by Bethany-Kris
“Maybe. Just don’t admit that to Lucian. He’ll never forget you did.” Gio laughed, trying to cheer her up, but it didn’t work. “Nothing’s going to happen. You’re safe. All right?”
But for how long?
It probably wouldn’t take much for someone to get wind she’d been back here.
Jordyn couldn’t find it in herself to care. There was only one thing she really needed right now for so many reasons.
“I want Lucian.”
Gio nodded. “That’s what I’m here for.”
Chapter Fifteen
Lucian found Gio resting on the couch in his condo living room. A look was shared between the two as Lucian pulled off the leather jacket he wore.
“It was bad,” Gio said, glancing down to the floor. “She got what she wanted, I think, but the damage is done. There’s definitely eyes in that building.”
Lucian wet his lips, considering his brother’s words. “How bad?”
“Ruined the place. Completely. Even pissed all through her bed, as disgusting as that is.”
Cazzo.
“What was the point in that?”
“Humiliate her,” Lucian answered. “Show her what she means to them. She could sleep in their urine, for all they care. To them, she’s worth less than piss that comes out of their cocks.”
Gio made a face. “Jesus.”
Yeah, it was a pretty fucked up mentality to have, especially towards someone like Jordyn. Lucian didn’t even want to consider what the MC would do to Jordyn if they got their hands on her and not just her things.
“I know you were hoping that the MC would think she skipped town, but I don’t think that’s the case,” Gio informed.
“Why not?”
“Because of this.” Gio held up a note for Lucian to see. Even from his spot, he could read the threatening words and he heard them loud and clear. “Also, Jordyn was the one to find it first. So there’s that to think about on your end, too.”
Oh, dolce Christo. Lucian’s throat was so tight with his fury he could barely speak. “Yeah.”
“You know …” Gio trailed off, clearing his throat and looking uncomfortable. “You can’t really be angry with her for this.”
“I’m aware.”
“Good. I’m just saying is all, because on the drive back here, she kept saying how she didn’t know. She didn’t understand. I couldn’t figure out why you wouldn’t have explained how serious this was and what you were trying to do for her.”
Lucian shrugged, focusing on the wall behind his brother’s head. “I did, in bits and pieces. I was keeping her safe and she knew that. I thought if I just kept her hid long enough, he’d either give up or mess up.”
“But did you do it the right way?” Gio asked.
“Probably not,” Lucian admitted. “For me, sure. For her? That’s a different situation.”
“You’re really on with this girl, huh? I mean, where does she go when we get here? Straight to your bed. Who did she ask for when she seen me? You. They beat her apart and you held her together. Some might call that a hero.”
A deep laugh rumbled from Lucian. “Kind of. Odd, isn’t it?”
“She’s so head over heels for you and she doesn’t even know it, yet.”
“Jordyn knows it. I know it. Fight like we’re in love. We fuck like it, too. You’d have to be stupid not to realize it.”
“Thanks for that,” Gio muttered lowly, rubbing at his eyes.
“It’s just easier not to label it all right now. With the situation we’re in, things like that only make it all the more complicated. Normal things don’t happen this fast. I wanted to give her a chance to be with me outside of all of this nonsense and then see how it worked from there.”
“How is this normal?” his brother asked. “The way you and Jordyn ended up wasn’t normal. Nothing about this is, Lucian. Why do you expect falling love with her to be normal, too?”
“What do you even know about that word?”
“I know I cried all the way to the vet with Cain choking to death on my lap this morning. Wondered what was going to keep me coming home every night if he wasn’t there wanting his food and a walk. Maybe it’s not the same kind of adoration, but I love that dog. I just do. I did from the moment I found him in that shop. He was mine, you know? He knows it, too.”
“Did you just compare Jordyn to a dog?”
Gio’s brow furrowed. “Seriously?”
“No,” Lucian said, laughing. “Get the hell out, and thank you for picking her up.”
