bored schoolgirl. Her eyes sharpened, her mouth twitched, she didn’t move exactly, but every cell in her was suddenly keyed in.

He dragged a knuckle down the line of her jaw, featherlight—and of course it was that territorial, ravenous touch of his. As though he was checking to see if she still had skin, if it still responded to him. Yes, it did, and she hated that he knew.

“You really let him touch you like that? Right in front of me?” he murmured, fingers down the expanse of her throat, words curling with conversational filth. “You have no idea how easy it'd be to take you somewhere dark, pull those panties aside and remind you who makes you come.”

Her breath caught—a moment of restraint slipping because the sharp, vivid mental picture bloomed uninvited.

He was close enough now for her to smell the faint trace of his cologne—the same bergamot, wood and fresh banknotes—and underneath that, worse: familiarity. She hated that she remembered how he smelled. She hated it more than it still made her soaked in her best pair of panties.

Yet, she didn’t lean away. She didn’t so much as bat an eye when his fingers grazed her collarbone, dipping lower. She let him find the chain—let him think he was in control for a beat too long.

“You really want to see if it’s there?” she asked softly, teasing, a whisper with claws.

He took the bait, all male and smug, lifting the chain from between her breasts like he was unveiling buried treasure.

And there it was.

His precious ring.

That big, fat emerald swung like a pendulum between them—silent, supine, damning. She watched his eyes lock on it, and the flicker of recognition sharpen into a darker emotion. Greed. Frustration. Lust. Who knew—with Harry, the difference was academic.

He stared at it like it was a rib she’d stolen from his body while he slept.

“Ben,” he said, voice a velvet growl, never taking his eyes off her.

“Sir,” the driver answered with CIA-level readiness. As if he wasn’t listening to foreplay masquerading as directions.

“Miss... Eve is feeling famished. Spring Street, please. Sixth Avenue. Thanks.”

“Copy,” Ben muttered, keying his mic on his wrist. Then, under his breath, too low for the intercom or for his passenger's ears: “Yeah, sure. Let’s get her something to eat before she swipes your socks, too.”

Upon his command, the Maybach veered off course. Even at the razor's edge, Harry had it in him to be the well-mannered rich boy he was raised to be.

And, honestly, saviour Ben deserved hazard pay for the things he heard behind tinted glass. He must've thought that these two were sick with tension. She stole his ring, and he changed course for dinner. That was either love or capture-bonding... with a tip included.

She smiled at the road ahead. A sinful thing that unfolded like a plan, because yes, this was exactly why she’d kept the ring. Not for the money, though, it was easily six figures. Not even for the power, not in the obvious way.

But because he wanted it back, and wanting made Harry sloppy.

It made him touch. It made him chase. It made him reckless and sweet and very, very red-blooded, dumb male. Which meant she’d already won. Before the wine or the check arrived at whatever overpriced hole they were headed to.

She was still the one who dictated the terms. And Harry—poor, rage-polished, ring-hungry Harry—was already halfway back on the leash.

She crossed one leg over the other, reclined just a touch deeper into the seat, and gave him that look—You can have me or the ring. But only if you beg.

He still thought he had the upper hand. Wasn’t it just so cute?

Just the same, Big Dick Castillo brought his A-game for dinner.

The restaurant wasn’t just high-end—it was the kind of place that required two weeks’ notice, a powerbroker’s name on the reservation, and a tolerance for quirky food that looked like modern art. The hostess notably buttered him up, simpered away, took his coat, and called him Mr. Castillo.

“Been here before?” Harry asked as they were guided to their booth.

She didn’t answer, only let her eyes sweep the place—white linen tablecloths, waiters gliding past, a floral arrangement taller than her ego.

She wasn’t dressed for this. Too much skin, not enough couture. The jute of her espadrille heels was scuffed, her clutch was vintage in the wrong way, and her dress—while cute—read detrimental in a room full of tasteful dialogue and five-figure watches. She wished she hadn’t given away the flying fuck she’d reserved for Harry.

So instead, she slid into the booth, crossed her legs slowly, and leaned back like fuck it, let them all look. She’d never belonged in rooms like this, but she knew how to survive them.

Two Michelin stars. Or was it three, maybe? The lighting was gloomy, the cutlery artisanal, and the food came served under glass domes, wreathed in mist like a gothic séance. Every plate looked like a photograph from an art film: uni foam over wild nettle jelly, soil-infused mushroom consommé, whale fat ice-cream (yes, that.) There was no fixed menu—just blind trust in the chef, a man in clogs and tattoos who barely acknowledged them.

This was indulgent, out of her league, so of course she pretended to be unimpressed, like it was routine—hair touched up in the restroom, lips glossy again with the applicator of a stolen Chanel lipstick, heels clicking on imported Italian tile, seated next to a man who could pay her rent for the rest of her life and still have cash left to purchase a moiety of New York.

She even sneaked a photo of the dessert course when Harry got up to take a call, because come on. When else did she get plated edible Parmesan air on gold-rimmed porcelain?

Her last meal had been oatmeal with water, for crying out loud. Not milk. Water.

You could always ask why she didn’t just marry rich. She was beautiful enough to hoodwink them, so why not find a bored billionaire, play the long con, inherit the empire, and vanish somewhere scenic—the Amalfi Coast, or whatever place rich widows went to drink too much rosé—and feign rebirth? And sure, she’d considered it more than once. She wasn’t above strategy.

But something in her—call it pride, call it defiance, hunger for independence—refused to take the easy exit. And maybe one day she would. Maybe she’d settle for a gorgeous, uncomplicated Harry Castillo with deep pockets and no prenup, let herself be worshipped into early retirement. Just not yet.

She was still young, still electric, still drop-dead sexy. There was too much potential and too much fun to be had. Why skip to the end when she could win first? Use her beauty and her brains, pull strings, stay one step ahead of men with power.

Now, in the curved booth, a gilded lamplight spotlit above them, sitting beside her—never across, god forbid—was her latest complication.

Of course, Harry sat next to her, because across meant distance. Across meant restraint, and that would imply boundaries. This man didn't know how to spell the word, let alone observe it. He sat close enough that his thigh occasionally bumped hers. His scent was dark, warm, invasive, the same Jean Paul le Castillo, again, and his attention was even worse. Fork in one hand, wine glass in the other, and that goddamn heinous, hungry look in his eyes as he stared at her lips like it owed him answers.

