Make Her Mine

  Make Her Mine

  Kira Bloom

  Contents

  Prologue

  1. Skye

  2. Skye

  3. Stone

  4. Skye

  5. Stone

  6. Skye

  7. Stone

  8. Skye

  9. Stone

  10. Skye

  11. Stone

  12. Skye

  13. Stone

  14. Skye

  15. Stone

  16. Skye

  17. Stone

  18. Skye

  19. Stone

  20. Skye

  21. Stone

  22. Skye

  23. Stone

  24. Skye

  25. Stone

  26. Skye

  27. Stone

  28. Skye

  29. Stone

  30. Skye

  31. Stone

  32. Skye

  33. Stone

  Epilogue

  Auction to the Billionaire

  About the Author

  Copyright © 2017 by Kira Bloom

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Prologue

  Stone

  This is the last one. The last job I’ll ever have to pull for this fucking prick.

  I sidestep a heap of parts that look like a blackjack table someone took a hammer to. The guy bringing me in, another of these tanned and top-knotted Jersey Shore thugs Rich dredges up from who-the-fuck-knows-where, gives me a look meant to intimidate. I respond with a grin.

  Rich’s guys never trust me. Can’t understand why.

  It’s almost like they’ve figured out I’m forced to be here.

  At last, we reach the back lounge the Revel, what used to be one of Atlantic City’s top performing casinos. A neon sign hangs half-disassembled over the door, the only letters remaining spell out dies Burlesque! Inside looks like a raver puked on ‘Merica. Flags hang everywhere, with cowboy boot logos in neon on the walls, and splatters of paint that would probably glow in the dark right along with every other mystery fluid.

  There’s music playing, not the bass-heavy club shit I’d expect in a room like this. Something soft. Classical. The kind of shit you’d expect to hear in an elevator in an upscale department store—not the headquarters of a man who’s made his living through the literal blood, sweat and tears of half of Atlantic City.

  Which is why my eyebrow shoots up as Man Bun leads me around the bar to a raised poker table. It’s occupied by three of Rich’s elite thugs—friends of his, judging by the Mafia Slut Barbies perched on their knees. They’re all wearing bikinis even though the AC is blasting so high it feels like mid-January.

  “Hundred thou,” one of the guys I’ve never seen says, sliding a stack of chips toward the giant stack in the center of the table.

  “Call,” Rich answers from the head of the table. The motherfucker’s poker face is as empty as the one he wears when he tells his people they have three days to get him his money. He rarely tacks a threat onto the end. He doesn’t need to because he normally sends me out to collect.

  As Man Bun and I take the steps up to the table where they’re playing, the dealer flips over another card. One of the guys curses and folds on the spot, though whether it’s because of his hand or the level stare Rich is shooting his direction is anyone’s guess.

  The Barbie on the guy’s lap wastes no time trying to take his mind off the game. As her head disappears under the table, my opinion of Rich sinks to a new all-time low right along with the blonde. And my thoughts about that motherfucker were already at rock bottom to begin with.

  Five faces swivel around to stare at me as I approach the table, even the creep getting his dick sucked by a girl young enough to be his daughter. Whether they’re all pretending not to hear the slurp of her licking his cock, or whether they’re just so used to this shit they don’t even notice, I can’t tell.

  I face Rich, ignoring the rest of his goons. “You needed me?”

  “I’ve got something for you.” For a split second I’m afraid he’s referring to the hooker in his lap, whose fake tits could pass for flotation devices. “A job,” he adds with a sneer, and I’m relieved for an instant.

  “You realize this makes thirteen,” I drawl. That was the deal. Thirteen jobs. That’s all he gets from me, and then I’m done.

  “I’m aware.” His lips curl. “Don’t worry. I picked a good one for your last.”

  My stomach sinks, but I don’t let it show on my face. I learned a long time ago—back when I was still fighting and men like Rich lined their pockets betting on me—never to let anything show around these people. They’ll eat you alive.