Standing, Gio tossed the note Lucian wanted to burn to the couch. “Sure you don’t want me to stay for a bit? She was kind of hysterical for a while when we first got here.”
“No, uh … I think I have some apologizing to do.”
And really, Lucian’s hands were itching to touch Jordyn just to know she was okay. All the anger he thought he felt for her earlier had disappeared in his worry.
Chances were, his brother did not want to hear what came after that.
As Gio walked past Lucian, he bumped his older brother’s shoulder playfully. “So, can we go all out with her now?”
“What do you mean?”
“You know what I mean,” Gio said, smirking. “Mom wanted to take her out Marcello-style, but Dad said we had to wait for your okay on it.”
“Really?”
“Jesus, I thought your okay was when you brought her to church and then dinner. Clearly I missed something here.”
No, Gio hadn’t. Lucian was just being a total idiot.
“Got any plans?” Lucian asked.
“Dante bought three private balconies at that opera next month for Mom’s birthday. There’s a whole before party going on for it, too. A charity thing or some nonsense. Politicians, big profile names, the works.”
“That’s a while away, though.”
“True, but that’d be a public way for the family. For us, we just need to take her out and let her have fun, right? The next morning it’d be splashed all over the society columns. Yours and Dante’s birthday party is coming up, too, so that would work.”
Lucian considered his brother’s offers. “Let me talk to Jordyn first. After today, the last thing she might want is to go public with me at her side.”
Gio snorted. “Right. You’re fucking hopeless.”
Once Gio was gone, Lucian heaved a sigh. Staring around his place, he couldn’t help but notice the changes since Jordyn started living with him. Mostly, Lucian’s life was in such a constant state of disarray because he was perpetually moving and nothing ever seemed to really get finished.
Jordyn started to fix that here and there.
Things had never been more organized. As simple as that seemed, it was huge to Lucian. She cared for and about him without it being asked from her. Jordyn just did it because she wanted to. Lucian still couldn’t understand where he’d gone so wrong. How could be have made her feel like she was his whore?
That was a dirty, awful word. Something that was used to describe his dead mother and the relationship she forged with his father. It was also used to shame him because he was a product of them being together.
Lucian would never do that to a woman. It was, essentially, why it had taken him so long to find someone he wanted and could love. The last thing he intended to do in his life was be settled and married with someone he couldn’t care about enough to be faithful and loving to. He didn’t want another family hidden on the side to make up for what he didn’t have at home.
But, he wanted Jordyn. Needed her, too.
As he walked into his bedroom, Lucian noticed an opened box on the bed. He picked through the items carefully, noting what they were and some of the dates stamped on tickets and stubs. A thin, gold chain with a cursive S rested at the bottom of the box. The few photographs of a woman with a much younger Jordyn told Lucian these were private, personal things he shouldn’t be going through without her permission.
So, he packed them back inside the box and turn
ed towards the bathroom where the shower was running. Jordyn hadn’t shut the door. It was a quirk Lucian still couldn’t get over since finding her after the beating. It shocked, amazed, and pained him to know she still kept the doors open for him, even if he wasn’t there. He had a perfect view of her naked figure through the shower glass.
Water rained down, creating a constant cascade of twisting rivulets over her skin. The usual curly locks of her dark hair was wet and waved, fanned over slender shoulders and covering her breasts. Most of the bruises had faded, though a few of the bad ones around the areas where the studs of the belt had broken skin still remained with a yellowish tint. The cherry blossom tattoo moved with the sway of her body, like living art.
Beautiful.
Bellissima.
His.
She was crying. Soft, trembling cries like that of a kitten were being drowned out by the water. Tears, small and glittering, dampened her lashes and streaked her cheeks.
Lucian hurt so badly for those tears.
Before he even realized what he was doing, Lucian was crossing the bathroom and reaching for the sliding glass door to the shower. Jordyn stopped him. Turning at the sight of him in the space, her hand came to rest on the small inside handle as if to keep him out. It wouldn’t have really stopped him if he wanted in.
