He got so close I could taste the sour beer on his breath. I shut my eyes, a silent scream trapped in my throat, hating the alcohol that made my limbs useless and my world a tilting prison. I braced for the tearing, the weight, the end.
Slash!
A wet, slicing sound. Something hot and thick spattered across my face.
My eyes flew open.
The guard was frozen, a statue of shock. A blade—long, thin, and vicious—was buried in the hinge of his jaw, its tip erupting from the opposite side of his nose. A grotesque metal mustache. Blood, dark and shocking, welled around the steel and fell in fat, warm drops onto my cheeks and chest.
A choked, wet gurgle escaped his lips. He collapsed backward, hitting the concrete with a heavy, final thud.
"Oh, my God." The whisper was mine, but it sounded alien.
My gaze jerked upward, past the twitching body.
Leaning against the metal shelves was Lucian Throne. The hellish red light from the party caught the rich gold in his untamed curls, making them look like a halo of fire in the gloom. But his eyes—a clear, piercing sea-glass green—held no warmth. They were fixed on me with a calm, formidable understanding, as if he could see every crack in my soul laid bare by the horror at our feet.
He held a second, clean knife, flipping it casually in his hand as if bored by the carnage. He had just murdered a man. And he looked as unruffled as if he'd merely straightened a painting.
"No one touches what is mine."
His voice was calm, devoid of emotion, as if stating a universal law. He didn't look at the body. Those sea-green eyes held mine, pinning me to the wall as effectively as his blade had pinned the guard.
He took a step forward, his polished shoe coming to rest inches from the spreading pool of blood. He extended a hand toward me—not to help me up, I think as a silent command.
"Come."
His voice was calm. And I didn't know why I moved, but I did. My hand, trembling and stained, lifted from the cold floor and reached for his.
His fingers closed around mine—warm, dry, and unyielding. He pulled me up effortlessly, as if I weighed nothing. The room tilted, the blood and shadows swimming in my vision, but his form remained sharp, an anchor in the haze.
I could see him clearly now. The perfect, terrifying clarity of him.
"Don't you ever drink again." It wasn't a question. His thumb swept slowly across my cheek, wiping away a tear. Then the other. The gesture was intimate, possessive, more unsettling than any violence.
"Lucian… you're following me." My voice was a ragged whisper. My eyes locked onto his, searching for a lie, a flicker of guilt.
He didn't say a word. His silence was a wall.
"You killed Mr. Charles. And now him!" The accusation hung in the blood-scented air. "The police are coming for me because of you. Why are you even here?"
My legs gave way. I swayed back, my shoulders hitting the cold concrete wall, my head lolling against it. I had no strength left, not for standing, not for fighting this.
"No one will hurt you. I'm here. Even from the police." His face moved closer, his thumb wiping the last tear from my cheekbone. His touch was final, a decree.
Then something in me broke—or short-circuited. A surge of wild, inexplicable need.
I pushed up onto my toes, my body straining against the wall for height. My hands flew to the back of his neck, fingers tangling in the gold of his hair. And I kissed him.
My lips crashed against his, not with tenderness, but with a frantic, claiming hunger, as if sucking the breath from him could give me back my own. As if he held an answer to a question I was too broken to ask.
I couldn't understand it. Was it the alcohol unspooling my last threads of control? Or his scent—that intoxicating mix of clean linen, cedar, and power—finally shorting out my fear?
He didn't step back. He didn't pull away.
His lips moved against mine, answering, deepening the kiss. He tasted of whiskey and something darkly beautiful, a perfect, addictive flavor that seared through the numbness. My mind screamed in confusion, but my body… my body was a traitorous, willing captive.
And then a raw, shocking truth detonated inside me: after all these years of waiting, of starving my body... the careful numbness I'd worn like a shield shattered.
It wasn't enough. His kiss was controlled, possessive, measured.
But I was a wild fire in that storm.
I wanted it deeper, I wanted it faster.
I wanted him–the violence and the calm... the killer and the saviour with a desperate force that hallowed out my chest.
Sophia cried, laughing words from the party echoed in my head, now the most honest truth.
My Pussy Was Aching!
It was a deep throbbing, an undeniable ache that had everything to do with the four years my life scattered and this man hand on my face, taste on my tongue.
Brought me back to life.
"Touch me, Lucian. Please, touch me." I didn't know when those words flew from my lips, only that they were the truest thing I'd ever said.
His lips left mine, tracing a searing path down my jaw to the sensitive shell of my ear. His breath was a hot promise. "Beg. Me."
His hand, large and sure, slid from my waist down the silk of my dress, coming to rest high on my thigh. His thumb pressed against the inside, a slow, deliberate pressure that made my breath hitch.
A low, desperate moan was already vibrating in my throat.
"Pl… plea… ple—" Every time I tried to form the word, his hand pressed harder against the aching center of me, the heel of his palm applying a firm, silencing pressure through the thin silk. He wouldn't let me say it.
Why was he doing this?
The frustration was a sweet, sharp torment. My body was pleading on its own, a molten, willing mess.
I'm ready! I'm so ready to beg!
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To be continued...