Chapter Eight

Chapter Eight

Lucian

“Lucian Morelli,” I said to the girl at the entrance desk.

“ID, please.”

I handed over my license. My hair was styled in its usual swept-back wave. I felt strange in jeans and boots with a button-up shirt, but I’d stand out like a sore thumb if I’d worn a suit. She gestured me through with a smile, and I nodded my response.

Cyrus Bar was lively for a downtown dive. People stepped aside to let me climb the main stairwell, and I was up and amongst it, into the main bar area. The music was loud, screaming into my ears. I scanned the room, weaving my way through the crowd toward getting served a drink in this hovel, but my pretty blonde prey was nowhere to be seen.

I ordered a mineral water and made my way back to the side of the dancefloor to look around. People were jumping up at the stage, trashed, or tapping their foot to the beat all around the edges, letting out screams. Still, there was no sign of her.

Did I read the calendar entry wrong? Did she change her mind? If she was in the building, I’d have surely seen her from a distance, recognizing the shimmer of blonde curls from a mile away, but no. She was nowhere to be seen.

I didn’t understand why the thought of failure frustrated me so badly. It was a rotten twist in my gut, my heart beating fast as I continued my scanning and mingling. It shouldn’t matter. It would be only a single attempt to track her down, not even worth breaking a sweat over. I had no idea why it felt like so much more.

I’d find her.

Some way, sometime soon, I’d hunt her down and find her. I just hoped damn fucking hard that it would be tonight. I was slavering over the thought of it.

I wanted to hurt her. I wanted to make her beg and shiver and cry.

I’d sipped my way through most of my mineral water when I saw a flash of perfect blonde on the other side of the dancefloor. My stomach did a twist, and the rage burned behind my eyes.

Yes.

Fuck, yes.

I knew it was her, even without a clear view. I knew it by instinct—by the hatred rushing through my veins. Or was that lust? It was getting harder to tell.

I made my way closer, keeping in the shadows.

She was standing next to a tall guy who looked like a hipster. Elaine was close to him, pressed up tight, but I knew he hadn’t laid a single dirty hand on her, not in any way that counted. It was another flash of instinct in my gut.

She was staring up at the stage, gazing at the guy bellowing into the mic up there. Yes, it was Elaine Constantine, but she looked…different. She’d almost have passed for a normal person, for anyone other than a Constantine. Almost.

Her dress was tight, and clearly expensive, but her makeup was…cat-like.

Hot.

Fuck, she was a hot little piece. Even hotter than she’d been at the masked ball.

She was swigging beer from a bottle, chugging it back nice and hard. It reinforced what I already knew—her alcoholic cravings must have been pretty damn desperate for her to be drinking the cheap shit. And there was more.

I only needed to watch her sway to the music to know she was lonely.

I couldn’t get any closer, not without catching her eye. I hovered just out of view, soaking her up as I bristled and boiled, imagining all the things I wanted to do with her.

I wanted to do so much to her that my mouth was watering.

Lust. Hate. Contempt. All of it simmering deep.

Her family had been fighting mine for decades. They’d torn us down once, but never again. We’d all bleed to death before we gave them a single inch of our wealth, or our pride.

I wondered how pretty Elaine Constantine would look with red marks on her perfect skin. I wondered how her eyes would glisten with tears as she stared up into the malice in mine. I wondered how much I could make her pussy stretch for me before she screamed.

It was funny, looking around me at all the people in the room, just how evil a monster I was amongst them. They had no idea such a sadist was in their midst.

A girl with pink hair banged into me as she swung herself to the beat, slamming hard into my chest and spilling the last of my water over my shirt. She spun around with a sorry.

I tipped my head and forced a smile, and she smiled back, then kept her eyes on me.

“Hey,” she said. “Can I get you another drink?”

“No, thank you.”

Still her eyes stayed fixed on mine. “You sure? I’d really like to. Water, right?”

Her earrings were cheap. Metal painted with fake gold.

Sometimes I liked cheap. I liked tempting it with cash and demanding whatever I wanted. I’d learned at a very early age that there is nothing on this planet that is unobtainable.

Everything has a price. Everyone has a price.

I glanced back over at Elaine, and she was still gazing at the prick on stage like a cat in heat.

