Chapter 6
CHAPTER SIX
LUCIAN
I should not take her outside. It’s cold. There’s danger out there. I know this with the rational part of my brain.
But I’ve just been informed; Isobel is minutes away. And suddenly, she’s very, very much alive. I’m not one to process ‘emotion.’ Which means that, at a time like this, receiving news that rewrites the past fills me with something close to rage.
Which translates to need.
And right now, I need her.
Erin is standing there, looking like her entire future has just been rewritten.
Or lost.
The way her fingers curl into the sleeves of that soft cream sweater. The way she lifts her chin as if bravery can hide the question in her eyes.
Will he still want me when she walks through the door?
I cross the room before she can ask it. “Outside,” I say.
Her eyes flash. “Excuse me?”
“We’re going out back. Alone.”
She’s in disbelief. “She’s here. Isobel is here. We should be going out front—”
I wrap my hand around the back of her neck, not hurting. Holding. Reminding.
“Now.”
Her pulse jumps beneath my thumb. There she is. My defiant, impossible girl.
“Lucian,” she whispers, warning and want tangled into one word.
I lean down until my mouth touches her ear. “Color.”
Her breath stutters. Then, softer, “Green.” The answer goes through me like fire.
I take her hand and lead her through the back door before any man in that room is stupid enough to comment.
The cold hits us first.
Sharp. Clean. Brutal.
Good.
I need something strong enough to keep me from dragging her back inside, locking every door, and burying my face between her thighs until she forgets any woman existed before her. Never coming out of that room to face the world again.
Snow crunches beneath our feet. The woods stand black and silent around Red Shutters.
Somewhere beyond the trees, Bayne’s men pretend not to see us.
They see.
Let them.
I turn Erin against the outside wall, shielding her from the wind with my body. Her back meets stone. Her eyes lift to mine, bright blue and burning.
“You don’t trust me,” I say.
Her mouth parts. “That is not fair. You know I do.”
“You trust me with your life,” I say. “But not your heart.”
Her face changes. Then, she says, “A life you only get one of. A heart is more dangerous.”
“How?”
“You have to learn to live with a broken heart.” She stares at me in a way that lets me know this is one of her greatest fears.
To have her heart broken.
By me.
“I will never break your heart.” I cage her in with one hand beside her head. “Never.”
Her chin lifts. “And if I do have doubts?”
The question is a blade.
I let it cut.
“If you do,” I say, “then I have failed to make something clear.”
Her breath clouds between us.
“What?”
I take her wrist and press her palm flat against my chest.
“This.”
My heart pounds beneath her hand.
Hard. Violent. Hers.
“It only beats like this for you.”
“Now…” Her eyes shine, and I hate every tear she does not shed. “But not then.”
“No.” My other hand slides to her jaw, tilting her face up to mine. “You will listen.”
Her breath catches.
“I loved her,” I say, because truth is the only thing sharp enough to cut through fear. “Once.
Before the fire. Before Carlos. Before I became whatever ruined thing dragged you into my life.”
Her lashes tremble.
“But you,” I say, lowering my mouth until it brushes hers, “are not once.”
Her fingers curl into my shirt.
“You are now. You are after. You are the woman who walked into the ashes and made me want to live in the ruin.”
A small sound leaves her.
I claim it with my mouth.
The kiss is not gentle.
Gentle wouldn’t show her. And apparently, I’ve failed her in that department. But I never fail to show her how obsessed I am with her.
How possessive I am over her.
And if I’m being honest with myself, I need to hold onto something real before I meet a ghost.
I kiss her like a vow with teeth. Like punishment. Like prayer. Her hands clutch at my shirt, then my shoulders, then the back of my neck, pulling me closer as if she has decided freezing is better than letting me go.
“Good girl.” My hand tightens at her waist. She gasps into my mouth. I break the kiss again to look at her. “Tell me you know who you belong to.”
Staring up at me, she swallows, stubborn even now. “I know who I love no matter who walks through that door. Do you?”
That face she’s making now, the way her pretty little chin juts out—
It takes me right back. To that night. That moment.
The one where I knew I was walking on dangerous ground.
I told her she was trouble. She told me, I’d paid for trouble
“No, I didn’t,” I said. “I paid for an innocent virgin.” I smiled then. “I paid for compliance.”
She was anything but. And she told me, right to my smug face.
“Then you hired the wrong woman.”
Now, she looks at me, that same challenge in her gaze. Only now, she wants me to prove she’s the right woman.
The only woman.
“You, baby. I love you.” My hand slides to the back of her neck again. “And only you.”
“And I am yours,” she says.
There it is. All I need to get through this madness.
Her fingers tighten around the fabric of my coat. “Say it again,” she whispers.
I press my forehead to hers. “I love you, Erin. My sweet girl.”
“And when Isobel walks through that door?” she asks, so quietly the woods almost steal it.
“When Isobel walks through that door, she will find you exactly where you belong.” I grip her chin and make her look at me. “With me. By my side. In my bed.”
I kiss her again, slower this time. Deeper.
Crueler because I make her wait for every breath, every touch, every inch of closeness.
I let my hand slide down her side, over the soft curve of her hip, then back to her waist, holding her there against me while the cold wraps around us and my body reminds hers of every promise my mouth has made.
“Lucian,” she breathes against my mouth. I know every version of the way she says my name.
The angry one. The needy one. The one she’s saying now; the one where she wants to surrender to me.
Satisfaction moves through me, dark and hot. I lower my mouth to her throat and kiss the pulse there. Once. Twice. Then harder, enough that she feels it, enough that later she will touch the spot and remember this moment.
Not a mark for Isobel. Not a performance. A truth. She belongs to me—every beautiful, fiery inch of her.
Her head tips back against the stone. I keep one hand at her waist and the other at her jaw, holding her exactly where I want her, exactly where she lets me.
“You are not one night,” I murmur against her skin. I lift my head and look at her.
“You are the woman who brought me back.”
I kiss her one last time, hard enough to leave us both breathing hard, then pull back before I lose the last thread of my control. Call off this whole thing. And drag her up to that room.
Her lips are swollen. Her cheeks flushed. Her eyes are bright.
Mine.
The back door opens.
Mack’s voice cuts through the cold. “Car approaching.”
Erin stiffens. I smooth my thumb over her cheek.
“There she is,” I whisper.
“Isobel,” she whispers back.
“No.” I hold her gaze. “My queen.”
Her breath catches.
I run a hand down her lower back, past her waist, smoothing it over her ass the way I know she loves.
I grab her soft curves, squeezing till she swipes her tongue against mine.
My hand moves around her waist, slipping lower so I can caress her pussy over her clothes.
She grinds against the wall, moaning as I rub her, keeping in time with her hips.
I slip my hand down the front of those stretchy black pants. My hand connects with her warm, bare skin. She leans against me with a sigh.
“No panties,” I growl low in her ear. “So, my baby can follow rules, after all.”
She freezes, ice cold against me.
I pull away, searching her face. “What? What is it?”
“It’s nothing.” She looks away, wrapping her arms tightly around herself.
And I’ve failed. Again.
When that front door opens—
I need Erin at my side.
I want her to find Erin standing with me.
Exactly where she belongs.