The new ring—a ruby the size of a small nation—winked on his ring finger, gaudy and melodramatic. It clinked against his glass as he reached forward. His shirt sleeve inched up just enough to reveal his Hublot—black steel, custom dial, subtle as a gun to the temple. And paired with that bracelet, Damascus steel, he was cosplaying the final boss of Grand Theft Auto.

Her thighs pressed together. Inexcusable. Her hormones were staging a mutiny.

She’d spent the fundamental part of her life making sex a transaction. A leverage, a blade, for which men paid in obsession. And now, with him, her instincts were starting to betray her. Lust came up uninvited, and that wasn’t part of the plan.

Harry made her forget where the end was, made her want to tear off her own armour just to climb into his lap and beg. Before then, out of the blue—

“So, how many men came before me?”

He didn’t clarify. Lovers? Marks? The poor bastards who’d mistaken her for a doormat?

She took a slow sip of water, letting the silence stretch long enough to tighten the air. One brow ticked upward. “You want a number, or just a vague estimate that’ll challenge your gall? And also, ruin your appetite.”

He smirked, impressed. “I want honesty.”

She tilted her head. “Ooh, that's a new kink.”

“I’m possessive,” he admitted, pretty garish on his part. “Big difference.”

“Mm.” Her smile curved, feline. “Possessive is only sexy when the person saying it isn’t two drinks away from growling.”

“It’s sexy when it comes with dinner like this.” He waved his hand at the table.

She leaned back slightly, crossing one leg over the other, her heel dangling just a little. “You’re trying to get in my head.”

“I’m trying to understand you.”

“Why? You already got the ring. It's right in front of you. All polished and accounted for.”

He reached across the table and let his knuckle trace her cheekbone, then followed the angle of her jaw like he was mapping her. Shiftless, patient.

“You used it to bait me into dinner,” he said, a thumb stroking at her glistening lip. “Could’ve handed it over in the car. Hell, you could’ve pawned it, vanished. But you didn’t. So... you want me, too.”

She grinned at that—wide, unapologetic, teeth and trouble. “You’re adorable when you think you’re in charge.”

His gaze sharpened, darkened. But not in anger—he was starved. Amused, too. “What do you want from me, then?”

“I don’t know yet,” she said, humming. “A better quality of dessert. Maybe something shiny to take home.”

“To wear or to sell?”

She pushed her bottom lip out. “Depends on whether you make me laugh.”

He shook his head, chuckling into his wine glass. “You’re the hysterical one, sweetheart.” He swallowed his sip, humming, “Do you ever think of doing anything else? Something legit?”

She pretended to think, tapping a finger against her chin. “You mean wait tables? Or marrying a hedge fund vampire who forgets my birthday every year but I have to offset with a wealth of blowjobs?”

He looked at her—a quiet examination that wasn’t judgment, as if wondering what it would take for her to stop running.

“I think you’re more priceless and smarter than you let on, or the little games you play.”

She laughed softly at that—a sound that had just the right amount of sadness tucked in the corners. “Yeah, well. The games pay the bills. And at least I get to choose the rules.”

Harry leaned in, an elbow resting on the table, voice a shade lower now—meant just for her. “You know, you don’t have to play a game to have me take you out. I would've abandoned an intergalactic arms deal if you wanted me here tonight.”

She burst with a giggle, and it was cute how much he took pride in making her laugh. She eventually locked eyes with him and said, calm and clean:

“But it’s so much more satisfying when I win first.”

That made him laugh. A proper, wrecked laugh dropped from his throat, and it surprised even him.

“Jesus Christ,” he murmured, still half-winded. “You’re the only woman I’ve ever met who could rob me blind and make me this hard at the same time.”

She bit her lip—as though it weren’t the exact effect she’d planned down to the second. Spoon clinked softly against the plate as she set it down with ceremony, eyes gleaming.

“I wanna see it,” she whispered, scooting closer to him on the leather booth, until her side was flush against his.

“Eve, sweetheart,” he warned.

She smoothed her lips against his jaw, playing a good little girl. “Show me. Please.”

Her fingers found the zipper of his tailored trousers, the expensive ones, that held shape like a secret. And it was amazing—how hard he was, how her palm couldn’t quite span the bold swell beneath, and how he throbbed to her touch.

She dragged her hand down, watching his face tighten—like a crackling electrical wire. His jaw flexed. His gaze darted briefly to the corners of the restaurant, the other elitist millionaires, scanning for anyone who might recognise the man unravelling.

Then he leaned in. A husky, thrumming caution. “If I knew you were going to get like this, I’d have asked for a private room.”

She stuck out her tongue, childish. “No fun.”

He laughed under his breath and traced a big fingertip down her cheek. “Tell me you missed me.”

“I did miss you,” she said like the sweetheart she was, and the best part was—it was true. Truth spoken with the cadence of a lie. Or a dare. “I thought you’d find me sooner. I waited for you.”

“Duty calls.” His voice dipped, like he hated saying it. “I'm sorry, honey. I was out of town yesterday.”

That explained everything and nothing. She was not satisfied.

She didn’t stop either, her hand kept its lazy rhythm over his bulge, like she was idly petting a wild animal. “I couldn’t sleep at night, Harry.”

His fathomless eyes were trained on her mouth. “Why not?”

“You know how much I missed you? How I was touching myself, wishing it was you inside me?” Her voice turned to silk—sinful, edged with heat, weaponised.

He exhaled sharply, words ghosting over her ear. “Prove it.”

She smiled, slow and wicked, like she’d been waiting for that line all night. With one last stroke, she removed her hand, pursuing her fingers up his jaw—lingering just enough to make his breath hitch. Down the line of his neck, across the snow-white shirt that skirted right around his shoulders, over that infuriatingly sculpted bicep, tough forearm, wrist—the original blueprint of sex—until she led his hand beneath her skirt, just enough to tilt the balance of power.

His long, large fingers took charge from there. They swept her panties aside without an afterthought and found her soaked right through and aching. Home turf, indeed.

