Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Five

Elaine

Iheard Lucian walk past my room on the way to his.

I heard the way he paused outside mine.

My heart raced like a train—two conflicting emotions at once. On one hand the instinctive fear of having a man outside my room was enough to make me feel sick and pull the covers up higher, and on the other…on the other…

I shouldn’t even face it. There’s no way I should be feeling what was on the other.

He continued on, and a fresh wave of goddamn something bloomed up in me.

Hurt. Rejection. Who knows.

One thing I did know was that I wanted Lucian Morelli to want me. I couldn’t lie about that to myself anymore. No matter how many times I tried to deny it. I wanted Lucian Morelli to want me. I needed Lucian Morelli to want me.

I heard his door close at the end of the landing, and I felt so alone that I pulled the covers up over my head. I knew it would happen. It had to. I’d been revisiting memories I’d been running away from for years. I had no cocaine or alcohol to block it out, and that began to take its toll on me. I felt sick and desperate for the substances I relied on…and more …I felt sick for more than that. I needed more than that. God help me, I needed more than that.

Life inside here was messing me up in ways I’d never known. I wasn’t even thinking about life outside anymore. I wasn’t thinking about the inter-family conflict that was brewing because of me, or how frantic people like Tristan and Harriet would be to bring me back. There were a few of them at least. I hadn’t thought about the news reports that might be running on the TV or how Lucian was keeping me away from them this evening. Who knows what they’d be saying now?

Beyond all that, I was torn between thinking about the monsters from my past and the monster down the hall. There it was in the balance—monsters from my past, or the monster down the hall…

I chose the monster down the hall.

I’d spent years believing that touching myself where it felt good was a bad thing, but I couldn’t stop my fingers slipping down between my legs as I thought about Lucian. I was thinking about the ferocity in his eyes, and how strong he’d been in the kitchen, and how angry he’d looked as I told him about the men who’d fucked me up. I was thinking about the curse in his tone, and how powerful that was, and how his fingers were so firm as he sliced the salami.

I was thinking about simple things mixed with his beastly soul.

If he even had a soul. He was a Morelli, after all.

I shouldn’t have touched myself and thought about him, but I couldn’t stop. I thought right back to Tinsley’s masked ball where he’d first laid his hands on me and just how much that had swept me away. I thought back to the fear I’d felt in Jemma’s apartment when he’d cornered me there, and just how different I was feeling now to the drugged-up mess who’d wanted to die at his hands—because that was the other thing that was changing…I wasn’t so sure I wanted to die anymore. For real, I wasn’t sure if I wanted to die.

My fingers were fast and light between my legs, teasing me as my breaths quickened. The memories blurred and grew more intense, until I was back next to Stephen Cannon’s body with Lucian on top of me, taking my ass. I shouldn’t be thinking about that. I shouldn’t be thinking about how Lucian had stabbed a man to death who’d been trying to rape me. Because that’s what he’d done. My enemy had saved me. Oh fuck, Lucian Morelli had saved me…

My fingers pressed harder to my clit, faster, faster. My breaths were hitching, needy. Lucian. My fingers danced, desperate, and my thoughts were tumbling, more and more. More of the monster. More of his hate and his spite.

More of what he could do to me…because I wanted it.

I couldn’t help but want it. I wanted him to be rough with me, and control me, and show me his strength and his power. I wanted him to be the first one to fuck my pussy and make me truly his. I wanted him to make me truly his.

Holy fuck, I wanted Lucian Morelli to truly make me his.

And then I wanted to stay that way.

I wanted to belong to Lucian Morelli.

Please no. Please.

My fingers were circling hard enough that I held my breath and raised my hips from the bed. I tried to slow my breathing but I couldn’t, I was too lost in my thrills. My clit was alive and screaming, my body was desperate for the man who was out to tear me apart, and I couldn’t stop myself from coming. I couldn’t. I couldn’t.

I came to the fantasy of belonging to Lucian Morelli for all time.

