Chapter Forty-Eight
I WAS PLEASANTLY...DRUNK.
That hadn’t been the plan when Lucien dragged me onto the huge terrace, overlooking the entire length of the Gaoligong Valley.
We didn’t have time to drink. We had important stuff to figure out, but.
..he’d tempted me with dishes he’d stolen from the kitchen and kept filling my cup with pear, apple, and plum blossom wine.
And as the sky slowly lightened and the sun stretched between the jagged peaks of the mountains, I hadn’t felt so relaxed in a very, very long time.
Perhaps in my entire life.
In a strange unfathomable way, I felt reborn. Like I’d stepped out of some sort of straitjacket and could finally stretch and move in ways I’d never been able to before.
It didn’t matter that Marcus was still out there...plotting to recapture Lucien. Didn’t matter that I still had to call Frank and Dillon and find out if they were keeping secrets from me.
Everything could wait because...he was right.
We should celebrate.
I sighed as I glanced at his wonderful panther who lay sprawled between our deck chairs, snoring away thanks to stuffing his face with half the cow Lucien had promised.
Stretching on my black rattan lounger, I peered sleepily at the stunning view. Mist clung to the lower slopes, drifting like ghosts between the ancient trees we’d killed and reincarnated a few hours ago. Now, they glowed in the sunrise—flocks of birds soaring, waking early to sing in the new day.
“You know...if someone had told me a few months ago that I’d be drinking plum blossom wine, watching a sunrise with a man who sets trees on fire during an orgasm—”
Lucien chuckled under his breath.
“—I would’ve assumed whoever was predicting my future was concussed and talking crazy.”
“You were concussed,” he said quietly, almost as drunk as I was. “Thanks to being stuck on a wash cycle in the Burning Phoenix falls.”
I giggled, loving the slight burn as more liquor went down and happy bubbles danced in my belly. The faintest dusting of snow flickered in the air before melting into nothing.
He watched the flakes dissolve before narrowing his wickedly hot stare on me. “Careful.”
I ducked in dramatic concern, flicking a look around the stunning estate, searching for anyone who might’ve seen. “I’m sorry. I can’t help it. I didn’t mean to—”
“I don’t care about that. It’s just, I can feel that you’re happy and...knowing you’re no longer in pain is making it really, really hard to sit here and not touch you.”
I gulped as desire wrapped thick around us.
It was becoming a problem.
I couldn’t stop the draw, the ache, the need every time I looked at him.
Tiny fires ignited on the tips of his hair.
Now, who had to be careful?
Balling my hands, I did my best to restrain myself. “You know arson’s illegal, right?”
He smiled as if he knew exactly what I was doing and relaxed against his lounger. “Pretty sure bringing about another ice-age is worse.”
“You set an entire valley on fire just because you came.”
“And you froze everything into an ecological extinction event.”
“This isn’t a competition.” I giggled.
God, this pear wine—or was it plum—was dangerously easy to drink.
The sun kept rising, weaving tipsiness with tiredness until I wanted to howl at the fading stars and give in to the shivery, delicious relief that we were alive. Lucien was okay. Whisper was fine. And I no longer suffered any pain.
Silence fell for a while before he yawned. “You have a point though. Maybe we should ban ourselves from sex outdoors, just to be safe.”
He said it so dryly, so matter-of-factly, I burst out laughing.
He raised an eyebrow, his gaze warm and tender. “Now what? What did I say?”
I struggled to talk around my snickers. “You think a bed will survive better than a forest?”
His jaw tightened as I stupidly directed our already highly suggestive conversation back to the subject of sex. “My bed is pure redwood.”
“So were the trees.”
He smirked, male smugness filling him. “Are you saying we’ll do more than just crack the headboard?”
“I’m saying I’m not responsible if the curtains catch fire.” I held up three fingers in an oath. “I hereby absolve myself of any broken furniture.”
“What about if we destroy the entire estate?” he asked softly, darkly.
I groaned at the fading stars. “God, can you imagine.”
“Want to see what damage we can cause right now?”
“And summon a blizzard during foreplay? How will you explain to Auntie Mei and Uncle Wen when we decimate a pavilion or two?”
His eyes burned like twin coals. “Keep going, Rook, and I’ll do my utmost to make you come so hard you flatten an entire mountain.”
I choked on lust so hot, so sharp, I almost detonated there and then. “Hypothetically speaking...if you kissed me right now, would you burn that lounger to a crisp?”
He went instantly, lethally still. “Want to try it and find out?”
“I think we’ve caused enough disasters for one evening, don’t you?”
“It’s morning.”
