Chapter Thirty-Two

Chapter Thirty-Two

Lucian

I’d never enjoyed doing anything for anyone. Gratitude meant nothing to me other than weakness. It was an entirely new sensation to enjoy doing things for Elaine.

I enjoyed making her come until she was a quivering mess, and hurting her in a way her body ate up in bliss, and most surprisingly of all I enjoyed making her pasta while she watched me.

She looked more beautiful than ever as she stood by my side at the kitchen counter, swamped in one of my clean shirts from the wardrobe. Her hair was wild, and her eyes were wide, and her grin was wide to match.

I knew one thing for certain before I’d even finished slicing the salami. I was going to enjoy hurting the people who’d hurt her. I was going to savor every fucking second of it.

“Have you quit the family company, then?” she asked me, with a twinkle in her eyes as I stirred the pasta. “Or is that still a big secret? Is it still none of my business?”

I couldn’t hold back a smile. “I’m taking a vacation.”

“A vacation?” she asked, then laughed. “I can’t imagine you ever taking a vacation.”

“You and the rest of the people who know me.”

It was a very true observation on her part. I couldn’t recall ever taking a vacation in my life. I hated non-productive time. “So…where are we going on this vacation?” she laughed. “A beach resort somewhere amazing?”

I tipped my head with a smirk. “Bishop’s Landing. I’ve heard there is a nice little countryside house which needs some gardening work.”

I loved the way she grinned.

We ate in silence as we munched at our pasta, but this time it wasn’t tense; it was easy. A lovely ease between two people who really like each other’s company. Like was an understatement, but I was still struggling with speaking the word in my own mind, even to myself. Two people who really love each other’s company.

I couldn’t remember the last time someone had looked at me with love in their eyes like Elaine did for me. It was a stunning thing. Her eyes had never looked like such magical pools of blue as they did when they were filled with happy adoration. I’d never grow tired of looking back at them. I could only assume that mine were filled with a sheen of adoration to match. Even the thought was still too bizarre to imagine.

Still, I may be a lover, but I was a hater, too. The love for Elaine fueled the evil inside me in other directions, and it fueled it hard. I despised the men who’d broken her pretty little soul when she was a sweet young butterfly with innocent wings. I’d always enjoyed hurting people, but I’d never wanted it with the passion I felt down deep as I thought about tearing those sickos to pieces.

“You going to curl up with me on the sofa like a boyfriend?” Elaine teased as she collected my dish from me. “Is that what you are now? Are you my boyfriend?” She was joking. Her humor was all over her face. I didn’t answer her humor with more. My reply was deadly serious.

“I’ve never been a boyfriend in my life. I’ve never even been close. This situation is entirely new ground.”

“Yeah, well, I’ve never been a girlfriend, either.” She laughed. “I was being silly, not serious. I’m hardly going to be talking marriage and kids next, am I? Just because we like playing around with orgasms and eating pasta together doesn’t mean we’re suddenly soulmates.”

“It would be hard to be soulmates with someone who’s soulless,” I told her. “Believe me, sweetheart. I’m pretty damn soulless.”

Her eyes were wide as she looked at me. “Yesterday, I would’ve believed you.”

I couldn’t find a reply to that. The whole concept of having a soul and a girlfriend and any kind of romance was enough to make me feel strangely fluffy inside, and I didn’t like fluffy. Fluffy was for pathetic wimps and pussies.

Even in my fluffy loved-up state I couldn’t bring myself to curl up on the sofa with Elaine and watch shit on TV. I made for an early night, and she headed up along with me with no mention of the room down the hallway. She climbed straight on into my bed along with me once we were done with our showers.

“Are you going to actually fuck me soon?” she asked as I pulled her close under the covers.

“It’s the jewel in the crown,” I said. “When I take it, I’ll be taking it slowly. It’ll be worth waiting for.”

Her little giggle was cute. “I’ve been waiting quite a lot of years for it. I’m sure a little while longer isn’t going to hurt.”

Her sweet little yawn was divine. Even the most innocent things she did made her a pure temptress.

