Fuck that temptress and her filthy fucking ways, but I didn’t.
I barely gave Alto any time to leave the complex before I was straight back down to the parking lot and slipping back into my car. Elaine Constantine was going to get me at my best.
Chapter Seven
Elaine
The darkness had me wrapped up tight. The light wasn’t working overhead. There was a bed in the room, but I didn’t want to use it. I was pressed up against the wall opposite the door with my arms around my knees, hugging myself tight.
So many nights I’d been scared in the darkness staring at a locked door. Waiting. Waiting for people. Men.
Now I was waiting for one man. Was he really a man? Or was he a monster?
It was hard to tell them apart sometimes.
I was thirsty and cold. Alone.
I was the broken girl I’d been running away from for years, only now I had no cocaine or alcohol to help me escape her. Fuck, I needed it. I needed the escape.
The irony was that no one would think to look for me, not in Lucian Morelli’s home. They would check my apartment. Then ask Tristan. He would worry about me. No one would connect me with Lucian Morelli, and even if they did, no one had enough power to compel a search warrant for his home. It was both an obvious and a perfect place to stash a captive. Like hiding the incriminating letters in plain sight.
I really was at Lucian Morelli’s mercy now. He could leave me here to shrivel and die and nobody would ever know it. As much as I wanted to be dead, the thought of dying like that was enough to bring tears to my eyes. Please God, don’t let Lucian Morelli be that evil.
Even Lucian Morelli couldn’t be that evil.
Only he could be. Lucian Morelli could be the most evil monster I’d ever known.
I nearly cried with relief when I heard a car pull up the driveway and into the garage. I rushed up to the window but couldn’t see anything, just pitch black outside. Nothing until the porch light came on and lit up the figure heading up to the front door.
I stepped back and pressed myself up against the wall, braced and ready. The front door slammed downstairs, and I heard footsteps. I heard movement.
It was him. I knew it was him.
I don’t know whether I was more scared or more relieved as I waited for his entry. Only it didn’t come. Nothing came.
More movement sounded downstairs but still nothing. Still no footsteps on the stairs.
It felt like I was waiting a lifetime, standing there with my heart thumping hard. When his footsteps finally did sound out on the stairs, I was almost grateful he was coming. Anything would be better than fading away alone.
The key was heavy in the lock. The door swung open slow and steady, and there he was. The huge frame of him was lit up by the light from downstairs.
He didn’t speak to me, just stood there, leaning against the frame, even more sinister in his ease.
I didn’t speak to him, because my throat was dry and I didn’t know what the hell to say.
“It’s late,” he told me. “I don’t have time for disobedience. And I sure as hell don’t have the patience. Punishment will be severe if it’s required.”
I nodded, and he stepped back onto the landing, heading downstairs. My legs felt like jelly as I followed him. I really did feel like the little doll he expected me to be.
He was in the kitchen when I joined him. My eyes were blinking against the harshness of the light as they focused on the man before me. Yeah, he was Lucian Morelli at his finest. He was beautiful enough to take my breath away.
I didn’t want to ask him for anything just in case that provoked him to deny it. I forced myself to stand there, waiting and hoping.
As it turns out, the monster had at least a sliver of kindness in his bones.
He handed me a mineral water, and I gulped it down in one.
“Thanks,” I said, more bothered about basic necessities than the fact I was naked in some gleaming kitchen in front of a man who wanted to kill me.
I had no idea what time it was, but I knew it was late. The monster actually looked tired. Maybe even a little resigned. I’d never imagined seeing him like this.
He always looked so immortal.
I found my voice. “Guess something pretty urgent dragged you away.”
“Not your business,” he said back, deadpan.
We had another minute of silence. Heavy.
I wondered what he was planning on doing to me. Whether he’d make the pain harsh and hard, or slow and sensual. Maybe both.
I wondered whether he would finally get around to taking my virginity, and whether it would be as good as my fantasies promised before he tore me apart.
“Did you miss me?” he asked, his voice almost soft. Musical.
“No.” But I was cold enough that my nipples were hard. His stare almost heated them as he looked me up and down. My thighs clenched tight together. He noticed. He could see plenty.
“I’m bored,” he told me. “Time for you to entertain me.”
I shrugged. “I’m bored too. Maybe it’s time for you to entertain me right back.”
I was coming to know his evil smirk so well. It made me shiver. “Don’t worry, sweetheart. You’ll be entertained.”
He gestured through to the hallway, and I didn’t argue. I stepped out ahead of him, turning instinctively into the lounge.
I didn’t realize how close behind me he was until he pressed up against me and wrapped his arm around my neck.
“I want your pain, little doll.”
I knew what was coming when he forced me down over the arm of the couch and took his belt from his pants. I didn’t need to look at him behind me. I’d been in this position plenty of times before…waiting for the belt…the pain…the punishment.
I yelled out the hurt as the first lash landed, right across my ass cheeks.
He was skilled enough that he hit the same spot twice. Then three times. Then four.
I was skilled enough at taking it that my skin began to burn in the most amazing of ways, hips rocking as the pain morphed and turned into the strangest of pleasures.
Release.
It was release.
“This is your punishment for being disrespectful earlier,” he told me, and I didn’t protest, just took it. “You’re going to have to learn to watch that pretty little mouth of yours.”
Five. Six. Seven.
I was gasping, crying out with every lash.
Eight. Nine. Ten.
Tingling.
Eleven. Twelve.
Hurting.
Yes. I was hurting.
I wanted to be hurting.
I needed to be hurting.
I was still rocking from the pain when Lucian Morelli’s thumb plunged deep inside my asshole, so dry and tight it hurt like hell. I cried out over and over again. He pulled out and circled my asshole. And then he fucked me with it, rough enough that I whimpered.
He replaced the belt with his palm, slapping me fast. The slaps were loud in the room, masking my cries. I felt like his doll now.
I was his doll now.
My breaths were gasping when he twisted me over and forced me onto my knees. His cock was waiting, my mouth was open.
I sucked Lucian Morelli’s cock, staring up at him with wide eyes as he forced his way deep. He choked me, and I took it like a good girl. He made me retch over and over, but it didn’t stop me from sucking him.
“Someone’s taught you well,” he said with a grunt.