“Sure,” I told the pink-haired girl. “I’ll have another water.”

“Cheap date.” She laughed and took my empty bottle from me.

Oh, the irony.

She headed over to the bar, and I waited, my stare still hard on Elaine. I was so focused on her that Pink Hair had to nudge my side before I realized she was back. She handed me my fresh water, a smile bright on her face. “You from here?”

I nodded. “Bishop’s Landing.”

“Ooh, fancy. Come here often?”

My answer was short and simple. “No.”

It was right then that the band on stage finished up their song and took a bow for the crowd. Done. Finished. The throng of revelers didn’t get the chance to disappear from the dancefloor before the main act came up onto the stage.

That’s when I recognized him—the Blue Hawk guy I’d checked out online.

He looked like a cocky performer with a decent ripple of muscle through his frame. Hardly a surprise the room was cheering for him. Especially not when his voice started up and flowed right through the venue.

He was good.

I looked across at Elaine. The man at her side was air punching and whooping. He ducked down to Elaine, and she was laughing as they cheered.

The crowd thrusted forward as another song started up and removed me from her view. I wasted no time and slipped away, weaving my way between the bodies, ignoring the way Pink Hair called out for me. I had eyes for no one but Elaine.

Closer.

Closer to the temptress across the floor with every breath and every step.

My cock was swollen in my pants, and it wasn’t for the woman I’d left behind. It was for the woman in front of me, the beautiful virgin, who I would turn into a whore. I would debauch a pretty Constantine princess and win Morelli Holdings at the same time.

She was swaying on her feet, holding her beer up high, and the man at her side was swaying along with her, nodding his head to the beat.

I wanted to see her pain with my reflection in her eyes. Slowly. Oh, so slowly.

I wanted to take her as mine as she moaned and murmured and begged.

It was a dark thrill in my gut as I stepped up behind her, close enough to catch her scent. Orchids and plums were wafting from her perfume, just like at Tinsley’s ball. It only added to the zing inside me as it brought the memories pounding back. The feeling of her body, so willing against mine. Her mouth, so wet and eager. Her pussy, so wet and so needy.

I wanted that again. I wanted her again.

I stayed in position behind her, feeling her heat as she moved. So close. So fucking close.

The song finished and the prick by her side leaned down to her, and the silence between the tracks was enough that I could hear his words.

“I can’t wait to get my hands on him later,” he said, and Elaine laughed.

“Let’s hope he wants your hands on him, then,” she replied.

I couldn’t deny the relief at affirming the guy really had no road into her pussy. I saw no lust in her eyes as he smiled down at her, nothing but…friendship. Genuine friendship, so I made a note of him as a potential leverage. Tristan. He must be the Tristan from the calendar listing.

He wrapped his arm around her waist and pulled her closer, and it was in the way she melted into him that showed me affection between them.

It was insane, just how the sight of that flared up in me.

How the way she touched him made me hungry for her to touch me like that. I didn’t understand her impact on me, and I didn’t want to. There was nothing I wanted other than the thrill of breaking her and staring into the hate in her eyes, burning as brightly as mine ever would. The very thought of wanting more than that gave me shivers.

The bass started up again, and the two of them started swaying along with it, waving their arms above their heads. That’s when I did it. That’s when I made the move to close that final sliver of distance. I pressed up tight behind my blonde Constantine prey, letting out one single breath against her cheek as I put my hands on her waist and pushed on by.

It was fast. One tiny heartbeat in the thrum of the room. But it was enough.

It was enough that she tensed. Enough that she turned. Enough that I felt her eyes searching after me as I disappeared into the darkness of the crowd.

I waited until there were a number of people between us before I turned back to face her, far enough away that she could never be quite certain who I was. Not amongst the dancing, and the cheering, and the flashing of the club lights all around.

It was just enough.

She saw me.

I felt it. Sensed it. Wanted it.

I met her eyes through the shadows and the flashes of neon, and I held her gaze in mine.

Yes. She saw me.

She stopped moving. Dead in her tracks. Eyes open wide.

The guy at her side stopped moving and turned toward her, trying to work out what she was staring at.

But no.

He’d never manage it.

I was already walking away.