Smoke and Steel by Ashley Kristen

Author:Ashley, Kristen
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Rock Chick Press
Published: 2022-12-06T00:00:00+00:00

It was the next morning when she was in her underwear, leaning into the mirror in his bathroom, putting on makeup to get ready for work, when he came in and gave her the other present.

He put the boxes on the basin beside her.

She glanced down at them. “What’s this?”

“Your not-sex-related presents from LA.”

“I cannot believe you’re a man who remembers to pick up gifts on a business trip,” she mumbled to herself, but there was his girl, she didn’t hide her excitement or hesitate going for the boxes.

But he nearly laughed out loud at the “business trip” thing.

He didn’t when he saw her notice the gold lettering on the burgundy box, times two.

So the reason they cost a whack was real. Baccarat meant something.

She opened one, gasped, then opened the other, and gasped at that one too.

“Saw ’em in a shop window and they reminded me of you,” he muttered, suddenly feeling super fucking uncomfortable.

Her gaze rose to his and there was no bright excitement and happiness there.

What was there was way fucking bigger than excitement and happiness, he knew that even though he’d never seen that look in his life.

“They’re just glass butterflies,” he said.

“Crystal,” she corrected softly.

“Whatever.”

“I love them.”

“That was the goal.”

She came to him, pressed close, slid her fingers in his hair and pulled him down to get her kiss.

When she finished with his mouth, she whispered, “Thank you.”

He needed to break this mood. “I prefer the other gift.”

His plan backfired.

She collapsed against him in laughter, and that wasn’t better than what he’d seen on her face a minute ago.

But it was a close second.

When she moved away, he went to his back pockets and put the jewelry pouch and a stack of cash wrapped in a paper band on the basin.

“For your friend,” he said. “I don’t know if any of those are hers, but I grabbed everything that fit the description of what was taken.”

Her eyes were huge as she stared at the black velvet and the bills.

“And three grand, bit more than she gave, but whatever. Maybe it’ll help with the credit cards.”

She looked back to him.

“If none of that jewelry is hers, she can either replace what was taken from her, or she can give you back that pouch. But she only replaces what was taken, she gives the rest back. There’s four pairs of pearl studs in there and seven diamond pendants. They had a thing about sitting on shit they stole before they fenced it, and everything everyone got went to the central vault, probably because, if they needed to gift it back out to a mark, they’d have it. So hopefully, not enough time had passed for them to hock her shit before I got my hands on it.”

“When you said it’s done, you really did it right,” she said with a voice and a face full of wonder.

“Resurrection doesn’t fuck around, babe,” he replied.

Then he left her to get ready for her day.

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