Lucian Morelli’s door was the one at the far end. Even his door felt more sinister somehow. More imposing.
It wasn’t locked.
Perhaps that made him a fool, but it wasn’t locked.
His bed was huge in the space. His wardrobe was plain wood but stocked at odds with the rest of the place. It was brimming with clothes, suits that looked insane against such a mediocre backdrop. They smelled of him. Grand. Imposing.
He had an old leather watch in his bedside drawer with some initials on the strap. His handwriting was cursive but masculine, almost calligraphic. It suited him. His pen was fountain and jet black. I scrawled a sample of the ink across my hand. I used to love writing when I was a little girl. At least the handwriting told me something about the man, because the text didn’t. They were stock abbreviations and numbers, scribbled graphs, aborted sentences. It was the shorthand of a very intelligent, very calculating mind.
I felt bizarrely at home in Lucian’s bedroom. I guess because it felt like a home, even in its sparse decor. I wondered just how much time he really spent here and whether anyone knew he ever came. I doubted that somehow.
I didn’t put my panties or my dress back on from the night before.
Instead I pulled one of Lucian’s designer shirts from the hanger. The black richness made me look pale in the mirror when I slipped it on. I liked wearing his shirt; it felt private. I felt close to him in the most mundane of ways. That felt bizarrely close—closer than I’d ever have imagined. In some ways even closer than having his cock in my ass or his breath in my face.
I wondered when I’d see him again. The thought was both terrifying and exciting, a combination I was fast becoming accustomed to. People adapt quickly, don’t they?
I helped myself to some soup, it’s far from a fancy restaurant up in Maine. I made myself a coffee and settled down to a mindless show on the sleek TV that rolled down from the ceiling. I couldn’t focus on it. I was on hyper-alert, heart racing at the thought of a car pulling up in the driveway.
When a car did pull up in the driveway, I leapt up from my seat, a wreck as the nerves ate me up alive.
The monster was silent as he stepped inside and cast his eyes on me. His eyes were as dark as I’d ever seen them. His jaw was as firm as I’d ever known. It was barely dark outside, so he must have come straight here, perhaps leaving before the customary five o’clock. Surprising. I’m sure my expression must have told him so.
“Enjoying my shirt, are you? Taking liberties already.”
I ran my hands down the fabric as he watched me. “Better than an unwashed dress, thank you very much. Some liberties are there to be taken.” I paused, holding my hands on my hips. “Did you expect me to wander around naked all day?”
His answer was simple and straight. “Yes.”
I couldn’t help but smirk. “Sure thing, right. Think this is a fairy tale?”
His smirk was right back. “Hardly. There’s no happy ever after here. More like a tragedy. You’re the innocent girl who falls victim to the monster in human form.”
“A monster who has a decent body wash in his shower at least. Thank you.”
He was on the edge of laughing. I could see it. He didn’t. He cast his jacket on the sofa and headed to the kitchen. I followed him in time to see him flick on the coffee machine. I hoped I’d get one. Manners, at least before he fucked me up for his pleasure.
I felt strangely human in his presence, which was ridiculous given that he was the greatest enemy I’d ever known, right from the day I was born.
“Show me your ass,” he told me. “I want to see the marks.”
I spun for him and lifted the shirt, and then my cheeky side found its strength some more. I shook my butt for him, shooting him a glance over my shoulder.
He was on me in seconds, arm around my throat as he slapped me hard on the ass. “There’s a very fine line between a girl who finds her voice to amuse me and one who is asking for a fucking beating, Elaine.”
I knew that. I managed to nod, and he dropped me.
My cheeky side shriveled to nothing as he returned to the coffee machine. This man was going to be the end of me, I needed to remember that. His amusement was nothing to me. He was nothing to me. Lucian Morelli was fuck all to my Constantine soul, he never would be. Not in the rest of my sorry lifetime.
“Get on your knees,” he said.
Chapter Ten
Lucian
The little doll on the floor transfixed me.
Her blue eyes were pools, deep with their secrets. The different shades of her butterfly beauty were siren calls, even in the sterile surroundings. She seemed at home here, even more than she’d seemed at home in opulence. It shouldn’t have surprised me.
She was even more beautiful from that angle, staring up at me. I stepped up close enough to enjoy it. “Take my shirt off. Now.”
Her fingers fumbled, impudence forgotten. She was visibly nervous.
I wanted to see her slip her hand between her thighs again without permission, but she didn’t. She was silent and still. “You’re lucky you’re so pretty,” I told her.
She stayed silent. It frustrated me how much I wanted her attitude. Because I did. Part of me wanted her attitude. Part of me even liked it. Disgusting.
I punished her for it, dragging her up to her feet and slamming her down onto the counter, her tits pressed tight to the wood. I reached into the drawer and pulled out the metal spatula. I ran it up her thighs, teasing her before striking.
She whimpered. I loved her pain.
I made her squeal again and again and again. I yanked her head back by her silky blonde curls, hungry to see tears streaming down her pretty cheeks, but there were none. She wasn’t crying.
“I’ll make you sob for me,” I snarled, but she smiled.
“Don’t count on it, sir.” Her smile wasn’t rude. It was genuine. It lit up the pain in her eyes.
I knew it. She was a masochist as desperate for my wrath as she was for my mercy.
My cock was a beast in my pants, lost to the siren even more than the rest of me.
Her virginity was the biggest temptation of all, there for the taking. I was used to taking whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted it. I had been since I was a young boy learning from his father. I always clicked my fingers and got whatever I summoned. I cast my eyes on anything I desired and it arrived at my feet. People, possessions, places. So why didn’t I take her?
Why hadn’t I taken her tight little pussy yet?
Fuck knows.
I hit her some more, and she moved with me, rocking those hips as she gasped. The endorphins flooded her—I could sense it. Gasps turned to moans, taking it. Wanting it.
She wanted it. Elaine Constantine wanted me to hurt her.
I forced her thighs apart and curled my fingers around to her pussy. Her clit was a toy in my grip. I twisted. It hurt to a whole different tune.
I wondered what it felt like.
I wondered what her ass felt like, already reddening in a beautiful shade.
“I know you like it,” I told her.
I turned her to face me, giving her no warning before I slapped her tits hard enough to make her bite her lip and whimper. I loved the way they pinked.
“The men who played with you, did they teach you to be a true little masochist?”