  “Good,” I say aloud. “What do you need?”

  There’s a grunt from the other end of the table as Blowjob finishes at the exact same time the classical music swells in a crescendo. Thankfully, Bach or Beethoven or whoever drowns out Mafia Barbie’s last few gulps.

  “Ian Banner owes me $500,000 in back gambling debt. He lives in Ducktown. Heath will give you the full details.” Rich waves a dismissive hand at Man Bun. Heath. The name fits. “Thing is, I’ve heard he has the money in full; that he’s planning to skip out on the generous loan I gave him and keep the interest for himself. What I need to know is where he’s keeping it. His younger sister is the only person he talks to, the only person he trusts.”

  We’ve been down this road before, enough times I know what’s coming. “You want me to get close to the sister. Figure out what she knows.”

  Rich trails a hand through the girl on his lap’s long, fried blonde tresses. She giggles but the look doesn’t reach her eyes. “Women are your specialty, Stone. They like you. They talk to you.”

  No, they want to fuck me. And Rich has no problem pimping me out if it means he’ll get his money quicker. “Yeah, well, they’re easy to figure out,” I say with a glance at the hooker’s face. She’s staring at her lap, eyes downcast. I wonder how much Rich paid for her. That’s his specialty. Knowing everyone’s price to sell out, to compromise their lives and dignity because he has what they need.

  He’d come to me when the money from fighting ran dry with an offer I couldn’t refuse, and I’ve been fucked ever since.

  “Then it should be easy,” Rich says with a lopsided grin I want to knock off his face. “Fuck the bitch and figure out where my money is.”

  Chuckles circle the room as the dealer sweeps up the cards to dole out a new hand with an insanely high buy-in. One last gig, I remind myself, smoothing my face into an unreadable mask. Lucky number thirteen. Then I’m done for good with these people.

  “So?” Rich prompts, impatient, as he clearly wants to pick up his new set of cards and get moving with blowing more of the money he worked so hard to swindle out of people like Ian Banner. “Are you in or not?”

  My lips thin in surprise. “You’re asking?” He’s never given me options before.

  “I can be polite, Stone. If you don’t like this job, you can always pull out. Wait for the next favor to arise.” He says that in a tone that makes me sure that if I don’t accept, the next one he’ll fling my way will be ten times shittier.

  “I’ll do it,” I mutter.

  With that, Rich turns back to the table, satisfied that he got what he wanted again. That’s fine by me. It’s the last time I’ll ever have to deal with this fucker.

  One last time, I recite again, as Man Bun hands over a stack of files.

  One last time.

  By the time I get to work the next morning, I’ve already discovered
the files tell me jack shit about anything important. It’s like surveillance footage put together by a kindergartener. Who the fuck is Rich hiring to do his filthy work these days?

  It’s got the basics. Full names: Dorian Henry and Skye Juliet. Ages—at twenty-four, Ian Banner is ten months older than his sister. Addresses for both siblings. Places of employment. Ian is unemployed, which figures since he’s supposedly sitting on a pile of dough big enough to refinance the Revel himself if he wanted, and Skye works at a diner in the seedier part of town that’s close to her apartment. You’d think if the brother was sitting on a nest egg the size of a small mansion, he’d at least finance his younger sister.

  From everything Rich has said, she’s the only person in the world he gives a shit about. He’s got enough money for her not to have to wait tables for a living.

  Still, after the last couple of years running jobs like this since my fighting career ended and my world went to shit, I’ve learned that’s how people like Ian Banner operate. The world revolves around money for them. If they don’t see dollar signs at the end of the tunnel, they don’t make the effort to walk down it. Not even for a family member.

  Fucking bastards.

  Maybe this job won’t be complete shit, though. At least, that’s what I’m thinking when I turn up the sunny, tree-lined avenue surrounded by depressingly beige cinder-block apartment buildings. Every few houses is a “hotel” that looks exactly like its neighboring apartments, the kind of establishment that’s no stranger to providing in-home entertainment.

