31. Bitter Chocolate #2
Then his body was back on mine. He shoved aside my underwear, and the thick head of him found my slick entrance aching and ready.
“Does that feel like nothing?” he demanded as he thrust into me hard enough to knock my head against the wall. “Do I feel like nothing to you?”
Then he moved. Hard, deep, and ruthless. The cold wall bit into my back while he worked, his pants still half on, the base of him riding over my clit at an angle that stole my breath.
How was it possible to want someone this badly and hate them so much?
For the first time, I understood the thin line people talked about between that emotion and the other I wouldn’t even consider.
It drove me to equal heights of anger and ecstasy.
“You still think this is nothing?” he snarled. “You think I could fuck you like this and you can just walk away?”
He shifted the angle, but only so the pressure on my clit lessened just a little.
“More,” I demanded, writhing to find that angle again, the one that I knew now would drive to the end. “Don’t stop now.”
“Say it,” he demanded, breath ragged. “Say this is something .”
“No.”
He continued to pound away, and I clawed at him, seeking purchase so I could shift my hips back to where they were.
But he wouldn’t let me.
“Say it,” he said. “You want to come, baby? Then you’ll admit the truth. Say what we are, or else beg me for it. Either way, you’re mine.”
I shook my head back and forth. No, I wouldn’t. I wouldn’t give in.
He pounded into me hard enough that I saw stars, but when my mouth opened to scream, all that emerged was a whispered, “Please.”
It wasn’t quite begging, but it was close enough.
He shifted his balance, then rolled his body once more over my clit.
Stars were visible over the skies of Paris for the first time in a generation as my orgasm swept through me, hot and vicious.
“Lucas!” I started to scream before his mouth swallowed every ounce of my pleasure.
His groan was harsh and low as he followed, driving into me one final time, imprinting my body onto the brick.
“Marie,” he chanted, low and broken. “Marie. My Marie.”
For a moment, the world fell still. The sounds echoing from the boulevard were muted by our breaths, and the rest of Paris had gone quiet while we recovered.
His forehead dropped to mine, our breaths mingling, his hands soft now, like he didn’t know how to let go. “Tell me what I can do to make it right.”
My body sagged underneath his weight. “I don’t—I don’t know if you can.”
His sigh seemed to deflate his entire being. Gradually, he pulled out, then released my legs to the ground so he could dispose of the condom. It wasn’t until we had both put our clothing back to rights that he turned around.
“I know I fucked up, but this can’t be the end. I won’t let it.”
But I was already shaking my head. “You’re just upset because you finally found someone you can’t control.”
“No, I’m upset because when it comes to you, I can’t control myself .” He paced in front of me, as panther-like as ever. “I’ve been going crazy for the last few days, worried about you, do you know that?”
“Worried about me? Or worried I’d go back to New York and ruin all your plans to keep me away from Daniel?”
He turned with an expression like fire. “It wasn’t like that, I swear it.”
“It was exactly like that! Your stepmother’s texts went off like an alarm when I got up to make you breakfast. Not because you were paying me, but because it seemed like the nice thing to do after we just made lo—” I shook my head.
No, I would not say that out loud. Not after what we had just done.
“You got up to—” He shook his head. “I can explain. Please, Marie, just let me explain.”
“I don’t want to hear it.” I took several deep breaths, as much to keep from crying as to calm my racing heart. “Was she wrong? Were all five of her texts completely and totally wrong? Did you or did you not take me on this trip to seduce me away from your brother?”
His mouth opened as if he wanted to argue, but nothing came out. My heart split in half all over again, and the tears flowed freely as I turned into the wall, wishing with my whole being that I could just disappear the way I used to.
All my life, I wanted to be noticed. I wanted to be free of the shadows, to find a place in the light where someone would finally recognize me as someone worthy of attention.
I never considered what might happen if the person who saw me was the wrong one.
“Fuck, don’t—please don’t cry like that, baby. I can’t take it—” Lucas hovered around me like a bird unsure of where to land.
I just cowered further into the wall, swiping tears from my face. Oh, the truth hurt. God, it hurt so much.