A single long finger teased upward through her slick folds, the dewy little bead he wanted to tease all night. Her hips twitched, seeking more; she bit down on a moan that would’ve embarrassed her in any other life. But not here, not when she had the upper hand.

“Making such a mess,” he murmured, and started to push right in.

She caught his wrist—gently, firmly—and pulled his hand away. She wasn’t done playing. “Then let me clean up.”

Bringing his fingers to her mouth, ever so slowly, let her lips part just enough to catch one finger and draw it in. Her eyes never left his as she tasted herself on her tongue.

Harry’s nostrils flared. His jaw twitched, a visible glitch in his otherwise polished self-control. She could virtually hear the recalibration transpiring behind his eyes—an expensive machine overheating under pressure.

“You ever heard of taking turns?” he rasped, voice sandpapered and low.

She hummed into his finger with a grin.

Her tongue curled around the length of his finger in lazy, loving worship. She let her teeth graze the bone, just enough to sting, pulled away with a wet, filthy pop—then slid her hand back to the heat pressed against his trousers.

Still gloriously hard. Harder, maybe.

He made a sound. Barely audible, but visceral—her rich boy was about to snap.

“Mm, I missed my friend,” she teased, palm grazing along the thick outline of him, the way you'd check the heft of a stolen gold bar. “We need to take care of you.”

“Not in here,” he gritted, eyes flicking toward the very public preposterous restaurant, as if remembering too late they were still surrounded by pristine cutlery, half-finished wine glasses, and utterly oblivious millionaires.

She leaned in, voice sugarcoated and silk-wrapped. “Why not? Afraid the waitstaff will find out their favourite industrialist menace is getting head under the table?”

“Sweetheart,” he ground out, jaw tight, “you’re going to get us thrown out.”

She gasped, scandalised. “Oh, no. Not banned from a place where the peach coulis costs more than the average rent.” Her fingers traced the outline of him again, sinfully curious. “But it’s cute that you think I care.”

He gripped the table’s edge. “Outside.”

She leaned closer and click—her teeth snapped together in a playful bite.

What followed was a blur—his credit card swiped on the reader, the receipt signed with a flourish so fast it might’ve been a stock ticker. Between curt commands to the valet and a quiet, untamed “stand by for now,” to his head of security, there were brushes, glances, touches: her fingers sinking just beneath his waistband as he tipped the maître d’, his palm skating down her bare back where her dress dipped scandalously low. Every pass of skin-to-skin felt like a dare, an escalation, a lit fuse.

By the time they ducked into the alley behind the block—dimly illumined in cinematic amber—the anticipation between them had pulled taut enough to hum. The distant purr of traffic and the faint hiss of steam from a nearby vent were the accurate background noise to a heist in progress.

Harry didn’t even get the chance to lean to get her lips before she shoved him against the wall—decisive, insolent, the brick groaning against his back. Her eyes sparkled with that delicious edge, knowing she’d rehearsed the choreography in her dreams: a two-day fantasy played out frame by frame.

And he knew exactly what she was saying, without a single word. You’re mine right now.

Her hands slid up around his neck, fingers weaving into the short curls at his nape, nails just sharp enough to sting. She made him hiss through his teeth—and she smiled at that, feral satisfaction flashing across her lips. How could a man like the great Harry Castillo—so composed, so powerful, so painfully in control—still be reduced to deprived flesh under her touch?

“What did you say to me?” she panted. “That you'd drag me somewhere dark, pull my panties aside, and remind me who makes me come?”

His grin crooked sideways, as if it physically hurt to hold back a groan. “Still sounds like a solid plan to me.”

They let the words hang in the air between them, as her hips crushed into his, allowing him to feel the slow roll of her body against his, just so he damn sure remembered. She pulled back to lock eyes with him, and his expression was glowing with wicked amusement.

“Because that got me so wet,” she added, one brow lifting. “Truly. I’m so touched.”

He gave a rough laugh, hands twitching on her body. “Touched? If you keep grinding like that, I will absolutely bless the whole city block.”

She wrinkled her nose, displeased. “That's really gross, baby.”

He wrinkled his nose back at her. “Just get a move on. With you, my witty repartee functions scramble themselves.”

“That's really hot, baby.”

Then those same hands wandered. Down his collarbone, over his chest. She moved with the assurance of someone who’d mapped this terrain before, who knew every button as if it were a checkpoint on her way to spoils.

When she was rewarded with her kiss, it was a signature scrawled in heat—messy, urgent, binding—and branding him under his clothes, where no one could see. Oh, he’d feel it.

Then her fingers were at his belt.

A low, delighted laugh escaped her. Her rhythm was impatient, rhythm-less. Zipper down, cock out. Just as big, flushed dark, curving, and thick as she remembered him. She wrapped her awaiting palm around him, unmistakably reacquainting herself with an old luxury.

God, how she’d missed this. The raw him of it. The racy confidence, the amused shock in his eyes when she got ahead of him. The twitch in his cock, like it recognised her touch better than his.

“Omigod, Harry,” she breathed, eyes darting between his and the absurd girth in her grip. Imagine a sexy, artisanal baguette. If anything, French cuisine has never sounded more decadent.

“How are you still so hard?”

His head thunked back against the bricks, and a choked laugh dragged out of him. “And?”

She giggled, softer this time. “That’s... honestly, a little heroic. Amazing.”

He groaned, the edge in his voice splitting wide open. “I swear to god—I’m going it blow it right in your hand.”

She slowed her stroke, her hand sliding between his jacket and shirt to clamp down on his waist. “Oh no, baby. You don’t get to tap out when I’ve barely started. You’re gonna see the credits after the feature.”

She gripped him tighter, thumb sweeping the crown. His hips jerked—reflexive, needy.

She knew the tells better than most men knew their passwords. The tight clench of his thighs, the way his hips twitched in expectation, that little flicker in his jaw when he was fighting not to fall apart too soon. And then the low, involuntary groan he gave when she added that precise twist at the top.

So she did it again. And again. More intended, more viciously gentle. Until his body was practically quavering under her rhythm.

That’s when he saw it.

The ring.

His ring.

