The Heist (26 page)

As Alicia
reached over to shake his offered hand, Xavier brought his other
hand around, and clicked the steel handcuff around her wrist, the
other bracelet around his own wrist.

“
Gotcha.”

Smirking, he
stood up. “As punishment for fucking off without permission, you,
Sweetcheeks, will be spending twenty four hours in my delightful
company. No, no, don’t thank me, it’s my pleasure!”

The first
three hours consisted of a tug of war between Xavier and Alicia,
with her kicking him like a mule and protesting against his
‘punishment’ by using the fact that she had a ‘lolly emergency’ and
therefore just had to leave the protection of the
compound.

Adding that
nothing untoward had happened to her thus far, so what was the
problem exactly?

All of this fell on deaf
ears as Xavier dragged her behind him around the base. He
deliberately decided to do a grand tour of the dilapidated hotel
from almost roof to basement.  In fact, the more dusty, dirty
and dangerous the terrain underfoot, the better. Whistling to
drown out the incessant curses from Alicia, Xavier was quite
enjoying his day, and wondered why the fuck he hadn’t thought of
doing this before.

“
Hup two,
three, four!” Smirking as the orders were barked out, he turned
around to see Alicia stiff as a board, digging her heels into the
ground as though she was water skiing behind him.

“
You really
do hold onto a grudge, Sweetcheeks, yeah? There’s no point in
fighting it, you’ve got another twenty two hours and fifteen
minutes of this shit left.”

“
A grudge? A
fucking goddamn grudge? Oh I’ll tell you what I have solider
boy...a wish to kill you!”

Alicia
rattled her wrist against that of her captor. She was fuming as she
was being dragged around like a rag doll and he was laughing and
having a merry old time to himself.

“
I'll get you
back for this you fucking prick! Enough is enough, let me fucking
go!” All the while Alicia was imagining the ways that her gun was
going to shoved in his various orifices.

“
Have you ever
considered anger management, Sweetcheeks?”

Yanking his
arm sharply, slamming Alicia into him like a freight
train. Leaning down to go nose to nose with her. “You seem to
be forgetting that you are being punished for doing wrong, Alicia.
I’m your bodyguard and I can’t fucking do that if you decide to
disappear without any notice. So suck it up, deal with it - you’ve
earned this.” Resuming his whistling as he started to walk on, he
could feel her eyes staring into the back of his head.

Standing
outside his bathroom, Xavier put his hand on the handle and turned
to Alicia, grinning. “Guess you will need to accompany me. If
you’re real nice, I might let you hold it for me, yeah?” Barking a
laugh at Alicia’s horrified expression he stopped teasing her for a
second.

“
Meant to say, Alicia, Shuggie told me something
very
interesting
earlier. Tell me, have you checked my offshore bank accounts
recently?”

Her face went ashen as
the realisation dawned on her that she had been busted, big time.
 

Xavier took
her mute response as an invitation to continue.

“
You see,
someone…” giving her a knowing look, “wiped some of my accounts,
stealing all of my money. Shocker, yeah? But get this…I had blamed
Belcastro as being behind such duplicitous deceit. Oh I had his
cards marked for that — it was actually a contributing factor for
my ending our agreement — did you know that? No?”

Alicia stood shifting
from foot to foot, wishing a great big hole would open up and
swallow her right now

“
Why would you have known any of this...silly me? Oh, no…wait
a goddamn fucking minute…
you
would be the exact person to have known this
because, Alicia...” He leaned down to face her. “...Sweetcheeks...”
And he was enjoying his victory. “...It was you who stole from me,
wasn't it?”

“
Well…ahhh…oops?” Alicia gave an award winning smile.
“Surprise!”  Alicia knew she was well and truly caught and
there was no way to worm herself out of this one.  “No
Com-Man-Derr I did not steal from you, I simply went out to teach
you a lesson and all your money you will find is accounted for, so
chillax the fuck out.”

Opening the
door to the bathroom, he thrust his hips in her direction saying,
“Unzip me, I need a piss, and you need a lesson in humility,
Sweetcheeks.” Although he had absolutely no intentions of letting
her thieving little hands near his Xav Jr, she didn’t know that,
and by the expression on her face, he reckoned she was about to
faint by the way her pulse was racing as he held her handcuffed
wrist.  

Taking pity
on her, because for all his enjoyment of her awkwardness his wolf
would not tolerate any harm even in jest befalling his
female.

“
Calm your
tits, Sweetcheeks, like I’d let you anywhere near my fucking
impressive cock. You'd likely rip it off and sell it on eBay as a
draft excluder.” Giving a hearty laugh, Xavier dragged Alicia away
from the bathroom before she cringed any further.

“
Just take me
home! I need to get underwear unless you want me walking around
knowing I’m panty-less!” Alicia let out a sigh as she dragged her
feet behind him.

His wolfs
ears perked up.

“
Works for
me, Sweetcheeks.” And by fuck did that image work for him. So much
so that he nearly head-butted a wall because he was too busy
thinking about that particular visual.

“
You are such
a perv!” Alicia burst out laughing as the suddenly stilled, peering
around his waist to be faced with a wall. “Something distract you
there Commander? Now please un-cuff me and let me get fucking
home!”

“
You say
perv, like it’s a bad thing.” Shrugging a shoulder, he turned to
face her. “Tell you what - you ask real nice, and I might consider
letting you go home for an hour, escorted. But only if you ask …”
elongating the word, “...real...” he patted the top of her head
with the hand that was attached to the handcuffs, making Alicia pat
her own head at the same time, “...nice, Sweetcheeks.”

Alicia knew she was
walking a tight line here, one false statement and he would make
her suffer for hours upon hours.