I wish I could have gone to sleep when she did. Her flutters of breath were sweet against my chest. I held onto her as she slept, loving the heat from her and thinking about how fucking bizarre my life was turning out to be. I hadn’t given a thought to Seamus or Duncan or Morelli Holdings. I’d been thinking of nothing but Elaine since the very second I left the office that morning and came speeding back home to find her outside.

Home.

This was really home now. Elaine was my home.

Elaine was the jewel in my crown.

For the first time in my life, I felt I needed to do more to deserve it, to earn that particular treasure.

She was still sleeping as I eased out from beside her, settling down into the covers like an angel. I made sure I was out of her view when I finally accepted my own need for revenge against those who hurt Elaine and my need to do it now. I had been planning on starting with Colonel Hardwick or the pricks on the charity auction scene, but no. I had one person at the forefront of my mind that night.

The first piece of shit to touch her.

I was aching with the need to destroy someone when I checked out Reverend Lynch online. Interestingly enough, he wasn’t all that far from Bishop’s Landing. He was at an abbey down at Renyard Lake, only twenty minutes down the road back toward New York City.

Hmm. Maybe there was such a thing as fate after all.

As soon as I saw the details of his manor online I felt the surge of evil in me down deep. There was no way I could fight it, not even for a single minute longer. The man had to suffer, and he had to suffer soon. Him and the others, one by one. I’d enjoy destroying every single one of them.

I checked that Elaine was still sleeping like a baby and headed on out to the car in the middle of the night. I left a scrawled note on the kitchen counter with a Be back soon, baby, sarcastic, like I really was going to get any good at being a boyfriend. The roads were empty as I sped toward Renyard Lake. My brain was churning like an evil bastard as I plotted the ways I was going to hurt him. So many options, so many of them appealing enough to make my pulse race.

I’d packed a blade from the kitchen in my glovebox. A gun would be far too impersonal. I wanted to get up close. Pointed and sadistic. I wanted to see the fear in his eyes as I exacted Elaine’s revenge.

The manor was on top of me before I’d even registered I was there. It was a sprawling thing, slightly back from the lane. It was the easiest thing in the world to pull into the driveway. It would be the easiest thing in the world to kill him too, considering the security around this place was non-existent. Still, it would be, wouldn’t it? Who would ever be heading out here to kill a reverend?

I felt sick in my gut as I waited for an answer, imagining all too clearly how Elaine’s sweet little body must have been shaking when she arrived at this place every weekend. When the door swung open it was an old woman standing there. Her expression was little more than a scowl.

I remembered Elaine’s secret. I remembered the nasty woman who’d led her through the house. “Margaret?” I asked, and the old woman nodded.

“Yeah…” she said, with a tip of her head. “And you are…?”

“Lucian Morelli,” I told her. “Reverend Lynch should be expecting me.”

She stared at me with piercing eyes under the porch light. “At almost midnight?”

“Morelli,” I reminded her.

“Hmm. Come inside then,” she offered, and I did it. I stepped over that threshold with a smile on my face.

I could’ve taken her out along with him, breaking her neck in a heartbeat, but I didn’t. I wanted to use her to scope the place out for everything it was. My eyes were fixed on our surroundings as we passed by, my head still full of everything Elaine would have been seeing and feeling when she was walking the same road. It was a disgusting façade of religion. I hated it with every fucking bone in my body. This was a new thing for me. I’d never hated anything with such vigor as I did this shithole and everything it stood for.

“Wait here, please,” she told me, and stepped away along the hall once we’d turned a corner.

I was expecting it when she came gliding back out of there with a puzzled expression on her face.

“The reverend says he doesn’t know what you’re talking about,” she told me. “He has no recollection of any appointment with you.”

“It will be a shame if I came all this way for nothing. I suppose my assistant didn’t make the arrangements correctly. It wouldn’t be the first time. Good help is hard to find.”

She was the one to buckle. “I guess you should head in and speak to him yourself. He’s right up the hallway to the right.”

“Thank you,” I told her. “I’ll most certainly speak to him myself.”

She didn’t hang around to watch me make my move. She was off in a flash as there was a clatter from the floor upstairs. I wondered just who was up there and whether he still had a whole host of pure, sweet girls being used for his fun.

I guessed I’d be finding out soon enough.

The knife was already in my hand by the time I knocked on the door.

“Enter!”

I stepped over that threshold with a grim smile.