Chapter Text
Pearls were the first thing. Left on a doorknob of his abandoned laundering facility, delivered by one of his men when they made a final sweep for anything left behind. He contemplated them for an hour before heading to her house, too curious for his own good. Damn his inability to control how his feelings had seeped into his voice. He wondered if she’d heard.
Her panties were the next. The scene was seared into his mind like a brand. Rio could still recall every sound, gasp, whisper that left her mouth that night. He remembered pressing his face into her hair and inhaling deeply, finally able to breathe her in instead of getting small hints when he purposely stood too close to her. Without a word she left the bathroom, carefully avoiding his eyes. He stared at the door after she’d gone for a long moment, unable to process the fact that the thoughts he kept in the deepest recesses of his mind had somehow come true. Rio had turned to look at himself in the mirror, seeing the flush in his cheeks and the light sheen of sweat on his forehead, when he felt something beneath his sneaker. Glancing down he found her panties where he’d yanked them down. Soft blue lace – blue like her eyes that haunted him. He’d scooped them up and shoved them into his back pocket, slipping from the bar through the back door.
From then on he seemed to be unable to keep himself from taking things.
Like a gum wrapper. She’d been sitting at the bar drinking her bourbon. When she finished her glass she reached into her bag for a stick of gum, offering him one. He took the gum from her, careful to ensure that his hand brushed hers because he liked to see that flicker of anxious desire in her eyes. While sitting there, she’d folded the wrapper carefully into a small and perfect foil square. She left it behind, and Rio found himself reaching for it when he left.
He’d nicked a pen from her desk at Boland Motors when discussing business with her. She hadn’t seen – too worried about watching him like he was a coiled predator…which he was. She was always nervous when he showed up during business hours, afraid that the others would somehow see their relationship written across her face. Hell, sometimes it was. He could see the tamped down desire in her eyes beneath the cold exterior she presented at work in an effort to keep him at arm’s length.
After that it had been a sticky note, carelessly tossed to the side from her insanely detailed calendar. He’d found her sitting in bed with the calendar spread out, her body hunched over squeezing one more task into a day that was already overfilled. She didn’t exactly spare him a glance except for a brief annoyed look. He was there to discuss the next drop. She bit out that she’d get it done, the implied I always get it done hung in the air. Beth had put the calendar away, snatching up the sticky notes and crushing them into a ball as she left the room. There had been one left behind. R – meeting @ park. 4:30. He’d be lying if seeing the first initial of his name in her handwriting didn’t thrill him just a little.
His next theft was right after she’d climbed from bed ordering him out of her house while he was propped up against her headboard. The rage that was roiling in him as he heard the shower running was enough to make him want to claw the sheets from her bed like an animal. Instead, as he stuffed his feet into his sneakers, he snatched up one of her mismatched socks that he’d found so endearing an hour before which she’d hastily removed after he yanked her jeans down. Rio cast one last glare at the bathroom before heading from the room – pausing as his eyes caught a flash of purple on the night stand. A hair tie. His gaze flickered once more to the door. In a flash the hair tie was in his hand and he was storming to his car, plans already bouncing around in his head.
Now he sat in his loft, alone. Marcus had gone home for the night. The small wooden box he kept buried in the back of his closet opened on the table in front of him. He stared at these small treasures –meaningless to all, all but him. Each a small bit of her. A sad replacement for the real thing, but enough to keep him from showing up at her house just to catch a glimpse of her.
Rio wondered briefly what she’d think if she had found this box when she was snooping. Pearls, panties, gum wrapper, pen, sticky note, sock, and a hair tie. Anyone else would have been horrified at having their things kept in a box like a shrine. Somehow, though, Rio didn’t think she’d mind.
And she wouldn’t. In fact, Beth was keeping a box of her own.