Droplets of water fell as Jordyn shook her head. “Just … don’t.”
“I’m sorry,” Lucian said, needing to get it out. “I should have listened to you this morning, but I knew what kind of a day it was going to be and brushed you off. I didn’t want to fight with you. What I said was true, but I could have said it in a better way.”
“Lucian—”
“Just let me apologize, Jordyn. I don’t want you to be someone else. I don’t need you to be anybody but exactly who you are. Maybe the way I’ve gone about this whole thing has made it seem like it, but I want you for you. I’m sorry you can’t go back. I’m sorry that bastard has taken so much away from you. I’m sorry if you’ve ever felt alone even once standing beside me. I’ll give you everything—anything—to replace what you don’t have because that’s nothing less than what you deserve. It’s not because I’m paying for you, or us.”
“I didn’t want to go back,” Jordyn whispered. “I just wanted the things you couldn’t replace.”
Lucian nodded, finally understanding that fact. “I’m sorry I didn’t hear you when you told me that the first time. It escalated into something different and I only heard what wasn’t important. You scared the hell out of me today, sweetheart.”
“I’m sorry.”
“It’s not your fault. I didn’t explain to you well enough about what was going on outside of us. Frankly, I’ve been more concerned and focusing on you to care about any of that. I thought that’s what you needed.”
“It was,” Jordyn replied quickly. “I know I’m safe with you. I do.”
“But you need more, too,” Lucian said gently. “A life, because you already had one I uprooted you from and it doesn’t revolve around me. I can’t expect it to, either.”
Jordyn sniffed, glancing away. “He knows you have me, doesn’t he? That’s what that note meant.”
“Just means I don’t have to keep you hidden anymore. That’s all.”
“I screwed up going down there.”
“No,” Lucian rushed to say. “Jordyn, don’t blame yourself. You only did what I wouldn’t give you. Nothing happened, and you’re fine. That’s what matters.”
“Is it, though?”
“For right now it is. It’s a day by day thing, just like it always was.”
“I don’t want him to hurt me again.”
Lucian’s heart broke. “He won’t. You know I won’t let that happen.”
Finally, she let go of the inside shower handle. Lucian opened that glass door faster than he thought possible. Not even thinking or caring about the rushing water from the spray, he stepped inside the stall to grab what he wanted the most.
Jordyn.
Instantly, her back was to the wall as he pressed her against it. Lucian cupped her face, kissing her harder than ever before, passion covering every stroke of his lips to hers as their tongues found a familiar, searing rhythm. Water soaked his clothes straight through, but he didn’t mind a bit.
Jordyn arched into his body, gasping Lucian’s name low, soft, and filled with need. It made him ache from the inside out. Her chest heaved with every breath she took. Her breasts were hot under his touch and her pink nipples pebbled into hard little buds as he grazed over them with calloused thumbs.
“I want you,” Lucian ground out through clenched teeth. “On me, soaking me, fucking me like you do.”
“Now,” Jordyn demanded.
“Only you.”
Pretty blue eyes flicked up to meet his. “Just me.”
When her fingers fisted into his wet shirt, yanking it upwards, Lucian didn’t stop Jordyn from taking the sopping material off. The pants and boxer-briefs he wore were undone and shoved down roughly around his hips, freeing his erect cock to Jordyn’s hand. Gently, she stoked him further awake, pulling him closer with every tightening of her fingers.
Lucian groaned low when she dropped to her knees without warning and took him in her mouth. Silken, wet heat enveloped his shaft. Flicks of her tongue hit against the throbbing vein along the underside of his cock. Lucian found he couldn’t think with her lips tight to his dick and her hand slipping under to palm his sac.
Cazzo, her mouth was amazing.
Saliva slicked up his cock as she took him deeper into her throat, over and over. Lucian was losing it faster than he ever had before. A low hum building in her chest vibrated all the way through his shaft and straight down to his balls. She watched him through thick, damp lashes, her gaze burning into his.