“Look, whatever my family planned, whatever I agreed to do…you and I have nothing to do with them,” he tried again. “Nothing, Marie, I swear it.”
“Ha!” It was a harsh spit of a laugh. “Everything you did was calculated. Every conversation, every t-touch, every k-kiss. From the very beginning, it was just to keep me away from your brother, wasn’t it?”
Lucas moved as if to cage me again, but when I stepped to the side, he stopped. A stream of light from a nearby streetlamp cast over his face, showing the way the muscles in his neck strained with the effort to stay away.
“Yes,” he admitted finally.
I couldn’t stop my flinch or the tears that kept flowing.
“At first it was,” he continued. “But Marie, by the time we got to London—no, by the time we went for a fucking walk in the park in Brazil—it was?—”
“It was what?” I surprised even myself with the new height of bitterness, to the point that I was actually starting to laugh. I felt insane. This whole situation was insane . “You developed real feelings for your little cook?—”
“Don’t talk about yourself like that?—”
“The shy virgin with social anxiety just happened to sweep you off your feet?—”
“I said don’t? — ”
“And with her powers of charm and persuasion, you just couldn’t stop yourself from falling for her over the course of a matter of weeks?
” I was full-on cackling now at the ridiculousness of the tale.
“You fell for the assistant cook? The little no-name who’s been cleaning your rooms and doing your dishes and making your coffee for the last ten years? ”
“YES!”
When I turned back, his chest was heaving like he’d just sprinted a mile. His eyes glistened, and his chiseled jaw shook with effort to regain control. He looked nothing like the composed, untouchable Lucas Lyons I’d always known.
“Yes,” he repeated. “Yes, to all of it. Yes, to everything. Yes, to you , Marie.” He stepped toward me again, more slowly this time.
“I meant what I said in London. From the moment you brought that soup to my brother. Christ, probably from the moment you first entered my fucking house, I have been yours, body and fucking soul.”
I was shaking now. He couldn’t be saying this. I couldn’t be hearing him right.
“You stole everything from me.” I couldn’t keep my voice from wobbling. “My first kiss. My first time. My first lo?—”
I cut myself off just in time and turned away to catch my breath as another sob shook through me. No. I would not give him that too.
“Your first what, sweetheart?” That deep voice was suddenly soft through the night. “What was the last thing I stole?”
A gentle hand on my shoulder slowly rotated me back toward him, then slid up my neck to cup my face. His thumb traced my cheekbone.
God, I could have basked in that heated gaze for the rest of my life.
Four days ago, I’d nearly asked him for just that. Allowed him to pin me to the bed, the counter, to anything he wanted. Allowed him to make me his.
Right before he told someone else that it was all just to get me out of the way.
Stupid, stupid girl.
So, I did the only thing I could think of to honor that girl and protect her.
I wrenched my face out of his grasp and punched Lucas Lyons in the gut as hard as I could.
He doubled over, gasping. “Jesus!”
“You don’t get that too,” I said while he wheezed. “You made your choice when you decided to lie to me, Lucas. So now, you need to let me go.”
“I told you, I can’t .” His voice shook, as labored as his breathing.
The pain I heard almost made me go back to him. Almost. But then I remembered the messages, the casual cruelty of being called a problem to be solved, and my resolve hardened.
“This is over,” I said firmly as I turned away.
No stumble. No uneasy step. For the first time all night, I could see the world clearly, and that included my decision.
“Consider this my formal notice, Mr. Lyons . Go back to New York. Be with someone appropriate—you and Daniel both. Have the life your family wants for you.”
“What about the life I want for me?”
“You gave up the right to want things with me when you decided to tell me lies.”
I strode past him, toward the mouth of the alley and the promise of escape.
“I won’t stop, Marie!” he shouted down the alley. “You’re not getting rid of me that easily!”
I held up a hand in a vulgar gesture straight from my siblings’ handbook.
His laughter followed me back to the boulevard.
I wasn’t sure if it was out of spite or eagerness. But I did wonder if it wasn’t out of pride.