Chapter 24
TWENTY-FOUR
LUCIEN
I return to the loft. Late.
Briar is on the sofa, and she looks at me. Her eyes search my face, looking for something I can’t give her right now. I can’t talk.
I stride straight to the bathroom, ripping off my jacket and hoodie, shucking out of my pants before I even have a moment to shut the door. My movements are jerky, rushed, like if I slow down even a second my mind will catch up and drag me under.
I catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror. My eyes are dead, with dark rings under them. There’s a tightness about my jaw that has not been there for many, many years, and I know the reason why.
Tonight I slipped into a person I promised myself never to be.
I was never clean. I never pretended to be so.
My father had ensured that when I was but a child, doing deals here and there, ridding people that dared to go against the Moretti name.
But I had fought so hard to change. To do better.
To become better. I lean on the counter, staring down at the sink.
I hate what I have done. But I couldn’t allow Matteo Romero to continue his threats against Briar.
My Briar.
He would’t stop. I had no doubt of that, and tonight I had taken this issue into my own hands and dealt with it. Seeing her meet with him, seeing the bastard run his thumb over her jaw, had set an unstoppable determination to kill. He dared to touch her again.
Not that she was wholly innocent. What was she even doing there? Was she playing some kind of game? Did she think she could talk sense into Matteo? I scoffed. The man was nonsensical. There was no reasoning with a madman.
The memory flashes in my mind. The alley.
The sound of bone breaking under my fists.
The final echo of the silenced gunshot. The way everything went quiet and loud in my mind afterward.
There had been no pleasure in what I did.
Only cold purpose. Only the ugly, familiar calm that comes when a threat is finally removed.
I reach over and flick the shower on, waiting for the water to be hot before stepping inside. The stream cascades over my body, through my hair, and I quickly wash the night away. Or at least I try. I feel dirty. I want to sweep away the filth of my past that has touched me a second time.
What is more, and even more troublesome, is the knowledge of how easy it had been to rid the world of Romero.
How simple it was to step back into the life that I had been born into and fought to escape.
It should have been harder. It should have cost me more.
Instead, it felt like slipping on an old coat that still fit perfectly.
That terrifies me more than the blood on my hands.
People would no doubt try to connect that I was involved. The Moretti and Romero families were never lifelong friends, and the fact that I’m dating his ex-wife would put me in a prickly position.
But I had been careful, just as I had been trained to be all those years ago.
Silent movement. No witnesses. No trail that couldn’t be redirected.
I rub a hand over my face. I don’t know what this will mean for Briar and myself.
At this point, I’m not even sure if I should tell her that I have been involved at all.
You can’t start a relationship with a lie…
I had promised her I would deal with Romero the legal way. That I had made inquiries and started that process could possibly put me in a better light with the law, throw some heat off me, since they could see that I was trying to be rid of him in the legal sense at least.
And there was no doubt that Romero had other enemies. I was but one of many.
The cops will build their theories. Rivals.
Old grudges. Debts unpaid. My name will be one of many on a list, and I have spent a lifetime making sure there is never enough to make any accusation stick.
But Briar is different. She won’t look at me as a detective would.
She will look at me as a woman in love with a man she believes is better than her past. That is what twists in my gut.
I wasn’t better than her past. I was exactly the same.
The bathroom door opens, and Briar walks in.
She is dressed in a T-shirt, an oversized one of mine.
The sight of her, bare legs, wet hair from her earlier shower, soft curves outlined in cotton, makes my cock twitch.
I know I need release. I need to slake my desire.
I need to fuck her, until Romero is nothing but a past memory for us both.
“Is everything all right” she asks, shutting the door behind her.
She stands near the shower, watching me. Steam curls around her as her pretty blue eyes trace my face, my shoulders, as if she can see the pieces I’m barely holding together.
Without saying a word, I reach for her, pulling her under the water with me. Her T-shirt instantly turns transparent, clinging to her skin. Her nipples peak against the thin fabric and my mouth waters. I need to touch her. Slake myself in her.
Now.
I squeeze one nipple with my thumb and forefinger and watch her mouth open on a pleasurable gasp.
God she’s beautiful, and mine. I take her lips, wanting to sear myself into her conscious, as she is embedded in mine.