“Even more reason to keep our hands and...mouths...to ourselves.”
“You,” he replied far too calmly, “are dangerous.”
“Me?” I squeaked.
With a groan, he readjusted himself, tugging at the black trousers he’d found in his wardrobe. “You’re the most dangerous person I’ve ever met, and after this...after the river, I hate to tell you, Rook, but you don’t get a choice anymore.”
“Choice? What choice?”
“About your future.” His eyes caught mine. “I’m your choice. Your only one. Your only choice is me because I’m never letting you go.”
I melted even as frost crackled over my arms. “Keep talking like that and I’ll return the favour I owe you.”
His eyes ignited. “Well, we’re no longer twenty thousand feet in the sky, so if you want to suck me off...I have no objections.”
Oh God.
Images of sucking him, licking him...right there on the terrace.
Behave. Behave. BEHAVE.
I did my best to sober up before I did something that would alert the staff that Lucien was well and truly living up to his name of Furnace Heart. I eyed up my empty cup. “You know what? I’m cutting myself off. I’ve had way too much.”
He just leaned over and splashed more deliciousness into it. “I’m curious to see how much more it would take before you stop behaving and straddle my lap right here.”
“You heard me?”
“Mm.”
“I hate you,” I whispered, hiccupping a little.
He chuckled with a smug smirk. “Only because you know you want it.”
The double entendre set my cheeks blazing again.
The sun crept higher. The valley glowed. And somewhere in the distance, another flock of birds took flight, blissfully unaware that the real threat to the local infrastructure wasn’t the weather.
As companionable silence fell, my thoughts inevitably went to all the things I was avoiding. My fingers strayed to my empty throat, wincing a little at the loss of my pendant.
If Lucien was right and it had been the cause of all my suffering, I should be glad it was gone...
Sighing heavily, I made the mistake of thinking out loud. “Tomorrow...or today when we wake up after we sleep off this wine...I’m going to call Frank.”
Lucien shot me a lazy glower. “Do you think that’s wise?”
“Probably not but I am the boss and he does work for me, and out of anyone, he’ll know if my parents truly did do something to us. He might know all about this R gene business and—”
“And if they did?” He narrowed his eyes. “If they are the ones who did this to us...how did they even get access to me? I was born here. To twins that were forced against their will to create me. I never left Ashfall Cliff. Not until the day Marcus took us to England to solidify his takeover.”
I froze, recalling what Laura had said. “Apparently, his parents were brother and sister. They were forced to have a child because the board wanted the purest blood to run it.”
“So that’s true?” I hiccupped, trying to stay focused despite the alcoholic haze. “Your parents were related?”
He looked away as if the subject was painful. “They were. And they killed themselves because they refused to make another.”
My hands balled as anger billowed. A quick snowstorm flurried, covering Whisper’s black pelt in little white flakes.
The panther snorted in his sleep.
“Marcus and all the men who did this to your family need to pay.”
Lucien nodded with a tight smile. “Don’t worry. I plan to make them pay a thousandfold.”
The way he discussed murder so coldly, so resolutely...I winced at the destruction he would deliver. Especially now. Especially with the type of firepower he wielded.
Focusing on the positive side of such slaughter, I asked, “When you take Brimstone back, can you let Laura and the other girls go?”
He tensed. “You care that much about them?”
“It’s the right thing to do.” I finished my cup. “Besides, I like Laura. She’s perfectly ordinary and was only there due to a breakup, a shitty ex-boyfriend, and a bad decision.”
“Fine.” Lucien scooted a little further down his lounger. “After I’ve slaughtered the Brimstone board members. Once I’ve climbed a mountain of their corpses and swam in a sea of their blood, I’ll ensure the girls are given back their freedom.”
I shuddered. “That was a bit dramatic.”
He shrugged. “Whisper had to learn it from someone.”
I laughed quietly, grateful he’d switched the atmosphere from tense back to tipsy.
My mind filled with happy reunions.
Once Laura was back home, I’d fly to see her. I’d offer to take her on holiday somewhere—to make up for the months in captivity.
“Thank you, Lucien.”
He grunted and topped up our glasses.
“Or should I say, Xiao Lu.”
His eyes flared. “You’ve figured out what that means?”
“No. Auntie Mei told me.”
“Ah.” He lay back down, his hand dangling off the side so he could trail his fingers over Whisper’s back. The panther purred like a broken chainsaw.
“I have to say...Furnace Heart is ridiculously perfect for you.”
“It’s a bit too perfect though, isn’t it?” He stopped stroking Whisper and balled his hand. “Was it just ironic coincidence or did they know my fate, even then?”