He'd approached her and had drawn her in with so few words it was shameful. She’d lost herself in his subdued charm and quiet authority, and hadn’t even considered refusing when he’d asked her to have dinner with him. They’d gone to an exclusive restaurant in Manhattan that she’d only ever read about, where she’d learned he was a successful businessman with a shady side he’d been at ease mentioning. He admitted to having some knowledge about wine, which came from owning four vineyards; two in France, one in Italy, and one in California. Before dessert, she’d excused herself to use the restroom. When she’d come out, he’d been waiting outside the door, just as he was now. Within the hour, they’d been naked, and she was orgasming into his mouth as the lights of Manhattan twinkled merrily through the wall of glass behind the king size bed in his penthouse. As a lover, he’d been fierce and demanding. She’d been in heaven.
“Déjà vu?”
Her pulse thumped between her legs. Yes, she thought, looking into his eyes. The loss of his brother had done something to him. Something terrible. She wanted to comfort him. But at the same time she didn’t. Mainly, because he’d drugged and kidnapped her. Taken her choices from her. And, aside from that being irrational and illegal, it was unforgivable.
“I was just thinking about the impression I must have left you with when we met the first time.” So often she’d wondered if he hadn’t contacted her again because he’d assumed she was a slut who banged on every first date she went on.
“If you are referring to the impression you left in my mattress, I often think of it as well. Come.”
It cost her no effort to ignore his hand that time and look in the direction of the stairs as her cheeks went hot. How did he make her pussy wet and leave her wanting to box him in the ear at the same time?
“Yasmeen.” He snapped his fingers impatiently. “I find it very annoying when I have to repeat myself. Let us do away with the need, yes?”
She gaped at him. “Lucian!” She laughed. She had to because the alternative was to kick him in the shin, and not even she was brave enough to do something so dumb. “That was a crass thing you just said. The least you can do is give me a moment to swallow the urge to spank you for it. Your arrogance is astounding,” she rushed out when his brow inched up. “How did you get like this? To the point where you think it’s acceptable to treat people the way you’re treating me. You’ve stolen my life. I get that you’ll eventually bring me home, but I also know you have no plans to do so right now so stop pretending. And while you’re at it, don’t snap your fingers at me like I’m a dog. I don’t care how you referred to me outside; I am not your pet.”
He silently approached her. Didn’t defend himself. Didn’t refute what she was saying. Just like at the Waldorf, it was as if he wasn’t hearing her talk.
Or her words meant so little he didn’t feel the need to acknowledge them.
“I’ve yet to come across a body so perfectly proportioned as yours. The size of your breasts, this curve,” he trailed his fingers down her side. “These hips I remember gripping as I filled your pussy. I could have fucked you for days and not grown tired of it. But you escaped before I woke.”
She held herself still and forced her eyes not to close when he dragged his thumb up the center of her torso. His tongue slid across the front of his teeth, mesmerizing her. Had he just said for days?
Her heart pounded, and her breathing went haywire. “I watched you program my number into your phone.” Shit. Her voice was shaking. “If you’d wanted me again, you could have called. You didn’t.”
“I was being thoughtful. Saving you, if you will.”
Her brow twitched in confusion. That was the second time he’d said something like that to her. “From what?” Multiple orgasms?
“Me.” He clasped her hand and started walking. Stumbling, she caught herself and kept up because she had no choice.
“Where are we going? The stairs are that way. I’d like that macchiato now. Is Sorin around? Maybe he could whip one up. Lucian?”
“Yes, my pet?”
Fuck. She tried to pull him to a stop, but he didn’t let her. He continued, turning at the end of the corridor to lead them down another, this one darker, with no windows to allow the daylight in. She almost moved closer to him. She hated the dark.
When they reached a set of double doors, he opened one side, and despite her attempts to dig her heels into the smooth stone tile, he got her into the room. It was so stupid of her to have been expecting a library or office, and even stupider to feel a shot of happy right on her clit when she saw it was a bedroom.
The door closed behind them, and she heard him snap the lock into place.
“Lucian? What are we doing here?” Like she didn’t know.
“We are going to begin.” He walked past her, loosening his tie.
“Begin what?”
“Taking me out of my head.”
Her muscles heated and began to soften. “But…” She struggled to think but was coming up blank, so she went with the obvious. “You kidnapped me. I can’t reward you for that. You can’t take a woman’s choices from her this way. You know that.”
He looked at her over his shoulder as he shrugged out of his jacket. “Take your clothes off.”
Oh, God. As inconspicuously as she could, she pressed her thighs together to quell the ache that sprung up in her core. If he were asking her, she’d have been better able to refuse him. But he was demanding, and she wanted to obey him.
She couldn’t allow this. She couldn’t cave for this bully. Not when he was going about this all wrong. As much as she wanted to be with him again, she couldn’t just give in and let him get away with this type of behavior. He was treating her with zero respect, and she’d promised herself she would never take that from another man.
