Chapter 9
CHAPTER NINE
LUCIAN
I step outside the library, closing the door behind me. I can barely process what happened between the woman I love and me. I can’t process what just happened.
Why was I so quick to offer her protection? I tell myself it’s pride. She betrayed Carlos by coming here. He’ll be out for her blood. If he gets to her, he wins.
After the fire, everything between us was clouded with smoke.
I loved Lucian. I still do.
I won’t give those words power. Not now. Not with Erin in my arms.
Where is my beautiful girl? I stare down the hallway, empty of her.
I give her twenty minutes.
It is the most restraint I’ve shown all morning.
Possibly all year.
Twenty minutes of standing with my back against the library door, hearing murmurs of what’s most likely to be Rafe talking logistics, Blaze mutters creative threats involving Carlos’s organs, Gregory points out uncomfortable truths.
I hear very little of it.
I don’t hear her voice at all. I assume someone’s taken her through the other side of the library to the back stairway.
I’ve put her as far from Erin as I can get her under the same roof.
There’s a second wing with a small guest room we cleared and bugged.
Not that she’s got a way of contacting him.
My head is clouded with questions.
She said she didn’t know all of it, that Carlos was going to kill me. Kill our men.
What did he tell her? Whatever lies he spewed, they were enough for her to leave me and possibly let him murder everyone who protected her.
The hallway is quiet. Too warm after the cold outside and the colder ghosts in the library. I search for her. I pass the staircase, the closed guest room door where Isobel is being watched, the other rooms.
I find Erin on the enclosed porch.
She sits curled in the corner of a faded floral sofa, knees drawn to her chest, arms wrapped around them. Beyond the glass, the woods stretch still and white. The sky is a hard winter gray.
She does not turn when I enter. “I told you, I’m peeing.”
I close the door behind me. “Hopefully not in that chair.”
I study her in the pale light.
She looks small curled on that sofa. Not weak. Never weak. Tired.
Done.
Hopefully not done with me.
“I want you to tell me what you’re thinking,” I say, sinking beside her.
She laughs quietly, keeping her distance. “Do you?”
“Yes.”
“Are you sure? You may not like it.”
“Go on.”
She asks, “Other than wanting to kill her for what she did to you?”
“Yes.”
“Other than waiting to dismember her for saying she,” she swallows hard, “still loves you?”
My chest clenches. “Yes.”
She shrugs. “I kind of feel bad for her.”
My body goes still. “What?”
“I want to hate her,” she says. “Isobel looks at you like she knows another you,” she says. “And maybe she does. Maybe she owns that version of you. The one before the fire. Before Carlos. Before everything went dark.”
Isobel was working with Carlos. Regardless of what he told her, what she says to us, I know, in my gut; she was going to let me die in that fire.
“What we had may have been love,” I shake my head, clearing the smoke, “but maybe it wasn’t even that.”
“Careful.” She laughs once. “Careful. You’re getting worse at this. You should be saying you could never love someone who tried to murder you.”
I grab her before she can turn away. Not roughly. Firmly. Hands on her shoulders, keeping her in front of me. “You belong to me, now.”
Her eyes flash. “Then maybe say it in a way that doesn’t sound like ownership.”
Everything in me stills. She’s afraid the only language I have for loving her is possession.
You can love something you own without really loving it.
And that’s not how I feel about her. Not at all.
My love for her is deep and steady even though our relationship has been nothing short of rocking and stormy.
But love is the language that has me constantly tripping over my words and putting my foot in my mouth.
“You want words?” I ask, pulling her close till our faces are almost touching.
She stares at my mouth. “Yes.”
“I want to fuck the doubt out of you.”
Her breath catches. “Lucian,” she warns.
“I want to put my hands on you,” I say. “I want to make you say you know you are mine.”
“And then what?” she whispers. “We go back downstairs, and she’s still there, still in love with you?” A small, helpless laugh breaks from her. “She’s never going to leave us alone, is she?”
She makes a sound that’s too close to a sob. I hate that. I cup her face. She lets me.