“Fuck …” he hissed, fingers weaving into her curls. “Dio, your mouth is heaven.”
That was an understatement. He loved her mouth.
But Lucian didn’t have an ounce of control when she sucked him off. Holding back his release was damn near impossible like this.
“Jesus, stop, sweetheart. I want to be fucking you when I come, and not in your mouth.”
Jordyn released Lucian, grinning while she kissed up the length of his shaft as she rose to stand once more. When she was pressed against him again, he kissed her long and hard, tasting the salty remnants of his own precum in her mouth.
“Beautiful, you know?” he murmured along the seam of her lips.
“How many times are you going to tell me that?”
Lucian smirked. “Every day. All the time. It’s true.”
“Every single day?”
“All the time,” he repeated.
Jordyn grabbed his hip and pulled him forward, grinding his cock into her toned stomach. “Now, yeah?”
“Hell yes.”
Lucian didn’t bother to think about the condoms just a few feet away, or the fact that it wouldn’t take very long to go and grab one. He’d never in his life fucked without one. He was far too lost in the moment with this woman he adored so much. Jordyn was his, anyway.
When Jordyn hooked her leg around his hip, Lucian lifted her from the shower floor in one swift motion. She guided his cock with one hand between their bodies, allowing him to slide in her slick, tight heat without any hesitance. The sensitive walls of her channel flexed around his intrusion. Jordyn’s head fell back to the tiled wall, her lips parting with a moan so sweet it rocked him to the core. Her sex took all of him with one hard thrust, straight to the hilt.
For a brief moment, Lucian simply felt her. All of her. Unsafe and natural, gripping him firmly, taking him deeper. It seemed like every nerve in his body had turned on for her, hyperaware of every breath she took, the blink of her lashes, and the way her body fit his perfectly.
“I need you to move,” Jordyn said hoarsely. Every muscle in her body felt wound up like a coiled spring ready to snap. “Please, just move.”
Lucian laughed deeply. �
�Are we over gentle, sweetheart?”
“So over. Fuck me.”
It wasn’t like he could deny her a damned thing.
Punishingly good was the best way to describe the way he took her against the shower wall. Hard and rough thrusts that slammed her back and shoulders into the tiles over and over. A little bit wild with her mouth opened to his cheek, broken, shuddering cries rolling over his senses to urge him on. Sinfully wicked as he grabbed her ass and pulled her harder into every roll of his hips.
Jordyn’s fingers dug into his shoulders for support, her nails scoring across his flesh. It was only when he turned to kiss her trembling lips did she finally let go to hold his face to hers. Wide blue eyes with pupils so dilated he could see his reflection in her gaze stared back.
She came undone around him, knowingly bare and willing, shaking with his name in her mouth. Lucian was already losing himself inside her, too.
• • •
Jordyn woke to a colder bed than she was used to. She expected to see the faintest hint of morning creeping into the room from the windows, but only darkness was outside.
Rolling to her side, she reached over to turn on the lamp. There was no note on the bedside table to tell her Lucian left in the night and the clock glowed a time far too early for him to be prowling like he did sometimes. In fact, turning to the other side, she could see his beloved Eagle was glinting on his own table.
Lucian wouldn’t leave the condo without his gun.
The connecting bathroom was dark, leaving Jordyn even more confused. No noise came from outside the opened bedroom door. Calling out his name, she received no response. She wasn’t worried, really, but she was curious.
Jordyn didn’t bother to gather anything to wear, instead wrapping the grey sheet from the bed tightly around her shoulders. While padding quietly through the condo to find Lucian, she tried futilely to untangle the mess her curls had become.
Sex against the shower wall had moved to the counter, and from there to the bed.
The memory of him kneeling between her legs, pushing her further up the bed as his mouth connected with her pussy had her stomach clenching with lust all over again. He didn’t even seem to care his come was all over her sex from their frenzied coupling. She’d been so sensitive from orgasming more intensely than she ever had before that just a flick of his tongue to her clit sent her flying.