I also knew that Colonel Hardwick lived out on a rural estate past Bishop’s Landing.
Elaine laughed one of her sassy laughs at me as I pondered.
“What are you going to do, Lucian?” she asked. “Hurt them for me?”
I should have laughed right back at her. I tried. I managed a pathetic smirk and little else. I shouldn’t kill these bastards. Especially not as retribution for a Constantine.
Fuck knows why I headed to the bathroom once I’d finished my pasta and called up the Bishop’s Landing social event scene on my phone. Fuck knows why I looked up the charity presence of them over the next few fundraising events. I checked out the attendee list.
Lord Eddington was at the next one, in just a few days.
I was still brewing on it as I stepped back into the living room and found Elaine curled up on the sofa like she was right at home. Fuck knows why I hovered without cursing her for her ease, then sat down opposite her in the battered old armchair. I didn’t have the energy to do anything else. For once in my life my legs were tired, and my brain was tired to match. I had a whole load of spinning thoughts and deadlines and sensibilities I should be focused on—not on who started fucking Elaine Constantine in the ass when she was legal enough to technically invite them to. That’s what they’d been doing, of course. Coercing her to the point it would have been consensual, and she’d believe it so.
“Are you not heading back into the city, then?” she asked me, her voice tired.
“I will be.”
She shrugged. “It’s quite a way, back and forth every day. Aren’t you at least going to take some thrill out of being here? I’ll bare my ass for you, if you like.”
I shook my head at her. “Is that how you flirt?”
She rolled her eyes at me. “You’re Lucian Morelli. Lucian Morelli doesn’t need offers. Lucian Morelli takes whatever the fuck he wants. And you want my ass again, right?”
I wanted nothing more than my bed upstairs. Fuck heading back into New York City; it would have to wait until morning. I looked at the clock and it was already far later than I’d imagined. The Elaine effect, no doubt, turning the minutes into hours with her chatter. “Get up to bed,” I told her, and gestured to the doorway. “Fuck off and take your snarky mouth with you.”
She hovered in her seat. I stared at her from across the room.
“I mean it,” I said. “Don’t hang around until I change my mind. My temper is fucking short.”
I guess she came to her senses. She was up like a shot and straight on past me, only stopping to turn around in the doorway and fix me with those pretty blue eyes. “Thanks,” she said, and walked away.
I didn’t know quite what the fuck she was thanking me for, but it didn’t matter. The way my stomach did a lurch at her smile was all I needed to know.
Elaine Constantine was no fucking good for me. I should stay the damn hell away from her and drive back into New York City where I belonged.
Fuck knows why I climbed the stairs anyway.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Elaine
I heard Lucian walk past my room on the way to his.
I heard the way he paused outside mine.
My heart raced like a train—two conflicting emotions at once. On one hand the instinctive fear of having a man outside my room was enough to make me feel sick and pull the covers up higher, and on the other…on the other…
I shouldn’t even face it. There’s no way I should be feeling what was on the other.
He continued on, and a fresh wave of goddamn something bloomed up in me.
Hurt. Rejection. Who knows.
One thing I did know was that I wanted Lucian Morelli to want me. I couldn’t lie about that to myself anymore. No matter how many times I tried to deny it. I wanted Lucian Morelli to want me. I needed Lucian Morelli to want me.
I heard his door close at the end of the landing, and I felt so alone that I pulled the covers up over my head. I knew it would happen. It had to. I’d been revisiting memories I’d been running away from for years. I had no cocaine or alcohol to block it out, and that began to take its toll on me. I felt sick and desperate for the substances I relied on…and more …I felt sick for more than that. I needed more than that. God help me, I needed more than that.
Life inside here was messing me up in ways I’d never known. I wasn’t even thinking about life outside anymore. I wasn’t thinking about the inter-family conflict that was brewing because of me, or how frantic people like Tristan and Harriet would be to bring me back. There were a few of them at least. I hadn’t thought about the news reports that might be running on the TV or how Lucian was keeping me away from them this evening. Who knows what they’d be saying now?
Beyond all that, I was torn between thinking about the monsters from my past and the monster down the hall. There it was in the balance—monsters from my past, or the monster down the hall…
I chose the monster down the hall.
I’d spent years believing that touching myself where it felt good was a bad thing, but I couldn’t stop my fingers slipping down between my legs as I thought about Lucian. I was thinking about the ferocity in his eyes, and how strong he’d been in the kitchen, and how angry he’d looked as I told him about the men who’d fucked me up. I was thinking about the curse in his tone, and how powerful that was, and how his fingers were so firm as he sliced the salami.
I was thinking about simple things mixed with his beastly soul.
If he even had a soul. He was a Morelli, after all.
I shouldn’t have touched myself and thought about him, but I couldn’t stop. I thought right back to Tinsley’s masked ball where he’d first laid his hands on me and just how much that had swept me away. I thought back to the fear I’d felt in Jemma’s apartment when he’d cornered me there, and just how different I was feeling now to the drugged-up mess who’d wanted to die at his hands—because that was the other thing that was changing…I wasn’t so sure I wanted to die anymore. For real, I wasn’t sure if I wanted to die.
My fingers were fast and light between my legs, teasing me as my breaths quickened. The memories blurred and grew more intense, until I was back next to Stephen Cannon’s body with Lucian on top of me, taking my ass. I shouldn’t be thinking about that. I shouldn’t be thinking about how Lucian had stabbed a man to death who’d been trying to rape me. Because that’s what he’d done. My enemy had saved me. Oh fuck, Lucian Morelli had saved me…
My fingers pressed harder to my clit, faster, faster. My breaths were hitching, needy. Lucian. My fingers danced, desperate, and my thoughts were tumbling, more and more. More of the monster. More of his hate and his spite.
More of what he could do to me…because I wanted it.
I couldn’t help but want it. I wanted him to be rough with me, and control me, and show me his strength and his power. I wanted him to be the first one to fuck my pussy and make me truly his. I wanted him to make me truly his.
Holy fuck, I wanted Lucian Morelli to truly make me his.
And then I wanted to stay that way.
I wanted to belong to Lucian Morelli.
Please no. Please.
My fingers were circling hard enough that I held my breath and raised my hips from the bed. I tried to slow my breathing but I couldn’t, I was too lost in my thrills. My clit was alive and screaming, my body was desperate for the man who was out to tear me apart, and I couldn’t stop myself from coming. I couldn’t. I couldn’t.