“IT’S TIME TO GET READY for bed, pet.”
I looked up at Lucian, uncertain what to make of the sudden warmth in his voice. He’d managed to avoid me all day by calling Ace over to babysit instead. But now here he was, puppy brown eyes and a face I couldn’t deny I’d memorized.
We still hadn’t talked about what happened last night. I wondered if we even would, or if we’d both just go on pretending it didn’t happen.
“Come.” He held out his hand for me, and I took it after a moment’s hesitation.
I was tired, but my fatigue was mostly from the uncertainty of what the future held. It was exhausting to try to predict everything so I could feel in control, and with Lucian, it was nearly impossible.
I followed him down the hall, his hand principal in mine, and we entered the master bathroom. He turned on the shower and tested the water with his palm. His eyes met mine, searching for answers to questions he didn’t speak aloud. Instead, his hands came to rest at the hem of my tee shirt, and he slowly guided it up over my head. With practiced care, he undressed me completely, and then did the same for himself.
I couldn’t help that my eyes naturally roamed the great expanse of his body and settled on the thick muscle between his thighs. His cock was heavy but not fully hard. He caught me staring, and my eyes shot to his.
“Come on,” he said. “Let’s get you cleaned up.”
He guided me into the shower, and I couldn’t figure out what was happening between us at this point. But every time he moved, I had flashes from the night before. Flashes of him inside me, fucking me raw like an animal. The worst part was that I’d been wet all day thinking about it. And even though I was sore, I felt empty.
My eyes fell shut as he soaped his hands and glided them over my body. He washed me carefully and then cleaned and conditioned my hair. There was a gentleness to his touch that I hadn’t ever felt before, and for the first time, I thought I understood why people craved this type of intimacy.
“Gypsy.” Lucian’s voice broke, and when I looked up at him, I was confounded by the torment in his eyes. “What happened last night, it can’t happen again. Do you understand that?”
He said this even as his hard cock hung heavy in front of him, and all I could feel was the pressure and heat filling my chest.
Was he rejecting me?
I tried to pull away, and his hands shot out to catch me. “It doesn’t change anything between us.”
“It changes everything.” I turned away from his sorrowful eyes. Everything about this was so fucked up, and I didn’t know how to deal with it.
“What is your end goal here, Lucian?” I asked. “Why do you want to punish me?”
“My goal isn’t and has never been to punish you,” he answered.
“That’s a lie. From the beginning, you told me I meant nothing to you, and you were more than happy to destroy my life. But why? What did I do to set myself in your sights?”
He relaxed his grip on me, and when he was certain I wasn’t going to flee, he let go altogether.
“I saw you.” His voice was low, the way I imagined it was when he confessed his sins.
“What?”
“You want to know what you did,” he explained. “But it wasn’t anything. I saw you, and that was your only mistake. I saw your pretty, tragic face, and I couldn’t let you go.”
It sounded like it pained him to admit it, but it still didn’t make sense to me.
“Where?”
“Saint Vincent’s.”
My mind reeled back to the many instances I’d found myself inside that church, confessing my so-called sins. But it was always empty, save for me and the priest. What Lucian was trying to sell me didn’t add up.
“You couldn’t have seen me there,” I argued. “I would have known.”
He bowed his head, and for the first time since I’d known him, he looked ashamed. “See isn’t really the correct word. If we’re being honest, then heard is more appropriate.”
My heart slammed against my ribcage, and I shook my head because it couldn’t be true. There was no way. But when I looked into his eyes, I knew that it was.
It was pure adrenaline that provoked me to run.
“Gypsy.” His voice sounded from behind me, but I kept going.
My reaction hadn’t been a logical one. I was still naked, and I had nothing on me that would be of any use if I did make it out of the house. But I couldn’t face him. I couldn’t face the fact that he’d been listening in on my confessions, my darkest and most intimate secrets.
I was mortified. Angry. And I knew that I would never want to look him in the eyes again.
“Gypsy.”
His voice was closer this time. I was almost to the front door, and I couldn’t look back. But when I wrapped my fingers around the handle, it shouldn’t have come as a surprise that it was locked.