I try and fail. All I can do is try again. I try to put what I’m feeling into words.
“There is the before me. And the after me.”
“Before the fire,” she says.
“No. Before you.”
Something changes in her gaze. It’s softer.
Hoping I’m on the right track, I keep trying. “And I only like the Lucian I am with you. The Lucian that was created after that night you stood in front of me with your chin jutted out, your blue eyes locked on mine. You created that Lucian. And he only exists if you’re in his world.”
Her eyes fill. Stubborn girl blinks it back. Finally, finally. I’m finally breaking through my own brick wall.
“I also need you under me,” I say. “I need to be buried inside you as far as I can go.
I need you.”
The last chink in her armor. Her shield finally falls away. She rises like the crest of a wave, taking my face in her hands, fusing our mouths.
It’s not gentle. It isn’t supposed to be.
Her mouth crashes into mine with all the pain she will not speak and the jealousy she wants to pretend is beneath her. I catch her by the waist, hauling her against me. She bites my lower lip hard enough to sting.
I groan.
She pulls back just enough to say, “I hate that she had you first.”
The confession crashes down on me. My hand slides into her hair, gripping tight.
“You have a man who knows you have the power to ruin him,” I say against her mouth, “and he wants you anyway.”
Her eyes darken. “Say that again.”
I turn her, pressing her back down onto the sofa cushion. “Which part?”
“The part where you say I have power over you,” she smiles. “Greedy?” I ask. “Power hungry?”
She slips her arms around my neck. “Hungry for all kinds of things.” She licks her lips, begging for a kiss.
“Jealous?” I ask.
She waits a beat before admitting, “Yes.”
“You’re mine. All mine. And all I want is you.”
Her hands slip from my neck and move to my belt. I catch her wrists and pin them above her head, pressing them against the arm of the sofa.
She lifts her chin. “I haven’t given you the green light.”
God. This woman. She will be the death of me.
I lower my mouth to her throat, right where her pulse races. “Then I’ll earn it.”
Her breath catches. “Safe word.”
“Red.”
“Slow?”
“Yellow.”
“Do you want this?”
Her eyes soften for half a second.
Then burn.
“Yes.”
The answer breaks the last of my restraint.
I kiss her again, harder, deeper, swallowing the sound she makes as I hold her wrists above her head with one hand and work the other under her sweater. Her skin is warm beneath my palm. Too warm after the cold glass at her back.
She arches into my touch.
Always fighting.
Always offering.
I drag her sweater up, and she helps me only enough to be defiant, glaring as I release her wrists to pull it over her head. She is bare beneath it.
No bra. My mind goes blank. Despite myself, I moan. “God damn, girl.”
Erin sees my face and smiles, wicked and heated.
I stare at her breasts, cupping them and teasing her nipples till her back arches. She moans my name. “Lucian.”
“I’m remembering why I should never let you out of our bedroom.” I take her nipple in my mouth. Sucking till she cries out. I pop my mouth off her, murmuring, “Now, I’m wondering why I ever let you put on clothes at all.”
“That sounds impractical.”
“Which means you could never, ever leave the room again. Because I’d have to slay every man who saw you naked.”
She laughs. “That’s seriously impractical.”
Then I have my mouth on her breast again, and the laugh chokes to a gasp.
Her legs part, and I step between them, pulling her hips to the edge.
Her hands tear at my shirt.
Buttons scatter.
“Impatient,” I say against her skin.
“Old news.”
I bite gently at the curve of her breast.
She shudders.
“Lucian.”
I shove those stretchy black pants—no panties—down her thighs—thank god for spandex—not bothering with grace.
She kicks free of them, nearly knocking over a plant. My belt opens under her hands. My zipper follows. We are both moving too fast now, angry and hungry and desperate to turn words into something the body can understand.
But when I push inside her, she plants a hand against my chest.
I freeze.
Instantly.
Her breathing is ragged. Her face flushed. Her thighs spread around my hips. My cock is still inside her, wrapped in the silky heat of her perfect pussy, and every muscle in my body is screaming to thrust.