  The kind that charge by the hour and come complete with a happy ending.

  This is no neighborhood for a lady. Especially not the lady I’m picturing from the photos Man Bun included in the Skye Banner Dossier.

  Her body is an hourglass. Magazine-perfect, if anyone in the fashion industry had eyeballs and allowed women to look the way they should—curvy and luscious, with tits I’d need both hands to squeeze. And then there’s her ass. It’s the kind of ass that makes my mouth water in anticipation. The kind of ass I could dive right in—dick, tongue, fingers, everything.

  But as delicious as her body is, it was Skye’s face in those pictures that made me pause.

  It’s her face that makes her stick in my mind, even now as I’m creeping down her block keeping my eyes peeled for Monroe’s, the diner where she works. Even in the few candid shots that Man Bun managed to take of her while she busied herself pouring coffee around the diner, leaning against tables to chat with older couples, a huge smile on her cupid-bow lips and her ponytail falling over one shoulder, there’s this look in her pale blue eyes. Eyes I’ve never seen on anyone before, so clear they could pass for a gemstone, eyes that have to be fake. Contacts or some shit.

  There’s one picture I keep going back to. Of her facing Man Bun’s table—probably taking his order, unaware of the hidden camera strapped to his body. It captures a longing in her eyes. She’s smiling, but in her head, she’s somewhere else. Somewhere happy. Somewhere her gambling addict of a brother won’t make her work her ass off while he hoards his pile of ill-earned gains.

  Just the photos of her, still-life images of her beauty, make me want to know more, to get inside that black-haired head of hers and root out her secrets. Learn what makes her tick.

  No, this job won’t be so bad. Because I want this woman. I’m already imagining wrapping that long black ponytail around my fist as I lean her over my bed and fill her hungry pussy hard and rough.

  It’s time to make her mine.

  1

  Skye

  I wake up with a blinding headache and my sixth sense ringing in my ears. That’s what Mom always called it when she was still alive. Me and Ian’s sixth sense. As cliché as it sounds, we’re so close in age that we’ve got smell, hearing, touch, sight, taste, and an innate feeling whenever one of us needs the other one.

  Before I even turn on the lamp next to my bed, I roll over to speed-dial my brother’s number. I expect it to go straight to voicemail, the way it’s been doing for the last two weeks. I’ve had to break into his house using the spare key he left at my place just to get in a single word with him face-to-face.

  Today, however, he answers on the first ring. “What?” he demands, none of the morning gruffness in his voice. In fact, he’s all business, despite it being the ass crack of dawn.

  “Okay, tell me what’s wrong,” I say, my own voice still gravelly from sleep. I’d worked the night shift last night and hadn’t gotten into bed until after one.

  Ian groans. “Not this again.”

  “I’ve let this go on for two weeks, Ian. No more. You tell me what’s wrong with you or I’m coming over.” Pausing, I grit my teeth and wait for him to respond, but he doesn’t. “I mean it this time.”

  “Did anyone ever tell you you’re a pain in the ass?” he says. In the background, I hear his coffee maker beep and the sound of him rummaging through cabinets for a mug.

  “Did anyone ever tell you you’re a terrible liar?”

  “No,” he growls. “Because you’re the only one who can tell when I’m bluffing.”

  Sitting up in bed, I let my long black hair fall around my shoulders in a tangle of messy knots. “We should play poker together sometime, we’d clean up.” I inject a healthy dose of sarcasm there, and he knows exactly why. Ian had started gambling in high school, after our dad split, and he hadn’t quit for good until four years ago. Right after our mother passed away. He blew half the money we’d inherited from her on a single, grief-stricken drunk casino escapade, so he’d promised never to step foot in the casinos again.

  “That’s not what’s going on, is it?” I whisper hesitantly. “You haven’t started again?”

  “God, no. Skye, I’d tell you if that was it. You know I would.”