“
Please
Commander Raige, I would rather like to visit my place of dwellings
for you see us ladies tend to suffer from...shall we say women
issues? And I would really like to gather some of my
belongings.”

Alicia
internally smirked as she felt Xavier shudder.

“
I’d say it
was males that suffered from women’s issues!” Barking a laugh he
added, “And where the fuck did the hoity toity lady shit come
from?” He flicked his fingers on the tip of her nose. “And since
when did female vamps get cramps?” Although this was more amusement
than he’d had since fuck knows when, he was feeling charitable.
“One hour, with me - your place, no arguments.”

Giving her a
warning look before taking the key out and unlocking the
handcuffs.

“
Agreed?”

Rubbing her
wrist from where the cuff had been against her skin Alicia waggled
her finger at Xavier smiling as he dipped his head, her lips
brushed over his cheek as she whispered, “I was raised to be polite
Commander.”

Alicia could have sworn
she felt a bolt of static hit her hand as she took Xavier strong on
in hers and without warning flashed them to her London
apartment.

“
Make yourself
at home, I’ll go grab my stuff.”

Watching her
ass sway like a pendulum as Alicia walked away, Xavier whistled
through his teeth, then started having a look around her home.
 It was nothing like he had expected. Most vampires that he
had met went in for the nouveau gothic monstrosity shit — candles,
black walls and novelty coffin coffee tables. Or, like Shuggie, so
minimalist that he didn’t seem to actually fucking own
anything.

Alicia’s home though was
different.

Feminine,
full of life and tasteful. Xavier walked through to the kitchen,
impressed at the way it was immaculate.

He surmised
that she must be an accomplished chef, and took pride in her
workplace. The surfaces were so clean, he could have eaten his
dinner off of them. The fridge was empty, but seeing as vamps
didn’t need to eat to survive, that wasn’t very surprising. Still,
he was famished and it wouldn’t have hurt for her to have had
something in there for him to munch on while he waited for
her.

Turning, he
could hear a heavy noise, as though a body was being dragged across
the floor, but just as he was about to go and investigate he heard
Alicia cursing after tripping over something.
Fuck, even when she was pissy, she was damn
adorable
. Telling his wolf to shut the
fuck up, Xavier shook his head and was about to leave the kitchen
when he noticed a door obscured by a cabinet. Curiosity getting the
better of him, he reached over and tried the handle.

The door was
locked.

Looking around for a key,
he couldn’t see one, and as Alicia was busy amusing herself with a
self-made demolition derby, Xavier decided to jimmy the lock and go
investigate what was so secretive that she had to lock this door in
particular.

Taking care
not to make any noise, the door opened slowly, and Xavier flicked
the light switch.  Dust mites fell like a veil before him as
he made his way down the wooden stairs.  The basement was
dark, and there was a faint smell of musk in the air. At the foot
of the stairs, Xavier stared, blinked, and stared again.

He shouted up
to Alicia while still keeping his eyes trained straight
ahead.

“
Alicia, Get the Fuck down
here.
” Adding quickly,
“
Now!
”

What the hell
is he shouting at now?

Alicia kicked
the box with her foot that she had tripped over whilst she was that
busy paying attention to the books she was packing along with
underwear and her lotions. Throwing her pink messenger style bag
over her shoulder she casually walked down to where the roar was
coming from.

Xavier didn’t
turn when he heard Alicia behind him, but instead said in a slow,
steady voice, “Do you mind telling me what the
Hell
that is, and what is it doing
in your damn basement?”

“
Ah duck. I
forgot about him!”

Alicia tilted
her head then shrugged her shoulders as she casually walked towards
the male that was in stasis.  

“
I’m
starving!” Without turning to look at Xavier her fangs started to
extend as she mumbled, “He’s Belcastro’s heir.”

Turning his head almost
in slow motion, until he was looking right at Alicia, he mouthed
the words she’d just uttered, but before he could verbalise a
response, she had passed by him and was leaning over the catatonic
male restrained to the chair in the middle of the room.

Xavier’s eyes nearly
bugged out of his head as he realised that she was feeding from the
male, right in front of him.

His wolf was
baying for blood, and his fists had clenched into tight fists
making the veins in his forearms bulge, and the tic in his jaw was
more pronounced as he clenched his teeth.  This was a
development that he neither expected nor liked. She was
feeding from a male — and it wasn’t
him
.

Unfuckingacceptable.

This would
not be tolerated. The small noises she made as she fed started to
make his blood boil as his wolf howled in his head to get her the
fuck away from the other male.  Without realising it, Xavier
had crossed the room, and had grabbed the back of Alicia’s hair,
yanking her backwards. Her fangs ripped through the other male’s
throat, his blood spurting out and splashing both of
them.

“
You do
not
feed from him, we clear? Sweetcheeks, I said are
we clear?” His breathing was ragged and his nostrils were flared,
as his narrowed eyes staring her. Alicia looked up at him, at first
confused and then angry, but Xavier didn’t give a shit.  All
he knew was that she would not be feeding from another male
again.

“
What the
fuck did you do that for, you prick?” Alicia raised her pink boot
and kicked Xavier in the shin. “I will feed from whom I want, when
I want Mr. Bodyguard, or are you offering to be my donor?” Alicia
wiped the blood from her lips as she stood beside
Xavier.

“
This is your
fault…that I forgot him.” Alicia was counting in her head at the
amount of times Xavier’s brows would be creasing, his nostrils
would do this little flaring thing and his fist would be balling
before he spoke to her. Not that she paid any attention to him any
way what's so ever.

Grabbing her
by the elbow and walking her a few steps away from the male, Xavier
tried to regain some control of the fury that was threatening to
overtake him.