But her hand is on my chest.
I stop.
“What?” I ask, voice raw.
“This doesn’t make me yours.” Her eyes hold mine. “Not really.”
“Why not?”
“Because I want more,” she whispers. “I want a future with you. With us. All of us.”
“I want that too.” I move my lips to hers. “And I’m not just saying that because your pussy is locked down on my cock in a way that makes me want to fuck you till you scream.”
She draws me closer. “Then do it.”
As I fully enter her, I hold her gaze. The first thrust steals the air from us both.
She is tight, wet, hot, clinging to me like she has been made for this exact form of ruin. I grip her hips and hold myself still, buried deep, forcing both of us to feel the moment instead of running through it.
Her fingers dig into my shoulders. “Move,” she says. “Please,” she says finally, “Fuck me already.”
I nearly come from that sexy, raspy voice of hers. I move. Hard.
She cries out, and I catch the sound with my mouth. The sofa rocks beneath her.
Outside, snow falls beyond the glass, silent and indifferent. Inside, she is heat and fury and every reason I am no longer fit to make rational decisions.
I thrust into her again, deeper, and she wraps her legs around me.
Mine. Not because I bought her. Not because I command it.
Because she chooses to hold onto me. Her arms tighten around my neck, her legs lock around my waist like a vice.
I catch her wrists again, pinning them at her sides this time.
She strains against my grip. “Lucian.”
“You want to fight?” I ask.
Her gaze is liquid heat. “Yes.”
“Good.” Dragging my hips against her, I slow, deliberately. Then, I stop.
She makes a furious little sound. “Don’t you dare stop.”
“Tell me what you need.” I stare down at her, memorizing every detail of her pretty face.
“I need you to fuck me. Now.” Her wrists twist in my hand.
“Not enough.”
Her hips push against mine. She glares.
I wait. This is torture for both of us. But I wait. I’m not the only one who struggles with words, and I want the truth.
Finally, it tears out of her. With a release of breath, her words rush out, “I need to know that even if she comes up with a great reason for doing what she did, you’d still choose me.”
There’s nothing that woman could do or say to turn me away from Erin. I don’t know how to convince her. So, I thrust. Deep.
I release her wrists as I kiss her, our tongues tangling with heat. One hand slides under her neck. The other smooths over her breast. “I’ll always choose you. And you don’t have to do anything. Just be you. My baby.”
Her breath breaks. “Again,” she whispers.
I thrust deep. “I choose you.” Again. Harder. “I choose you.” Her nails tear down my back. Again. “I choose you.”
She comes with my name breaking apart in her mouth, and the sight of it destroys me. Her body clamps around mine, trembling, fighting pleasure even as it takes her. I bury my face in her neck and follow, spilling into her with a rough groan, my hands gripping her hips hard I’ll leave bruises.
I hold her against me, still inside her, my breath ragged against her skin. She presses her face to my shoulder.
I grip her chin and lift her face back to mine. “Trust me, Erin. I need you to trust me.”
I know I should stop.
Let the words settle.
Let her breathe.
Instead, I kiss her again, because I am still me and she is still half naked on a table with my body inside hers, and trust looking at me like a dare.
This kiss is softer.
That makes it more dangerous.
When I finally pull away, she rests her forehead against mine.
“You need to go talk to her,” she says.
“No.”
“Yes.”
“No.”
“Lucian.”
I close my eyes.
The woman will be the death of me.
“You just told me you chose me,” she says. “Now prove it by not acting like speaking to her is betrayal.”
I look at her.
I hate that she is right.
Again.
She smiles faintly. “You hate that I’m right.”
“Constantly.”
“Good.”
I ease out of her, and she shivers. I let her put clothes on, I help her dress because I am not a complete animal, though my hands linger often enough that she swats me once.
By the time we are both decent, something has shifted. She reaches up on tiptoe and kisses me. She takes my hand as we leave the porch.
The moment we step back into the house, the rock forms in the pit of my stomach.
The last thing I want to do is take the love of my life to face the woman who still loves me.