He shoves his hands down my pants and panties, cupping my backside.
I jolt, flinging my hand behind me in reflex, meaning to stop him before he feels something back there that isn’t supposed to be.
Too late.
His palm closes over the wallet.
6
Sin and Shame
As soon as I feel the leather pouch tucked inside the back of her panties, I go deathly still.
Even with my hormones raging like an inferno and reducing me to caveman mode, and even with my cock hard to the point of pain, the obvious conclusions immediately click in my head.
In the three weeks I’ve known this woman, I’ve been careful about not allowing her access to anything that would facilitate an escape. She’s already proven she’ll take off given the slightest chance, and I still don’t know if I buy that she called that rooming house only to look for her friend. Or that she hadn’t tricked me into letting her work so that she could run. I’ve avoided giving her money, or anything to keep it in, checking her over after every shift to make sure she wasn’t holding out on me. The leather pouch stuffed between the back of her panties and her ass can only be one thing, and there’s only one way she could’ve have gotten it.
Pulling the wallet from her pants slowly, I watch her face fall, watch the color leave her cheeks. If there was any doubt, the expression on her face, and where she stowed the wallet, serves as confirmation.
I hold the wallet up in front of her eyes, saying nothing, letting the sight of it speak for itself. Waiting for her to try to talk her way out of this.
Emma turns her face away, shoulders dropping. She licks her lips.
Well, she’s smart, I’ll give her that. She doesn’t plead or beg or try to make an excuse. I hate myself for liking her restraint, the way she stands there, waiting for the inevitable fallout she knows she can’t escape. She’s scared, but it’s contained, and my approval of that slightly undermines the anger and betrayal burning in my gut.
With my pants still undone, my half-hard cock still imprisoned there, I open the wallet. It’s a thin black leather one, a man’s wallet, not something she would have even if I’d allowed her to buy one. I pull a few hundreds out of it, rubbing the bills between my fingers.
Emma turns her eyes to me, watching with a defeated look. Guilt plays across her features, and I notice she won’t meet my eyes, her gaze on the money.
I put the money back in the wallet and pocket it, and her eyes roll, head falling back on the wall with a soft thump. I’ve taken her only means of escape, and I can see the loss of it all over her. She’s trapped, and that gives me a sick surge of triumph.
I press into her, imprisoning her against the wall, gripping her shoulder with one hand, the wall beside her with the other. She jolts, her face turning away as if she can’t bear to look at me.
“You’re nothing but a little thief, aren’t you?” I snarl softly.
She sinks lower on the wall, as if the weight of her guilt is crushing her. Her jaw tightens with anger. The words hurt, and I need them to with a shocking intensity.
“I gotta hand it to you, you’re resourceful,” I rasp in her ear. “When did you manage to nick it off him?”
“What are you going to do?” she mumbles.
I smile at the fear in her voice. It’s a salve against her betrayal.
Alright, so I know the anger churning in my gut makes no sense. I’m a monster, she knows it, and I’ve treated her the way a monster would treat his woman. But I’ve also treated her the way a man is expected to treat a thief who went against an outlaw MC when he doesn’t kill her.
“What did I tell you would happen if you tried to escape? Hm?”
Her gaze snaps to me then. Her face blanches. A sliver of remorse stabs through my anger, and I shut it down. She knows what I am, and she knows the price for defying me. This is the path she set for herself.
“You chained me up and cut me,” she snarls. “With a knife. What did you expect me to do? Kneel at your feet with a beer and a thank you?”