I shook it anyway, screaming out my frustration as strong arms wrapped around me from behind. I fought him. I stepped on his foot and kicked him in the shin and tried to thrust my head back against his chest before he eventually tackled me to the floor and pinned me down with his body.
“Stop,” he commanded.
I didn’t stop. I kept fighting because it was all I had left. But Lucian was stronger, as most of the men in my life had been, and he won. He pinned my wrists above my head with one hand and gripped my face with the other.
“Take a deep breath,” he said calmly.
“You’re sick,” I choked out. “There’s something wrong with you.”
His eyes softened, and his forehead fell against mine. “I know, pet.”
His dick was hard against my stomach, and his constant torment grew restless. He told me it wasn’t going to happen again, but Lucian had proved himself to be a liar. And he lied again when his lips found mine. It wasn’t an apology when he kissed me, it was possession.
I hated him at that moment, but I needed him too. Such conflicting feelings were not in my realm of normality. It wasn’t right that fire spread through my body when he touched me. It definitely wasn’t sane when I arched up into him and cried at the loss of him when his lips pulled away.
For three long seconds, he stared at me, trying to find his morals. His virtue. Whatever the fuck it was he thought could stop this. But like my protests, they weren’t anywhere in this room. My parted thighs were a temptation even the saint in him couldn’t refuse.
“Fuck,” he growled. “I can’t keep doing this.”
His lips smashed against mine as he reached down and grabbed his cock and squeezed it inside me. His head fell back, and his mouth fell open, and he looked like he’d just found his version of Eden inside me. It was beautiful and ugly at the same time, and I’d never felt so torn about wanting something as much as I wanted him. I bit my lip to keep from crying out, and his fingers brushed against my throat before wrapping around the delicate flesh in warning.
“Be good,” he whispered. “Don’t make the monster come out to play.”
I stared up into cocoa eyes so filled with torment, I couldn’t believe him. He wanted me to be stronger than he was. He wanted me to say no and push him away. He was huge, and fierce, and dominant, and he overpowered me with little effort, but I felt something with him I hadn’t ever felt with another man.
I trusted that he wouldn’t hurt me, and maybe that was a mistake. Lucian was a lot of things that I didn’t like, but he was also a protector. An alpha. A guardian. And right then, he was a lover too.
His hips rolled forward, and my eyes rolled back. I was soaked for him. Our bodies still sticky with soap, our skin filled with goose bumps. He kissed me like he owned me and fucked me like he couldn’t live without me.
“This pussy is mine now,” he groaned. “I can’t stop, pet. I was lying when I said I could.”
“I know,” I whispered.
He kissed me and pulled my legs around him, fucking me into the tile floor. It went on forever, and every time he got close, he stopped to finger my clit. I came twice before he finally buried himself inside me and unleashed his monster with a roar. Hot come flooded my womb and warmed my body.
He collapsed with his dick still inside me and rolled me over so that I was lying against him, his hand coming to rest on my spine as his other arm wrapped around me possessively. For several minutes, we just laid there like that. Though my anger hadn’t faded, my racing heart eventually calmed, and my breathing returned to normal.
“It wasn’t intentional.” Lucian broke the silence between us. “The first time it happened, you had arrived long after the priest had left. You were unaware of how confession worked.”
“No.” I squeezed my eyes shut, trying to block him out, but it was in vain.
“I was kneeling in one of the pews, and you didn’t see me. For a long time, you just stood outside the booth, trying to work up the courage to go in. You looked so… tormented. When you finally took that step, I couldn’t let you sit in there alone, waiting for someone who would never come.”
“So you betrayed my trust?” I grated.
“Yes.” He dipped his face to breathe me in as he spoke. “I did. And I did it three more times when you came back. For weeks, I went to that church every night waiting for you. It became an obsession. I knew it was wrong, and I needed to stop. That’s why I told Father Hawk about you. It’s why he waits for you now on his own.”
“He should have told me,” I whispered. “That isn’t right.”
“He doesn’t know the extent of it,” Lucian admitted. “I couldn’t bring myself to tell him the truth. He only knows that you needed him.”
“I don’t need anybody.” Even as I said it, the words felt like a lie. I was cocooned in Lucian’s arms, safe from the world outside, and I should have wanted to move, but I didn’t.
He kissed my forehead. “You need me, pet. At least for a little while.”