She spun around and tried the door, both handles. Nothing. She looked around the fucking massive—gorgeous—room for an alternate exit. There was a door across the way, but she could see a glass-encased shower stall through it. Two other doors led to what were absurdly large closets. Fuck, was she out of her element here or what?
“Draga? Begin, please.”
Aw…fuck it. Trapped, and totally confused about what she should be feeling, she did the unthinkable. She gave in. “Um, okay. Listen. I think we’re both aware of how attracted I am to you. Sleeping with you again won’t be a hardship.” Are you seriously saying this shit? her morals screeched through the desire hazing her brain. She looked everywhere but at him while she bartered her body. Why did it feel so different this time? “If we do this, if we spend a few hours in bed; then will you take me home?”
As he came to her, his shirt partly undone, she stared at the exposed patch of skin on his chest. It was smooth with only a dusting of hair. His tattoos were in a language she didn’t know, which surrounded the head of a black lion. The work of art covered his entire front, she remembered fondly.
He reached her and tipped her head up by pinching her chin between his thumb and finger. She had no choice but to look into his stern features, and drown in his earthy scent that reminded her of walking past certain boutiques in Soho. The ones she could never afford to enter. But all the money in the world couldn’t capture that one delicious note of power she smelled whenever he neared her. One whiff and she was enthralled. One taste and she was sent to her knees.
“There will be no taking you home until I am ready to take you home. I will treat you well and see to your every need. And know this.” He whispered a kiss over her lips, a kiss she felt right down to the tips of her toes. “If you try, even once, to leave me and I have to come after you, I will soon have you regretting your foolish mistake.”
Fear smothered the arousal pumping through her. “You have to stop talking like—”
He cut off her words by placing a finger over her lips. “Shh.”
The condescending action had her slapping his hand away and trying to shove him back. “You know what? No. Forget it. If you’re going to act like
this, I don’t want to do this with you.”
Yes, I do.
She made a funny sound, unsure if she was growing angrier with herself or him. “I don’t know whether to be amused, scared, pissed off, or turned on. You’re making my head spin.”
He gave a half nod, as if in understanding. “I appreciate your honesty.”
“Really? Then you’ll love this; I think your grief is fucking with your sense of what’s right and wrong. I don’t think keeping me here against my will is what you need to be doing right now.”
“You are an expert on what I need, Yasmeen?”
His hollow tone had goosebumps flowing down her arms. “No, but, you’re obviously very upset about Markus, and I understand that, but it’s no excuse for talking a woman’s freedom from her. It’s no excuse for—”
“I am very upset?” The dark sound he made might have been a chuckle had it come from anyone else. “I am so far beyond upset. I am ready to take lives. I am aching, aching,” he stressed on a moan, “to go back and wreak havoc on that city of mine. I want the East River to flow with blood in place of water. I want bodies piled in the streets. I will create mountains of them until I find the man who stole my baby brother from me. I want the sound of grief to be the only one I hear as I search.” He gripped her ribs just below her breasts and pushed her until she came up against the door. “Would you like to know who is going to prevent me from becoming the boogeyman to so many innocent people? Who will stop me from taking the head of someone’s father? Who will stop me from ripping out the heart of a mother’s son? Who will stop me from bathing in the blood of another man’s brother?”
She was panting with a mix of horror and compassion. And yes, arousal. Because she knew he could pull it off, all of it, in the name of revenge over the loss of his loved one. She was mortified to realize that made her burn.
“Who?” she whispered just because she wanted to hear him say it. Was dying to hear it.
He brushed his lips across the thin skin below her eyes and then down the side of her nose. When he reached her mouth, he pressed them together. But it wasn’t a kiss. “You.”
All at once, his tongue came out, her breast was cupped, her right ass cheek grasped, and she was yanked into a thick erection that burrowed into her navel.
“Would you like to know what you are going to do, my pet?”
She gripped his muscular forearms and nodded. She should be terrified right now. Why wasn’t she? He was talking about murdering people.
“You are going to let me fuck you. You are going to let me use this exquisite body in any way I choose. With my mouth, my hands, my aching cock. You will allow anything I wish. I will bury myself in your pussy. In this throat I cannot stop looking at.” He bit down on the cord in her neck, making her moan as he pressed his fingers against her voice box. “I will sink my cock into you and pleasure you until you are screaming loud enough to wake the dead. And you will accommodate me willingly and with a smile. Then, when I am sure I will not cut the population of Manhattan by a third, I will allow you to leave my home.”
Holy shit. “You’re crazy.”
He opened his jaw and lifted his head. “You do not have to fear me. I assure you; they are tightly bound.”
They? She was almost afraid to ask. “Who?”
“My demons, draga.”
The hair on her nape sprang up, but before his revelation sent her running, an image of how he’d looked when she’d entered that visitation room filled her mind. There had been scores of people quietly and respectfully sitting behind him, his cousins at his side. Even Vex, Kristen’s stepbrother, had been near. Yet Lucian had been in a world of his own. He’d been the most solitary figure she’d ever seen among others. Her first thought had been to paint him, her second, to soothe him. Now she had her chance.
But like this?
