Page 11 of Heist in Paradise

He lifted up onto his knees, straddling my hips. What I could see of his expression was disturbing. Blank, empty. We could’ve been discussing the weather.

“Nobody,” I gasped out. “I’m—nobody.”

His pierced brow twitched up in vague interest. “You don’t look like a maid. No cute uniform.”

I said nothing, just floundered like a fish.

His head cocked, eyes still cold and pitiless. I wondered if he was smiling beneath the cloth, and that disturbed me even more. “I see. Just a pest then.”

Alarm bells rang in my head. He sounded bored, like I was something easily removed. Exterminated.

I bucked my hips violently. The tightness of my shorts was painful, cutting into my thighs. His own thighs were like steel bands, trapping me between them. The way he moved was purposeful, anticipating each wild thrust of my hips so we wouldn’t make unnecessary contact. Relying on pure muscle memory, I hooked my leg around his waist and flipped us. Then I was on top, straddling him, and his eyes flashed dangerously before he snapped upright and tackled me off the bed. My head thudded hard against the floor, carpet burning against my bare skin. His weight was suddenly overwhelming, crushing me to the floor.

“Get off me!” I hissed.

To my surprise, he instantly obeyed. He snapped upright, keeping his leather-gloved hands locked on my wrists so I had no choice but to move with him. Facing each other, I realized he had at least an extra foot on me. But that wasn’t the disturbing part.

The disturbing part was how ridiculously fit he was.

I still aimed my shoe at his balls.

He shifted back, easily avoiding it without releasing me. In one swift motion, he flipped me around, my back to his chest, my backpack squashed in between us. Leather-gloved fingers wrapped around my throat.

“Upstairs,” he said.

My throat convulsed around his cruel fingers. “We’re already upstairs.”

Fabric brushed my temple. “I wasn’t talking to you.”

My breath caught. There were more of them. I was outnumbered. Trapped. Alone.

A terrible, terrible thought burrowed into my brain. Was this how Molly felt? I wanted to scream. As if sensing it, the hand on my throat squeezed.

Blood pounded in my ears. It wasn’t enough to drown out the unmistakable sound of approaching footsteps.

And then he walked in.

OLIVIA

The leader.

It was obvious from the way he walked—confident, commanding. Dirty blond hair tumbled around a black face bandana with a grinning skull. The eyes above it were Nordic blue and utterly terrifying. He looked at me without surprise, flat and furious like his comrade behind me.

The rest of them piled in. An enormous guy with red hair took up post by the door, his face obscured by a tartan green-and-black bandana. He was joined by a slimmer bandit with wind-tousled auburn curls and big, searching brown eyes above his own mask, which had bright yellow sunflowers on it. Fear clawed at my chest. My only exit was blocked. The four of them surrounded me, the one at my back with his hand like a vice on my throat.

The leader stopped and looked down at me. He was far more expressive than his counterparts, his brow furrowing, his eyes narrowing like he was trying to beam the answers directly from my head. He was huge, his chest wide and defined like a quarterback, his black t-shirt highlighting every muscular dip and crevice. I could feel the heat radiating from his sun-soaked skin.

“You shouldn’t be here,” he said. His voice had a hoarse quality that made me shiver. “Who the fuck are you?”

“Nobody,” I wheezed out. The fingers on my throat squeezed.

He stared me down. I refused to look away, even as tears burned my eyes. Then his penetrating gaze flicked up to the man behind me in question.

“She was armed,” he said, his voice rumbling through my squashed backpack and into my spine. “We’ve already established she’s not here for the turn-down service.”

Furious blue eyes returned to me. “How did you get here?”

“A boat,” I said slowly.