Chapter 3
CHAPTER THREE
ERIN
Lucian carries me upstairs like I weigh nothing.
I would object on principle, but my principles are having a hard time being heard over the roar of my pulse.
And I freaking love it when a strong man makes me feel as delicate and as light as a feather.
His arms are locked around me. Hard. Secure. Possessive in a way that makes my body melt and my mind sharpen at once. That is the problem with Lucian Bachman.
I should still be angry. Why won’t he tell me everything? It’s not like I’m keeping secrets from him…
Oh right. I am. Always have been.
There’s always a little sliver of a ghost from my past hiding over my shoulder.
So, I don’t have the right to be angry at him. Unfortunately, that’s never stopped me before.
Am I…jealous?
I don’t know if it’s jealousy so much as not wanting another woman to have been loved by him. Does that make me jealous?
When he touches me, every nerve ending is bright and reckless, feeling the heat of his skin, inhaling the clean scent of him.
It makes me remember the first night, when I told myself one night would change everything.
I had no idea how right I was. I almost laugh.
Lucian kicks open the bedroom door and carries me inside.
We’ve taken the upstairs bedroom, giving Cass and Ryan the main floor.
Red Shutters is nothing like his apartment in the city. No sleek marble. No glass.
No steel. This room has wood beams, thick quilts, a stone fireplace, and windows overlooking trees that hide more weapons than birds.
Warmer. Different.
Lucian doesn’t put me on the bed.
He sets me on my feet in the middle of the room, then steps back. He stands there, looking at me with his dark eyes and practiced restraint, and suddenly there is nowhere to go.
The silence stretches.
I lift my chin. “Are we staring each other to death, then?”
His mouth twitches. Barely. His voice rumbles. “Coat off.”
My stomach dips.
That voice is the one that makes me feel the floor beneath my feet and the heat between my thighs. The one that tells the loudest, messiest parts of my mind to quiet because he has taken command.
I hate how much I sometimes need that. I hate even more that he knows. Shame, shame, shame.
Weak woman.
Trying to reclaim a sliver of control, I cross my arms. “Ask nicely.”
His gaze drops to my mouth. “No.”
A spark lights in my belly. “No?”
“No. You crossed the boundary after I told you not to.” He stares through me, his silent promise heavy between us, crackling the air with heat.
Lucian removes his coat and lays it over the chair near the fireplace. Slow.
Controlled. Every movement is deliberate. He rolls his shoulders once, as if easing tension that has settled too deep to move.
Then he looks at me. “I’ll answer your questions.”
I narrow my eyes. “Before or after you punish me?”
His eyes darken. “After. Then, during.”
My breath catches before I can stop it, but he notices everything, even the smallest hitch. The tiniest tremor. The shameful little ways my body betrays me before I have a chance to gather myself into pride.
He plans on punishing me twice.
He steps toward me. “Safe word,” he says.
My stomach flips. The mention of a safe word makes me cringe. They’re silly. I’ll take everything he can give me.
And beg for more. Still, he waits.
Finally, I say, “I hate safe words.”
He stares.
“They’re pointless,” I say. Still staring. “I never use them.”
The demand is silent. A dark flicker through his eyes. It pulls me out of the haze enough to meet him fully. This is the part that people who don’t understand him would miss.
The line beneath the darkness.
And I think of that first night. When he told me I set the pace, that if I say, stop, we stop.
But I was trying to be anything but the scared little virgin I was that night; I was terrified, yet I wouldn’t have left that room for anything at that point.
And he told me I didn’t have to pretend.
Lucian can be ruthless, brutal, and terrifyingly possessive, but he won’t take something from me I don’t give freely.
And right now, he wants my consent. Bad. So, I say, “Red.”
His gaze stays on mine. “And if you need me to slow down?”
“Yellow.”
“If you say either?” he asks.
“You stop,” I sigh. “Or slow down.”
His jaw tightens. “Immediately.” Lucian steps close enough for his heat to reach me. “Now,” he says. “Coat off.”
The room seems to hold its breath.
Slowly, I slide my arm from the massive shoulder of his coat I borrow.
His eyes follow the motion.
Once, this would have felt like a performance I gave to survive. The first night in his apartment, every movement had been armor. Chin up. Hands steady. Pretend my pulse was not trying to escape my body.
Now, taking off my coat for Lucian feels like removing a piece of my shield. The one I use to protect myself from the world. But not from him. Never from him. The heavy wool slides from my shoulders and falls to the floor.