  I sigh into the receiver. That much I’ve got to hand him. He might be a liar and a jerk about telling me when anything bothers him, but my brother knows when to be honest with me about the real stuff. The serious shit. He knows our relationship depends on it because I can’t go down that road again. Which is why I’m so confused by the way he’s acting right now.

  “Just promise me that whatever it is, you won’t be too proud to just tell me the truth.” When he’s silent, I add, “Can you promise that?”

  Now it’s his turn to sigh. He knows me every bit as well as I know him, and he’s fully aware I’m not going to give up. “I swear I will,” he eventually says, though from his tone I’m not so sure I believe him.

  For the moment, it’ll have to be good enough. “Okay. So … I’ll see you tomorrow night, yeah?” Usually, we have movie night at the theater down the block every Tuesday, but he’s skipped out on the last couple weeks while avoiding me. Ian’s the only other person I know who enjoys the same off-the-wall comedies that I do—the kind of movies that make other people roll their eyes.

  He gets it, though.

  “Adam Sandler and Andy Samberg, here we come,” he says dryly.

  “You better not stand me up or I’ll come after you,” I warn with a grin before we say goodbye and I roll out of bed. Since I’m up, I might as well get in some cardio.

  My boss has been on my case worse than ever lately. Can’t you just lose ten more pounds, Skye? Then you’ll really rake in the tips. Like it’s any of his business what I weigh. Sure, most of my co-workers are thinner than me, but they’d faint at the idea of running a 5K, much less a half marathon like I ran last month.

  Greg’s words get to me, though, as much as I hate to admit it. I try to block them out, slipping on my earbuds and turning up Jessie J to deafening levels as I jog down to the boardwalk, but they still rattle around in my head every time I pass anyone my age. Mentally, I know they all must have similar problems. Maybe that smiling couple is making up from a bad argument the night before; or that girl upside-down on the beach in her yoga pose is recovering from a shitty breakup or struggling with a gambling problem like my brother.

  You can’t judge people by looking; I k
now that.

  It’s just that they all look so much more at peace than me.

  It’s not that I don’t like my life. I do. I was born here, went to community college down the block, lived here my entire life, and will likely live here for the rest of it, too. And I’ve been with guys before, but nobody who lasted longer than a month. Even then it was all casual.

  It’s not a bad life by any means. I love being near the ocean. I like my apartment, now that I’ve redecorated the place. My job is decent when my boss isn’t being an ass about my weight, and my regular customers are great. Plus, I love my brother. I just can’t help feeling like there’s something missing. Some big piece of me out there that I haven’t stumbled upon yet. Something that will make all the other puzzle pieces click into place.

  Unraveling myself from my thoughts, I reach the end of the boardwalk. My turnaround point. I normally stop here to stretch, or shake my muscles out before I jog home, but there are a couple of guys at the end of the pier. They’re passing around a brown paper bag and swigging from whatever’s inside, the scent of pot rolling off them in waves that makes my stomach pitch.

  Keeping my earbuds in but shutting off the volume, I stop a good ten feet from them and pause just long enough to catch my breath. Before I can turn around to run the other way, one of the guys catches my eye and elbows his friend sharply.

  “Hey, sweetheart.” He rakes his eyes up and down my body in a way that makes me want to cross my arms over my breasts, even though I know he can’t see anything in my modest tracksuit. “How you doing?”

  The other guy leers at me. “Come on over here, girl. You got a boyfriend?”

  “Course she does,” the first one yells, still staring at me as he tugs his lower lip between his teeth. It’s probably supposed to look sexy, but it just makes my skin crawl. “Who do you think she’s keeping that ass so tight for?”

  I’m already spinning on my heel, my cheeks burning hot. I want to tell them to fuck off, but I’ve lived here long enough to know when to pick my battles. And anyone who’s drinking and smoking up at the pier this early in the morning is definitely battle. So I jog away, my muscles on fire because I didn’t take enough time to rest.