How would you deal if Miranda was murdered? a voice in her head asked. If your go-to was sex, would you not want to seek out this man? Would you not do anything you could to lose yourself in him?
“Why didn’t you bring someone else here?” She held her breath and waited for his answer.
“Because I do not want anyone else. I want you.”
He had her. With a few words, he’d honed in on her greatest desire. He’d given her something she’d craved from the time she was a child. He wanted her. Her. No else would do because Lucian Fane wanted…her.
FIVE
That softness around her heart snugged up and happily settled in as Yasmeen tested the hard muscle under her fingers. “What if, come morning, you realize you’ve made a mistake and you don’t really want to go here?”
His hand moved down an inch to grip her ribs. He gave her a little shake. It reminded her of how an animal would play with his food. “Oh, but I do want to go here.” He squeezed her ass. “Right here.” Back to her breast he came to cup it gently. “And here.” He released it too soon and traveled down her tight stomach. He brought his other hand around at the same time, so they both gripped low on her hips. Her heart thudded as she waited, wanted. And she got what she craved when he pulled her in tight and ground his erection into the top of her pussy. “Here, I do not want to go; I need to go.”
Yes, she moaned silently. Just for a little while. Until he’s better, she promised herself. She could experience the earth shattering pleasure of being with him a couple of times while spending a day or two in a place she knew she’d find fascinating. Then, before she could witness his interest in her waning—or become attached, as she was so afraid she could do with him—she would convince him to take her home, and she’d force herself to move on. Something she knew very well she hadn’t been doing.
Move on to what?
The question echoed quietly in her head but she heard it as if it was screamed. Felt it. Right down deep in her soul. Maybe she was the crazy one, because as dangerous and foolish as it was, moving on from this man wasn’t something she wanted to do.
“I should continue arguing but I won’t. I’ll just hope your conscience comes out of hiding at some point and kicks your ass for doing things this way.”
“My conscience cannot come out of hiding, Yasmeen. He is dead.”
He grabbed her by the upper arms and practically lifted her off her feet as he brought her to the ornate bed with its canopy of hanging sheers. He threw her face-first into a soft cloud of cream linens and tasseled pillows. Her hair fell over her eyes so she didn’t see that he’d come down with her until she felt his heavy weight land on her. His hands were suddenly everywhere. He wasn’t gentle. His voice wasn’t anywhere near tender as he rumbled a continuous stream of something she couldn’t understand because he was speaking Romanian. All she made out was Markus’s name intermingled with the odd curse in English. Her one funeral dress was ruined, torn down the back and ripped away from her body. He left her in her underwear, stockings, and heels.
He barely shifted to remove his own clothes, but skin finally met skin and the first moan to escape was hers.
“Yes, pet. You will give me what I need, hmm?”
Yes. Because you want me.
He spread her legs by inching them apart with his knees, teasing now. She started when she felt two of his fingers drag down from her tailbone and get between her legs where he soon learned the extent of her arousal. He hooked her damp thong over one cheek then swatted the globe hard enough to make her cry out. Desire burst from her pulsing core.
The second moan to come from her sounded when he burrowed that large hand under her navel to lift her, positioning her for entry. The third was one of relief and pleasure when she once more experienced the incredible sensation of this man connecting their bodies. After two long years of remembering and wishing she could have this again, the speed with which he took her was a beautiful gift he gave without even realizing it.
He thrust his strong hips, slowly dragging his smooth head through her wetness a few times before pumping straight in. He wrung the most desperate sounds from her as he stretc
hed her pussy. The jagged, panting gasps made it clear an orgasm was already hovering. That easily. His long fingers grasped her jaw and wrenched her head back. He did that thing again when he pressed their mouths together, but he didn’t kiss her.
“You’ve been waiting for me,” he said in a knowing tone that made her want to swat him.
But how could she deny it? Despite what he’d done to get her here, she couldn’t hide the fact that her body was celebrating this reunion. She was dripping with arousal, her skin singing where it touched his, her heart slamming in time with the erratic thud of his as it beat against her back. Just like the last time, within moments, she was wrapped up in this man who feared no one but God. She felt as if she’d come home.
The thing was, she’d never had a real home, so how could she recognize such a thing in someone who saw her as nothing more than a temporary distraction?
“Yasmeen.”
She squeezed her eyes shut when he licked at the seam of her lips. She felt exposed enough already, and that was not something she was used to. She didn’t share herself. How could she admit to him she’d missed this, had never stopped thinking about him, had dreamed of him, fantasized about him. That would open her up completely, and she didn’t do that for anyone. Not ever. Because it had been proven too many times that people would inevitably pass her up for something better, and she’d be left without the small part of herself she’d given them. Eventually, what would be left of her?
Nothing.
“While I worship within this temple, you will give me what I need.” He worked his hands down to grasp her hips so he could draw his length out then hit so hard she screamed and tried to scramble away from the crushing pleasure. She couldn’t take that. If she accepted it, it would break her. He jerked her back and did it again. It nearly crippled her.
Grievous (Wanted Men Book 5) Page 5