Chapter 19 #2
“Oops,” Flack grinned. I couldn’t see that grin, but I heard it in the deep sound of his voice, felt it in the way his chest vibrated against my head.
His heartbeat was steady, not even elevated from the excitement.
“I cut that a bit closer than I meant to. I’m sorry, my love.
” He stroked my back, outrageously lowered his hand to cup my ass, and squeezed.
An indignant squeak left my throat. “Flack! This is not the time or the place! You got us trapped in a vault, in the dark, with a dozen guys with very deadly laser rifles on the other side of the door!” I jabbed his chest firmly, and he just squeezed my ass again.
The warmth of his big hand spread, heating my flesh in a way that made my folds tingle.
He inhaled and I groaned, jabbing his chest again in warning.
If he said he could smell my arousal, I was going to knock him over the head.
What was it with his timing this afternoon?
I should have realized that freeing Flack was only going to make him more cheeky.
“Yes, deadly laser rifles,” he agreed. “Very nicely on the other side of a blast-proof door. Didn’t that work out great?
” He seemed to know something I didn’t, so I held my tongue, waiting for the other shoe to drop.
He didn’t explain his plan, though, and when he pulled a light from his pocket, I forgot about plans in the first place.
Standing inside a vault piled with riches was…
well, it was probably about as transformative an experience as riding on Flack’s massive fox form had been earlier.
That had felt like freedom; this felt like…
avarice came to mind. To be surrounded so casually with this much gold was mind-blowing, and to think that I could just reach out and tuck some of that in my pocket.
Just one of those shiny rubies would probably pay off all my student loans.
Not that I had student loans to worry about, but the point stood.
At no point in my life had I ever seen this much wealth gathered in one place.
The vault was about as big as my dormroom used to be.
The walls were lined with shelves, each stacked high with bars of precious metals.
A chest to my left was overflowing with stones that looked like opals, and various art objects in odd alien shapes were spread out on a table.
A cabinet held dozens of paintings, slid neatly into racks, and a tapestry with what was probably real gold thread was rolled up and standing in one corner.
The diamond, though, that was the true eye-catcher.
It was lying on a velvet platform beneath a glass dome.
As big as Flack’s fist, it was a pretty pink hue.
Almost, it appeared to glow with life from deep within.
Carved into facets, it looked exactly like how I would picture a massive diamond.
I guess there was one thing movies did get right.
“There she is,” Flack sighed, almost as if he were talking of a lost lover.
I would be jealous, if not for the fact that he still held me in his arms and had yet to let go of my ass.
“How are we going to get out of here?” I asked, already looking back at the vault door.
The diamond was pretty, but it wasn’t going to help us escape.
I still didn’t hear anything coming from the other side of that massive door, but Flack had gotten it open somehow, so surely they could, too.
After all, they had the key, didn’t they?
Or the code, or whatever it was that was required to open the door the normal way.
“The backdoor, of course,” Flack responded, finally releasing me to wander around the pedestal that held the diamond.
Oh, of course, there was a backdoor there, was there?
Curious, I lifted my eyes to search for it but saw nothing.
Was it hidden behind the shelves, then? And why would someone build a backdoor into their vault? That seemed awfully unsafe.
“Here, try this on, beautiful,” he said, and he pulled something from one of those shelves.
It wasn’t gold, and it wasn’t stone, but rather tooled leather inlaid with precious gems. Boots.
Very small boots with pointed toes and tassels of gold thread hanging from the sides.
I took them from him, and they felt heavy and awkward, but when I slid my feet inside, they were a surprisingly good fit and, also surprisingly, light.
“Better,” Flack said thoughtfully. “I’ve been worrying about your bare feet the whole time.
You didn’t get any cuts or scrapes in the forest, did you? ”
He’d been worried the whole time? Oh, damn it, why did he say such sweet things?
I wanted to be mad at him for dragging me into this, what still felt like a rather unnecessary part of his escape plan, but I simply couldn’t.
The boots were ridiculous, probably worth a fortune, and all he cared about was making sure I didn’t get hurt.
And the diamond, I shouldn’t forget the diamond.
He might be looking around the vault for stuff to use, but he was definitely still eyeing that massive rock too.
There weren’t any clothes or food in there, but he did locate a fur coat that was big enough to drown me. I was happy to pull it on per his instructions, then discovered I had a bit of pirate in me after all when I tucked some pretty gems into its pockets. Why not, right? I had nothing to lose.
That’s when I watched Flack tackle the diamond’s protective casing.
He used his claws to cut through the glass cover, bypassing the need to undo the electronic lock, and that was it.
It seemed like flimsy protection, but perhaps the diamond’s owner had considered the vault door protection enough.
It definitely appeared to be keeping the guards out right now, but it hadn’t stopped Flack from getting in.
By his own admission, safecracking wasn’t even his usual skill, so how hard had this one been to crack?
He held out the massive diamond to me on the palm of his open hand, his eyes glowing above the pink glitter of the gem.
“Want to hold several million credits in the palm of your hand?” he asked, a teasing smirk curling his lush mouth.
He was definitely having fun with this. The man was crazy, but then, so was I, apparently.
I took the diamond, forced to cradle its shockingly heavy weight with both hands.
It was ice-cold to the touch and rapidly sapped the heat from my fingers.
With edges so sharp they felt like they could cut, it was not a fun experience—and yet, awe filled me.