Page 115 of Convict's Game

Convict stood and lifted me onto the counter, my thighs wide around him so my skirt rode up. His mouth landed on mine again, then my neck, his hands finding my breasts.

I matched his urgency.

When we moved together, it was as much relief as desperation. The slow grind of his body, the way he filled me,owned me, erased the noise in my head until I came with his name on my lips.

When he finished, his forehead pressed to mine, breath heavy and his words on repeat, I didn’t say it. I couldn’t.

But I was certain I was falling in love with him, too.

Chapter 38

Convict

Metal clanked, and I winced and shushed it. Ahead of me in the dark yard, Mila snickered a laugh, and I jogged from the gate to catch up with her, both of us keeping our torches off on our break-in shenanigans.

Marchant Haulage’s office block rose above Deadwater’s harbourside. A brownstone block with several storeys of vacant space since all the staff had been put on indefinite leave.

We’d snuck in around an alley where Mila had remembered a gate being broken but hadn’t made it inside yet.

“Hopefully they haven’t changed the codes in the past few months.”

Her fingers trembled slightly as she tapped at the keypad, and the glow lit her face, casting her in blue. The lock remained firmly closed. She tried again. Nothing.

She pouted in annoyance then widened her eyes. “Wait. There’s an old master override.”

An engine roared nearby, and I tensed, scanning the shadowed alley, my hand brushing the knife at my hip.

A low beep sounded, and with a soft click, the door creaked open. Mila grasped my hand, and we slipped through it and shut out the night.

Inside, the air was dead. Too still, like the building had gone to sleep and never intended to wake. Our boots whispered on the polished concrete, and I swept my phone’s torchlight around. On the reception’s ceiling, the high rafters and exposed pipes cast long shadows like reaching fingers, and the company name stood tall on the front desk in bold red letters.

The overhead fluorescents buzzed to life in a slow flicker, and I jumped, whipping around with my blade palmed.

Mila exhaled a shaky laugh. “The lights are motion-sensitive. They won’t go off unless we stand still. I know that from late nights spent working here.”

“That’s going to be noticeable from outside.”

“I was hoping we could sneak in and out unseen.”

I shrugged, undaunted. This was second nature to me, even if I couldn’t remember any other time of doing it when I wasn’t in her company. “We’ll move fast. If anyone comes investigating, we’ll run.”

She gave me a dubious once-over. “I’m suddenly realising that bringing you with me could be a bad idea. Probation and all. What if someone calls the police?”

“If they catch us, I’ll deal with it. Arran told me he’d handled the cops.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means you have nothing to worry about. Now move that cute ass. Clock’s a-ticking.”

Mila relented, and we jogged across the floor with echoing footsteps to the staircase then climbed. At the third-floor landing, the motion sensors didn’t trigger. Mila activated her torch, her light sliding over the old family pictures that lined the walls. More of what I’d seen in her apartment. The family members gathered near boats or in a transport yard. All smiles. All feeling more like a front the better I understood the Marchants.

“The family vault is just down here.”

Mila crept on until we reached a door halfway down the hall. The lock was gone, and from the smashed wood, it had been ripped out.

“Oh my God,” she whispered.

A warning played out in my head. “Someone else has been here. With a crowbar, if I had to guess.”