Chapter 2
CHAPTER TWO
Lucian
I built the room before I knew whether she would forgive me for needing it.
That was possibly optimistic.
Or arrogant.
With me, the two have always shared a bed.
The lower west wing of the Iceland house is the only part I left open when the house was built. I stand outside the door with Erin at my side and feel, absurdly, more exposed than I did the first time she saw the scars on my chest.
She’s fed. She’s rested. She’s wearing a black dress I bought her, and I can only hope she wears other purchases I made underneath.
She looks at the black door. Then at me. Then at the door again.
Finally, she says, “This is either where you keep bodies or where you keep something ridiculously expensive.”
“Or” I counter, “it’s the room I had built last night.”
Her brows lift. “What? I thought you were joking when you said that.”
She has no idea the reach our wealth has.
“Lucian.” My name in her mouth.
Warning. Invitation. Exasperation. Need.
Always need. No matter how angry or frustrated she is with me, she’s never stopped wanting me.
I place my palm against the biometric lock. The panel glows blue, then gold. The door releases with a soft click.
Erin’s eyes narrow. “Did you put my handprint on there?”
I open the door before she can decide whether to be furious or not care.
The lights come on slowly. A warm, sensual glow. Low lines of illumination hidden behind dark wood panels and black stone arches. The room opens wide and quiet before us, carved into the lower level of the house with one wall of glass facing the black Icelandic coast far below.
No one can see in. I threatened men with death to ensure no one would ever see what is mine.
The glass is reinforced, tinted, shielded, and wired to enough alarms to wake the dead. The view beyond it is all storm and sea and jagged rock.
Inside, the room is heat. Leather. Velvet. Silk. Dark wood.
A wide bed sits against the far wall, lower and broader than a normal bed, covered in black sheets and a deep red throw so soft even I touched it after it arrived.
A chaise curves near the fire. A cabinet of drawers lines one wall.
Beside it, shelves hold candles, oils, folded silk, soft restraints, blindfolds, toys chosen with obsessive care and more restraint than I deserve credit for.
A copper bathtub sits in an adjoining alcove behind a screen of smoky glass.
There are no cages. I almost added one. Then I thought of Erin’s face when she told me something along the lines of me not getting to make control sound romantic.
There are no cages. Only choices. Like now, when she doesn’t choose to step inside.
I wait. She looks at the room for a long time. I have stood in rooms with guns aimed at my head and waited with less difficulty.
Finally, she says, with that wicked little mouth that ruined me for all other women, “What would the Airbnb listing be for this? Sex dungeon with ocean views?”
She’s nervous but smiling. Aren’t nervous and excited the same emotion?
“It is not a dungeon,” I say.
She steps across the threshold. Slowly. “No?”
“No.”
“Because there’s toys in here?” She gives a half-laugh.
“Because you are free to leave at any moment.”
Her expression shifts from amusement to something quieter.
“You thought about that.”
“I think about everything that touches you.”
“Obsessive.”
“Yes.”
“Unhealthy.”
“Yes.”
“Us,” she says.
She looks around again. Her fingers trail over the back of the chaise, pressing into the velvet. “It’s beautiful.”
I feel a thrill at the word, hating how much of me is kneeling invisibly at her feet, waiting for approval.
“Everything in this room is yours,” I say.
Her gaze cuts to mine. “Mine?”
“Yes.”
“And you?”
I step inside and close the door behind us. Her pulse jumps at the base of her throat, a sign she can’t control. She’s always putting on a brave face, her pride in the way.
She never fooled me, anyway. Not even the first night I met her.
A thread of the animal I was before I met her still exists. In this room, it can prowl freely.
Erin walks deeper into the room, pretending curiosity is stronger than nerves. She touches nothing directly except fabric. Velvet. Silk. The edge of the cabinet. Her cheeks are flushed. Her eyes are too bright.
She likes it. She’s afraid to like it. She’s worried she’s too innocent for this, for us.
For me.
I worry I’ve stepped over her invisible line. As much as she talks about me having one, hers is electrified.
This is familiar ground for us.
Finally, she stares at me. “You may have had the workforce to have this built last night. But you couldn’t have designed it as well. You were watching me sleep all night.”
“I was,” I admit.
“You planned this before Iceland.”
“Yes.”
Her gaze narrows. “Before Red Shutters?”
“Yes.”
Her hand drops to her side. “Why?”
I move toward her. “Yes.”
She turns, pressing her back against a cabinet.
She tilts her chin. “For me, right?”
Because I am a bastard. Because I buy things when I do not know how to say I am afraid. Because I wanted a place where her surrender could never be mistaken for weakness. Because I wanted her pleasure under my control in the only context where that control does not make her smaller.
