She flinched. “What do you know about me and the Power brothers?”
I leaned into her so closely that I could almost taste her neck. “I know you’re in danger.”
She shrugged. “I’m in danger from a lot of people. They can join the club, can’t they?”
I found myself gripping her arm before she could move away. “Who the fuck else is after you?”
She turned her face to me, and she was close, so fucking close that her lips were just an inch away from mine. She was wearing a rich dark red lipstick. It contrasted against her blonde so well that it was a haven of temptation. Her cleavage was rising and falling with her breaths. Her words were a whisper when she spoke. “Why do you care who is after me? Just leave me alone if I bother you so much.”
My reply was a growl in a crowded room of giggles and gossip. “I said, who the fuck else is after you, Elaine?”
Her eyes were pools of pain, underneath her bravado. “And I said, why do you care?”
With that, some loudmouth prick slapped my back, and this one was from London, wanting to talk about his investments. Elaine wasted no time in slipping away.
I managed five seconds of conversation before I excused myself and tracked her down. She was weaving her way through standing guests, pitching her route to the rear double doors with her perfect blonde hair bouncing on her shoulders.
The corridor outside the hall wasn’t empty when I caught up with her, but I didn’t care. I took her elbow and steered her to the side, pushing us down into some staff catering alley.
“Stay away from me!” she snapped, and this time around she tried to pull away. She lashed out with her hands and knees, a look of rage on her face as she tried to fight me.
She barely even managed to touch me before I pinned her, wrists high. Her clutch tumbled to the floor and the contents fell out onto the carpet. Makeup and phone and purse. She was panting, scared, hating me with every breath, but still she couldn’t fight it. She couldn’t hide the truth under the lies and the lashing out.
She wanted me.
And I wanted her.
Right there and then, beyond all doubt, I knew it. We were both crazy fucking freaks in a crazy fucking world.
“Stop stalking me,” she said as her breath calmed. “Your family would laugh at you if they could see you right now. That or break your kneecaps.”
“What makes you think my attendance is about you?”
She ground her stomach against my swollen cock in my pants, and she laughed at me. Somewhere, summoned from a deep little surge of spirit inside her, she laughed at me. “This,” she said. “This tells me you’re here for me.”
“This has nothing to do with my cock,” I told her. “It’s something much less interesting than sex. It’s about marriage. I need a wife.”
She gasps. “Are you insane?”
“I’m dead serious. And anything that has to do with my fiancée has to do with me. Who the fuck else is after you, Elaine?”
“I don’t care,” she said. “They can come after me. I don’t care anymore. And we are most definitely not getting married, you psychopath.”
It was beyond fucked up that I was seemingly more bothered about her survival than she was. Her legs were still spread and she was still grinding, her breath hot on my lips. “You’ll let me fuck you in a shitty apartment, but you won’t let me put a ring on your finger? You hurt my feelings.”
“You don’t have feelings.”
A slow smile spreads across my face. “That’s right. I don’t.”
“Please,” she repeated. “Please, Lucian, just use me. Make it hurt all you like, but please show me what it’s like to be taken.”
Elaine Constantine wasn’t drunk. Or even tipsy. She wanted this.
“Why?” I demanded.
“Because I’m useless. Disgusting. I’m an embarrassment to my family.” She squirms against my knee, even through the pain. “God gave up on me a long time ago.”
“There’s always redemption,” I replied, though the words sounded strange coming from me.
Her surprise was genuine. “Redemption? Wow. Didn’t have you down as the religious type.”
I ground my knee against that sweet pussy some more. “The Morellis are Catholic, sweetheart. The strict kind. Religious enough to hear your sins and deliver your salvation.”
“You’d be here a long time,” she said. “Hearing my sins would take a lifetime. Like you’d ever understand them.”
Jesus Christ, how I wanted them. I wanted to hear every single one of them from her quick little breaths.
Thank fuck my senses picked that point to come back to me. I broke the tension, dropping her to the floor with a curse.
“Forget it,” I spat and crouched down to her strewn belongings. I looked through her purse, digging my fingers into the lining until I found her cocaine. I slipped it into my inside pocket as she stared.
What she didn’t notice was me gathering the slick little item I’d chosen to replace it. I forced the tracker inside the lining in a heartbeat, deep enough that she’d never find it without a pair of damn scissors.
I handed it back over with a smile. “Make sure you don’t bid on any more penguins now. Be a responsible little doll for half the night at least.”
“That’s it, is it?” she asked. “You’re really going to steal my coke and fuck off again?”
My silence was answer enough as I walked away.
I was out of sight of her when I pulled my phone from my pocket and fired up the app through encryption. I was out of the venue and in the parking lot when the first bleep of her location showed up on my screen.
Yes. Perfect. Absolutely damn perfect. Just as I’d been planning, and just as I’d been craving.
The pretty Constantine was at my fingertips.
Chapter Seventeen
Elaine
I would have probably snorted a fresh round of coke if he hadn’t stolen it from me. I was trembling as I gathered my things together and headed back through to the sea of people in the gala room. My heartbeat was fast, and my legs felt like weak little twigs.
This has nothing to do with my cock.
Harriet was still her amazing self as I sat back down at our table. She gave me her usual supportive smile and reached out to pull me close.
“You’re doing great,” she encouraged, but I felt anything but great. I felt like every bit the broken mirror—a flawed Constantine blonde, at odds with all the others.
Harriet seemed blind to the fear in my eyes, no doubt putting my shivers down to coke withdrawal and little else.
It’s something much less interesting than sex. It’s about marriage. I need a wife.
“I know it messed you up to see Lucian Morelli. Caroline is still flipping out, though of course she looks so calm and collected, no one outside the family can tell. But you handled it great.”
“Don’t worry about me,” I whispered. “No one else does.”
Harriet didn’t even bother attempting to argue with me; she knew I was right.
I’m dead serious. And anything that has to do with my fiancée has to do with me.
I drank more champagne, but didn’t feel the thrill or the release, just piled into the car with my chauffeur when it was acceptably late enough to bail on the shitshow. I opted for my apartment in the city, barely looking out the car window as it took me home, but there was something weird about the journey. An odd shiver down my spine.