Gleaming like a petite green sin in the dim alley light—bold, unrepentant, perched snug between the ridges of her knuckles. She must’ve slipped it from its chain and onto her finger when he wasn’t looking—when his pants had come down, when his brain had gone sideways. It shone against her skin with all the drama of a closing argument, catching the movement of her hand every time it slid up and down his cock. Brazen. Ridiculous. Glorious.

He stared, eyes gone wide, chest heaving like he’d just run a fucking marathon in velvet loafers. Pure disbelief tempered only by the rising surge of pleasure threatening to knock him flat.

Her decadent grin spread wider. That same tilt she used before she broke into something expensive. Criminal.

“Look how gorgeous your ring looks on my hand, baby,” she purred, constricting her grip just enough to make him feel it. Then one long, mean stroke—merciless as it was smooth—had him grunting like she’d punched the air out of him.

Sugar in her tone, filth in the intent—“Right while I’m holding your cock.”

That almost undid him. It actually did... just not in the way she expected.

His hips bucked involuntarily—hard—one palm slapping against the wall beside them like he ought to brace against her, or the gravity of her power.

And she could feel it—how close he was, how his body betrayed him completely.

“Careful now,” she whispered, breath hot against his throat. “You’re gonna come all over your ring.”

“Fuck,” he hissed. “I need you.”

His palm found her waist first, then higher—greedier—spanning the swell of her breast, fingers slipping beneath the delicate strap of her dress. He touched her like a man unravelling, desperate to memorise her with his hands before he lost himself completely. She didn’t stop him or bother to slow down.

Ladies, listen up. You let him spiral, let him lose the plot. It, therefore, generates all these amazing results. First of all, you feel like a goddamn goddess.

If anything, the heat of his palm rolling over her chest, thumb brushing the peak of her nipple, made her hand tighten at the base of him, a lazy drag of friction that made his breath catch and his teeth bare. Good, she thought. He’d looked so calm at dinner—composed, controlled, smug. It was time she rattled that composure down to the bones.

His mouth landed near her jaw, warm and unravelling, his breath skipping against the sensitive shell of her ear.

“Christ, baby,” he gulped down. “You’ll kill me.”

“Just a little,” she whispered, a threat swathed in lace.

He gripped the back of her neck now—firm, desperate, tethering. But she could feel the tremble run through him, the growing urgency that turned every touch into a grasp, every kiss into a plea.

And when she felt that telltale twitch in her palm—close, so fucking close—she sank to her knees in one fluid, irreverent motion.

“Eve!” He growled.

“Might want to hold on for this,” she murmured, reaching out and dutifully closing his hand around her hair. Her personal hairband.

His head tipped to the wall with a dull thud, and his breath was knocked right out of him.

She took him into her mouth—no tease, no soft open. Just the hot, wet seal of her lips around him, engulfing pressure sliding down with a purpose that made men remember you. Her hand twisted at the base as her tongue flattened along the underside, every flick and hollow of her cheeks perfectly paced, free hand cupped his balls, rolling them gently—almost as if she knew his body better than he did. Her hand stroked what she couldn’t take yet (a lot of it), but she was nothing if not determined, easing deeper, working her gasps and gags, her throat fluttering as she swallowed around him.

Then she pulled back just enough to kiss the tip, run her tongue around it in a slow, devastating circle, and whisper, “Look at me.”

When he did, wrecked and glassy-eyed, and nearly lost it when he saw the glint of the emerald—his emerald—catching the amber haze of the streetlight, shining vulgar and perfect as she worked him over with both mouth and hand, while that gem flashed in and out of sight like punctuation to her rhythm.

“Jesus fucking Christ,” he gritted, hands flying into her hair, helpless to the thrusts into her mouth.

And still, she smiled around him with her eyes. Because down here, on her knees, oh-so-submissive, she fucking owned him. For a single second, she was entitled to billions and billions of dollars.

He let go with a broken sound, head tilted back, hands fastened in her hair. His release hit like a convulsion—deep, violent, ragged, unstoppable—and she took it. All of it.

She kept her lips closed around him, swallowed him down like a secret, let him spill hot down her throat, held still through every violent aftershock until he finally stopped pulsing against her tongue. Only then did she let him slide from her mouth, returning a relic to the altar.

As she littered a few kisses to his hipbone, above her, he was heaving. A ruin of breath and bone, one palm braced against the bricks, the other still fisted in her hair—completely, exquisitely unravelled.

Because for all his suits, his smirks, his predator calm, his moneyed arrogance, his big dick, and relentless pursuit—this was the real him. The one leaning against a piss-stained alley wall, jaw slack, pupils blown, chest rising like he’d been resuscitated by her mouth alone. That wide-eyed, blown-open stare—cracked devotion dressed as disbelief.

Ragged. Gutted. Hers.

She sat back on her heels, knees aching, throat raw, but her chin still tipped with defiance. The streetlamp lit her up from the side, catching the gleam of spit at the corner of her bruised lips, the waterline of her eyes, and the vulgar glint of his emerald still perched like a trophy on her finger.

She didn’t wipe her mouth or fix her hair. She wanted him to see it—the wreckage, the proof still painting her skin.

Look what you made me do, her body said. Now look what I did to you.

“To clarify,” she said, breath still ragged, eyes sharp with mischief. “Was that your soul I just sucked out or are you always this dramatic post-nut?”

He barked a laugh, dragging one trembling hand through his sweat-mussed hair, the other still propping him upright. “You are fucking unbelievable,” he panted.

“Mm.” She rose slowly, brushing imaginary lint off her shoulders and dusting her knees. “Takes one to chase one.”

But just as she turned to make her exit with all the flair of a woman who had already won, his hand caught her jaw.

He wasn’t anywhere near done with her.

He pulled her back around for a feral kiss, so strangely intimate, still so insatiate beneath the smug exterior. Tasting himself, tasting them, tongue plunging, moustache tickling, chasing whatever high was lost into her throat once more.

His other hand plunged low and hiked her thigh up around his hip in one swift motion, dragging her flush against him, pinning her, crowding her into the wall. She gasped at the feel of him again, already half-hard and thoughtless, thrusting up into the soaked heat of her panties, all the way through the flimsy lace and cotton barriers.

He broke the kiss just long enough to whisper against her gasping open mouth, “Let me return the favour, sweetheart. I'm a stickler for settling debts.”