Because I want too much.
Because I am too much.
Because she wants me all the same.
I stop in front of her. “Only for you.”
Her cheeks heat. “That was presumptuous.”
“Yes.”
“And lovely.”
“Yes.”
“And maybe even a bit romantic,” she mutters.
My mouth curves. “My girl.” I lift my hand, slowly enough that she can move away.
She does not.
I touch her jaw. “In this room, you can let go. You don’t have to be proud. Or brave.”
Her throat works. “That’s just how I am.”
“No. It isn’t.” I brush my thumb over her lower lip. “You can be soft. With me. I’ll be your protective shell.”
Her eyes close. For the first time since we left Red Shutters, she relaxes. The sight hits me low in the chest.
The war is upstairs. Carlos is somewhere in the world with Marina’s silence. Isobel is in the east wing, carrying secrets while feigning fear. Blaze is likely two minutes away from leaving us for his wife.
The Bachman family is strong but it feels like we’re holding on by a thread after the Village attack. Each branch has a leader in their separate locations, but the cohesion seems to have weakened along with the Village.
We are in a tailspin. All of us. Scattered around the globe, fighting to get back our power in New York, to return to our home, our history.
I’m in Iceland for God’s sake.
In a summerhouse I only dreamed of spending a week or two at.
Alone like the beast in his castle.
Now, I’ve carted what feels like half the family and part of Scotland here with us.
In the middle of winter.
But there is one constant in all of this chaos.
Her.
Erin is here. Warm. Alive. Mine. Not bought.
Chosen.
She opens her eyes. “What happens in here?”
“Whatever you want.”
Her smile returns, faint and dangerous. “That sounds suspiciously generous.”
“It won’t always feel generous.”
Her breath catches, that pretty flush rising in her cheeks.
My cock hardens with a violence that nearly breaks me. I step closer until my body cages hers.
“In here, I can order. I can punish. I can take you apart until you forget your own name.”
Her breath leaves her in a soft rush of words. “But I decide whether you get the privilege.”
“Exactly.” I lean in until my mouth brushes her ear. “Safe word.”
Her fingers curl into my shirt. “Red.”
“Slow?” I ask.
“Yellow.”
“If you use either?”
She whispers. “You stop. Immediately.”
“And if I push too hard?” I ask.
She says, “I tell you.”
“And if your pride gets in the way?” I demand.
She huffs a laugh. “My pride is non-negotiable.”
“If your pride gets in the way?” I grip her chin and turn her face to mine.
Her eyes soften.
“I trust you to take it away,” she says.
God. I kiss her because I can’t speak.
The room deserves reverence. She deserves reverence, this first time trusting me like this.
But even with her, I’m still Lucian Bachman.
I don’t kiss her gently.
My mouth takes hers with the hunger I have been holding since Red Shutters. Since blood on a towel. Since she watched Isobel step into our life and tried not to flinch. Since I saw her standing at the edge of a cliff, I realized I would never stop wanting to put her in my pocket.
Erin kisses me back like she’s starving for this. For me. Her hands slide under my shirt, shoving it back. I let it fall. Her fingers work at the buttons of my shirt, impatient, clumsy with want.
I catch her wrists.
She glares up at me. “Already?”
My favorite version of her. “Already disobedient?” I murmur.
“What?” she snips. “You’re overdressed.”
“And you are impatient.” I turn her carefully, pressing her front to the cabinet, my hand between her shoulder blades, my mouth at the back of her neck.
I drag down the zipper of her dress. I don’t let my fingertips graze her skin no matter how much I might want to.
She wore black tonight. Simple. Soft. Something chosen in a hurry after dinner with Cass and Ryan, before I brought her downstairs. Couture because she can.
A dress because—Isobel. Handing me a black-striped button-down to match her dress.
Because Isobel.
The dress opens for me, parting to reveal warm skin and the black lace I’d hoped for. The dress falls to the ground. I kneel on one knee behind her, circling one ankle at a time, lifting the dress away.
Removing her shoes for her.
Her bare feet press into the floor. “It’s heated.”
“Of course.”
Still, chill bumps rise on her skin.
Taking my time, I leave her, trembling against the cabinet, her hands pressed against its top. I fold the dress and put it over the corner of the bed. Then I return and just look.
“Taking your sweet time,” she half-laughs.
“Taking in what’s mine,” I correct her. “You’re too fucking gorgeous.”
“So, you tell me,” she whispers to the cabinet.
She’ll never know how pretty she is. Just another towering difference between her and the woman in the East Wing. Isobel knows how to use her looks to her advantage.
But she’s not in this room.