Chapter 3 #3
I cup his face in my hands. He lets me. “I’m sorry,” I say. The words are too small.
The confession slips out before I can stop it. Selfish. Stupid. “I hate that she has that piece of you.”
Lucian goes still, only for a beat. He picks me up and throws me onto the bed. Not gently. I land with a gasp, bouncing once on the mattress. Before I can rise, he is over me, one knee on the bed, one hand braced beside my head, the other wrapped around my ankle.
He drags me down until I am perfectly beneath him. My heart races. He stares down at me. “You hate that she has a piece of me?”
“Yes,” I breathe.
Our eyes lock. “Then take the rest.”
Damn.
I pull at his belt, at his trousers, needing him bare, needing skin, needing proof, needing too much. Then his body is against mine, hot and hard and real. The scars on his chest brush my breasts. His mouth finds my neck, then my jaw, then my lips again.
I’m nothing but his weight and his heat and his voice hot in my ear. “You’re in my bed. In my arms. And under my skin so deep I couldn’t claw you out even if I wanted to.” He pulls back to stare. “Which I don’t.”
My throat burns. “That sounds…unhealthy.”
He leans down, and his laugh is rough against my mouth. “It is.” Then he kisses me until I cannot think.
When he enters me, it is slow, my skin burning as it stretches to let him in. He fills me with heat, hardness, friction. He stares at me. The need quadruples as he pushes into me inch by inch, and the intimacy of it is almost unbearable.
I grab his shoulders, nails digging in. He does not look away. Not once.
The stretch is familiar now and still overwhelming, my body opening for him, taking him, remembering him in ways that feel less like memory and more like surrender.
His forehead lowers to mine. “Breathe,” he orders softly. I do. He moves. Slow.
Too slow.
“Lucian,” it’s more a whine than a request.
“I know. I told you, bad girls don’t get what they want.”
I groan in frustration, and he smiles like a villain. “This is my punishment?”
“This is me teaching you patience, naughty girl,” he laughs. “For spying where you shouldn’t.
I’m going to make you wait.”
“I hate waiting,” I moan.
“I know that. I know everything about you.”
I still at his words; he doesn’t know everything about my past. Like I don't know everything about his.
I think of my own secrets. Maybe it's better we don’t.
Still, I know I’ll ask more questions.
He knows that, too.
He thrusts deeper. I make a sound I don’t love. Can’t help it. He brings out the feral in me.
His control frays by degrees. I feel it in the tremor of his arms, the tightening of his jaw, the way his breathing grows rough against my cheek. He is trying to keep this measured.
I wrap my legs around him and pull him closer. His eyes flare. “Erin.”
“What?” I whisper, all innocence.
“Careful.”
“No.”
Something breaks in him.
Thank God.
His rhythm changes, deepening, turning fierce enough to make the headboard thud once against the wall. I cling to him, meeting each thrust, anger, jealousy, and fear burning out through sweat and skin and the terrible relief of being wanted by him.
He catches my wrists and pins them above my head. Thrill shoots through me.
Dominance.
Submission. A powerful man taking what is his.
Me. And that’s what I need right now. To know I’m still his.
His mouth lowers to my ear. “Say it.”
I know what he wants.
I shake my head.
His pace slows. Cruel man.
“Say it,” he repeats.
My body arches beneath him, desperate for the friction he is withholding. “No.”
He stills completely. I nearly sob.
“Stubborn girl.”
“Controlling man.”
His teeth close gently over my lower lip. The pleasure spikes. “Say you’re mine.”
The words hang between us. I stop fighting his hold. His eyes search mine. I lift my hips, taking him deeper, and watch his face tighten.
“I’m yours,” I whisper. A shudder moves through him. “But I’m not your prisoner.
And I’m not temporary.”
His grip on my wrists tightens.
“And if she comes here—”
“She will find you in my bed,” he says, voice savage. “In my life. In every room I walk into. In every breath I take. That there is no part of me left untouched by you.”
The words break something open in me. Words disappear; all that’s left is the steady rhythm of our bodies moving against one another.
He slips a hand down between my thighs, thumbing my clit. I moan, head tilting back as my eyes close. Sparks burst between my legs while deeper inside, he brings me to the peak.
“I thought bad girls don’t get what they want,” I gasp.
“You know you’re always my good girl.” He kisses me. “Even when you’re bad.”
The climax hits hard, tearing through me before I’m ready. I cry out, body locking around him, vision blurring as pleasure swallows every thought but his name. I’m trembling, arching, moaning, chasing down every last shudder of release.
Lucian follows with a rough sound against my throat, his control finally gone. He holds me through it, hips driving deep, body shaking over me like he’s surrendering. I feel the wet heat of him releasing inside me.
Marking me as his.
For a while, there is only breathing. Fire crackling. His weight. My hands, freed now, sliding over his back. Eventually, he rolls to his side and pulls me with him, tucking me against his chest. His heart pounds beneath my cheek. I listen as the pounding slows.
Darkness and tenderness, both so tangled I no longer know where one ends and the other begins.
“You crossed the boundary,” he murmurs.
I huff a tired laugh against his chest. “Still on that, are we? I was barely over it.”
He’s gruff. “You were over it.”
“You’re impossible.” I lift my head to look at him. His eyes are open. Watching me.
Always watching.
“We still have to talk about her,” I say. He ignores me. “And you have to tell me everything,” I say. “No more keeping me in the dark.” His thumb brushes my cheek. The silence lasts a fraction too long. My chest tightens. “Lucian.”
“We’ll see,” he says.
It is not the answer I want. It may be the only honest one he can give.
I rest my chin on his chest, studying him. “You know I’m going to keep pushing.”
His mouth curves slightly. “I know.”
“And you can’t threaten me into obedience.”
“No,” he says. “But I can make disobedience memorable.”
Heat stirs low in my stomach despite everything.
Traitorous body. I narrow my eyes. “That is not the same as trust, and you know it.”
“No,” he says. “I don’t. Whatever tactics keep you safe are the ones I’ll use.
And I still want to punish you more for breaking my rules earlier.
” His hand smooths down my back, scooping my bare ass in his palm.
He squeezes. Hard. “How about me taking you over my lap right now and spanking this beautiful ass of yours until they hear you downstairs? Begging me to stop.”
Can’t. Breathe. He waits. Smacks my ass and it’s a warning.
Downstairs, a door opens. Men’s voices rise, then lower.
And our time is over. The war is waiting.
The ghost is waiting. The past Lucian never buried is clawing its way back to us, and I will not be the girl outside the conversation.
Not anymore. I press my lips to the center of Lucian’s chest; over the heart I am starting to believe might truly be mine.
Then I whisper, “I want to go downstairs with you. I want to know what’s going on.”
His whole body goes still. For one long moment, I think he will refuse. Then Lucian Bachman, the man who bought me, kept me and wants to lock me away forever, heaves a sigh.
“Get dressed,” he says.
I smile against his skin. “Is that an order?”
“Yes.” He smacks my ass, then wraps his big warm hand around it, his palm needing my curves with firm possession. “And this time when I let you leave this room, you’ll obey.”
“Yes,” I say. I lift my head to meet his eyes. “For now.”
His mouth curves. “For now,” he agrees.
‘For now’ is the problem.
My beating heart and my family’s future are chained to Lucian, intrusively tied together. When I think of my happily ever after, I can no longer separate the two.
And his past threatens to burn my future to the ground.