I came to the fantasy of belonging to Lucian Morelli for all time.
It was the most bad girl thing I’d ever done. I should never have the fantasy of belonging to Lucian Morelli for all time. He was a Morelli. An enemy I should be out to destroy, just as he was out to destroy me. They’d always been out to ruin our family, and now they might do it. The Morellis might team up with the Power brothers and hurt my family…because of me.
I rolled over in bed and caught my breath, my mind churning.
I had so many questions and fears and guilty thoughts and needs.
This should’ve been a simple case of kidnapping. I thought I’d be bound up and punished until I was nothing but a broken shell of the woman. How the holy fuck was I eating pasta and talking about hobbies? How was it me trying to push him into hurting me? Were we in some kind of surreal dimension where I’d been thumped on the head and woken up in cuckoo land?
Jesus, Lucian had been the one person in my life to hear my story. I’d told him that. I’d told him all my secrets, and he’d listened to them all without so much as a smile at my suffering.
This really was cuckoo land.
I was still lying on my side under the covers when I pulled my knees up to my chest and tried to settle down to some sleep. I needed to stop my whirring mind, but it wouldn’t slow down, churning, churning. That’s when it started churning over the things I’d told the Morelli heir—all of the nasty nights I’d spent afraid of who was coming and what they were going to do to me. Once again I was back in my own pool of fear, once again craving the drink and drugs to block it out of me. Once again there was no coke and champagne to bail me out.
The night was quiet and cold, what little was left of it. The closed door was an ominous shadow in the corner of the room, and the covers over my head didn’t stop me peering out at it, like I’d learned to do so many times in my past. I started shaking, like always. My mouth turned dry, like always. I gripped my knees tighter to my chest, like always.
As always, it didn’t work. I was just the broken girl shaking in the dark.
I switched the light on, but it didn’t make the slightest difference, just seemed to make the closed door more ominous. It should have been ominous given the beast that was down the hall, and how he may come for me. But it wasn’t. The beast down the hall wasn’t ominous at all. Strange but true. The beast down the hall felt like my safety, not my fear.
I threw back my covers and swung my feet down onto the floor. I had no idea what the hell I was thinking as I crept my way across the room and pressed my ear to the closed door.
I couldn’t hear him out there. He was definitely still in his room. Definitely still down the hall, probably deep in slumber since he undoubtedly had a trip into New York City in the morning…the early morning…
My crazy took on a fresh level of insane when I eased the door handle down and peeked my way out onto the landing. It was dark, and empty. Lucian’s door was closed at the end, I could just about see it in the shadows.
I held my breath as I stepped out. I still had his damn shirt on, and it felt floaty against my thighs, still sore from where I’d cut them earlier. I ghosted my way closer to his room with my heart pounding and my nerves on fire, and I should’ve raced back to my shitty bed in the other shitty room, but I didn’t. I pressed myself up against his door and placed my hand on the handle.
Please, God, what the fuck am I doing?
I turned the handle as gently as I could, and I was shaking. I was a wreck. I was insane as I slowly opened the door.
I was fully expecting Lucian to sit stark upright in bed, then come charging after me, dragging me back down the hallway and belting me at the very least before locking me back in my room. But no. He didn’t.
Lucian Morelli was asleep in his bed, fast asleep to the world.
I should’ve stolen his keys and got the hell out of there—driving his car back into the city and condemning him for good, but I didn’t. Hell knows why, but I didn’t.
I waited a full minute at least before I dared to ease the covers back just enough to slip myself inside of them. I stayed right on the edge of the mattress, trying not to disturb him, keeping as far away as I could. Still, I couldn’t help myself. His warmth was too inviting. Bizarrely enough, I felt safer next to the monster than I had anywhere else in the whole damn world. Nobody would ever get to me in this place…nobody but the monster himself.
It was sad but fucking true that the monster was fast becoming the one man I wanted to get me, only this time it wasn’t about him wiping me out and freeing me from my pitiful misery…
This time it was about becoming the monster’s prey in a whole other way…
I couldn’t deny it…I wanted the monster to love me enough to keep me safe…
It was true…
Oh my God, it was true…
I wanted the monster to love me.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Lucian
I had never overslept in my life, not like I did that morning. I awoke from my bed with the daylight fast streaming through the window, cursing myself…only to find Elaine Constantine in my bed next to me.
My little doll was in my bed next to me.
I stared in shock at the figure at my side, curled up tight with her knees to her chest, sleeping as soundly as I had been. My first instinct was to shake her the fuck awake and drag her the fuck out of there, but I didn’t. I fucking didn’t. I just stared at her like a fucking fool.
Elaine Constantine was in my bed.
In my fucking bed.
Nobody was ever in my bed, let alone a fucking Constantine.
It was when I twisted and reached for my phone on the bedside table that she stirred beside me. It was when she stretched out her arms, still dressed in my shirt, that I realized just how fast asleep she had been. It appears she was going as damn fucking crazy as I was, choosing to sneak into her soon-to-be destroyer’s bed in the middle of the night.
She rolled over, and that’s when she tensed and leaped up in bed. She was terrified in that moment, eyes wide as she registered just how hard I was staring at her.
“I, um…” she began. “The room down there was…”
“Was what?” I asked, my voice gruff with sleep.
“It was, um…”
I pointed a finger at her. “We’re not having a fucking sleepover, Elaine.”
She looked annoyed at that, throwing the covers off and moving to get out of there, but I took hold of her arm before she managed it. “I’m sorry, alright?” she said in her usual snarky tone, then tried to wrench away from me, but I wouldn’t let her.
I yanked her back around until she was facing me, and I couldn’t work out what she was thinking as I met her eyes, still trying to squirm her way from my grip. “You must be insane,” I said. “Climbing in bed with me. Absolutely fucking insane.”
“Yeah, well, I probably am,” she said, and gave up the fight.
She slumped down and let out a sigh, and I found myself staring at her in a whole new way. Brave woman. She had climbed into bed with me. Next to me. Because she wanted to, not because she was dragged there. She really did have some fire in her.
My phone vibrating on the bedside table pulled me back to my senses. Crap. Eleven missed calls from various people at Morelli Holdings…and one of them was my father.