Chapter 17
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Erin
Did a part of me want this—need this?
Need the chase, the capture? Did I need to know he’d come for me?
I like to believe I’m not that selfish or self-centered, that my choice was genuinely altruistic. But like everything with Lucian…
My emotions get confused.
Now, my wrists are bound above my head, secured to the carved wooden bars of the headboard. I’m on my knees, the flannel shirt I wore gone. The blindfold he tied over my eyes blocks out everything except the sound of him. The deep, deliberate rhythm of a predator who knows I’m already cornered.
Pacing.
“I should let you sweat,” Lucian says, voice low and controlled. “But I’ve been waiting to punish you properly for too long.”
My breath catches. “Lucian—”
“Don’t speak.”
I snap my mouth shut.
Leather slides through the air. A hiss. Then the sharp crack of the belt across my ass.
I jerk against the restraints, a strangled cry escaping my lips. The sting blooms like fire under my skin, but heat pools low in my belly. I hate how much I crave this—his dominance, his rage, his protection.
“Do you remember when I sat at the table this morning and said, ‘Tell me everything that’s happened since you arrived here?’”
I gulp.
Another slap of leather—harder and harsher. I arch my back and whimper.
“I have a feeling you didn’t come clean.” Heavy footsteps circle me as the cool air sweeps over my bare skin.
“What—what do you mean?”
He drags his fingertips down my back. “Anything you left out?”
The text from Caleb.
Did he read my mind?
Find my burner phone?
Or is he fishing for answers?
Either way, he’s going to get information out of me.
“Maybe?” I squeak.
I cry out as a line of fire burns from hip to hip. My eyes open to the black silk of the blindfold, and my hands pull back against the ties.
Tears spring to my eyes, more from guilt than pain. “I may have left one detail out.”
“Did you?” He trails his hand down the welted curve of my backside, and my body shudders.
I hear the belt drop to the floor. And he climbs onto the bed.
One strong thigh pushes between mine, spreading me open. I’m naked, flushed, soaked, fully exposed. From his vantage point behind me, on my knees with my legs spread like this, he can see every inch of me.
“You can tell me after,” he mutters, voice like smoke. “Now? I want to take you.”
“Then take me,” I whisper.
He yanks my hair back, lips brushing my ear. “You don’t give the orders.”
I whimper, need tightening inside me like a spring.
Lucian moves slowly, torturously. His fingers skim down my ribs, down the side of my breast, barely touching. My nipples harden, aching for attention, but he ignores them.
“You know what this means?” he murmurs, breath warm against my collarbone.
My voice shakes. “That I trust you.”
“Wrong,” he whispers darkly. “It means you’re mine.”
His hand slides lower, settling between my thighs. “Every inch. Every breath. Every fucking heartbeat—you belong to me.”
He dips a finger into my slick heat and groans.
“Dripping for me,” he mutters. “Soaked from punishment. You like it when I spank you?”
“Yes,” I gasp.
He stills.
“Say it.”
“I like it when you spank me.”
He growls low in his throat. “I’ll give you what you need, baby. But not before you beg.”
His mouth finds the inside of my thigh. Kisses. Bites. I flinch as his teeth graze the tender skin close to my core.
Then a hot stripe of tongue.
My hips jerk, but the restraints hold.
He licks me again, once, slow and precise.
I scream.
“Who owns this pussy?” he demands.
“You do.”
“Who do you come for?”
“You,” I whimper.
“Say it louder.”
“You, Lucian!”
His mouth is fire. His tongue is relentless.
But then—he stops.
“No,” I cry. “Please—”
“You don’t get to come until I say so.”
I groan in frustration, thighs trembling, clenching around nothing.
“I’m going to make you beg,” he says, dragging his fingers over my folds, teasing the edge.
“You’re already mine,” he continues, “but I want to hear it. I want to carve it into your bones.”
He pushes one finger inside me. Then two. His thumb circles my clit, building me up only to slow down again, holding me on the edge.
My whole body shakes.
“You feel that?” he whispers. “That ache? That desperation?”
“Yes…”
“That’s what I felt every fucking day you were gone. Every time I thought I’d lost you.”
His fingers stop.
Then he pulls them out completely.
I sob.
“Please, Lucian, I need you—”
“Not good enough.”
He spanks me again. Barehanded. Hard. And again, I cry out, trembling from the sting and the emptiness between my thighs.
“I need you,” I cry. “I need your cock. Please. I need you to fuck me like I belong to you.”
“You’ll take every inch,” he says, voice ragged with need. “You’ll feel me for days.”
The head of his cock presses against my entrance.
Then he slams inside in one brutal thrust.
I scream his name. “Lucian!”
He gives me no time to adjust. Just pounds into me with the fury of a man reclaiming what’s his.
“I own you,” he grits. “Say it.”
“You own me,” I sob.
“Again.”
“You own me!”
His hand wraps around my throat, not squeezing, just claiming.
“You fucking leave something out again,” he snarls, “and I will have you in chains.”
“Please—don’t stop—”
“You like being fucked hard?” he demands, fucking me harder, deeper. “Like a punishment?”
“Yes,” I choke. “God, yes.”
My orgasm crashes over me, fierce and blinding. He doesn’t stop, keeps thrusting, claiming, grinding into my overstimulated body until I’m begging again.
And then he growls low—animalistic—and comes inside me with a broken cry.
When we collapse, we’re entangled, sweaty, and breathing as if we’ve just survived each other.
And maybe we have.
He pulls the blindfold off, unties my wrists, and flips me over.
“I should’ve tied you up when I had the chance,” he says, staring down at me, gently pulling a strand of hair from my cheek.
I smile weakly. “You just did.”
“No. At my house. My bed.” He groans, lying down next to me. He pulls me in close, his arm so tightly around my side it’s like he wants to fuse our bodies together. “Don’t run again, Erin. I won’t survive it.”
“I won’t,” I whisper. “Like I said, I’m yours.”
And if I’m really his, it’s time for me to prove it to him.
And tell him the darkest truth I have.