“You're hard again?” she giggled, disbelieving. Her hand snuck back to confirm the evidence. “It's been two seconds.”

He grinned, teeth flashing. “It’s the new suit. Gets me going. You like?”

“Jesus, Harry,” she muttered, impressed. “This is either compulsive or Olympic. Have you been microdosing Viagra?”

“I’m just really, really motivated when I see you.”

She gave him a slow stroke through the fabric, lips parted in faux wonder. “Oh, I noticed. Your amazing dick has the recovery rate of a Marvel superhero.”

That husky, ruined laugh of his rang smoke signals all the way to her down there.

She will not deny it: she wanted to let him fuck her. She had been patient was a really long time (read, really two days.) That was practically monastic discipline.

She wanted to be slammed into that wall, chest down, hands crushed in the small of her back, and torn apart. She wanted him to slide into her fast, unrelenting, to fill her in one breathless, punishing thrust and ruin all the good work she’d done painting herself as unfuckwithable. She knew just how soaked she was, how badly her body wanted to cave in and make it impossible for him to forget her.

Instead, she pulled back far enough to break away from him. Her hands stayed on him whilst his desperate lips mouthed up her jaw and ears—one over his feverish heart, the other tenderly cradling his jaw.

Seemingly, fucking around and finding out included taking the win with her. So, she grinned, bright and goddamn invincible.

“Easy, big guy,” she murmured, dragging a lithe finger down his nose and lips. “You blow your load again, what’s left for the encore?”

He stared at her like she was both his best miracle and worst menace.

Then she dropped her leg, smoothed the hem of her dress, and leaned in one last time—her mouth teasing at the shell of his ear—and kissing the coarse arc of his cheek.

“Now, you owe me a ride.”

She hadn’t meant “ride” in the literal sense. But, of course, her recently sucked off, hedge-fund god had taken it that way.

Now here she was, waiting on a curb like a stranded groupie, knees hugged to her chest, fingers picking absently correcting her reapplied gloss, watching him pace twenty feet away, swirling through Important Business like he ran the New York Stock Exchange and the moon phases at the same time. Corporate acrobatics, last-minute deals, numbers, names, mergers.

Harry Castillo was the storm with no centre indeed. Elegant, effusive chaos.

She studied him, inventorying the little habits, just for herself to overthink later.

The way he loosened his collar half an inch, the fabric of his dress shirt tugging tight across his shoulder blades. The way he tilted his phone between his shoulder and ear to glance at his watch, never missing a beat in the conversation, another phone cradling market tickers and colour-coded blocks that meant nothing to her but had his full attention. The clipped, fricative syllables he used when someone tried to talk over him. The furrow of his brows. The press of his thumb and forefinger into his temple, as if the numbers both gave him migraines and fed his soul.

She wasn't supposed to notice this much, or even care. He was a depleted target.

After all, for her bravado, her games and schemes, she witnessed it in him: the sheer momentum of him. The time and tension. The experience that streaked his hair a little, crinkled at his eyes. He was the exemplar of hard work, empire-building and sleepless nights.

It was the sexiest thing she'd ever seen in any gentleman.

Yet, he made her feel small. Smaller than the filthy alley, the incredible sex, and the swagger had made her feel. It was that old, low-grade hum of self-loathing which unfurled in quiet moments when her five-dollar acrylics started to chip and bleed, and her bank account re-enacted a crime scene.

She was what she was. High school dropout, actress by ambition, hustler by necessity. Her résumé was an unconsolidated array of lies, fake eyelashes, and second jobs that paid in tips and IOUs. She didn’t articulate ‘Bloomberg,’ didn’t know what ‘price reflecting risk’ meant, and had never owned anything sparklier than a gold-plated nameplate necklace she hocked at sixteen.

She looked down at it now—his emerald ring glinting like she belonged under it's cocky gleam. Laughable, really. She twisted it round slowly, scrutinising the way it caught the streetlight as it threw new tints of the spectrum right into her undeserving eyes.

A low, motorised purr broke through her spiral.

She glanced up, confused at first, like the street itself had growled.

Something was coming. A fast, smooth statement. Sleek, angular, low-slung, orange—a tropical fruit had a baby with a warning sign. A McLaren, maybe? As far as her fluency in Car and Driver went, she could tell that thing had arguments about acceleration. Seriously, it belonged on a racetrack, not a city street. It was impractical, unreasonable, and utterly excessive—just like Harry.

As the car slid to a stop at the curb, she watched one of the suited security detail break formation and approach it while a man in gloves stepped out and performed a silent, expensive transaction with a key fob. And she—still on the curb, blinking—realised that she had been excluded from this entirely.

Oh, she wasn't part of this mean machine.

She was luggage. Really hot luggage in a pretty dress.

“It’s a platform play, but we can bolt on 2–3 tuck-ins within 18 months.” Harry was still speaking into his phone, utterly unfazed by the gravity-defying spaceship that had just landed in front of them. He was simply striding toward it like it was a goddamn Toyota.

Her stare ping-ponged between him, the security guy, the McLaren, and back to Harry. Soon, a slow surge of realisation struck her.

This was for her.

This was what happened when she joked about owing her a ride after blowing his mind (and him) in an alleyway. For one stupefied, unguarded second, she believed it—she might actually be fucked.

“We'll get this in front of IC and revert. Thanks, Mark.” A crisp click ended Harry's call, and the phones vanished into his jacket, so he turned his full attention to her.

He offered his hand, palm up, fingers splayed—infuriatingly gentlemanly. And the grin that spread across his face was downright criminal, that it should’ve come with a warning label.

“I believe I owe you a ride,” he rumbled.

She took one look at the orange beast purring by the curb and immediately shot up to her feet, cupping her hands around her mouth to control a shrill squeal.

“Harry,” she breathed.

He raised an eyebrow. “Sweetheart.”

“I should’ve given you head the first time we met.”

He snorted. “Oh, I remember. But you needed dental insurance before taking on the full... package?”

Every ounce of self-respect fled her system.

