I felt my gut churning, my mind trying to untangle the knots of her and fathom just what the fuck the girl was made up of.
She was a whirlpool of chaos, flashing colors melding as one. A mess of them, splashing and clashing, so consumed by their own momentum that I didn’t stand a chance of understanding the taste.
She was a mass of confusion, and rage. Rage and want. Rage and fascination. Rage and shock. Rage and lust. Rage and being so fucking butchered by her own bullshit addictions that she was a cesspit of risk, waiting for anyone around her to step up and take what they wanted from her.
Money. Or blood. Or pussy.
Somehow, it was the thought of people taking her pussy that made me grit my teeth.
My words were quiet and cold. “Your disgusting excuse for a family would destroy you for being such an obvious reprobate. All they’d need to know is that you’re here.”
“Tell me something I don’t know,” she hissed. “After all, you’re supposed to be some kind of genius IQ business freak, aren’t you?”
“Amongst other things,” I said, and stepped closer.
She pressed into the wall, flinching as another sweep of fear flashed through her eyes. I reached down and picked up her keys, jangling them in my fingers.
She was quiet as I carried on speaking. Silent as her whirlpool kept on spinning.
“Amongst other things like the fact I’m a sadist who pushes so fucking hard that people never come back from the pain. Amongst the fact that my family owes yours so much torment that none of you would make it through alive. Every scrap of your heritage would be burned to hell with every living breath of ours.”
“Yeah, yeah,” she butted in. “I know, I know. We hate you, you hate us. La la la. Like I give a fuck about anything anymore.”
I took another step closer, and this time she didn’t flinch. Didn’t even drop her stare.
The whirlwind was speeding up inside her, sure as fuck not slowing down.
I could taste her as I closed the distance, my mouth watering at the orchids and plums.
“You’ll give a damn fuck when you’re the very next Constantine I punish,” I told her, but again, the whirlwind inside her kept on spinning.
I could feel it pulsing from her. Fear. Rage. Hate. Confusion.
But more.
I could feel so much more.
She took a breath and slumped her shoulders, casting a glance up at the shitty night sky.
“What makes you think I’d give a damn about anything?” she asked me. “Just get on with it, or get the fuck away from me, will you?”10ElaineI really was done with it. I was done with caring. Done with feeling. Done with living.
Maybe Lucian Morelli would be the monster that liberated me from this crappy existence of mine.
To the outside world I had it all, but my inside world was a pit of pain. A pit of pain I’d been breathing through in agonizing little gasps since I was a little girl trying to be good for Reverend Lynch and his sick associates. Fucked up, and used, and twisted. Hurt by so much of the life I’d held dear.
Yeah, I was done.
Seeing Tristan gazing so adoringly at Blue Hawk that night, and knowing Blue Hawk’s dick was coming to him, had only compounded the obvious inside me.
I’d never feel like that about anyone, even if I was allowed to.
My family had already destroyed that for me.
Shh, more secrets. More secrets.
More drink and more cocaine. Drown it out. Drown it out.
I let out a sigh and slumped against the wall. No one would stand a chance of knowing Lucian Morelli had broken me down in this part of town. Not unless he wanted to gloat about it. I was his to do as he wanted with. He’d barely have to let me send out a scream before he silenced me forever.
“Go on,” I pushed. “Do it, or go. I’m done with your crap.”
I felt the heat from him as he stepped even closer, his breaths, warm on my face, his eyes boring down into mine.
“Tell me how you would like to meet your demise,” he said, “Nice and slow, or over before you can blink?”
His tone made me shudder. I tried to hide my terror when I replied.
“Please, just make it a quick one. I’m bored of this already.”
I was lying, as usual. I wasn’t getting bored already. Even through my abject fear, there was a strange calmness soothing me deep underneath at the thought of giving myself up as done, and more . . . there was still a tingle of more I couldn’t shake. That want. That need.
I knew the need I was feeling. The need I’d felt with his hands on me in the bathroom at Tinsley’s ball. The need I’d felt rippling through me at the first glimpse of him in Cyrus Bar.