Chapter 2 #2
This room was built for the chosen one.
My chosen one.
Erin.
My fingers pause at the clasp of her bra.
“Color?”
“Green,” she says quickly.
I smile against her shoulder. “Eager.”
She smiles. “And you aren’t?”
I unclasp the bra and let it fall. She braces her hands on the cabinet, head lowering as I drag my palms down her sides, cupping her waist. Black silk hugs her hips. Every curve I know and still need to touch as badly as I did that first night.
“You’re quiet,” I say.
She says, “I’m trying to be the kind of woman a man builds a room like this for.”
“You already are.”
“Well,” she says, “Then I’m trying to be quiet.”
“You are terrible at it.”
She chokes on a laugh. “You’re terrible at being emotionally available, but here we are.”
I bite her shoulder. She gasps, arching back against me. “There,” I murmur. “That is better.”
I turn her around again. She stands before me in nothing but black panties and defiance.
Her eyes are bright, her mouth swollen from mine. I take one step back and look at her. She shifts under the attention. Not away. Never away.
Just a little overwhelmed.
I like her overwhelmed. It means she’s listening.
It’s the look that gives me hope. Hope that one day, she’ll know how much she means to me.
“Do you like it?” I ask.
“The way you are looking at me? Like I’m something special? Yes.” She smiles. “Or are you asking about the room?”
“The room.”
“Yes. It’s exciting. Beautiful. Another world.” She looks around, then back at me. “And I love that you made it for me.”
“I’ll give you every world I can.”
“Then show me what happens in this one.” The command is soft.
My blood goes hot. I back her toward the bed. She goes willingly, but her chin lifts as if she is still pretending I am making her. I let her have the lie. She likes having something to fight even when she wants to be conquered.
Soon, that will be gone. That’s what this room is for.
Full surrender.
But tonight, it’s just a gift. A place to be close to one another inside this hectic homestead.
But I’ll leave her with a little taste.
At the edge of the bed, I stop, leaving her. “Hands behind your back.”
She pauses, then she obeys. Slowly. I retrieve the strip of fabric from the drawer beside us.
Not rope. Not leather. Not tonight.
Silk. Black. No marks on her. Not tonight.
Soft enough not to mark unless I want it to.
I drag it over her naked breasts, first. A sharp inhale, her nipples reacting to the brush of the cool fabric.
“Still green?”
She stares at me. “Yes.”
I bind her wrists loosely enough for comfort, tightly enough for meaning.
She flushes. She likes this more than she wants to admit. I know because I know her. Because her shame has a name now.
And that name is mine.
Her smallest tremor can reorder my body’s wiring.
I lay her back on the bed.
Her bound hands rest beneath her, lifting her hips. That look on her face. I can’t tear my gaze away.
“You’re staring,” she whispers.
“You’re stunning,” I say. “You’ve stunned me.”
“And are you going to do something about it?” She smiles.
“Yes.” Then I kiss her. Thorough enough to make her forget she was being mouthy.
My hand moves over her body, learning the landscape again with deliberate cruelty. Her throat. Her breasts. The dip of her waist. The soft curve of her belly. Her hip. The edge of her panties.
She lifts into my touch, demanding. She wants more. I slide my fingers beneath the lace and feel how wet she is.
My control frays. Enough that she sees it. I drag her panties down her legs and lower my mouth to her thigh. I kiss the inside of her thigh, moving closer.
Her hips shift. “Lucian.”
“Impatient,” I remind her.
“Controlling.”
I look up. “Yes.”
Then I put my mouth on her.
Her head falls back, breath breaking.
The room goes quiet around us except for her. Her sounds. Her restraint. Her shame gives way to need as I take my time and ruin every clever answer she might have had.
She says my name once. Then again. Then without pride.
Begging. I bring her close and stop.
Her eyes fly open. “Do not.”
“You told me to show you.”
“I did not tell you to be evil.”
“You should have been more specific.”
She makes a frustrated sound and pulls against the silk.
Beautiful.
I rise over her and unfasten my trousers.
Her gaze tracks every movement.
There is no coyness now. No pretending. Only the raw hunger between us.
Hunger that was bought. Betrayed. Burned.
Now bound in my bed.
I free her hands before I enter her.
She blinks up at me. “Why?”
“Because I want you touching me when I come inside you.”
The softness in her face is almost too much to bear. Then her hands are on my shoulders, my back, my scars, and I press the head of my cock against her entrance. It’s throbbing with the beat of desire, and I have to breathe to maintain my control.
For a moment, neither of us moves. Her body grips mine. Her eyes hold mine.
I push inside her. One hard demanding thrust. She gasps, nails digging into my shoulders.
The room becomes heat. Skin. Breath. Her body taking mine. My mouth at her throat. Her voice breaking around my name. She comes with her face hidden against my neck, as if pleasure is something she still wants to keep private from the world.
I follow after, buried deep, holding myself over her as the last of my control finally burns away.
“This,” she says, voice hoarse, “is a very nice room.”
A laugh breaks out of me before I can stop it.
“You’ll come here when you want something.”
Her expression sharpens. “Want something or need something?”
“Either.”
Her eyes narrow. “And if what I want is outside this room?”
I should have expected it. Still, I ask, “What do you want outside this room?”
“A partnership.” Her hand presses over my heart.
Silence opens between us. The control she demands. The control I don’t want to give. The one that gives her a seat at our table. Instead of safely in my pocket.
I lower my forehead to hers. “I am trying.”
She rubs the back of my neck. “I know.”
“I am bad at it.” I close my eyes as her fingertips comb into my hair.
“I know,” she says, dragging her fingertips over my scalp. It’s doing something magical inside me.
“You are enjoying that.”
“A little.”
My mouth curves despite myself.
Then a knock hits the door. Three sharp taps. Rafe.
“Always Rafe.” I close my eyes.
She laughs. “It’s always Rafe.”
“If he says anything other than it’s over, I’m resigning from organized crime.”
“But I was just getting ready to order my Catwoman suit.”
The thought of her in a black bodysuit has me ready to call my personal shopper. “Me-ow, baby.”
Rafe’s voice comes through the door. “I realize interrupting may be hazardous to my health, but Lucian, we need you. Now.”
Every bit of warmth leaves my body.
Erin’s eyes lock with mine. “Now means bad.”
I withdraw from Erin carefully, hating the cold that takes her place.
“I’m coming with you.” She sits up, reaching for the sheet. “No more rooms without me.”
I hate the idea of her in that room. I love the idea of having her beside me.
I nod once. “No more rooms without you.”
I dress her myself because I can’t keep her safe enough. She lets me, though she rolls her eyes when I insist on putting on her shoes, one pretty little foot at a time.
“You know I can dress myself,” she says.
“I am aware.”
She gives a happy sigh. “And yet?”
“And yet.”
When we open the door, Rafe stands in the hall, expression grim. Blaze is behind him, leaning against the wall with his usual smile gone.
It’s bad.
Her fingers slip into mine. Not behind me. Beside me.
Rafe looks at her, then at me.
I wait for him to challenge her presence. He doesn’t. If anything, he looks as if he expected this, like he saw it coming.
Even when I couldn’t. She has that way with me. Making me grow into a newer, better version of myself.
One side of me she’ll never change.
She wouldn’t want to.