“I was joking!” she gasped, eyes locked on the car. “I mean, I’d give you your ring back—but you didn’t have to get me a sports car! This is insane. This is—”

She clapped her hands once, spun on her heel, convulsing, fanning a hand at her face. “—so goddamn sexy I might cry. Look at her! She has curves! She’s shiny! She’s so my type!”

Harry watched, entirely too amused and pleased with his own theatrics. His shoulders started to shake with deep, husky laughter.

“I hate to spoil your greedy little soul, but I just wanted a nightcap.” He tapped the hood of the car. “It was gathering dust, I figured you would appreciate—”

“I appreciate, I really, really appreciate.” She grinned, bouncing a little in place, pitch rising with every word. “Oh, we are breaking so many traffic laws tonight. We’re gonna crash this thing straight into an uppity country club.”

She bounced toward the passenger side like a kid on Christmas morning, ready to yank open the door—

“Other side.”

She halted mid-motion, narrowed her eyes at him. “Excuse me?”

He raised the key fob near his head, pushed a button—and the car croaked an obedient electronic chirp as the driver’s side door lifted vertically, like a butterfly wing.

“You’re driving us tonight,” he informed.

She stared at him, attempting to render his words to her reality. She really must've blown off the one little screw that held his common sense together.

Her heart slammed against her ribs with a cocktail of adrenaline, arousal, and unbidden panic. And with it came the reveal of: “Harry. I haven’t driven anything in years.”

“Good,” he said, strolling about to the passenger side, leather shoes scuffing. “You’ve got experience.”

She scoffed. “What... and if I kill us?”

He shrugged with that aggravating impassivity. “For what I’m worth, they’d better build a memorial—not leave me smeared on the freeway.”

The key was dropped into her hand, and she looked down at it, then at the car—her reflection warped across its polished surface.

For a moment, it began flickering behind her eyes—that horrified, disbelieving piece of her that still didn’t think she deserved to touch a machine this exquisite, let alone drive it. A thief, a fake—what business did she have behind the wheel of a seven-figure car?

Despite that, she smiled. Well, that was not her now. She was made of wicked chaos, pink Chanel gloss, and full-figured hunger.

“Well, buckle up,” she said, ducking and gliding behind the wheel, basically stepping into her final form. “If we die, I’m haunting you with blue balls in the afterlife.”

He laughed, following her in. “Duly noted, sweetheart.”

And the door hissed shut, sealing her in.

One thing you needed to know about this city—laid out like a glittering, fatigued whore at her feet—was that even the rats had a hustle.

So before you judged her for jumping at the wheel of a hypercar she didn’t own, playing the coquette in knockoffs, maybe ask yourself this: what would you do, if a million-dollar engine thrummed at your fingertips and the man beside you looked at you like a sex god personified?

“If it was up to me, I wouldn’t give these nobodies no sympathy,” SZA whispered through the surround speakers, truth bleeding from her voice like philosophies.

She mouthed along to the words, head bobbing between the headrest, legs up on the dash.

She’d meant to steal one little big ring, and a few hours of air conditioning and affection. But somehow, she’d ended up here—idling by Riverside in a car that purred with decadent control, less an animal’s snarl, more a savvy grin. A flick of her foot on the pedal had set it forward like a breath—no lurch, no grunt. Just a seamless glide, the motion of a motor made to conquer without show.

New York City arrayed as circuitry in front of them—vast, shining, veined with red brake lights and screw-ups. They had chased the fringes of midnight toward a lookout she hadn’t been to in years, one of those places you only returned to when you had something to prove. Not anymore, the McLaren did it for her.

Her fingers traced the stitched grooves of the steering wheel, supple black leather, and the centre console illuminated the space like the cockpit of a fighter jet: chrome, carbon fibre, touchscreens glowing like digital seduction. Even the whole cabin smelled like ozone, leather and aerospace engineering. Every inch of it whispered, you don’t belong here.

Yeah, she didn’t. Her fingernails still had dirt under them. Her shoes were vintage consignment pretending to be Gucci. Her confidence, like most things in this city, was counterfeit—but expensive-looking.

And goddamn, did she look good pretending.

She glanced at the rearview mirror. The black sedan behind them hadn’t moved out of formation since the restaurant. No hazard lights, no overt tailing. Harry’s version of subtlety: a ghost that reeked of payroll.

Then her ex-target's voice cut through the hum of the engine.

“So,” he said, so offhandedly it almost sounded bored—if not for the fact that he was watching her like a man circling a flame. “Cartier or Harry Winston before closing time? I did promise you a handful of rings.”

She glanced over at him, lips quirking.

This man. This ludicrous, outrageous man. He had no idea the effect he had on her. Or maybe he did—and that was half the danger.

Here she was, fresh off scamming him into a disgustingly expensive dinner, jacking his family heirloom right under his nose, and now she was joyriding his million-dollar toy while he reclined in the passenger seat like some amused villain who’d already won.

She snorted, not bothering to hide the laugh. “I just need to say this out loud for the universe: I am using the absolute hell out of you.”

Harry leaned his head back, one arm slung behind her seat, the other lazily adjusting the cuff of his blazer. “If anything,” he said, “I’m disappointed you’re not using me more.”

She raised an eyebrow. “This isn’t enough?”

“Hardly. If I were in your little shoes,” he said, gesturing vaguely toward her strappy knockoffs, “we'd already be popping a bottle of Dom on a jet, halfway to Geneva right now.”

Her laugh cracked out before she could stop it. “Wow. Talk dirty to me, Papi.”

Grinning that tongue-in-cheek smile of his, he reached for her feet, pulling them up into his lap without asking. Scud dusted his sleek custom trousers, but he only focused on tracing lazy circles along her calf—intimate, absentminded, entitled, so domestic.

He toyed with the buckle of her shoe, lifting it with an index finger. “Speaking of, we need to get you a new pair. Maybe a dozen. You’ve got the legs for it.”

“Jimmy Choos,” she said, going along with it.

“Done.”

“And while you’re at it, maybe a penthouse on the east side?”

“Take mine.” Then added, “Conditionally.”

She shook her head, smiling. “Still trying to bankroll what you can’t own.”

He kissed the inside of her ankle, exactly where she’d dabbed perfume to mask the shoe funk. “Still stealing what you secretly want to keep.”