I am still dressed beneath it. Sweater, stretchy pants, stuff underneath. Completely respectable. A woman prepared for kindling and snow and not at all prepared for being looked at like sin in front of a fireplace.
Lucian’s gaze drags over me. Hot. Possessive. Thorough. Tearing it all away.
“Boots,” he says.
I always take them off at the door to keep the floors clean. I’m surprised to find I’m still wearing them. I toe them off, one then the other.
“Sweater.”
My hands pause at my waist. I look up. “No. Not until I ask a question first.”
His eyes lift to mine. He doesn’t like that. “One.”
“One what?” I tease, tugging at the soft sweater’s hem.
He sighs. “Question.”
“I only need one,” I say. His expression doesn’t change, but the air does. It tightens. Followed by the corners of his jaw. “For now.”
It’s the only one that matters. The thought that’s had me spiraling ever since I overheard the men talking about her. The thing I’ve needed to know ever since the gut punch of realizing I wasn’t the only woman in his orbit.
A log shifts in the fireplace, landing with a soft thud and a collapse of sparks.
I have to take a shaky breath just to get the words out. “Did you really love her?”
“Yes,” he says.
Honesty is a blade. I nod once, pretending it does not slide between my ribs and cut me. Deep.
“Was it serious?”
Lucian steps closer. “That is a second question.”
My throat goes tight. “Consider it a follow-up.”
His eyes narrow.
For a second, I think he might refuse.
Then he says, “I thought it was…but now what does it matter?.”
Not yes. Not no. Somehow worse?
My fingers curl into the hem of my sweater. “Do you think she betrayed you?”
His jaw tightens. “Carlos did.”
“That is not an answer either.”
“It is the only answer I had until this morning. And that’s too many questions.”
Meaning he doesn’t know. Meaning Isobel might have been a victim, a traitor, or both. Meaning the woman he loved, who possibly betrayed him, who had him first, has returned.
I pull the sweater over my head and drop it to the floor.
Lucian inhales.
The sound is quiet, but I hear it.
I stand before him in my black bra, skin prickling from the room’s warmth and his stare. My hair falls over one shoulder, tangled and probably full of bits of bark. I am not dressed for seduction. I am dressed like a woman who wandered outside in a borrowed coat and got caught spying.
Yet Lucian looks at me as if I am temptation incarnate.
It feels so good to be looked at like this when I haven’t done anything to deserve it—just standing here, comfortable in my own skin.
Lucian’s gaze lowers slowly, taking in the bra, my bare stomach, the leggings still clinging to my hips. “Take off those pants.”
I want this. Too much.
My hands go to my waist. “Is that part of my punishment?” I ask, aiming for sharpness and landing somewhere between melting and puddle.
His mouth curves. “That depends on how well you behave.”
Heat blooms low in my belly as I peel them down my legs, leaving on the black panties that match my bra. He watches me, hungry, as I toss them to the side, and turn.
The fire crackles behind him. The room is too quiet, too warm as Lucian steps close enough that I feel him before he touches me. His hand settles on my hip.
Possessive and steady. “Safe word,” he says.
I close my eyes. “Red.”
“And if you need me to slow down?”
“Yellow.”
“Good girl.” The praise slips over my skin like silk.
Then he guides me forward, one hand between my shoulder blades, the other at my waist, until I’m bent over the edge of the bed, exactly where he wants me.
Where I want to be.
That doesn’t change how my body trembles with nerves as much as need. My palms press into the quilt. My pulse is everywhere.
Lucian’s hand smooths over me first, slow and deliberate, over the curve of my backside through the thin fabric of my panties. He does it like he’s memorizing me. Like even this is worship before it becomes punishment.
“You crossed my boundary,” he says.
“I was three feet past it.”
His palm comes down.
Not hard enough to hurt badly. Hard enough to make my breath break.
A sharp, hot sting blooms through the cotton, spreading across my skin in a wicked little pulse. My fingers curl into the quilt.
Lucian rubs the spot immediately after, soothing what he just lit up. “That was one,” he says.
“One what?”
“One reminder.”
“Oh, that’s very reasonable of you.”
His second smack lands on the other side, firmer. I gasp. Fire, hotter, the pain stinging. His hand lingers after, gripping, kneading, fingers sinking into my curves as if he can feel the way my body softens for him.
“Still mouthy,” he murmurs.
“Still controlling,” I hiss back.
A low sound leaves him. I’ve gone too far. I feel his hand raise before I feel the sharp spank, then another.
Each one lands over the thin barrier of my panties, heat building under the sting, shame and want twisting together until I can’t tell which is making me tremble. He takes his time. Never too fast. Never careless.