Chapter Three
Elaine
It wasn’t what I was expecting from him. Not in the slightest.
The house was small and strangely cozy, despite the metals and woods and glass used in the design. It somehow worked together in harmony, making me feel at ease.
It wasn’t exactly the billion dollar bachelor pad I would’ve pictured for the Morelli heir.
He must’ve seen the surprise in my eyes as I crossed the threshold and stepped into the hall. My gaze was flitting around the place, checking out the decor. Artwork on the wall. Paintings? No, they were made out of wood and other materials. They were a cross between a picture and a sculpture, with geometric designs and stark contrasts. A rich cherry wood traced through a matte black canvas, with streaks of burnished gold.
“What does it mean?” I asked, forgetting for one moment that he was my enemy.
“It’s pain,” he said. “At least the way I imagine it would feel.”
I gave him a disbelieving look. “You don’t know what pain feels like? Is that some sort of weird rich boy flex, like nothing has ever hurt you in your two-thousand thread count sheets?”
“Not quite,” he murmured, though he didn’t sound offended. More like amused.
“Whatever, Lucian.”
All this talk about imagined pain. He probably just wanted to fuck with me. It didn’t matter, anyway. He had money and power and fame. He had a disturbingly handsome face. A lean body.
And the absolute surety that the world was made to please him.
He stepped through to the kitchen, and again it had beautiful smooth spaces. The coffee machine looked like the most expensive item in the building. It had so many silver pipes and steam holes that it reminded me of a luxe Dr. Seuss instrument.
“Are you going to fuck me tonight, then?” I asked him, pasting on my bravest face.
“I’ll fuck you whenever it suits me,” he told me, and he meant it.
I looked at him fresh in these new surroundings, as though I was seeing him for the very first time. His darkness was radiating. His strength was brilliant—muscular and sculpted with biological precision. It was a strange thing, just how opposite our family lines were, in every sense of the word.
His hands were like magicians whenever they moved, his fingers beautiful in their dances. His hair was perfect in his styling. I guess it was the intensity of the surroundings, but Lucian Morelli looked even more of a god in this place. His opulence and class was obvious against the planed backdrop.
I leaned against the counter and watched him.
“You’re going to really make me suffer, aren’t you?” I asked.
“Yes, sweetheart,” he said with an evil smile. “I’m going to make you suffer. I’m going to enjoy every second of it. Morelli versus Constantine in the most intimate of ways.”
Somehow, even through the dread and the fear churning inside me, intimacy with Lucian Morelli gave me a shudder of something different.
I expected him to fire up the coffee machine, but he didn’t. He crossed the room to the refrigerator and pulled out two mineral waters, pouring them into glasses from the shelf.
“Drink,” he ordered, and handed one over.
I did what he told me, because I was thirsty, not because I was his meek little servant. Not yet, anyway. He watched me while he sipped at his.
It was another clear light and dark between us both. Another polarity in our souls. He drank mineral water while I drank champagne. I’d never seen him overindulge, let alone have a dependency on it.
Control. He was all about control.
I was all about losing control.
“I hope your ass is still hurting,” he said. “I’ve got plenty of pain to add to it.”
I laughed. “It’s had worse. I’m not quite so virginal as you think I am. My life hasn’t been all that sheltered, asshole.”
“You’ll tell me all about who’s been ass-fucking you, Elaine. Soon enough, I’ll know every one of your dirty little secrets.”
He was wrong.
I wouldn’t tell him anything I didn’t want to. He could tear me apart, and I’d still keep my mouth closed tight.
He tipped my face up to his. “I know there are plenty of dirty little secrets behind those pretty blue eyes.”
He wasn’t wrong on that front. I had enough dirty little secrets to fill a bookshelf.
His fingers slid down my throat, squeezing just a little before slipping my coat from my shoulders and letting it drop to the floor. I didn’t fight him.
“Such a pretty little Constantine,” he whispered.
I felt like a pretty little Constantine. It was a beautiful darkness, to be wanted by such a demon.
My words were out of my throat before I even realized they were coming, nothing but a breath from my lips.
“Hurt me, monster. Show me what you really are.”
I couldn’t hold back a gasp as he raised his hand to my face. I was expecting pain, but I didn’t get it. No. I got anything but pain. With a slip of his fingers as he gripped my face, Lucian Morelli pushed his thumb inside my mouth.
It was the strangest thing to have the monster’s thumb so intimately between my lips, probing so gently. I’d been touched and groped and abused in the most intense of ways through my life, but nothing had ever made me feel as vulnerable as the way he invaded me. His thumb was strong as it explored my mouth, commanding me in the most intimate way. I tried to pull back from him but he pinned me to the counter, making me moan as he petted my tongue.
“Suck,” he said, but I didn’t suck.
I moved my tongue in nothing more than a flicker, tasting him. I wanted to taste him. I wanted to taste the monster’s thumb.
“Suck,” he said again, but I still didn’t.
He swapped his thumb for two thick fingers, and I tasted him, fresh. Flickering, flickering, flickering with my tongue.
He liked it. I could see it in his eyes. The monster liked it.
“Dirty girl,” he growled, and I loved the dark tone in his voice. “Show me that hungry little tongue, I want to see it.”
I opened my mouth nice and wide and showed the beast my tongue, still brushing against his fingers as he pulled them free.
I wasn’t prepared for him to lower his head so quickly. I wasn’t prepared for the way he nipped his teeth around my tongue hard enough to make me squeal. I tried to pull away, but he grabbed my hair in his fist, held me still as he sucked on my tongue.
I tasted blood at the same time he did.
He let out a moan. I knew he was smiling.
Lucian Morelli really was a monster.
His lips were red as he pulled away.
“You’re fucked up,” I told him. “Did you know that, Morelli? You’re a fuck-up.”
I thought he’d take offense, but he didn’t. He smirked at me.
“Yes, I know that,” he told me. “I’ve been a fuck-up since the day I was born. I enjoy it. Regular life is so fucking dull.”
That made me smirk right back at him. It was one of the few things we had in common. I too had been a fuck-up since the day I was born.
Everyone else in my family had been in their billionaire childhood dreams, and I’d been drifting along the sidelines, focused on the shadows at the edges. Maybe that’s why the evil men had picked me out of the Constantine girls for their sick thrills. Maybe I was asking for it with my weird little ways right from the start.