Her heart thudded—almost annoyed at the betrayal. That little jump, that involuntary jolt at his voice, his closeness. As if her body hadn’t gotten the memo that she was supposed to be in control.

She let her head tip lazily toward him, eyes half-lidded. “You really want to be used by me?”

He leaned in, that sinuous way he did everything, as though gravity didn’t apply to him quite the same. “Only you.”

God knows she'd heard every variation of flattery laced in a threat—but that wrecked, gruff tone of his crushed under her ribs she didn’t care to name.

She held his gaze for a second too long, the moment coiling tight between them, breath warming the space where danger meets desire. She could taste it. This thing between them. It was scorched sweet.

He tilted his head, that lazy confidence coiled behind his jaw like a spring. “You’re the only one who uses me right, sweetheart. You do it selfish. And it works.”

“That’s the saddest thing I’ve ever heard,” she said, because it was. But more so because it was true. In the non-tragic fucked-up way that made her heart twitch in a place she didn’t like to acknowledge.

“Is it?” he leaned in, letting his knuckles graze the inside of her thigh. “Because it sounded a hell of a lot like a compliment to me.”

She tilted her head with that dangerous little smirk, which usually preceded theft or sex.

“Tell me what you think I want from you,” she said, the implication lingering like steam off an expensive glass.

He didn't miss a beat; he met her gaze, dead-on. “Comfort. Sex. Money. Exactly in that order.”

Well. That was blunt. But she mostly got used to the sting.

It wasn’t a wrong guess, but it wasn’t the whole picture, either. That was the problem with men like Harry; they saw the silhouette and thought they interpreted the sculpture.

She projected that image—Eve, a loose, cocky, precocious thief in a pretty dress. It was the only currency that worked in most rooms. But… a part of her wanted to be seen through it, not as it. Charming fun. Clever girl. Desirable for more than how easily she slipped a watch off a man’s hand or a moan from his throat.

She inhaled through her nose, lips parting like a question left unsaid. “You really think that’s all I am?”

“I think you’ve figured out how to get what you want,” he said, his hand slipping casually down to the arch of her ankle. “And I respect the hell out of it.”

It wasn’t a no, but it wasn’t the yes she’d been half-daring him to say, either.

She looked away, a flick of her lashes down, forming a curtain between them. The lights of the city glimmered past the windshield, multicoloured, a little blurred. She didn’t even realise she’d gone quiet until—

His fingers clicked in front of her face. She blinked, coming back to herself, and turned just in time to catch his smirk.

“Earth to Eve?”

She sat up a little straighter, drawing her legs out over his lap in an easy stretch, avoiding a pang that was still ringing somewhere in her ribs. Her heel grazed the far car door, the other foot resting right where he wanted her. She could work with that.

She smiled—bright, artificial, wicked. “Hm?”

“Where’d you go, sweetheart?” he asked.

“Back to our suite,” she lied, sugar-tipped, curling his hand between her bare knees. She guided it higher until his fingers found the hem of her dress and slipped beneath, “First, I want to know something.”

Thin lace. Warm skin. Low hum of history.

His palm cupped her, long fingers pressing against the soaked scrap of fabric as if he wasn’t already fluent in the language of her thighs. And still, she caught it—that stutter in his breath, the falter in his cool. Good. Let him lose his balance a little. She liked him like that.

“Does this question have to do with you coming on my hands?” he rasped.

She laughed, full-throated and bright, head tilted back like she'd just heard a good joke. “Don’t you want your ring back?”

He blinked, stunned, stupidly handsome. But before he could fathom a reply, she caught his hand in both of hers and pressed the car’s key fob into his palm. Then, with a magician’s flair—wrist tilted just so, fingers guiding the moment like sleight-of-hand, let the reveal land—there it was.

The emerald, back on his ring finger like it had never left. Gleaming.

“We’re even,” she said casually, all silk and smoke, like she hadn’t rehearsed that little flourish hours ago.

He gave a disbelieving laugh, a sound of him still catching up, halfway between fury and foreplay. She thrived with that sound on him—surprise laced with surrender.

“And this?” He gestured between them, a vague sweep of his hand as if it incorporated the entire cyclone.

“A draw, maybe,” she sang out. Then—after a beat—“Unless you want to raise the stakes.”

But his eyes flicked to hers—amusement glinting in the depths of them.

“You know,” he drawled, slow as molasses and twice as rich, “I promised myself I wouldn’t let you walk away tonight. I even…”

He undid his blazer button with a flick of his thumb, rolled the sleeve back, shirt cuff—pressed, white, expensive. Bare wrist, no watch.

The custom Hublot was missing. Only the steel bracelet jangled noiselessly, missing its pair.

Her smile bloomed—teeth and mischief. Pure delight with a cherry on top.

He looked at his wrist again, as if it might’ve reappeared, then at her. Half-outraged (you little shit), half-astonished (I really want to fuck you), and completely turned on. Her man.

“Way ahead of you, honey,” she whispered. Winking, but not bothering to show the prize. That wasn’t the point. She never flashed what she’d already claimed.

Theft was foreplay, and proof was irrelevant. And didn’t it feel good being her?

And the fact that somewhere between the appetiser and the edge of his self-control, he couldn’t stop chasing her even as she’d slipped through his fingers and walked off with both the crown and the kingdom.

In that moment, she felt like a force of nature. Beautiful, smug and completely untouchable.

And yet... she knew how this would go. How she’d go home eventually, peel off her heels, strip the night away, and set the Hublot down on her dresser like a trophy, her evidence of reality, even though it would never match anything she owned—too masculine, too boorish, too expensive.

And she’d lie awake, wondering if Harry was laughing right now, alone in his too-big bed, in a penthouse that echoed with emptiness. Or perhaps giving security some nondescript bullshit line like, “Don’t chase her. I'll find her soon.”

Now, she languidly drew her legs back into the footwell, all part of the final act. One last fluid exit, stage left. She reached for her satchel that she'd slotted somewhere by the console.

The butterfly door hissed open with a smooth hydraulic sigh, too much preposterous sex appeal. But before she could duck out, Harry’s warm, possessive hand caught her wrist.

“Give me something in return,” he said, voice fraying at the edges. Like if she didn’t, he’d unravel.