I can’t lose her. For years I’d felt like there was something missing, and now that emptiness vanishes whenever I’m around her.
I love her…
“Everything’s fine.” The lie slips easily off my tongue. Everything is not fine, but I need to pretend, for both our sakes. I need to feel something other than guilt, shame, the relief… Anything other than the echo of Romero’s last breath.
I kiss her, feeling the prickle of the stitches on her lip, and the hatred for Romero doubles. He won’t be able to do that again to her. Not ever. No one will ever do that to her again.
I drop to my knees before her and push her gently against the bathroom wall.
“Lucien.” Her gasp of compliance stimulates me more. Her fingers spear through my hair, pain spears through my skull. I like the pain, I need it to feel alive.
She doesn’t attempt to push me away, instead, she curls her fingers tighter, holding me to her, guiding my mouth on her wet sex. She knows what I want. She knows what she wants. A satisfied smirk twists my lips and my mouth salivates.
I slide her panties off her legs, running my hands along her soft thighs, before lifting one of her legs and slipping it over my shoulder.
I move forward and lick that sweet cunt.
It glistens for me, tempts me with its prettiness and I eat her, the fire and madness within me blazing higher, wanting to make her come on my face, wanting to make her come harder than she has ever orgasmed before.
She undulates against my face, her body rocking into me, seeking, begging for more. I give her what she wants. I lick every little morsel of her cunt, suckling on her clit. I slip two fingers into her, she’s wet and needy, angling them to tease her where she longs most.
“Lucien. Oh yes. Lucien.”
I don’t stop. Her sweet, tangy cunt is a sweetness I can’t get enough of.
I bite down and then suckle hard, feel the contractions against my fingers as her release teases us both.
Her muscles grip me tight. Her thighs tremble around my neck.
My name is a chant on her lips. She begs me not to stop. I have no intention to.
Every sound she makes drags me further away from the alley, from the gunshot, from the look in Romero’s eyes. Here there is only her. Her pleasure. Her trust. The way she gives herself to me without fear.
As the last of her orgasm subdues, I stand and turn her around, clasp her hips and angle her pert ass upward so I can fuck her from behind. I slip into her wet, ready cunt, watching as my cock goes in and out, stretching her sweet pussy. The sight pulls a groan from deep within my chest.
I clasp her shoulders and thrust, driving hard into her.
She braces against the wall, moaning my name, head bowed, water streaming over both of us.
My balls ache and tighten, the room spins with my need, with the temptation of release.
My cock is like a rod, and I watch it stretch her sweet lips as she takes me fully.
“That’s it, darling, take me. All of me.” I breathe deep, wanting to prolong the sweet agony, but it’s no use. She makes me spiral out of control and there is no turning back now. “I’m going to come,” I growl, the fire, the ache that burns low in my gut a clear warning.
I reach around and roll my fingers against her clit, and just as her second orgasm catapults through her, I join her in that pleasure.
“Briar. Fuck yes, Briar.”
“You’re everything to me,” I rasp, thrusting hard, lost in the tight heat of her.
I’m lost in the pleasure of us. In the way her body milks me.
In the way she gives herself completely, not just here but in every aspect of our life, as short as that was right at this moment.
But we have so many years ahead of us. So much to look forward to.
I feel my seed surge and spill inside her. I come, relishing every last tremor from us both. She slumps against the wall, our breathing ragged, chests heaving as the water beats down. I slide out, my cock still semi-hard, heavy with the urge to go again, simply to keep reality away.
I turn her around and clasp her at the nape of her neck, tilting her face up. “You’re mine.” Her eyes flare a little, but she nods in agreement.
“I think I’ve been yours from the moment I met you,” she whispers.
There is no fear in her gaze. It almost breaks me.
When she learns the truth, I hope there is never any apprehension in her pretty face.
I don’t want her to dread me, but her enemies should.
Anyone who dares take revenge or seek to level the score, should they suspect that I had anything to do with Romero’s death.
I won’t allow anything to threaten Briar, my family, or my business.
Tonight I crossed a line, one that I had promised myself I wouldn’t, but one I traversed because the woman in my arms deserves more. I love her, and I will not lose her, not to anyone.
If hell comes for me, it can have me. But it will never touch her.