It was the most bad girl thing I’d ever done. I should never have the fantasy of belonging to Lucian Morelli for all time. He was a Morelli. An enemy I should be out to destroy, just as he was out to destroy me. They’d always been out to ruin our family, and now they might do it. The Morellis might team up with the Power brothers and hurt my family…because of me.

I rolled over in bed and caught my breath, my mind churning.

I had so many questions and fears and guilty thoughts and needs.

This should’ve been a simple case of kidnapping. I thought I’d be bound up and punished until I was nothing but a broken shell of the woman. How the holy fuck was I eating pasta and talking about hobbies? How was it me trying to push him into hurting me? Were we in some kind of surreal dimension where I’d been thumped on the head and woken up in cuckoo land?

Jesus, Lucian had been the one person in my life to hear my story. I’d told him that. I’d told him all my secrets, and he’d listened to them all without so much as a smile at my suffering.

This really was cuckoo land.

I was still lying on my side under the covers when I pulled my knees up to my chest and tried to settle down to some sleep. I needed to stop my whirring mind, but it wouldn’t slow down, churning, churning. That’s when it started churning over the things I’d told the Morelli heir—all of the nasty nights I’d spent afraid of who was coming and what they were going to do to me. Once again I was back in my own pool of fear, once again craving the drink and drugs to block it out of me. Once again there was no coke and champagne to bail me out.

The night was quiet and cold, what little was left of it. The closed door was an ominous shadow in the corner of the room, and the covers over my head didn’t stop me peering out at it, like I’d learned to do so many times in my past. I started shaking, like always. My mouth turned dry, like always. I gripped my knees tighter to my chest, like always.

As always, it didn’t work. I was just the broken girl shaking in the dark.

I switched the light on, but it didn’t make the slightest difference, just seemed to make the closed door more ominous. It should have been ominous given the beast that was down the hall, and how he may come for me. But it wasn’t. The beast down the hall wasn’t ominous at all. Strange but true. The beast down the hall felt like my safety, not my fear.

I threw back my covers and swung my feet down onto the floor. I had no idea what the hell I was thinking as I crept my way across the room and pressed my ear to the closed door.

I couldn’t hear him out there. He was definitely still in his room. Definitely still down the hall, probably deep in slumber since he undoubtedly had a trip into New York City in the morning…the early morning…

My crazy took on a fresh level of insane when I eased the door handle down and peeked my way out onto the landing. It was dark, and empty. Lucian’s door was closed at the end, I could just about see it in the shadows.

I held my breath as I stepped out. I still had his damn shirt on, and it felt floaty against my thighs, still sore from where I’d cut them earlier. I ghosted my way closer to his room with my heart pounding and my nerves on fire, and I should’ve raced back to my shitty bed in the other shitty room, but I didn’t. I pressed myself up against his door and placed my hand on the handle.

Please, God, what the fuck am I doing?

I turned the handle as gently as I could, and I was shaking. I was a wreck. I was insane as I slowly opened the door.

I was fully expecting Lucian to sit stark upright in bed, then come charging after me, dragging me back down the hallway and belting me at the very least before locking me back in my room. But no. He didn’t.

Lucian Morelli was asleep in his bed, fast asleep to the world.

I should’ve stolen his keys and got the hell out of there—driving his car back into the city and condemning him for good, but I didn’t. Hell knows why, but I didn’t.

I waited a full minute at least before I dared to ease the covers back just enough to slip myself inside of them. I stayed right on the edge of the mattress, trying not to disturb him, keeping as far away as I could. Still, I couldn’t help myself. His warmth was too inviting. Bizarrely enough, I felt safer next to the monster than I had anywhere else in the whole damn world. Nobody would ever get to me in this place…nobody but the monster himself.

It was sad but fucking true that the monster was fast becoming the one man I wanted to get me, only this time it wasn’t about him wiping me out and freeing me from my pitiful misery…

This time it was about becoming the monster’s prey in a whole other way…

I couldn’t deny it…I wanted the monster to love me enough to keep me safe…

It was true…

Oh my God, it was true…

I wanted the monster to love me.