She turned, one brow lifting with theatrical grace—that signature look—you don’t know who you’re playing with, do you?

“I gave you something mind-blowing an hour ago,” she muttered, chin tilting.

He smirked, but didn’t let go. “Something of yours, sweetheart.” His gaze dropped to where her purse was on her lap, then climbed again, a lazy drag that felt like fingertips down her spine.

“I’m a materialist, too. You know that.”

That made her laugh, laced with irony only women like her could master—mostly weapon, all charm.

What was he, Prince Charming? Did he want a glass slipper, a trace of perfume, a lock of hair? Did he expect her to leave behind some totem of surrender, some girlish trace he could pine over, so he could come chasing after her with keen, awaiting arms and an incurable erection?

Oh, this poor man. Wrong fairytale.

His lopsided smile twitched, as if he were biting the inside of his cheek just to keep himself in check, which also made her hesitate for half a second.

Just long enough for a thought to flicker through her. Unserious. Wildly inappropriate. Which, of course, meant it was perfect.

She shifted in her seat with catlike precision, eyes holding his, lifting her hips just enough to hook her thumbs beneath the waistband of her panties—white lace, delicate, and soaked through in the patternings that would make anyone blush. They slid down in an inching, methodical glide—past her soft thighs, her knees, her calves, her ankles—until she held them between two fingers. A peace offering. A punchline. A poem in cursive.

But oh, Harry saw. His pupils expanded. His jaw ticked. There was the faintest inhale—so minor you could miss it if you weren’t looking for it.

And then she twirled them once, dainty and devilish, before looping the lace over the rearview mirror, letting them hang there like some heretical pair of fuzzy fucking dice.

“Fits right in your pocket,” she said with a girlish grin. “Low-upkeep. No batteries required.”

“I was hoping for your number,” Harry murmured, voice dragging a beat slower now, eyes still on the lace dangling from the mirror. “But I’ll have to look into your file for that. Might gild this.”

“Or sniff it like a sick fuck, I won't judge,” she replied, grinning as her fingers skimmed his jaw, affectionate enough to confuse.

Then she leaned in, cupped his jaw, and embossed a gentle kiss to his cheek. Absolute mockery to his devastation. She didn’t pull back right away; her lips hovered near his ear, voice dropping a fraction.

“You said file,” she murmured, the piece clicking into place. “That means you’ve been digging.”

His grin didn’t twitch. “You gave me a fake name, stole from me, then disappeared. What wronged man wouldn’t?”

Of fucking course.

That name. The one she’d given him in a silk-wrapped lie, born over fine liquor and misdirection. Eve—first woman, first sin, first scam. She’d let him keep it mostly because it worked, fit her like one of his tailored suits: sharp, pricey, vaguely challenging.

But Harry Castillo wasn’t stupid. Two days were plenty of time for a man like him to trace her name, her past, even her blood type if he really wanted. She knew the kind of resources he had, which meant either he’d been telling the truth—he had been out of town—or he’d been playing a longer game. And if he was playing, she needed to know the rules.

When she pulled back just enough to study his face, his eyes held hers with an agonising grace.

“Mm,” she mused. “And what’d you find?”

“I’m not a man who gives away his sources.”

She bit her lip. “But you’ve read it.”

His hand flexed on the leathered console, as if he were cogitating some undecipherable truth in his wide palm. “Skimmed,” he admitted. “Certain... hidden highlights.”

That made her laugh. “Did it come with a caution label?”

“Countless,” he said mordantly. “In red, underlined.”

She giggled, a little proud. “Bet you liked that so much it got you hard.”

He looked at her for a long, unreadable second. “You made sure of that.”

She smirked. “So, what else do you know?”

He let his miles-deep eyes trace her as though he were approximating her against intel he had in his desk somewhere. Fact versus sensation. Biography versus influence.

Finally, he said, “Enough to want more.”

“Of me?” she asked, arching a brow.

“Of the truth,” he said simply.

The way he said it got her wavering, which was no easy feat from someone like him. There was no flirtation or ploy involved. Harry was... interested. Still playing the game—but this time, one she hadn’t mapped out entirely.

So she flashed him a smile—bright, effortless, razor-edged. “Good luck with that,” she said breezily. “I charge by the minute.”

Then that smirk ghosted onto his face again—annoyingly familiar, dangerously fond. “I could pick up the tab for the rest of your life, sweetheart.”

Fuck, she wasn't kidding when she said that made her wet to her toes.

She was thinking through it all now. About files, how much he knew, about why the idea of being read like a dossier made her feel more exposed than when she’d dropped her panties for him.

He knew enough to chase, not enough to catch. Until then, that was the only leverage she had left on him.

“Thanks for your time, Mr Castillo,” she added, and that was the sting, of course it was—a jab at the custom Hublot she’d stolen straight off his wrist mid-handjob. She’d pocketed his time, and now she was thanking him for it. Full circle.

She slid out of the car, the hem of her dress flirting with indecency, heels tapping against the pavement, ass bared to the breeze like the night had to feel her too, and the wind responded—chasing her like it wanted to finish what they’d started.

She didn’t look back until she was halfway across the lot, because you know, lesson learned: drama demands distance.

Then she turned—just her head.

Harry was standing outside the car now, one hand braced against the hood like he needed it to stay upright. His thumb stroked at his smirking lower lip like he was trying to remember what just happened—and whether he wanted it to happen again. Shirt collar askew, hair messy from her hands, sweat matted, chest heaving, ring back on his finger—

He looked like debauchery on pause. A wealthy man wondering if, possibly, he’d just met the devil and preferred it to all the angels that roamed.

She gave him a smug, little fingers-only wave. Fucking couture.

The exit mask mattered. The smoking, final walk away in heels someone else paid for, hips swinging like a metronome wound up on spite and superiority.

Another dumbass bites the dust.

You need to know that, at the end of the day, Eve didn’t just chew on any apple. She carved it into slices, served it on stolen silver, and made sure God was watching.

Her bittersweet punishment was history.

Because temptation lingered, smiling when it burned, knowing where you kept your heart vaulted, and it definitely never forgot who bit first.

scam ideas for part 3? I'm thinking of the club and a bigshot entrepreneur 👀

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